hindustantimes
Rs 500 crore seized from self-styled godman’s ashrams, biz groups
The money was channeled into land and properties in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and abroad, the tax department said.
SOUTH Updated: Oct 19, 2019 07:31 IST
M Manikandan
Hindustan Times, New Delhi
The IT raids are being carried out at Kalki Bhagwan’s ashrams as well as business enterprises associated with his son Krishna. Krishna manages Oneness Temple, a so-called spiritual university and real estate firms.
The IT raids are being carried out at Kalki Bhagwan’s ashrams as well as business enterprises associated with his son Krishna. Krishna manages Oneness Temple, a so-called spiritual university and real estate firms.(Facebook image/The Oneness University)
The Income Tax department on Friday said it has unearthed around Rs.500 crore of undisclosed income from around 40 locations associated with self-styled godman Kalki Bhagwan across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka.
The IT raids are being carried out at Kalki Bhagwan’s ashrams as well as business enterprises associated with his son Krishna. Krishna manages Oneness Temple, a so-called spiritual university and real estate firms.
According to the tax department, the seizures so far include Rs.409 crore of unaccounted cash receipts since 2014-15; Rs.43.90 crore of unaccounted cash in Indian currency; $ 2.5 million dollars in US currency (roughly Rs 18 crore); 88 kg of jewelery worth Rs 26 crore; and 1271 carats of diamonds valued at Rs 5 crore.
“The Oneness Institute attracts residential devotees from abroad, and the group earns substantial receipts in foreign incomes. During the raids, evidence was found that the group has been regularly suppressing revenues in its ashrams and other business centres,” the IT department added in a statement.
The money was channeled into land and properties in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and abroad, the tax department added.
Born Vijay Kumar Naidu in Ullanatham Village in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu, Kalki Bhagwan was a clerk with the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), but quit to start an educational institution to provide alternative education. He soon declared himself Kalki, the tenth avatar of Lord Vishnu and launched the Oneness Temple in the early 1980s. His temple attracted thousands of locals and NRIs. .
Naidu is no stranger to controversy. he has been accused of land grab, a charge denied by his followers. In 2008, a stampede in his Chitoor ashram, killed five.
Kalki Bhagwan’s Ashram officials could not be reached for comment.
First Published: Oct 19, 2019 00:14 IST
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne ... 05yEM.html
FAKE BHAGWANS AND SPIRITUAL LEADERS
Re: FAKE BHAGWANS AND SPIRITUAL LEADERS
My mom left me twice to go live in an ashram. Now, as an adult, I am thankful she never took me with her.
Ronit Plank
Mon, February 14, 2022, 12:44 PM
The author with her mother and sister when her mother first came back from the India ashram. She's wearing the black-beaded Bhagwan mala and sunset colors.Courtesy of Ronit Plank
My mother left me twice to go live in an ashram, once when I was 6 and then again when I was 12.
When I was an adult, she told me her leader felt children were obstacles.
After finding out how kids were treated at the ashram my mother lived in, I'm grateful she left me behind.
To this day, if someone says ashram, I get the shivers. When I was 6 years old, my mother left for the one her guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh created in Pune, India, and when I was 12, she left again for Rajneeshpuram, his ashram in Oregon.
She, like his other sannyasins or followers, donned sunset-colored clothing and a black-beaded necklace around her neck, with a photo of his face dangling from the end. What I didn't know until I was grown and had children of my own is that he was also known as the "sex guru". Bhagwan espoused sex as the first step to "superconsciousness" and encouraged his sannyasins to embrace a celebratory, free-love kind of lifestyle.
My mother was on a spiritual journey and went to the ashrams with an urgency to improve herself, to become a better person and a more evolved parent, she explained to me later. She didn't want to suffer or be in pain anymore.
When I was grown and had children of my own she told me that "Bhagwan taught that children were obstacles to enlightenment." My heart stopped as all of the dots connected. It must have been so much easier to quit being a parent when your spiritual leader recommended it.
Children needed to be avoided
By the mid to late 1970s, about six thousand sannyasins — mostly Westerners — lived and worked on and around his six-acre ashram in Pune. He lectured every day, and sannyasins were tasked with whatever jobs, menial or otherwise, needed doing. Sannyasins took part in therapy groups where, in the early days of the ashram, sex and violence were documented to have been used to help followers reach "breakthroughs" on their paths to awareness.
Incredibly, given the reports of violence and sexual assault that eventually came out about life in the Pune ashram, my mother doesn't recall any of that in the therapy groups and workshops she participated in. It may be that she arrived in Pune after those methods were discontinued.
Most crucially to my story, and so many others whose parents followed him, Bhagwan felt children were to be avoided whenever possible as they made spiritual growth difficult to attain. In fact, he encouraged sterilization and vasectomies for sannyasins. The object of the game was to unencumber yourself so you could become the person you were meant to be.
Some children did live at Rajneeshpuram, but they weren't looked after much. While their parents swapped partners, participated in meditation sessions, worked on the ashram, and lined up along a one-lane road waiting for the moment when Bhagwan would drive by in one of his ninety-six Rolls Royces, hoping for a glimpse of their master, kids fended for themselves, roamed the property, and were housed separately from their parents.
Eventually, the reality of the ashram came out
Disturbing news from the ashram eventually made headlines, like the considerable arsenal of automatic weapons on the property, poisonings, and how its inner circle was responsible for the largest bioterror attack on US soil.
But there was also abject child neglect, and sexualization and grooming of children by adults. Stories of vulnerable ashram children who were mostly unsupervised have been circulating for years: children dressed improperly for the elements, sustaining serious injuries, modeling sexual behavior on the adults they saw around them, girls as young as 11-year-old in "relationships" with grown men.
Ashram life requires members to eschew their autonomy and personal boundaries, which is a dangerous blueprint for children who rely on responsible caregivers to protect them as they develop healthy boundaries and their senses of self. Add promiscuity and lack of supervision to the mix and you get nothing but trouble for children. Kids were the opposite of taken care of; the opposite of safe.
I've spoken to former sannyasins who lived on Rajneeshpuram, and they told me I was lucky my mother didn't take me to the ashram, that I was better off than the kids they saw growing up there. As much as I missed my mother, as much as her leaving twice impacted my whole life, at least I wasn't left to fend for myself or be sexually abused. I think about those kids and wonder how they are now. I hope they were able to reclaim some of what adults stole from them; I hope they found their way to safety.
This essay is partially excerpted from Ronit Plank's memoir "When She Comes Back"
Read the original article on Insider
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mo ... 49450.html
Ronit Plank
Mon, February 14, 2022, 12:44 PM
The author with her mother and sister when her mother first came back from the India ashram. She's wearing the black-beaded Bhagwan mala and sunset colors.Courtesy of Ronit Plank
My mother left me twice to go live in an ashram, once when I was 6 and then again when I was 12.
When I was an adult, she told me her leader felt children were obstacles.
After finding out how kids were treated at the ashram my mother lived in, I'm grateful she left me behind.
To this day, if someone says ashram, I get the shivers. When I was 6 years old, my mother left for the one her guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh created in Pune, India, and when I was 12, she left again for Rajneeshpuram, his ashram in Oregon.
She, like his other sannyasins or followers, donned sunset-colored clothing and a black-beaded necklace around her neck, with a photo of his face dangling from the end. What I didn't know until I was grown and had children of my own is that he was also known as the "sex guru". Bhagwan espoused sex as the first step to "superconsciousness" and encouraged his sannyasins to embrace a celebratory, free-love kind of lifestyle.
My mother was on a spiritual journey and went to the ashrams with an urgency to improve herself, to become a better person and a more evolved parent, she explained to me later. She didn't want to suffer or be in pain anymore.
When I was grown and had children of my own she told me that "Bhagwan taught that children were obstacles to enlightenment." My heart stopped as all of the dots connected. It must have been so much easier to quit being a parent when your spiritual leader recommended it.
Children needed to be avoided
By the mid to late 1970s, about six thousand sannyasins — mostly Westerners — lived and worked on and around his six-acre ashram in Pune. He lectured every day, and sannyasins were tasked with whatever jobs, menial or otherwise, needed doing. Sannyasins took part in therapy groups where, in the early days of the ashram, sex and violence were documented to have been used to help followers reach "breakthroughs" on their paths to awareness.
Incredibly, given the reports of violence and sexual assault that eventually came out about life in the Pune ashram, my mother doesn't recall any of that in the therapy groups and workshops she participated in. It may be that she arrived in Pune after those methods were discontinued.
Most crucially to my story, and so many others whose parents followed him, Bhagwan felt children were to be avoided whenever possible as they made spiritual growth difficult to attain. In fact, he encouraged sterilization and vasectomies for sannyasins. The object of the game was to unencumber yourself so you could become the person you were meant to be.
Some children did live at Rajneeshpuram, but they weren't looked after much. While their parents swapped partners, participated in meditation sessions, worked on the ashram, and lined up along a one-lane road waiting for the moment when Bhagwan would drive by in one of his ninety-six Rolls Royces, hoping for a glimpse of their master, kids fended for themselves, roamed the property, and were housed separately from their parents.
Eventually, the reality of the ashram came out
Disturbing news from the ashram eventually made headlines, like the considerable arsenal of automatic weapons on the property, poisonings, and how its inner circle was responsible for the largest bioterror attack on US soil.
But there was also abject child neglect, and sexualization and grooming of children by adults. Stories of vulnerable ashram children who were mostly unsupervised have been circulating for years: children dressed improperly for the elements, sustaining serious injuries, modeling sexual behavior on the adults they saw around them, girls as young as 11-year-old in "relationships" with grown men.
Ashram life requires members to eschew their autonomy and personal boundaries, which is a dangerous blueprint for children who rely on responsible caregivers to protect them as they develop healthy boundaries and their senses of self. Add promiscuity and lack of supervision to the mix and you get nothing but trouble for children. Kids were the opposite of taken care of; the opposite of safe.
I've spoken to former sannyasins who lived on Rajneeshpuram, and they told me I was lucky my mother didn't take me to the ashram, that I was better off than the kids they saw growing up there. As much as I missed my mother, as much as her leaving twice impacted my whole life, at least I wasn't left to fend for myself or be sexually abused. I think about those kids and wonder how they are now. I hope they were able to reclaim some of what adults stole from them; I hope they found their way to safety.
This essay is partially excerpted from Ronit Plank's memoir "When She Comes Back"
Read the original article on Insider
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mo ... 49450.html
Re: FAKE BHAGWANS AND SPIRITUAL LEADERS
BBC
Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru: Lingayat leader arrested for allegedly raping minors
Fri, September 2, 2022 at 1:17 AM
Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru has denied the allegations against him
Police in the southern Indian state of Karnataka have arrested an influential Hindu religious leader for allegedly raping two minor schoolgirls.
Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru from the Lingayat community, a dominant Hindu sect in the state, is accused of assaulting the girls at his seminary.
He was arrested on Thursday night, six days after a complaint filed against him sparked protests in the state.
Sharanaru has denied the allegations and called them a conspiracy.
He was produced in court at 02:45 India time on Friday and was remanded to 14-day judicial custody, reports BBC Hindi's Imran Qureshi in Bangalore.
The 64-year-old seer has been charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The police have also invoked the Scheduled Caste Scheduled Tribe Atrocities Act against him after one of the survivors said she was a Dalit - formerly known as untouchables under India's caste hierarchy.
Lingayatas, a middle caste, comprise 17% of Karnataka's population. They are hugely influential and dominate politics in the state - most of the chief ministers have belonged to this community.
The state has some 2,000 powerful Lingayat community mutts, or monastic establishments, which also run professional colleges.
Sharanaru heads the Murugha Mutt in Chitradurga city. It runs more than 150 spiritual and educational institutions across the state.
A case was filed against him on 26 August after two girls - both of whom were students at the seminary - approached a non-profit in Mysore city and alleged that he had abused them for years. In the complaint, the girls said that Sharanaru would call them to his chambers and then sexually assault them.
The allegations sparked protests in Chitradurga and some other districts, as demonstrators called for the immediate arrest of the religious leader.
But several others have extended their support to the seer - former chief minister BS Yediyurappa said that Sharanaru was being "falsely implicated".
"The investigation will reveal that he is innocent. The investigations will also reveal people involved in framing the seer," he told reporters.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/sh ... 59422.html
Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru: Lingayat leader arrested for allegedly raping minors
Fri, September 2, 2022 at 1:17 AM
Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru has denied the allegations against him
Police in the southern Indian state of Karnataka have arrested an influential Hindu religious leader for allegedly raping two minor schoolgirls.
Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru from the Lingayat community, a dominant Hindu sect in the state, is accused of assaulting the girls at his seminary.
He was arrested on Thursday night, six days after a complaint filed against him sparked protests in the state.
Sharanaru has denied the allegations and called them a conspiracy.
He was produced in court at 02:45 India time on Friday and was remanded to 14-day judicial custody, reports BBC Hindi's Imran Qureshi in Bangalore.
The 64-year-old seer has been charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The police have also invoked the Scheduled Caste Scheduled Tribe Atrocities Act against him after one of the survivors said she was a Dalit - formerly known as untouchables under India's caste hierarchy.
Lingayatas, a middle caste, comprise 17% of Karnataka's population. They are hugely influential and dominate politics in the state - most of the chief ministers have belonged to this community.
The state has some 2,000 powerful Lingayat community mutts, or monastic establishments, which also run professional colleges.
Sharanaru heads the Murugha Mutt in Chitradurga city. It runs more than 150 spiritual and educational institutions across the state.
A case was filed against him on 26 August after two girls - both of whom were students at the seminary - approached a non-profit in Mysore city and alleged that he had abused them for years. In the complaint, the girls said that Sharanaru would call them to his chambers and then sexually assault them.
The allegations sparked protests in Chitradurga and some other districts, as demonstrators called for the immediate arrest of the religious leader.
But several others have extended their support to the seer - former chief minister BS Yediyurappa said that Sharanaru was being "falsely implicated".
"The investigation will reveal that he is innocent. The investigations will also reveal people involved in framing the seer," he told reporters.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/sh ... 59422.html