Godmen and godwomen have been around for as long as one can remember in India. From time to time, when allegations of all kinds surface against these self-styled spiritual leaders, gurus or babas, one wonders what their devotees (belonging to all strata of society) see in them. Answers to this question, however, do not always allow for simple pigeon-holing, and reveal various degrees of agency, intelligence, and unshakeable belief in the guru or "brainwash". However, the fact that these self-proclaimed spiritual leaders have a following (large or small) is an indicator that they are either fulfilling or exploiting some real or perceived vacuum or need in an individual, that society has either created or failed to address.
Needs, real and imagined
Lakshmi Priya (27) is a case in point. She says her parents were introduced to Mata Amrithanandamayi or Amma, at a time when they faced problems – real and imagined – that needed fixing. An MPhil holder in Political Science, Lakshmi claims that Amma cured her younger brother of asthma through prayers 15 years ago. Back then, her parents, who were facing financial difficulties, also thought that she was not very good at studies. They believe that after Amma came into their lives, things got better.
Lakshmi grew up with photos of Amma along with images of gods in her house in Kochi, where she lives with her father, a central government employee and mother, who is a teacher in a government school. She and her family wear rings or lockets with images of Amma. “Once you feel the comfort of her (Amma's) love, you will be the happiest person in the world,” she says.
Mumbai-based businessman Sanjeev Gupta had a similar experience. Thirteen years ago, he was “totally disturbed” by business and family-related problems. That was when a friend invited him to Raadhe Maa’s satsang in the city. “When I first saw her, her presence touched me,” Gupta says, adding that not only were his problems solved “110 percent”, but that he also got back his peace of mind.
What touched him, Gupta says, is she neither asked for money to meet people, nor did she care for his background. “She just blessed me without questions. It changed my life completely and she has been guiding my family and me since then,” he says. Gupta, who owns an advertising agency, often involves himself in one of the several “duties” of Radhe Maa's trust including charity work, and serving the poor.
Lakshmi’s family has visited Amma's ashram in Kollam district several times, and has donated around Rs 50,000 so far. “Amma doesn’t ask us to do anything, she just gives us peace. She tells us how to be a good human being, god-fearing, kind, loving, and good-hearted. We will do whatever she wants us to do. But she did not ask anything of us yet,” she says.
Charisma and a connection
Psychology graduate from Pune, Dhanashree Oak says that her belief in spiritual leaders is not restricted to just one particular person. “I do not follow anyone blindly and whenever I have doubts, I question my gurus. A good guru will always encourage his students to question and answer questions satisfactorily”.
Founder of Art of Living, Sri Sri Ravishankar at the Art of Living Retreat Center. (Photo Courtesy: Art of Living Foundation Facebook page)
K S Bhaskaran, a Hyderabad-based behavioral trainer, was “impressed with the way Jaggi Vasudev simplified life” when he came across the man’s speeches five years ago. “I could connect to him, so I went and attended his speech once. I was even more impressed. He says God is one and does not pit religions against each other. He’s like a guide that helps you identify your soul. I like that it’s spirituality over religion,” Bhaskaran says.
He occasionally volunteers for ‘inner engineering’ yoga programs when they are organized in Hyderabad and appears to connect with the lack of rules. “The entire ashram has only volunteers and no one is forced to stay. They can come, stay for a temporary time and leave,” he says, adding that he could work at the ashram full-time in future, “if I feel someday that duty calls”.
A former devotee of godman Nityananda recalled that the man was charismatic and has exceptional memory, which he used to great effect when interacting with people.
Another former devotee of Nityananda named Stalin (name changed), who first met Nityananda at the end of 2003, says: “I believed he was a god, not just a guru. We (devotees) felt that we were living with a god, just outside the city, and nobody seemed to understand (the significance of) that. We laughed at such people,” he said.
Stalin says that Nityananda allegedly used false testimonies about “miracles” to convince people about his greatness. Another tactic that the godman used, was to tell personal inspirational stories about himself to awe people, he adds.
Controversies and critical thinking
Bhaskaran is open to the possibility that a spiritual leader he connects with might someday be accused of wrong-doing. “If he gets embroiled in a controversy, I might reconsider my stance depending on the scale of allegations.”
Jaggi Vasudev. (Photo Courtesy: Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev official website)
But 72-two-year-old Jamshedpur homemaker Shaila Jha (name changed on request), refuses to entertain the idea that her guru, Nirmal Baba, could do any wrong. She felt that the allegations against him were cooked up and that people were out to malign him because of the “good” that he did.
Nirmal Baba has been accused of falsely claiming to cure people of disease by giving them kheer or other food items. Jha however, says she “believes in him” because “the kind of miracles we see him perform on television inspires trust”. She wakes up at 5:30 am every day to watch his half-hour programme on India TV (a news channel). She regularly sends donations through his account which he asks for on television.
Lakshmi too, is dismissive of the allegations against Amma, and there are many. Amma has been accused by a former devotee of turning a blind eye to sexual harassment in her ashram.
“We believe that evil always works to harm the holy, so all allegations against her are baseless and her devotees know that very well. (We know) because we have stayed in her ashram and we did not find anything wrong,” she says.
Followers waiting for Raadhe Maa on Mahashivrathri in Mumbai. (Photo Courtesy: Raadhe Maa website)
On pictures of Raadhe Maa wearing a short skirt, Gupta seemed to think that she too had a right to a private life. “She was not in a satsang. She was with family. She has a personal life and has got her own opinions. It is not right to interfere in her private life,” he says.
He continued: “She has never charged a single rupee for satsangs. Nor had she made any money or property. She helps people free of cost. Does that make her wrong?”
But for someone like Stalin, “coming out” of Nityananda’s spell was a slow and painful process. He says that the first person to allege sexual harassment was a man, and that is why he was skeptical. “Later when his personal secretary made the same allegations, I paused, thinking that she was a woman. Then I began to investigate this myself, quietly,” he says, adding that when he finally realised the scale of the allegations against his icon, he stopped eating for days.
Swamy Nityananda (Photo Courtesy: Nityananda Dhyanapeetham YouTube Channel)
Now, he and other people who have alleged sexual harassment and other wrong-doings on Nityananda’s part are fighting multiple cases in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. But there are thousands of devotees who have declared their allegiance to the guru and claimed the controversies were a conspiracy against Hinduism.
A 22-year-old engineering graduate from Hyderabad, too had a similar experience. Sharanya’s (name changed) story is that of a family’s sense of betrayal – two generations of her family were staunch believers in Puttaparthi’s Sai Baba but events over 15-20 years made them feel that they could no longer ignore what they were witnessing.
The young woman says that Sai Baba’s ideas about life and the need for discipline, and the social work done by his followers initially appealed to them. They were also influenced by the example of Suri Bhagavantham, one of the founding members of IISc, who devoted himself to the godman.
Sharanya says the controversies over the years about Sai Baba disillusioned them, but the last straw was alleged irregularities in the finances of the trust, which one of the family members was privy to. After one of her relatives discovered this, Sharanya says the family cut off all ties with the Sai Baba of Puttaparthi.
Vacuums
Little research is available on the histories of godmen and their activities, given the tightly closed circles of aides that such men and women surround themselves with. The psychological impact of such closeness and various forms of intimacy that this entails is still not fully understood.
Take for instance, the relationship between Ma Anand Sheela and Osho. Osho’s chief assistant, Ma Anand Sheela was sentenced to four-and-a-half-years years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of assault, attempted murder, arson, electronic eavesdropping etc. She claimed that she did what she did, to protect Osho, while the latter held her responsible. But the fact remains that the events that unfolded in Oregon in the 1980s with Osho’s followers carrying guns in public and allegedly contaminating eateries in the area with salmonella, were indeed something out of a crazy movie.
Osho (Photo Courtesy: Osho website)
Osho is a distant memory, but allegations of all kinds have been made against several godmen / godwomen. While not all followers are engaged with their spiritual leaders’ to the same degree, it is quite apparent that there does exist, a certain kind of emotionally manipulative relationship between some gurus and some of their “disciples”, which occurs in the really closed spaces of ashrams, beyond the purview of the public space, which provides a semblance of a safety net. Many godmen and godwomen, whether or not they perform miracles, have been accused of being “frauds” by people who refuse to be taken in by their not-so-unique brand of greeting card wisdom.
From what we do know about why self-styled spiritual leaders and miracle-workers appeal to a large mass of people, it appears that tradition, organized religion, reason and rationality, superstition, education, family or friends, love, social hierarchies, customs, and science aren’t able to fill the holes of misery or emptiness that many person feels. That’s when, it appears, that self-styled spiritual leaders come in.
(Note: Oxford Dictionary defines god-man as Indian usage, often derogatory for a holy man; a guru; or an incarnation of a god in human form. Dictionary Reference defines the term as a being who possesses the combined attributes of a deityand of a human; demigod.)
(With inputs from Monalisa Das, Nitin B, Sarayu S, Siddhartha Mishra, Steffy Thevar)