Speaker 1: School of Humans. Listener warning, please be aware this episode
Speaker 1: contains sexual assault. The spiritual allure of Rishikesh, India is
Speaker 1: a draw for seekers, which in nineteen sixty eight included
Speaker 1: the Beatles, but this holy city is also where Ryan
Speaker 1: Chambers and Jonathan Spalen vanished. In this episode of Astray,
Speaker 1: we explore Rishikesh and the spiritual awakening that has kept
Speaker 1: to one Westerner here for nearly twenty five years. While
Speaker 1: she's been empowered as a disciple of her guru, some
Speaker 1: have been led down a path by their revered guru
Speaker 1: that's not only dangerous but deadly. But before we get
Speaker 1: to that, let's answer this is Rishikesh, the spiritual Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 1: Shakesh was on the Ganges River, peaceful but spooky. It's
Speaker 1: just got a feeling to it that is just unexplainable.
Speaker 1: It's a spiritual Disneyland, you know. There's so much that
Speaker 1: you could fall victim too. There is no denying that Rishakesh,
Speaker 1: India makes a lasting impression on people, and for said Vigi,
Speaker 1: who you met last episode, and cannibal hunter Michael Jan,
Speaker 1: it has a conflicting effect in terms of those who
Speaker 1: really go missing without a trace. Yeah, there's only been
Speaker 1: a couple in twenty five years that I've heard of.
Speaker 1: It is not that, not the spiritual Bermuda Triangle. I
Speaker 1: promise Jan has a very different opinion. That is the
Speaker 1: Bermuda Triangle of missing people. Is that area? It's just
Speaker 1: a black hole. They just vanish, obviously, said Vigi defends Rishikesh,
Speaker 1: the city she left a life in California for at
Speaker 1: twenty four years old and has now lived for nearly
Speaker 1: twenty five years. She's there now surrounded by nature's soundscape.
Speaker 1: Rishikesh has been a holy city since the scriptures, and
Speaker 1: the original reason it's is explained in a whole variety
Speaker 1: of different historical spiritual stories and significances, the core having
Speaker 1: to do with the presence of the divine, the presence
Speaker 1: of the flowing river Gunga, the presence of the Himalayas,
Speaker 1: the presence of this sacred energy. But it's also a
Speaker 1: place in which, for thousands of years, because it is
Speaker 1: considered a holy city, saints and sages and rishi's and
Speaker 1: yogis have come and have meditated and have done spiritual
Speaker 1: practice and have attained enlightenment. Hindus are encouraged a pilgrimage,
Speaker 1: which means traveling to sites with religious significance as a
Speaker 1: deeper exploration of their devotion. Rishikesh is known as a
Speaker 1: pilgrimage town which has a lot to do with the
Speaker 1: sacred river Ganges or Mother Ganga as it Viji calls
Speaker 1: her that splits the city into the Ganga is holy.
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, nature is beautiful. There is
Speaker 1: a reason that people always have gone to mountains, oceans, rivers,
Speaker 1: lakes for holidays, for stress relief. Then you add actual
Speaker 1: holiness to it, and you add the fact that this
Speaker 1: river is the physical form of a goddess. Ganga was
Speaker 1: a goddess, I mean still is a goddess living in
Speaker 1: heaven who took the form of this river on earth,
Speaker 1: in this river body for a very specific historical reason
Speaker 1: that I won't go all into now, but it had
Speaker 1: to do with bringing liberation to the departed souls who
Speaker 1: were the children of a great king. She was beseeched
Speaker 1: to come down on to earth and to with her
Speaker 1: water flow over their ashes and give them liberation. Mother
Speaker 1: Gunga or Gunga Ma is seen as the goddess of
Speaker 1: purification and forgiveness. She is the personification of the Ganges.
Speaker 1: So for Hindus, the road to salvation is in those
Speaker 1: sacred waters. This is why Hindus travel great lengths, some
Speaker 1: near death, others whose loved ones escort their corpses to
Speaker 1: be cremated on the banks of the river because they
Speaker 1: believe having their ashes thrown into the Ganges will in
Speaker 1: their reincarnation cycle so they can reach moksha, which is
Speaker 1: spiritual liberation. Moksha is what every Hindu desires and there's
Speaker 1: no faster route than Mother Ganga. The ghats of Aranasi,
Speaker 1: which is a city about seventeen hours from Rishikesh, is
Speaker 1: where most Hindu's track. But funeral processions followed by cremations
Speaker 1: of bodies wrapped in vivid colors adorned with strings of
Speaker 1: marigolds and other ornamentation lying the Ganges. That is their
Speaker 1: liquid cemetery. And so at one point I read about
Speaker 1: thirty thousand bodies per year are put into the gandas well,
Speaker 1: resent estimates place it at more like three thousand bodies
Speaker 1: per year. And the bodies yawned speaking of haven't been cremated.
Speaker 1: They're people who have either drowned or had a water burial.
Speaker 1: Water burials are banned in India for environmental reasons, but
Speaker 1: the practice still takes place because of the Hindu belief
Speaker 1: that unwed girls who are considered pure should not be cremated,
Speaker 1: and that a water burial ensures they will be reborn
Speaker 1: into the same family. Many of the other bodies floating
Speaker 1: in the Ganges, or men who have drowned or been murdered,
Speaker 1: and they don't just melt instantly, right, I mean, the
Speaker 1: body can be still there, you know, weeks later, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, floating down and get caught, you know,
Speaker 1: on the side of the river and that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: and you know, and they get into brief fields and
Speaker 1: there'll be a bunch of bodies over there or whatever
Speaker 1: and dogs eating them. It's just unbelievable. You're just like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe this is real. And then you see,
Speaker 1: you know, a body floating down the river and there's
Speaker 1: a raven on its back picking on it while it
Speaker 1: floats down the river, you know, and there's kids swimming
Speaker 1: around the bodies, and it's just insane. Environmentalists are concerned
Speaker 1: over the increasing level of pollution caused by cremation and
Speaker 1: water burials and the Ganges. Since nineteen eighty eight, the
Speaker 1: Indian Court has directed that the practice of throwing corpses
Speaker 1: or semi burnt corpses into the River Gunga should immediately
Speaker 1: be brought to an end. It's ironic that a holy
Speaker 1: river where people flock to purify themselves as also the
Speaker 1: country's most polluted body of water. Jan and Subfiji, both American,
Speaker 1: have had very different experiences in India and therefore have
Speaker 1: conflicting opinions on the same city. I asked Jan about
Speaker 1: one of his stronger opinions. If rishiksh is a spiritual
Speaker 1: Bermuda triangle, what's happening to the foreigners who go missing there?
Speaker 1: I think there's numerous reasons. One will be they just
Speaker 1: get lost and die somewhere. But then there's others that
Speaker 1: I think get caught up in let's say a dark web,
Speaker 1: and they either fall prey to some individual or something
Speaker 1: larger like a network of people. And another is they
Speaker 1: actually go often totally break and they're still living there
Speaker 1: thirty years later with no visa and no passports completely expire,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of thing. There's I think that's a
Speaker 1: small percentage there is no data to support this, so
Speaker 1: I would not say that Michael, producer in Kita, who
Speaker 1: lives in Delhi and has spent time in Rashikesh, has
Speaker 1: her own thoughts on Jan's claims. When I was speaking
Speaker 1: to people in Rishikesh, they said it would be much
Speaker 1: harder for a foreigner to be hidden because they would
Speaker 1: stand out, and also because Rishikesh is a small town
Speaker 1: compared to a city like Guaranasi, which is also frequented
Speaker 1: by foreigners. I was reading this two eighteen news item
Speaker 1: which said that between seventeen and eighteen thousand foreign to
Speaker 1: this visit Rishikesh every year. I don't think it would
Speaker 1: continue to see such a big number of people if
Speaker 1: it had been so scary, So I wouldn't really say
Speaker 1: that Rishikesh is the place from where people go missing
Speaker 1: education of the place where a lot of botners come.
Speaker 1: So seventy to eighty thousand turists visit rishi Cash per
Speaker 1: year and only two Ryan Chambers and Jonathan Spalen are
Speaker 1: mentioned in articles with headlines that identify rasha Cash as
Speaker 1: a town where tourists vanish, with one headline labeling them
Speaker 1: the Lost Boys of rasha Cash. But for all of
Speaker 1: those who are allegedly lost in Rasha Cash, there are
Speaker 1: others who have found themselves there. After the break, we'll
Speaker 1: hear from an American tourist to experience something other worldly
Speaker 1: when she visited Risha Cash in nineteen ninety six, and
Speaker 1: she hasn't left since. I felt like a veil was
Speaker 1: pulled off of my eyes, off of every way of
Speaker 1: knowing that I had, and I could see. This is
Speaker 1: Sadfigi describing her spiritual awakening in Rishi Cash. A spiritual experience.
Speaker 1: Mini seek in Rishikesh. Some find it, but for others,
Speaker 1: like Sadfigi, it finds them. And I could see a
Speaker 1: truth and a life and an existence of the divine
Speaker 1: of myself, of the universe that not only had I
Speaker 1: never been able to see, but I never could have imagined.
Speaker 1: And it absolutely transformed me. This was not an experience
Speaker 1: Sadfigi was anticipating. She wasn't a seeker. She was a
Speaker 1: Stamford grad on break from a PhD program in the States,
Speaker 1: and she chose to visit India because she knew as
Speaker 1: a vegetarian she couldn't go wrong. And it's holy cities
Speaker 1: that don't serve meat and consider cows to be sacred.
Speaker 1: It's nineteen ninety six and after getting settled at her
Speaker 1: hotel in Rishi Cash, twenty four year old sad Vigi
Speaker 1: wants to check out the city and put her feet
Speaker 1: in the river Ganges. So she walks a path through
Speaker 1: parmart Nikiten Ashram, surrounded by intricate gardens and embellished sculptures
Speaker 1: of deities, and continues down to the river. But the
Speaker 1: moment she sits on the banks of the Ganges, she
Speaker 1: feels something visceral and hears streamed down her face. She
Speaker 1: recognizes this place. She's not a tourist, She's home. We
Speaker 1: are seen as the core of who we are, pure
Speaker 1: and perfect and divine, and all of the suffering that
Speaker 1: we experience is due to the ignorant identification with the body,
Speaker 1: with the identity, and so enlightenment is really living in
Speaker 1: the light of the truth of who we are. Means
Speaker 1: I realize I'm not my body, I'm not my history,
Speaker 1: I'm not my identity, I'm not my title, I'm not
Speaker 1: my career, I'm none of those things. But not just
Speaker 1: realizing it intellectually, but actually having the experience of being soul, spirit, consciousness,
Speaker 1: and many of us have had it for a moment,
Speaker 1: a beautiful moment in meditation, a beautiful moment chanting God's name,
Speaker 1: a beautiful moment touched by grace. This was one of
Speaker 1: those moments that sand Vgi was experiencing along the Ganges,
Speaker 1: but she didn't have an understanding of what this meant
Speaker 1: until she met her Guru. Days after this experience, san
Speaker 1: Figi was walking her daily route down to the river,
Speaker 1: but when she entered Parmashnikiten Ashram, she heard someone say,
Speaker 1: you must stay here. She looked around for the person
Speaker 1: who had spoken, but no one was there. She heard
Speaker 1: the voice again, louder, you must stay here. Okay, she
Speaker 1: was hearing things. Logically, it didn't make sense to hear
Speaker 1: a voice with no person or object like a phone
Speaker 1: attached to it, right, But she hears the voice again
Speaker 1: and looks up to see a sign that says office,
Speaker 1: the office to the Ashram. Listening to the voice, she
Speaker 1: walks in. Eventually, Satviji meets with the president of the Ashram,
Speaker 1: Pooja Swami chittanand Saraswati or Swamiji and hopes you will
Speaker 1: allow her to stay at the ashram, and he does.
Speaker 1: He ends their first meeting assuring her that when she
Speaker 1: gets back from her trip to the mountains, Nikitin Ashram
Speaker 1: is her home. When sad Vigi leaves him, she has
Speaker 1: another unexplainable experience, like the voice she heard days before,
Speaker 1: but this one was hard to ignore. As she reaches
Speaker 1: the turn to leave the ashram and walk back to
Speaker 1: the hotel, she freezes. Literally she cannot move. It's like
Speaker 1: someone crazy glued her feet to the ashram path once again,
Speaker 1: said Vigi's rational mind tries to make sense of this.
Speaker 1: Where her legs asleep? Had she contracted some sort of
Speaker 1: disease that paralyzed her tetanus polio. Eventually she realizes logic
Speaker 1: is invaluable in this situation. This was something else. Then,
Speaker 1: kids playing tag on the path nearly run into her,
Speaker 1: so she instinctively steps backward, dodging them. She steps backward.
Speaker 1: It's then she realizes she can't take one step out
Speaker 1: of the ashram, but she can move back in the
Speaker 1: direction from which she came, So she walks back to Swamiji,
Speaker 1: the president of the Ashram and also a revered spiritual
Speaker 1: leader who would eventually become her guru. The word guru
Speaker 1: literally means the one who removes the darkness and brings light.
Speaker 1: So the guru is the one who removes the darkness
Speaker 1: of ignorance, of that ignorant way that we identify as
Speaker 1: the body, as our stories, as our dramas, as our careers,
Speaker 1: as our titles, as our histories, as our races and
Speaker 1: religions and socioeconomic statuses and sexual orientations, and all the
Speaker 1: ways that we use to define ourselves. It's ignorance, meaning
Speaker 1: it's true, but it's true on such a superficial level
Speaker 1: of existence that the minute that we start dropping deeply,
Speaker 1: we realize that it's not true at all. It's no
Speaker 1: more true than saying I am the sorry that I'm wearing.
Speaker 1: So the guru is the one who removes that darkness
Speaker 1: of ignorance and brings light. A sorry is the traditional
Speaker 1: Indian war draped around, said Vigi. So she's basically saying
Speaker 1: that these labels we identify with and are identified by
Speaker 1: are meaningless and as a disciple of her Guru, Swamigi
Speaker 1: said Vigi has shed these labels of identification. So the
Speaker 1: word disciple is a bit more official than devote it
Speaker 1: obviously includes devotee. Disciples are also devoted, but they've also
Speaker 1: taken some kind of official initiation through which they have
Speaker 1: made the Guru their guru, and they have declared themselves
Speaker 1: disciples of that Guru. It's been nearly twenty five years
Speaker 1: since Sadvigi heard the voice that told her she must
Speaker 1: stay and palmart Nikate Noshram on the banks of the
Speaker 1: Sacred River Ganges, and from looking at all Sadvigi has
Speaker 1: contributed as a disciple of her Guru, it seems like
Speaker 1: it was the right decision. Her devotion to Swamigi and
Speaker 1: to her spiritual and humanitarian service is not only a calling,
Speaker 1: but it's been an extremely positive experience for her. So
Speaker 1: the cost of enlightenment looks pretty different in Savigi's case.
Speaker 1: And I guess i'd ask is enlightenment even a goal
Speaker 1: for her or for the holiest of the holy gurus.
Speaker 1: Simply calling oneself for Guru and simply dawning orange or
Speaker 1: white robes does not actually make one an enlightened being.
Speaker 1: And interestingly, in order to be a Gurdu, you don't
Speaker 1: even actually have to be an enlightened being. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could be a smart being, a wise being a
Speaker 1: beautiful being who is able to remove someone's darkness and
Speaker 1: bring them light without necessarily having to be fully awakened
Speaker 1: and enlightened yourself. And in those cases, the dilemma becomes
Speaker 1: that when we are still slaves in some ways, or
Speaker 1: under the control of our own ignorance or our own
Speaker 1: desires or our own egos, then you throw the right
Speaker 1: temptations in someone's lap, and if they haven't really done
Speaker 1: their sodna, if they haven't really done their work, absolutely
Speaker 1: you sometimes see them falling prey to desires or abusing power. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: by God's grace, it's not that common at all. Four
Speaker 1: or five of them who over a period of twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty years have had big scandals are the ones
Speaker 1: we think of. The thousands of them who have been
Speaker 1: divinely bringing along people on the path to spirituality are
Speaker 1: not those who make headline news. There is one influential
Speaker 1: guru who has made headline news even after death due
Speaker 1: to one scandalous allegation, but in large part because of
Speaker 1: his tremendous success and the celebrities who have flocked to him.
Speaker 1: This includes the Beatles who traveled to Rishikesh in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight to be in the presence of the Maharishi
Speaker 1: Mahesh Yogi, the father of transcendental meditation. Though Rishikesh has
Speaker 1: always been known as a spiritual mecca in India, the
Speaker 1: Beatles put the holy city on the map in the
Speaker 1: West when the Guru Maharishi invited them to India for
Speaker 1: their own spiritual awakening. Mahreshi invited the Beatles to come.
Speaker 1: It was probably the most creative time for the Beatles.
Speaker 1: This is Richard A. Cook the Third or Ricky for short.
Speaker 1: His mother, Nancy Cook de Harera, was a publicist for
Speaker 1: the Maharishi and was tasked with decorating the stark Ashram
Speaker 1: and preparation for their celebrity guests. The group got the
Speaker 1: VIP treatment, mattresses on the beds, curtains, mirrors, They even
Speaker 1: had working toilets. Rickie was staying at the Maharishi's ashram
Speaker 1: when the Beatles visited in nineteen sixty eight and witnessed
Speaker 1: a pivotal moment in music history. I think they wrote
Speaker 1: thirty songs while they were there. I can remember them,
Speaker 1: you know, at lunch and a breakfast sort of jamming,
Speaker 1: you know, at the dining room table, you know, with
Speaker 1: spoons and salt shakers and brooms, whatever they could put
Speaker 1: their hands on. One of my all time favorites, the
Speaker 1: White Album, came out of The Beatles Stay in Racia Cash.
Speaker 1: In the Beatles anthology, Paul McCartney shares why they decided
Speaker 1: to flee their consuming fame in the West for spiritual
Speaker 1: retreat and Racia Cash. He says, yeah, well, it's great
Speaker 1: to be famous, it's great to be rich, but what's
Speaker 1: it all for? What's it all for? Is a question
Speaker 1: they hope the Maharishi could help them answer. But by
Speaker 1: leaving what George Harrison's wife Patty Boyd quotes in her
Speaker 1: memoir as a steady diet of weed and acid, stumbling
Speaker 1: daily through a mind boggling hysterical swarm of paparazzi and fans,
Speaker 1: to the slow inhale and exhale of the mont based meditation,
Speaker 1: they were able to find their own answers, which, in
Speaker 1: a way we all got to experience through the music
Speaker 1: they created the Maharishi's as From overlooking the Ganges River
Speaker 1: by Maharishi's house, there's like not quite a cliff, but
Speaker 1: almost the cliff, and you look straight down onto the
Speaker 1: Ganges and also all of Rishikish was very beautiful and
Speaker 1: at that time the My Love was there Donovan, the Beatles,
Speaker 1: Mia Farah was there for some of that time, and
Speaker 1: you know it's amazing. I mean they would be on
Speaker 1: the on a barge and the Banjees by full moon
Speaker 1: and they would be jamming. You know, nobody recorded any
Speaker 1: of this. The Beatles wrote a song about me. For
Speaker 1: those of you who are fans of the White Album,
Speaker 1: you might know Ricky by a name John Lennon bestowed
Speaker 1: on him. You know, I never really connected with with
Speaker 1: John Lennon. He was taking LSD, you know, in the
Speaker 1: bungalow next to me. I'm meditating. Months later, my sister says,
Speaker 1: you know, I think there's this on the radio that
Speaker 1: it sounds like you, you know, And it was Bungalow Bill.
Speaker 1: The song starts with a catchy refrain, Hey, Bungalow Bill,
Speaker 1: What did you kill Bungalow Bill. The song was Lennon's
Speaker 1: commentary on an audience he observed with Ricky and the Mahaishi.
Speaker 1: Ricky shared with his holiness that he had recently shot
Speaker 1: a tiger on a hunt. The Mahaishi was disappointed, calling
Speaker 1: the tiger's death life destruction. Ricky left that audience altered
Speaker 1: and ultimately swapped his gun for a camera. He's now
Speaker 1: a renowned photographer living in Hawaii. He signs his emails Aloha, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's figured something out. You know, I was a young
Speaker 1: meditator at that time. To meditate eight hours in a
Speaker 1: day is almost like torture. I mean, it's not an
Speaker 1: easy thing to do. You know. All of the attention
Speaker 1: has gone to all these celebrities, but really what was
Speaker 1: going on there was meditating and Mahareshi literally teaching the
Speaker 1: bug Lagita. It was, I would say, an intense course,
Speaker 1: not only just in meditating, but also in learning. The
Speaker 1: bugvud Ghita, a seven hundred and one verse Hindu scripture,
Speaker 1: is one of the most important religious texts and Hinduism.
Speaker 1: The word Ghita means song and Bugfud means God, so
Speaker 1: Bugfudgheita translates to song of God. And it was intense,
Speaker 1: not only the learning but the meditating. Of all the beatles,
Speaker 1: Harrison and Lenin were the most committed to their meditation practice.
Speaker 1: Harrison reportedly said the meditation buzz was better than drugs.
Speaker 1: It was a way for him to connect with God,
Speaker 1: which is something Lennon said me a Pharaoh's sister, Prudence,
Speaker 1: who locked herself in her room and meditated around the clock,
Speaker 1: was trying to connect to He was quoted as saying
Speaker 1: Prudence was trying to find God quicker than anyone else.
Speaker 1: That was the competition in Maharishi's camp. Who was going
Speaker 1: to get cosmic first. I assume cosmic means enlightened. I
Speaker 1: don't know if Prudence ever reached it, but the Beatles
Speaker 1: did write the White Album song Dear Prudence about her,
Speaker 1: and she got something else extremely valuable out of her
Speaker 1: meditative time there. Prudence was literally taken from a psycho ward.
Speaker 1: She had had a huge trauma from bad experiences with LSD,
Speaker 1: and literally I think Prudence was healed by the time
Speaker 1: she left Mahreshi. But John Lennon had a very different
Speaker 1: experience than Prudence. In meditation. He hit with the Mahari
Speaker 1: she called an iceberg or a deep seated wound. I
Speaker 1: think what Maharishi discovered during that time is people were
Speaker 1: meditating too much, too soon, and it brought up too
Speaker 1: much sort of psychological sort of He called it barnacles
Speaker 1: things that were sort of in your consciousness, deep seated wounds,
Speaker 1: maybe even from other lifetimes. Mari, she called it an iceberg,
Speaker 1: But I think the iceberg. The important thing about an
Speaker 1: iceberg is it's much larger than you think it is.
Speaker 1: What do you mean, You've just sort of opened the
Speaker 1: door to it. You You're you're taking a little bit
Speaker 1: at a time and that and with Marishi's being there
Speaker 1: watching over you, you're going to meditate your way through.
Speaker 1: What happened with John Lennon is he bolted when he
Speaker 1: hit it and when you actually look at the year
Speaker 1: that he went through afterwards, it was horrible. I mean,
Speaker 1: he got arrested for drugs. I mean, just one bad
Speaker 1: thing after another. He you know, he left his wife
Speaker 1: for Yoko. I mean that was just it was a
Speaker 1: very challenging year afterwards. So that means he stayed in
Speaker 1: that level of consciousness or whatever sort of that darkness
Speaker 1: that he was in. He stayed with it rather than
Speaker 1: coming through it. Rickie is touching on something we discussed
Speaker 1: in episode two about the dark side of meditation. Even
Speaker 1: the Maharishi picked up on the fact that some people
Speaker 1: who meditate too much too soon. Dredge up past trauma
Speaker 1: or icebergs, which aren't necessarily bad if you have an
Speaker 1: experienced practitioner to help you through it. For John Lennon,
Speaker 1: that practitioner would have been the Maharishi, but he and
Speaker 1: the Beatles left before he could work through it. It's
Speaker 1: been reported that the Beatles fled Rishi Cash because the
Speaker 1: Maharishi was accused of sexual misconduct by a female follower
Speaker 1: and allegedly also by Mia Farrow. Rickie denies these allegations
Speaker 1: against the Maharishi. Rickie says that these allegations were created
Speaker 1: by a member of the Beatles entourage who was called
Speaker 1: Magic Alex. At the time, he was an electronic whiz
Speaker 1: inventor that Lennon called the Electric Guru, but according to Ricky,
Speaker 1: he was also the Beatles drug connection. There's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of intrigue and there was a person named Magic
Speaker 1: Alex who was sort of the drug connection for the
Speaker 1: Beatles before he even came to India. It's been alleged
Speaker 1: that the sexual abuse allegations were spread by Magic Alex
Speaker 1: because he was jealous of the influence the Maharishi had
Speaker 1: over lenin. And though these allegations are rumored, to be
Speaker 1: why the Beatles fled Rishi Cash and cut ties with
Speaker 1: the Maharishi. It's not why they left. I mean I
Speaker 1: remember being at the gate when they were all all leaving,
Speaker 1: and what people don't realize is that Maharishi actually had
Speaker 1: made a mistake and the Beatles wanted to do a
Speaker 1: movie on the life story of Maharishi. They head of
Speaker 1: Maharishi's world organization, Charlie Louts in Los Angeles, signed an
Speaker 1: agreement with four Star at the same time. Literally they
Speaker 1: duplicated the agreements. So when Four Star was coming in
Speaker 1: the bottom gate to do the movie on Maharishi, the
Speaker 1: Beatles bolted and they went out the north gate, literally
Speaker 1: as the others were arriving. So an opposing film had
Speaker 1: already been set up and was set to shoot while
Speaker 1: the Beatles were there. The group bolted because it wasn't
Speaker 1: their film and they didn't want to be featured. Lennon
Speaker 1: was the most critical about the Mahaishi after they left,
Speaker 1: and his disenchantment with the Guru led him to write
Speaker 1: the song Sexy Sadie, which was originally titled Maharishi, with
Speaker 1: lyrics like you made a fool of everyone and you
Speaker 1: broke the rules. It's apparent John Lennon wasn't a fan,
Speaker 1: which was backed up by his ex wife Cynthia Lennon,
Speaker 1: who said John thought the Yogi was too preoccupied with
Speaker 1: public recognition, celebrities and money. But according to Ricky, the
Speaker 1: rest of the group didn't feel the same way. You know,
Speaker 1: since then, every one of the Beatles have said what
Speaker 1: an incredible time it was, and they've all thanked Mahareshi
Speaker 1: for that time, also acknowledged what generosity Mahaishi showed towards them.
Speaker 1: He protected them, they didn't pay a penny for being there.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, the Beatles did get a lot out of
Speaker 1: their spiritual Escapade and Rishikesh and we got the White album.
Speaker 1: But as cool as it is to hear about the
Speaker 1: Beatles experience with the Maharishi, or said Viji's empowering relationship
Speaker 1: with her guru Swamiji, when examining the line between healing
Speaker 1: and harm and spirituality, we also have to look at
Speaker 1: the Guru asam Babu, who abused his power, making major
Speaker 1: headline news for a scandal that rocked India and ruined
Speaker 1: his empire. You can't take down a powerful charismatic leader
Speaker 1: like Asaram Babu and the empire that protected him without
Speaker 1: having people willing to put it all on the line
Speaker 1: for justice. You know, I've been a border for quite
Speaker 1: some diamond I've done extenuate sky stuff before before thus story,
Speaker 1: but I was never this kid. This is Prianka Dube,
Speaker 1: an investigative journalist and author who has done some pretty
Speaker 1: risky reporting on custodial rapes, so called honor killings, the
Speaker 1: rape of miners, and human trafficking in India. She's also
Speaker 1: one of the journalists who did a detailed story on
Speaker 1: Osram Bapu, who with four hundred ashrams, was one of
Speaker 1: the most powerful gurus in India. But in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: Osram was found guilty of raping a miner. But his
Speaker 1: list of past offenses is long and was concealed by
Speaker 1: his co conspirators. Dubai reported on the long, hard battle
Speaker 1: the victim and her family had to fight for justice.
Speaker 1: We had a bad internet connection, so some of the
Speaker 1: audio is patchy, but it's still audible. I had a
Speaker 1: huge following of you know, one hundreds and thousands of
Speaker 1: followers across India, so he his power came from his
Speaker 1: follower base. Politics is also related to religion. In India,
Speaker 1: political leaders also started giving him attention and they started
Speaker 1: they started to come to him because they knew that
Speaker 1: it can help them convert a lot of votes of
Speaker 1: people who are coming to listen to a sad song.
Speaker 1: In sand skirts, sad song means gathering together for the truth,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what sad song is. Followers congregate to
Speaker 1: listen to their guru or engage in a religious teaching
Speaker 1: or spiritual activity. And India's political leaders knew that by
Speaker 1: attending Asum's sad song, they get votes. So Asram's devoted
Speaker 1: followers and political ties helped him establish power. But how
Speaker 1: did he abuse and ultimately lose it. I have met
Speaker 1: the family of the girl who was a victim in
Speaker 1: this case, and those who have been the most painful
Speaker 1: and tormenting memories of my reporting life. Those days are
Speaker 1: because you know, the girl's father is this huge, you know,
Speaker 1: like welbel sighswood man, and I show this man sobbing,
Speaker 1: like you know, sabbing saying that V considered him God
Speaker 1: and this is what he did to us. This strong
Speaker 1: father was broken by a man he considered to be
Speaker 1: a saint. The father's sixteen year old daughter had been
Speaker 1: studying at one of Asrum's ashram's Chinwaa Gurukul for the
Speaker 1: past five years, but in August twenty thirteen, he got
Speaker 1: a call from ashram administrators saying his daughter, who had
Speaker 1: fainted the day before, had been captured by an evil
Speaker 1: spirit that could only be healed by Ashram Babu himself.
Speaker 1: The girl's parents traveled with their daughter to see Osram
Speaker 1: at his ashram and Jadpur. Osram asked the parents to
Speaker 1: leave their daughter with him so he could perform a
Speaker 1: puja to rid her of this evil spirit. The parents
Speaker 1: obeyed their Guru and retreated to the cottage behind the ashram,
Speaker 1: where they recited his bajans, or devotional songs. When their
Speaker 1: daughter returned an hour later, she was sobbing and asked
Speaker 1: to leave immediately. When they got home, his daughter broke,
Speaker 1: telling her father that Osrah made her drink a glass
Speaker 1: of milk, then he sexually assaulted her before she fled
Speaker 1: his room. He threatened to kill her parents if she
Speaker 1: dared speak to anyone about what he had done. In
Speaker 1: Dubai's twenty seventeen article for Caravan, the father sums up
Speaker 1: his feelings of anger and betrayal and a quote Asserum
Speaker 1: cheated us and the name of God while he was
Speaker 1: actually a monster and the garb of a saint. The
Speaker 1: father also said that he trusted Asserum so much as
Speaker 1: his guru that if he hadn't seen his daughter for
Speaker 1: himself that night, he wouldn't have believed her, which is
Speaker 1: apparently how other parents whose daughters were chosen for Osserum reacted.
Speaker 1: The families of these girls never spoke up because they
Speaker 1: were afraid of Osram or didn't want to lose their
Speaker 1: family's honor, or they were so blindly devoted to their
Speaker 1: guru they didn't consider his acts objectionable, but instead called
Speaker 1: his misconduct Baba's blessings. But this father wasn't going to
Speaker 1: bow down to a sexual predator, so he traveled to
Speaker 1: Delhi to confront Osum about his daughter's sexual assault. Osrum
Speaker 1: refused to see him, so he failed a complaint with
Speaker 1: the police, and after his daughter's medical examination, the case
Speaker 1: was registered. The police arrested Osum in September twenty thirteen
Speaker 1: and a trial got underway. But according to Dubai, this
Speaker 1: is where things got pretty dicey, and this was an
Speaker 1: extremely difficult story for me to report on because there've
Speaker 1: been so many attacks on the witnesses. There were thirteen
Speaker 1: witnesses and a couple of them were attacked, but I
Speaker 1: think she died and one was missing. People were killed
Speaker 1: in the wake of os from conviction and Dubai was
Speaker 1: also in danger reporting on the story. Fifteen years earlier,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two, journalist Ramachandra Chatrapati ran a
Speaker 1: series of reports that exposed the rape and sexual abuse
Speaker 1: of girls and women at the hands of the guru
Speaker 1: Gramit ram Rahim. Tchetrapati was shot for exposing the scandal,
Speaker 1: and the Guru ram Rahim was named the main conspirator
Speaker 1: in the case. This is why Dubai was scared to
Speaker 1: condemn a powerful religious leader with an empire of Astram's
Speaker 1: and devotees can be fatal. It's the most risky story
Speaker 1: that I've worked on in my life, because you know
Speaker 1: you're taking on when you're taking religion in India, it's
Speaker 1: a difficult thing because people in this country are extremely
Speaker 1: religious and it's something so sentimental for them that they
Speaker 1: if they believe that's a guru, then he will believe
Speaker 1: then they'll be like, no, this person't has done no wrong,
Speaker 1: that girl has dreamed him. She's lying. So apparently devotees
Speaker 1: believe they're Guru above all else. And from what we've
Speaker 1: heard about the death of witnesses in Osum's case, when
Speaker 1: you challenge people's faith it can be dangerous. But I
Speaker 1: should also mention you you know, I'm generally very sad
Speaker 1: about the way functioning thinks function in my country. But
Speaker 1: I followed the case throughout and all of them, Leo,
Speaker 1: they got life imprisonment. They were were convicted, and I'm
Speaker 1: happy about it. It took five years of litigation, but
Speaker 1: eventually the girl and her family got retribution. In twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: Osraum and his co conspirators were found guilty and sentenced
Speaker 1: to life in prison. But in twenty seventeen, before his sentence,
Speaker 1: the religious organization a Kill Barattia Akara Parishad declared him
Speaker 1: a fake Baba. It's obvious that Asum abuse to his power,
Speaker 1: but the sexual assault may not be the only time.
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand and eight, the mutilated bodies of
Speaker 1: two boys were found near as Ostraum and Motera and
Speaker 1: were apparently linked to black magic practiced at the ashram.
Speaker 1: So Osram is not only a fake Baba, but a
Speaker 1: dangerous and potentially murderous one. In India, gurus are seen
Speaker 1: as celebrities and there is an economic and political infrastructure
Speaker 1: in place to support their global empires, which is made
Speaker 1: recognizing and then bringing down those who abuse their power difficult.
Speaker 1: I grew up going to church, not Satsong, but in
Speaker 1: the West, we've all seen religious power abused and concealed,
Speaker 1: most prominently the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and
Speaker 1: the empire of complicity that's covered it up. But as
Speaker 1: a Westerner, I'm not as familiar with this idea of
Speaker 1: having a guru. So I asked Hikita, who's growing up
Speaker 1: around gurus in India, her opinion about gurus. I think
Speaker 1: we as humans like to be told what to do,
Speaker 1: even if we rebel against families or authority structures. By
Speaker 1: a certain age, we are so used to obedience and
Speaker 1: not being allowed to think for ourselves we look to gurus,
Speaker 1: perhaps not realizing that we are just getting new authority
Speaker 1: figures in life. If people have grown up with books around,
Speaker 1: or if they can afford therapy or travel, they turn
Speaker 1: to those things. If people do not have access to
Speaker 1: or information about such options, they turn to another human being.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything wrong in having a guru
Speaker 1: if we have the space to question, and if the
Speaker 1: guru is also someone who sees themselves as learning and
Speaker 1: evolving in the journey. Like the Beatles, many Westerners are
Speaker 1: a learned to Reisha cash by their intrigue with a
Speaker 1: gur rough or the promise of spiritual awakening. But from
Speaker 1: what we've heard in this episode, not all gurus have
Speaker 1: good intentions. And though said Vigi had a spiritual awakening
Speaker 1: that changed her life for the better, there are some
Speaker 1: whose quest for spiritual awakening doesn't change their life, it
Speaker 1: ends it. I think we were not educated enough about
Speaker 1: what was happening in Rigucation at all. It's like Russell
Speaker 1: went day just for a spiritual retreat and never came back.
Speaker 1: We'll hear a Russell's story on the next episode of
Speaker 1: a Stress. One person mentioned that it's common knowledge that
Speaker 1: the wisterness come there to die. The specifics I found
Speaker 1: about Said Vigi's spiritual awakening she covered in her twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen TED talk called from Hollywood to Holywood's Check it Out.
Speaker 1: She's doing some amazing humanitarian work that I wish I
Speaker 1: had more time to share. Austray is a production of
Speaker 1: School of Humans and iHeartRadio. Today's episode of Astray, Spiritual
Speaker 1: Bermuda Triangle, was produced, written, and narrated by Me, Caroline
Speaker 1: Slaughter and Kita Anand is my co producer, and Gaby
Speaker 1: Watts is our supervising producer. Astray was sound produced by
Speaker 1: toone Molders, with score and sound design by Jason Shannon
Speaker 1: and mixed by Harper Harris. Executive producers are Elsie Crowley,
Speaker 1: Brendan Barr, and Brian Lavin. Thanks for listening. School of Humans.