While there are still Indian swamis and religious spiritual preachers and teachers who are not accused or convicted of crimes, those who have been caught out in nefarious activities are many. As soon as followings grow large, they attract people who are looking for advantages – both supposedly spiritual ones, but also not least financial and social gains. Organization becomes a necessity and, led by a charismatic figurehead whose word is taken as unquestionable divine truth, those who become part of their fiefdoms willingly carry out his (or her) orders, for which they are rewarded. This scenario is one chief way in which a guru cult begins. This is by no means only an Indian phenomenon, of course, as there are also some very well-known major cults in U.S.A., Italy. South Korea… and, of course, many sexually abusing priests in Christian churches and sects, and there have been many revelations concerning the Catholic Church in many countries, which has had to face vast sums in payouts following lawsuits.

Religious gurus are among the big money-earners in India, so it is hardly surprising that these cults are able to buy police and yet higher protection. Despite this, in an increasing number of instances, so-called “spiritual” gurus have been successfully prosecuted by Indian authorities for crimes ranging from sexual abuse to cynical murder. India, being such a religious cauldron seems to have the lions’ share. Indian gurus either convicted or widely accused of crimes, including major fraud, include:-

1) Sathya Sai Baba is most likely the most influential guru in India and abroad – self-proclaimed God Incarnate, Deity of Deities, the Vishnu Avatar of the Age etc. – who has obtained protection from attempts to convict him for murder complicity (http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/8/MurderReview.htm) and serial sex abuse (http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/6/saisex1.htm) by his devotees among Indian Prime Ministers, Presidents and Supreme or High Court judges. This is itself an indictment of the Indian State’s ongoing corruption – a kind of protection that typifies a de facto despotism (though possible only while in office) rather than the exercise of democratic and legal principles. Of course, his fraudulent ‘materializations’ and many false statements and predictions are also very documented or reported by disaffected followers.

2) The well-known ‘all singing all dancing’ Indian-based Hare Krishna sect (ISKCON) has had many and major convictions against them in the USA. See here, here

3) Indicted for many felonies, but not convicted, was Rajneesh-Osho (who fled the USA with over 100 indictments against him).

4) Swami Premananda – convicted for murder and multiple rape – double life sentence for murder and multiple rapes. The case went right to the Soupremem Court of India, which confirmed the conviction. See also Deccan Herald April 5 and April 6, 2005. Premananda’s alleged vibuthi materializations were investigated for fraud by Erlendur Haraldasson and Richard Wiseman See larger photo no. (No. 42) here- and read their most critical report (1995) Investigating Macro-PK in India: Swami Premananda. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 60(839) 193-202t

5) Swami Rama (Author of ‘Living Among the Himalayan Masters’) who escaped likely conviction for sexual abuses by dying before the case could be concluded.

6) Swami Rameshwaranand Giriji Maharaj – who has a large following in India and abroad – was arrested in September ‘95 as a party to the murder of his lover’s husband. The 26-year old Manoj Girothra, husband of Savita, who was having an affair with the ‘godman’, was murdered on December 3rd, 1994, some two months after his marriage. Two professional hitmen had been hired by the ‘godman’.

7) Gayatri Swami, whose influence in South India was very considerable was thoroughly exposed by Professor Erlendur Haraldsson and Richard Wiseman. He was found to be pretending to materialize objects within fruits, but had a silk thread attached to them! Likewise, his ‘materialization’ inside fruits of right-handed conches (extremely rare in India as ‘Sri Lakshmi conches’) the ‘left-handed type’ are the only indiginous sort), Haraldsson traced his imports of them from California, where they are indigenous!
source: Erlendur Haraldsson & Joop M. Houtkooper (1994). Report of an Indian swami claiming to materialize objects: The value and limitations of field observations. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 8(3), 381-397. (Full text).

8 ) Swami Balyogi Premvarni. (‘Yogant Foundation’) of Rishikesk, where he has an ashram. He also has various branches abroad. He has been exposed as a serial womaniser, especially convincingly in Mary Garden’s book ‘The Serpent Rising’ which she bases on her experiences in India in the 1970s.

9) Gowrishankara Swami; ‘Hindu monk gets 10 years RI for sodomy.’‘The Hindu’ Bangalore, Feb. 3 2004 (PTI): “The Karnataka High Court today sentenced a Hindu monk to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment and awarded a fine of Rs 25 lakhs after holding him guilty of sodomy. In default of payment of fine, the court sentenced the Gowrishankara Swami, the previous junior pontiff of Sri Siddaganga Mutt at Kyatasandra in Tumkur District, to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a further period of one year.”

10) Swami Shyam , a current ‘advaita’ guru, popular with Westerners (particulalry Canadians and Northern Europeans), many of whom have bought expensive residences at Kullu in the Himalayas, where he has his ashram. He is under attack for seducing the wives of his followers.

11) The Palghat (of Kerala) born Bala Sai Baba (the child Sai Baba), who at 35 years of age is a bit overgrown for his name. He claims to be the real Sai avatar, set up an ashram in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh and purposely copies Satya Sai Baba trait for trait in amazing detail. A clearly fraudulent attempt to hi-jack the Sathya Sai Baba ‘phenomenon’. He is the most ‘lookalike’ of a series of imitators of Sathya Sai Baba, a few of whom can be seen here.

12) A further short list of some gurus East and West, including facts about some of the criminals among them is seen here (http://www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/listing.html).

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

How come his can’t cure his own flickering eye? He talks about “curing” the gay people with yoga, as if it is some kind of desease. This jerk has commercialised everything - yoga, God, blessings, and what not. As long as people don’t use their own brain, crooks like him will continue to flourish. I am doing my part by trying to expose all of these thieves.

Recently, Baba Ramdev publicly made comments around sexual life of ‘actresses like Celina Jaitly’ on the front page of a leading newspaper. On her standing up for gay rights, he stated, “These actresses know nothing about Bhartiya sanskriti. They stay away from their parents and have no morals. Unke partner har mahine badalte hain.”

Truly livid, Celina reacts as she bares her heart out in this candid conversation.

Your sex life seems to have come under the spotlight now. Any comments?
[Sighs] Well, this great, great Brahamachari seems to know more about my sex life then I may know myself.

In any case, now I feel I can truly say that he is not a true ‘Yoga’ teacher. After all ‘yoga’ knowledge comes from Adi Shiva, who in Hindu scriptures is active when there is ‘Shakti – The Cosmic Female’.

For a brahamachari, every woman is ‘Maa’ and nowhere in ‘bharatiya sanskriti’ is it written or practiced that you can make sexually motivated comments on any girl; especially by a brahamachaari. He does not know the meaning of true ‘Brahamacharya’.

Well, Baba Ramdev has also claimed that he can cure homosexuals?
I can just laugh when he says that he can cure homosexuals by Pranayam and meditation. With all due respect to Baba Ramdev, he ‘may’ have the so called ‘cure’ for homosexuality but the point is LGBT community ‘does not’ see their homosexuality as a disease.

The point is no one is interested in buying this ‘over the counter’ prescription for curing what is not a disease at all. This is what they are and they are comfortable with their self. They are not interfering in anyone’s life or religion but unfortunately everyone wants to interfere in their lives and tell them how they should eat, sleep and have sex. It is plain and simple ridiculous!

He has created a clout for him though over a period of time…
But because of that, he cannot become ‘Samaaj Ka Thekedaar’, right? Yes, I give him credit for contributing to realization and revival of yoga in today’s time and date. But this is it.

These people prefer to live in a cocooned thought process of their own and do not wish to come out of it. Ok, good for him, it’s his fundamental right to speak his mind. We, the youth, too are using our fundamental rights the way we wish to do, so I guess we are even.

So what is it that you wish to tell Baba Ramdev?
That even if he screams from every rooftop of India, the reality is homosexuality will not cease to exist. It is there since the homo sapiens have existed.

Also, according to zoologists, even today homosexuality is exhibited in over 15000 species of animals, leave alone humans. Once even Hitler thought that Jews were an impure race and ancient scientists thought the earth was flat but then ultimately truth persisted, right?

It is up to people to follow blindly or to respect the truth and slowly come around. Just because some people think LGBT is a threat to the family system, what should we do? Give rise to another genocide based on closed views?

Now Baba Ramdev and several other religious groups have filed a case against the verdict.
All I can say is that the respectable judges of Supreme Court will definitely consider the human rights aspect and the fight against the growing HIV AIDS epidemic in India.

I am confident that ‘jiska koi nahi hota hai uska khuda hota hai’. Society needs to focus on one issue and it is that for any step towards progression, change needs to come from within.

If everyone just takes the responsibility for improving themselves from within by becoming more tolerant, becoming giving, becoming kind and being honest, everyone would be happier and contended. That would lead to a happy and peaceful community.

And your message for the ‘aam junta’?
Take your own responsibility first that’s it. As for these Babas, they are doing whatever their remote upbringing and closed mindset is dictating them to do.

Only togetherness and standing up for what is right can change this mindset. So let’s all stop people from being misled by publicity hungry self proclaimed gurus of the society.

Sathya Sai Baba (born in 1926 as Sathyanarayana Raju Ratnakaram ) is Indian guru. He is described by his followers as a miracle worker and a spiritual teacher, but all this is very questionable. He proclaims himself to be an Avatar, what means a divine incarnation sent to Earth.

According to his followers, his birth is supposed to me miraculous. His mother Easwaramma was walking one day when a huge sphere of blue light rolled towards her and made her faint. She was dreaming of a Hindu god Sathyanarayana and then found out that she was pregnant. This is just a fairytale which should convince his followers that he is exceptional, but he is just an ordinary man. When he was in elementary school, he once started behaving strangely “as if a scorpion had stung in his foot” and afterwards fell into a coma. It is interesting that such events have very “profound” meaning among his followers, but my opinion is that occult forces produced this state. Few months later he proclaimed himself to be the incarnation of Sai Baba of Sirdhi and because of that he took his name. Later he proclaimed peace with sentences like: “Love All, Serve All” and “help ever, hurt never.”

In 1944 he built a small temple near his village, and in 1948 he started to build a shrine Prashanthi Nilayam, for those that have devotion to him. He also built a University with three Campuses and two Hospitals.

On 6 June 1993 six people were killed in this shrine. The “official version” of this event was that four of Sai Baba’s devotees who were living in this shrine, went to his residence with knives. They were stopped by four Sai Baba attendants before they came to his room. There was struggling and two of his attendants were killed. Sai Baba escaped through a back stairway and raised the alarm. The assailants ran and locked themselves up in sai baba’s bedroom. These people were found dead later. The police report stated that they attacked the police with knives when they entered the room.

The Central Investigation Department stated that the police report was full of lies and inconsistencies. Others, including V.P.B. Nair (Former Secretary to the Home Minister of Andhra Pradesh), Sanal Edamaruku and Basava Premanand claim that these people were deliberately shot and that political influence of Sai Baba kept the investigation from proceeding.

Connoly Larsson used to be a close devotee of Sai Baba for 21 years and Leader of the Swedish Sai Baba organization. He broke away from the movement, later , outraged on witnessing the Baba’s behavior of a sexual nature with a young boy and then the boy’s own mother who was waiting outside being deceived by a sleight-of-hand “materialization”. On his website he describes what really happened in Prashanthi Nilayam. All 6 students were deliberately murdered by the police. They were displaced later to back up the story that four of them attacked Sai Baba, and two of them died defending him. That is a lie. All 6 students were his devotees and they were coming from families that were engaged in selling Sai Baba pictures, rings and other things. There was disagreement between various families in Puttaparthi because some families had certain advantages. That was the reason that they intruded on Sai Baba. All of these student knew that Sai Baba was sexually abusing children so they had something to blackmail him with. That is what made Sai Baba angry and he locked them in his bedroom and called the police.

Considering that Sai Baba already had a large political influence he ordered the police to kill them. The bodies were found later with gunshot wounds through the eyes and palms of hands (there are photos on internet that prove this). It is impossible that they attacked the police with knives because they couldn’t have such wounds. These people were murdered and then displaced in order to set up the scenery to back up the police story. One policeman later confirmed that knives didn’t even belong to students. You can find all about this events on Conny Larsson’s website.

BBC created a documentary “The Secret Swami” which shows true face of Sai Baba. BBC journalist Tanya Dutta states: “Some police officers were arrested but never charged. The case was eventually dropped. Sai Baba has always had a close relationship with the police. Even today, senior officers are special guests at the Ashram. With friends in such high places Sai Baba seems to be untouchable. Any attempt to investigate the goings-on at his Ashram — even, murder — appear doomed to failure.

There was another case of alleged murder. On 20 February, 1987 they found a body of a student at a college run by the Sathya Sai Trust in a semi-charred state. This case was dismissed as suicide. Narendra Nayak, writing in the Indian Skeptics Journal, opined that the “powerful force around the Baba got the [police] inquiry turned into a farce.” He notes that circumstantial evidence did not support suicide being a plausible cause of death.

Basava Premanand, one of India’s fake-guru busters, claims that he is not just a fraud but also a dangerous child abuser. In his letter to Shri M.P. Veerendra Kumar he described other murders that were connected with Sai Baba. Here are quotations from these letters:

“The first murder I came across was the case of a business man found hanging in the ashram premises. Then another hanging by a girl at the Satya Sai Women’s College at Anantapur and the then principal of the college Mrs. Damayanti Doongaji resigned from the institution.”

Another of his disenchanted followers is Tal Brooke. After his studies he explored religions from Far East and red books of many Hindu gurus like as Sri Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo, Paramahansa Yogananda and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He travelled to India in 1969 and in 1970 he encountered Sai Baba. He became his follower with several other devotees from western countries. He was disenchanted with Sai Baba when he found out that he had sexual relations with several of his male devotees. These devotees also told him that Sai Baba could change into a woman instantaneously and that a man had sexual intercourse with Sathya Sai Baba as if Sai Baba were a woman.

After that he left his “spiritual teacher” and converted to Christianity. Tal Brooke wrote a book “Lord of the Air” in which he describes Sai Baba’s “spirituality”. He published his book also in India under the title “Sai Baba, Lord of the Air”.

All these cases show that Sai Baba is a fraud and that his spirituality is not just a fake, but also very dangerous.