Its mission, according to the Articles of Incorporation, was "to make known to the members and people in general the real, synthetic, and harmonious view of world religions and philosophy in terms of modern scientific achievements and undertake researches for all around ethical, social, economical, and spiritual development of humanity to attain world peace, international integration, understanding, and spiritual awakening of the human race." Ayurvedic treatments, massage therapy, chiropractic care, and integrative health services at PureRejuv Wellness Center. By this time Carolyn had gained 25 pounds from binging on sweets. Shortly after Marston filed her suit in 1978, Nuernberger moved to Honesdale, where he is currently a member of the Institute's teaching staff. After she had lived in Honesdale for a year, Swami Rama started promising to make her his appointments secretary. See the article in its original context from. As Rutter explains in his book, a sexual relationship between a man in a position of power-doctor, psychologist, mentor, or priest-and a woman who is dependent on him-as patient, student, client, or troubled soul-almost always involves an element of coercion and a betrayal of trust. Some were afraid of Institute retaliation; most were afraid of hurting their families, who in some cases do not know about the abuses the women suffered; still others were worried that their professional reputations would be harmed. Swamis, he explains, are renunciates who take vows of abstinence which include giving up sex, wine, and red meat, as well as other stimulants to the physical senses. Terry, who is now a practicing psychotherapist, says she believes Swami Rama's behavior is compulsive-he can't help it." Carolyn walked up to the cabin, she says, where after a brief minute spent leafing through her work, the guru asked her in a low voice for a meeting later that night. And she was afraid to leave in her old car because a freezing rainstorm had covered all the roads with ice. But ultimately he chose to believe Swami Rama. Anyway, he said that our relationship would be exclusive, I'd be like a spiritual courtesan. Himalayan Institute Online Our new online platform for community, courses, and content. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Cons Not one that I can see. "The real guru is within," Dr. Ballentine says, "that still small voice within you." Because that's my whole life& My relationship with [Swami Rama] is purely divine and spiritual-there cannot be impurity in it, and there is no room for such thoughts. But the victims of what Jungian analyst Peter Rutter, M.D., has termed "sex in the forbidden zone" (in his book of the same name) submit to sexual advances because of a powerful psychological threat. In 1966, he founded the original Himalayan Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy in Kanpur, India; this was followed by an institute in Glenview, Illinois in 1971; it is now headquartered in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, purchased in 1977. Residents staff the Institute's administration, bookstores, and other small businesses, including Himalayan Publishers and Distributors and an elementary school. A guru has the wisdom of experience and the ancient teachings, so he can provide guidance, Dr. Ballantine says, but students should "judge every [practice] on the basis of your own experience." She was thrilled; it was commonly believed at the Institute that the fastest way to reach enlightenment was to spend as much time as possible in the presence of the guru. She was feeling so disgusted with her body and afraid of the guru's humiliating comments that one night she couldn't face going to his room, she says. But one by one, Trescelli says, the women backed down and decided not to pursue legal action. What a foolish woman! Most of the women who say they were abused by Swami Rama express feelings of fear, frustration, and betrayal. "By their fruits you shall know them," he says, paraphrasing the Bible. Swami Rama's claims to this spiritual background have been questioned by some of his former students. Brian says he felt betrayed, but the knowledge that Swami Rama had financially exploited him made it easier for the couple to cut their ties to the Institute. Or maybe he needs to have sex just to release energy so he can meditate better. He backed off, Megan says, while telling her that sex wasn't necessary-she could be his special student. He reportedly smokes cigarettes, watches television for hours every day, and gossips, but his disciples rationalize this non-abstinent behavior: "Oh, Swamiji just smokes to bring himself down to the earth plane," or, "The TV is on incessantly just to give the student one more distraction to challenge his ability to maintain yogic balance," or, "all the stories Swamiji tells about other people are just to give the disciple the opportunity to develop objectivity and not get caught up in the meaningless gossip.". At about the same time, Carolyn was accepted into the residential program at East West Books Chicago, the Institute's downtown branch. The 10-campus system closes a loophole that could have let undergraduates piece together a degree. His devotees hovered near the ashram's entrance, hoping for final instructions or a blessing from the guru. They introduced her to the guru, and she remembers he made a fuss over her, slapping her cheek lightly and calling her a good girl. Finally, she obtained his permission. Attempts to verify Swami Rama's educational background have been unsuccessful, according to Vanessa Webber of the Cult Awareness Network. Pandit Tigunait holds two doctorates: one in Sanskrit from the University of Allahabad, India, and one in Oriental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. But the purified ego is a means in discriminating real Self from not-self-real Self from mere self. Burnett is a postdoctoral fellow in Houston's department of education leadership and . So far, none of their attempts to communicate their experiences has been met by official Institute willingness to investigate their charges. Mission Membership is an invitation to put your spiritual values into action by supporting our shared commitment to service while deepening your study and practice in the living Himalayan Tradition. Megan recalls that in one of her first encounters with Swami Rama, she watched as he humiliated a quiet, withdrawn woman resident. She would live with him in the house he was buying. Together we ate superb vegetarian meals in the Institute's dining commons and chanted evening prayers. When they have contacted their friends and former colleagues at the Institute, they have been discounted as liars or labeled "emotionally disturbed." Halfway through their meal, Carolyn remembers, Martha hesitantly said, "I know this will sound like a weird question, but has Swamiji ever asked you to have sex with him?" During this spiel, she says, he put his hand on her buttocks, but she told him she wasn't buying it. "We were Brahmins in the Institute's caste system," Terry recalls. Under New York State law, according to Trescelli, a woman who does not get a medical exam or report the incident to police within a limited period of time has little chance of obtaining a conviction. RFP & Business Plan for Dairy Processing Investor/Operator. Some stay longer, for a few weeks or months in the Self-Transformation retreat program. Under the guidance of his master, he traveled from monastery to monastery and studied with a variety of Himalayan saints and sages, including his grandmaster who was living in a remote region of Tibet. Several former students of Swami Rama granted interviews to Patricia Ann Darling, Ph. He also sent out a letter resigning from the board. A world leader in the field of yoga, meditation, spirituality, and holistic health, the Himalayan Institute is a non-profit international organization dedicated to serving humanity through educational, spiritual, and humanitarian programs. But it is also common in the thought-control techniques of totalitarian states. In retrospect, Megan says, she believes that Swami Rama was indifferent to the problems that his behavior might cause the Institute, but was using such scandals to purge it of anyone who questioned his authority. Relax, restore, and nourish yourself with a wellness retreat. A spiritual center should pay close to $1.9 million to a woman who says she was sexually assaulted 30 times by the center's leader, a jury decided on Thursday. Himalayan Institute of Technology Ranking and Awards. Join us for studies in the true meaning of yogaincluding asana, meditation, mantra, tantra, sacred scripture, and the art of joyful living. Megan*, a former graduate student in the Eastern Studies program, wrote a letter to the Jesuit administration of the University of Scranton saying that Swami Rama was subjecting women students to sexual exploitation. When Swami Rama returned from India two months later, Carolyn resumed working as his appointments secretary during the day, and, she says, as his sexual servant on some nights. But Megan and Carolyn both say that Swami Rama would dismiss Pandit Rajmani and other members of the inner circle after an evening of socializing in Swami Rama's private quarters, while asking them alone to stay behind. During my weekend visit, Carolyn and I took long walks on the Institute's wooded grounds while talking about her compulsive eating patterns and her disastrous relationships with men suggested as possible husbands by Swami Rama. Ultimately, the woman had revealed the liaison to her husband. His students believe he is able to read minds and manipulate physical reality with his advanced yogic powers; thus they believe he can heal sickness with the power of the "superconscious" mind. Carolyn remembers being amazed: Could Swami Rama possibly be talking about sex? He says he spends most evenings with the guru until midnight or 2 a.m., and that he knows better than anyone who is with Swami Rama late at night and who isn't. He bragged about his sumptuous homes in India and Japan and about his shopping sprees for designer clothes, she says. Rather than being a saint, according to Green, Swami Rama is an advanced yogi and "a mortal with some ego problems.". The Institute also offers instruction to counselors and psychotherapists in the application of yoga and meditation techniques to therapy. Since the early 1970s, women have been claiming sexual abuse at the hands of this prominent spiritual teacher. The original creator of the neti pot, the Himalayan Institute has been offering traditional and modern products for health and spirituality since 1971. Unfortunately, there is some mystery surrounding its founder, Swami Rama, and possible connection with drug abuse and sexual indecency. Well-to-do New Yorkers flock to Honesdale on weekends for seminars in stress reduction, meditation, and diet and nutrition. One of them, along with the other women from the tour group, attended the wedding of Swami Rama's son, although the guru is officially supposed to have been celibate since taking his Swami's vows. The Institute also offers a dizzying array of education programs, including a diploma program for hatha yoga teachers. Gurus were supposed to have conquered their desires, but in the spiritual literature they were often portrayed as contradictory, tricking their disciples into enlightenment. But in 1980, they say, they returned to Honesdale after a brief vacation to learn that their friend Rose* had allegedly been sexually assaulted by Swami Rama during their absence and had fled the Institute for New York City. At some point, we ran into Swami Rama in a hallway. Karen, the woman whose claims were ridiculed at the meeting where Swami Rama and the other directors responded to Brian's charges, was one of the first ex-members to confront top Institute administrators. Those statements are on file with the cult Awareness network (formerly the citizen's Freedom Foundation) in New York. Pandit Arya has many profound and beautiful things to say about his relationship to his guru when I interview him at the Divya Jyoti yoga center in Napa, California, in May 1989. What a foolish woman! One spring evening a couple of weeks later, she says, Swami Rama called her aside to ask why she'd been avoiding him, and she tried to tell him she'd discovered his lies. When the manipulation started to involve her meditation and spiritual practices, she says, she decided to confide in one man who had been at the Institute for a long time and who was planning to leave. He explains that Nuernberger was just a graduate student, inexperienced and lacking in professional judgment, when the incident with Marston occurred: "At a time when he was learning to be a therapist and thought that someone is asking for you to reach out, you reach out and you touch them and you let them see your feelings, and I think that was very bad." One evening in early June, Carolyn remembers, Swami Rama's housekeeper phoned the women's dorm and asked her to bring the manuscript she was preparing over to Swami Rama's new cabin. He cannot disbelieve his guru. Pandit Rajmani says he also has concrete reasons to know that Swami Rama could not be sleeping with his disciples. Humanitarian, Swami Rama, Teacher. And she would help him write books. Swami Rama has a reputation among his followers as an incredible psychologist who uses his insights to help others. And I feared that Carolyn-young beautiful, idealistic, and worshipful of Swami Rama, the Institute's founder and spiritual leader-could be vulnerable to such exploitation. The Himalayan Institute publishes over 60 titles on yoga, spirituality, and holistic health, including the best-selling Living with the Himalayan Masters by Swami Rama and Yoga: Mastering the Basics by Sandra Anderson and Rolf Sovik. She couldn't make sense out of his behavior, because she found it impossible to believe that it was really about sex-and she repeatedly told him so. "Before [these women] started saying these things, I also had a very good feeling that these people were wonderful people and they would never lie and they were trustworthy people. At the same time as he dismissed her, Swami Rama also gave her a Sanskrit name. Sexual contract between gurus and their American disciples is not a new or rare phenomenon. But after two unsatisfying years, she left college and returned to the Chicago area. He said, "We must build a center of life which will be an important bridge between East . "Nirvana is one," Carolyn says she told him. Carolyn is not alone. "This sudden animosity indicates that there is something fishy in the statement of this person. The Institute's "scientific" approach to yoga has made it a success, attracting long-term spiritual disciples as well as large numbers of people who merely want a boost for their psychological or physical well being. Obedience to the guru's commands is implicitly expected of all long-term residents; former students describe him walking through the main dining room and ordering one person to move to the New York branch, another to change jobs. Yet she is vulnerable to feeling re-victimized every time her experience is denied or distorted. Similarly, gurus in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions are supposed to be examples of self-mastery and right living. Rajmani explains the basic goals of the Institute's tradition of yoga: "The most important part of the practice is nonattachment." At the same time, she says, he offered her money and told her he wanted to put her in his will. I might doubt my own perception, I might doubt my own eyes, but I cannot doubt that strength which has given me everything.". At a young age, Swami Rama is supposed to have been appointed Shankaracharya of Karvirpitham, an exalted spiritual post. We inspire, educate, and. Since its inception in 1971, the Himalayan Institute has been at the leading edge of personal and social transformation. The Himalayan Institute and its varied activities and programs exemplify the spiritual heritage of mankind that unites East and West, spirituality and science, ancient wisdom and modern technology. But still, she was afraid to leave the community she'd been part of for so long and reenter a world that had practically forgotten her existence. Swami Rama is held by his disciples to be a kind of god: He makes up the rules of the game, he can change them at will, and he cannot be judged by them. The accumulated testimony of their personal experiences through the years exhibits a pattern typical of "sex in the forbidden zone," coupled with institutional mechanisms of defense and denial. She became outraged at the residents and the professional staff who enable and legitimized the Swami's behavior. If somehow Pandit Rajmani were forced to acknowledge that the women were telling the truth, would this shatter his faith in the guru? They enjoy spending their free time adventuring, camping, exploring, and creating memories together. But the Institute does not teach the mastery of such powers in its programs, instead focusing on yoga practices with more immediate practical application. I mean, he's giving you the teachings and you're going to use the teachings to evaluate him? Many disciples come from alcoholic and dysfunctional families where they have learned how to deny emotional abuse directed against them or their siblings, in order to believe that their parents really love them and are acting in their best interests. Two other women left the Institute shortly afterwards. Cameroon Himalayan Institute Cameroon Cameroon is in the midst of conflict. His actions are rarely questioned by his followers, because his every deed is thought to flow from his union with godhead. 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