This 'holy soul' in question, Nithyananda (it is disgusting to address him as 'Swami'!) had opened an ashram (a place where people usually go to once they are weary of their daily lifestyles) and termed it as the 'route to reaching the Almighty'. He even had the audacity to make all members sign papers where the clauses explicitly encouraged his sexual desires and his corrupt thoughts. Women devotees would need to submit or engage in such activities that could require physical involvement and even indulging in sexual acts, all in the pursuit of learning the primitive methods of attaining 'moksh' (salvation). And thus began the exploitative ways of the Swami- he lead his devotees to the path of obtaining maximum proximity to God by himself taking over their physical assets. He immersed himself in total voyeuristic behaviour.
Even an actress from the South Indian film industry is said to have engaged in liaison with the man in question (God only knows where she had buried her senses when she took that step!!). Like all typical hindi films, when one of the female devotees suspected the actress' closeness to the Swami a potential threat to her chances of earning his attention, jealousy did a peek-a-boo and she ended up teaming with the 'holy soul's driver and spilled the beans before the cops. Kaboom went his secrets. Thus came an end to an unfortunate triangular love story!
But why blame this man alone? In all religions, at all times, have we found such unpardonable behaviour coming from the very exponents of purity, honesty and millions of other virtues. Few years back, the media was agog with the news of a Christian nun who had exposed the libido of a priest-in fact a Father who had been raping women in monasteries. We have had Brahmin priests in Bengal satiate the voyeurs in themselves by having Devdasis perform at temples. A lot of times have we come across such stories where men, garbed in Saffron, have shamelessly satisfied their own physical needs, while all the time forbidding their followers from doing so.
If having sex is a basic physical need and also the law of nature where a new life is born out of the physical union of two bodies, why deny it? And why take the shelter of Religion to satisfy your needs? Do these 'saintly' men have to tarnish the name of God in their attempt to partake of joys that the opposite gender can selflessly serve if told it would please God?
Again, we need to realise that we have ourselves reduced the meaning of religion to something very shallow, very petty. It is our blind faith in all these so called holy men that leads us, not to salvation, but to damaging our dignity. Can we not simply believe in ourselves and have faith in our capabilities, than letting these fake exponents of God take control? Let's beat up these frauds so much that next time they think twice before donning saffron!
