The pornographic scandal involving the globe-trotting Nityananda, a founder-member of the Global Foundation for Civilisational Harmony (GFCH) and close associate of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, convener, Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, has violated the most profound civilisational patents of the Sanatana Dharma with frightening nonchalance.

So extreme is the trivialization of the issues involved in the scandal, so insistent the clamour by those without adhikara to declaim upon Dharma on this bhumi, that we need first and foremost to assert unequivocally the inalienable relationship between Dharma, Bharat Bhumi and Bharat Jana (people). Who, according to Hindu tradition, has the right to speak for Hindu dharma on Hindu bhumi is the crux of our concern.

Dharma vests in the Jambudvipa of Bharat

In Hindu tradition, a human being’s true identity is spiritual and transcendental, and can be realised only inwardly in terms of his relationship to the Absolute (parabrahman). But in the material world, man’s identity is psycho-physical and social; this bestows him with the ritual eligibility (adhikara) to act to attain the goals of human existence (purusarthas). Critical to any discussion of the identity of a people is their self-image and self-definition, in which their perception of their geography plays a crucial role.

Indians have from hoary times made a distinction between natives and foreigners, based not on racial awareness but upon the unique character of the Indian ethos. Modern race consciousness of skin and colour was never part of Hindu tradition (hence the resistance to the colonial imposition of the Aryan race theory). The Rgveda Samhita uses the word ‘Arya’ to denote pious householder; the term evolved to mean noble, cultured, a contrast to the mleccha or barbarian/outsider.

Hindu tradition subsumes all primal identities of jana (clan, tribe, later people or visah) and gotra (also clan, tribe) in the pan-India Varna system – a hierarchy that is socio-ethical and ritual, but not ethnic. Being embedded or estranged from the Varna system marks the Indian from the foreigner; the system of Monarchy also welded smaller clan identities into a larger socio-political and cultural whole. Traditional social identity was thus associated with Varnasrama dharma, gotra, janapada; this underlay social and ritual rights and obligations, adhikara…

All Hindu ritual begins with a resolve (sankalpa) in which one recalls one’s place in space and time. The traditional formula recalls one’s belonging to Jambudvipa or Bharatvarsa. Jambudvipa is the primordial unity of the Hindu, Buddhist and Jaina streams. In Buddhist tradition, the Buddhas and Cakkavattis (chakravartins) can be born ONLY in Jambudvipa. The Jain concept of Jambudvipa is larger and includes Bharata as one of its seven regions. Bharata is divided into six regions; the Tirthankaras and Cakravartins are born in the Arya janapadas alone.

Puranas divide the earth into seven dvipas (regions, not islands); Jambudvipa is the centre and is divided into nine Varsas; Bharata is one of them. Bharatavarsa is named after the legendary Bharata and is defined as the land north of the ocean and south of Himalayas (Vishnupurana 2.3.1). Here the system of four Varnas, Caturvarnya, operates; hence it is the only place where proper practice of religion is possible as Varnasrmadharma makes the performance of svadharma possible. Hence Bharata alone is karmabhumi.

In other countries, bhoga is possible, but not karma, as without adhikara, karma is not possible. One cannot tread the path of emancipation without treading the path of karma. The samkalpa-mantra recalls the obligations to which one is heir by virtue of being born in Bharatavarsa, and of the eligibility won by that place in moral and religious life.

Bharat is thus a geo-cultural region where natural and cultural frontiers correspond in terms of the Himalayas and the sea; but in the north-west and north-east, the natural frontiers are not so clear and even today merge into the lands of the barbarians who do not use Sanskrit or follow the four-fold order…

Trans-national Hindus and trans-national loyalties of Globetrotting Gurus

This civilisational patent – that Bharat alone is the punyabhumi where dharma can be practiced properly, because here alone karma can be expiated by Hindus living on this bhumi – is being grossly violated by sanctimonious globetrotting swamis and rich officious Hindus who quit this bhumi for foreign soil and citizenship. Guided by unseen but readily discernible forces, these ex-Indians seek to impose monotheistic ideologies, systems, values and mindsets upon Indian Hindus – to facilitate the geo-political concerns of their white masters who wish to continue to dominate the world any which way – though they have no adhikara to do so.

Today therefore, the gravest threat to Hindu dharma comes from Indian passport holding Sanyasis with trans-national and trans-religious sympathies. They profess great solicitude for their white foreign or rich PIO bhaktas and the creature comforts accruing from this allegiance (first class air fares, limousines at the other end, five star accommodation, etc). They openly engage foreign faiths and governments in dialogue, the aims, objectives and outcomes of which are hidden from Hindu Indians, and brazenly dismiss the grave threat posed to Hindu dharma on Bharat bhumi by trans-national ideologies and religions.

Once the Nityananda sex scandal broke out on March 2, 2010, the ‘swami’ disappeared and a few days later issued a puerile statement to the effect that he had done nothing ‘illegal;’ this firmly established his guilt in the public domain. It was the duty of HDAS convener Swami Dayananda Saraswati (who unlike Nityananda belongs to a proper religious lineage and has had training in Vedic religion and culture), to ask the self-proclaimed ‘self-realised’ Nityananda to remove his saffron robes and return to civil society, being unfit to uphold the parampara of a sanyasi.

Hindu tradition permits certain priests and preceptors to marry. But Nityananda perpetuated a fraud by posing as a brahmachari (celibate) and jeevan-mukta (released from the bondage of life and death while still living in the world). Doubts were voiced in private about his character and spiritual attainments long before the current scandal broke (he represents no Vedic parampara or rishi-acharya tradition); but he was given a global platform in the Global Foundation for Civilisational Harmony.

The GFCH is most likely an enterprise of Swami Dayananda, as it is unlikely that either the Dalai Lama or former President APJ Abdul Kalam [or for that matter Sri Sri Ravishankar; Acharya Mahapragya; Archbishop Cardinal Oswald Gracias; Guru Baba Ramdev; Maulana Mahmood Madani; Mata Amritanandmayi Devi; Paramhamsa Nityananda; Rabbi Ezekiel Isaac Malekar or patron Zena Sorabjee] would have taken the initiative to bring this group together. Hence it is almost certain that it is he who invited Nityananda to form part of this august gathering, and he is therefore accountable for Nityananda’s conduct.

It is going to be a terrible embarrassment for the Hindu community when the other religious leaders and founder-members meet and remove the impugned swami, if he does not resign with grace. Already much damage has been done, and cannot be repaired, as the actress in the sex video is a married lady who has confessed voluntary and regular relations with Nityananda. That has effectively ended the feeble claims of compromised videos and explains the inaction against Sun TV and Dinakaran!

Swami Dayananda, convener, Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha (HDAS), has maintained an unacceptable silence in this sordid episode. Despite this writers demands that Swami ji speak up, accept personal responsibility for promoting a sweet talker without formal religious training as a ‘global guru,’ and resign as Convener, HDAS, he opted to hide in the shadows. Instead, some useful idiots were deployed to threaten me with a defamation case!

Even worse, a self-educated Global Hindu (person with citizenship of a white Christian nation and no academic or religious training in Hindu traditions, but is closely associated with Swami Dayananda and promoted in HDAS for unknown reasons) was deployed to declaim, via the internet, the official excuses for Nityananda. At first this officious person asked everyone to shut up and floated a silly video interview with Nityananda, who was hiding from official enquiries but was available to the Global Hindu! This went down badly with Indian officialdom, especially as rumours flew thick and fast that Nityananda was getting refuge with a religious leader (sic) in Haridwar, where an internationally famous lawyer was invited for legal consultation!

Reading the mood of ashram inmates, the Global Hindu backtracked and asked Nityananda to resign all official positions in his set up. He did not know that in Hindu tradition, a fallen monk must renounce the saffron robe and return to civil society – a punishment worse than death for sensitive souls. [It is what the writer demanded of Swami Dayananda when she discovered him making a mockery of Hindu tradition in the name of an oxymoron called Inter-Faith Dialogue, which shall be the subject of a future article].

Global Hindu went further in his ignorance (avidya). Some years ago, ‘guided’ by white superiors, he had peddled a blueprint for cutting and chopping the vast Hindu spiritual universe into a corporate hierarchy with a single point of control that would be easier to ‘manage.’ By whom, he did not say, but it didn’t need Einstein to figure that out.

All this was part of a larger effort to install Swami Dayananda Saraswati as a Hindu Pope, make him the Sole Recognised Voice of Hindu India, and then impose the agenda of the so-called Global Hindu upon hapless Bharat. Persons like the writer saw through this charade from the very first; needless to say, we have not been popular with Swami Dayananda and his foreign bhaktas/friends.

Global Hindu-speak: Equating Hindu Dharma with Tantric Sex!  

Global Hindu took the most astonishing route to defend/explain Nityananda’s sex-with-a- married-woman act. I suspect this is part of a pre-planned agenda to sensationalise Hindu dharma by equating it with something called Tantric Sex, and thus demonise and diminish it in the eyes of Hindu bhaktas – something reminiscent of Max Mueller’s project to interpret the Vedas in a manner that would scandalize and humiliate English-educated Hindus. It seems that the White Man – burdened with the task of ruling and ruining the Creation – is unable to invent a new modus operandi despite such a long criminal innings!

Anyway, Global Hindu said ‘the relationships between siddhis (extraordinary yogic powers), morality, Tantra and sex’ is the framework in which to interpret Nityananda. Under cover of a dialogue with Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (whose spiritual lineage is also unknown), Global Hindu suggested that there is NO connection between yogic powers (siddhis) and morality, because siddhis are a scientific phenomena in the sense that these powers can be harnessed by anyone, and ‘science’ deals with truths that are morally neutral. Comparing chalk to cheese, he said Einstein’s immoral life would not invalidate his scientific theories. He ‘proved’ his argument saying great siddhas like Ravana lacked morality.

Sri Sri said something equally inane. Had either gentleman a modicum of Hindu learning, he would know that siddhis are acquired after great tapas, from the benevolence of the great Devas and Devis, and are not a mechanical acquisition like power on a solar energy panel. Further, since the purpose of tapas and dhyana (meditation) is to move beyond acquisition of siddhis (which only indicate the level of attainment), the misuse of siddhis by Asuras and Danavas is dealt with via the karmic process, which is why such formidable entities are invariably defeated. The karmic trajectory is not morally neutral at all.

Global Hindu then asked Sri Sri (whose religious-academic credentials are unknown), if the Shiva Sutras are valid? Now, those who think Global Hindu has the adhikara to pontificate on Hindu Dharma in India must surely realise that the very question is un-Hindu and is consistent with the Church objective of vilifying Hindu dharma in parts to ultimately de-legitimise the whole. The Shiva Sutras are valid for Shiva bhaktas, and that is it. The 112 spiritual enlightenment techniques taught therein, with 6 delineating sexual contact between male yogi and female yogini, are for seekers on that path. They are not for everyone even within the Shaiva Sampradaya, are not imposed on everyone, and cannot be denied to those who seek.

No one, much less a non-Indian, should have the temerity to try to create Canon Law (Christian law) in Hindu dharma by asking if any part of dharma is valid (or should be banned?). The American Deepak Chopra is free to entertain his clients with sexual gymnastics; his marketing techniques do not reflect the essence or even part of Hindu dharma.

As for the view that Adi Sankara integrated the Vedic and Tantric traditions, I can only say I am saddened that the defence of the indefensible Nityananda has come to this. It is being claimed Nityananda used Tantric techniques to arouse body energies; if he was doing this with lay bhaktas with no knowledge of what they were getting into, and with foreigners who have no conception of dharma but only crave the exotic, one can only ponder the wisdom of those who promoted this man to such an exalted position on the national and international stage. [Indeed, this is precisely the reason why some of us have been demanding that globetrotting swamis immediately cease and desist from speaking on behalf of Hindu Dharma in international fora; they diminish the grandeur and complexity of the tradition to make it conform to the desires of politically savvy white men and women pretending to be bhaktas].

Global Hindu is pleased that Tantra is being subjected to the clinical experimentation of psychologists and other scientists examining latent human energies and potentials. This is surely something likely to be misused in places like Guantanamo Bay; do recall that the US was the foremost buyer of Nazi concentration camp medical literature!

I found it distasteful that Global Hindu could term our Naga Sadhus as ‘completely naked’ (his italics). A native Hindu would know that the sadhu is digambar – sky-clad. He made it worse by saying he did not regard the sadhus as ‘either vulgar or primitive’ and that Hindu orthodoxy is contradictory because it rejects Tantra in public and respects Naga sadhus and various symbols and rituals rooted in Tantra. This is Christian gibberish at its best; it is impossible to answer such intellectual vacuity.

After this buildup, Global Hindu defended the meditation techniques taught by Nityananda, adding that there is ‘nothing inherent about sex that is rejected by Hinduism across the board…’ as brahmacharya (sexual abstinence) is just one spiritual path… Amidst a mountain of obfuscation, Global Hindu slyly lets out that Nityananda confessed to him that the Shiva Sutras have two categories of techniques. While most sutras do not involve physical contact with another person, for a small number of persons the 6 sutras involving sexual Tantra need to be tested and perfected for modern times, before they can be safely taught more widely; Nityananda considered this a legitimate R&D as is done in a lab for developing a product!

I have never heard anything so obscene in my life. This R&D obviously has a white western audience in mind; Devi alone knows what all he did and with whom. It seems fair to conclude that the perversion was on a fairly large scale, as Global Hindu reveals: ‘I believe that he even entered into written legal contracts with them to make sure that both parties were clear about the arrangement. The reason for this “Non-Disclosure Agreement” was to make sure that someone who willingly approaches him for Tantra does not later accuse him of physical contact..’

This is appalling. A Hindu guru actually sought and took legal advice and ordered the drafting of a legal document that would ‘empower’ him to have sex with men and/or women disciples without legal hassles! To be legally valid, such documents would have been attested by a Public Notary or Oath Commissioner, this merits an official enquiry. Doubtless what happened in these ‘classes’ was reminiscent of Caligula’s Rome! For Global Hindu to mischievously equate Tantra with Sex by Mutual Consent is disgraceful.

Nityananda, we are told, became a celebrity seven years ago on account of his oratory (and sexual prowess?). In USA, his ‘healing powers’ drew doctors, businessmen, IT professionals, corporate executives with terminal illnesses into his fold. Global Hindu says he used his money for social work which frustrated missionary activity in Tamil Nadu; he goes into much verbiage about blackmail threats & sexually explicit videos… What emerges clearly is that Global Hindu was friendly with this sanyasi and ‘helping’ his career over the years …

Global Hindu-speak: Outsource Hindu Dharma to White Devotees!

We now come to the real agenda of Global Hindu, and all Hindu acharyas who do not speak out firmly and unequivocally against it will be complicit in the white Christian design to decimate Hindu Dharma on this punyabhumi. This specifically applies to the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha which has, over the years, unilaterally and gratuitously been promoting the mediocre intellectualism of the Global Hindu, including an utterly forgettable book that he has been marketing assiduously in the course of his religious diplomacy [read back-scratching club] with global gurus.

To come straight to the point, this management consultant turn eminent researcher (whatever that means), now declaims in his stentorian tones that Nityananda’s problem was that he got ‘persons with Brahmin qualities performing duties that demand Kshatriya and Vaishnav [vaishya] skills…’ The ashram leaders, he said, lacked the professional competence required to manage a rapidly growing global enterprise (it’s all about money, honey). What was needed was not Brahmin (ascetic) but Kshatriya (combative, to protect the moolah) qualities.

And it is the white devotees (naturally!) who have Kshatriyata or leadership expertise, courage and commitment. [I am not going to say ‘I told you so,’ but Swami Dayananda does owe a personal apology and a personal explanation for unleashing the dogs of war on those of us who questioned the undue eminence of ex-Indians and non-Indian ‘Hindus’ in his close entourage, and his mis-use of HDAS to facilitate the ends of genocidal monotheisms in India, of which plot the promotion of PIOs was a part].

While native Hindu bhaktas, shamed by the scandal, retreated in silence, Global Hindu declaimed that Westerners at the Kumbh were very willing to stand up for their guru, but nobody had bothered to organize them and take advantage of Nityananda’s global following! His primary concern seemed to be to salvage the assets for the white bhaktas; he was contemptuous of ashram inmates who suffered nervous breakdowns due to the scandal. 

Global Hindu warned that many gurus fear similar attacks against other gurus (well, those who know they have compromised themselves with bhaktas in India or abroad are afraid), and urged a ‘central Hindu mechanism to deal with these episodes along the lines of various church mechanisms that intervene when Christianity faces a scandal.’ In other words, frighten Hindus into conforming to Christian Canon Law and hierarchical systems, and control the system through the central node. The Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha is being sought to be built up into precisely such an institution, with rootless agents telling us that HDAS deliberations are ‘binding on all Hindus.’ Excuse me, they are not, and never will be. All that Hindu dharma needs is a sharp end to the global career of the global sanyasis, or a complete delink between globetrotters and native bhaktas.

HDAS is currently frightened and wants to wash its hands off the Nityananda affair, but Global Hindu has already said HDAS should take over the ashram! But HDAS knows its limits in the current situation, and is now too much under the public scrutiny of some of us to dare walk that treacherous path.

Global Hindu concludes that ‘being a global guru is very demanding today, given that one has to represent a very old tradition authentically and yet in a manner that appeals to modern people. This is why Hindu leaders need a crash course on matters that are well beyond the traditional education in their own sampradayas (lineages).’

Global Hindu has damned himself with his crass ignorance – a guru is supposed to guide his flock and not repackage himself like a cinema formula for box office returns – we can see where that attitude has landed Nityananda. Gurus who are true to tradition and maintain the purity of personal conduct do not need modern marketing gimmicks to remain in ‘business’ – we can safely leave that to the economic and cultural evacuees who are successfully selling dharma abroad, and will make heaps of money, until some naked white man or woman decides to stake claim for a share in the pie!

Conclusion: Bharat in the punyabhumi

It should be obvious that the category of persons calling themselves Global Hindus pose a serious danger to Hindu dharma on Hindu bhumi; all Hindu gurus and sanyasis and lay citizens must be on guard against this group which willingly serves the political agenda of the white Christian nations.

Hindus in India need to understand that qualified Indians who over two generations, actively instigated by their parents, decided to use the professional education available in limited quantities in Nehruvian India to better their economic prospects by running away to the salubrious West, are no longer Indian in any sense of the term. Most have acquired the citizenship of western nations, and during visits to this land, boast of their relief at being free of the cultural baggage associated with Hindu samskaras!

It was the emerging geo-political needs of the Anglo-Americans that made India vital for exerting pressure on Russia, China, and Central Asia, and hence it was sought to be co-opted into the Western sphere of influence. The elite was already pro-West (decades of Ford Foundation, etc), but now the Indian Diaspora in the United States was ‘encouraged’ to be ‘Hindu nationalist’, as the UK Diaspora was too secular.

With foresight, American Jewish women were planted as bhaktas to take over the ashrams of the globetrotting sanyasis, and the PIOs started descending on the ashrams of Hindu gurus, professing to be most impressed with their social work or erudition!

An attempt was made to secure dual citizenship for this Diaspora [eg., Rahm Emanuel is an Israeli citizen; Saakashvili has an American passport, etc] but this floundered as the prime beneficiaries of such a move would be the citizens of Pakistan and Bangladesh! Now, in the wake of the Mossad assassination of a Palestinian leader in Dubai using dual citizenship passports, and the fact that Sri Lanka’s troubles flow from the fact that Gen. Sarath Fonseka was allowed to take an American Green Card while serving as Army Chief, many former colonies will be re-looking the dual citizenship issue. The issue of close kin of political leaders living abroad as foreign citizens will also come up for wider discussion some day.

Indians who abandoned their bhumi for pure economic gains, gloating about leaving the license permit raj and corrupt quota regime at home, could not have suddenly turned religious-cultural unless their host countries permitted it. They would have realised this when rabid anti-Hindu scholars conducted a vicious campaign against American Hindus associated with fund-raising for RSS social activities in India. Another wake up call would have been the shabby experience in the California textbook case. Now Hindus (including our Global Hindu) have run away from the Texas textbook controversy; those associated with RSS once have long gone underground, or reinvented themselves as ‘objective’ critics of the Sangh Parivar!

We rest our case with the reiteration that Hindu dharma belongs to the Hindu bhumi and Indian Hindu people. The white Christian attempt to de-link dharma from the land is an idea whose time is gone; the full weight of globetrotting sanyasis (such as it may be) will not succeed in making foreign bhaktas or ex-Indian bhaktas the ‘authentic’ voice of native Hindu tradition. Globetrotting sanyasis would do well to read the writing on the wall and retreat to the safety of their Hindu havens, expelling possible mischief-making white bhaktas before they launch a full-scale war for ashram properties and assets. Those comfortable with white bhaktas should settle on those shores.

Finally, it will surely be asked whom am I to make these startling prescriptions. I derive my courage from the Vedas which are explicit – Dharma is that which is stated by one wise man (this is gender neutral, by the way), not that which is voted by an assembly of fools.

Let the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha not be an assembly of fools; let it abandon its faux international (read anti-national) agenda.

The writer is Editor, www.vijayvaani.com