Since this topic has moved on to exposing Muktananda as a fraud, I moved it here.
"When we first approach a Guru," Muktananda wrote, "we should carefully examine his qualities and his actions. He should have conquered desire and anger and banished infatuation from his heart."
http://www.leavingsiddhayoga.net/secret.htmI met Muktananda in Houston in 1975. I was traveling from Tucson to Arkansas and I saw that he was going to be in Houston that weekend to give a retreat, so I stopped for the weekend.
The retreat was held in a mansion in a prestigious neighborhood not far from down-town Houston. I arrived Friday evening in time for the evening satsang. I was disappointed to find he did not speak English. The satsang discourse was translated by a young Hindu man, who I found out later splintered off from Muktananda's movement and started his own.
After the discourse there was a procession to him to receive 'shaktipat." He sat on his elevated thrown and held a wand made of peacock feathers and touched each person who came to him upon the head. Some people reacted violently to the touch of the peacock feathers. Some wept, some staggered, some jerked about. It reminded me quite a bit of a Pentecostal tent meeting.
The next morning (Saturday) there was an early morning meditation before sunrise. At the time I was living in a 49 Willies 4x4 pickup truck with a cab-over camper. I parked it on the street about a block away. So, I left my camper and joined the meditation.
There were two meditation groups that morning. The peasants who could not pay for the retreat were allowed to sit in the public satsang hall. Being a mendicant at the time, I sat there. Upstairs the paying customers.
During our silent morning meditation session I heard regular low frequency shock waves coming from upstairs. There was a chandelier on our ceiling, and it swayed from the commotion upstairs.
I recall that they served free meals, I think it was 3, and it was probably served shortly after the morning meditation. Afterwards there might have been another satsang, maybe some chanting. I think it was afternoon, when there was some semi-private interviews in small groups. i was given one.
I was ushered into a smaller room with maybe 10-20 people in it. we were called up one at a time. I was interested in natural healing at the time, and studying Iridology, so I asked if I could inspect his eyes. I was given permission, but not to use a flashlight. His eyes were so dark I could not see anything without the flashlight. I thanked him and took a seat in the back.
The sequence of the day repeated throughout the weekend. Sunday evening I was asked to do some "karma-yoga." I agreed to, and I was ushered into the kitchen where I was placed before a deep sink to wash the pots and pans. In the middle of washing a woman came in with a tray that was covered with a cloth. She removed the cloth to reveal some small bowels of food.
She said, "Here is some prasad." I had lived in two 3HO ashrams of Yogi Bhajan by then, so I knew that prasad was consecrated food. I was given to understand that the bowls of food were left from Muktananda's evening meal. The others working in the kitchen stopped what they were doing and took a bowl and a clean spoon and ate the food with great reverence.
After I finished washing the pots I took one of the few remaining bowls outside and ate it. I noticed later I got high from the food. I mentioned it to one of the less-so devotees. He told me that everyone gets high when they eat Muktananda's prasad, because of the shakti. To me it was obvious that the food was drugged. I later read that Rajnish regularly drugged his followers with Valium. So, I figured Muktananda had learned it from Rajnish.
Jeffrey, I assume you don't believe there is any truth to this sort of thing at all?
I read some of the expose, but I could not keep reading it. This man had no power over people other than what people did not invest in him. I do nit find any evidence that people are either born enlightened, or receive it in direct physical touch; however, the belief in such is used by one of the most common religious scams around, and Muktananda clearly used it.
