by Karen Jonson
73. The Demon Speech Trilogy — Fear of God
74. Preemptive Strike — Creating Their Defense
75. Gaining Shakti — My First Radha-Krishna Experience
76. Escaping the Cult — Break on Through to the Other Side
Part Five — In the World — Divine Intervention
77. Swamiji is Arrested — All Hell Breaks Loose
78. Extradited — Free on $1 Million Bail
79. Becoming an Informant — The $10 Million Dollar Article
80. Barsana Dham Calls — Fear and Loathing
81. My Life as Deep Throat — Digging Deep
82. Suzy’s Story — A Near-Bliss Experience
83. Kripalu’s Secret Lust — Underage Virgins
84. Feeding the Beast — Offering Virgins to the Guru
85. Ana’s Horror Story — A Mother’s Nightmare
86. A Rapist’s Rituals — Kripalu’s Modus Operandi
87. The Moral Minority — Our Ex-Devotee Network
88. Talking to Mary — The Former Sureshwari Surfaces
89. Hell on Earth — Saving Another Soul
90. My Awakening — God Realization in the Blink of an Eye
91. Witness for the Prosecution — Nothing But the Truth
92. Appealing to a Higher Power — The Guru Can’t Take No for an Answer
93. Publication Day — The Power of the Press
94. The Infomercial Guru — Mixing Spiritual and Secular
95. Conmen Correspondence — The Forgotten Tree House
96. The Truth Project — Exposing the Gurus’ Dark Side
97. Uncivil Behavior — When Lawyers Play Dirty
98. Justice Delayed — Out of Sight, Out of Mind
99. Caught! — Prakash’s Critical Misstep
100. Pretrial Shenanigans — By Hook or By Crook
101. “Lawyering Up”— Mounting a High-Priced Defense
102. Cathy Compton — A Warrior for the Prosecution
Part Six — In the Trial — Truth and Consequences
103. His Day(s) in Court — The Guru Has Entered the Building
104. Day One — A Jury of His Peers
105. Day Two — Backroom Confidential
106. Day Three — Cruella De Ville
107. Day Four — The “Hot Shot” Cult Lawyer
108. Day Five — Prosecution Rests and Defense Begins
109. Day Six — The “Star Witness” for the Defense
110. Day Seven — Nothing But Lies
111. Day Eight — The Defense Rests, Abruptly
112. Day Nine (Part One) — Lawyer Interrupted
113. Day Nine (Part Two) — Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt
114. Weekend Negotiations — A Low Blow
115. Day Ten — And Then He Was Gone
116. Day Eleven — Fugitive from Justice
117. The Wicked Flee — A Run for the Border
118. The $10 Million Dollar Question — Who Got the Money?
119. How a Guru Disappears — It Takes a Village of Aiders and Abettors
120. Kripalu Dies — Auspicious or Suspicious?
121. The Truth Hurts — A Campaign to Shut Me Up?
Part Seven — In Hindsight — Deconstructing the Gurus’ Con Game
122. Cult Proof? — Resisting the Irresistible Lure
123. God or Psychopath? — An Accumulation of Evidence
124. Liar, Liar — Who is Prakashanand Saraswati?
125. Unholy Union — A Deal Between Devils
126. False Profits — Is JKP’s “Charity Work” a Scam?
127. The Guru-Devotee Dance of Narcissism — Are Their Followers Drinking the KoolaidTM?
128. Bondage and Discipline — Spiritual Masters or Slave Masters?
129. Are You Cult Proof? — How to Steer Clear of Fake Gurus and Other Con Games
Epilogue — Life After a Cult — My Next Chapter
Follow the Story — It’s Not Over Yet
Afterword — The Authentic Guru-Disciple Tradition in Hinduism
Biography — Karen Jonson, Author
Glossary of Hindi Terms
AUTHOR’S NOTE
From Wallflower to Warrior
The Battle for the Truth
“What one can be, one must be.”
— Abraham Maslow
Hinduism is filled with battles between forces of good and forces of evil. The battles depicted in scriptures are metaphors for the battles each human wages between his or her raw desires and our spiritual goals.
In Hinduism, there are two main battles that are central to the religion’s doctrine, told in minute detail in two revered books: the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The Mahabharata is the story of a family feud that ultimately leads to a war waged between two families. It begat the much-beloved Bhagadvad Gita, the famous discourse between Lord Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield. The Ramayana narrates the tale of the family of Lord Rama, who struggles, and triumphs, over forces that seek to divide it.
Although battles, wars, and struggles are central to Hinduism, as well as all religions, I never thought my long spiritual journey would one day thrust me into the middle of an epic battle against the forces of evil—let alone become a central figure in this fight. But that is where I found myself beginning in May 2007 when I learned that one of my two gurus in the Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat organization had been arrested for rape.
The exposure of that secret opened the proverbial can of worms—including secrets that my two gurus and their inner circle had kept hidden for years. The secrets included sex between the gurus and adult women, rapes of underage girls, incest, money scams, death threats, rumors of murders, lies, corruption, and a daily secret “sex factory”—all taking place behind a beautiful façade of spirituality, devotion, and piety.
An essential part of their façade was the sea of devotees who served the gurus in blind faith—and in the dark about the true nature of the two men. Like others, I believed they were saints guiding us beyond this physical world to the divine world. I had no idea, nor could I have imagined, what was actually going on behind closed doors. Once I learned the truth I was shocked. I felt used, stupid, and sick realizing I had been conned along with scores of others.
But out of my pain something stirred deep inside of me. A part of me I didn’t know existed woke up. A warrior emerged. I was the last person anyone would have expected to pick up the sword—including me. After all, I was a wallflower my entire life, happy to live in the safe confines on the edges rather than the middle of the spotlight. But now I could not let these two men and their partners in crimes against humanity get away with it. I had to support the victims. I had to warn others. I had to fight any way possible—including writing this book.
When I learned that three young women had been among those sexually abused by one of my two gurus, I got behind them 100 percent. I had to support them, no matter what it took. And it took a lot. When you are fighting an enemy who is much larger and wealthier than you, and who is completely corrupt, you need every weapon you can muster, including your intelligence, wonderful supporters and, most of all, the truth. We were a small band of people fighting a ferocious enemy. But we stood our ground and won.
In the process, I discovered my inner wisdom—something that would never have happened had I not decided that the truth was worth fighting for.
Please read my story in the spirit in which I wrote it: as a cautionary tale about con artists in many forms preying on the innocent; as a document of the secret twisted deeds of the two men to whom I had entrusted my soul; and as words of encouragement—for every person who needs to dig deep, find his or her inner warrior, and fight the forces of evil they meet on their journey through this world.
One purpose of telling this story is to ensure that the crimes committed by my ex-gurus are documented and never forgotten. The second reason is to also document the actions of the many heros who stood up to this corrupt organization over the years, because their selfless actions are a test
iment to the goodness of humanity—and they should never be forgotten.
The battle I fought brought me to where I am today—stronger, smarter, and surer of my purpose in this life than ever before. I had to go to hell to get here—but I’m here now.
* * *
Footnote: In this book, I’ve recalled events and conversations to the best of my memory. However, memory is subjective and has more than one perspective. Nonetheless, I feel confident I’ve captured the events accurately, and have recalled the essence of conversations truthfully.
Excerpts from any source, including books, articles, and trial transcripts, appear in their original form. Any mistakes or grammar issues were not changed.
Hindi words appearing in italics are defined in the Glossary of Hindi Terms at the end of the book.
PROLOGUE
The Case of the Disappearing Swami
Whereabouts Unknown
MONDAY, 7 MARCH 2011, HAYS COUNTY COURTROOM.
At 9:10 a.m., I noticed that Swami Prakashanand Saraswati (aka Swamiji), my former guru, was not in the courtroom for the sentencing phase of his criminal trial and that there were far fewer of his devotees in the courtroom than usual. On Friday at 5:05 p.m., he had been convicted on 20 counts of child sex abuse. Though all the seats were filled today, the crowd of his faithful followers was not spilling out into the courthouse hallway as it had during the previous nine days of his trial. Most of the people in the room were chitchatting as we waited, including all of the lawyers.
By 9:20 a.m., I began watching the devotees more closely. Some were talking to each other. Some were sitting quietly. A few were reading. Overall, their demeanor seemed odd, considering that today the fate of their guru would be decided, including the number of years he might spend in a state penitentiary.
At 9:35 a.m., the lawyers on the prosecution team started looking around the courtroom and realized the defendant hadn’t shown up yet.
By 9:40 a.m., it was clear Swamiji was not coming. Cathy, the lead prosecution attorney, walked over to me and said, “It looks like we are missing one swami.”
Hays County officials kicked into high gear, following their procedure for finding a missing convicted felon, including calling all the area hospitals and putting out a warrant for his arrest.
While we were waiting for Judge Charles Ramsay, I called Eric Dexheimer, the journalist covering the case for Austin’s daily newspaper. He was not in the courtroom that day, though he’d been at the trial every other day.
“Hello, this is Eric.”
“Eric, it’s Karen. I noticed you aren’t here today.”
“No, my editor thought two weeks was enough for one story.”
“Oh, because something is happening.”
“What?”
“Swamiji is not here. He didn’t show up this morning and no one seems to know where he is.”
“Wow, you really know how to bury the lede! What’s going on there?”
“We’re waiting for the judge to arrive and make a decision.”
“Okay. Keep me posted.”
Then I called my main secret “insider” source, who told me there had been a meeting the night before at the home where Swamiji had been staying. All of the devotees had gone to his dinner at about 5:00 p.m. I passed this information on to the prosecution. This tidbit became a critical piece in the puzzle of his disappearance, because it provided his last known location.
Many times during the three-year wait for his criminal trial, I had imagined Swamiji not showing up. And now, on the tenth day of his trial, when he was a convicted felon, he was also a fugitive, on the run from justice. Swamiji had nine lawyers on his team. Curiously, none of them or any of his devotees seemed to know his whereabouts. Moreover, no one seemed to care that he was missing. I thought that was strange—and very telling.
Early in the search for Swamiji, the U.S. Marshals had evidence that, after his dinner on Sunday evening, he had crossed the border into Mexico at Nuevo Laredo. He was not alone, nor broke. Several of his devotees accompanied him into Mexico. And then his trail went cold.
As of the publication of this book, the once self-proclaimed “saint,” who professed to be divine, remains a fugitive from justice for the sex crimes for which he was convicted in a Texas courtroom. All that is known is that he escaped from wherever he was hiding in Mexico to India, most likely with a fake passport and a disguise. I’ve been told the India government will likely not arrest and extradite him, because there are likely payoffs being made to keep him a free man.
* * *
Although he was convicted on twenty counts of indecency with children by sexual contact, those crimes were only a fraction of the crimes he had committed in his five-decade reign as an orange-clad “guru” from India. He had come to the U.S. in the 1970s “to help deserving souls achieve God realization” through a style of Hinduism he called raganuga bhakti (which he translated as “divine-love consciousness”).
In contrast to his public life as a renounced, God-realized spiritual master, Swamiji led a private life that only his inner circle of followers knew about. In that secret world, he enjoyed several perks, including unlimited behind-the-bedroom-doors access to some of his female followers, occasional opportunistic intimate encounters with underage girls, and massive amounts of tax-free money through an international moneymaking operation involving a network of devotees who were sworn to secrecy. It was as though he existed in two parallel worlds—in public he appeared as a God-loving, soul-saving saint; but in private he was as a key player in an international spiritual con game.
He wore the orange color of a Hindu sanyasi (a person who has given up worldly pursuits) and painted a red line down the middle of his forehead and a red dot between his eyes. This mark (called a tilak) designated the particular Hindu sect he belonged to and signified that he lived a life dedicated to a single purpose: serving God. In true sanyasi fashion, Swamiji claimed to carry no money. During his early days in the U.S., before he had a place of his own, he stayed in Hindu temples and people’s homes for free from New York City to Los Angeles, as he sought followers to build his mission. He hit the jackpot in a small town in the middle of nowhere called Fairfield, Iowa, where he found and converted many members of Transcendental MeditationTM, the organization created by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who rose to fame in the 1970s after the Beatles met him.
Swamiji traveled in and out of Fairfield for a few years until he accumulated a core base of followers. Many of them formed the nucleus of his tribe of devotees for the next three decades. These people and others, whom he gathered from around the country, committed their lives to serving him and his mission. His dream was to build a Hindu temple of his own in the United States, and he took a major step toward achieving that goal in 1990 with the purchase of 200 acres in the far southwest city limits of Austin, Texas.
* * *
Ranch Road 1826 snakes over and around the foothills of the Texas Hill country for fourteen miles, starting in the Austin suburb of Oak Hill to the east and ending in tiny Driftwood to the west. About halfway along the curvy two-lane road, just after it passes into Hays County, a stone-and-wrought-iron gate marks the main entrance into what was called the Barsana Dham Ashram for twenty-one years (the name was changed to Radha Madhav Dham after Swamiji’s conviction and escape).
Once you drive through the main gates and down the main road into the ashram, a 90-foot-high pink and gray granite temple steeple rises up through the surrounding oaks and cedars like an oversized fire hydrant. This is the centerpiece of the two-story, 40,000-square-foot temple Swamiji built to glorify his guru in India.
Swamiji ruled his U.S. kingdom from 1990 until 2011 with the autocratic zeal of a dictator, operating under the umbrella of an even more corrupt guru in India—Kripalu Maharaj (aka Ram Tripathi)—just seven years his senior. Kripalu, who had thousands of followers compared to Swamiji hundreds, committed many indecent acts for at least sixty years in India, but on an even grander scale. In fact, the ext
ent of this man’s sex and money-collection activities, conducted under the guise of being one of the world’s greatest saint, was so voluminous and horrendous that it remains unimaginable to normal, sane human beings—a fact that served him well in keeping his non-spiritual activities a secret.
For more than six decades, neither man had ever been held accountable for his reprehensible acts. Thanks to a wide network of blind-faith believers, significant stores of cash, and mafia-worthy intimidation tactics, they had kept secret the inner workings of their international spiritual scam.
Until now.
PART ONE
In the Beginning
For the Love of God
“Memory is the scribe of the soul.”
— Aristotle, 384-322 BC
“How the Soule dischargeth her Passions upon
false objects, when the true faile it.”
— Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne,
Essays, The First Book, 1580 AD
1
Ask and You Will be Given
Seek and You Shall Find
BY EARLY 1991, my eleven-year spiritual journey was going nowhere.
I was thirty-three years old, not happy with my life, and desperately seeking God. My freelance-writing career had stalled after a near nervous breakdown when a series of family tragedies caught up with me. My boyfriend, Roy, was nice but not fulfilling. I loved him, but I was not in love with him. We were living in a dreary apartment in a run-down neighborhood, and he seemed to have little ambition to strive for a better life for himself or me, despite having recently asked me to marry him.
One Sunday, after I had returned home from yet another disappointing spiritual program, Roy and I went to a local Wallingford café for breakfast. As I ate scrambled eggs, bacon, and a large cinnamon roll, I discussed my despair over not having found a spiritual path to call my own.
“I don’t think I’m every going to find what I’m looking for,” I said.
“Well maybe what you’re looking for doesn’t exist.”
Since Roy was not spiritual, he could not comfort me.
I had moved from Atlanta to Seattle in 1989 and, after the limited options in the southeastern Bible belt, found the West Coast to be a spiritual smorgasbord of unlimited possibilities. I feasted like a woman starved, attending talks on everything from shamanism to goddess worship at a wide range of organizations, from a small Buddhist temple to New Age bookstores. I read voraciously, including books like The Autobiography of a Yogi. But every workshop I attended or lecture I heard or book I read held my interest only momentarily: Nothing resonated completely with my spiritual longing.
