Where is Nithyananda?

If you are into modern day Gurus, you might have by now heard about the popular 'Nithyananda Swami', as he is called. He is now big news for the scandalous affair caught on tape which was splashed across the TV channels all over India. The video shows him cavorting in bed with a little known south indian actress. Now that the cat is out of the bag, there is no sign of the every smiling Nithyananda. ( For those who may not know, 'Nithyananda' in sanskrit means everlasting happiness...or simply bliss.). Where is Nithyananda now?  Hiding in some cave somewhere in the Nilgiris perhaps? Furiously meditating and trying to reach that 'superconscious' state where no one would ever be able to find him? More than anyone else he now needs his own medicine to work desperately for him...prescriptions that he has been dishing out with his ubiquitious smile as panacea to one and all; prescriptions for which his countless devotees didn't mind paying handsomely.

In today's social context where what one does in private is pretty much one's own prerogative, and where the society's moral compass is a bit wayward, why is it so disturbing to many to see a person's initmate moments caught on tape? What harm has he done really to anyone by engaging in a few raunchy escapades? The answer, I think, is very simple. Most spiritually inclined people don't view these so called spiritual leaders as ordinary people with the same sort of wants and desires as themselves. In fact the unstated norm is that many of these spiritual leaders are supposed to be 'sanyansis', having renounced the material world after arriving at the same metaphysical conclusions that countless before them had arrived at meticulously through meditation and reflection. Such sanyasis are supposed to be 'above' the commoners not only in their thoughts but also in their daily conduct to the extent that they must serve as constant reminders to everyone of the limitations of the material world. One of the central hallmarks of Hindu thought is the variously expressed notion that ultimate self-realization and renounciation are essentially two sides of the same coin. Therefore, images of a sadhu or sanyasi engaging in material worldly pleasures are not merely incongruent, but downright illogical. A 'sanyasi' can never be a person of the world, no matter what he does. With so many of the worldly charlatans planning for their next get rich and famous scheme, it has become easy pickings for some of them with a particular flair for religious sophistry to play on the sentiments of an entire population that treats the words and actions of any holy person with unflinching reverence and respect. No one, it seems, has any concerns of impropriety when such 'holy men' go on amassing pots of monies, deck themselves and their furniture in gold, and jet-set around the world in the utmost comforts. The sincere devotees perhaps choose to simply disregard these excesses as the banal necessities for someone with a higher calling. Or as some do, treat these as merely adminstrative activites required for achieving a larger and nobler objective of reaching out to the world and spreading that universal message, known and understood of course only by the sanyasi himself. But when such sanyasis are caught in bed half naked having a boisterous romp with women,  it just is too much to handle. Which is why when the likes of Nithyananda are 'caught', there is much shock and anger. Shock that they could even do such a thing, and anger that the faithful devotees even put their life and soul into such persons, who shamed not just them alone, but an entire honorable tradition of sanyasis stretching back to more than 2,500 years. We now of course hear the common platitudes offered by his supporters that the video was morphed, their 'swami' is being framed, and that they will take legal action. Now there will be all this legal wrangling, semantic somersaults, and frenzied defenses to protect and project an image of  "innocence" and purity. Let us imagine for a moment that Nithyananda is in fact innocent. That he has been framed. No matter what defenses he and his team can come up with, the damage has already been done. I simply think people will never treat him the way with respect and devotion the way they once did.

 May be in today's age and time of instant gratification, where the commoners want instant solutions for stubborn problems, where insecurities of the mind play more havoc that the earthquakes and tsunamis of the world, it is the charlatans that have the upper hand. Perhaps true sanyasis just don't exist anymore. May be, they are only found in places where you wouldn't care to look. I for one don't think they can be found in the 'purposefully sanitized' environs of a plush looking ashram, where all the right signs and religious symbols are always on display with flowers, music and adequate lighting, where you always find a smiling potrait of the 'sanyasi' bedecked with flowers, and where you feel like you are more at a resort or a spa taking a group vacation. May be instead of looking for a true sanyasi somewhere to provide convenient solutions to our inconvenient problems and spending all our energies trying to confirm that the sanyasi is indeed a genuine one, we should rather be a bit more human, support each other and find problems ourselves together. While we can rely on teachings of Gurus and the wise ones, we will do better to stay away from those that promise handsome rewards in exchange for spiritual membership, which of course carries its fees. We will probably do much better to find our ways out of problems no matter what they are. Rather than achieving the individual 'superconsciousness' which would, as I am told, connect us directly to the sublime, let us at least target the simpler and more readily available goal of being deliberately 'conscious' of each other's joys and sufferings and see if we can do something each day to share the joy or alleviate the pain. May be at least this will put us on the path of 'enlightenment'!! And heck, even if we don't ever become enlightened, at least we won't be sorely disappointed that we knowingly followed someone who didn't deserve the title of a sanyasi!