THE CASE

against
SWAMIRAMA
o the
HIMALAYAS

Since the early

1970S,

women have been claiming sexual abuse at the hands of this

prominent spiritua~ teacher. No one had thoroughly investigated, until journalist

Katharine Webster decided to spend two years researching their allegations.
Here is her report.

The

Case

Against

Unpurified ego is an evil which obstructs one's own progress. But the
purified ego is a means in discriminating real Self from not-self~real
Self from. mere self No one can expand his consciousness if he remains
egotistical. Those who build boundaries around themselves because of
their ego problems invariably create su.fferingfor themselves.
-

Swami Rama, Living With the Him.alayan Masters

CarOlyn,
* an old friend, called me collect. She sounded
unhappy, so I made plans to visit her at the Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy in Honesdale,
Pennsylvania, where she had been a resident for more than four
years. But a deeper anxiety also motivated my visit: I'd heard a
rumor that several women, exmembers of the Institute, were taking Carolyn's guru to court on charges of sexual misconduct.
And I feared that Carolyn-young,
beautiful, idealistic, and worshipful of Swami Rama, the Institute's founder and spiritual
leader-could
be vulnerable to such exploitation.
During my weekend visit, Carolyn and I took long walks on
the Institute's wooded grounds while talking about her compulsive eating patterns and her disastrous relationships with men
suggested as possible husbands by Swami Rama. In the presence
of others, we spoke only of positive or spiritual matters, in the
deliberately modulated tones all the residents used. When Carolyn had to work, I attended
classes in hatha yoga or read.
Together we ate superb vegetarian meals in the Institute's dining commons and chanted evening prayers. At some point, we
ran into Swami Rama in a hallway. Tall and imposing, he had
the sleek look of a successful man in his late 50s, at the peak of
his power.
Finally I found an opportunity to broach the topic of the lawsuit with Carolyn. I told her what I'd heard, and that I wasn't
sure the rumor was true-as
a beginning student of yoga and
meditation at the Institute's East West Books in New York City, I
was reluctant to believe it myself. To my relief, I could detect no
flash of recognition, guilt, fear, or anger in Carolyn's eyes. She
listened calmly as I admitted that I'd worried she might be a victim. She thanked me, but assured me I had no reason for concern.
Years later, Carolyn told me that four years of discipleship
under Swami Rama had taught her to be a successful liar.

Most
rapists threaten women with physical violence. But the
victims of what Jungian analyst Peter Rutter, M.D., has termed
"sex in the forbidden zone" (in his book of the same name) submit to sexual advances because of a powerful psychological
threat. Many people, including the victims themselves, have
trouble understanding
how damaging such sexual contact can
be, because the women are adults and no one is holding a gun
to their heads.
As Rutter explains in his book, a sexual relationship between
a man in a position of power-doctor,
psychologist, mentor, or
priest-and
a woman who is dependent on him-as patient, student, client, or troubled soul-almost
always involves an element
of coercion and a betrayal of trust. Such a relationship, instead
of giving the woman the healing or validation she seeks, reinforces her feeling that the only thing of value she has to offer a
man with worldly power is her body.
In recent years, the harm caused to women by "sex in the forbidden zone" has been recognized in their codes of ethics by

* Names with asterisks

60

are pseudonyms.

Yoga Journal November/December 1990

Swami

Rama

most universities and professional associations, including the

American Medical Association and the American Psychological
Association. State licensing boards may take away a professional's license to practice if he (or she) is found guilty of "inappropriate sexual contact," which may include everything from verbal
sexual innuendoes to a long-term sexual liaison with a client or
patient. In some states, a patient has the right to sue her doctor
or psychotherapist for malpractice even if she originally consented to sex, because people under psychological or medical treatment are considered too vulnerable and dependent to give free
and full consent.
The Catholic Church may discipline a priest who has sex with
a parishioner, not only because it violates his vow of celibacy, but
because his parishioners must be able to confide in him without
worrying that he will exploit their trust for his own gratification.
Similarly, gurus in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions are supposed to be examples of self-mastery and right living.
But sexual contact between a guru and his disciples is not regulated by any professional association or religious hierarchy. In
the United States, far from the strong cultural morality of the
guru's country of origin, it is not regulated at all.
Within a sect the guru's authority is often absolute: He rules
from the pinnacle of the institutional hierarchy. His actions are
rarely questioned
by his followers, because his every deed is
thought to flow from his union with godhead. As an enlightened
being, he is thought to be beyond the judgment of ordinary
mortals, their laws and morality. He is held accountable only to
the higher spiritual laws which he is uniquely able to comprehend. His American followers hear the spiritual teachings from
his mouth, with his interpretation,
and they rarely have the
exposure to a variety of gurus which would teach them to be
skeptical of their own guru.
Sexual contact between gurus and their American disciples is
not a new or rare phenomenon.
Over the past 15 or 20 years,
numerous spiritual teachers have admitted to, or been charged
with, having sexually exploitative relationships with their female
students. But the followers of such "enlightened" men are usually reluctant to find fault with them, since to do so could invalidate the students' own years of study and devotion. Instead they
deny the experience of the "unenlightened" women who are the
guru's victims. The victim's confusion and loss of trust are compounded when her community refuses to acknowledge her suffering.
Sex with a guru is a form of spiritual incest. In the mythology
of the ashram, the guru is the all-powerful, all-knowing father
and the disciples are his spiritual children. Many disciples come
from alcoholic and dysfunctional
families where they have
learned how to deny emotional abuse directed against them or
their siblings, in order to believe that their parents really love
them and are acting in their best interests. Like incest victims,
women who say they have been sexually abused by their gurus
are sworn to silence by their abusers. They know, usually without
being told, that if they break the taboo of silence they will be
blamed for destroying their spiritual families and the "higher"
good those families purportedly do in the world.
Carolyn says she spent years blaming herself and trying to
rationalize away what she now regards as sexual abuse. It was
years more before she felt she had the right to be angry at her
spiritual family, the staff and residents of the Institute who, she
says, denied the signs of abuse all around them. Only recently
has she acknowledged her anger at Swami Rama. Now she says
that those who have allowed the abuses to continue unchecked
are responsible for destroying the Institute's integrity. Yet she is

The

Case

Against

vulnerable to feeling revictimized every time her experience is

denied or distorted.
Carolyn is not alone.
umerous former students say they left
the Insti tute because they were sexually exploited by Swami
Rama or knew someone who was. Most of the women who say
they were abused by Swami Rama express feelings of fear, frustration, and betrayal. When they have contacted their friends
and former colleagues at the Institute, they have been discounted as liars or labeled "emotionally disturbed." So far, none of
their attempts to communicate their experiences has been met
by official Institute willingness to investigate their charges.
The accumulated
testimony of their personal experiences
over the years exhibits a pattern typical of "sex in the forbidden
zone," coupled with institutional mechanisms of defense and
denial. Two women wrote statements which said they had discovered that Swami Rama was attempting to "seduce" both of them
contemporaneously.
Those statements are on file with the Cult
Awareness Network (formerly the Citizen's Freedom Foundation) in New York. Several former students of Swami Rama's
granted interviews to Patricia Ann Darling, Ph.D, about abuses
that allegedly took place in Minneapolis, Chicago, New York
City, and India, for a chapter in Darling's doctoral dissertation,
Turning East in the Twin Cities: Conuerts and Movements in the 1970s
(University of Minnesota, 1987).
The women's fears have aborted projects intended to expose
possible exploitation to a wider audience. A producer for 60
Minutes was reportedly unable to complete her documentary on
Swami Rama when the women involved backed out and refused
to appear on camera. The lawsuit I heard rumors about in New
York City never materialized. The two women who wrote statements for the Cult Awareness Movement were among those
involved: One stated she was a patient at the Institute's holistic
health center in ew York City, and the other stated she was 17
years old when Swami Rama initiated a sexual relationship with
her. Patricia TrescelIi, an attorney with Parker, Chapin, Flattau
and Klimpel, agreed to consult with the women concerning possible legal action on a pro bono basis. But one by one, Trescelli
says, the women backed down and decided not to pursue legal
action.
Most of the former members of the Institute who agreed to
be interviewed for this article were also afraid to have their identities revealed; they appear under pseudonyms, marked with an
asterisk. Some were afraid of Institute retaliation; most were
afraid of hurting their families, who in some cases do not know
about the abuses the women suffered; still others were worried
that their professional reputations would be harmed. But all of
them, whether they appear here under a pseudonym or as background sources, understand that if this article provokes a libel
suit they can be called to testify in court.

Swami
Rama, whose legal name is Brij Keshore Kumar, was
born in 1925 in Uttar Pradesh, according to his official biography, parts of which appeared in the Marchi April 1990 issue of
Yoga [ournal: He is supposed to have been raised by Sri Madhavananda Bharati in the sacred caves and monasteries
of the
Himalayan sages. At a young age, Swami Rama is supposed to
have been appointed shankaracharya of Karvirpitham, an exalted
spiritual post. He is also supposed to have graduated from a
homeopathic medical school in India and studied at Hamburg
University, the University of Utrecht, and Oxford University.
Swami Rama's claims to this spiritual background have been

Swami

Rama

questioned by some of his former students. Two of the guru's

most devoted disciples left the Institute three years ago because
they had learned while in India as part of an Institute tour group
that parts of Swami Rama's official biography were fabricated.
One of them, along with the other women from the tour group,
attended the wedding of Swami Rama's son, although the guru
is officially supposed to have been celibate since taking his
swami's vows. Attempts to verify Swami Rama's educational back-

Sex with a guru is a form of spiritual incest.

In the mythology
all-powerful,

of the ashram, the guru is the

all-knowing father and the

disciples are his spiritual children.

Many disciples come from alcoholic and
dysfunctional families where they've learned
how to deny emotional abuse, in order to
believe that their parents really love them and
are acting in their best interests.
ground have been unsuccessful, according to Vanessa Webber of
the Cult Awareness
etwork.
Despite the questions about his background, there is no denying that Swami Rama made a terrific impact on Western thinking when he served as a research subject at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas. During a series of biofeedback
experiments
in 1970 and 1971, Drs. Elmer and Alyce Green
observed that Swami Rama could produce different brain waves
at will, including theta and delta (sleep) waves, while remaining
aware of his environment. He voluntarily stopped his heart from
pumping blood for 17 seconds, and he reportedly demonstrated
his telekinetic powers, moving a knitting needle with mental
force.
The Greens' experiments
caused a furor in the scientific
community because they gave powerful support to autogenic
biofeedback research, which 10 years earlier had begun demonstrating that body functions which had formerly been considered involuntary could be consciously controlled. A rash of articles featuring Swami Rama appeared in national magazines,
including Time, People, and Playboy. His early American followers
had been spiritual seekers of the counterculture
who found
their guru at his ashram on the banks of the sacred Ganges in
Rishikesh, India. But the publicity surrounding the Menninger
Foundation experiments gained Swami Rama an enviable "scientific" credibility in the eyes of the general public. He rapidly
attracted a following that included many graduate and professional students.
Following on the wave of favorable publicity, Swami Rama
founded the Himalayan Institute in Illinois in 1971. Its mission,
according to the Articles of Incorporation, was "to make known
to the members and people in general the real, synthetic, and
harmonious view of world religions and philosophy in terms of
modern scientific achievements and undertake researches for all
around ethical, social, economical, and spiritual development of
humanity to attain world peace, international
integration,
understanding, and spiritual awakening of the human race." Or,
in the words of Rudolph Ballentine, M.D., president of the
Himalayan Institute and Swami Rama's designated successor, "to
Yoga Journal November/December 1990 61

The

Cas

am

Rama

take the wisdom of the ancients and couch it in te

rith orne ego problems."
intelligible to modern man."
From its beginnings 20 years ago, the Institute
steadily to include some 25 branches and affiliat
rn wa raised Catholic, and during high school she
holistic health cen ters in the Midwest, the ' ortheas
Cl:pk.-edTranscendental
Meditation, Zen Buddhism, Hinduism,
1 us freak" movement. All of them had something to
ifornia, and abroad. By 1977, the Institute was ab e
the Honesdale ashram, a former Catholic seminar
no spiritual path inspired her to make an exclusive
COIl1111aJnm,ent.
The daughter of an alcoholic, she longed for guidPocono Mountains which now houses more th
and guests. Residents staff the Institute
adulini..'<:r.I:~l.
m a spiritual authority figure. She took a meditation
stores, and other small businesses, including llim.;al2T.l1:~ t'l:i:IlI!'Iir.the alternative high school program she attended, and
ning her teachers invited her to a lecture by their guru,
ers and Distributors and an elementary schooL
Rarna, who was visiting the Chicago area. They introThe Institute's "scientific" approach to \'oga
success, attracting long-term spiritual di cipl s
er to the guru afterwards, and she remembers he made
.er her, slapping her cheek lightly and calling her a good
num bers of people who merely wan t a boo t for
calor physical well-being. Most of the In titu e ;J!:lX!::iII:l15
rn went away to college at the end of that year, as her
open to the general public. Well-to-do ::\ew
Honesdale on weekends for seminars in str
expected. But after two unsatisfying years, she left coland returned
to the Chicago area. She renewed her
tion, and diet and nutrition. Some stay longer.
Xlqu;lintance with her fanner meditation teachers and started
months, in the Self-Transformation retreat pr o
classes in Glenview, Illinois, at the Institute's original
congress, held each June, offers a smorgasbo
"new age" workshops.
uarters. There she learned Swami Rama's style of "superCOII5ID<lOUS- meditation, which she describes as a basic, impersonThe Institute also offers a dizzying array of ecl=:ccc:
, , g in mental concentration.
grams, including a diploma program for hatha
_larch 1978, she says, Swami Rama came to Glenview and
The Institute used to offer an accredited mas'
Eastern Studies and Comparative Psychology thI-o:;:::?-l.E:::D:iDCB
ed her. Given a mantra but little guidance, Carolyn dutifulonned her assigned practices, hoping that Swami Rama's
with the University of Scranton. The Combin
gram and the outpatient branches of the In '
ific" approach to yoga would eventually yield results.
Medicine combine Western medicine, homeoparkr Jr...lI:IOIc:~
her childhood Carolyn had been steeped in Catholic faith
educated in scientific skepticism; now it seemed the Instimedicine, psychotherapy,
nutrition, yoga, an
could help her harmonize these two seemingly contradictotreat people with a variety of physical and em
The Institute also offers instruction
to counseecrs
of perceiving the world. At about the same time, Carolyn
chotherapists in the application of yoga and ...
O"" .......,Ll.
accepted into the residential program at East West Books
niques to therapy. To judge by their price tags. .
o. the Institute's downtown branch. The program seemed
Institute programs must bring in a considerable'
ovide the ideal family she'd never had, where everyone
her values and spiritual goals.
Yet the Institute's success comes at a high c
those involved. Residents are expected to dona
, fay, Swami Rama visited the area again. Carolyn says he
of their labor, and they must sacrifice per on
her out to Glenview for a special appointment, at which
privacy. They are instructed to have "no emotio
vited her to come live and work at his new ashram in
inside or outside the Institute," and residential !llroor-:z~
1k_~a1e-and
told her he would waive the usual residential
,.,ogr.un fees. When she shared her news with the other resitors are charged with monitoring disciples' be
at East West Books, they told her she should feel honored:
tudes to make sure they conform to Institute expeccscces,
bad been chosen, while long-time devotees had been denied
term residents
must get administration
ap
, iIege. A few weeks later she moved to Honesdale. Once
overnight absences; permission may be denied '
_ Carolyn devoted herself to her yoga practices and threw
tion is judged inappropriate. In many ways, the .u..c_~
into her assigned jobs.
tere structure is designed to appeal to the perso
for what psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton calls a "t
er he had lived in Honesdale for a year, Swami Rama
ment, where virtually every aspect of one's life i
promising to make her his appointments secretary. She
nal control.
thrilled; it was commonly believed at the Institute that the
cayto reach enlightenment was to spend as much time as
Allegations of sexual abuse by Swami Rama h
po_i:JIe in the presence of the guru. At the same time, she felt
the heels of the Institute's success like a shadow, _'
'-I:UI:JU!'-. because she'd seen how severe Swami Rama could be
mer graduate student in the Eastern Studies pr :;
letter to the Jesuit administration of the Unive '
closest to him.
while, Carolyn says, Swami Rama began singling her out
\ing that Swami Rama was subjecting women SlliCLr::;::3
ial attention. He would call her to his office for a private
al exploitation. The Institute's program is no lonz
by the niversity of Scranton.
ce, and as she hung anxiously on his words he would
Dr. Elmer Green says that he and his wife have
flattering picture of her future with the Institute. She
that he would repeat a series of affirmations and comnumber of women who said they were sexually e
in a hypnotic monotone: She had done very well organizrami Rama. "If someone is a saint, celibacy wo
al condition," Dr. Green comments. "A lot of peo
book distribution operation, Carolyn says he would tell
e he had taken over, everything had been put in order.
d the siddhis-the
powers to control body, e
mind-with
spirituality. But the siddhis can be an _
"",._'-L That was why he wanted her to be his secretary. She
saint is a person who does what he says." Rather'
Slart with handling the appointments and then she would
saint, according to Green, Swami Rama is an advan
, plane reservations, schedule lecture tours. In a few
9

62

Yoga Journal November/December 1990

The

Case

Against

months time she would handle his bank account, income taxes,
everything. Become more involved with the projects of the
ashram-seminars,
residents, the patient program-in
time she
would be in charge of the whole thing. They would travel together to England. He would take her to the Orient-Japan
and
India. She would live with him in the house he was buying. And
she would help him write books.
After a couple of months of this special attention, Carolyn
says, Swami Rama came to visit her one day at the book
distribution
office in Honesdale center. After dismissing the
other workers, she says, he repeated the familiar litany, but this
time he slipped in a new message. She recalls that he said they
would become very close, their bodies would come together,
and then they would part. During that time, neither of them
would see any other, and she should never tell anyone. Then,
later on, when the right man came along, she would marry and
be very happy.
Carolyn remembers being amazed: Could Swami Rama possibly be talking about sex? Hadn't he taken vows of celibacy?
Gurus were supposed to have conquered their desires, but in the
spiritual literature they were often portrayed as contradictory,
tricking their disciples into enlightenment. Carolyn rationalized:
Swamiji was her guru, so even though the prospect of having sex
with him seemed morally wrong and physically revolting, he must
be doing it for her own good. "I thought, 'Maybe it's the only way
he can break through some stubborn barrier in my ego. Or
maybe he needs to have sex just to release energy so he can meditate better. Anyway, he said that our relationship would be exclusive, I'd be like a spiritual courtesan. Maybe it's an honor that
this great yogi asked me of all his students to serve him in this
way. He must see something special in me.''' At bottom, however,
she believed her feelings didn't matter. Everyone said you had to
surrender
to the guru, so she would simply have to follow
through with whatever he ordered her to do.
In August, Carolyn says, Swami Rama told her to meet him in
New York City for the next step of her spiritual training. He
promised her he'd set up a complete, personalized yoga program for her there-a
prescribed diet, special yoga postures and
meditation practices-as
well as a game plan for her higher education and future career. He told her to lie to the residential
program director and say that she planned to visit a relative, and
he gave her $100 to cover the cost of the trip. She says he
arranged for her to meet him at the Gramercy Park Hotel and
instructed
her not to call him Swami in public. After they
reached his hotel suite, he talked with her briefly, Carolyn says,
and then he announced that now they would go to bed. After he
had, as she describes it, "had sex on my body," she took a blanket into the other room and slept on the floor. Early the next
morning, she says, he announced to her that she was going to
leave; he never set up the promised program. She walked
around New York City for hours, until it was time for her bus to
return to Honesdale.
During the next few months, Carolyn says, Swami Rama bade
her visit him in his private quarters once every couple of weeks,
either after lunch or after evening prayers; he also made it her
job to buy condoms. Swami Rama, she says, would extol his own
sexual abilities but tell her she was bad at making love. She says
he instructed her in how to give him pleasure and admonished
her to always tell him that she had received pleasure, even
though she never did. Carolyn says she experienced their sexual
encounters as brief and rough, and that she performed her sexual duties mechanically: "I numbed myself in order to survive."
Swami Rama made Carolyn his appointments
secretary in

Swami

Rama

August also. But she says his attitude toward her underwent a
dramatic change; he began to make her a target for his anger,
issuing contradictory orders and then screaming at her for her
incompetence in front of the other secretaries and disciples and
gossiping about her behind her back. She became paralyzed by
her fear of angering him. In three months, Carolyn says, she
gained 20 pounds.

Gurus were supposed to have conquered their

desires, but in the spiritual literature they often
tricked their disciples into enlightenment.

Swami

Rama was her guru, Carolyn rationalized,

so

even though the prospect of having sex with him

seemed morally wrong and physically revolting,
he must be doing it for her own good.
In mid-autumn, the day came for Swami Rama's annual trip
to India. His devotees hovered near the ashram's entrance, hoping for final instructions or a blessing from the guru. Carolyn
felt important, entitled to be there because she was one of his
secretaries. As the other disciples looked on with envy, Swami
Rama called her aside for a final, intimate word: She should
work on herself, he reportedly told her-lose
some weight and
learn to admire herself.
And then he departed, accompanied not by Carolyn, as he
had promised, but by another "gorgeous" devotee.

n my interviews with current and former members of the

Institute, I heard an almost unvarying litany of beliefs about
Swami Rarnas abilities. Many of those beliefs are based on
Hindu and Buddhist teachings about the nature of the guru.
Swami Rama is supposed to have freed himself from the
bonds of karma. His disciples generally agree that the only reason his soul still inhabits a physical body is because he wants to
help others achieve liberation from maya, the realm of illusion.
In his enlightened state, they believe, he could never commit
any selfish acts which would create new karmic burdens.
Dr. Ballentine, the Institute's president and director of the
Combined Therapy Program, explains that human beings have
the potential to do "all kinds of things, like move our bodies at
will from one place to another, or be aware of what people are
thinking on the other side of the earth, or inner states of consciousness that take us to the future and the past." The yogis, he
says, have demonstrated these abilities in the past and continue
to do so. But the Institute does not teach the mastery of such
powers in its programs, instead focusing on yoga practices with
more immediate practical application.
Swami Rama has a reputation
among his followers as an
incredible psychologist who uses his insights to help others. His
students believe he is able to read minds and manipulate physical reality with his advanced yogic powers; thus they believe he
can heal sickness with the power of the "superconscious" mind.
His disciples believe he knows them better than they know themselves, and that if they want to achieve their spiritual goals they
should do exactly as he says. Obedience to the guru's commands
is implicitly expected of all long-term residents; former students
Yoga Journal November/December 1990 63

The

Cas

Against

_ ibe him walking through the main dining room and ordere person to move to the New York branch, another to
':Iejobs. In private sessions, exdisciples say, Swami Rama has
7" zed marriages and instructed
disciples to break off rela- ips.
Exmernbers say that Swami Rama also uses his psychological
to manipulate people. Many of them say they feared
-- . erath when they were disciples, and several still believe he
e power to inflict harm or illness on them from a disceo Each of the women I interviewed described how he
d discern her particular needs and self-doubts and rnanipher spiritual beliefs or naivete in order to exploit her sex-he
has an uncanny ability to suit his approach to each
victim. they say.
Pandit Rajmani Tigunait is the resident spiritual director of
- e Honesdale ashram, as well as a member of the Institute's
teaching staff. He says that Swami Rama has been his guru since
e :asa child in India, and that he came to the U.S. at Swami
a request to head up the Honesdale ashram. Rajmani
e. lain the basic goals of the Institute's tradition of yoga: 'The
st important part of the practice is nonattachment."
Swamis,
e explains, are renunciates who take vows of abstinence which
. dude giving up sex, wine, and red meat, as well as other stimu- to the physical senses. A swami, or monk, is supposed to be
"one who is master of oneself: senses, body, mind." He must also
- that he will not harm any living being.
But Swami Rama's disciples do not hold him to these stan. In order to believe in his perfection, they must rationalize
havior that others would judge to be tyrannical, cruel, or selfdill ent. According to exmembers, Swami Rama often acts in
_ hi disciples find humiliating, but they tell each other he is
bling their stubborn egos to help them reach enlightenent faster. He reportedly smokes cigarettes, watches television
f r hours every day, and gossips, but his disciples rationalize this
onab tinent behavior: "Oh, Swamiji just smokes to bring himSf"
down to the earth plane," or, "The TV is on incessantly just
- srive the student one more distraction to challenge his ability
o maintain yogic balance," or, "All the stories Swamiji tells
about other people are just to give the disciple the opportunity
o develop objectivity and not get caught up in meaningless gosDr. Ballentine says it is "presumptuous" to judge whether or
o someone is perfected. He and Pandit Rajmani say that a
'"
. "that which dispels darkness." 'The real guru is within,"
Dr. Ballentine says, "that still small voice within you." It is a mis-e to judge the external guru's worthiness by his behavior;
instead, the student should look inside and determine whether
t person is helping dispel the darkness of her ignorance.
A guru has the wisdom of experience and the ancient teach0'<. so he can provide
guidance, Dr. Ballentine says, but studen
should 'Judge every [practice] on the basis of your own
experience." The teachings contained in the sacred texts cannot
p
any meaningful part in judging who is a good guru and who
e., not: "How could they? I mean, he's giving you the teachings
and you're going to use the teachings to evaluate him? You're
bound to get mixed up .... Ijust don't know that it makes sense
o "0 run around trying to evaluate other people, when you
haven t evaluated yourself."
wami Rama is held by his disciples to be a kind of god: He
ce up the rules of the game, he can change them at will, and
e cannot be judged by them. Exmembers say he also bends the
es and bestows privileges on his favorites, who may in turn
enforce rules which they do not follow. This seemingly whimsical
Yoga Journal November/December

1990

Swami

Rama

application of standards demoralized many of the exmembers I

spoke with and led many to resent the members of Swami
Rama's inner circle. Both women and men say they blamed
themselves and their own spiritual obtuseness when they repeatedly failed to discern and follow the shifting rules.
A system that rewards a particular behavior or person and
then arbitrarily ignores or punishes that same behavior or person can quickly lead even healthy individuals to develop profound anxiety and uncertainty-the
antithesis of self-confidence.
Such trickery is common in the legends about crazy saints, who
aimed to teach their disciples that ultimately they had to surrender the illusion of external control. But it is also common in the
thought-control techniques of totalitarian states. Surrender only
leads to enlightenment
if the "guru within" is strong and welldeveloped. Many of Swami Rama's followers are still young and
naive, un killed in comprehending
and interpreting their own
"inner experience"-and
they entrust their spiritual yearnings to
his care. A , tern that encourages such vulnerable individuals to
give up their O\\TI "egotistical" judgment to the arbitrary whims
of one person i one of the key features of a totalist organization,
or "cult,"

,
erry= and Brian* say they were recruited into the Himalayan
In titure
inner circle for their wealth and social connections.
Both came from prominent Midwestern families; each had an
alcoholic parent, and they now believe they were seeking not
only spiritual growth, but a strong parental figure. Shortly after
they tarred tudying with Pandit Usharbudh Arya at the Meditation Center in Minneapolis, he introduced them to his guru,
Swarm Rama. The guru spoiled them, they say, calling them his
spiritual son and daughter, and soon invited them to come live
in Pennsylvania.
They re ided in their own house in Honesdale, unencumbered by the strict rules of the residential program. Swami Rama
frequently invited them to parties in his private quarters, where
they sa~he entertained them with funny stories and racy gossip.
They rarely had to do the menial chores performed by other residents: Brian was encouraged to study the sacred texts and write
a book. while Terry got training as a Montessori teacher and
started a chool for the Institute's children. "We were Brahmins
in the In titute's caste system," Terry recalls.
But in 1980, they say, they returned to Honesdale after a brief
vacation to learn that their friend Rose* had allegedly been sexually assaulted by Swami Rama during their absence and had fled
the In tirute for New York City. Rose, they explain, was not a disciple of Swami Rama, but had been invited by family members in
the Institute's administration to come to Honesdale for medical
treatment. According to the story Terry and Brian say Rose later
told them, late one night Swami Rama tapped at the door of her
room and then walked in on her. He reportedly sat down on a
chair next to her bed and proceeded to make sexual advances.
Rose said that she struggled, but the guru physically overpowered
her, throwing himself on top of her on the bed and forcing her
to perform oral sex. Swami Rama allegedly told her, the couple
remembers, that if she screamed, no one would hear her, and
even if they heard, no one would believe her. When he was finished, Rose told them, Swami Rama left her room, saying he'd be
back the next day.
Rose told Brian and Terry that she was afraid to seek help
from the family members who'd invited her to the Institutethey were unquestioningly loyal to Swami Rama-and
she knew
no one else there. She was afraid to stay in her room, which had

The

Case

Against

no lock on the door, or to use the hall telephone, because all

cal had to be routed through the main switchboard. And she
was afraid to leave in her old car because a freezing rainstorm
had covered all the roads with ice. After a sleepless night, she
said, she snuck out at 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. and drove to Brian and
Terry's empty house in Honesdale. That day Rose returned to
Xew York City, and within 48 hours she had quit her job and
gone to stay with a friend in Texas.
Brian, who was a member of the Institute board of directors
and a major financial contributor,
says he confronted Swami
Rarna shortly after Rose contacted him and told him what had
happened-but
the guru said Rose had seduced him. Brian
didn't believe his teacher, and he spoke with several other Institute administrators and board members about Rose's claim of
abuse. He also sent out a letter resigning from the board. Initially, Brian says, most of the other directors responded with concern. However, after Swami Rama talked with them, they either
told Brian and Terry that the guru should be allowed a "mistake," or they shunned the couple altogether.
Swami Rarna called a meeting to defend himself. At the meeting, Brian says, Dr. Ballentine presented letters from another
woman, Karen,* who also claimed to have been sexually exploited by Swami Rama. By that time, Brian recollects, the other
directors had adopted the line that famous and powerful men
were always subject to such vicious rumors, and that the women's
tories were ludicrous and unbelievable. Brian says he refused to
tell Rose's story in such an atmosphere.
Instead, he told the
other board members that he believed Rose, and that they
hould investigate the incident for themselves.
As the couple started making arrangements to move to England, they received another blow. A pearl necklace that Brian
had bought from Swami Rama as an "investment" was appraised
at roughly one-third of the $100,000 he had paid for it. Brian
says he felt betrayed, but the knowledge that Swami Rama had
financially exploited him made it easier for the couple to cut
their ties to the Institute. Brian sued Swami Rama, and eventually the guru settled out of court for the full amount. Brian says he
did not realize at the time that a conviction for fraud could have
lost the Institute its federal tax-exempt status as an educational
insti tution.
Meanwhile Janet,* a Honesdale woman who worked as the
couple's babysitter and housekeeper
at the time, says she
received threatening phone cal\s at Brian and Terry's house, asking if she was alone with the children. For a time, she says, she
considered getting a pistol to carry to work. Brian also received a
threat, he says: a note tel\ing him he "might get hurt," which was
accidentally shoved under the door of a lawyer who rented the
office next door to his in a Honesdale office building.
Rose spent the next six months moving from place to place,
errified that the Institute network would track her down. Brian
and Terry say her family members at the Institute harassed her
bv mail and by telephone, with accusations that she had "a habit
of inducing this sort of behavior from men."
Years later, Rose contacted Patricia Trescelli, hoping to support a lawsuit by the other women working with Trescelli and
oping to press charges against Swami Rama in her own sexual
- ult. But Trescelli says she had to discourage her. Under New
York state law, according to Trescelli, a woman who does not get
medical exam or report the incident to police within a limited
oeriod of time has little chance of obtaining a conviction.
Terry, who is now a practicing
psychotherapist,
says she
lieves Swami Rama's behavior is "compulsive-he
can't help
- - She loved him like "a second father," she says, "and the real

Swami

Rama

tragedy is that this is how our relationship

ended. I like to
believe that somewhere inside of him, he is the good person I
believed him to be. It is sad for him, and for those who cared
and were so deeply hurt by him, that his behavior has been
allowed to continue with such devastating results to people just
looking for help." In such a situation, she says, the whole system
becomes sick and no one can see the light: "There's no truth

When confronted with allegations

of sexual

abuse by Swami Rama, Pandit Rajmani,

resident spiritual director at the Himalayan
Institute, replies: "Believing in such stories
means disbelieving in myself. Because that
whole life ....

Even if I found out-how

s my

can I

find out? Because I do not want to find out.

There s no need for finding out, if I know it is
completely

wrong. "

allowed; it's a no-talk rule."

Each time the Institute's top professionals have been confronted with complaints that Swami Rama is abusing his position, institutional mechanisms of denial have come to the guru's
aid. Karen, the woman whose claims were ridiculed at the meeting where Swami Rama and the other directors responded to
Brian's charges, was one of the first exmembers to confront top
Institute administrators. In the mid-1970s, she and her husband
George,* both students of Swami Rama, traveled to India and
stayed at the guru's ashram in Rishikesh, When another married
couple who were their friends and fellow students left the
ashram suddenly, Karen wrote to them asking why. She never
received a response.
Several months later, the two couples met up again. Karen
and George say their friends told them that the woman had
been pressured to have sex with Swami Rama even after their
marriage, which the guru had arranged. Ultimately, the woman
had revealed the liaison to her husband. When the couple
confided their resulting marital troubles to Karen and George,
Karen confirmed her friend's experience by revealing that she,
too, had had a supposedly
exclusive and spiritual
sexual
relationship with Swami Rarna before her marriage.
Fortified by their mutual discovery, Karen says, the two couples undertook to inform their fellow students back home in
Minneapolis. They wrote letters to Pandit Usharbudh Arya, their
teacher and head of the Meditation Center there, as wel\ as a
dozen other people, warning that Swami Rama was a fraud.
Shortly after they returned to the U.S., Karen and George say
that they and all their correspondents received a bizarre, defamatory letter containing an implicit death threat.
Meanwhile, the couple says, they discovered more evidence of
il\icit activity. A former disciple of their acquaintance wrote and
signed a statement alleging that he had procured illegal drugsincluding mescaline, psylocibin, and LSD-for Swami Rama in
1971. The two couples referred to this statement in a petition to
the FBI; they asked the FBI to investigate the threat letter and
argued that Swami Rama could be deported by the Immigration
and
aturalization
Service as an undesirable
alien on four
Yoga

J01l17l01

NovcmbclfDcccmber

1990

65

The

Case

Against

grounds: possession of narcotics, sexual immorality, fraudulent

financial dealings, and "affliction with [a] psychopathic personality." Friends of the two couples set up a "truth booth" outside
the entrance of the Institute's first annual congress in 1976.
The FBI has confirmed the existence of a file documenting
the agency's investigation, but at the time of publication the file
had not yet been released under the Freedom of Information
Act. According to Karen and George, no legal action resulted.
Following on the heels of Karen's and her friend's revelations, several other women and men left the Meditation Center
in Minneapolis. Pandit Arya reportedly alternated between disbelieving and believing the growing number of his women students who told him that Swami Rama had sexually harassed or
abused them. But ultimately he chose to believe Swami Rama.
The chapter on the Meditation Center in Patricia Darling's dissertation details the growth of the center and the subsequent disillusionment
of many of Pandit Arya's students with his new
guru. Arya, however, says that much of Darling's information is
inaccurate.
Of all the Institute's swamis and teachers, Pandit Arya is by
far the most scholarly. Trained to meditate and educated in the
scriptures from early childhood, he was able to translate and
interpret any of the 20,000 verses from the Vedas by the age of
13, according to a biographical pamphlet put out by the Meditation Center. After teaching, studying, and traveling throughout
India and Europe, he came to the University of Minnesota in the
1960s, where he taught Sanskrit and Indian religions. There he
founded the Meditation Center.
In 1969, Pandit Arya met Swami Rarna, who gave him "one of
the highest meditation initiations," in which he experienced
himself "as a being of light." The Meditation Center became
affiliated with the Himalayan Institute, and eventually Pandit
Arya achieved his dream of having his own ashram in India,
when Swami Rama made him president of his Rishikesh ashram.
He is also head of the Institute's
Holistic Studies (formerly
Eastern Studies) program and has written a number of scholarly
books on yoga philosophy.
Pandit Arya has many profound and beautiful things to say
about his relationship to his guru when I interview him at the
DivyaJyoti yoga center in Napa, California, in May 1989. He says
it is a relationship that goes beyond religions, the purest relationship possible, "the relationship of water flowing from a hill
and filling a hollow at the bottom-the
hollow has nothing to
give in return, but only to accept that grace in gratitude."
Pandit Arya is not so reluctant as Dr. Ballentine to articulate
how one can recognize a worthy guru. "By their fruits you shall
know them," he says, paraphrasing
the Bible. "If the gtru's
instruction leads to a deeper peace, freedom from conflict, a
deepening of meditation, ... harmony in relationships-all
of
these. Relationships are the first test of spirituality. Wisdom must
show itself in action and lovingness." Pandit Arya radiates calm
as he speaks. He warns against relying too heavily on the inner
voice: ''When we look for the guru within, we only end up finding our own samskaras-vagaries
of the unconscious mind are
mistaken for directions from the superconscious. Is it not better
to follow someone who has charted the path?"
When I ask Pandit Arya about the allegations of sexual abuse,
he admits that he was very disturbed when he first heard them.
He also has the integrity to admit that if they were true, it would
be very terrible, a violation of the teaching that says one should
treat all women as daughters. But for a man of Pandit Arya's
background and beliefs, the relationship with one's guru is more
momentous than any merely temporal bond. He cannot disbe-

66

Yoga Journal November/December

1990

Swami

Rama

lieve his guru.

Minneapolis was the site of another Institute-related scandal
in 1981. On January 24 of that year, a jury awarded $15,000 in
actual damages and $50,000 in punitive damages to Barbara
Marston, who had sued psychologist Phillip Nuernberger
for
engaging in "sexually intimate behavior" with her during therapy
sessions. Shortly after Marston filed her suit in 1978, Nuemberger moved to Honesdale, where he is currently a member of the
Institute's
teaching staff. Exmembers say he has counseled
patients in the Combined Therapy Program, although he lost his
license to practice psychology in Minnesota in 1979. According
to Marston's attorney, Philip W. Getts, his client never recovered
the $50,000 in punitive damages Nuernberger
owed her,
because Pennsylvania is one of the few states that does not allow
the court to garnish wages.
I ask Dr. Ballentine in a January 1990 interview why uemberger is still on the Institute's staff. Dr. Ballentine, who says he
studied psychology at the Sorbonne and completed his training
in psychiatry at Louisiana State University, defends Nuernberger. He explains that
uernberger was just a graduate student,
inexperienced and lacking in professional judgment, when the
incident with Marston occurred: "At a time when he was learning to be a therapist and thought that someone is asking for you
to reach out, you reach out and you touch them and you let
them see your feelings, and I think that was very bad." Marston,
however, testified that Nuernberger had "hugged and kissed her
and fondled her breasts," according to an article in the Minneapolis Tribune (jan. 24, 1981).
Dr. Ballentine says he has good reason to think that Marston
"was very anxious for [ uernberger]
to go further, and he
didn't. And there is a statement, 'Hell hath no fury like a woman
scorned." Marston's lawsuit, he says, was an act of revenge. He
says that Iuern berger's one mistake has "ruined his life, in
essence, which is really too bad."
What Dr. Ballentine does not mention is that a second jury
judged Nuernberger
guilty of unprofessional
conduct in his
treatment
of
ancy E. Wil liarns, another former client, on
February 17, 1981. Williams, however, did not sue Nuernberger
himself; she sued the clinic where he worked, alleging that the
clinic "knew or should have known" that Nuernberger
was
engaging in harmful sexual activity while treating her. Although
the jury entered a judgment against Nuemberger, it also found
that the clinic was not liable for his actions, so Williams failed to
recover damages.
Nor does Dr. Ballentine mention that in 1977 Nuemberger
was formally reprimanded by the Minnesota Board of Psychology
for unethical practices stemming from his relationship with a
third woman patient. According to the stipulation he signed
with the Board's Ethics Review Panel,
uemberger
admitted
that he terminated a counseling relationship with "Victoria S."
during the third session in order to enter into a "personal relationship ... such relationship to include intimate sexual contact."

egan* started the Institute's graduate program in Eastern

studies in the fall of 1982. She opted to forego pursuing a Ph.D.
in clinical psychology because the Institute's program allowed
her to earn a degree in a related field while studying Eastern
philosophy and meditation with Pandit Rajmani, who had initiated her in Chicago. During her first eight months at the Institute,
Megan was able to pursue her studies, but her situation altered

The

Case

Against

dramatically when Swami Rama returned to take up summer residence.

Megan recalls that in one of her first encounters with Swami
Rama, she watched as he humiliated a quiet, withdrawn woman
resident. The swami, she says, bragged to a crowd of disciples
that the woman would do whatever he told her, then put his
dog's collar and leash around her neck and walked her back and
forth, while the others laughed. Megan says she squelched an
urge to speak out, instead deciding, like most of the Institute's
residents, to suspend judgment so she could "understand and
learn" from this "great master." But during the next three weeks,
she says, she saw the swami mistreating his disciples, especially
the women, on a daily basis-yelling
at them, ridiculing them,
ordering them around, and occasionally kicking a woman in the
buttocks when she was on her hands and knees weeding.
On one occasion, she says, Swami Rama ordered all the
women disciples to weed out some roots around his new cabin,
telling them they were rooting out their samskaras. He laughed,
Megan says, and told her that the women didn't know what they
were weeding. Later, many of the women broke out in head-totoe swelling and rashes from what had in fact been poison ivy
roots. When she questioned him, Megan says, he became angry
and dismissed the women's suffering, saying that a little poison
ivy could be good for them.
Yet the women never seemed to complain about such treatment, Megan says. On the contrary, they sought opportunities to
serve the guru's every whim, or even to be abused by him:
Megan remembers
one woman saying she wished the guru
would kick her. In daily lectures by the Institute's teachers and
in conversation
with Swami Rama's disciples, she frequently
heard that Swami Rama had a "greater purpose that we couldn't
understand," and that he was "beyond morality and judgment."
Shortly after Pandit Rajmani introduced her to Swami Rama,
Megan says, the guru called her into his private quarters and
told her that they'd been together in a past life, that he'd waited
to meet her again in this lifetime, and that now they were reunited. During this spiel, she says, he put his hands on her buttocks,
but she told him she wasn't buying it. He backed off, Megan
says, while telling her that sex wasn't necessary-she
could be his
special student. After a bit, she was inclined to dismiss his behavior as a joke or a "test."
But as she spent more time around Swami Rama and his
inner circle, Megan says, the guru subjected her to a barrage of
sexual harassment. At the same time, she says, he offered her
money and told her he wanted to put her in his will. He bragged
about his sumptuous homes in India and Japan and about his
shopping sprees for designer clothes, she says. He told her he
was writing a book of poetry for her, and he offered to find her a
husband. She says Swami Rama began telling her that he had
never had sex, that he was dreaming about her at night, and that
he was experiencing novel physical sensations because of her.
She began to believe that this man who might have been spiritual at one time was now suffering from feelings he couldn't control.
Megan remembers asking him why he was trying all this on
her. She couldn't make sense out of his behavior, because she
found it impossible to believe that it was really about sex-and
she repeatedly told him so. Megan says her feelings told her that
something was amiss, but because of the social environment, she
began to entertain the notion that the Swami's motives might
not be what they appeared to be, and that his attempts at a con
job might be a spiritual test. Through her sympathy for what
appeared to be his plight, and disarmed by his jokes, she says she

Swami

Rama

allowed him to cajole her until she let her defenses down.
Now Megan says that in a different atmosphere, she would
have immediately recognized Swami Rama's behavior as sexual
harassment or "sadistic manipulation." But within the Institute,
she says, everyone else seemed to accept the guru's sexually suggestive behavior and humiliation
of women. Megan went
through a brief but painful and confusing time during which she

Megan says she sow Swami Ramo mistreating

his disciples, especially the women, on a daily
basis-yelling

at them, ridiculing them, ordering

them around, occasionally kicking them in the

buttocks.

Yet the women never seemed to com-

plain about such treatment,

she says. On the

contrary, they sought opportunities

to serve the

guru's every whim, or even to be abused by him.

doubted her own feelings and perceptions. How could she be
the only one who realized what was going on? she wondered.
Then he started giving her practices without any spiritual meaning, she says, and telling her she wasn't doing them right. When
the manipulation started to involve her meditation and spiritual
practices, she says, she decided to confide in one man who had
been at the Institute for a long time and who was planning to
leave. The man, she says, informed her of Swami Rama's long
history of alleged sexual misconduct.
"I only needed one person to corroborate my experience,"
Megan says now. She became outraged at the residents and the
professional
staff who enabled and legitimized the swami's
behavior. She began talking about Swami Rama's exploitative
behavior with anyone who would listen, especially women who
she thought were being victimized.
Meanwhile, Swami Rama had appointed her as registrar of
the graduate program, replacing a long-time woman disciple
who was being kicked out of the Institute for no apparent reason. But to accept a tuition-free second year, or even to leave the
Institute quietly, Megan says, would have meant giving tacit
approval to the continuing exploitation.
She believes Swami
Rama was trying to buy her collusion, as he had bought the collusion of the Institute's staff and many residents. Before leaving,
Megan says, she tried to confront Swami Rama publicly-but
he
went into seclusion, claiming illness.
Carolyn and others say Megan caused a scandal in the Honesdale ashram by breaking the silence surrounding Swami Rama's
sexual behavior. Two other women left the Institute shortly afterwards. The scandal convinced Carolyn not to reveal her own
secret, she says; she was learning that the Institute administration dealt with such accusations by smearing the women's reputations. Carolyn had sought a consultation with Pandit Rajmani,
who told her that Megan was either lying because she was "on an
ego trip," or fantasizing a sexual encounter that had never taken
place. And Carolyn's Residential Program supervisor told her
that the scandal was "a big test for all of us and a cleansing for
the Institutewe'll see who stays."
In retrospect, Megan says, she believes that Swami Rama was
indifferent to the problems that his behavior might cause the
Yoga

JO/l17l0/

November/December

1990

67

The

Case

Against

was using such scandals to purge it of anyone who

,,15I:JJJJ::e:._

i authority.

- Rajmani cannot entertain

the notion that the
ories could be true. "Anyone who lives a public life
rough such remarks; ... you have heard about all that
.ElCL.al:mg" of famous, rich athletes, he explains to me in the
- 989 at the Honesdale ashram. "Before [these women]
ing these things, I also had a very good feeling that
pie were wonderful people and they would never lie
were trustworthy people. But after they started saying
-, -n-,.-- things, I never trusted them anymore."
.ould the women want to blackmail Swami Rama? I ask
e person wanted something, and the other person did
rree to fulfill their desires," he says. "This sudden animosity
ze that there is something fishy in the statement of this
. Otherwise ... there would be no need for this person to
:c:m-ate this whole story."
andit Rajmani says he also has concrete reasons to know that
- Rama could not be sleeping with his disciples. He says he
most evenings with the guru until midnight or 2 a.m.,
that he knows better than anyone who is with Swami Rama
at night and who isn't. But Megan and Carolyn both say that
ami Rama would dismiss Pandit Rajmani and other members
the inner circle after an evening of socializing in Swami
a's private quarters, while asking them alone to stay behind.
Pandit Rajmani says he did not feel any responsibility, as spirimal counselor to the women who had approached him for help,
o investigate their complaints or question his guru. I informed
him that I had interviewed women who sought him out because
they respected him and trusted him to be interested in the truth.
Hi response: "Listen, there are certain things which are based
on witnesses-those
are facts. But something which is truth cannot be falsified by having one hundred witnesses. If a hundred
people come and say that the day is night and I know that it's
not, the voting system doesn't do it here, you know?
"Believing such stories means disbelieving in myself. Because
that's my whole life ....
My relationship with [Swami Rama] is
purely divine and spiritual-there
cannot be impurity in it, and
there is no room for such thoughts. I might doubt my own perception, I might doubt my own eyes, but I cannot doubt that
ngth which has given me everything."
If somehow Pandit Rajmani were forced to acknowledge that
e women were telling the truth, would this shatter his faith in
the guru? No, he says: "Even if it happened, what's the big deal?
__ . People say that Mahatma Gandhi ... slept with women. God
ows whether it was true or not, and even if it was true, this is a
normal phenomenon.
And that did not undermine
Mahatma
Gandhi's work! ... No, this would not be shattering, certainly
nOL My father certainly had sex, and that's why I was born, so
rill I lose my faith in my father?
"Even if I found out-how
can I find out? Because I do not
cant to find out. There's no need for finding out, if I know it is
completely wrong."

wo months after Swami Rama left for India, Carolyn went to

Chicago to visit her family for Christmas. One evening she went
out to dinner with Martha,* an old friend from East West Books
Chicago. Halfway through their meal, Carolyn remembers,
_Iartha hesitantly said, '''I know this will sound like a weird quesYoga Journal November/December 1990

Swami

Rama

tion, but has Swamiji ever asked you to have sex with him?'" Carloyn says she feigned shock and tried to mask her distress as
Martha told her about a woman at the Glenview center who was
confused and distraught about her alleged sexual relationship
with Swami Rama.
Carolyn says she knew that Swami Rama often promised hi
disciples he would take them to India or appoint them to
important positions within the Institute-promises
that rarely
materialized. Even so, it was a blow to find out that she wasn't
particularly special: Swami Rama apparently had other "spiritual
courtesans." But Carolyn says she stifled her doubts about the
guru, transforming them into doubts about her own selfishness:
"Because I'd rationalized that he was teaching me a lesson, I
believed he must be teaching other women the same lesson,
and I shouldn't begrudge his attention to other students."
When Swami Rama returned from India two months later,
Carolyn resumed working as his appointments secretary during
the day, and, she says, as his sexual servant on some nights. She
remembers that Swami Rama received love letters from several
women; one or two of them even mentioned "your child." When
she asked him what she should do with the love letters, she says,
Swami Rama would laugh and say, "'Oh, these goofy women!
They are crazy. Put that letter in the 'goofy' file. ", Carolyn says
the "goofy" letters never got answered.
By this time Carolyn had gained 25 pounds from binging on
sweets. She was feeling so disgusted with her body and afraid of
the guru's humiliating comments that one night she couldn't
face going to his room, she says. The next day, she says, Swami
Rama called her to his office and asked her if anyone had said
anything to her. Carolyn says she told him no, it 'Just didn't feel
right." A short time later, Swami Rama let her go as his secretary-because,
she says he told her, she didn't really want the
job. At the same time as he dismissed her, Swami Rama also gave
her a Sanskrit name.
Carolyn stayed at the Institute for three more years, working
at a variety of jobs. In the spring of 1983, Swami Rama began to
court her again, she says: He told her that she would help him
prepare a book of sacred poetry he was writing, and he assured
her repeatedly that he would take her to India the following
autumn. Every time he saw her, she says, he told her she was
"perfect," as if she had passed some important test. When he
told her to visit him at night again, Carolyn says she did not have
enough self-confidence to say no, but she hoped that this time
he would treat her differently, with more sensitivity and respect.
But their encounters were exactly the same as before, she saysemotionally impersonal and sexually mechanical.
Soon Carolyn noticed she wasn't the only woman being
favored by the guru; he was also paying attention to Megan and
Nirvana.* "Nirvana was up at his cabin, walking his dog at 5:30 in
the morning, and Megan was with him day and night." Still, she
felt she had no right to question the guru's actions.
One evening in early June, Carolyn remembers,
Swami
Rama's housekeeper phoned the women's dorm and asked her
to bring the manuscript she was preparing over to Swami Rama's
new cabin. Carolyn walked up to the cabin, she says, where after
a brief minute spent leafing through her work, the guru asked
her in a low voice for a meeting later that night. She said no: She
had been on a work crew Swami Rama had ordered to weed poison ivy roots for his new garden, and she was covered with oozing blisters. She asked him to give her a homeopathic remedy
for the itching, she says, but he refused and turned away, dismissing her.
That one gesture unleashed a storm of long-suppressed emo-

The

Case

Against

lions: "I felt two-dimensional, like a piece of paper, a cunt-he

didn't care about me. And that was the first time I realized
what all that stuff meant-the
other women, the 'goofy' file,
and the rumors about the lawsuit. Up to that point I had felt
like he was a guru, that he cared about me at least, but no, he
was just using me."
One spring evening a couple of weeks later, she says, Swami
Rama called her aside to ask why she'd been avoiding him, and
he tried to tell him she'd discovered his lies. She recalls that she
blushed as she forced out the words: "I think you have been sleeping with other women." Who? she remembers him demanding.
- irvana is one," Carolyn says she told him. At that, she says, he
raged at her until she was sobbing, unable to speak a word in her
own defense: No! Had Nirvana said anything? Why did Carolyn
say these things? Why did she think these things? What a foolish
woman! She was dreamy! This was not true! Had anyone spoken
to her? What a foolish woman! She could not control her emotions, he could not talk to her! And he abruptly dismissed her.
Now Carolyn is more articulate: "When I finally start listening
to myself, and I tell him I know he's sleeping with other
women-and
this is the man I came to, to help me learn how to
listen to my inner voice, and then he tells me not to listen to it
just as I'm starting to get some confidence in it-that's
when I
realized, this isn't yoga, this isn't truth, this is abuse."
A week later, Megan blew the lid off Swami Rama's private
life, confirming what Carolyn already knew in her heart. But
still, she was afraid to leave the community she'd been part of
for so long and reenter a world that had practically forgotten
her existence. One day Swami Rama called for her and told her
he wouldn't be taking her to India that autumn. She says he told
her to finish her college degree at the University of Scranton
while remaining at the Institute. But the University of Scranton
didn't offer a degree program in Carolyn's area of study, so she
saw a way to rationalize leaving the Institute while still saving
face; she could still be considered a good disciple if she could
get the guru's blessing to go away to college. Finally, she
obtained his permission.
Carolyn moved back to Chicago, found a job, returned to
school, and soon met a non-Institute man she wanted to marry.
Before the wedding, Carolyn and her fiance went to see a couples counselor both separately and together. She says she confessed her secret relationship with Swami Rama for the first time,
telling her counselor that she was still confused about it. '''My
dear,''' she says her counselor told her, "You sound just like a
sexually abused child, a little girl whose Daddy told you never to
tell anyone."
Carolyn has been in therapy for the past five years, trying to
rebuild her self-confidence and heal the damage done by what
she now calls her "sexual abuse" by Swami Rama. Whenever she
has communicated
her experiences
to former friends at the
Institute, she says, they have responded with a series of rationalizations: "That's your experience, but we all have to make our
own decisions based on our own experience with Swamiji, and
he has positively redirected my life. Everything happens for a
reason, and we can't judge him." Carolyn says she is at a loss to
discern any positive reason behind Swami Rama's behavior
toward her. And the secondary trauma of having every single
one of her former friends turn their backs on her, she says, has
scarred her and left her with a legacy of emotional distrust and
feelings of betrayal.
At the same time, Carolyn is trying to understand how her
family background and conditioning contributed to her victimization. Brought up by authoritarian parents-one
of whom was

Swami

Rama

an alcoholic-and
given a strict Catholic schooling, she felt at
home in the authoritarian structure of the Himalayan Institute.
Conformity to others' standards was always expected of her. She
had never received help in setting her own goals: 'There was
never the concept of self-empowerment." The rigid behavioral
expectations of the Institute and its stigmatizing of emotional
expression, far from validating the guru within, taught her to

Carolyn has been in therapy for the past five

years, trying to rebuild her self-confidence and
heal the damage done by what she now calls
her "sexual abuse" by Swami Rama. And the
secondary trauma of having every one of her
former friends turn their backs on her, she says,
has scarred her and leh her with a legacy of
emotional

distrust and feelings of betrayal.

mistrust her own judgment and emotions. And her "devastating"

experiences with Swami Rama, Carolyn says, haunt her sexual
relationship with her husband today.
Carolyn says she is more committed to yoga than ever; she
continues with her practices, the hatha yoga postures and a centering meditation,
but she does not use the mantras Swami
Rama gave her. She has studied with other teachers, but she has
learned the hard way that her "inner voice" must be her guru
and her guide. She has sacrificed the highs of shared group
experience in favor of the freedom to authenticate
her own
experience, without group pressure to conform. She and some
of the other women who say they have been sexually abused by
Swami Rama, as well as men who feel their spiritual trust was
betrayed, have organized an informal support network to help
each other heal.
Carolyn says she recognizes
the positive work of the
Himalayan Institute and has no desire to destroy the Institute's
beneficial programs. "But the most important thing," she says,
"is that the abuse must stop. Women need to be informed that
this could happen to them-be
it with Swami Rama or any man
in a position of power-so
they will be able to see it coming and
avoid it. And people must stop covering up for the perpetrators
by ignoring or denying that it is happening. Those who do so,"
she says, "are responsible for the continuing abuse."

ask Dr. Ballentine how he would respond if a woman were to

come to him and tell him she's been having sex with Swami
Rama, and that her "inner voice" has been telling her that it isn't
a positive experience. He says it's only happened to him once or
twice, but he asked the woman, "Are you really sure about this?
Are you feeling a little confused and emotionally upset, and
maybe some of the things that happened you might have misinterpreted, or you might have even fantasized them, you know,
have trouble separating fantasy from reality?"
Like Pandit Rajmani, Dr. Ballentine explains that Americans
have weird attitudes about sex, that Americans like to knock
their heroes off the pedestals they have put them on, that people
CONTINUED

Yoga Journal November/December

ON PAGE 92

1990

69

YOGA

JOURNAL

Sll'tlmiRama
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with unrealistic expectations get vengeful

when Swami Raffia disappoints them, and
that anyway, he's never seen any evidence
of sexual misconduct. He says he once had
a patient falsely accuse him of getting her
pregnant, and that any psychologist knows
that this happens frequently with emotionally disturbed women patients. He says he
was only directly confronted once-the
rest
has been hearsay.
Dr. Ballentine doesn't believe any of the
stories, and when I ask if he's ever talked to
Swami Raffia about them, he answers, "Oh
sure, and he's shown me his file, of ... " He
doesn't finish the sentence, He goes on to
tell me another story about a woman who
claimed that Swami Raffia "had come in his
subtle body through the air conditioner to
her bedroom, and that that's how this intimacy had transpired." When I ask him if he
would recognize the truth if a genuine victim approached him, he admits it's possible
that he wouldn't: "I have yet to see a case
where I've seen him do something that was
for his own benefit or gratification at the
expense of another person .... So if someone wants to come to me and say, this
man's taking advantage of me for his pleasure, Ijust find it hard to believe."
Since our interview, Dr. Ballentine has
been sent at least two letters by women who
say they were sexually abused by Swami
Rama: one from Carolyn and one from
Susan. * Several months earlier, he received
a letter from Bob Hughes, a member of the
Institute's board of directors from 1978 to
1980. Hughes, who ran East West Books
Chicago and then worked as publicity and
sales director of Himalayan Publishers and
Distributors, now has a masters degree in
counseling and hosts a successful TV series
in Memphis, Tennessee: 'Total Health and
Relaxation: An Ounce of Prevention." Two
years ago, when Hughes openly asked questions about Swami Raffia's sexual activities
during a weekend workshop at the Glenview Center, where he was the featured
guest lecturer, he was escorted off the
premises and driven to the airport.
Hughes wrote Dr. Ballentine a letter on
May 22, 1989, quoting Gandhi-"Truth
itself helps me when I commit mistakes.
Truth alone is the real teacher and master"-and
asking for an explanation of the
women's stories and challenging a possible
Institute "cover-up" on professional ethical
grounds. He sent copies of his letter to
many of his former colleagues and other

YOGA

Sll'amiRama
professionals on the Institute's staff. Dr. Ballentine's response was reluctant: ''It is only in
view of your many years of association with
the Institute that I have decided to take the
time to reply to your letter of 22 May. Otherwise I would not deem such a letter worthy of
a response. "
The letter is curt in tone. "If you give
more weight to rumors instigated byemotionally disturbed individuals and by those
who are jealous or vindictive than you give to
your own experience of dealing with Swamiji,
then you are indeed in trouble." The people
Bob had referred to were Carolyn, Susan, Brian and Terry, Dr. Edwin Funk, a former
member of the Institute board of directors
and physician on its staff, and Sister Audrey
Rymars, a Catholic nun who had worked with
the Institute in Glenview for 13 years. "I will
not tolerate anyone propagating malicious
stories about the Institute or its founder on
the Institute's own property," Dr. Ballentine's
letter says. "Until you get your priorities
straight and your head clear, I would request
that you refrain from attempting to represent
the Institute or its teachings in any way."
Dr. Ballentine sent copies of his letter
to the same Institute members who had

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III,

received Hughes's letter. One of them reported back to Hughes that Dr. Ballentine's letter
was accompanied by a copy of a private letter
Hughes had written to Swami Rama in 1985.
In that letter, Hughes had told Swami Rama
why marriage and parenthood were probably
not for him. Yet Swami Rama, knowing that
Hughes was gay, had repeatedly urged him to
marry various women Institute members and
had insisted that his homosexuality
was
unnatural
and unhealthy. Dr. Ballentine
denies sending out copies of Hughes's letter:
"I didn't do that I don't have access to those
files." Hughes is not so easily coerced into
silence; he says he plan to continue to press
the Institute's administration to fulfill its ethical obligations to investigate the women's
complaints and put a stop to any abuse.
Carolyn's and Susan's letters also challenged the Institute's profe ional staff on
ethical grounds. Carolyn has received no
reply from the Institute.
Su an's letter
detailed her relationship with Swami Rama
and the emotional damage she suffered; she
sent it to a select group of Institute staff and
members, past and present, but has not gotten an official response. She did receive an
anonymous letter from "a friend" in May
1990, warn.ing her that the Institute had contacted "one of the mo t vicious lawyers in
New York City" and that it planned a defama-

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is an occasional student of )'oga who has had many teachers, but no guru.
RESOURCES
The Healing Network [former Himalayan Institute members], P.O. Box 148252, Chicago, IL
60614. Please enclose a self-addressed, stamped
envelope.
Himalayan Institute, RR 1, Box 400, Honesdale,
PA 18431; (717) 253-555l.
Peter Rutter's Sex in the Forbidden Zone is available
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tion action against her if she continued her

"harassment." According to her anonymous
correspondent, "the Himalayan Institute and
Swami Rama are one and the same," and
Susan's action could destroy "the unselfish
work of many people."
Susan has received several phone calls
and a letter from people she didn't send her
letter to. One woman Institute member, who
was desperate to talk with someone but afraid
to give her name, called twice. Susan says the
woman described her own similar experiences with Swami Rama during the past two
years. Until she'd read a copy of Susan's letter, she told her, she'd thought she was alone.
Dale Colton, director of public relations
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my repeated phone calls requesting an interview with Swami Rama. 0
Katharine Webster, who recently completed her master oj
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