This new article by Body & Soul asks “Has the yoga community enabled sexual predators?”

In our experience at the Sri Nityananda Ashram in Mount Eliza, it wasn’t the community that allowed the abuses to occur (because for the most part people were unaware of what was going on), but rather the people who were responsible for providing a Duty of Care towards the community, namely the Management Commitee. Furthermore, they didn’t just passively allow it to occour; in the case of some indiviuals they were actively involved in enabling it.

As Australian yoga teacher and author Alice Williams wrote on her blog, “match a charismatic teacher with eager and often vulnerable students, add a touch of human ego and just enough mysticism that students won’t question any dodgy practices too closely. Wait a few years, then watch the whole thing end up in court cases and recriminations.”