Today news.com.au released a follow-up report to Background Briefings investigation into the sex scandal at the Mount Eliza Ashram. You can read it here:
Tag Archives: Media Release
BREAKING: ABC’s Background Briefing Investigates The Ashram
Veteran journalist Dan Oakes and his team on the Background Briefing program investigate The Ashram, Mount Eliza.
Listen here:
There is also an extended written piece available here:
Bikram. Yogi – Guru – Predator
Following their exposé on Osho in the amazing series Wild Wild Country, Netflix recently released another documentary about Bikram. They are doing a great job of exposing these fake gurus and the methods they use to disempower and sexually abuse young women. The pattern is always the same; foster a “parent-child” relationship with the target (under the guise of “student-teacher” or “devotee-guru”) and then begin to slowly groom them for sex using every form of emotional manipulation in the narcissist’s arsenal.
It’s also amazing how many of these guru-abusers have a female accomplice (usually the wife or partner) or as was the case at the Mount Eliza Ashram, a whole team of enablers in the form of the Management Committee.
Maybe we can get Netflix to come to Mount Eliza – there is a story there just waiting to be told that is every bit as creepy and disturbing.
“What now for the Guru Model?” article online
The full article that featured in Australian Yoga Life Magazine has been re-printed on the Elephant Journal website. For those that missed it, you can read it here:
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/10/what-now-for-the-guru-model/
“The list of gurus accused of sexual misconduct is like a roll call of the who’s who of the yoga community…”
How, we ask, in yoga communities built on the tenets of non-violence (Ahimsa), truthfulness (Satya) and sexual ethics (Bramacharya), can abuse still occur, let alone remain hidden for decades?
New article in MP News
A new article appeared yesterday in MP News that hints at a possible reassessment by the ACNC of Shiva Yoga’s tax free status:
http://mpnews.com.au/2015/07/27/devotees-heading-back-to-ashram/
The article states: “A former member of the ashram has previously told The News that when filling out an application form seeking tax exemption “we all looked at each other when it came to filling out the marked religion, and then someone said Hindu, so that’s what we put”.
Many old-timers reading this might recall the “what religion shall we be?” discussions that were the main topic at the dining table before the group decided that it was going to become Hindu. Undoubtedly this was done to achieve the appearance of legitimacy to organisations such as the ACNC in order to maintain it’s tax free status following the audit that preceded it.
What now for the Guru Model?
The Shiva Ashram features in this month’s edition of Australian Yoga Life as Melbourne’s Alice Williams looks at the recent investigations into ashrams in Australia.
“How, can we ask, in yoga communities built on the tenets of non-violence (Ahimsa), truthfulness (Satya) and sexual ethics (Bramacharya), can abuse still occour; let alone remain hidden for decades?” (Australian Yoga Life Issue 47, pg 34).
Another interesting article also appeared this month on the Maddypap website entitled “Swami’s secrets dividing opinions of yoga but not the Mount Eliza name.” – You can read it here: