Why does Sanatan demoralise me

Sanatan Sanstha seems to be using a delicate balance of punishment and motivation on me. Am I the only one to suffer like this or is it a common practice? This attitude is keeping me on my toes. I am now always cautious not hurt anybody at Sanatan Ashram Ponda. I learn to control my tongue and speak when spoken to. I do not give my views on any subject even when asked to. I always appear to be very demure.

I change to match Sanatan Sanstha

I seem to have changed a lot. It starts with lying to my family. I don’t consider it a sin to lie to my family. Then, I slowly change the way I dress. I also spend more time doing activities that bind me to Sanatan Sanstha like chanting and personality defect removal process. I also become totally involved in doing prachar seva from my home. My personality undergoes a drastic change. I change my social group and alienate my friends and relatives. I do not think I have done it after being prompted by Sanatan, but now I realize that they used behavior changing techniques on me. They used subtle mind control techniques so that I start relying on them for everything.

This continues even at Sanatan Ashram Ponda. The process is quite different when they realize that I have burnt all the bridges and have immersed myself into following Dr Jayant Athavale. They use a carrot and stick approach so that I am always mentally unstable. I don’t have any other resource on which to rely on. The information flow is controlled by them totally. I don’t feel the need to read newspapers. I read only Dainik Sanatan Prabhat. In fact, at Sanatan Ashram Ramnathi, daily newspapers are not read by any sadhaks. They are available in the media section. In fact, the media section has a couple of television sets, they are always watching news channels. They use breaking news and prepare the newsletters based on them.

Psychological tricks

Once outside Sanatan Sanstha, I start to correlate these with the psychological techniques used on me. Sanatan has used many tricks and techniques and modified them. The end result is mind control. Dr Jayant Athavale seems to have spent several years in developing such techniques. I sometimes think that the Spiritual Science Research Foundation or SSRF is engaged in developing and refining such processes which can control the minds of the sadhaks. I was involved in the process for some time though not directly. Hypnosis has also been studied quite extensively, I know the person involved in doing so. I will not name her but she was an expert on this subject and she had confided that she learned this art from Dr Jayant Athavale. I was taught by this female sadhak and was involved in designing some of the mind control techniques. I did not understand the rationale behind them at that time but the process of testing was quite elaborate.

Sanatan Sanstha uses a process of punishment and motivation to keep the sadhaks at Sanatan Ashram Ponda under control. These psychological techniques lead to behavioral changes that can last a lifetime.

Afternoon sessions and Sanatan Ashram Ramnathi

The pre-lunch sessions can stretch quite long as I have a tight schedule dictated by Sanatan Ashram Ramnathi. There are times when I miss my lunch. As Sanatan Sanstha has adviced me not to eat food outside, I spend many days without any proper food. It is a small sacrifice I make in the service of my Guru, Dr Jayant Athavale and I do not mind it at all; in fact, I am quite proud of this and other sadhaks praise this attitude.

Post-lunch Sessions and Satsangs

Even though I may not have eaten anything, I still must attend the afternoon satsangs. Several personality defects have been identified in the morning sessions and I must do penance to rid them from my inner self. This will enable me to lose myself and my identity. The subjects of these satsangs revolve around Gurukrupayoga, personality defect removal process, importance of Samashti seva as well as importance of traditions and different festivals as prescribed by Sanatan Dharma. Sanatan Sanstha has a very good collection of publications and through the scientific research conducted by Spiritual Science Research Foundation or SSRF in short, they have explained the scientific reasoning behind our traditions.

There are several repetitions in the subjects, I do not mind this. I am still a novice and have a lot to learn. I have sacrificed my life to sit in the lap of my Guru, Dr Jayant Athavale.

Post afternoon sessions

I leave for my prachar work as soon as the satsangs end. I spend about four hours in the morning and afternoon prachar sessions. The return to Sanatan Ashram Ramnathi is around 7 pm, just in time for a light dinner. Dinner is very simple and consists of rice and dal. The hectic schedule and the Chaitanya of the ashram ensures that my diet intake is very less.

I do not mind even though I have lost a lot of weight during the three months at Sanatan Ashram Ponda.

Once our dinner is over, we attend a session of personality defect removal process for a couple of hours. Then, we have free time. We spend this time discussing various issues facing the country and the excellent steps undertaken by Sanatan Sanstha to resolve them. Such discussions generally last for two to three hours and it is generally 11 pm by the time I go to sleep. I don’t feel like sleeping and hence I spend at least another hour or two in doing naamjap – chanting.

I am accountable to my time and feel that sleep is actually a waste of time. I should rather use this time for some productive work. Contacting my family is also a waste of time. I don’t have anything to discuss with them. I don’t attend to their calls most of the days. I hope they get the message and leave me alone. I will contact me when I need something from them, like clothes and money. Otherwise, they should not worry about me and disturb me in my seva. Sanatan Ashram Ramnathi is taking good care and has everything I need.

Sanatan Sanstha and front organizations

Sanatan Sanstha uses several front organizations like Hindu Janajagruti Samaj (HJS) and Spiritual Science Research Fondation (SSRF). These organizations cannot be called offshoots of the original sanstha as their ideology is the same and they operate from the same premises. It is difficult for the common person to understand the reason for having such parallel organizations. Both these offshoots have differences created so that common man thinks that they are independent ones. It is a very cunning move followed by many organizations, spiritual or otherwise. People look at endorsement and if an organization is endorsed by another one, its value increases in our mind. Do we ever check if both are related?

Hindu Janajagruti Samiti

Sanatan Sanstha focuses its efforts on spiritual development while Hindu Janajagruti Samiti focuses on raising Hindu issues. They have even defined Hindu to mean the removal of darkness. They stress that the samiti and Sanatan are not connected. On one of their webpages devoted to the establishment of Hindu Rashtra, they state

“That the Hindu Nation will be established is an undisputed fact as per the times, and organisations like Sanatan Sanstha are taking care of the fight at the spiritual level essential for achieving this goal.”

HJS focuses on topics not covered by the sanstha. They are more into raising issues concerning Hindus and the persecution of Hindus the world over. They have different Facebook and Twitter accounts. They are mainly associated with five activities

• Dharma shiksha – education on Dharma
• Awakening of Dharma
• Dharma Rakshan – protection of Dharma
• Protection of the Nation
• Hindu unification

Routinely Sanatan Sanstha and Hindu Janajagruti Samiti support each other’s activities as if they are independent institutions.  They even have different organization structures. Anyone connected with either of them know that they are one and the same.

Spiritual Science Research Foundation

Sanatan Sanstha and Hindu Janajagruti Samiti are the public faces while Spiritual Research Foundation operates behind the scenes. SSRF provides the scientific spin to the activities of Sanatan Sanstha. They aim to “bridge the gap between the known and the unknown”.  They operate behind the scenes and acknowledge that Dr Jayant Athavale is the founder member. As most of us don’t read the fine print, we assume that the research foundation and the sanstha are different entities.

SSRF does not provide any detailed scientific data to support their findings. The research is always cloaked in misleading terms. Take for example this quote from one article dealing with spiritual healing

“Spiritual research has shown us that up to 80% of the problems in a person’s life can have their root in the spiritual dimension.”

There is no explanation as to how they reached the figure of 80%.

They carry out spiritual research on many things like

• Afterlife
• Death and Dying
• Ghosts

among other things. 

Many of the articles on the Sanatan Sanstha website aim to give the scientific reasoning behind Hindu traditions.

They also reason that scientific and spiritual research cannot be compared to each other as the principles of scientific research cannot be applied to spiritual research.

The different affiliated organizations seem to provide Sanatan Sanstha a cloak of respectability as they endorse each other. All the three organizations are same.

This is a guest blog, I, Amruta Acharya, have not written it. The author does not want to share his name and I respect his need for confidentiality.