Spirituality at Sanatan Ashram Ponda

What about spirituality at Sanatan Ashram Ponda? Am I really doing anything to increase my spiritual knowledge? Is Sanatan Sanstha teaching me about any significant spiritual practices? Well, if you consider personality defect removal process or PDR as a significant spiritual practice, then I spend a considerable part of my time in spiritual practice. I also attend several satsangs; the topics are generally repetitive and stress on Dr Jayant Athavale and his beliefs. Some of them are about naamjap and the importance of different names of God and which name we should chant. Overall, I must be spending about 4-6 hours daily in these activities, but as I am also involved in other sevas; I am part of the Swagat Kaksh at Sanatan Ashram Ponda, it is less.

Sevas equal Spirituality at Sanatan Sanstha

Other sadhaks at Sanatan Ashram Ponda spend considerable time doing naamjap. I know several sadhaks who would spend upwards to 10 hours in this chanting activity. They had several personality defects and the sanstha had advised them that chanting only could rid them of their personality defects.

All sadhaks had to participate in various activities inside the ashram. It operated as a cooperative society with responsibilities divided among the various members. We were not paid anything for the time and effort spent in these sevas. It was said that these sevas were meant to be part of our spiritual practices. I fail to understand how a service at the ashram qualifies as spiritual practices while the same done at one’s home does not. I could not raise such queries otherwise I would again have to do penance; I had experienced it many times. My attitude of questioning had landed me in hot waters

many times and though I had full faith in Dr Jayant Athavale, I was learning how to handle politics in Sanatan Sanstha. This was definitely politics; or was it? Was it a psychological method aimed at mind control. Was Sanatan using these techniques to strengthen their hold over us, using this to control our minds? Why were we unable to question such practises, why, we – independent women in our own rights, unable to raise our voices against injustices? Why were we helpless, why did we feel hopeless?

Spirituality at Sanatan Ashram Ponda

We give free service to Sanatan Ashram Ponda and equate it with spirituality. It is true across ashrams across India and maybe the rest of the world. There is nothing wrong about this. What is wrong is that only occupants of the ashram must give this seva. Outsiders, including sadhaks are not required to do this. They can spend their time as they want to. We stay at the ashram of Sanatan Sanstha and we do not or cannot pay for our lodging and boarding. The sanstha recovers the cost in this manner. They use us as slaves. As it is cloaked in spirituality, we do not feel a burden. But frankly, we are slaves of Dr Jayant Athavale both in mind and body. We are not independent; we cannot think independently. Sanatan Sanstha has taken away this ability from us and we are proud of this fact.

God, please help us to come out of this maya jaal. Only you can save us from Dr Jayant Athavale and Sanatan Sanstha. Many sadhaks staying at Sanatan Ashram Ponda pray to God to seek His intervention; He blesses only some of us.

Circle of life at Sanatan Sanstha

Life soon settled down at Sanatan Sanstha. I was totally occupied in the daily routine and had little time and inclination to communicate with either my parents or family. They were in the grip of demonic spirits and were always lying and cheating and betraying my trust in them. Sanatan Ashram Ponda was my home and I was immersing myself in its Chaitanya under the blessings of my Guru Dr Jayant Athavale.

Prarabdh and Sanatan Ashram Ramnathi

It was not always smooth sailing at Sanatan Ashram Ramnathi. Life always is full of ups and downs. The character of a person is built on handling such ups and downs. Our Hindu Dharma says that prarabdha are the fruits of past karmas that we experience in this life. How we tackle them (karma) defines what fruits we get. Sanatan has taught this to me and I can understand the deep spiritual meaning of these words. I know that my family – my husband and my daughter are suffering because of their prarabdha and if they help me through their good karmas, they too will be able to escape from the unending cycle of life and death. I do not have any bad prarabdha as the stay at Sanatan Ashram Ponda has nullified all negativities of my life – past and present. All my karmas will have a positive impact from now onwards and I will be able to escape from the cycle of life and death in this birth itself.

Ups and downs at Sanatan Sanstha

Though I do only good karma, it is not always smooth sailing. The sanstha has many enlightened souls who identify my personality defects. Some of them are serious enough to warrant sustained penance. The most serious personality defect is my ego. I must face several issues due to this. Let me narrate one small incidence – small in nature but serious in its ramifications.

My samhasthi seva consists of prachar seva and I meet people and explain the importance of protecting Hindu Dharma, the importance of spirituality, the stellar role of Sanatan Sanstha as well as try to collect donations or sell our publications or newsletters. I am good at this and am proud of my performance. One day, I comment during a baithak about a new strategy adopted by me. This is not against Sanatan policy and I feel that if others adopt the policy, they will also be able to match my numbers. The sadhaks thank me for sharing this experience. I have shared it so that the sanstha benefits.

This creates an uproar after the baithak – meeting is over. I am called by the seniors and given a dressing down. They allege that I consider myself above Sanatan; they blame it on my ego. With immediate effect, I am asked to discontinue my prachar work. All benefits are immediately withdrawn. I cannot even leave Sanatan Ashram Ramnathi. Communication is very fast and within one hour the news is spread across all sadhaks.

I am at a loss to understand this. I am doing a good job. Everyone was praising me till the previous day. What did I do wrong to get this punishment?

Sanatan Ashram Ponda and sense of belonging

Once the excitement, or rather the lack of it, surrounding my husband’s visit had died down, I started to settle down to a life of spiritual pursuit at Sanatan Ashram Ponda. Sanatan Sanstha worked out a tight schedule for me. I was involved in many activities, some of them appealed to me, some did not – but I was told to bring bhav in all my activities. Sanatan had a different lingo; we used it as a badge to differentiate ourselves from the hoi-poi. We used it as a badge of honor and it gave us a sense of belongingness.

Sense of belongingness

Why is this sense of belongingness important in human beings? On one hand, we are taught that we should surrender ourselves to God for spiritual pursuits, we can only attain true moksha when we lose our self to God. On the other, we feel the need to belong to a social group. This is generally fulfilled by the family and our social groups, by our professional contacts and the workforce. But, when people like me leave all this behind, we leave all these behind us; we are forced to leave all this behind us. Sanatan Sanstha then fills in the vacuum and we start belonging again to a powerful sanstha. Sanatan asks us to reduce contact with our family and friends. They even ask us not to attend their calls or meet them when they come to visit us at Sanatan Ashram Ponda. Yet, very deviously, they ensure that we transform the attachment to the sanstha.

This becomes dangerous as we are now dependent upon the sanstha for everything and they start controlling not only our thoughts and minds but also our physical needs. They dictate when we should sleep, how much time we should sleep when we should eat and even how much we should eat. They also control the flow of information; we start trusting only the information received from them.

Differentiators at Sanatan Sanstha

The use of lingo at Sanatan Sanstha is also very devious. We are taught a “different language”, the language differentiates us from others. We change our dressing style to match with the occupants of Sanatan Ashram Ponda. I preferred sarees but changed my preferences to dresses so that I could merge with the other occupants. Of course, the money to purchase and stitch these dresses came from my husband. Sanatan did not provide any help, financial or otherwise. We were also advised which colours to select and which type of clothes to wear. All this put a terrible financial burden on my husband, I was aware of it and would feel guilty as well. But, sanstha advised me that such guilty feelings were misplaced as it is the responsibility of my husband to maintain me. He had taken this oath when marrying me in front of Agni.

What about the oath I had given to my husband? Why was Sanatan Sanstha silent on them?

Sanatan had created a vacuum in my life and was slowly transferring the sense of belongingness from the family to itself. I was not conscious of the repercussions. I thought that this was acceptable as others around me had no issues in doing so.

Rakshak and Sanatan Sanstha

Sanatan Sanstha had appointed a coordinator – I referred to her as my rakshak (bodyguard), during the first week at Sanatan Ashram Ponda. She was my soul mate during the stay at the Sanstha and we still manage to keep in touch. She never shared any personal details with me but she was an angel to me. She would fuss around me like a mother hen. I appreciate her help and have promised myself that I will do anything to rescue her from the clutches of the sanstha.

Rakshak and her melancholy

She was different from others, I got the feeling that even when she was with me night and day at Sanatan Sanstha. She was always smiling – all sadhaks at Sanatan Ashram Ponda do it as a matter of practise. But her smile had a sense of melancholy, well-hidden but still present. She would not share anything personal with me but after some time; particularly when she felt that I was about to leave the sanstha, she opened up. She opened up so that I could realise my dilemma and take a positive step. She was always eager to help and would be the first to volunteer for any seva, she did not like to go out and meet people but still she forced herself to take outside seva. She hid her emotions very well but I noticed tears behind her eyes many times. She found my behaviour very erratic and was always ready to criticise. She would not mind if I stopped talking to her, started ignoring her. She was patient, waiting for me to speak up and then she would behave as if nothing had gone wrong between us.

She was an enigma. She appeared to practise all that was preached by Sanatan Sanstha yet she was not affected by it. She had her mind and was not afraid to use it when required. The sanstha appeared to be in awe of her and generally left her alone.

No contact no worries

Unlike my case, she did not receive any visitors nor did she receive any calls from her family. She always had a plain and simple mobile with her and I caught her several times as if she was waiting for a call. Always waiting for a call, always expecting a call, but nobody ever called her up and she also never seemed to call anybody. She always wore simple sarees donated to the ashram. Her blouses were all ill-fitting but she carried herself with aplomb. She appeared to be surviving on the donation given by Sanatan Ashram Ponda. The sanstha gave some pocket money to women sadhaks for out of pocket expenses. It was given only to those whose families did not support them and was not given to male sadhaks.

She had dark complexion but very sharp features and long hair. A beautiful and striking woman. She appeared to be middle aged like me but the worry lines on her face gave an impression of wisdom gained through pain and experience rather than age.

Did she have a family? Was there somebody waiting for her return? What was the secret behind her melancholy?  

She would go out of the way to help me. This was limited to me only as to others she was helpful but she never crossed a limit and kept her distance from everyone else. I, too, felt drawn to her and shared several intimate secrets with her even before I trusted her completely.

Was my trust and confidence misplaced? Was the rakshak an informer of my husband or worse still of Sanatan Sanstha? Would the rakshak become a bhakshak?

Sanatan Sanstha Interferes with My Personal Life

Sanatan Sanstha and My Personal Life

The blog is not a very structured one though I have tried to give it a definite structure. I remember some things after the next step has been published. My mind is still a jumble of disorganized thoughts and emotions. The blog is releasing my inner frustrations but I am yet to clear my mind totally, it is helping me get Sanatan Sanstha out of my system.

One important issue was touched very briefly in my earlier blog. I have talked about how the Sanstha created fissures between me and my family. How a truthful and God fearing woman started resorting to lies and untruths.

Sanatan was very devious in many such manners as well as far as my family relations were concerned. They knew that I was brought up with a traditional mindset and that I would respect my family more than others. They also knew that a metro born and brought up woman (I was born and brought up in Pune) was finding life in a small town (my husband is based at Satara) very stifling.

I had a job in Pune before marriage. I was living a carefree life with no concern about money and financial issues. My family gave me complete freedom. The shift to Satara changed everything. I lost my job and could not find another equivalent job in Satara. I tried hard and to be honest; my husband also tried to help me. The only jobs available were far below my educational standards and experience. I tried a couple of them but could never adjust.

The Family is everything

The focus then changed to the family. Living in a small town with all relatives close by increased my workload. Someone would drop in almost daily without any warning. My in-laws stayed with us and they would invite the guests to take food with us. Some of the relatives came from nearby villages and I was asked to guide them around the town and help them with the purchases. My time was never mine to spend. I had no free time. Relatives from my side of the family would always comment on my status. I felt that they were demeaning me. My husband would not understand these things. He was too simplistic, he believed that everyone had only the good of others on their mind.

A daughter was born after some years of my married life. This added to my burden. I was too overwhelmed. I thought I was drowning.

Sanatan Sanstha came to my rescue. It gave me a hand. I grasped it. I started spending my free time with them slowly at first. My in-laws gave me freedom to do as I pleased, they did not have the traditional way of thinking. They were very progressive, in fact, at one point they asked to search for in Pune and return to Satara only during holidays and weekly off.

The sanstha gave me hope for a better future. It should be the golden pot at the end of the rainbow. I grasped at it. I was eager to get the golden pot before it was too late.

Sanatan Sanstha changes the rules

But after a couple of years, Sanatan Sanstha changed the game. I got so much involved that I started neglecting my family. I used to spend more time now with the sanstha both physically and mentally. My in-laws were the first to notice this.

The changes, though small in nature, were life changing ones.

What is Personality Defect Removal Process at Sanatan Sanstha

Sanatan Sanstha asks me to remove Personality Defects

Sanatan Sanstha is now dictating all my thoughts. Their process of personality development is through the removal of personality defects. They assume that once such defects are removed, positive personality traits will take their place. I have identified several such personality defects and freely share them with the sanstha. I do not feel ashamed about sharing my inner feelings with them; frankly, I have never shared such feelings with even my husband and mind you, we were quite open with each other. I suddenly start feeling liberated, I feel that I have been repressed throughout my life.

I am asked to write down all defects. I write down two complete pages. Ego is identified as my biggest personality defect. All sadhaks agree and I am asked to with them; I don’t think ego is the biggest one. They convince me that I don’t agree because of my ego.

The personality defect removal process is referred to as PDR in short. It is a very important part of our sadhana. We spend about 60 to 70% of our time in this. Due to this, we become convinced that we are full of defects and only the Guru, none other than Dr. Jayant Athavale can rectify these defects. We are also told that during this process, we should always ask for directions from God and our Guru.

The Process of Personality Defect Removal

The personality defect removal process is very simple and elaborate. It consists of the following steps:

• Identify our own personality defects and write them down. Write down the corresponding positive trait in front of each one.
• Make a chart of auto suggestions. A chart is provided for ready reference.
• The process of framing auto-suggestions and the frequency of auto-suggestion sessions is decided by the kendra in charge, a person who oversees the kendra. He will consult the zila sevak, if required.
• Sanatan Sanstha has recommended that I do between five to ten sessions daily. Each session takes about 30 minutes. My personality defects are very deep rooted and will take many such sessions to be removed.
• Take a pledge that such defects will not be repeated in future.
• Do atonement if the defect occurs again. Atonement can be done by sacrificing things one likes the most. I like to eat good food and interact with my daughter. I reduce my interactions with my daughter. I rarely speak to her. This is my atonement.
• Report the progress every day.

The process is now taking up most of my time. I hardly get time to complete household chores and my family suffers. During arguments, I tell them that the fruits of my sadhana will benefit the complete family. My good deeds will benefit the complete family. So what if they remain hungry once in a while or if the home becomes dirty and disorganized? These are all external issues; they do not matter to the self. I forget that once upon a time, I had told the family that Karma cannot be shared with others.

The family is now in a total state of disarray. My husband and my loving daughter are aliens to me and I am an alien to them. I do not bother. I am removing all negative energies from me; I am one with Sanatan Sanstha.

Sanatan Sanstha Creates Fissures

My family and Sanatan Sanstha

Sanatan Sanstha has succeeded in creating fissures in my family. I have started lying to my husband out rightly. I have learnt to justify this flagrant violation of the trust by thinking that the outcome justifies all lies. My husband notices the changes happening in me. He is worried, confused and also feels betrayed. He opposes the sanstha. He tries to counsel me many times. But I am smarter than he thinks I am. I know that I cannot win any argument with him as he is logically correct. But, I have a smart bomb on my side; it has been given by the sanstha. They have identified a key weakness in my husband. He used to get angry when during arguments I used to walk out of the room. It was as if I rejected his arguments and him. They coached me to use this weakness to make him angry. They said that this proved that he was against Hindu Dharma; he was against   Sanatan Dharma. He was a nastik, he did not believe in God. I fell for this psychological trick.

Broken Dreams and Broken Relationships.

I used the smart bombs very effectively. Little did I realise that I was destroying the relationship. Little did I realise that Sanatan Sanstha was controlling my mind and using it against my family.

My loving husband; my biggest enemy

Our relationship started rapidly deteriorating. My husband always used to accompany me everywhere, I used to call him my driver and he never minded it. He used to praise me in front of all his friends; used to praise my nature and spiritual affinity. He used to drive me to all my functions. We used to go on long drives whenever I was in the mood. We had our fights; most couples do fight.

Sanatan Sanstha changed the relationship forever (I still hope it is not forever – he is even today my pillar of strength though we are divorced). They drove the cracks in deeper and deeper and made them wider and wider. We lost trust of each other, any small issue became a full-blown fight. I would not budge from my stand and would leave the room just to spite him and he would blow his fuse. I started neglecting the house and avoiding household chores. My darling daughter, already with learning disabilities, was deeply affected.

But I was not bothered. Sanatan was inside my head; Sanatan Sanstha had taken control of my life. I was a puppet in their hands, to be used as they deemed fit.

Broken dreams and Broken Relationships.

Attack against Hindu Dharma and Sanatan Sanstha

Evil spirits attacking us

The die is cast; the actors are ready and the main character is me. Sanatan Sanstha has identified a gullible candidate. I start believing that everyone is attacking Hindu Dharma, everyone is after Sanatan Dharma. Small incidents; say a person attacked in a remote place, is made out to be a part of a conspiracy. I do not question them, others in the group do not question them.  Their newsletters are full of such stories. This is spiritual human psychology at its play, the one propagated by Dr. Jayant Athavale. Who are they? You may question them; they will tell you THEY are everyone who does not believe in Sanatan Sanstha. They are evil spirits; evil spirits that chase you when you try to do meditation - they call it Naamjap, evil spirits chase you when you go about your daily work. These evil spirits try to disturb you because they know you are doing something good. I used to yawn when meditating, I was told that this is again the work of evil spirits, they are trying to disturb you, do not get disturbed, our guru; Dr. Jayant Athavale, will protect you.

Santan Sanstha and Social Acceptance theory:

There is a concept in psychology, it is called the social acceptance theory. We look around us before deciding on a course of action. If others are doing something, we tend to follow them, even if we know it is wrong. The scientific reasoning is too detailed to be understood. But Sanatan Sanstha uses this theory in captivating their audience. All of us – the seekers as we were called, used to be asked about our thoughts while doing naamjap. Some of the experiences, there were always a couple of them during all discussions, were out of the world and all were focussed around Dr. Jayant Athavale. A sadhak would say that she felt that Guruji (he is referred as ParamPujya – PP in short) came on a garuda and took her away so she could fly away from her troubles. Others would not join in with more and more outrageous stories. Initially, I would give a lame story and everyone would give me a black eye, but through experience and with a need to belong to this group, I also concocted such experiences.

I started lying. The main point is that I started telling lies.

Lying is Good if the objective is good:

This is the mantra of Sanatan Sanstha, if you lie for doing work of the sanstha, it is not a lie. Nothing bad will happen. Dr. Jayant Athavale is there to protect you.

Broken dreams and broken relationships. 

I started lying to my family. Small lies, insignificant lies, needless lies. An important laxman rekha was crossed, the sanstha made me cross the rekha. The explanation to justify such lies was also implanted in my mind. Remember auto-suggestion therapy. Slowly and steadily, I was made to change my beliefs. Till this time, I never used to tell lies to my husband. Now, I lied to him because I felt that he was opposing me, he was part of the evil system, Sanatan Sanstha made a devil out of me. I broke the trust of my family, not once, not twice but repeatedly. Day in and day out.

The evil spirits had taken control, Sanatan Sanstha had taken control of my mind. All in the name of spirituality, all in the name of God.

Sanatan Sanstha and the Veil

What is Sanatan Sanstha

Sanatan Sanstha’s website states that it is a charitable trust. They seek to impart spiritual knowledge through personal guidance for spiritual upliftment and, also inculcate religious behavior. This is their stated aims. The sanstha is based at Ramnathi, a small village on the outskirts of Ponda, Goa, India. They have a huge ashram there and it operates as their headquarters. They have another ashram at Devad, Panvel near Mumbai, Maharashtra. Another ashram is said to be at Miraj, Maharashtra.

The sanstha operates through various branches. Sanatan Sanstha does not own any of them, these branches operate from the residences of the sadhaks – their followers. These branches may have several sub-offices under them. A typical hierarchical structure with a minimum cost of operations. There is very little information on the number of followers, the way things are organized and operations. All part of the veil. All information strictly on need to know basis, a secretive society formed with unknown intentions.

Hierarchy and Sanatan Sanstha:

 The hierarchy at the Sanstha is designed so the flow of information is easily controlled. Outsiders cannot get any inkling of the Ashram, why outsiders, even the followers are not aware of its true intent. Sanatan Sanstha wants to control everything and anything. I know because I was part of an inner circle, I was one constituent of a small wheel inside many wheels.

The reporting structure is very devious and is cloaked in spiritual terms. Yes, they use spiritual terminology as a cloak. They hide behind it, they use it to justify themselves and stop all unwanted, unwarranted questions. All followers – sadhaks report to a branch in charge. The branch in charge is decided by the reporting Ashram head. The branch in charge reports to another sevak who is based at one of the ashrams. The ashram has several coordination departments – called समन्वय विभाग. All prim and proper.

Flow of information:

Control, control and control. Three important words at Sanatan Sanstha. Not told to anybody, but practised day in and day out, every hour of the day and every minute of the hour. Need to know and question the need to know. But do not show this face to others. Let them think that we are open, everything is open.

And that also brings us to the title of the blog “sanatanveil”. More on that later…

The flow of information is one-way, from bottom to top. The other way is just instructions, what to do, when to do and how to do. Questions are encouraged if they support the set of instructions, instructions cannot be questioned, they must be followed. Instructions are all verbal, nothing is ever given in writing. Writing commits oneself, yes, we are instructed on this, but again I will come back at a later stage. Sanatan Sanstha is not open, it is very hierarchal society, it is very secretive.

Why should it be like this? Why is there no openness? What prevents them from being open about themselves? Why do they give an impression of being open when they are not open?

Questions, questions and more questions. Sanatan Sanstha does not like questions, it will not answer them, it is not supposed to answer them. You are not supposed to question Sanatan Sanstha Goa. Follow the instructions and you will get Mooksh. Question them and I become an evil spirit, a demon. I cannot be reformed; I should be thrown out.

I did and was thrown out. But I could not stop my conscience from biting me. I will not let my conscience bit me.

Why did Sanatan Sanstha attract me so much?

Sanatan Sanstha and Attraction

You must be wondering why would anybody be affected so much by Sanatan Sanstha. The “offering” that the sanstha puts in front of people is very appealing and put in a simplistic manner. They cloak the wordings to sound scientific. There is a beautiful concoction of Hindu Dharma and science and ordinary things are given a very spiritual meaning. They publish dailies, weeklies and even monthly newsletters. The articles are all about the daily news and about spirituality. The language is simplistic and easy to understand.

So what is the rub?

I always considered myself apart from the hoi-poi, the ordinary people who go about their daily activities without any thought of spiritual upliftment. The constant attacks on Hinduism used to affect me deeply. I always had an urge to do something about it but felt helpless. My family used to laugh at all these feelings. They would never support me, I used to feel. They never understood me. Oh! How wrong I was…

Sanatan Sanstha looks around for such people, people like me who are gullible, who are carried away by good words and who feel that the world does not understand them. Why only Sanatan, there are thousands of such organisations. They do the same thing. Why is Sanatan different from them? Why do people hate Sanatan so much?

I don’t know about others, but ask me and I will say that I hate Sanatan Sanstha because of what it did to me. How it duped me with the sweet words and the promise of Mooksh. How it utilised my feelings and played around with me.

Was I thinking rationally?

The question that arises is, was I ever thinking rationally? Why was I affected so much that I left my house, my family and all my relationship behind me and ran away? Was I hypnotised? Was I drugged? What happened?

The answer lies in psychology, pure human psychology. And Dr. Jayant Athavale has used this as a powerful weapon, a weapon through which he can control the minds of people. Make them do anything that he wants to do, when he wants to do and in the manner, that he desires. People say that he uses a branch of hypnosis; called Ericksonian Hypnosis. But I also know that a person cannot be hypnotised without his or her permission. Jayant Athavale can hypnotise one person at a time, how can he hypnotise so many of them?

The truth is somewhere in between. Sanatan Sanstha uses a powerful blend of psychological methods to capture the minds. The mind control techniques rely on a powerful tool of psychology called Auto Suggestion. The so called sadhaks first identify the individuals who can be diverted, converted and then controlled. Trust me, I was there, I was controlled by them. I was converted by them.

The methods are so simple but so powerful that we accept them without any questions. We accept them and follow them and use them in our daily life. Till one day, we lose control over our lives. We give our control to Sanatan Sanstha.

They win….

We lose, we lose ourselves and hand over ourselves to them.

Look at the faces behind the veil

Sanatan Sanstha - Controversial at its best.

Sanatan Sanstha seems to revel in controversies. It has been accused of mastering murders of several prominent Hindu personages -Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, and M. M. Kalburgi are prominent among them. They have been accused of other illegal activities as well, some of their followers - they call themselves sadhaks, have been arrested for planting bombs. A doctor is being investigated for using psychotic drugs, maybe illegally acquiring and prescribing such drugs. These are all in public domain, I will not stress too much on the controversies surrounding Sanatan Sanstha. My focus is on their way of operations, the methods used by them and the logic behind them.

I know, because I have been a part of this sanstha, run by a Dr. Jayant Balaji Athavale, a so called hypnotherapist. 

I spent the best part of my life running after the ever elusive Mooksh, an offering of our "beloved" guru, just like others before me did and others are still doing. The substantial following built up by Sanatan Sanstha is impressive. Their method of communication is mesmerising. They offer the ultimate fruit to true "seekers". And people like us get taken in. We forget everything.

Broken Dreams and Broken Houses:

Yes, we forget everything and run to them, run to Sanatan Sanstha. They appear to be saviours in our troubled times. They offer solace, a calming balm to tide over the difficulties, difficulties that are part and parcel of our daily lives. They show as if they have the answers to all our questions, joining them will relieve us of all our difficulties. And some of us are so taken in that we run, run away and leave everything behind. We break our houses and homes. We break our relationships, drive away our near and dear ones; those who love us. Run away from them and the daily friction of life. Run away to one of the Sanatan Sanstha’s ashrams and join them as full time devotees. We want to immerse ourselves into the service of the sanstha and devote our life – the balance of our life, to do seva. They promise us that they will deliver spiritual upliftment, we will become free of worldly needs and wants and attain Mooksh.

Reality Bites and Bites Deep:

And then after some time, reality sets in, at least for some people who have still retained some part of their rational thinking. Some us start questioning the unquestionable faith that is demanded in Sanatan Sanstha. We are not allowed to do so. We cannot do so. But, everyone at the ashram, Sanatan Sanstha has three ashrams, the main one at Ponda, Goa, the second one at Panvel, near Mumbai and another one at Miraj, Maharashtra, faces this moment of truth. But, some of us have come too far, we have burnt too many bridges, severed too many relationships. We cannot look back; we cannot go back. Dr. Jayant Balaji Athavale has achieved his objective. He has a zombie in his hand, a zombie he can control and make him do what he wants to do, when he wants to do and in the manner, he wants to do…

I came back, came back from the brink of disaster. I am now slowly trying to regain my life. I am trying to rebuild loved relationships, relationships I had broken in the first place. It is a slow and painful process; I know I cannot rebuild my past life ever again. The pain will always remain with me till I am alive. It will remain in the hearts of my loved ones, ones I have hurt too deeply. They will carry it forward, the pain in their hearts, long after I have ceased to be.

That is the gift of Sanatan Sanstha.