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"There is one thing I want to make
really clearly, and that is I am a liberated soul. . . . I think it may
not be possible for a liberated soul to live in the company of human
beings." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A former disciple's snapshot shows Sharon Ward, the guru's right-hand woman, standing barefoot beside visiting white-robed monks at the Portland ashram. Flames sputtered from the Portland ashram's mortgage papers in the institute's fire pit in July 1997. Ex-disciples recall Ward, wearing a crisp white blouse and long flowery skirt, clapping as Chetanananda thanked disciple Kerry Ernest Smith. Smith had succeeded in the bakery business after running the ashram-affiliated bakery company in Bloomington years before. Now, Smith had returned to donate $1.7 million to pay off the ashram's mortgage, Ward said. But Ward faced still more challenges: The institute would soon have to repay Ames the $500,000 plus interest. The Martha's Vineyard acreage hadn't sold. And Melinda Mandell, a former institute member, was suing Chetanananda and the institute. Court records show that she alleged misrepresentation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract and racketeering. Mandell sought more than $4 million, claiming the swami had never delivered on a promise to provide ashram housing and instruction if she left her law practice in Boston. Mandell claimed in the suit that the institute was not a charitable church organization but a for-profit enterprise operated for the benefit of Chetanananda, Ward and other key followers including Bob Shoemaker, the guru's brother and Ward's husband. Lawyers for the swami and the institute denied all of Mandell's allegations, later describing the racketeering claim as "confusing, jumbled and scattershot." The lawyers said that institute representatives denied they had promised ashram instruction, and that Mandell failed to prepare to find employment in Oregon. The parties ultimately would settle the suit in 1999, under confidential terms. But as complaints and summonses flew in the summer of 1997, the Nityananda Institute began requiring members to sign a form releasing the swami and his church from any liability. The form said the student understood that Chetanananda, "the abbot," did not provide counseling, health care or confidential relationships. "I accept that I am fully responsible for myself and my life," the form said, "including my own actions, behavior, thoughts, financial status, health, relationships, and any other condition." By Aug. 3, 1997, Ward, the ashram's executive director, wrote in a letter to Ames, that she had secured a bank mortgage. She paid off the $500,000 loan to Ames and began negotiating interest payments with her. After the mortgage-burning ceremony and a retreat session for institute members, Ward used some lines from Basavanna, a 12th-century poet, in a fund-raising letter. A copy of the Aug. 7, 1997, draft reads: "Can there be devotion in words and more words? Can there be devotion unless the body is spent, unless the heart is spent, unless the wealth is spent?" The letter continued: "Swamiji has been working so hard, and giving so deeply and freely of himself, that by the end of the retreat, he was exhausted, and so hoarse that he could barely speak. "In his brief and beautiful closing remarks, he said to us repeatedly, 'Don't hold back.' " -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "If you're the person who's
(expletive) judging what work you're going to do all the damn time, what
do you need a teacher for? . . . I am constantly meeting people who are
sitting in judgment of what I am communicating to them. You can't believe
how frustrating it is for me to see people who think they're better than
me." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ames says she moved out of the ashram Dec. 9, 1997. She twisted her ankle carrying a box out to her car. She says that no one asked her why she was leaving: No one wished her well. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I bust my guts out for people who
mostly wonder, you know, 'What in the hell happened?' and 'What's that son
of a bitch trying to get from me anyway?' Well, the truth of the matter
is, I'm after your money. (laughter from audience). Or, I could be after
your bodies. (more laughter). In 1998, Martha's Vineyard conservationists hiked across the Nityananda Institute's island acreage, admiring the breathtaking view across Menemsha Bight. They had eyed the property five years before, but their organization usually avoided land with buildings. Now minus the house, the secluded 28 acres were attractive, with their rolling hills, dense woodland, wetlands, streams and a peat bog. That September, Martha's Vineyard Land Bank commissioners approved the purchase of the property for $1.2 million. The Nityananda Institute gained some breathing room. Ames got her interest money back. But more trouble loomed for Chetanananda. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You are a cowardly, vengeful,
venomous witch. . . . I do not sexually abuse women. . . . I have never
cheated you in business. . . . If you don't stop these slanderous lies and
harassment of members of our community, I will sue you. . . . I will make
the process as ugly and expensive as humanly possible." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Breaking the swami's hold. After their faith in the guru is crushed, fearful ex-disciples face the prospect of life outside the church. Debi Moore recalls cringing as Swami Chetanananda joked and laughed at dinner in a villa where he stayed in Nepal in 1999. Moore says she shifted uncomfortably as she sat with other disciples on floor pillows. She remembers watching closely as Chetanananda, a Kentucky-born guru originally named J. Michael Shoemaker, held forth on a couch far from the Northeast Portland manor where he lives with about 75 followers. Moore, then a 46-year-old data analyst, says she had traveled with her boyfriend to Katmandu to decide whether to stay with the spiritual leader she had revered for 26 years. She says she was appalled by tales of violence during sexual encounters she had repeatedly heard were taking place between Chetanananda and women in his flock. Moore says the whispered reports of violence shattered the belief system she had so carefully constructed during a quarter-century of meditation and worship. She recalls agonizing at the prospect of leaving the practice, believing that quitting would halt her spiritual development. Chetanananda repeatedly declined requests for an interview with The Oregonian concerning disciples' allegations of sexual abuse and other issues. Last Thursday, he submitted a typed statement in response to a summary of the accusations. In the statement, the swami defended his sexual relationships with his students as appropriate. He did not specifically respond to an allegation that he had had violent sex with women who suffered injuries, including a disciple who appeared to Moore and her boyfriend to be hurt in 1998. "I am not a sadist and I am not violent," he wrote. Moore says that in February 1999 she found the guru ensconced in a Spanish-style, Katmandu home. She thought the house, with its marble floors, wide porches, manicured lawn and guarded front gate, stuck out from the poverty and simplicity of the ancient city. She remembers recoiling at what she viewed as excesses: A caretaker, a driver, two cooks and women doing laundry scurried around, and a barber stopped in. On this night of the full moon, Moore recalls, two dozen disciples sat around a candlelit table on rich Oriental rugs. She says a young Tibetan woman interpreted between the swami and Wangdu, a Tibetan lama, as three little girls watched with the reverence of grandchildren. Moore says Chetanananda made a crass joke, ribbing Wangdu about getting laid. Laid. He used that word, Moore remembers thinking. She says she watched the translator squirm beneath a prim buttoned-up white blouse, dutifully interpreting while Wangdu glanced sideways. Moore says that as the swami forged on, lacing his jokes with vulgar terms, she felt he enjoyed the young woman's embarrassment. Finally she cut in. "Swami," Moore recalls saying. "The children." Moore says she returned to Portland after accompanying the swami and his entourage on a photo safari in a Nepali tiger reserve. She slipped her goodbye note under the swami's door in the ashram April 9, 1999. "I love you," she wrote. "Every day I'm grateful for what I've received from you and the community." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I promise you, Shree (sic), the
people who stand against me will be crushed, and their children and their
grandchildren." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Former disciples say that 10 longtime devotees, including Moore, left the ashram in spring 1999 as tales of sex and violence circulated. Disciple Dana Swift recalls sitting in group meditation and seeing herself get up and leave. She says the vision came again, during another session, and again. On April 29, 1999, Swift quit the program, 11 years after signing up. The previous month, Chetanananda and Nityananda Institute had entered a confidential legal settlement with Portland-area lawyer Melinda Mandell, a former follower who had filed suit accusing them of breach of contract, racketeering and other wrongdoing. The Oregonian obtained records of the case later, before Multnomah County Circuit Judge David Gernant sealed them at Mandell's request. Mandell's attorney argued that allegations contained in the case file could damage reputations of the people involved. He added that Mandell thought that alleged thefts of personal property she had reported to police during the proceedings would be less likely to continue if the file were sealed. Mandell, a Portland lawyer, declined to comment, and she objected to The Oregonian identifying her and reporting on the case. Moore, Swift and other disciples who left Chetanananda that spring say that quitting the spiritual practice had once been almost impossible to contemplate. In one stroke, they say, a disciple would have to give up friends, community, religion, home -- and in some cases, church employment -- for an uncertain future. Ex-members say people tended to leave after a cathartic event shattered their faith in the guru. Boston cook Marty Keady, an ashram chef and disciple for four years, says he felt disgust in 1996 when he realized he enjoyed seeing the guru castigate another follower. Jim Hassan, a Massachusetts man who joined the ashram in 1989, says he lost faith after hearing that the swami was sleeping with a friend. " 'If you leave, you'll be dead within a year,' " Hassan says the guru threatened him in 1994. But former disciples say that it wasn't until May 1999 that Chetanananda drew an explicit line between the ashram and the outside world. Moore recalls that her boyfriend, who had stayed with the swami, told her that the guru had forbidden his followers to talk with anyone who had left. Chetanananda wrote in his statement last week that he had never threatened anybody who wanted to leave his community. He said he did not prohibit students outright from contact with former members. Today, in fact, not all members shun former disciples. Moore says her boyfriend told her the swami's directive that May gave him an impossible choice: Her or the guru. Moore says she felt scared. "If he gives you the Kool-Aid," Moore remembers asking her boyfriend, "will you take it?" Moore recalls that in August 1999, fear gripped her as she clutched her steering wheel. She says she forced herself to turn into the parking lot of the ashram at 1021 N.E. 33rd Ave., for the first time since quitting. Moore says she walked quickly toward the door on an errand stemming from her position as treasurer of the Kerns Neighborhood Association. She held an envelope containing cash for the annual neighborhood picnic, which disciples had helped build into a popular event drawing about 500 people. She recalls glancing at the institute's steel fence, afraid she might be charged by the Rottweilers, the dogs kept on the premises as pets. The big, brick manor loomed above her. No one accosted Moore that day or threatened her. But she says her fear was palpable. Moore remembers hearing similar expressions of fear when she attended the meeting of an informal support group made up of former members. The ex-disciples say they feared the swami because they knew his temper and his violent talk. They say they feared him because, even when they knew it was irrational, they had been told so long that he could read their minds. Most of all, they say they feared him because they felt -- by staring into their eyes during meditation for years, and in other ways -- he had penetrated the core of their beings. Chetanananda disputed such impressions in his statement last week. "No harm has ever happened to any person who has left our community as the result of any action by me or anyone associated with me," he wrote. But one woman says she continued to experience nightmares every couple of weeks 13 years after leaving the ashram. Her then-husband had bad dreams just as often -- every night, when he was under stress -- seeing the guru coming after him, sucking him back inside. Former members got unlisted phone numbers. They told friends not to reveal their addresses. They asked police to watch their homes. They say they feared not just the swami but his most fervent followers, people they believed might do anything -- as they felt they themselves once would have -- to prove loyalty to a man who represented a higher law. Former disciple Aurelia Navarro, who recalls enraging the swami by researching his sexual liaisons before quitting the ashram, says he told her, "If this were India, I would be found floating face-down in the Ganges" River. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Generating a vision . . . That's
having a very, very deep and profound commitment to something bigger than
you. For me, it was my teacher ..." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inside the ashram, the routine continued. Ashram resident Michelle Lawson, a former San Francisco lawyer who became a disciple in 1996, said last July she was incredulous at the hostility and fear. Lawson and Cynthia Brown, a 27-year disciple and chairwoman of Portland State University computer science department, said they believed the swami had attained enlightenment. "There's no coercion in our group," said Brown, who acknowledged the institute was not a democracy. "If we had 15 enlightened people, then we could all decide, but we've only got one." Some former members, who cited negative aspects of their experience in the ashram, also describe benefits. Melanie Rubin, a disciple from 1985 to 1998, still remembers meditation classes with the swami as some of the most powerful, heart-opening and beautiful experiences of her life. Rubin, a documentary video producer, says the swami's sexual conduct and autocratic style created an unhealthy environment for her. But she says she appreciated the structure that let her pursue her spiritual development, and the chance to participate in a community of warm, intelligent people. Ashram teacher Ruth Knight, a 23-year devotee, smiled blissfully last July as she introduced a reporter for The Oregonian to the meditation practice. Knight reclined on an easy chair in an ashram living room beneath a painting of Rudi, the swami's late guru, pictured sitting naked on a leopard skin. "To really have a guru is an amazing and rare event," Knight said. "A student has to have a master in order to progress. "A teacher needs to be from a lineage. A lineage can sort of be thought of as an energy field." Energy comes down from guru to guru. Knight led the reporter through the meditation routine. Breathe in through your nose. Feel the breath enter between your eyebrows. Feel it come down to the throat chakra, or energy center, past the heart chakra and into the abdomen. "In spiritual work, you're asking to grow and change. But the ego tries to maintain the status quo," Knight said. "People are very clever at finding ways to justify no longer growing . . . and quit their practice." Sharon Ward, the institute's executive director and general counsel, dismissed former members' fears as outlandish. Ward said during an interview last September that the group was not a cult but a spiritual community, and she described the swami as an open and compassionate man. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "If you want to really understand who
we are, come and meet me, meet us. You may or may not want to practice
yoga and meditation here. But in either case, know, from within yourself,
who we are." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Dec. 21, 2000, an e-mail from an outsider alerted Ward to a new Web site, launching a battle that continues. Former members had created the site -- www.leaving-nityananda-institute.org -- that featured an anonymous statement about Chetanananda by 11 people. "He told us the only thing we had to surrender was our tensions," the open letter said, "when in fact we were expected to surrender everything to his program: our families, our girlfriends if we were men, our bodies if we were women . . . our money, our former religious beliefs and morals, and our sense of belonging in the society at large." Soon afterward, institute members registered Internet domain names, such as www.leaving-nityananda-institute.com, resembling that of the former members' site, to steer Web surfers their way. The sites accused the former members of using hate-group tactics to incite prejudice and intolerance. Six members posted a signed statement describing the institute's philosophy. "Neither students nor teachers are required to practice celibacy," they wrote. "Everyone is free to make his or her own choices regarding personal relationships." This week, former members updated their Web site with results of a recent survey of several ex-disciples, many of whom reported behavior described as abusive. In his typed statement, the swami said accusations were being made by "a small but vocal circle of former members who regularly meet to distribute malicious gossip via the Internet. . . . The allegations that are not outright lies are distortions so gross as to be impossible to respond to." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Interpersonal experience . . . while
full of caring, may also be full of chaos and clutter. Many religious
rules, such as celibacy, are established to save us from that clutter." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dana Swift, who spent 11 years following Chetanananda, has moved to another state and found a new job. She shuns spiritual teachers. But she continues meditating occasionally, and does Tibetan and Hindi chanting. Hone Ames, who spent 10 years as a disciple, has moved away from Portland, renewed friendships and family ties and resumed her career as an author. Ames says that a medical doctor and a therapist diagnosed her as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. But she says she now enjoys a full life free of manipulation and fear. One of 11 women who told The Oregonian that Chetanananda had sex with them is now a medical practitioner. "I went through a period of time when I wanted to cut him up in little pieces," she says. "I don't think if I was somebody with a good childhood, that had a lot of support, I would have gotten into it." Current Nityananda Institute members reject the authoritarian label. "Nobody worships him; he's just a very, very fine and extremely caring person," said Pat Tarzian, a 13-year member. "I'm not in a cult, wearing orange," said Carolyn Morgan, a member for more than 20 years. Ruth Knight, who teaches in The Movement Center, the institute's yoga school, which has provided a source of new disciples, said recently that the program had a record 300 students. Knight dismisses public criticism as the product of a vendetta by a handful of disgruntled former followers. "I wish them well," Knight says. "I think they've created a hell for themselves that they can't get out of." Debi Moore heaved a chunk of seasoned maple out her barn door last winter and pulled a maul off a wall rack. Deftly, she tipped the log on end with her right foot, stepped back and swung the maul in an arc over her head. Almost two years after quitting the ashram, Moore was continuing to rebuild her life, settling into a rural routine far from Portland. She and her boyfriend bought acreage and a run-down house in a mountain range where no one would think to find them. They stayed together after each emerged separately from Chetanananda's influence. "I didn't know he'd get out," Moore says of her boyfriend. "You can't talk someone out. It occurred in him." She grieved over lost friends inside. She met with a therapist. She read about cult psychology. Gradually, she says, she overcame paralyzing fear of the guru. She began a new job, started exercising and took a pottery class. She and her boyfriend installed windows and insulation. They framed walls, planted 200 trees and watched deer come down from the mountains. Moore still felt a hunger for something deeper, a thirst for spiritual meaning. But she knew that when she returned to that quest, it would have to ring true in her mind, her body, her emotions and her relationships with others. The maul hung in the air. Moore flexed her arms. Moore knew that some other ex-members still felt victimized. But after 26 years with the swami and nearly two years free of him, she considered herself a survivor. The steel wedge neatly cleaved the firewood with a satisfying clunk. Moore tossed the pieces on a sturdy cart and hauled it toward the house. Editor's Note This story is the product of reporting that took place over a three-year period. During that time, reporter Richard Read interviewed more than 100 different people including current and former members of the Nityananda Institute, their family members, institute officials, academics and experts on Eastern religions. He also reviewed thousands of pages of documents, including property, bank, court and police records; listened to dozens of hours of Swami Chetanananda's taped lectures; and -- at the institute's suggestion -- went through introductory meditation training there. Swami Chetanananda declined repeated requests for interviews over more than a year. Institute officials also declined requests by a photographer for the newspaper. Last Thursday, Chetanananda submitted a five-page written response to a three-page written inquiry. The institute at first declined to make current members available to speak to Read. Later, the institute offered a list of seven current members. Of those, Read interviewed six; one didn't return phone calls. In all, Read interviewed 17 current and 59 former institute members. -- Amanda Bennett
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