Niche religious cults

Sanjay Sai Baba is seated at the end of an open hall that can easily seat a thousand people. Hundreds of people line up every week for his darshan. Though he is just 26, men and women far older than him address him with honorary titles.

Swami Kamal Nayanacharya’s sprawling ashram in Bhaktapur is a favourite haunt of the country’s bigwigs, including politicians like Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Sher Bahadur Deuba, and several businessmen.

Though she does not have so grand an ashram, Ma Lalita’s* humble home is continuously filled with women. They believe that the simple powders she gives them after ‘fuk-fak’ solves all their problems, whether material or spiritual.

Self-proclaimed religious and spiritual leaders attract many people in our society. The leaders may be little known, like a mataji possessed by a Devi who lives at the corner of your street, or they may be famous, like Sanjay Sai Baba or Swami Kamal Nayanacharya, with ashrams and pet social service projects of their own. But devotees who seek out these leaders are looking for the same thing: spiritual satisfaction that transcends this world.

Ravi Giri, 37, who has been a devotee of Sanjay Sai Baba for more than ten years, believes he gains spiritual merit by his devotion. “Whatever I do in the outside world only serves to enlarge my ego,” says Giri, an actor. “If I come here, my arrogance is destroyed and I’m humbled.”

“People who walk the spiritual path are different from others,” says Dhruba Kumar Timsina, country coordinator of Sahaja Yoga, a spiritual organization. “They live life according to their own experiences and not really according to that of the material world.”

Sahaja Yoga is an informal network that practices novel forms of yoga. Its followers raise their kundalini chakras with the help of their hands instead of doing traditional yoga.

“In Sahaja Yoga, you don’t need to focus on breathing or on contorting the body like in traditional yoga,” says Timsina. “Kundalini chakras can be activated simply by the action of the hands that create positive vibrations as we sit.”

People who seek out such alternate religious niches share another characteristic: faith in the leadership or guidance of a particular person. Timsina informed that whenever followers of Sahaja Yoga met, they did so in front of a picture of their deceased leader, Shrimata Nirmala Devi. “At first, she was a teacher,” said Timsina. “Later, as we delved deeper into the movement, she became our god, the meaning of our entire lives.”

Similar faith in leaders is expressed by devotees of other groups, too.

Sandhya Panta, 45, confirms that she feels immense contentment when she just looks at Sai Baba. “All my problems melt away and I’m at peace when I see his face,” she said.

Extensive studies have been done in the western world on cults, which are religious organizations built around a single, charismatic leader. Cults like Scientology have become (in)famous. But not many studies have been done on cult psychology in the Hindu world, though there are studies on specific cults like the Aghoris, or on new religious leaders like Sai Baba.

But still, niche religious groups in Nepal do share certain characteristics with Western cults. One of them, mentioned above, is the faith in a charismatic leader. Leaders of such organizations are idolized to the point of deification. A picture of Sanjay Sai Baba’s feet peeking out from under saffron robes graces many a facebook page, and devotees line up for the opportunity to worship his feet. The feet of Shrimata Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahajayoga, are likewise worshipped by devotees. In fact, her followers believe that unless they perform their yoga in front of her photo, they do not get the results of their yoga.

Another characteristic of cults is the discouragement of independent thinking and encouragement of belief in the leadership. Sanjay Sai Baba is heard to urge followers not to question with the mind, but to have faith with the heart.

Yet another characteristic of cults is exclusivity. Many of these groups claim that they are the “one true path” to liberation, heaven, or spiritual fulfillments while they condemn other paths as “ignorance.” Sahaj Yoga’s followers believe that Shrimataji found ways to activate the kundalini chakras that no yoga experts or even classic books have ever done.

Besides, devotees of these religious groups also share characteristics with cult followers. They are most often going though stress from their immediate surroundings. They seek guidance, the capacity to tell right from wrong and emotional space. People turn to religious leaders when they find nothing in the world that can satisfy them.

Cults like Scientology are taken as dangerous in mainstream society because of their reputation for mind control, and their active pursuit of converts. Similar characteristics are found in Nepali cults as well. Followers of cults claim to be “utterly transformed” by their experience which hints at mind control techniques, after which they start preaching their cult and convincing others to join.

But in our society, such religious leaders are not taken as threat to the social order.

“Such groups disseminate a form of religion that is understood by the masses,” says Yubaraj Luintel, Professor of Sociology at TU. “As such, they engage a large mass of people in harmless activities that are broadly positive.”

Eastern cults differ from western ones in one significant aspect: While western cults challenge authority and create their own worldview, eastern cults have very conservative religious and social values. Sanjay Sai Baba preaches renunciation of greed and selfishness, while Ma Lalita stresses cleanness and purity, values advocated by traditional Hindu scriptures. Different individuals have different social needs. These groups coexist with the dominant worldview and cater to all kinds of religious needs.

*name changed

Nepal’s very own Sai Baba?

After Sathya Sai Baba gained popularity in India, there has been a virtual deluge of Sai Baba look-alikes in India and abroad who claim a share of the devotion reserved for Sai Baba. They either claim to be Sai Baba or a new religious leader who just coincidentally happens to look like Sai Baba. Nepal has had its very own claimant to the position for about ten years.

Sanjay Sai Baba currently has an ashram at Suryakot, Balkumari, where he gives ‘darshan’ to his devotees.

Pratap Thakkar writes in his memoir ‘Sai Tatwa’ that Sanjay Sai Baba’s hall is an exact replica of Sathya Sai Baba’s hall in Puttaparthi, India. Though its roofs are made of tin, at least a dozen chandeliers hang from the roofs at wide intervals. At the end of the hall is a raised dais decorated with several chandeliers and shining hangings in pink and gold. Sanjay Sai Baba reclines on the throne in saffron robes of the kind worn by Sathya Sai Baba.

In fact, each and every thing about Sanjay Sai Baba is a carefully crafted replica of Sathya Sai Baba. He wears the same floor-length saffron robes, has the same thoughtful pose, waves the same wave, and even has the same afro hair (though pictures can be found online of a teenaged Sanjay Sai Baba with moderately wavy hair.)

But that is not all. Sanjay Sai Baba also miraculously produces vibhoot (holy ash) on his hands from nowhere. He is also known to gift his devotees gold lockets and rings from time to time, all produced instantaneously. He has the same catchphrase as Sathya Sai Baba: Love all, serve all. The ashram has similar conservative rules as Puttaparthi: Men and women sit separately, and women must be decently clothed in kurtha salwar or sari.

Ramita Thapa, 36, lives in Belgium and has been a devotee of Sai Baba for fourteen years. Whenever she came to Nepal from Belgium, she used to visit Sai Baba at Puttaparthi, India. But about ten years ago, Ravi Giri, another devotee of Sai Baba, told her that she would not need to go to Puttaparthi, because Sai Baba had manifested in Nepal itself. “Since then I started coming here,” says Ramita.

Devotees of many colours and stripes throng the Baba’s audience halls. Ramita’s daughter Nikita, 19, is a milder devotee. “For my mom, he’s everything,” says she. “For me, not so much, but I think of him as a messenger.”

On the one hand, there is no shortage of people who claim that Sanjay Sai Baba is indeed god. “My God! He is god himself,” says Babita Mishra who mans the counter of the nearby religious bookshop. “I had so many problems before I came here, but now they are all solved.”

On the other hand, the Shri Satya Sai Seva Organization refuses to acknowledge this person. When asked if they knew about the existence of a Sai Baba in Nepal, Amar Bahadur Karki, a Sevak at the Organization, said “What if I said I was Lord Krishna? Would you believe me?” Karki made it clear that for him, Sanjay Sai Baba was an ordinary mortal.

In fact, when Sanjay Sai Baba manifested in Nepal ten years ago, Sathya Sai Baba in India was still alive. But for devotees of Sanjay Sai Baba, that does not pose a contradiction.

“Two avatars of Lord Vishnu, Ram and Parshuram, were on the earth at the same time,” says Ravi Giri. “Why can’t it be the same for Sai Baba?”

Turning the Tables: What Ails Faith Healers?

She holds court with a dozen women surrounding her, all looking at her with utmost devotion. Each one approaches her turn by turn, and puts forth her issues.

“My husband left me,” says one. “When will he come back, Mother?”

Ma Lalita* takes a plateful of rice grains, tinkles them on the platter one by one, and answers: “He’ll be back after Dashain.”

Ma Lalita claims to see these answers “with inner eyes.” She reminds her devotees from time to time that she is divine – she is possessed by gods on Saturdays. “I’m just an ordinary mortal, so don’t ask me how I know such things. Come and seek the answers when gods are within me,” she says.

Psychologist Karuna Kunwar at the Center for Mental Health and Counseling thinks otherwise. “They are never unconscious, even when they claim to know nothing,” says Kunwar. “It’s all a conscious act.”

Kunwar has counseled many faith healers during her career, and she informs that women who claim to be possessed have similar histories. They have had a very stressful childhood which more often than not includes physical or sexual abuse, which leads to a depressed adulthood. Only some depressed women become devis and matas, and certain characteristics set them apart: They have low self-esteem and few coping mechanisms, they are unable to think or plan into the future and think of their present circumstances as insurmountable.

Ma Lalita revealed that she had always wanted to get away from the physical world and gain mukti. She had not wanted to get married. After she gave birth to her first child at 17, she became unconscious and went into a coma for a long time. She was even diagnosed with psychological disorders, but could not be cured. Later, a religious healer (janne manchhe) recognized that she was actually possessed by a goddess.

Being possessed becomes a way of coping with problems. “You can’t abuse a deity,” says Kunwar. She cited a case where a teenage girl became possessed and directed her family to marry her to a certain boy—the family being in no mood to listen when the girl was an ordinary mortal. Thus, divine possession brought them power.

This way of coping, called Conversion Disorder, manifests itself differently in different cultures. The symptoms are completely different in Western countries. A person may claim to be paralyzed even if there is nothing wrong with him medically, and he will be unable to walk. “The disorder takes this form because other outlets to cope aren’t available to them,” informs Kunwar.

In South Asia, women are possessed by culturally strong deities in which their immediate family or community put their faith. At first, Ma Lalita was possessed by Maha Laxmi – she lives near the Maha Laxmisthan in Patan. Today, she is possessed by any deity that devotees may want to talk to.

The beginning of possession is a well meditated act. They are concerned that their possession should not look fake. Hence, they secretly learn about religious rituals or gods so that their trance is convincing. They may even learn techniques of healing to convince people of their divinity. Their learning is different from that of traditional faith healers, like jhankris, who usually learn from predecessors and may not claim divine possession. But matas are unable to tell anyone, even their parents or spouses, that their possession is an act.

Many healers who come to Kunwar do so because they feel guilty about their act.

“Also, their primary problems like stress and low self-esteem never really go away,” says Kunwar. She further informs that people who frequent these healers share similar characteristics – low self-esteem, few coping mechanisms, and inability to plan the future. Indeed, Ma Lalita was able to connect excellently with her devotees, telling each person that theirs was a hard life.

Conversion Disorder, previously also called hysteria, is also seen in men, though less frequently. Worldwide, nine out of ten people with Conversion Disorder are women. Most societies restrict women from ventilating their feelings and give few viable ways out of undesirable situations, which is believed to be the reason they seek such outlandish solutions.

*Name changed

Published in Republica on August 1