The name of the place was Regaalis. I went there last Wednesday, 18th Feb. 2009 around 7 pm. There was no His Highness in that Regal Hall of Hotel Regaalis. However, there was His Holiness. Paramahamsa Nithyananda (Swamiji), 31 years of age, who achieved enlightenment three years ago from what I heard from him. I was sitting in front of a huge screen connected to a closed circuit TV listening to the Swamiji. In the adjacent room was the real Swamiji giving a talk on a profoundly spiritual subject.

The talk, it appears, began at 6.30 pm and ended at exactly 8 pm with clockwork precision. I got up from my seat along with a couple of my friends when I heard that the Swamiji would take some questions from the congregation. He preferred written questions as otherwise there would be a scramble for the cordless mike. Swamiji smiled.

The volunteers in my hall began distributing paper slips to those who wished to ask questions. I also collected a slip. In the meanwhile, the first salvo was fired at the Swamiji and it appeared to be a Yorker. The ball that lands at the foot of the batsman and difficult to strike. He can't avoid it either. And if he fails to negotiate it, he will be either LBW or bowled. Such was the predicament of Paramahamsa Nithyananda. The question was asked by a senior citizen about the Swamiji being God or Swamiji wanting to prove others are Gods or something to that effect based on an article in which the Swamiji had answered his disciple’s question, "Whether he is God?"

I was busy writing my question and heard rather faintly the incoherent and garbled question from someone in the audience. This question as well as the answer seemed like producing more heat than light from the way the Swamiji went about not answering but bashing both the questioner and the journalist who had written about him. “The journalist has abused his freedom, he has no intelligence and is a negative person, he is already in hell, his dictionary is different etc., etc”. By now it was clear to those who were looking at the Swamiji that he was indeed annoyed with the question and turned petulant if not belligerent. Good, he was unaware that the “culprit” journalist was in the adjacent hall watching the tamasha.

I handed over my slip of paper to a lady hoping I might get an answer. However, I saw the Swamiji keeping aside the question papers for good after answering one in a cursory manner.

I wondered if the Swamiji had read the article mentioned by the questioner. If he had, then he would have fielded the question calmly and with confidence. Well, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, another Godman, had said, as mentioned in the same article, that the answer could be wrong, but not the question. What happened in the hall was just what Jaggi had stated. Those wise men who take questions should realise longer the answer greater is the risk of creating ambiguity and boredom.

Be that as it may, to my surprise an anecdotal story told by the Swamiji earlier in his discourse, in a way, came visiting him unwittingly when he answered this question. It appears in a certain village there was a young boy who was looked down upon by the villagers as stupid and useless. The boy was crestfallen and sad. One day a Sanyasi (Swamiji) was passing through that village and the young boy thought the Sanyasi could help him. The Sanyasi told the boy, "Don’t worry. You are neither stupid nor useless. I will make you loveable and a wise man." The boy was excited. "I would do whatever you say," the boy said. The Holy One told the boy that from then on he should keep criticising everybody and everything in the village. He should not spare even the moon or the bend in the road. The boy found the advice rather difficult to follow. Yet, in his desperation he began criticising as advised.

After a year, the Sanyasi was passing that way again and to his surprise and also pleasure, he saw the boy seated on a high perch with people sitting around him, listening. The Sanyasi wanted to talk to the boy, but the boy said, "You wait till I finish." The Sanyasi obliged. The Sanyasi later learnt that his advice to the boy was very efficacious, for the villagers now thought if the boy was capable of criticising everybody and everything, he must be an intelligent boy and so became his followers. The villagers who were scoffing at him a year ago had now begun to revere him.

Looking at the last lap of that evening’s discourse, I wondered if this anecdotal story was enacted in real life as a boomerang! Paramahamsa Nithyananda too had elitist, educated listeners in that packed hall, just as that village boy had the villagers around him! Earlier when I moved into the hall with the closed circuit TV screen, Paramahamsa Nithyananda was dwelling upon the concept of Shakti, followed by Buddhi, Tantra and finally Bhakthi. The last one Bhakthi, very importantly, could be towards a Guru or, to be modest, towards Cosmic Energy. Knowing human nature, it was clear to me that a large number would lean toward a Guru. Good for Gurus and also Bhaktas.

The debate, discussion and dialectic on the question of existence of God and whether He created this world and if so what was the grand design behind such creation, are questions that enter a grey, nebulous realm of metaphysics. Osho Rajneesh was never tired of telling his congregation [I was one among them] that everyone there was a most precious gem, a divine soul, regardless of his or her position and condition in the existential conundrum. And what was his work? He would say that he was there to merely remove the dust that had accumulated for centuries over these gems. Once these layers upon layers of dust is removed, lo and behold, you are enlightened! Aham Bramhasmi. Probably Paramahamsa Nithyananda too was making the same point in a different way when he answered the question, "Whether he is God?" by saying, "I am not here to prove I am God, I am here to prove you are God."

Small wonder then the Swamiji went rambling that evening while answering the same question. Many in the congregation saw the imaginary garland adorning the Swamiji withering with the simmering heat within just as it happened with Mandana Mishra while engaged in a vedantic debate with Sri Shankaracharya, about which the Swamiji himself had earlier spoken. Whatever it is, many of those who had asked questions were disappointed because of the abrupt termination of the question and answer session. Well, there is still hope. Just as there is life after death, as these Godmen tell us, there is always a tomorrow to get an answer to our question. Paramahamsa Nithyananda is again coming to our city on 22nd of this month for a one-day experiential meditation programme at Jaganmohan Palace auditorium. Hopefully, all Doubting Thomases may have an opportunity to clear their doubts. There is also a possibility the Swamiji may not resonate following the experience at Regaalis. Who knows? GOK.

Om Sat Chit Anand.

NOTE:
Now the whole world knows, including his Parama Bhaktas, the person who has “no intelligence”, who is a “negative person”, who is “already in hell” and whose “dictionary is different”.

I guess I am more than vindicated in my perception of these Godmen as expressed in my Abracadabra of Monday, dated Feb. 16, 2009, which we reprinted yesterday as a recall for our readers. What an irony. The Godman who rubbished me as above in front of an elite gathering is now "already in hell". The person who had asked Paramahamsa Nithyananda the question based on the Abracadabra published about him and other Godmen on 16th February 2009 in our 31st Anniversary issue was Mr. K. Vijay Kumar, the former Joint Director of Information and Publicity, Government of Karnataka and the man whom Nithyananda had consigned to hell was yours truly.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda who was born in the year 1978, the year Star of Mysore was born, seems to have had it all too soon for his own good.

Romans believe that those who bloom early in life, that is those who achieve greatness while still young, also wilt and wither away early. I do not believe this as history has many distinguished exceptions, but in the case of Paramahamsa Nithyananda the Roman belief seems to have proven right.

— Editor - in - Chief

By K. B. Ganapathy
Courtesy: Star of Mysore