Bhavdeep Kang
It was evident that after Sanjay Gandhi’s death, when Indira Gandhi found herself in distress and alone, there was no one to keep the wily yoga teacher in check.
Through the 1960s, rumour was rife that Indira Gandhi was besotted with her yoga teacher, with whom she spent an hour every morning.
That is when I took the 10 days of silence. It (Sudarshan Kriya) just happened. It was a gift I never anticipated… and then I got the vision of people waiting for me.”
It was curious, even ironical, that a Commission set up by P.V. Narasimha Rao’s government should have indicated Chandraswami
They recall him hawking herbs - particularly, home-made Chyavanprash – from the carrier of a bicycle (later upgraded to a second-hand Lambretta scooter) to earn money
Maharishi took a random decision to not only shut down the school, but transfer all the kids to Delhi. Ravi rebelled and insisted he would continue to care for the children in Bengaluru
The legend of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, his vast global following, naturally leads one to expect charisma, a blazing intelligence or at least an overwhelming force of personality
When did young Ravi realize he wanted to take the spiritual high road? “It was there from the very beginning. It was my life, it was what I had come to do,”
In the context of his selling soap and cereal and attempting to sell his brand of “noodles” and now “jeans” too, it must be mentioned that the core of Baba Ramdev’s business, variously estimated at 2,000 to 5,000 crores, remains the pharmacy
At Gangotri Glacier, Baba met the baby-faced Balkrishna, who would become his life-long friend, companion and business partner
It’s hard to get a handle on the man, particularly because he seems to harbor many secrets and is wary of talking about aspects of his past
It was obvious that Dhirendra Brahmachari’s proximity to the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi bred a certain arrogance and an exercise of extra-constitutional power.
His powers must have been extraordinary to impress among others, so uncompromising a rationalist as S. Jaipal Reddy
Detachment from all things material is the mark of true sadhu, but it’s not a trait I’d associate with Chandraswami, who spent a lifetime cosying up to the rich and powerful
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi conquered the occident with promises of heavenly bliss and gravity-defying, meditation-induced levitation. Transcendental Meditation (TM) was touted as the ultimate free lunch.
Swami Brahmananda's death, in May of 1953, was the second turning point in Mahesh’s life. Paul Mason, his biographer, describes how it set him on course to become the world’s foremost preacher-teacher.
How does an uneducated , low-caste fisher-woman, born in abject poverty and by all accounts, ill-treated by her own family, attract the best and brightest to a remote backwater of Kerela?
There is no academy for kathakars. Nor is there a defined guild or lineage. Like a quintessential actor, a kathakar, we are told, is born not made. And for many decades now, Ramkatha is synonymous with Morari Bapu.
He would wield influence with heads of state lie Margaret Thatcher, the Sultan of Brunei, Muda Hassanal Bolkia Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, Sheikh Isa Khalifa of Bahrain, Sese Seko Mobutu of Zaire and two prime ministers of India.
