Indian bosses give Mangrove Mountain ashram a slap in the face

By Janet Fife-Yeomans
Australian
December 10, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/indian-bosses-give-mangrove-mountain-ashram-a-slap-in-the-face/story-e6frg6n6-1227151348279

Mangrove Yoga Ashram.

Swami Akhandananda Saraswati.

THEY were given a ritual cleansing fire dance but the victims of sexual abuse and beatings at a Mangrove Mountain ashram have asked for $1 million each in compensation.

The five women and one man gave the Satyananda Yoga Ashram until 4pm ­yesterday to reply but the ­ashram’s CEO Sarah Tetlow, also known as Suryamitra, dashed their hopes.

She told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday that ­despite the ashram offering compensation at the opening of the hearing last week, she had not expected to be asked for it so soon.

The commission is looking into the ashram’s handling of sexual abuse allegations made against its former guru, the late Swami Akhandananda Saraswati, between 1974 and 2014.

It has heard damning evidence of how the swami raped underage girls, while beatings were meted out by him and his ­second-in-charge, a woman known as Shishy.

Ms Tetlow agreed that when some of the victims went public with their claims earlier this year, as the ashram celebrated its 40th anniversary, their reaction, which included threatening defamation action, was not appropriate.

They held a fire ceremony, called a haven. Counsel assisting the commission Hayley Bennett questioned Ms Tetlow about the appropriateness of such a ceremony.

“Chanting around a fire was never ever going to go anywhere near a healing process for them?” Ms Bennett said.

“And they would be extremely sceptical of an organisation whose response is to have a fire ceremony to somehow deal with the trauma that they’ve experienced?”

Ms Tetlow, who moved into the ashram last January, said she appreciated that, adding: “Yes, but I think it’s important to remember that the fire ceremony was (only) one part of what we were doing”.

The commission heard the ashram was accused by its bosses in India of “swami says syndrome” and “hiding behind the guru’s dhoti” in its handling of the revelations when the commission announced ­its investigation in October. An email sent then from the head of the movement, Swami Niranjan, 52, contained a stinging rebuke and accused the ashram of tarnishing his reputation and failing to take responsibility. It heard Niranjan was with the movement’s founder, Swami Satyananda, in 1987 when Shishy travelled to India to tell them of the sexual abuse but Satyananda ­had refused to get involved.

With hearings over, submissions will be made in March.