TEXAS
CNN
[with video]
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(CNN) As young girls in the 1990s, Shyama Rose and sisters Kate and Vesla Tonnessen loved living in Barsana Dham, the Austin, Texas, ashram of the International Society for Divine Love.
“Being a kid at Barsana Dham was pretty amazing,” Kate Tonnessen, now in her 30s, recalled. “To live on 200 acres of what was about as wild land as you can get in Texas.”
They, their parents and other families moved to the ashram in pursuit of enlightenment under the guidance of their spiritual leader, Prakashanand Saraswati, whom they called “Swamiji,” an honorific Hindu term for a guru.
“It was sort of understood that Swamiji was God, just on earth,” Vesla Tonnessen told CNN’s “The Hunt with John Walsh.” “He held absolute power over anything.”
The children of the ashram loved Saraswati. “We always felt as kids that he seemed like an Indian version of Santa Claus,” said Kate Tonnessen.
“He was very affectionate with everybody, and then the kids, he was really, like, cuddly and he’d give you hugs and kisses that just felt like your grandpa. But then sometime his kisses got weird.”
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