AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
14 September, 2016
The Royal Commission’s Report into Case Study 21 – the response of the Satyananda Yoga Ashram at Mangrove Mountain to allegations of child sexual abuse by the ashram’s former spiritual leader in the 1970s and 1980s – was released today.
The report follows a public hearing in December 2014 and oral submissions in April 2015, which explored the experiences of 11 survivors of child sexual abuse at or connected with the ashram, and the response of the ashram to that child sexual abuse.
Satyananda Yoga Ashram was established in the early 1970s, and from about 1974 was overseen by Swami Akhandananda Saraswati. In 1989, Akhandananda was arrested on charges of child sexual abuse and was sentenced in 1989 to two years and four months imprisonment.
Residents, who included between 12 and 22 children at any one time, followed the key philosophies and practices of Satyananda Yoga, which were based on the principles of the guru-disciple relationship and development of mind, body and spirit.
Shortly after his arrival, Akhandananda began a sexual relationship with 17-year-old “Shishy”, who through this relationship became second-in-charge at the ashram. Akhandananda and Shishy remained together in a sexual relationship, albeit an increasingly violent one, until the end of 1985.
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