JOIN USNithyananda's US firm collapses as website is shut
The website of Life Bliss Foundation, www.lifeblissfoundation.org has closed down. Attempts to access the site automatically takes the viewer to the Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam website which, insiders said, was evidence that after the rift among the devotees at the Los Angeles ashram reached a breaking point, the administrators shut down the Life Bliss website.
The “chaos” and “infighting” at the Los Angeles ashram and the Nithyananda Vedic Temple in the American city was brought to light in Deccan Herald on April 2. The immediate cause of the rift between the two groups - a minority group comprising those who continue to support Nithyananda and one which is now vehemently opposed to him - was a meeting last month after the sex scandal broke.
At the meeting, an influential non-resident Indian (NRI), a doctor by profession, urged upon a number of devotees to quit the organisation after he and several others in the US and India were convinced that Nithyananda, who they hailed as their “Master”, was indeed involved in the sex scandal.
“A majority of the devotees and some senior acharyas from the LA ashram have walked out and there are strong reasons to believe that only 20-25 ashramites continue to remain holed up in the Bidadi ashram,” a former devotee told Deccan Herald, adding that the “LA ashram is on the verge of shutting down.”
Besides, reports are now emerging that the ‘godman’ indulged in clandestine “unsavoury” activities at his Bidadi ashram involving other devotees.
At the same time, the Karnataka CID has received a complaint from an American national that Nithyananda was directly responsible for the breakdown of his marriage. Douglas McKellor, who has already filed a complaint with the California State Attorney General, has forwarded a letter he wrote to Nithyananda in October 2008 to the CID.
The letter addressed to Nithyananda says: “As a direct result of participation in your organisation, and through the personal directives from you, my marriage to Ma Nithya Praba a.k.a Shamala McKellor is in absolute RUIN...This is all due to your horrendous teachings and power.”
McKellor’s letter, which reached Nithyananda on October 22 by courier service, goes on to say that “financial ruin aside, what has really hit the core of my tolerance is that on October 20, 2008, Ma Nithya Prabha threatened physical harm on me and then suicide on herself...You have completely destroyed her mind and power to reason!!”
In a related letter (March 26, 2010) to the CID, McKellor said he asked some senior acharyas like Gopika, alias Vidya Vishwanathan, and Sahajananda, alias Sreeraman Narasimhan to “keep one particularly violent and deceitful cult member, Ajara, alias Arun Prasnat, away from my spouse and to end all contact with her.”
In December 2008, Douglas and Shamala filed for divorce. He said: “Because of Nithyananda, I lost the best wife, mother-in-law, and father-in-law a man could ever ask for.”
DH News Service