Word: swami
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...trial in a Swiss federal criminal court last week, wearing a faded orange-pink robe and sandals, was a slender Indian who called himself Swami Omkarananda, a self-proclaimed teacher of mankind and head guru of a "Hindu-Christian" sect known as the Divine Light Center. The charges against the 49-year-old swami and what the prosecution called the hard core of his 80 followers ranged from theft and trespassing to attempted murder and grievous bodily harm. But most serious of all, the cultists had disturbed the peace of Winterthur...
...seems that back in the cult-happy '60s, a wealthy local matron fell under the swami's spell in India and invited him to Switzerland. Her generosity helped launch the Divine Light Center in a cluster of 15 houses, which the swami painted an offensive bright blue. Worshipful disciples pestered the neighborhood with nonstop proselytizing. From 4 in the morning on, loudspeakers bellowing holy chants echoed through the district. The stolid burghers finally lost patience and in 1975 won an official order to have the swami expelled from the country...
...that, according to the prosecution, the swami and his fold mounted a three-stage counterattack. First, voodoo dolls of the heathen neighbors were stuck with needles, and bewitched fruits were planted in their gardens. One devotee claimed she was used as a naked altar, raped, and smeared with chicken blood, to be used later to curse the foe. In the poison phase, clotheslines were doused with smallpox serum, garden tomatoes with formic acid, and doorknobs with caustic concoctions. One of the five cultists on trial with the swami admitted popping a poisoned chocolate into a victim's mouth (disliking...
They're all alike, skepties claim. A guru is a swami is a holy man is a fake. And these scoffers never consider spirituality again...
Bhaktivedanta Swami, a former Bengali businessman and a follower of Krishna since 1933, established the first ISKCON center in a small storefront in New York 12 years ago. He died last November, leaving over 6000 full time ministers and students of Krishna Consciousness. According to Garuda, the ISKCON founder did not die but merely appeared in a physical form, then disappeared. "After all the body does not determine life, life determines the body," Garuda says...