The Real Influencers of India? A Deep Dive into the World of Godmen

[00:00:00] Hello everybody, Kiran Mandral and I are back again this week to talk about a very interesting

[00:00:13] subject. It's got to do with influencers. You see everything today is influenced by a

[00:00:21] bunch of people who via social media say and do things that we get impacted by. But

[00:00:28] the real influences in the country are the people we intend to talk about today. The real

[00:00:32] social influencers who have influenced at least half of the 1.4 billion population of India.

[00:00:40] And those are our Godmen, ladies and gentlemen. Kiran and I have been basically tiptoeing

[00:00:47] around this topic because you can often ruffle feathers with it. But today we are going

[00:00:52] right in with it.

[00:00:54] And we are bracing ourselves and crossing our fingers and we will try not to name too many

[00:00:58] people. We leave the guesswork to you. And we have some stories.

[00:01:04] Okay Kiran, so you know this is such a vast, vast, vast subject because we have such

[00:01:12] a vast population of Godmen who are all prominent. Some are in prison. Some have started their

[00:01:19] own countries.

[00:01:21] And have even applied for UN membership.

[00:01:23] Why? You know that so let's to give you a little insight into this and you probably already

[00:01:29] know it's Nityananda. There's a Swami self-proclaimed Swami Nityananda who after rape and molestation

[00:01:37] charges, you know used to run a mini cult which grew into a big cult based out of

[00:01:42] Bangalore. Yeah, somewhere in south.

[00:01:45] He had to flee for his life. So he went to somewhere in Ecuador. So he's Nityananda

[00:01:50] started his own country called Kailasa, Samanya, Ecuador. And he runs something called a bank

[00:01:55] of Kailasa. It has its own currency and its own passport. And if that's not enough, Swami

[00:02:00] Nityananda has a disciple called Vijay Priya Nityananda who represented her country at

[00:02:08] a UN meeting in UN conference in Geneva. Interesting.

[00:02:12] So much of a legitimizing, you know, rapist under the garb of religion and spirituality.

[00:02:21] So I don't think he's the first Indian Swami cult leader to establish his own country. We've

[00:02:28] had precedents before. Really? Yeah, we've had Maharshi Mahesh Yogi who back then went

[00:02:34] to the Netherlands and set up his own country called Floodrop if I'm not mistaken. But

[00:02:41] I don't think he actually went to the UN and asked for citizenship. But did he have any?

[00:02:44] He had currency. But did he have criminal charges against him?

[00:02:48] I don't know about the criminal charges, but you might know his most famous disciples,

[00:02:52] the Beatles. Yes, but I don't think he had criminal charges against him because Mahesh Yogi

[00:02:57] was continued to hold some currency even in the intelligence circles, intelligence,

[00:03:03] people of certain amount of reasoning and ability to think for themselves.

[00:03:08] And transcendental meditation, which he sort of popularized.

[00:03:11] Of course. No, no. So, you know, I mean, at least we can say that like not all Godmen are thugs.

[00:03:16] Naturally, many of them work as good therapists, spiritual coaches, counselors,

[00:03:24] and, you know, like, as I said, social influencers.

[00:03:27] So I think that life in a country like ours with all the challenges we faced since

[00:03:34] after independence is a country that's beset with so many problems that people want an escape and they

[00:03:41] want, they don't want to take decisions for themselves. They don't want to hold themselves

[00:03:44] responsible for, you know, just taking one misstep. So they rely on an external

[00:03:52] source of validation. And having said that we are also a country that has produced legitimate

[00:03:58] gurus. We are also a country, you know, been able to tap into the next realm of spirituality or

[00:04:06] the fifth dimension as one gentleman who stopped going to work and engineer

[00:04:13] claims he stopped going to work and in the HR called and asked him that you haven't shown

[00:04:18] what's going on. And he said, Well, I shall not be working any longer because I have just

[00:04:22] realized that I am the 10th avatar of Vishnu and I'm not tapping into the fifth dimension.

[00:04:29] Vishnu just sent him to a shrink. I mean, this is your schizophrenia.

[00:04:33] Yeah, instead of indulging him and getting news reports written about him.

[00:04:36] Yeah, but it's so much fun. I mean, it's hilarious. Who needs all these

[00:04:41] shows about, you know, comedy sketches and stand-up comedians when your own country,

[00:04:45] you know, gives you raw material for that every day.

[00:04:48] Researching this up was very interesting because nine out of 10 of the gurus

[00:04:52] have either murder charges, rape charges, sexual assault.

[00:04:56] One of them has even had 400 men castrated. Of course, Deira's a chance.

[00:05:01] So I mean, with all this happening when it makes you wonder why are people so gullible?

[00:05:06] Why do people go for these calls? What is it about it that makes you feel that,

[00:05:10] you know, you have to plight your throat with them and I think they start off by,

[00:05:16] you know, the prime. The priming they do is by finding the disenfranchised,

[00:05:22] the communities that don't find representation, don't have a voice,

[00:05:26] don't have the resources and, you know, guiding them and making them feel

[00:05:31] love. Basically, they teach you in the beginning at least to love yourself.

[00:05:36] They make you feel special. They make you feel like an equal child of God quote unquote.

[00:05:43] And that's what everybody, they make you feel good about yourself. Everybody does want to feel

[00:05:47] good about themselves. So this is the easiest route that they find. So this is the playbook that

[00:05:54] you know, the emotionally unavailable men of today use on the women love, bomb them,

[00:06:00] get them to love them back and then disappear. I get a right of checks to you.

[00:06:06] Exactly. Yeah. So this is the playbook. This is the spiritual swindler.

[00:06:10] Actually. So I love Dera Sachcha saw that because he's like Da Vinci. He's so multifaceted.

[00:06:17] He's saying the love charger. I'm a love charger song and I love it actually is quite catchy.

[00:06:24] I'm a love charger. And then you have not get into the deeper implication of the love charger

[00:06:30] title. Yeah, I've seen him at the J. W. Marit in Bombay.

[00:06:36] In his Leo Tars sleeveless workout clothes. He was going to work out.

[00:06:39] Did you have to put rose drops into your eyes afterwards?

[00:06:42] I mean, I actually said, you know, there's something compelling about these people,

[00:06:45] they're caricatures, but their confidence that that is what strikes you. Now he went incastrated.

[00:06:52] How many men did he cast 400 men 400 men while sorting out the lives of a few men and women

[00:07:00] going on to sex, you know, then raping women. Bobby, they was acted in a film

[00:07:05] Ashram, which was very popular made on made on his life here. I think we should have watched that.

[00:07:10] So I'm just saying he's out again on bail now, isn't he? He keeps coming in and out. I mean,

[00:07:14] it's like he's like going into a hotel and coming back. See, they are actually a wood

[00:07:17] bank also. And they can't I mean, when he was arrested, I mean, the riots that happened,

[00:07:22] the people that died and all the trouble that happened in Chandigarh, Panchkula, just show you

[00:07:28] what do people die. Yeah, just goes to show you the kind of hold they have over the people.

[00:07:32] Kiran, I feel that when people die for these people, or at least, you know, create some sort of

[00:07:38] or take risks with their own lives. It is because somewhere deep down are making them question

[00:07:44] themselves. Why did I believe so? And so made me feel good about myself. So when you take that

[00:07:50] person away from you're taking away my whole being away from me. I think it's like, you

[00:07:55] know, political affiliation when you're very poor of certain political party. And

[00:08:01] you made to question it. It sort of impinges on your own sense of self.

[00:08:05] It's exactly what it is. Yeah, but it's been goes for Jay Shetty who recently got exposed.

[00:08:10] He's not a God man, but you know, he is a self proclaimed therapist, counselor, been a yogi,

[00:08:16] been whatnot. All those contradictions in his story. His ex colleagues from the ashram and

[00:08:24] his ex girlfriend, he's been called out now. He's been called out and how when his lawyers

[00:08:27] are still trying to fight that case and rehashing everybody else's wisdom by directly lifting it

[00:08:34] off people's posts you wouldn't believe the other day. I was looking at some short meditation

[00:08:40] videos on YouTube. And then something came up about every human being is 50 to 80,000 thoughts

[00:08:47] in a day. That's a lot. And we discussed it here. We I repeated those words were better

[00:08:53] than the podcast. It wasn't my own wisdom. I obviously gleaned it off the internet.

[00:09:00] Now, I am not here giving therapy to people. I'm not being a life coach the way Jay Shetty is

[00:09:05] is also marriage. So here there's okay. And then there's a woman who goes to an entire segment of

[00:09:15] mine thought, thought patterns how to change your thought patterns. After Jay Shetty got called out,

[00:09:23] despite him getting called out someone on Instagram thinks that I'm interested in him,

[00:09:28] because in my algorithm he showed up. He was saying the same thing. But that woman's video

[00:09:34] is really old. Oh, so any one of us can go over video recordings, you know,

[00:09:40] everything on YouTube today and start out on cults become spiritually prominent. I think what you

[00:09:46] really need is a gift of the gap but also a story where certain kind of austerities have been observed.

[00:09:55] I had to work hand me downs for all my childhood so much austerity.

[00:10:00] Actually, you have the makings of yeah, I could be a cult leader. Yeah, no, I would dress in red.

[00:10:06] I would wear really bright red lipstick, maybe Mac Russian red or Ruby blue.

[00:10:12] And be like Radhima. Be like Radhima. Who you have seen met. I have not met. I have seen it at

[00:10:18] distance and it has been the most strange experience for lack of a better word because

[00:10:24] she came to a satsang in the previous society that I lived in. For hours before she was due

[00:10:30] to arrive people have packed the place and then she came and she was carried into the place

[00:10:34] you know like an infantile Chinese woman. I heard explanation for that. She said that she said this

[00:10:40] in English that everything lies in the eyes of the beholder. She speaks to the Punjabi Jat accent

[00:10:49] and she said that people who are carrying me are my bhax sometimes even my own sons carry me because

[00:10:57] she said she gets very claustrophobic in large crowds. So all they do is that with their Shadda

[00:11:04] they pick her up and they take her. So I thought this was a new version of the Chinese women who

[00:11:12] had their feet bound and couldn't walk anywhere and therefore the status symbol that they were

[00:11:16] carried everywhere but then I saw her dancing, the videos of her dancing. What was she a dancer

[00:11:19] or something? I don't know about that but she was dancing. There were videos of her dancing

[00:11:23] then I realized there's nothing wrong with her feet. She dances on Bollywood songs. Her feet don't have a

[00:11:28] problem claustrophobia when she's surrounded by her crowds but interesting and it was quite crazy

[00:11:37] the mania that happened when she entered. I'm sure all shouts cries and she's pretty young

[00:11:43] looking for what she came to be. She said that she's a grandmom. Yeah I mean she really had

[00:11:48] kids young. I mean maybe she was I don't know. What is the story? Has been died or something?

[00:11:53] I don't know the story but I know she's had kids and she's a grandmom that much I know

[00:11:59] and she's got a very interesting fashion sense that I know. Yes and that people are crazy about

[00:12:03] her and attend those satsangs in hordes. There was one video I watched in which she was crying

[00:12:10] and she said, you know that you're a spiritual person and you're supposed to be above all

[00:12:17] this and then she said but I'm also human sometimes. Sometimes that's interesting.

[00:12:25] There was a very interesting article I read about someone who also became a self-help guru

[00:12:29] not a religious guru but self-help guru and she sort of realized how easy it was to become one

[00:12:34] when she was backstage at a talk that Deepak Chopra was giving I see and Deepak Chopra asked

[00:12:41] one of the other people who was helping him out get ready. Do I look fat in these chinos?

[00:12:48] Maybe he was just saying no he was very serious and she realized that even

[00:12:53] gurus with all the higher dimensions that they talk about are concerned about looking fat.

[00:12:59] So I'll tell you something interesting. I was speaking to a gentleman who scans your brain

[00:13:07] and basically he helps people tap into their brain's potential. He may not like me naming him on this

[00:13:15] vodka so I shall not name him but he was telling me that he scans the brains of a lot of people

[00:13:23] who are part of large religious organizations and not just religious organizations,

[00:13:29] spiritual organizations which are different in the sense that you're supposed to be

[00:13:37] a little more evolved than the other and you're supposed to shed your ego and all that

[00:13:44] and he said that their brains in the scans were no different from the brains of an investment

[00:13:51] banker who is actually just the stress and the pressure they live through, the desire for a

[00:13:57] better life or for power. So these guys have a desire for power even in a Buddhist order

[00:14:03] when you're part of an order, of an organization, spirituality is now

[00:14:12] organizations become compromised. I'm not all of it is necessarily bad. A lot of it,

[00:14:19] like say the Laila Amma's after all is an organization, it's an order but it's doing so

[00:14:24] much good and similarly get enough in this country. So you're not dissing all of those,

[00:14:28] they're just picking and choosing the ones those have made it to the news for all the wrong

[00:14:33] reasons. So he was saying that you'll be surprised that their brains scans reveal almost the same

[00:14:38] level of disruption and disturbance in the same segment of the brain that you could see in that

[00:14:45] of a mere mortal trying to just make a bigger life for himself with the same stressors. In fact,

[00:14:53] he said those people can have outbursts but these people have to maintain a facade of equanimity.

[00:14:59] So they can't have outbursts. Oh, so then all that is repressed. This is very interesting because

[00:15:03] it ties into something that I just remembered a young girl, a very sweet young girl who was

[00:15:09] handing the publicity for one of my books a few years ago. She suddenly called up and said,

[00:15:14] Kiran, I'm quitting my job. I'm going to go and join this very famous ashram

[00:15:18] and this very famous guru. No, I shall not name now.

[00:15:21] Do they have a beard? I mean, they all do. They all do. But he also has a beard.

[00:15:26] Is he based out of South India?

[00:15:29] We're getting close. Okay, no, because there are so many. Yeah, he's based out of South India.

[00:15:35] So she joined up at this place and initially she was very happy and she was there for a while

[00:15:39] and after a year or so I got a call from her. I'm back and I need you to help me to find a

[00:15:45] job. I said, what happened there? And apparently the same thing that you said, the stress to

[00:15:50] constantly perform and to constantly deliver and to get close to the guru, you start seeking

[00:15:56] validation from them. So it's just like having a CEO and a company. And the guru is also moody,

[00:16:01] also fickle, also finicky, like any other CEO, the guru will have his favorites

[00:16:07] and the guru will decide whether you rise up the ladder or not.

[00:16:11] Yeah. So that was her experience and she's back in the corporate world now. I think she's done

[00:16:18] a stint with finding herself spiritually. In fact, your friend of mine who is a Danish novelist

[00:16:28] wrote an entire book about his experience of finding himself in Saiputaparthi's ashram.

[00:16:34] And it's a hilarious book. It's called The Mango Dancer.

[00:16:37] Oh, and it's thinly veiled. It's thinly veiled. Yeah. And he's fictionalized it.

[00:16:43] He's fixed. He's done the mango dancer. He's done a bit of that. What does he mean by mango

[00:16:48] dancer? In a hostel, actually I should. I mean, there's a video of probably the most famous

[00:16:58] of all cult leaders online. He's no longer around in physical body. But there's a video I

[00:17:06] watched while doing my research where he pulls out a gold egg from his mouth

[00:17:14] into a napkin, a mini hand towel actually. And then they replay it and you can see that it was

[00:17:24] already inside his hand. So it's a lot of magician and a lot of smoke and mirrors and a lot of

[00:17:29] slight of hands and Rolex watches coming out in ash. Blue smoke and mirrors. Yeah.

[00:17:37] Why Lira such as Aadha's was that, right? He called a girl and said,

[00:17:41] why don't you sit in Watson pond with me? But he was giving mafie to these girls.

[00:17:45] And what was Asarambapu doing? He was killing and raping people.

[00:17:51] So he's in. But when they arrested him, he went into the van singing completely in a blissed

[00:17:57] out state. So he must have probably been, I think that his disciples believe that

[00:18:05] this was all about power and this was all kinds of corruption happening at lower levels,

[00:18:09] you know, basically with the blessings of his son. And that he is, he is in their minds

[00:18:17] is untainted beyond reproach. Okay. And that because he had what 55 60 ashrams across India,

[00:18:24] the net worth of his ashram, not net worth the income, I would say they were all worth about

[00:18:32] 5000 crores all put together. And mind you, this is not taxable income.

[00:18:37] And also they were land grabbing. They were land grabbing. They would,

[00:18:41] they were land grabbing. They would just take up a land, establish an ashram there.

[00:18:46] The local politicians will not contest that because now they don't want to,

[00:18:49] you know, upset the wood bank, upset the wood bank. And, and then they just get legitimized

[00:18:56] when it becomes an old thing, then, you know, certain journalists are wiped out of the picture,

[00:19:03] as you know, that in DERA such as all the journalists, many such journalists,

[00:19:07] many such journalists, all the years. And, and then it's just all forgotten and forgiven.

[00:19:13] But the best one is, so yeah, so I was saying that this is, this is a kind of startup

[00:19:22] that that actually requires no capital. And can just is a gift that goes on giving because just

[00:19:30] they should actually set up a body now of people who can you know be

[00:19:35] vigilantes and they, they could be legal experts and they could be X people from

[00:19:46] forces, the police or whatever and are currently serving ones and put together a body of that

[00:19:53] and activists then tax the income of all these places and then have them audit,

[00:19:59] have them do audits for all these places. It will straight away, you know, separate the

[00:20:04] views from the chat. You know, the taxation and the audit is all too good. But when you talk about

[00:20:08] the vigilantes, we've had cases sorry to be a dampener on this, the people who call out

[00:20:14] superstition and who call out these things have actually been killed. We've had those.

[00:20:19] See, this is the thing that you if you call out people's beliefs,

[00:20:23] there is a problem with that. So they're not calling them out. If there's a malpractice

[00:20:27] going on over there, if there's a rape or murder or drug, I mean, imagine, think about this

[00:20:33] we have so many good ashrams in this country that are actually doing a world of good.

[00:20:37] They're doing good work, but unfortunately the bad press sort of overshadows.

[00:20:41] I mean Rishi Kesh and Haridwar and outside of their Adoon Manali, it's full of fantastic

[00:20:49] ashrams. But it doesn't make good press does it? No, I know what I'm just saying that because

[00:20:54] of these guys, we get a bad name. These are the kind of stories that the international media

[00:20:59] picks up and amplifies. Yes, a lot of them.

[00:21:05] So I was really curious this whole conversation about doing Godman started after this J. Shatik

[00:21:10] Kundra Vasi. And even children who went to his book launch talk at NCPA, my daughter was invited

[00:21:17] by some friends. He came to launch some book on love or something. Some rules of love.

[00:21:21] And then even a young child of 18 or 90 said, you know, mama, it was just a

[00:21:26] rehash of everything in the waste of my time. Though she had gone, she was eager to hear him speak.

[00:21:34] But what do you think is going to happen? Is his social currency and legitimacy going to get

[00:21:41] questioned internationally or will he just thrive and see the people envy me? This is what

[00:21:46] gurus say, right? They say that this is nothing but people are threatened by my income and

[00:21:50] my popularity. You know, he is not a religious guru. So the hold is not so strong. No, you'll

[00:21:57] be surprised people consider him a religion. But no, no, no, I'm saying when you are an influencer

[00:22:04] like that with that sort of a reach online, then I mean, he can literally start his own cult,

[00:22:10] you know that. So J Shatik has 15.4 million followers online on Instagram alone. Okay,

[00:22:17] we don't know his Facebook followers or Twitter followers. This is bigger than any cult.

[00:22:22] So they are not going to leave him because somebody said that he's plagiarized stuff

[00:22:26] because he's still giving them what he wants, what they want, right? He's still giving them

[00:22:30] little sloppy doses of stuff they can assimilate and get validation from. And you know,

[00:22:35] bite-sized nuggets of feel good therapy, which doesn't require effort and work.

[00:22:40] That's what it boils down to ultimately. We are doing the wrong profession. What are we

[00:22:45] doing here? You know, I find we need to learn to give Gyan instead of being sarcastic all the time.

[00:22:51] Yeah, correct. So there's other gentleman called Tony Robbins. I don't know if you follow him.

[00:22:59] He's huge in the West because he actually got people to start walking on hot bowls.

[00:23:04] And he does these retreats where he charges like $5,000 per person and he had some

[00:23:11] 400 or 500 people sign up. Has he been to India? No, he hasn't been to India, but he's got such a

[00:23:16] strong following and he continues to have a strong following. It's still, see his videos coming up.

[00:23:20] But he's not misusing it. That's the whole point. That's what I'm coming to tell him.

[00:23:25] He has had allegations of sexual assault

[00:23:30] against him, not murder, unlike us. He's one level lower than us. But despite those

[00:23:37] allegations, he continues to have a strong following and people still come for those things to listen

[00:23:42] to his talks because he knows how to plead the gallery. He knows how to work the crowd.

[00:23:47] Also, people aren't willing to forsake their beliefs so quickly because then what else will

[00:23:50] they hold on to? What is the next crunch? What do you hold on to climate change?

[00:23:56] Yeah. In the current world, what do you hold on to?

[00:23:58] Speaking of climate change, hot yoga, Vikram Yogi.

[00:24:00] Oh yeah. Lovely. Lovely shift.

[00:24:03] In his little chuddies. You know, I think the reason half of these people become gurus is because

[00:24:09] they can't get laid otherwise. They're so ugly. This is a quotable quote given. Truly.

[00:24:15] If I just starting an entire cult because you want to get laid easily.

[00:24:20] Don't you think so? He's quite gross looking. Yeah.

[00:24:23] I watched the documentary on him. Why are there people who do hot yoga and Bombay also?

[00:24:27] Maybe came to Bombay instead of… I mean, if you did it in a Scandinavian country,

[00:24:32] I would understand. But we have a sauna going on as soon as we step out of the house.

[00:24:36] That's what I'm saying. I mean, it couldn't have done very much for the people who were doing

[00:24:41] it here or in other hot countries. I mean, you'd be brinkled to a prune completely.

[00:24:45] But he did have to leave for USA. So where is he now?

[00:24:49] He's in some European country. Sorry. No, why is he behind bars? He should be behind bars.

[00:24:54] Because he escaped. I said I'm using some Nagpur.

[00:24:55] Because he escaped. He's a master in the fortune now.

[00:24:58] So even if he's roaming around Scot Free, full of hot air since there's no hot yoga now,

[00:25:04] I think he'll get by. I mean, this is the problem with all our systems around the world.

[00:25:08] Yeah. And he's 80 now. There's not long that he's going to get by in Hidongo.

[00:25:11] After all that hot yoga, he made it to 80. Maybe he wasn't doing it.

[00:25:15] Yeah. But speaking of people, I mean,

[00:25:19] it didn't funny, Konman, Godman, it sort of rhymes.

[00:25:23] There is this very popular Godman who is

[00:25:30] very popular among the elite of our country. His story is so interesting because a friend of mine

[00:25:38] shared the story with me. He's from Punjab and he said that this gentleman was a lion's man.

[00:25:44] I don't know in some small town of Punjab. And he would, those days,

[00:25:51] you're talking about landline days, he would listen into conversations sometimes.

[00:25:56] Lion's Man can do that. And he came up with a brilliant business plan.

[00:26:01] He started Moonlighting as a Godman among the wealthy community who had no idea that

[00:26:10] he works at the Lion's Man also. And he started calling them in and saying that I know that you

[00:26:17] can't conceive a child and I know that your husband is going through a joblessness and I know that

[00:26:24] whatever your mother-in-law ill treats you. And his initial target at first was just women because

[00:26:31] women tend to be more vulnerable, more gullible. And that's how he won them over.

[00:26:36] And then he started earning enough wealth to leave his job at the Lion's Man.

[00:26:45] Then came the problem. See, by then, see there were a lot of averages. Out of 10 things I'll

[00:26:49] predict to you today, even if three come true, you'll believe in me. Yeah. So something like

[00:26:54] that happened or he got found out to me to leave that village and start all over.

[00:26:59] And then he started this whole thing that if you eat this your illness will be cured.

[00:27:06] And one guy who was severely diabetic, he made him eat gulab jamuns or laddus or something.

[00:27:13] And that guy got hospitalized. Oh, Lord. And this train of mind knows the family

[00:27:18] in which this whole incident took place all those years ago. So then the family beat this

[00:27:26] so-called Godman black and blue and he packed his bags and fled from that town before the cops

[00:27:32] could come and get him. By which time I think he had certain other charges against him of the

[00:27:38] nature of molestation or not. Okay. And then he started life all over in a big metro.

[00:27:44] I shall not reveal which one. And the wealthiest people in our country became his followers and

[00:27:50] disciples. And this is not in the long past. Oh, that's very interesting. We've had so many

[00:27:55] cases of Godmen. But isn't this what a genius listening to conversations. I mean,

[00:28:01] you couldn't possibly maybe he went out of business because the mobile phones took over.

[00:28:06] And he couldn't listen to conversations anymore. Could be that because I don't know the needs of

[00:28:09] that but an ingenious plan. I was just thinking what did he do when he gave up his job? Did he hire

[00:28:15] other people who were linesman to convey stuff to him because he obviously needed that. No,

[00:28:19] no, because then they can also become no maybe see once you have once I have

[00:28:24] thousand, 2000 people in a small town believing in my supernatural abilities.

[00:28:32] That's enough. The rest will just come. So there was one guy, what's his name? Nirmal Baba.

[00:28:39] There's a Nirmal Baba and my father told me about him first. He became very popular. He would literally

[00:28:46] say, I think those kind of things work on the power of auto suggestion.

[00:29:02] And manifestation. I think this is what manifestation was before it became manifestation.

[00:29:07] Possibly. Have someone prescribed some silly,

[00:29:10] hair brain solution to you and you go and do it and then something works out for you.

[00:29:17] It's the power of belief. I'm going to have Soropeki Jalebi today if my book becomes a best

[00:29:21] seller. Chalo and then I'll become this is how I'll start my cult. Yeah, we need a nice catchy

[00:29:27] name. It can't be not your auntie cult. Cult of personality, but I think

[00:29:35] John Cena has taken that already. Yeah, I would want to say that. Also, there applies to only one

[00:29:40] individual in our country. I mean Mr. Bachchan. Yeah, I mean look at him. Mr. Bachchan? Yeah. Okay.

[00:29:48] If you say so. He the legend and if he sneezes that becomes...

[00:29:52] You know, when you mentioned how this lineman gathered this entire little village to his

[00:30:00] devotion and to become his followers. I just was reminded of a relative of mine who's going to

[00:30:05] be bad financial time, financial phase. And in that desperation, I think he was turning to

[00:30:10] whoever told him, yeah, you know, whatever, lose something. So he was asked to go to this

[00:30:15] little place on the outskirts of Bombay and he had to reach there by four in the morning

[00:30:19] because that was when this particular guru gave Darshan. It was a woman four in the morning. So you

[00:30:26] can imagine this man goes four in the morning, early morning and then that but you have to put

[00:30:30] your question, your patchy or whatever in your hand and you have to ask the guru and she

[00:30:34] deans to give you a reply or whatever. And then there was a puja to be done and there was some,

[00:30:40] I don't know what sorts of weird things would prescribe to do this for so many weeks and

[00:30:44] all that. Anywhere the catalogs to a short event mancraft anyway. Yeah, so I will go through what

[00:30:50] you have to do. You just hold on to whatever gives you hope. Sure. So maybe that's how they get that

[00:30:57] crowd. Look, we all when we are going through life's challenges. I'm actually none of this

[00:31:03] conversation is meant to scorn or laugh at people who wants to challenge is then gone

[00:31:09] looking for gurus because it's a natural human tendency. You're desperate, you're like a fish

[00:31:14] out of water and you clutch onto straws. This is like us scrolling through Insta and looking at all

[00:31:19] the tarot reels telling us we're going to have a wonderful day tomorrow and you know, Kiran, it's

[00:31:23] too right. See religious is the opium of the masses. It is. It is the drug you need.

[00:31:29] You need faith in somebody who's more manifest than an abstract God to help you get

[00:31:36] past something and if it's one or two predictions work out then you know every decision you make

[00:31:41] everything you will do. Don't people do that as astrologers? There are people who call astrologers

[00:31:45] for every small decision. Should I leave town? Should I do this today? The Tuesday? Should I

[00:31:49] wear this? Should I not do that? And you're right. I think ultimately what I've seen in life is

[00:31:55] what has to happen is going to happen irrespective. Absolutely. You'll just be busy while

[00:32:00] that's happening because you'll be busy doing all the totkas and spending all the money that

[00:32:05] you have anyway doing the stotkas. I wonder what happens to those dundee cult

[00:32:10] followers when their predictions don't come true? Yeah. You know, okay, you've said like,

[00:32:15] okay, you follow me. I'm going to save you from this great end of the world thing happening

[00:32:19] and asteroid is going to slam into us. Aliens are going to come and take us to their planet or

[00:32:23] whatever. Then the date comes and passes. What does the followers do then? I think these

[00:32:28] again those cult leaders have a plan. They amass enough money until they're deadline

[00:32:32] and then they must be both disappearing. So many of them commit suicide the followers.

[00:32:37] You know, I had gone to Maheshwar last year, if you recall. And one of the nights when we were

[00:32:44] there, of course, you know, beautiful place, beautiful property, blah, blah, blah. Well,

[00:32:48] I saw that there was a very strong, there were the strong of people by the ghats.

[00:32:55] And in the day the ghats had been empty. So I'd been in fact told that these ghats are always

[00:33:01] empty. They're not like the Banaras Ghats. But there was some serious music coming, a monotonous sound

[00:33:08] a very haunting, a monotonous beat. Okay. And I leaned over the fortress's parapet to look below.

[00:33:17] And so I saw there were exhausts in being performed. There were people rolling on the floor.

[00:33:24] And someone told me that they have some serpents, art mined them. So that was being removed.

[00:33:31] And the next morning my husband and I went for a boat ride. And we saw, we witnessed

[00:33:42] there must have been about 1000 clusters of people in that water. Women dressed up

[00:33:50] with garish makeup, long black fake hair like a witch chudel. And they were dunking all these people

[00:33:59] in the water to purge them off all the evil ghosts who had taken possession of their soul.

[00:34:06] And this was done on some very big Amavasya night, like a dark whatever night. So the tour guide

[00:34:13] he was showing me around the next day. And I told him about this. It was

[00:34:17] eerie and creepy. And my husband was there only for a day, right? So I was afraid to be in my room at night

[00:34:28] because I said this is really spooky. So I requested the hotel to shift my room. I had this

[00:34:34] beautiful big room in which Mick Jagger head stayed. Wow. And I asked him to please move my room

[00:34:41] to some lesser celebrities room within the hotel complex at the beautiful Ahilya photo

[00:34:47] hotel. So they moved me into a much smaller room that overlooked a simple basic courtyard instead

[00:34:54] of the Narmada river. But I was so spooked out. And the next day, the tour guide, now this guy,

[00:35:01] the student of history, he's an MA in history and stuff. And he said, no, but it's all

[00:35:06] true. But it's real. It's real. Yeah, he said that we have many such mosques also. Yeah,

[00:35:11] where we take people and they walk in completely schizophrenic and crazy and they walk out

[00:35:16] absolutely normal. So this deserves the power of belief. Belief and auto suggestion here.

[00:35:23] Also I wonder, where do all those ghosts go once they exercise? Do they hang around there and

[00:35:28] wait for somebody else? I asked him this. Yeah, he said they do. They do? Yeah. Oh,

[00:35:32] Lord. I'm glad you got out of there fast. I mean, I changed my room. So hopefully,

[00:35:39] yeah, you were sensible. So Kiran, why do we have all these Rasputin like characters floating

[00:35:44] about in and outside of prisons? There are also so many good yogis and gurus. You have somebody

[00:35:52] called pilot Baba. Have you heard about him? I've heard the name. I'm not sure what he

[00:35:56] did. He worked in the Air Force for 15 years. And he attracts disciples from all over the

[00:36:01] world. He's a proper yogi. He went and lived in the Himalayas in a cave, meditated over there,

[00:36:07] came back, keeps going back, meditated. Also you see the reaches stage where it's mind over

[00:36:13] matter. So in very low levels of oxygen under the water, these are called Siddhis.

[00:36:20] And if you don't know enough about India and gurus and yogis and you even read the

[00:36:27] beginner's book called Autobiography of a Yogi, you know that Siddhis. So the thing is that this is

[00:36:34] a part of our spiritual heritage, people which sit these. Absolutely. And these very people

[00:36:42] are the reason why India is revered around the world also. And then if some people have made

[00:36:46] a dukkana of this to exploit people, not much can be done about that except find entertainment

[00:36:53] from it and hope that someday or the other these people get called out.

[00:36:59] They get called out and hopefully people understand that they should not succumb to

[00:37:04] what they're offering. Yeah.