The Icon Show: The Scandal continued...

From the Shyamtruth Email Group - Nov. 12, 2000
"Sex, Lies and Videotaping..." by Maurice Desautels (Marut)

Dear Friends,

I have had a number of interactions with various people concerning the response from Kullu, or rather I should say the lack of response from Kullu, in relation to the situation which has been discussed on this site in such detail. As a result of these conversations I have decided to act upon the suggestion that it may be helpful to newcomers to the site to have a posting which deals with this matter. So I will share what I do know of the official stance as laid down by Shyam Srivastava and others under his guidance, such as Dikpal, etc.

Some of this information is already on the site imbedded in e-mails from various people, some comes from personal e-mails to others and some comes from phone conversations with friends and loved ones. I will not say that I will be able to include everything known on the subject as I am not sure I know it all. But I will do as concise a synopsis as I can, so new visitors to the site do not have to search through hundreds of postings to see what Mr. SS and his henchmen are saying and doing about these allegations.

At this point in time there has never been an official response to the charges of sexual, verbal, psychological and fiscal abuse which has spanned at least the past 30 year period. Apart from trying to buy off Jean Bouchartd'Orval last summer with a phone call from Swami Shyam and part of the cost for a plane ticket to Kullu, no effort has been made to deal with this matter.

No wrong doing of any kind has ever been even hinted at, let alone admitted. The only official comment has come in satsang where a one time statement from SS intimated that "during the receiving of massage the ORGAN was sometimes touched and got erect". And what was the poor man to do about that "cut off the hands of his loved ones"? The issues of sexual, psychological, verbal and fiscal abuse, along with illegal bank accounts and tax fraud have nev or been addressed in any way.

The people at the ashram in Kullu have frequently written to many of us stating that they believe we who live in the rest of the world and are active on this site, are only in our minds and we do not know who Guru is if we can not understand, that no matter what Shyam does he can do no wrong. Whether it is sexual manipulation, breach of trust, verbal abuse, money laundering, pedophilia, sexual molestation of a child, rape, physical abuse, drugging of the oldest son of Shyam, tax evasion, making of child pornographic videos, tranquilizing a psychologically vulnerable and troublesome visitor or covering up a homicide after the fact; all this is okay because Guru is God and knows best. Hence they believe that this entire situation is our problem, our drama, our mind movie and has nothing to do with the people at the ashram in Kullu.

Since the sending of the Open Letter in October people are speaking of all this in Kullu behind closed doors and at the well renowned dinner parties hosted with such frequency by all. But no one has the courage, or the capacity of strong human compassion, to stand up in a public forum such as satsang and confront Shyam with his transgressions. Apparently the most common excuse used for not doing this is that the majority of people now in Kullu wish to protect their long established life style. However, after the arrival in Kullu of the Open Letter which laid out the wrong doing of Shyam, a surprise announcement was made that a trust fund for the support of some of the intimately faithful female devotees, is to be set up. And of course it was said again Shyam would never do anything "wrong", but even if he did anything it must have been for the ultimate growth and evolution of those people.

There is currently no ability to reach electronically (e-mail) any person who is an official spokesperson for the ashram. Dikpal and others have closed down their mail boxes. I am not sure what the status is concerning the official phone for IMI if such a thing exists. Despite the sincerity of the many inquiries made to Kullu on the subject of sexual and other abuses, IMI and Swami Shyam have chosen to leave them all unanswered. So all one can get is whatever other friends are willing to share, the propaganda from the official Shyam Space site and a wall of silence if you try you go beyond this.

The official ashram stand concerning the tragic death of Melissa Baer is one of the most reprehensible stories. First Shyam ordered a cover up of any knowledge of her by all members of the ashram. She was not to be spoken of as having visited, all video and audio taped evidence of her visit was destroyed, her personal journal (diary) was burned, and it was said that she tragically drowned in the Vyaas River. As the code of silence began to breakdown and people with a conscience began to speak out, it became known that she was heavily tranquilized at the order of the ashram, constantly supervised by ashram members, locked in a room or rooms when not supervised and lastly, may have indeed not drowned but been murdered by strangulation.

When these and other questions were asked of those in charge at the ashram, a complete about face took place concerning her attendance at IMI and the less than truthful official response was as follows: There was no audio taping done of her satsang interactions with Shyam. Melissa was never video taped in satsang because there were no video tapes available due to a supply shortage from the West, as only "Super VHS tapes" will do to tape the Great Man.

It was also stated that satsangs are not always audio and video taped because the taping is a voluntary job and people are not always available to do it. She was never given any kind of drug by the ashram. She was "just an innocent, naive, child-like but bright young woman, who was having a hard time with all the new experiences she was being exposed to and she especially had a hard time understanding what Shyam was saying in satsang". She was "never under any kind of surveillance or kept locked in, although people were constantly checking in on her and inquiring as to her activities and plans" and "she was always free to move anywhere at any time". There was "never a private meeting between her, Rita ( a friend of Melissa and devotee at the ashram) and Shyam". And lastly the assessment by Rita and others was "that she was very young (23-25 years old?) to be travelling alone in India, as India is a very rough and inhospitable country for young women on their own".

The only part of this which is not an outright lie, or a very bent version of the truth, is the part about India being a tough place for Western women to travel comfortably in alone. Yet many do so and she was clearly strong enough and mature enough to get to Kullu safe and of sound mind and body. Her problems manifested in what should have been a safe haven for her.

There have been some inquiries from Indian people in Kullu as to who they can speak with at the ashram to get truthful, official information about this. The answer is NO ONE. Officially from the standpoint of Shyam Srivastava and the International Meditation Institute this site does not exist and nobody will freely speak of the Open Letter or its contents in public. And those of us who are writing truth here are categorized by Swami Shyam and his Kullu devotees "as nothing but a pack of disgruntled, egotistical, lying, ungrateful, lost souls and former devotees, who for some unknown reason are trying to destroy Shyam and the utopia of Kullu".

Some of us have been told that there is a low level campaign underway from Kullu to misinform people concerning the allegations made on this site. There are people in Kullu on line who are busy denying any sexual impropriety, etc. on behalf of the ashram and falsely informing as many people as they speak to, that the former devotees who have made the accusations against Shyam are retracting those accusations. The ashram is claiming that people such as Neerja, Karuna, and Sat Shakti are now saying that their personal stories were lies made up because they were angry and in their minds about being rejected by Shyam. This is an outright fabrication and a lie to try to protect Shyam and the ashram, while trying to insure people will still make the journey to Kullu. There are also current devotees of Shyam who are teachers in the West and they are falsely promoting him as a God Realized Sage and Sat Guru to new and innocent spiritual seekers, even though they know the truth of this scandal. Business as usual is the name of the game in the Valley of Gods.

I am aware that much of this is a rehashing of previously spoken revelations but I hope putting this down will help save some time for new visitors and perhaps serve as a reminder to all of us.

Peace and Love to All

Marut

(Copied by Permission of Maurice Desautel (Marut))