Toning the respiratory system, cultivating the mind, strengthening the physique, losing weight and reshaping the figure…as a fashionable sport, yoga has become popular in recent years. You may find it hard to believe that this soft and beautiful sport could be related to evil scandals?
Yoga originates from the ancient India. It is one of the six philosophy schools, a discipline and method to explore “the combination of brahman and self”. Today it has become a series of methods of balancing physical and spiritual health, helping people bring their potential into full play by enhancing awareness.
“Enhancing awareness” and “bringing potential into full play”, these words sound mysterious to us normal people, therefore they are easily used by those with ulterior motives. “Masters” do dirty business in the disguise of yoga.
New York Times once reported that John Friend, founder of Anusara, a famous yoga sport club, was accused of sexual harassment on female trainees, who claimed that Friend seemingly promoted soft Yogasanas and preached that his methods could “cultivate love and joy”. However insiders all know that Friend’s preference is woman and he is wild about crazy parties and sensual pleasures.
▲”Yoga Master” Bikram Choudhury
The man in the photo is another famous “Yoga Master” in Europe and US. He is also the founder of Hot Yoga: Bikram Choudhury. He had been accused by several female trainees of sexual harassment: burdened with 6 cases at the same time. He told CNN in an interview that if he wants to have sex with female trainees, he does not need to threaten them, “because they all like me, they all love me.”
Frequent sexual scandals of these “yoga masters” have cast a shadow over the image of this sport. Therefore yoga is spearheaded against in some places, for example a local government in Russia bans yoga practices in urban areas because “yoga is like cult”.
How dangerous are the cults expanded in the disguise of “yoga”? Let me show you today (wechat account: China Anti-Cult).
“MISA”
▲Gregorian Bivolaru
In the 1990s, Gregorian Bivolaru, the famous “spiritual yoga master” of Romania, created an organization called the “Movement of Spiritual integration in the Absolute” (MISA). He advocated nudity yoga, claiming to spread yoga knowledge and practices in order to enhance people’s spirituality. The organization kept expanding and had over 40,000 members for a time. It had classes in 250 cities of 16 countries including Romania, Denmark, Sweden and Germany.
“MISA” becomes famous also because of its “Spiritual Mediation” organized in Costinesti and Baile Herculane in Romania, which attracts several thousands of people annually.
▲”Shaping” and “Spelling” activities organized by “MISA”
However, the so-called “nudity yoga” mixes yoga, sex and porn. For example, Bivolaru, under the guise of “liberating” women’s body, claimed that becoming a member of “MISA” gives one the access to closely exchange with “sacred goddess”. He has deceived and induced several hundreds of women to abandon their husbands, shot porn videos and even become strippers and prostitutes. Several thousands of his trainees had been involved in scandals of group sex.
Bivolaru himself even claimed that he would have sexual intercourse with over one thousand virgins.
▲Bivolaru and a female follower
In 2005, Bivolaru was prosecuted due to sexual harassment on juveniles and tax evasion, but he applied for political asylum from Sweden in the name of political persecution and successfully obtained the asylum, which enabled him to remain at large. After fleeing from Romania, he changed his name to Magnus Aurolsson and continued teaching yoga in several countries.
In 2013, the High Court of Romania sentenced him six years in prison in a charge of having sexual relationship with juveniles. But the Swedish government refused the extradition. It was not until February 27, 2016 when Bivolaru was arrested in France.
▲Gregorian Bivolaru was arrested by the French police
According to the indictment of Romanian prosecutor, in the beginning of MISA’s establishment, Bivolaru and his assistants had sexual relationship with juveniles (some just reached 10 years old). Bivolaru treated one of the girls as his mistress and “wife”, who had followed him ever since. As MISA became more and more famous, he kept recruiting female members to have sexual development on them.
According to the prosecutor, these women, on the one hand, provides individual pleasure for Bivolaru and his assistants, more importantly, are treated as an unfair means of wealth accumulation.
During Bivolaru’s stay in Sweden, MISA continued the training for nearly 100 young people in the Tamil Nadu state in India. It is reported that the two heads responsible for team expansion in India used to be leading actors in porn movies produced by a Copenhagen studio.
In April 2008, Bivolaru was expelled from the European Yoga Alliance and all affiliated branches because “it has been proven that they are not busy with Yoga in whatever form, that they even use Yoga as a cover for illegal practices, that they do not respect the rules and standards of our organization, that they show an unheard lack of moral integrity, and cannot be convinced to change their attitude."
According to “World Cult Watch”, MISA demonstrates a dangerous personality culprit. According to witness of former members, MISA is no different from other notorious cult organizations that are against the society under the guise of yoga.
▲Bivolaru and his follower
Tantra class
Organizations that promote porn under the guise of yoga even existed in China. In 2012, an article titled “Fake Spiritual Practice, Real Sexual Intercourse: Groans from Tantra Classrooms?” revealed the Tantra classes of seeming cultivating “Body, Mind and Spirituality” under the guise of porn. The article caused a big stir.
▲A training class in the dynamic meditation center in Shenzhen
After a personal experience in the Tantra class in the dynamic meditation center in Shenzhen, the journalist found that strange male and female trainees were asked to match with each other to play “mysterious” games and flirt.
Qin Mingyuan, lecturer of “Body, Mind and Spirituality” in the center, used to guide trainees to get naked in Tantra classes in Guangzhou and Beijing to “distinguish and open different energy centers of love, emotions and sex”. He openly claimed that “we will lift our fear, sense of guilt and shame via cooperation and trust in a close, safe and relaxed atmosphere, which will deepen our love, our sex and our relationship,” he declared that “we can reach universe sexual orgasm via sex and beyond sex…”
▲the number of female trainees exceeds that of male trainees in the training in the Shenzhen Dynamic Meditation company
Qin Mingyuan agitated not only exchanging espouses, but also that “meditation in remote places” can cure infertility, neck pain, stuttering, rhinitis, blurred vision, myopia, addiction to drugs, etc.
He built a “Meditation Mansion” in an unvisited col of the Luofu Montain to teach “Meditation Skills”. In the mansion, practitioners were required to fully “submit” themselves to “the master”; they were even agitated to quit job to be fully dedicated in the “Meditation Mansion”.
▲The “Meditation Mansion” is located in an unvisited col in the Luofu Mountain
Cult organizations against the society under the guise of yoga
“Yoga” is not only used to advocate porn, it is started off by many cult organizations in history.
“Osho Meditation”
“Osho Meditation” was a so-called meditation organization created by an Indian Acharya Rajneesh in the beginning of 1980s. The organization has set up several hundreds of meditation center in India, the United States, Britain, France and Japan to recruit followers. It thus gained a reputation and accumulated a huge amount of wealth.
Rajneesh also built his own “Divine City” in the United States named Antelope. Plenty of followers donated wealth and gratuitous labor for him: everyday, hundreds of followers work 12 hours in his enterprises and farmlands free of charge.
As his power grew, Rajneesh developed his own army to kill dissents and fight against churches. These finally caused attention from the US government. He was accused of felony including murder, attack, arson and theft; however, he successfully escaped the accusation. After, he went to Europe and created chaos before being expelled by European governments. In the end, Rajneesh went back to India and changed his name into “Osho” and the name of his organization into “Osho Meditation”.
▲Acharya Rajneesh
“Aum Shinrikyo”
Japanese cult “Aum Shinrikyo” released sarin in the Tokyo subway, injuring over 5,000 persons, killing 12 and permanently disabling 14. It started off as a “yoga” ashram.
In 1984, Matsumoto Chizuo founded the “Oumu Shinsen no Kai” (“Aum club of gods and hermits”) in Tokyo to preach a mix of yoga, Buddism, Taoism and Christian doctrines. After that he went all the way to India and claimed that he had been enlightened and liberated his spirituality in the Himalayas. He thus gained a super power to float in the air. He started his immense self-praise after returning to Japan.
In 1987, Oumu Shinsen No Kai was changed into “Aum Shinrikyo”, with over 15,000 followers for a time. Like Osho, Matsumoto Chizuo accumulated wealth, expanded his organization and developed chemical weapons and planned and executed the terrorist attack that shocked the world.
▲Matsumoto Chizuo
In its report on yoga and sexual scandals, New York Times mentioned why there have been so many philandering men under the guise of yoga training? Why does such phenomenon shock and disappoint so many people? One of the factors is incomplete understanding, or to be exact, ignorance. Yoga teachers and yoga books seldom mention that the origin of modern yoga is a kind of sex worship. The omission leads to many yoga practitioners into a porn trap.
There are also people like Matsumoto Chizuo, head of a cult: they approach in a way that is not easily perceived to promote porn and accumulate wealth, and even develop into cult under the guise of yoga. Followers themselves probably are not aware that they are already on a dangerous road, further and further away…
