"Being
a kid at Barsana Dham was pretty amazing," Kate Tonnessen, now in her
30s, recalled. "To live on 200 acres of what was about as wild land as
you can get in Texas."
They, their
parents and other families moved to the ashram in pursuit of
enlightenment under the guidance of their spiritual leader, Prakashanand
Saraswati, whom they called "Swamiji," an honorific Hindu term for a
guru.
"It was sort of understood that
Swamiji was God, just on earth," Vesla Tonnessen told CNN's "The Hunt
with John Walsh." "He held absolute power over anything."
The
children of the ashram loved Saraswati. "We always felt as kids that he
seemed like an Indian version of Santa Claus," said Kate Tonnessen.
"He
was very affectionate with everybody, and then the kids, he was really,
like, cuddly and he'd give you hugs and kisses that just felt like your
grandpa. But then sometime his kisses got weird."
,,,
Saraswati had a guru of his own, a
well-known holy man from India named Kripalu who came to the United
States in 2000 to spend time at Barsana Dham.
In a later online search, Kate Tonnessen discovered that Kripalu had faced accusations of rape in India and in Trinidad.
"I
couldn't stop shaking, recalled Tonnessen. "I clicked on it, and all
these pages opened up; these news articles about how Kripalu had been
accused by a young Trinidadian girl of rape."
As
Vesla Tonnessen recalled, the Kripalu allegations changed the equation
for the three women. Knowing that Saraswati served and worshipped
Kripalu, could the arrival of the guru's guru put other girls still
living in the ashram at risk?
Guru convicted of abusing followers children fled justice - CNN.com
See also:
Search continues for Indian 'guru' who abused children in Texas ashram
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