Talk on freedom, ahimsa perk up Nithya devotees🔗

"Freedom," self-styled godman
Paramahamsa Nithyananda began.
And he laughed.

The swami was delivering his
first discourse in 80 days, after the
high court of Karnataka, on Friday,
gave him permission to preach. The
theme of the discourse, delivered in
English, was Freedom.

More than four months after a tel-
evision channel aired a controver-
sial clipping purportedly of
Nithyananda in a compromising po-
sition with a Tamil actress, his spir-
itual headquarters, Nithyananda
Dhyanapeetam, was filled with
laughter on Sunday.

He recalled his prison days and
the scandal that had led him there.
Nithyananda joked that when in
prison enlightenment was not a lux-
ury, but a necessity. The truth which
saw him through the whole experi-
ence was the truth of non-violence.

Each reference to his 53 days in jail
and the scandal was received with
peals of laughter by his disciples.

"The Internet has twice experi-
enced major jams due to traffic. One
was following the death of Michel
Jackson; second was following my
sex tape. Michel Jackson had to
sing, dance and eventually die to
achieve this, and here I am, at the
age of 33, achieving it without hav-
ing done anything towards (achiev-
ing) it," he said.

Nithyananda said the names attrib-
uted to him - "self-styled, controver-
sial godman, Nithy and so on," were
more like "Sahasranama", the thou-
sand names of Lord Vishnu.

Speaking on the topic,
Nithyananda said the flow of the
human consciousness was towards
freedom. "Whatever you think of as
freedom, you follow that. If you
think money gives you freedom, you
try to follow that. If it is political
freedom, you start travelling
towards that."

The godman, who has been freed
on bail said those civilisations
which respected freedom would
move towards political supremacy,
while those who sought inner free-
dom moved towards spirituality.

"The real freedom is just freedom,
the experience that does not depend
on the outer circumstances," he said.

From my experience
I tell you, be
established in
compassion. That is the
ultimate strategy for life."

Nithyananda's disciples said
the past had ceased to exist.
Ma Nithya Chandra, a disciple
of French origin, said that she
was excited to listen to the
guru after a long period.

"We were given the strength
by my guru. What had hap-
pened was bad. We are look-
ing forward to a new start,"
she said.

Kannada actor Malavika
Avinash (pictured) was also
present at the discourse.

An ashram official said July
25 would be celebrated as
Guru Purnima, a thanks giv-
ing day to the guru.