March 14, 2010
Ten days after the clips of Swami Nithyananda allegedly frolicking with Tamil actress Ranjitha were flashed on TV screens across the country, the 33-year-old Swami said they were just ‘experiments’ that rubbed society the wrong way. He blamed the media for the ‘attack’ against him and his organisation.
He made this statement in a video interview with his disciple Rajiv Malhotra. The video was uploaded on YouTube, a popular video-sharing site. This is the first time Nithyananda is making a direct reference to the sex scandal.
Nithyananda said the latest controversy had taught him several lessons. "In 33 years of my life, I have seen two extremes: from being the most watched-guru on YouTube to the most-watched scandal on YouTube. In a way, even this abuse, defamation, and attack have taught me a lot of lessons about society, life, and humanity, which I had never thought of and never looked into. This has made me more responsible. Now I have decided that I am not going to experiment [with] anything which is not widely accepted by society."
The spiritual leader told the interviewer that his organisation had failed in handling the scandal and other allegations leveled against him. "Our PR was not trained for this planned attack," he said. The swami termed the latest controversy as part of a conspiracy. “We were not prepared for this kind of a strong attack, a war. We are a silent group, conducting spiritual research, practicing and sharing it to the world," he said.
