Prakashanand Saraswati, also known as Swamiji, (born 15 January 1929) is a Hindu monk, guru and convicted child molester from Ayodhya, India.
[1][2] Previously, he founded the Hindu religious organisation the International Society of Divine Love[3] and the Radha Madhav Dham temple in the United States.
By 1981 Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, who had begun to be thought of as a distinguished sage and a saint,[3] conceived of creating a global mission,[3] establishing religious centres in India, England, Ireland, Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia.
[18] A simplified and abridged version of the book for college students, entitled Amazing Facts about Hinduism, was released at the Global Dharma Conference in 2003.
[19] His writings in the scientific and spiritual fields have been acclaimed by well known scientists, social and religious leaders including P. S. Veeraraghavan, Tarun Vijay, Om Prakash Pande, E. C. George Sudarshan, Jayendra Saraswathi and Swaroopanand Saraswati.
[10][22][23] Cade, a leading physicist of London,[10] and Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine,[24] had been doing psycho-biological research during the 1970s on meditation and the altered states of the consciousness of the mind.
[25][26][27][28] Cade co-developed the "Mind Mirror", a portable EEG machine that could monitor the alpha, beta, delta and theta rhythms from each brain hemisphere simultaneously.
[26] In the 1970s, a number of eastern religious teachers expressed an interest in participating in Cade's research, and agreed to have their brain rhythms measured.
[30] On one occasion, Cade says that Saraswati "produced the most beautiful fifth-state pattern on the Mind Mirror for more than an hour while engaging in an intense debate with Professor John Hasted, a noted physicist".
[29] Cade's research with Swami Prakashanand Saraswati has also been discussed in several other publications including by Hill (1979),[25] Inglis & West (1983),[27] Treece (1989)[31] and Peake (2013).
[23] Cade showed evidence for temporary and in some cases long-term elevation of state even after twenty minutes of Divine Love Meditation.
A 12-person jury declared Saraswati guilty of 20 counts of child molestation, after 50 minutes deliberation, on Friday 4 March 2011.
[36] Saraswati's lawyers said the video tape was important because “There’s no physical evidence of any kind”[36] and "it represents the primary method by which Defendant's counsel can impeach the complainant's testimony at trial.
One month after the trial, then "Barsana Dham" leaders "changed the organization's name and erased the once-omnipresent images and mentions of the former guru from the premises.
"[38] In 2012, on the one year anniversary of the trial, Vrinda Devi, Radha Madhav Dham spokeswoman, stated that "What we've been trying to do since then is moving forward.
[1] Federal officials believe Saraswati's followers moved him to Mexico in March 2011, and then helped him travel to India on a fake passport in November 2011.