The God-men of India

According to me, no man has seen God, or no man could see God and live. Probably the only human beings who  had seen God and interacted with him physically were, Adam and Eve, because they were holy and sinless then.  Once they ate that forbidden fruit, God had stopped appearing to them.  Thereafter, God had been speaking to people through the prophets He had appointed from time to time. God however, talked to  some people directly  but without showing Himself in person.

Then there arose  false prophets, self appointed prophets and prophets who had nothing to prophesy.  The greatest prophet Moses, had laid down definite  rules of how to verify  a prophet whether he is genuine  or a fake.

So, there are today a number of self appointed modern prophets in India. They call themselves “God men”. A god man wears a special dress – saffron robe, a string of beads round his neck, long beard and  a short  T shaped  wooden staff on which he could rest his arm and sit in style. He will invariably position himself under a  banyan tree so that the passers by could take notice of him..  He would read your palm, tell  your fate  or fortunes for the day just by staring into your eyes.  Many people  believe them and some also swear by them..

Some god men  had set up what is called ashrams , something akin to seminaries where devotees could go, worship the great man, some time stay as free guests and minister to him as per his orders.  All sorts of nefarious activities used to take place in these ashrams.  The god man took tremendous liberties with his disciples, especially ladies;  some were molested and a few young things were raped by him. Such sex freedoms were not treated as abuses but  gifts to him. The affected women felt proud that they had lent their body for god’s use. But some brave maidens made police complaints and the courts took the god men to task.  A few  are serving jail sentences for sex crimes.  and also murder charges. Yet, many Indians fall for them.

 Their tactics vary from god man to god man.  Some would bless you and give you ‘holy ash’ to be applied on the body or forehead or at some places or a talisman of sorts to be worn on your arm or round the neck to ward off evil spirits and also bring luck to you  when necessary.  And their  wishes do  come true.  It’s a question of the  probability theory;  some would get healed of their chronic ailments and  some would flourish in business or  overcome their losses and so on.  The beneficiaries used to shower the god men with gifts and money and what not in return.  

 Recently a god man turned into a con-man. He proclaimed that he had received power from God to multiply one’s money.  Believing him to be a messiah from above, a few deposited some currency notes with him and by Jove, by evening the god man handed over double the amount to the believers.. Word went around and more people came for doubling  their assets.  The next step was  to treble the money if deposited with the god man for three days.  Presto, one  hundred became three hundred  on the third day. 

Having seen a rush of depositors, the god man concerned  appointed agents in several cities with the promise of quadrupling the money if  it remained with him  till a   particular day – 27 April 2009.  Several goofs emptied all their savings with the god man.  Came 27 Apr and there was no sign of the famous god man and his authorized agents. Probably he had ascended to Heaven with  millions in his pocket !!

I wonder if such bluffs would have succeeded in some western nations. Possibly  not.  But it would in India because Indians are simpletons and would believe any thing which appears to be super natural including a magician’s stunts.