Prakashanand Saraswati or Swamiji (born 15 January 1929) is a convicted child molester and Hindu monk from Ayodhya, India. Previously, he founded the Hindu new religious movement "International Society of Divine Love" and Radha Madhav Dham temple in the United States. In 2011, a jury found Swami Prakashanand Saraswati guilty on 20 counts of indecency with a child. He is still a fugitive and appeared on the Fox TV show America's Most Wanted.
History
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati was born in a brahmin family in 1929 in Ayodhya, India. His early life was fraught with intense religious feelings, and as a youth he became a reclusive mystic so that he might find God. He completed his studies and aged 21, renounced the world and took the order of sannyasa of the Gaudiya Vaishnavite (Chaitanya) lineage from his guru, Kripalu Maharaj. In 1952, he was offered to become the Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath, but he declined.
He spent the next 20 years as a wandering ascetic in the Himalayas and in the forests of central India, ending in Braj. Following the strict discipline of sannyas, he first lived in the Himalayas (Joshimath, Badrinath, Rishikesh, Haridwar, etc.), forests of Amarkantak, near the Narbada River, Allahabad and Kashi for about four years. Later, he went to Vrindaban and then to Barsana where he spent over 18 years in the deep woodlands of Braj. In 1975, he emerged from his solitary life he began his mission of teaching the path of bhakti.
He founded the International Society of Divine Love in India in 1975. The society was established in New Zealand in 1978. Later on he travelled to America and founded an ashram for his devotees and disciples. By 1981 Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, who had begun to be thought of as a distinguished sage and a saint, conceived of creating a global mission, establishing religious centres in India, England, Ireland, Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia.
Writings and awards
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati has written over nine books on various aspects of Hindu ethics, scriptures and practices. He has represented the Hindu religion at the Millennium World Peace Summit.
In 1999 he wrote The True History and the Religion of India: A Concise Encyclopedia of Authentic Hinduis, a "monumental dissertation" on the history of Indian civilization and religion. The eight-hundred-page tome is entitled The True History and the Religion of India. It is a comprehensive history of religion in Indian culture. The book has received laudatory comments from prominent Hindu academics and leaders in the United States and India. It was released by The Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Shri Ramesh Bais. The encyclopaedia won an award at the World Religious Parliament in New Delhi in 1999. In 2001, the book was published by Motilal Banarsidass. It has subsequently been published by Macmillan Publishers.
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. He was awarded the title of "Dharm Chakravarti" in India for his efforts in "reestablishing authentic Hinduism".<ref name="dharm-Chakravarti">[http://www.hinduism-today.com/blogs-news/hindu-press-international/h-d--swami-prakashanand-saraswati-to-lecture-in-dallas--texas/6455.html H.D. Swami Prakashanand Saraswati to Lecture in Dallas, Texas'] . 2006/12/7. Hinduism Today</ref>
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.
Research with Maxwell Cade
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati's state of "conscious ecstasy", and the effects of his Divine Love Meditation, was studied by Dr. Maxwell Cade in the 1970s.Morris, J. 2013. Acorns: Windows High-Tide Foghat:, Volume 1. I Universe.
Dr. Maxwell Cade, a leading physicist of London, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, had been doing psycho-biological research during the 1970s on meditation and the altered states of the consciousness of the mind.Geoffrey Blundell. 10 February 2003. The Daily TelegraphCade, C. M. & Coxhead, N. 1989. The awakened mind: biofeedback and the development of higher states of awareness. Element Publishing.