Thursday, April 2, 2009

Saints: Show me the money

Well, I'm a person who believe in God, but not a spiritual person. When it comes to taking care of the self, I will be last in the line. Apparently I came across a certain things that annoyed me.

Isha Yoga - I have huge respect for this organization. I have attended the basic course of Inner Engineering and I liked the teaching. Recently there is a trip with the guru to Manasarovar. Its a 15 day event and the itinerary was neat. Soon one of my friend who came to know this, gave a ring to a 'volunteer' to know the details. We were shocked to know the cost of this 15 day expedition costs Rs 1,70,000. Holy S#^*. Soon probed the broucher to see why this cost, they have mentioned about Flight travel and 5 star hotel stay. Once you climb the mountains, its just Himalayas and you. Its only the base camp's you would get these lavish accommodations. Still including Nepal, China visa and flight changes it just comes less than a lakh. Who moderates them? No one...

All these organizations get the money for their course as a donation to the organization from the participant. So does it applicable for tax?

Sankar brought an important point when it comes to Isha. I totally agree with him. The base camp of this org is at the foot hills of vellingiri. Approx 5 kms inside the forest area and they have occupied a huge habitat land of Elephants. Around the ashram there is electric fence to avoid elephants! How did the government allow this? Why cant they have their base in a urban area?

Shiv Yog - Here is another guru who claims to bring inner joy. His teachings is happening in palace ground in Bangalore. The basic course fee for a 12 day discourse is Rs9000. But that's for the people in the last few rows. If you want to get a closer view of the guru, pay more Rs 40,000 to get somewhere in the middle. Finally its Rs 80,000 for the first rows. Its all donation!!! Heights of this is still you need to pay all the money and go one hour before to catch a place. What the ...

Its become a modern day cash cows. I'm happy until its spend for a good cause rather than buying a Mercedes Benz..

P.S: No back links to any of them was intentional.

3 comments:

Nikanth Karthikesan said...

Areas become^Wdevelop into urban areas because of people like these. Regarding money, even our own Acharya trainings are of same kind, just that he is a corporate guru. As long as demand is there price is always high. Price is not based on the worth^Wcost of the product/service, but demand. :(
Good cause/bad cause.. everything is good as long as you are spending the money. Buying Merc is perfectly ok. It is not as bad as politicians able to rob money to pay for votes.

Vijesh said...

yeah, people are ready to put in money into attaining inner bliss and that's the reason for the demand. Instead of buying a Merc he can build a school.

Curious of those ^W in the comment! Should be a outcome of coding hangover! :)

Nikanth Karthikesan said...

I still don't get who are we to decide how he should spend his money.

^W was intentional. ctrl-W is usually a short cut to erase previous word. So it is used in text only mailing lists to mean a striked word.