This might be a question many of us might have – in spite of number of allegations against Asaram Ji Bapu for last two years, the number of His followers keep on increasing every single day. No matter how big the arrangement is for His discourse huge crowd makes it look too small. I don’t want to guess a number but I can present some facts here, There are over 2 Million subscriptions to Asaram Ji Bapu’s Monthly magazine ‘Rishi Prasad’, assuming average of 5 members in a family it would be over 10 Million (counting only those who have subscribed to the monthly magazine).
Well, People are not stupid and they would not waste their precious time until they are getting something precious out of it – Everybody who follows Him gets the appropriate help – be it a student willing to perform good in his studies, businessman willing to excel in their business, Employed intellectuals willing to create a mark in their workplace, common man willing to overcome the struggles of life and so on – and above all everybody starts his journey towards achieving new spiritual heights in their life. I have heard people spreading rumors that Bapuji performs magic – yes I agree, His magic starts to work as we start following him, resulting in peace and joy in our lives.
If I have to explain change in my life in one sentence I would say ‘Asaram Bapu made me a Human being from an Animal’. I was no better then an animal who lives for his own senses. Of the several experiences in my life one is worth mentioning here – I work for a big IT firm and during my first visit to US I was taken to ladies bar in Las Vegas by my friends (of course without pushing me too hard), I was being insisted for a Private dance by one of the attendants there, I just closed my eyes before saying yes – Bapu Ji appeared before me and scared me out of that dirty bar. While some of you may think that I actually got deprived of the good time I might have had there, I know now that I have got much better and pure way of enjoying the life! When Bapuji’s followers remember Him, all their evil thoughts go away. I always wonder how unfortunate those anti social elements are who conspire against such Sant Shri Asaram Ji Bapu.
Hopefully that should explain why all the efforts, money, political influence used to defame Bapuji are all going into Trash. People continue to come to Asaram Bapu for multi dimensional development of their life. It would be more appropriate for media to highlight His Service to humanity – thousands of poor people get free food, money, shelter and education regardless of race or religion. Hundreds of Cow Protection projects are in execution. Whenever there is a natural calamity anywhere in India, Bapuji’s Sadhaks have reached out to extend the whole hearted support with food Packets, clothing, basic necessities and medical support, be it Plague outbreak in Surat in 1994, Cyclone Hit Orissa 1999, Tsunami Relief 2005, struggling Farmers in Maharashtra to name a few. Media would not highlight if the people being served would have died of hunger in absence of help, but they would certainly make it a big deal of any incident that occurs in this massive effort.
Visit following link to for additional details on Seva Activities conducted by Ashram http://ashram.org/AboutAshram/SevaActivities/tabid/371/Default.aspx
Spreading evil thoughts is very easy and is kind of ongoing process in our modern society, but spreading goodness is very difficult; one such classic example is how our children are exposed to violence, sex, revenge and hatred right from their early childhood. The basis of goodness is unselfish love, but in the market oriented culture of modern society unselfishness is the scarcest commodity. Saints like Bapuji are doing this great job of spreading goodness everyday. There are over 18000 Bal Sansakar Kendra all over India, run by Sant Shri Asaram Bapu’s Yog Vedant Samiti – a massive effort to spread goodness in our children, the future of India. Let us all try to help spread the goodness and not be the obstacle to such a great effort, our children deserve this.