HWL Poonja as described by Andrew Cohen's mother

Quote

"After lunch we crossed the bridge over the river and found (Poonja) dressed in a white kurta and pajama, sitting cross legged on a cot in a long narrow room. I was surprised to see that he was sharing his room with a pretty, blond chic Belgian woman and her child, a girl of thirteen. The girl, perhaps bored with what was going on, was sitting on her mattress on the floor reading Gone with the Wind in French. I was told the Belgian lady had been enlightened by Poonja and was there to thank him. ...much later I found out that the Belgian woman's daughter had been fathered by Poonja."

Quote

(Poonja) considered Andrew ready to start a revolution amongst the young right then and there after just two and a half weeks of instruction. I'd never heard anything of like it.

How could you take on the huge responsibility of altering people's minds with so little training? I was puzzled by Poonja. Where did he get his authority? He was not part of a tradition that educated teachers. He claimed, simply, to have been enlightened by Ramana Maharshi.

(Maharshi, I was to find out later, had never authorized anyone's enlightenment or sanctioned anyone to teach in his name."

Quote

"Julie...telephoned Professor Moorty. In the course of a long conversation, Andrew Cohen was mentioned. Julie told professor Moorty that Andrew was a guru in the lineage of Ramana Maharshi and Professor Moorty interrupted her to say ---and this had surprised Julie--that Ramana Maharshi had no official disciples and no official lineage!"

Quote

"A lot of what Poonja said about Andrew was true, that he could not tolerate being criticized, that his disciples were afraid of him and that Andrew's notion of communal sangha life was for sheep. But the fact was, Poonja couldn't stand being criticized either. And he had shown himself to be a hypocrite. For example, I heard that he told a former student of Andrew's, now called Gangaji, and presently operating successfully out of Hawaii, that he had been waiting for her, too, all his life, and as he'd said, after teaching Andrew, he was ready to die! (She subsequently became Poonja's replacement for Andrew.

"When I met Poonja for the first time in India, he was a man in his seventies who, after many years as a guru, had surprisingly few disciples. I think he was hungry for fame, and when he met Andrew, he must have seen a golden opportunity to broadcast his name in America by inflaming this young person's impressionable mind with ideas of 'starting a revolution amongst the young.' Then, when Andrew proved to be unsuitable, it took him no time at all to find a replacement from amongst Andrew's disaffected followers. And his strategy worked. He is now regarded in America as one of India's foremost gurus!