I have a deep respect for those who have taken the sacrifice of sanyas. I would not be the man I am today if it were not for several teachers. Sri Aurobindo’s writing aside, they all met people where they were at.

But if it has not been made obvious, I do not hold the same for the Orange Mafia.

The (mostly men) who like to parade in the brightly colored cloth.

It was at the last HMEC I attended.

No one in the group I represented wanted to do it, so I had to give a talk on how Dharmic institutions can work in unison to bring sustainable change in this country we’ve been calling home. Apparently I missed a memo because the rest of the speakers did some phenomenal PR for their mandirs.

Later a small child won an award, came up to claim it, and chanted some shlokas.

Speaker uncle asked one of the few mafia members who weren’t skipping the conference for Howdy Modi to come take a picture with the girl.

The Highly Honorable Swamiji, Ninjananda as we lovingly called him, gave a huff, said that was nothing to be proud of, and refused to get up. Ironically that name came from a game of mafia the “youth volunteers” were playing in the main lecture hall one of the nights.

Same man that publicly scolded my mother because the early morning meditation she was tasked with organizing used a recording instead of a live human like his special ashram does. Then had the audacity to involve my Guru’s name, saying the Sriram Sharma he knew would not have stood for this low effort devotion.

Same man got a standing ovation for his speech later in the day, one that I personally found spiteful and hateful in a way that I do not find fitting for his title.

So alas, it fell on a “disrespectful” man in his 20s who refused to touch dirty feet and had a penchant for wearing a yellow dhoti kurta to walk up onto the stage so the kid and her parents could have their photo.

Much like “Full Stack Software Developer”, the Orange Mafia seems to be generous with titles. I wonder if they also have bootcamps.

PS. Before anyone in my family repeats the lecture to me on how touching feet is symbolic of surrender, it’s beautiful you see it that way. I think feet are generally nasty. From what I understand, we shake hands because it meant you could not easily draw a weapon when you greet someone. Nowadays swap arms for phones. Personally I find that a much better way to show respect.