Conny Larsson Foto: Janerik Henriksson / Scanpix

[05-06-12]
"Behind the Clown's Mask" is the title of Conny Larsson's book, which came out a few weeks ago. In it, Conny tells of his life with Sai Baba, who imagines he is a God on earth and is considered India's best-known guru. After 20 years in the movement, Conny exposes the sect in his book and not least Sai Baba as a fraud and a paedophile.

I met Conny Larsson on a beautiful sunny day in Stockholm.
We have met before. This was actually the third time I interviewed him. First was around the end of the 1960s. Conny, a young promising actor, had then found the power of meditatation through Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the meditation teacher who became world famous through his contact with the Beatles.
Thanks to meditation, Conny had been able to put behind him a life with too much hashish. He had become whole and hale, an vegetarian and abstainer from both alchohol and drugs.
Many years later, Conny popped up in Gavle.
He was to hold a lecture, and we met again. By then, Anne-Marie Ehrenkrona had written a book about Conny, "God's Little Clown". He travelled around to tell about his progressive method of treating young drug users and criminals on his farm outside Valdemarsvik. The philosophy behind his treatment was based on Sai Baba's teaching. Each day was begun with meditation. Conny's trotting horses also played a large role in it.
So we met for a third time.
His ginger hair has begun to get grey flecks. He has become somewhat fuller in the stomach. Looks to be in fine health. But he is no longer one of the Sai Baba faithful. In his book, he exposes the Indian as a fraud. And worse than that, a paedophile. He tells frankly and honestly about his life. It is a powerful and revealing book about an unusual life fate.
Conny is a seeker. He has been seeking a father all his life, a replacement for the father who let him down and exposed him to so much pain that Conny was dumb as a child. Thanks to teachers who noticed him, he found a way back to life and succeeded in becoming an actor, despite his stammer, when he began to speak again. Therefore we began by speaking about God:-

What is your attitude towards God?

It has changed. Previously, God has been a father to me, one I should rely on. I tried to achieve this in my personal life because my father was not there for me. I sought God in men, my theatre director, later in my teachers, Maharishi and Sai Baba.
When they didn't measure up to it, everything became very doubtful. Where did God go? Why did he do this? I had a crisis with God from 1998 until 2001 when I was damned angry with him. Or her, It, the Power. My Christian faith took a real beating because God did not hear my prayers. I had a really heavy confrontation with this, until I realised that Gud lives here, in me, as the flame of life.
I got hold of my life trauma through a doctor in Gothenburg. I was four years old when my father's drinking friend began to rape me, and that went on for six years. I had totally repressed all memory of it.
It was only through the doctor's help that it came to the surface. Then I realised what I had been subjected to as a child. Every Friday evening. I wanted to ask the question ' Papa, did you sell me for a bottle of spirit?'

How did you get back any faith?

It was when I met Agge on a meditation course, where I was the teacher and she a student. Agge is a geneticist, researcher and scientist. She listened intently and dissected everything I said. Our respective knowledge went hand in hand and it was like a revelation for me. She could confirm that what I was teaching is consistent with genetics. She then became very important to me.
She has been involved during the book writing I wrote, she read and wept. We are as close to one another as can be, despite being eccentrics. She lives in Gotland but is also building a house in Cyprus, so we'll be neighbours.

From what do you live?

Love. I don't know. I have resources and am not on the breadline. I have never been. I still have an income from my service as director of the treatment home. We arranged it that way. Next year, a new director will take over.

When last I inverviewed you, you were travelling the world and holding lectures about your activities. What has happened since then?

I realised that Sai Baba was bluffing with his miracles already back in 1993. He conjures forth ash and diverse golden objects from thin air. I saw how he was faking and dropping things. But I imagined that he was testing me as a disciple, to see if I could pass the grade. One could read in books that he did this. I had then had a relation to Sai Baba which I believed to be of a spiritual nature but which proved to be sexual. Sai Baba entrapped young men to think they were the chosen. And one did as he said. He seduced me back in 1979 and on until 1983 under the pretence that he was changing my character/personality and kundalini power, which resides in the spine, according to Indian tradition. I believe in that. I was the apple of his eye.

How much of this is known?

BBC World made a documentary in which they filmed Sai Baba's practicing a fraud. It is called 'The Secret Swami'. Danish TV has made a documentary where I was one of the main interviewees. These programmes have been seen around the world.

What is Sai Baba's situation today?

It goes on as before. The deception is concentrated on education and schools. But it is only choreography for paedophile activity where one does dreadful things.

What changed it all for you?

I was there in 1999. There were in our group young Swedish boys - heterosexual, innocent - who only sought God. When one of the boys asked for my help I at first said that I had to obey Sai Baba. When he appealed to me, the penny dropped and I realised what it was really all about. It was so horrific that you cannot grasp it. This (deception) had lasted 21 years for me. And all had known about it, all the leaders.

There are many of the famous who have gone to Sai Baba, like Goldie Hawn.

Yes, and when she came he put me in front of her and pretended that he was not in the least interested in her in particular. He 'manifested', did miracles for someone who was sitting close to her. Her jaw dropped and she donated everything she owned to him. She lost herself completely in the movement for a while.

How does it come about that people get caught in these sects. Like Knutby in Sweden?

People have a need for a role model. If mamma and pappa have failed to fulfil their duties, were unable to live up to the demands of the situation, then one gets the need for a role model. It can be an idol or something else. Those people have a special impulse in them, which can be religious or political. They fall for strong personalities like Fidel Castro, Stalin, Sai Baba, the Knutby pastor. One slides into the form which best suits one's needs. Others become druggies. The hard thing is to get out of that.
I have succeeded in escaping due to meditation and therapy. But it took 40 years.

How do you see you God today? Does he or she exist?

Yes, in my innermost I. I cannot, for example, decide to stop breathing or that my heart will stop. I can try. So who is it that breathes, if I try to stop? Yes, someone who wants something of or for me. For me there is a creative power with meaning, will and which has given me my identity. I have found my Gethsemane, my own orchard where I can be in relation to myself.

What is the meaning of life?

It is that one should find some language to enable one to understand nature. Nature is God's language for us all. If I let myself see nature, I come to see that there is intelligent power throughout it. It has set an evolution going in the universe. I can feel that today. Now that I am not so angry at Sai Baba.

So what happens when we die?

That is a question everone has in their thoughts. Some say nothing happens. I believe that everything happens then. Life is here and now and, naturally, we shall live it so. I do not believe that the mental matter dies simply because its container rots. I drove here in a car, but I am not a car for that reason. I can continue my journey by bus. My mental energy goes to sleep, then it sets going in another body, seeks a new form. I believe that.

How do your regard the religions?

The religions one sees today, probably excluding Buddhism, are very warlike and murderous. One believes that all the others are wrong. As long as one holds that attitude one considers oneself to have the right the kill, Arabs for example. Or, I have a right to kill Turks because I am Greek Orthodox. Or Christians because I belong to a communist religion.
It is not compatible with communication, love and peace. The religious path does not work because one excludes the larger part of humanity.

Is there anything which works?

I believe that each person should have his or her own relationship. But it is the same God. If one can only see it that way. Here in Sweden we say 'sol', in Gernany 'Sonne', in England 'sun'. If we can only see that it is the same, then we can at least live in peace with one another. We don't need to love one another, but we don't need to kill each other. Then it is is the encounter between people that life is born.

Why did you write the book?

That's a good question. I had to send the laundry back, so to speak. I was forced to get this out of myself. It became a therapy for me.
The more I wrote the more I realised the I must by all means finish the book. So that the disaffected can see that there is someone who has survived the life in a sect.
There is yet another reason. Four of my best friends were unable to make the journey (back). They died on the way. And no one in the movement mourned them or asked what have become of them.

What do you want as a result of the book?

The people should not have to fall into the pitfall I did and lose themselves, maybe their lives, their children, their place in life. And if it can be of help to anyone who is stuck in any sect, then I will be more than thankful.

Before Sai Baba, you were in the Maharishi Mahesh network for ten years, as his personal secretary.

Yes, in the TM (trans. Transcendental Meditation) movement. And today I have a quite different view on it. The meditation technique itself functions, but all the mumbo-jumbo around it is only monkey business, nothing else. Like with so much these days. We have the new Kalki with his Amma (trans. Mother) in India and his monkey tricks.

Who is Kalki?

Those who have left Maharishi and Sai Baba are hoping that kalki will now be their image of God. They will find in time that they have lost everything on the journey, partner, home, children and money. Alas, they dare not listen to their own voices.
In any situation where I have met these masters, I would have dropped away immediately, if I had listened to my first impressions. I did not. With Maharishi it had so much to do with the Beatles. I was an actor and felt that I was in clover. Today he is 93 years old and the TM movement lives on fine, above all in the USA. To be on a course with Maharishi today costs US$1 million.What does money mean to these people?

Power. Access to goods and things. They appear as monks and ought not have those needs, but have demonstrated their needs as worse than most other. They re still regarded as ascetics and highly spiritual people. And it is all about your and my money that we scraped together.

What should one look at when people come who assert they are our saviours?

They have a tendency to claim that they are right. They manipulate, also by treating you as a special and chosen person. You feel that you are seen and heard. Later you are sent to the corner. If you can in addition recruit others, then you are truly competent. Later it is about getting into secrets, which involves your being taken into a secret club.

Quite remarkable, really, that little Conny from Sweden came so close to Indian gurus?

My life was such that they saw the little child in me. Many have wanted to take care of me. I have followed those who took care of me. I was a damaged child from the start. People have always liked me and wanted to take care of me. Even today I like it when people take care of me.

Today, many are chasing after realisation. What is that?

It means to be enlightened, that is, to be free. Enlightenment lives within people in that one can be illumined from within. It cannot happen from the outside. That leads only to confusion. There I believe that the Christian symbolism with the seven-armed candelabra points towards the seven centres in the body, the chakras, and that they shall be illumined by the inner life force which inhabits the cosmic energy that is everywhere.
I see the Dalia Lama as an enlightened person who never says a bad word about his opponents, even though they murder his people. He does his good deeds.

What do you think of Thomas di Leva, also a spiritual seeker?

I know him. He is a wonderful musician and a good artist. Yet, if one is an opinion maker one should be careful about his activities, especially when it concerns representing spiritual leaders, as I did. Above all I believe that one should be warned not to believe that one is chosen and has powers that other people do not have. Or that one believes one can give these powers to others. Especially if money is involved.
As a musician and artist, yes. As a spiritual example, no.

Kersten Monk
tel. 0026-15 96 44

/Facts Conny Larsson Age: 57 years Profession: Actor, spiritual seeker, author, meditations teacher Born: In Linköping, grew up in Stockholm Family: Cohabitation with Agge Lives: In a house in Cyprus Current: Holding an author's evening at Gävle Stadsbibliotek tuesday 14 juni. Five thoughts about... ...Cyprus Freedom. I feel that I have my own life there and can rest after a long journey. I get to laugh again. And the nature is wonderful. ... Sweden For me, finished and outdated, which is a bit sad. Sweden needs to be repaired and rejuvenated. And be freed from the corruption one see when the top people get away with their lies and deceits while the little man gets no space. Especially women. I am beside myself with pleasure about the new women initiative with Gudrun Schyman. I am impressed by the efforts the network has exerted and I support them fully and in all their attempts to bring a balance between men and women into our existence. ...money Completely without interest for me since I have had money. I have given away and donated, but money has no power of attraction over me. I teach, give therapy and lecture for free. I wish to be available, without being invaded. ...love Oh! Warmth, culture, light. wind. Love is a very wide concept for me. It has a more universal character than being just between two individuals. Couples indeed, but most of all love as peace and enjoyment for the world and all of us. ...paedophiles Unforgiveable, that is the feeling I have about it. It is totally incomprehensible how anyone can abuse children. My God, my guru, Sai Baba, raped children. In my thoughts was the question 'Why does God rape children?' Paedophiles must go. One should forgive, Christianity holds. It is not possible. On the other hand, reconciliation. I can live with my pain and have to accept what has happened.