Jayanti Tamm - August 9, 2009

At my local bookstore on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, 1960s nostalgia is in high gear. A display table is stacked high with pricey coffee table books, each with its own variation on psychedelic rainbow lettering, each claiming to reveal the untold story of the “peace and music” festival. I understand the lucrative business of selling those hazy memories — the Woodstock museum, Cherry Garcia ice cream, even the new movie “Taking Woodstock.” I just can’t buy into it.

It’s not because, as a Gen-Xer, I feel slighted that I missed out on all the fun. It’s because for me and many other children of the flower children, our rose-colored glasses are not just slightly tinted, but darkly tainted.

Along with the iconic music and fashion of the era came myriad new religions and a foolish rush to embrace peddlers of spiritual snake oil. The countercultural wave brought a flood of swamis, yogis and self-proclaimed enlightened beings. They preyed on the longings of hippies who were disillusioned by mainstream religion and in search of an alternative path.

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Colin Gustafson - 06/12/2009

When the late guru Sri Chinmoy came to Greenwich to lift an elephant in a circus-like street spectacle in 1984, former resident Jayanti Tamm, then 14, knew her secret was out.

“The next day, the newspaper had these breathless quotes from my parents, praising their spiritual leader (Chinmoy) for this feat (of strength),” Tamm said. “I was outed to the entire town.”

A graduate of Greenwich Academy, Tamm says she spent many years in Greenwich leading a double life. By day, she was a typical teenager, she said, attending class and playing sports at the all-girls private school.

At home, however, she led a secret life as Chinmoy’s so-called chosen disciple, along with her brother and parents, who were assigned by the guru to recruit disciples for his Queens-based spiritual ministry.

Growing more disillusioned with Chinmoy’s teachings as a teenager, Tamm eventually rebelled against him and, at age 25, was kicked out of his ministry for disobedience.

Now a professor in Toms River, N.J., Tamm, 39, has chronicled her life growing up as a Chinmoy devotee in her book, “Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult,” released in April.

Unlike many other accounts, Tamm’s book casts a sharply critical eye on Chinmoy.

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