Australian Brahma Kumari lives off Welfare Payments in India
Posted: 02 Oct 2013
In a new development, an Australian Brahma Kumari adherent called Leon Ahern has successfully claimed Australia government social security welfare payments to live permanently in India at a Brahma Kumari centre.
BK Leon Ahern claims he is schizophrenic, and therefore unfit for work, yet is able to negotiate international air travel, international banking, living in a foreign country and making complex legal appeals. It is not know how much he pays the Brahma Kumaris to live at their centre which is being called an "ashram" or guesthouse.
The maximum rate of Disability Support Pension (DSP) for a single person is $751.70 Australian Dollars, equivalent to $700 US Dollars (43,800 Indian Rupees) per fortnight, in a country where the per capita income is $1219 per year.
Ahern began to receive disability benefits from 1992 and began to follow the Brahma Kumaris in India in 1993, often stay for more than a year. He claimed, as Brahma Kumari adherents are told to believe, that India was his spiritual home and that the Brahma Kumaris centre in Sydney was "no substitute for the higher spiritual advice he has access to in India".
That seems a bit of an insult to all the individuals who work to support it, are told to stay there by the BK leadership, and have to make do with it for their spiritual sustenance.
From a Brahma Kumari point of view, this appears to be yet another significant turn, or perhaps demise in its standards but one which the organisation will, no doubt, financially benefit from the Australia government's sponsorship as Ahern receives more money in one month that most Indians work one year to earn.
Strictly speaking, according to the old Maryadas or principles, Brahma Kumari centers were not allowed to accept followers with mental illness, followers were strongly discouraged from living off social welfare payments and they were instructed to stay in their country or city of origin in order to serve it. "Baba", their god, would make everything good.
Certain ethical questions arise including as to how much Ahern has been enculted into a sets of beliefs which the BKs then profit from.
Alternatively, if any Australians want a lifetime holiday in India, to hang out at an exotic BK center in order to "earn their inheritance in the Golden Age", and with the ability to live like a king off the Australia tax payer ... the door would appear to be open.
BK Leon Ahern had returned to Australia in 2007 to receive free medical treatment for a heart condition and blamed Centrelink for making him remaining in Australia for six years instead of allowing him to return to live in India where he is able to attend all day classes, fortnight long retreats at the cult's headquarters which he claimed made him "happier and more at peace".
Would we all?
Centrelink is part of the Australian Department of Human Services and disburses social security payments.
BK Leon Ahern claims he is schizophrenic, and therefore unfit for work, yet is able to negotiate international air travel, international banking, living in a foreign country and making complex legal appeals. It is not know how much he pays the Brahma Kumaris to live at their centre which is being called an "ashram" or guesthouse.
The maximum rate of Disability Support Pension (DSP) for a single person is $751.70 Australian Dollars, equivalent to $700 US Dollars (43,800 Indian Rupees) per fortnight, in a country where the per capita income is $1219 per year.
Ahern began to receive disability benefits from 1992 and began to follow the Brahma Kumaris in India in 1993, often stay for more than a year. He claimed, as Brahma Kumari adherents are told to believe, that India was his spiritual home and that the Brahma Kumaris centre in Sydney was "no substitute for the higher spiritual advice he has access to in India".
That seems a bit of an insult to all the individuals who work to support it, are told to stay there by the BK leadership, and have to make do with it for their spiritual sustenance.
From a Brahma Kumari point of view, this appears to be yet another significant turn, or perhaps demise in its standards but one which the organisation will, no doubt, financially benefit from the Australia government's sponsorship as Ahern receives more money in one month that most Indians work one year to earn.
Strictly speaking, according to the old Maryadas or principles, Brahma Kumari centers were not allowed to accept followers with mental illness, followers were strongly discouraged from living off social welfare payments and they were instructed to stay in their country or city of origin in order to serve it. "Baba", their god, would make everything good.
Certain ethical questions arise including as to how much Ahern has been enculted into a sets of beliefs which the BKs then profit from.
Alternatively, if any Australians want a lifetime holiday in India, to hang out at an exotic BK center in order to "earn their inheritance in the Golden Age", and with the ability to live like a king off the Australia tax payer ... the door would appear to be open.
BK Leon Ahern had returned to Australia in 2007 to receive free medical treatment for a heart condition and blamed Centrelink for making him remaining in Australia for six years instead of allowing him to return to live in India where he is able to attend all day classes, fortnight long retreats at the cult's headquarters which he claimed made him "happier and more at peace".
Would we all?
Centrelink ordered to pay man Disability Support Pension while he lives in India
A tribunal has overruled Centrelink to allow a schizophrenic Australian to keep receiving the disability support pension at a spiritual retreat in India.
Leon Ahern appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal which found "to him, India is home" - meaning he can live there at an ashram and collect the DSP indefinitely. He claimed to have managed his illness for the past 20 years through adherence to the teachings of Brahma Kumaris, which he says he follows seven days a week living in an ashram or a guesthouse.
Mr Ahern began receiving the DSP in 1992 and started following Brahma Kumaris in India a year later, often spending more than a year at a time there.
He was initially able to claim the DSP indefinitely while overseas however changed rules in 2004 meant if he returned to Australia as a permanent resident he would lose the DSP after 13 weeks overseas.
Mr Ahern returned to Australia in 2007, prompting Centrelink to deem him a permanent resident in Australia in 2010 preventing him claiming the DSP for long periods overseas. The Tribunal late last month rejected the classification, finding that despite spending the past six years in Australia he was not a permanent resident.
It found he had no family ties, was itinerant, living in hostels and on walking trails and visiting a Brahma Kumaris centre in Sydney. The Sydney centre was "no substitute for the higher spiritual advice he has access to in India," he told the Tribunal. "India is where he wants to be. He said he is able to attend all day classes and fortnight long retreats at the ashram in India," the Tribunal found.
"He said this gives him more control and makes him happier and more at peace. 'India is home,' he said.
"I consider that, in Mr Ahern's case, there is evidence of both his clear and persistent intention to return to India and the absence of ties to Australia. In Australia he is itinerant and isolated. In India he lives in a settled manner, always at the same guesthouse whose owner he knows, and connected to the people at the ashram he attends. To him, India is home."
The Tribunal even heard Centrelink was partly to blame for him remaining in Australia for six years after he originally returned for treatment of a heart condition.
"Circumstances, including the decision made by the Secretary (of the Department of Community Services), have forced Mr Ahern to remain in Australia for these past six years. He has remained itinerant for all of that time, preserving his intention to return to India and his alienation from the usual indicia of residence in Australia. I consider that Mr Ahern is not residing in Australia. It follows that he remains entitled to indefinite portability of his disability support pension."
A spokesman for Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews said he would request a briefing from his department.
Centrelink is part of the Australian Department of Human Services and disburses social security payments.