In India Paramhamsa Nithyananda, the popular Indian Hindu holy man with a reported 2 million followers, over 11 ashrams in India and 26 in different countries around the world has decided to live a life of spiritual seclusion after being filmed in a sex tape.

Today the holy man is officially missing from law authorities, unable to sort out his holy man status from a growing number of legal cases against him.

Nithyananda’s problems all began with a mildly compromising sex video, shown on TV all over India in early March 2010.

The Nithyananda Mission ashram released a statement calling the video “a mix of conspiracy, graphics and rumours”, but followers attacked the building. The revered spiritual leader says he was the most watched guru on YouTube.

A former disciple Nitya Dharmanada alias Karuppa Lenin, has claimed he filmed Nithyananda’s sexcapades ‘to unmask the man masquerading as a spiritual leader’. The videos showed Nithyananda in compromising positions with actress Ranjitha, who served as Nithyananda’s personal attendant during her frequent visits to his ashram.

Last week in Bangalore the Karnataka high court, on Tuesday, ordered the state police to produce all documents relating to the cases, after Nithyananda petitioned the court to stop the proceedings against him.

The 33-year-old godman said he was ”in a state of samadhi (trance)” when the video, showing him in a compromising position with an actress, was taken. The tape, he said, had been ”misinterpreted, morphed and manipulated.” He alleged that the media onslaught on him was without any basis and that he was being held guilty without a trial. via The Times of India

In India the criminal investigation department (CID) told the Karnataka high court on Tuesday (yesterday) that the godman Swami Paramahamsa Nithyananda, now booked in two criminal cases, was missing.

It seems the story is one of religion, power, sex, love and money.

Film-star Ranjitha appears to be a scorned woman in the expansive love life of Paramhansa Nithyananda. She wanted him to marry her, after her own divorce becomes final. After realizing that her life was becoming a modern-day American Peyton Place, Ranjitha cooperated with Lenin to make the tape. Anne

Note, the tape is very mild.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda Sex Tape