testimony given to the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse from 2014 in various ways implicates swami satyananda and his successors. according to reports of the commission, swami satyananda was a violent sexual abuser. the testimony before the royal commission involved child abuse, rape, gang rape, coercion and physical abuse such as beatings, and the knife cutting of a young girl by swami akhandananda. they involve swamis deploying spiritual "teachings" to manipulate young people into having sex with each other and with adults. the testimony points toward a pattern of psychological, physical and sexual abuse, carried out by numerous swamis against numerous children and young adults.