There is a saying that where there is smoke there will always be fire. If so many people are following Nithyananda, he must be having some qualities. My guess is that, being a yogi, he might have acquired some siddhis, which he is showing off to impress and gain followers. Yogis gaining siddhis through regular yoga & exercises is something very common. For eg, there is this baba in Gujarat who has not eaten or drank anything for nearly 25 years. All modern medical tests have not been able to identify his source of sustenance.
My point is do we really need all these elaborate yogic and meditation techniques that are being propagated by different babas. The list of such techniques has become very vast now - Life Bliss Programme, Art of Living, Art of Dying, Shiv Yog, Vipassana, Kriya Yoga, Raja Yoga, Sahaj Yoga, Hamsa yoga, Inner Engineering, Oneness, Osho meditations, Transcendental Meditation, Sanatan Kriya, etc etc. Kindly excuse me if anything is left out in the list. I dont remember anything else.
As far as I can remember, no one in my parents/ grand parents generation did any such elaborate, time consuming & difficult things. And they lived through some very difficult times when nothing was available, the two World Wars, Indo-china, Indo-pak wars, emergency. And most were desparately poor, not knowing from where and when and what their next meal would be. Still they were much more happy, relaxed and contended than many people in today's time of plenty.
Why? because their expectations and desires were very minimum. They were happy if they could have even one meal a day and just 2 sets of clothes. Those who are able to understand this formula & implement it in life to the extent possible, need no Nithyananda or anybody else. But because this tribe of people has nearly vanished today, & because people feel that they can purchase anything with money including eternal bliss & experience the almighty, the tribe of such godmen will continue to grow exponentially.