Email to a friend, dated:
June 1999
Dear (Friend):
Thank you for the e-mail detailing the celebrations for Gurumayi's birthday. I've been meaning to write you since your last e-mail about moving to LA. I think it's wonderful that you are at last realizing your dream to move there and break into the film industry- the great communication vehicle of American culture and cradle of Maya. May you bring it light! I know you'll bring it love.
I didn't have time to make a wish for Gurumayi's birthday as your e-mail urged, because she found me first and gave me a beautiful gift of her own.
I went to bed late the night of the 23rd, just after midnight, and as I thought longingly of Gurumayi in those first few minutes of her birthday I wanted to offer her something. Often when I go to bed I think of those things I did wrong during the day and whisper a fragment of Baba's prayer to the Goddess:
"O Mother! As long as a person still has desires he is unworthy of receiving your grace, yet he makes an effort to acquire perfection. Knowing his many faults he lives in the world and remains weak."
But that night I thought instead of Baba's great command:
Honor yourself
Bow to yourself
Worship yourself
Your God dwells within as You
I decided to offer Gurumayi a gift of respect and love for my own Self. I had the uncharacteristic thought that I've actually been very constant in my spiritual search, that I always strive to understand myself better, to unfold my perfection more, and to see that perfection in others. Instead of judging my progress I allowed myself to admire my zeal for the path. Thinking thoughts like these, I fell asleep.
In the very early morning hours I had a dream that moved me so strongly that I awoke and was unable to go back to sleep until I had written it down. Nothing translates into language as poorly as dreams, which shift and fade even as we try to recall and capture them. Our experience of a dream occurs in the subtle body and soars free of the laws that govern physical existence. When we wake we might be still struck by the powerful, subtle impressions of a dream but they are quickly erased by the tangible sense impressions of our surrounding environment. This is why we forget dreams so quickly. Furthermore, when we try to remember a dream as it slips away we inevitably impose upon it the rules of logic that we believe order our waking world. In this way we alter its essential, evanescent character.
All of this is just to say that the story that follows is not my dream itself; but rather the message that dream left as it receded back into consciousness. Still, I don't value it any less. The scriptures say that the Self is that which stays awake while we dream, and reports back to us on our dreams when we awake--this, then, is the story my own Self whispered in my ear, in response to the love I showed it, in those early morning hours.
A young man or boy, a pilgrim, is at the end of a long journey to the burial shrine of a great saint. He is afflicted by a demon. The boy has heard that those who kiss the stone surface of the saint's tomb are so overcome with holy love that they stagger as they attempt to rise from their knees. Indeed, the shrine itself has ex votoes on its walls depicting stories of seekers who were struck lame by the holy kiss, remaining transfixed for the space of time it takes to recite one hundred Aves. The boy has therefore conceived of a plan--he will kiss the tomb and remain kneeling as he says his prayers, but the demon, reeling from the unaccustomed intoxication of divine love, will be captured there, and rising first, the boy will make his escape. The demon is not unaware of the boy's plan but he goes along because his pride does not allow him to believe that it will succeed, or because he wishes to test the power of the saint, or perhaps out of an unacknowledged longing.
In every dream the dreamer has to find a place to inhabit. If he himself is not a character in the dream he must either occupy one of the characters, or witness all of them from a distance, or shift between these perspectives. In the beginning of the dream I seemed to inhabit the boy, which is how I sensed the presence of the evil spirit. But in that moment when the boy's plan is about to come to fruition, as he kneels to kiss the stone latticework of the tomb's surface, I switch perspectives and find that I occupy the consciousness of the saint. I can feel (and this is where language loses its ability to capture experience and I have to satisfy myself with the meager crumbs of remembrance) the joyful, meditative lassitude of his inert body. I feel it pressing down on every point of that body as if a blanket of soft lead had been pressed over its features (as perhaps it had.)
I understand now how the saint's complete abandonment to the will of God has created its own gravity, attracting all things to itself—pilgrims, plants, flowers, birds, the stones of his shrine. I watch from beneath the latticework the face of the boy as he kneels and bends forward in reverence. I hear the beating of his heart. I feel the warmth of his breath as his mouth draws near... and I sense the chill waiting just behind it.
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47 comments:
Seekher, you might want to remove the hard returns at the end of the lines so this is easier to read. :-)
thanks, J; I had cut and pasted directly from email--hence the hard returns.
Even in 1999, you wrote this beautifully.
"the joyful, meditative lassitude of his inert body. I feel it pressing down on every point of that body as if a blanket of soft lead had been pressed over its features (as perhaps it had.)
I understand now how the saint's complete abandonment to the will of God has created its own gravity, attracting all things to itself—pilgrims, plants, flowers, birds, the stones of his shrine. I watch from beneath the latticework the face of the boy as he kneels and bends forward in reverence. I hear the beating of his heart. I feel the warmth of his breath as his mouth draws near... and I sense the chill waiting just behind it."
Wow my dream exactly. It's that Jnaneshwar thing.
I asked myself not long ago what is so wonderful about being buried alive at twelve years old?
I am not kidding I asked myself that. My dream you gave it words.
And that is not easy to do for your own dream, let alone someone else's dream.
This should be checked with some Jungian somewhere. Maybe LibZ knows.
Something to lift spirits
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/arts/music/19wond.html
Stevie Wonder is touring again. With a message.
I like that dream, worth extrapolating into a short story!
-Anon w/e
This post reads like a gothic novel. Puts in mind Energy vampirism. Before I read the points made in the SY online community about tantra, black magic I had a working idea of my own about such things and picked up more wherever it was found to be at play.
Have not been able to get more information on work being done by a Russian scientist. He said something like there are two kinds of people. You are either giving or taking at anyone time. He claims he can measure this.
Vampires are on the take all the time. They feed when people get upset. That is one way the get the energy from others.
I remember so many times being beyond upset during encounters with the guru mother. A feeding frenzy.
One methaphoric way I have been talking to myself at my deepest level post SY where I am not trying to be grammatical or writerly or anything there. I felt as though I had been mined. Like there had been a vein of gold inside me that is now gone.
This is a loss of innocence story.
Better get to giving, otherwise I am a taker.
What is SY doing with all that gold it mined out of people's hearts?
I do believe that many people received something, which was perceived as Shakti, grace or spiritual energy as a result of being in SY, while others had that energy mined from them. People that felt they received something stuck around. And even those that were being mined stuck it out for a while , because at one time they felt they were receiving something.
Peace and Love and Happy Thanksgiving to All,
Epi
What is SY doing with all that gold it mined out of people's hearts?
November 20, 2007 7:54 AM
Thanks for saying this.
This was my experience in the Ashram. I worked very hard in the Oakland ashram, and it was never enough.
I saw a bottomless hole into which I poured my "gold"
I began to see that to call it selfless service, was not an accurate description. To serve with no attachment to the result seemed fine in theory, but when you got down to it, in terms of renovating the place or preparing a meal, we were very interested in having a successful outcome.
The more I did and I was very good at my work, the more it seemed it was never enough.
I began to "see" or feel an enormous dark chasm into which all our good intentions and good works fell and never returned. I began to sense it as an ominous and dark void. It didn't feel pure and light or beneficient. It was only later when I really stepped away, stopped the guru gitas, and detached the psychic hooks that I had the darshan of gm's and sy's dark side. The shadow.
The energies that they didn't want us to know about. While I was enmeshed in the yoga and followed their advice to us I couldn't see it.
If we beleive the Kundalini theory that sy sold us then perhaps there is an inexaustable supply of this "gold" and we are none the worse.
Perhaps these gurus did know how to tap into that force, and we watched all giddy and amazed as we were tapped. This may be why people are reluctant to seperate away from sy. At least something interesting, or far out was happening through us or around us. To let it go, even if we were making a dark alliance, means letting go of something flashy, colorful, and interesting.
I'm not sure why I posted this dream from back in the day. But, it seems to be provoking an interesting discussion. Was the source of the power that we all felt in SY divine, or demonic? Shaivite, or Black Tantra? A transmission of grace or a theft of our own spiritual power so that it could be played back to us, as coming from the Guru?
Others posting elsewhere have speculated on the extent of Tantric ritual in SY to draw power from young women in order to maintain Muktananda's ability to give Shaktipat. Some have speculated that this black magic continued into Gurumayi's reign and was the source of her tremendous charisma. I don't know. It seems to me that if you are seated at the head of a mandap full of thousands of ecstatically chanting devotees, it wouldn't be hard to draw on that mass of energy to use any way you like, if you knew how. Which is to say, we all thought we were receiving something from Gurumayi, when it might well have been her who was on the receiving end.
A fascinating, open discussion.
"If we beleive the Kundalini theory that sy sold us then perhaps there is an inexaustable supply of this "gold" and we are none the worse.
Perhaps these gurus did know how to tap into that force, and we watched all giddy and amazed as we were tapped. This may be why people are reluctant to seperate away from sy. At least something interesting, or far out was happening through us or around us. To let it go, even if we were making a dark alliance, means letting go of something flashy, colorful, and interesting."
November 20, 2007 3:07 PM
Oh you got this so right. Finding Muktananda's scene was an instant trip to the Bad Boys Island in Pinocchio. We had been raised on Disney. GA, I call FITZCARRALDO! had a lot to do with what went down. What a cad.
I feel this person GA owes a lot to all. He should fess up lots. Shouldn't duck down as someone used to say.
Should take it like a man. yuk yuk.
Sorry. This is pushing the realm of etiquette. But the person referred to owes karmic debt and as a topic could at least be mined for a few jokes.
Dontcha think?
Someone somewhere said their biggest regret was washing GA's car.
LMFAO.
Who was that jokster? Wish they would post again.
"I feel this person GA owes a lot to all. He should fess up lots. Shouldn't duck down as someone used to say."
Um, just who exactly is GA?
"Um, just who exactly is GA?"
OK Durway. Afif. Major creep. But I don't buy that he corrupted anyone that wasn't already looking for someone of his particular talents.
Remember a celebration in '89 or so when GA was passing out prasad. Seemed the younger tween female devotees had no problem sidling up lose, while everyone else found their outstretched hand empty.
"Seemed the younger tween female devotees had no problem sidling up lose, while everyone else found their outstretched hand empty."
November 20, 2007 7:34 PM
Yup you got it. But that is not all he was dishing. Plenty got hooked.
What you never saw the pic of him and Angelina or Ahhrnold?
Re: Was the source of the power that we all felt in SY divine, or demonic? Shaivite, or Black Tantra? A transmission of grace or a theft of our own spiritual power so that it could be played back to us, as coming from the Guru?"
Everyone touched by SY should try to answer these questions. Great moderation.
This is for Anon w/e in the previous post. I think he wanted to move this comment forward.
The sincerity in your comments here remind me so much of my own heart's longings for love and truth and all the good things. I always respond here to what you post for that reason.
Truth and light do exist in the person formally known as our Guru Mother. Chidvilas is no longer functioning in that role. Some think that is to her credit. See Jody on that.
If not a Gurumayi or a Baba what is SY offering at this point?
I can call the pope Papa too.
SY has turned into utterly crass solicitations for funds. Not even a pithy phrase to hang on to. Or a package of return mail stubs. Even Reader's Digest does that.
In years past I recapitulated all of the SY pronouncements into an expansive repetoire of new age think and do. I have no idea what I am saying about SY but those who lived through decades of its shenanigans maybe can relate.
Love to our sorry SY asses and enjoy your time with the people who count.
"Love to our sorry SY asses and enjoy your time with the people who count."
it's time to remember we were SY. There was no sangham without us. The guru only exists in relation to souls who have come to be liberated.
It's us. It's been us, all along.
That first thanksgiving on these shores connects for me with what is happening on these SY blogs.
Freedom of expression.
God may you all be well. I made you my concern, my family. Just don't eat too much.
If I find the pboto of the tofu turkey that was shaped to an exact replica of the real birdie I will post a link somewhere in honor of all the brave readers and writers on all theseSY blogs.
Peace and Love for Epi's sake
Others posting elsewhere have speculated on the extent of Tantric ritual in SY to draw power from young women in order to maintain Muktananda's ability to give Shaktipat.
I will share what Swami Akkhandananda told me : I was on staff in the Hawaii Ashram, this was right after gm's brother ran off. ( Bro was wearing a polyester white suit as he sat in the little Makiki hall at gm's feet) Later I thought no wonder he ran off!!!
Yogiram (LA. Yogi) was his prison guard.
Anyway a few months after all that went down,
swamiji told me in a private discussion that he thought Baba did it (had sex with multiple young women) to prolong his life, to further his mission so that he could give more shaktipat.
He seemed to imply the ends justified the means.
That Baba wasn't doing it for his own pleasure but for the benefit of all mankind.
Really we used to think like that. I can remember the sense of urgency, and the false spiritual aristocracy that we carried.
Now when I think about it, it strikes me in a much different way. Swamiji was not denying that Baba was vamping or taking something from the young women. For him, that was ok.
Now in hindsight it seems really gross and wrong.
He was also not denying that it happened, and the sense I had was that he really didn't know why baba did it, it was more like the best devotee explanantion he could come up with. With this we could still follow the path, and in fact take inspiration from baba's selfless acts, and write it off as "crazy wisdom" or mastana yogi
"SY has turned into utterly crass solicitations for funds. Not even a pithy phrase to hang on to. Or a package of return mail stubs. Even Reader's Digest does that."
Remember a time when I fantasized about winning the lottery so I could give it all to GM! Really. I did that. Then one of the swamis gave a talk and said playing lotto was wrong, against Laksmi or something, so I stopped. Guess they wanted all those dollar dreams for themselves.
"Was the source of the power that we all felt in SY divine, or demonic? Shaivite, or Black Tantra? A transmission of grace or a theft of our own spiritual power so that it could be played back to us, as coming from the Guru?"
Or, perhaps, is the answer to all of the above merely a simple "YES" ???
In other words, some intentionally devised combination of the above?
Someone said about George Afif:
"But that is not all he was dishing."
I'm here to tell ya, you ain't kidding.
I personally know a man, now in his 30's, who as a teenager went up to GM in darshan line to challenge her publicly about her guru role and the scam she was pulling, and who accused her of being an egomaniac.
GM waved him off, calling him "arrogant" to his face.
The teenager gets up from in front of the chair and leaves the line, heading back into Anugraha.
Within minutes, Afif and a few thugs who came with him collar the boy, drag him into a private staff office, throw him up against the wall, and rough him up. We're not talking little bitch slaps. We're talking physical violence, punches, kicks, etc. Essentially this was punishment for his actions and he was warned never to address GM in that fashion ever again, or else worse was coming.
I was close SY friends with the boy, his mother and father, and his brothers for years, as we had satsang in their house.
The mother quit SY eventually, but not right away. The dad's still in. The couple divorced several years ago and the wife left the US to return to the couple's native country of origin. To this day, knowing what happened when the boy told me, I cannot fathom why the dad stays faithful to SY. Just can't understand it.
Did GM know about the beating? Dunno. But I'd wager that it wasn't the first time Afif pulled such stunts nor the last, and I'd doubt GM didn't give tacit approval to such strongarming. After all, growing up on the mean, utterly violent streets of Beirut before and during Lebanon's civil war, Afif was the perfect thug of a tool for GM to employ to enforce her will.
The teen, now a man, readily admits he was a first class a**hole as a teenager and later grew out of it. Did a public challenge to GM deserve getting the sh*t beat out of him? Not in my book.
I apologize if this stuns anybody. But the truth of GM's enabling of violence has be to made public for people still in SY to chew on.
Regarding group energy:
If you can try and find a way to rent and view a documentary entitled 'Trekkies'.
In it Leonard Nimoy tells of the very first Star Trek convention he ever attended.
He was onstage, seated behind a curtain, alongside George Takei and some others. They were waiting for the curtain to rise, and face an audience of covention goers.
Nimoy said he thought there'd just be a couple hundred persons. After all Star Trek was brand new.
The curtain rose.
Nimoy told the interviewer that he was stunned to face a huge auditorium packed, packed, and full of people gazing ardently at Mr. Spock.
I cant recall if Mr Nimoy described an energy surge that was blasted in his direction, or not.
But he told the interviewer he had never before encountered this, had no idea of the amount of adulation that would roll, full blast straight towards him, or what this group imagined him to be.
Nimoy, remembering all this, looked humble and still a little frightened.
This is powerful juice, powerful juice. Imagine having it blasted at you every day of your life, perhaps even seeping in through your dreams while your followers chant devotions in your direction, all night long.
the 'Trekkies' documentary gave interviews by other actors and actresses describing the stuff elicted from fans and projected in their directions. One man, the actor who portrayed 'Q' found himself followed by a very polite fan who carried a syringe. The fan was eager, politely eager to get a sample of 'Q's blood.
Yet others used their fascination with Star Trek to activate hidden talents. One fan went on to become a technician at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, analysing the photos from Hubble space telescope.
Yet other created erotic art based on fantasies relating to Star Trek characters.
Whoopie Goldberg said that when, as a child she saw Star Trek, she ran screaming through the house, demanding that her family come watch.
'There's someone black and she aint no maid!' Whoopie screamed through her house like Paul Revere.
So it might be very, very interesting as part of the ritual of disenchantment to go rent Trekkies (if it is expensive maybe a bunch of you can do it as a group) because its an amazing
depiction of how a bunch of sincere passionate people chose to work with a story that they know to be 'just a story'--yet that served to mobilize their energies and talents in such astonishing and very different ways.
In his autobiography/memoir, I am not Spock, Nimoy told how a mother came to him asking him to bless her baby.
Mr Nimoy has know, all along, he is no savior, no God or guru. He happened to get the Spock role as an adult, with a stable adult identity, knowing himself to be an actor, an entertainer.
Now imagine how could someone equate themselves with the much more potent god/guru role, and stay balanced and sane---and face the sort of audience energy Mr. Nimoy reports encountering both in 'Trekkies' and in his book?
Its not like he or the others were intentionally practicing tantra!
And scoff as some may at discussions of energy, ask athletes to talk with you about what they term the home field advantage..how it feels to play a game in the stadium in one's hometown, with a mass of one's own fans cheering one on?
Librarian/Zennie
Ok,
If we are going to talk George Afif, may I add this...
My good friend Pierre, who lived in GSP for about ten years used to work in the upper garden. He supervised crews of Adivasi gardeners and kind of did his sadhana quietly on his own. He had a very close relationship with Baba, and was one of those guys wearing white, back in the day.
He did not get along with gm and she slowly made it impossible for him to stay and he eventually moved to Pune with his family.
Anyway, George's brother Sammy was there that year and the thing about Sammy was that he wasn't as ruthless and or smart as George. He got into some trouble within the ashram and its cast of characters and was summarily banished to the upper gardens.
He was sent to work with Pierre. I guess this was a pretty bad ego burn for him and he was miserable and distraught about the whole drama.
Pierre had been around for a while and baba himself had shared various different kinds of intoxicants with Pierre for him to try. Strange herbs, and mercury preparations and stuff.
So, Pierre used to smoke a little hash to enjoy his seva a little more. He was supposed to be working with this character Sammy so what the hey.
They got high together...
This is when Sammy started to spill the beans about his past with George in Beirut.
The prevbious poster was right they were thugs.
Actually assasins. THey killed people.
Sammy shared that when he had to eliminate someone he was a total mess, a basket case he could barely do it.
George however was ruthless. he had no qualms about killing people. He would blow someone away and then go out to dinner, party and whatever assasins do as if nothing happened.
Because of this, after a while Sammy gave all his assignments to George.
George was kind of like a samurai/ninja.
To this day I don't know how to think about this.
One big question is
Why would gm, the embodiment of love, compassion, and grace keep this guy around?
He lived in her house. He was her right hand man...
I have always thought it revealing that someone in such a high state would need a thugish bodyguard type dude around.
This forensic unravelling of sy is perhaps a lot of conjecture and specualtaion, but for me it is like connecting the dots. In my devotee mode I couldn't see what was happening around me, and or I could see it, and there were disturbing things, but i kept stuffing those untidy darshans into a file way in the back of the cabinet. Now i am opening the fat file having a look at it, and then throwing it out.
Lorin Roche has an article on vampirisim and says this:
"Vampires are often the most entertaining, hypnotic, and alluring spiritual teachers and Christian preachers. They are playing a more complex game than just what they are doing on the surface. They are using their position to cruise for victims, and simultaneously just daring you to catch them. And there are lots of people who want to have their blood sucked, and become submissive to a Dominant. Vampires are dead inside, but because of this they become exquisitely skilled at manipulating other people's vitality.
"A vampire's charisma actually does not come from within – it comes from the fervor of their devotees and followers, who are in a state of delicious submission to the Master, Preacher, Teacher, guru.
"If you do spot a vampire, never let on that you are seeing. Just go your way. If a vampire senses that you are onto her tricks, she or he will start to set up ways to destroy you.
"And never get into a fight with a vampire – there is no way you can match the fury with which they will defend their turf. Only a mother defending her child can match a vampire for fury.
The blood-sucking nature of vampires is not their most dangerous trait. When feeding, they mostly want to steal your extra vitality and your money. Secondarily they want to wield power over you. You can recover from being drained, and make more money.
'The truly dangerous aspect of "predators who use fangs" is their venom – it's what they inject into you. Venom is of several types: to paralyze, as in a neurotoxin, so that you are immobilized; to predigest you, so they can devour you, and toxic waste.
"People who are oriented to feeding off others also shit into them. Gurus and spiritual leaders and others in the position of teacher build up toxic shame and guilt, which they have to get rid of by excreting into their followers or students. They select people to take a dump on, and they make this process look like "busting the person's ego," or "teaching them a lesson." At worst, it can take up to a year to recover from being drained, if the vampire drinks deeply. You can recover, and the worst thing is all the time you wasted.
"But if you are one of the people the vampire/guru/teacher has selected to excrete her waste products into, it can be a seven-to-ten year process to recover.
(Roche concludes)For the past 30 years, I have worked with a lot of meditators who are "leaving their guru," or have just left an ashram. The people who have gotten dumped on have a much harder road to recovery than the people who were just drained of vitality and money."
http://www.lorinroche.com/page8/page137/page137.html
Anonymous wrote, concerning the father who failed to protect his son:
"To this day, knowing what happened when the boy told me, I cannot fathom why the dad stays faithful to SY. Just can't understand it."
Perhaps because if Dad regained an awakened conscience in relation to his failure to protect his boy, the pain would be utterly unbearable.
Best way trap people is to get them to do stuff or collude in the misdeeds of others. That puts them in a shame-collusion lockdown, meaning that as long as they keep their consciences asleep they stay comfortably numb and devotional, but if they dare question this set up, they will wake up to the pain and horror of having done terrible things to serve their guru.
Its called being a victim perpetrator. In some outlaw groups you are made as a price of membership to do things or witness things so horrid that you feel ashamed to face normal society again--or live in fear of legal consequences should you try to leave, because then they can rat on you.
That is the danger of any group that makes fun of conventional ethics and claims you need to be deconditioned from conventional thinking and that conventional morality is oppressive and must be dismantled.
So, maybe this young man claims hat as a teen he was an 'asshole'.
Still he was brave enough to speak truth to what in retrospect, turns out to have been malignantly used power.
Prophets who spoke truth to unjust power, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Samuel, Nathan, Jesus (who booted the money lenders out of the Temple--behavior that would not go over well in most ashrams today!!!)...all those persons would have been called the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic equivalent of 'asshole.'
"all those persons would have been called the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic equivalent of 'asshole.'"
November 21, 2007 2:20 PM
Great post.
Just can't get with all of Lorin Roche.
Fuck vampires. You are right.
Assholes is all they are.
"Guess they wanted all those dollar dreams for themselves."
November 21, 2007 4:58 AM
Good one, excellent.
A new mantra for me
Thanxoxoxoxo
GA is the most awful person I have ever come across. SY became a much nicer place after he left. Even Gurumayi became nicer.
"Even Gurumayi became nicer."
Wow. that right there says volumes.
This post and several comments talking about magical thinking have me taking stock. I am an original 'step on a crack, break your mother's back' kind of person and SY increased such magical tendencies.
As I read and practiced Kundalini yoga it was said in my sources that the action of Kundalini awakening was to increase serendipitous experiences. Life indeed became magical. Sunup to sundown. It was said to be a sign of her presence. Well. She has been super present for me this whole time. Now I am just no longer interested in this magical aspect of life. I know it exists. I know it has validity. However it is no fun because too many others are living their lives in total desperation. I don't want f**n bliss anymore. I want to be awake to the misery of this world. Face it and do whatever I can to help.
SY with it's philanthropic missions seemed to be helping with that. I would hope all that is for real. Meanwhile to all those I met along the paths of SY, I know you were and are great. Godspeed in your endeavors.
"but i kept stuffing those untidy darshans into a file way in the back of the cabinet. Now i am opening the fat file having a look at it, and then throwing it out."
November 21, 2007 2:19 PM
Got lots too. Making it all public all at once....hmmmm. I think of those struggling to emerge. Like it's hard.
There's lots of stories. Some of it dynamite. I urge caution and compassion.
"As I read and practiced Kundalini yoga it was said in my sources that the action of Kundalini awakening was to increase serendipitous experiences. Life indeed became magical. Sunup to sundown. It was said to be a sign of her presence. Well. She has been super present for me this whole time. Now I am just no longer interested in this magical aspect of life. I know it exists. I know it has validity. However it is no fun because too many others are living their lives in total desperation. I don't want f**n bliss anymore. I want to be awake to the misery of this world. Face it and do whatever I can to help. "
Your comment has moved me very much. Very much. Thank you for sharing.
"I don't want f**n bliss anymore. I want to be awake to the misery of this world. Face it and do whatever I can to help".
Great! Compassion and helpfulness... maybe it is something many find, now that we are "out", lacking in SY? Thanks for sharing this...
Pp
This site has been a great forum for both connecting dots and also bursting bubbles.
So since the popping of bubbles is starting to sound like a popcorn popper, here's something else to ruminate.
Someone said "SY with it's philanthropic missions seemed to be helping with that. I would hope all that is for real."
I've heard the following second-hand, perhaps third-hand, but some people who state they were on SY legal and Finance staff have mentioned on another site that a significant proportion of the donations submitted even to the "philanthropic" arms of SY such as PRASAD and Muktabodha, etc go straight into GM's offshore accounts in Switzerland.
According to what these people state, yes, a proportion of the donations is used for the stated missions of those charities, but when someone gives to those charities, they're also funding GM's wealth.
Again, I stipulate that I've only heard this second or third hand, so I'll leave it to the reader to check the other related websites, search out this information for themselves, and contact the people who posted it.
"that a significant proportion of the donations submitted even to the "philanthropic" arms of SY such as PRASAD and Muktabodha, etc go straight into GM's offshore accounts in Switzerland."
This can be verified without significant difficulty. I am not ready to believe it. Too easy to be discovered. Too many watchdogs today. Plus they just won UN status. I believe they can and should work off the karma. Like mandatory community service. Again they had a great start. Wonderful stories about the good that was accomplished. I hope this effort continues.
"This can be verified without significant difficulty."
How?
Right. UN officials could NEVER be willing to get paid bribes to just "look the other way", could they?
"Food for Oil" somehow comes to mind. As does UN official corruption, UN Peacekeepers raping innocent women and children they were actually sent to protect.
Not sure how much value I'd attach to that "UN Status" previously mentioned. But we're all entitled to our own opinions. Mine is that I don't understand why some people regard the UN as such a paragon of virtue, or achieving UN status as a stamp of having achieved any serious degree of legitimacy, given the UN's track record.
I agree with comment about UN to certain extent. It is like p**n in the wind. Waste of time.
But you know what? It's what civilized people do. They try. Can't just sit by and watch the misery. I understand that. I wish it were better managed or made into more a a trade and education organization. It wasn't always all about grandstanding politicians.
I get your point about obtaining UN status not being a complet vetting of the organization. What I was trying to say is that is whatever charitable capacity SY tries to function, it will be to their credit. To start swinging that karmic pendulum in the other direction. I do not begrudge them salvation.
I appreciate your faith in people's humanity but after having learned firsthand how so much of SY was truly rotten at its very core, I'm just not sure how it can possibly achieve even a shred of salvation.
My own point being, with a history of so much abuse and so much intentional coverup of abuse, the charitable work that is achieved is still forever left with a taint. In SY's current form, I can't see how that taint can ever be washed away, no matter how much chartitable action and good works are done to help other humans.
I'm not criticizing the acts of charity themselves. Those are indeed positive yet they do not in and of themselves wash away nor excuse the harm that was done to others.
Personally the thought of having been giving shaktipat by a man who sexually abused so many, makes me feel incredibly guilty. My connection to the abused is obviously indirect, but I can't deny the connection. And can't say I'm not upset about it.
"I can't see how that taint can ever be washed away, no matter how much chartitable action and good works are done to help other humans."
Original sin cannot be washed away you are right.
This was an exquisite read. Thank you.
I am reminded of the alleged tomb of Jesus in Kashmir. I've seen the image and your description of the tomb here draws it to mind. Rumi's tomb in Konya is evoked also.
You have a marvelous gift.
- RAW
"So, Pierre used to smoke a little hash to enjoy his seva a little more. He was supposed to be working with this character Sammy so what the hey.
They got high together...
This is when Sammy started to spill the beans about his past with George in Beirut.
The prevbious poster was right they were thugs.
Actually assasins. THey killed people."
Are you aware that originally the word "assassin"(Arabic: hashishin) described a small cult of Ismaili Muslims who smoked hashish before they went out to kill religious dissenters? Itis not clear whther the word hashishin derives from hashish, but it is clear that these guys did use hashish. Look up "hashishin" . . .
- RAW
"GA is the most awful person I have ever come across."
GA once yanked a friend of mine OFF a toilet mid-shit. Why? My friend had just arrived at GSP from Chicago, was escorted to his new lodgings at Turiya Mandir, and minutes later mistakenly sat in the Brahmin priests' bathroom instead of the sevite bathroom.
Who knows how GA found out so fast, but by mid-shit this new devotee was off the toilet and on GA's ashram shit-list. Poor guy hadn't been there two hours.
He left GSP either that day or the next and was clear that he wasn't interested in coming back. But something "revelatory" happened in the Elaphanta Caves, and he did come back. Don't remember what that something was; likely some little revelation about "the play" or the whole thing being a "test".
"Life indeed became magical. Sunup to sundown. It was said to be a sign of her presence. Well. She has been super present for me this whole time. Now I am just no longer interested in this magical aspect of life. I know it exists. I know it has validity. However it is no fun because too many others are living their lives in total desperation. I don't want f**n bliss anymore. I want to be awake to the misery of this world. Face it and do whatever I can to help."
I don't think it's the magical aspect that's the reall problem. In and of itself, it just is. But we give it too much importance. We reify it, call it "sacred", feel our relationship to it is special, and then we become disenchanted with our creation when the sacred, the magical, becomes "day-to-day". But it just is. You can accept it without over-valuing it if you want. I mean, it is fun, isn't it? Why give up the fun for what you imagine to be other people's "desperation" and "misery"? And bliss is good. It can keep you healthy. The healthier you are, the better equipped you are to be of some help to others.
"Why give up the fun for what you imagine to be other people's "desperation" and "misery"? And bliss is good. It can keep you healthy. The healthier you are, the better equipped you are to be of some help to others."
November 25, 2007 9:02 PM
Hello RAW,
Still in the burning stage of leaving and feeling crispy around the edges. Your point is well taken. If we can't live in joy, there's no way we can help others. Thanks. I look forward to Kundalini resuming her display for me, but not yet. The inner joy comes from living in our faith in all these things. Right now that faith is in tatters. Appreciate all the comments that show how the spiritual path is durable beyond SY.
"If we can't live in joy, there's no way we can help others. Thanks. I look forward to Kundalini resuming her display for me, but not yet. The inner joy comes from living in our faith in all these things. Right now that faith is in tatters."
Tattered faith is a tough one. The jury's still out on that one for me, at least as far as systems and religious institutions go. From where I stand now, I got some really great tools from SY, so I regard them as useful, as mine, and I don't label them SY. That's what I was getting at in my response to you. Bliss is not under anyone's trademark. SY taught me how to tap into my own bliss, and hey! It's mine! Don't depend on the Gur for that. The magical thinking and O Guru Guru Guru mindset I no longer subscribe to, but the bliss is mine. And the lighter heart is where the fun enters. People do appreciate it. I'm also coming from the standpoint of a public school teacher. A lighter heart and detachment go a long way in my field. Both for me and my students (and their parents!)
Godspeed!
"SY taught me how to tap into my own bliss, and hey! It's mine!...And the lighter heart is where the fun enters. People do appreciate it...A lighter heart and detachment go a long way in my field. Both for me and my students (and their parents!)
Godspeed!"
November 26, 2007 7:33 PM
Hello RAW,
Keeping a light heart is sadhana, but romantic and misanthropic tendencies are taking the lead now. Thanks for your coaching. Lucky students. Lucky parents. Natural born teacher. Can't help yourself, I can see that. World needs a few optimists.
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