I've wanted to write to you for so long, but was waiting until I had resolved everything I wanted to say and found a way to express it all perfectly. That day, however, is too long coming. Let me begin instead by writing the one thing that I never thought I would have the opportunity to say again:
Thank you, thank you, Gurumayi.
Thank you for countless hours spent in the deep, vast ruby mine of meditation.
Thank you for the experience of losing myself in meditation, and of finding myself again when I returned to 'reality'.
Thank you for the gift of contemplation that has shone healing light and understanding on so many obscured, forgotten corners of my soul.
Thank you for the broad, ever-changing river of chanting—now flowing slowly, almost indolently, now rushing forward in swift, powerful rapids, now plunging headlong over a cataract to resolve itself in a deep pool of stillness again.
Thank you for gathering a sangham of exceptional seekers to you, among whom have been the most generous, magnanimous, pure-hearted people I've ever had the privilege to know and love.
Thank you for giving us your beauty and your youth. These things should not matter on the path, and figure nowhere in the qualities of a true Guru, but were nonetheless treasures that we loved to turn over and over in our hands, like a mala made of the rarest flower buds.
Thank you for your voice, your gorgeous deep-throated silken voice that could caress us so softly even as it wounded, like dark velvet drawn across a bruise.
Thank you for the deep black pools of your eyes; how many times did each of us rise from darshan having been transfixed by one of your fathomless glances, certain that our life had meaning and purpose in your service?
Thank you for the mantra, that mysterious talisman that accompanied us wherever we might go, protecting, nurturing fostering our identification with you and with the Self.
Thank you for faithfully transmitting Baba's teaching that we See God in One Another—which alone gives me the courage to say:
Thank you for having the strength to leave.
Because, while all of the above experiences were real and true, your absence has exposed the shadow side of this yoga that we loved and willed into existence together:
The mendacity of SYDA trustees who cared more about currying your favor while you were still in the chair than giving you honest advice about how to best handle a growing multi-national spiritual enterprise, and so contributed to its downfall.
The fear and greed of these same trustees who now think only of stringing us remaining seekers along with hollow spiritual exercises that do little more than punctuate their constant appeals for more money.
The betrayal of so many, many of your most faithful devotees who gave years of their life in selfless service without a penny put into Social Security, and now are left without even the consolation of believing that you cared, that it mattered, that it wasn't all in support of a corrupt system that ensnared even you.
Even you. Oh, Gurumayi. You were so young and so ill-served by those you trusted most. This is enough to allow me to forgive you. You never had a chance to be anything other than what you became, did you? How could you even know what you had become until it was much too late?
And then what could you do but leave, give it up, throw off the saffron and stop playing the goose that laid the golden egg, over and over again.
But you're not really free, are you? They still have you playing the part and singing along whenever they call the tune. Only now it is for a much smaller sangham, comprised solely of those who love you too desperately to let go, and those whose who have the luxury of believing that their robust bank balances are reward for the good karma of many past lives spent in squalor.
Oh, Gurumayi, I loved you once and truly and for the sake of that love I ask one thing. Leave for good. Shut it all down. Give yourself the deep satisfaction at last of telling the trustees to go to hell. Dare them to reveal whatever it is they threaten you with; their very complicity makes their threats impotent.
Give yourself and your dearest, truest, closest followers the experience of total truth; release those who have sworn their lives to you. Tell them what you have known for years now; you no longer want their lives, you want your own.
Have the grace---the Grace!-- to let your followers go. Give us the freedom you would have for yourself. Realize that nothing you can say will ever take away what we all experienced together, not even an admission of your own culpability in the travesty that Siddha Yoga has become. We can heal and forgive; then live together as true seekers, or as separate expressions of that divine Self. As hard as the way forward may seem, it is preferable to the perpetual purgatory that we are all suffering now.
Take up the grace and the courage we all know you possess and lead us one last time, our Dear One.
Anon
68 comments:
"Oh, Gurumayi, I loved you once and truly and for the sake of that love I ask one thing. Leave for good. Shut it all down. Give yourself the deep satisfaction at last of telling the trustees to go to hell. Dare them to reveal whatever it is they threaten you with; their very complicity makes their threats impotent."
This was a lovely and heart-felt letter but I have a serious question: are you saying that gurumayi is, somehow, being "held captive" mentally by the trustees and administration? If that is what you are implying, you are effectively absolving gurumayi of all blame for the betrayal of her devotees.You are saying that this "all powerful siddha guru" whom we all literally worshipped and to whom we chanted the Guru Gita everyday is really just a helpless pawn manipulated by venal administrators and trustees. This is quite strange..either she's a "siddha" or she's a "helpless pawn". She really can't be both.
Again, this was a constant excuse when I was in siddha yoga. It was NEVER gurumayi's "fault". If darshan was cancelled, it was "our fault". If she didn't like her gift, it was "our fault". If she humiliated people, it was "their fault". If things got out of hand, it was the "administration". If fees went up or buildings had to be sold, it was "the greedy trustees". I don't think I EVER heard gurumayi accept responsibility for ANYTHING that could be construed as "negative".
Can't ANYBODY just accept responsibility? is that what siddha yoga does to people? It reminds me of 12 step programs.Poor gurumayi; she's a "victim". egad!
What a relief when you go out into the world and discover that, amazingly enough, many teachers accept responsibility for their actions...amazing!
older but wiser
Dear Anon,
If you've read Marta Szabo's book "The Guru Looked Good" (TGLG) from cover to cover, then perhaps you simply refused to absorb it.
If you didn't read it, you have unfortunately failed to avail yourself of a critically important memoir for people associated with Siddha Yoga.
There is a saying that a fish rots from the head first. After reading TGLG, I am convinced it was NOT the trustees or managers of SYDA that "went bad" and guided Gurumayi poorly. Instead, the picture Marta paints is of an organization where decision-making and control were exerted from the very highest level (Gurumayi herself) downward. It was Gurumayi herself who CHOSE to surround herself with certain types of people as trustees and managers of SYDA. It was Gurumayi's behavior HERSELF that set the role model for the behavior of others within SYDA. TGLG offers example after example after example of this.
After reading TGLG, the only thing I could come up with, was that Gurumayi is not only NOT an enlightened Siddha, but is instead an ordinary person who is particulary mean-spirited, selfish, manipulative, emotionally abusive, greedy, and controlling.
So how could the people she surrounded herself with among the management and trusteeship possibly be any different?
The position posted here by Anon paints a story where Gurumayi had no control over the behaviors of those she surrounded herself with. Quite the contrary, the situation painted by TGLG suggests that Gurumayi was in fact personally DIRECTING such behaviors and rewarding them with status and position.
I guess it has been obvious for many years now that Gurumayi has retired. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about it in her book. That leaves me with the realization that if it doesn't last, that's not it.
It's not the ultimate truth.
And this is what they mean when they say even the Guru has to go in the end.
So in a way it's a good thing.
She left. Now we can experience That which does not leave.
'older and wiser' said it all..oh dear 'seek her'...how can you be so eloquently insightful that you can understand the 'ruby mine of meditation' and still not see that all along this charismatic viper knew exactly what she is doing? no need to make excuses for her...if she was as helpless as you make her she certainly didn't deserve the endless goo-goo gitas we chanted in her honor...the alarm went off hours ago. your bed is on fire. time to wake up.
“It's not the ultimate truth. And this is what they mean when they say even the Guru has to go in the end. So in a way it's a good thing.”
***
Yeah it’s a good thing in some ways though I think the speakers here mean the student outgrows the guru, not the other way around.
In any event, I understand that Siddha Yoga’s collapse has been a real windfall for other organizations. In fact more devotees would be here posting today if only they weren’t so busy getting ready for the new leader’s next world tour.
Same puja, different pictures.
...In fact more devotees would be here posting today if only they weren’t so busy getting ready for the new leader’s next world tour.?????
"... if only they weren’t so busy getting ready for the new leader’s next world tour.?????"
That’s a figurative allusion to the SY disgruntled that are expending their energy and resources in similar organizations.
I was struck by an irresponsible statement the published on 02/08some one wrote “Did ANY of it get into your system? Did you put any of the teachings into practice? Have you been a Siddha yoga student? Have you done your homework?! I'm so tired of all you "poor", "hurt" people in pain being "abandoned". You should be ashamed” Ashamed should be the person that utters hateful words, referring not to one or another person but to ALL. As if he or she were the only one who is a real Shidda yoga student.
This is precisely the kind of people that I want to be very far away from. This blog has always been respectful to the Guru and the Path and publishes legitimate concerns of sincere devotees, most of whom have lived years in the Ashram, surely more seasoned than you, and you accuse them ALL of not being “ real devotees”. Do you have any idea who you are talking to? Or what experiences have most of us gone through? The idea that ALL who are somewhat upset and express legitimate concerns here or in other blogs are people that haven't "done their homework" is not only but also denotes your immaturity, to say the least. Many of us have followed the path for years with more commitment and sincerity than you could ever begin to understand. Is this your opinion or is it an official statemeny from SYDA? is that what you heard from Gurumayi a year ago, when you found her so healthy? Is that what they are teaching you?
The fact is that there is great discontent amongst many of Gurumayi’s devotees, like it or not. You can't pretend to suggest that all of them are insincere devotes who didn’t go deep enough and never practiced the teachings or understood them. Precisely you should be concerned of the opposite. How come are there so many long time and advanced Siddha Yoga practitioners who are so discontent or disenchanted? Perhaps you’ll learn a thing or two and it might even dawn on you that there is more than want meets the eye. If there are so many hurt disciples running away from SYDA and from the Gurumayi it's simply because there is something wrong, not in them, but in Siddha yoga. You are talking like some of the far right politicians that think a certain senators aren't “Republican enough”. You words reflect fundamentalism and intolerance. Is that what you have learned from "your" Guru"? Are those "Real teachings" that ALL of us haven’t grasped? I don't know where you get your ideas from but certainly you are doing a great disservice to whomever you pretend to defend.
One more little comment to our boxer friend. Spirituality and Self realization are far away from boxing matches or argumetal confrontation to see who gives the more clever answer and gives the final "knock down".
Just look at your own words: "I'm so tired of all you "poor", "hurt" people in pain being "abandoned" What you mean by that? Have you completely lost it? The Mission of ALL spiritual leaders and Avatars is and has always been precisely to end suffering of those who feel hurt and abandoned. Of course you are not a spiritual leader but you pretend to talk for her. Any aspirant should at least learn to be merciful and respect the pain of others even if he doesn’t understand it. If you are so tired of all the poor and hurt people who are in pain and feel abandoned you are simply in the wrong place. Try Espn.
Anon 2/27
I appreciate your response to the comment from Anon 2/08---I think you express really well what most of us felt when we read it. It comes across as an attack, and an unfair one.
There is a different way of looking at it, though. I think Anon 2/08 is really afraid. That's what I get from his comment more than anything else. Why the frustration and animus towards the rest of us? Well, it's getting kinda lonely in the true-believer camp and he wants to reach out and connect with people who know what he's going through--but then he finds RoD and here we are asking questions, expressing doubts and generally acting like we've never even heard of an experience share before.
If you're Anon 2/08 and just beginning to pull your head out of the sand and have a good look around at the post-GM landscape, this kind of open forum can be scary. And some people react to fear by attacking.
Anyway, that's the most charitable way I can view it and I'm trying to kinder for Lent.
You are so right Seekher, it's not this kids fault, perhaps he's just coming out of the box and is surprised to see a world out there. Never the less I feel even more hurt and abandoned now that a proud little brad arrogantly insults me and my life strugels in an anonymous and cowardly way, jus for his or her onwn reassurance. I haven’t written or said anything to hurt anyone in syda, but they for no reason at all have hurt me intentionally, and continue to do so. That is why I will try for this to be my last comment on this blog (or in any other related to syda), your blog that has helped me and hurt me at the same time. Like in any dysfunctional family you get the joys but mostly the sorrows of life, but in a real family somehow you manage to get along and stay together, after all. But this is different; SYDA is not my family because in a family the love is mutual, its reciprocal. In a real family you might yell at each other but you’ll soon be fine because you really care for each other. I see clearly that G and her friends don't care one bit about me. This is the last insult I will hear from any siddha fanatic. To tell me I have done something wrong. I've applied several times to go back to the ashram but according to them I am not qualified even for dishwasher. For no reason at all I have been banned, with no explanation and I even have to stand the arrogance of some lunatic accusing me, accusing us of not being real or sincere seekers. I sold all I had, I left my country and my family because the ashran managers promised me I would live there for the rest of my life. Suddenly ooops! I am sorry but there is a change in plans you have to leave. I was told I could come back in one year, then in two. I was told that if I lived near the ashram I could become a heart of the community and could come to do seva. I live 20 miles away from south Fallsbourgh and I am not allowed in, like a criminal. I know those ideas so elociuently expressed by anon 02/08 just didn't come out of the blue, they are in this kids mind and in other fanatic minds. They are in the swamis minds, they are in g’s mind. Somehow it’s my karma, lets just look the other way. It's like accusing someone that has been raped, for wearing to sexy clothes and telling him or her “You brought this upon you”. It's like accusing a victim of enticing his killer. No thanks,I've had enough. Never tought I would say this but, sounds aooropiate for the ocasion. With all my respect and love I say goodby to you all, with a broken heart... By By
I feel moved to respond to you, By By. You've obviously experienced a lot of rejection from SYDA, in additional to dealing with the loss we all feel or have felt at Gurumayi's disappearance. I can't begin to imagine how hurtful it must have been to give up your home and move into the So Falls ashram only to be told that you have no place there after all. Comments like yours express the truly broken heart of this path. The craven mix of half-truths and deception that is peddled by whoever is in charge at SYDA these days is sickening--particularly when it is used to deceive people who have given up so much and are so attached to the remnants of faith.
One of the nasty little secrets of Siddha Yoga is that this has been going on for a long time---well before G up and left. The inner circle always treated the corp of resident sevites as expandable in flush years and expendable in lean. The promises made to lure people with needed skills and talents were easily cancelled with a stroke of the pen as G's will. Though, of course, like the Jewish deity her name was never spoken while delivering these coups de graces. It was so much more delicate to say something like "It is a divine impulse that you should change sevas." Better that the one being shuffled around or tossed out connected the dots (after appropriate contemplation of the Guru's will). So much less messy that way since you then had essentially volunteered for the change and could not raise any arguments (legal or otherwise) about how you had been misled.
Forget what others say or write about those of us who are "on the outside". It only hurts if you are still looking in. Remember---the whole wide world belongs to us, and the only world that is left to those holding up the walls in So Falls is a crumbling infrastructure that is a too apt metaphor for the ruins of a once burgeoning spiritual path.
I just found this website, having lived in GSP for years and now re-established in the world. I'd been feeling a need for closure and hoped to make a simple pilgrimage to SMA to do so - ideally when Sri Gurumayi was there to better gauge the relationship. But I also feel the oddity of the lack of energy coming from SY and the disassociation - so many of us are disconnected now from SY formally while still connected to each other....how strange. I visited a SY Center the other week and the energy felt stale - like a vibrancy has left SY (more than could be possible through projection). Maybe someday a kind of resolution will be there for me that goes beyond just my developing an 'inner understanding' for closure. (I've always found it odd that SY never reaches out to its ex-ashramites. Sometimes I dream of a reunion of us all -- a gathering of family -- without any formal approval of SY (having been in management, I know that such a gathering would not be supported by SY.) That is odd, too.
Welcome Anon 3/2/10 to RoD. There are indeed a great many things that are odd about SY at the moment, not the least of which you touch on in your comment, i.e. no spanda left in centers, the shuttering of SMA to outsiders, and the fact that ex-ashramites are considered outsiders. I think the reason that most of us feel disconnected to SY yet still connect with one another goes beyond just the circle-the-wagons practices of Gurumayi, SYDA trustees and management. We are still personally connected because we are all that SY ever was, and all that it really remains.
Looking forward to your thoughts as you explore the blog.
SeekHer
Over the years I have seen that this would be Guru, has and had nothing to offer to those that were with baba in the 70's and 80's. She was and still is just window dressing for a lost way of life that doesn't work in todays world. when last I saw her she was a dried up fake with no shakti and no compassion for anyone other than herself. for those of you still following her all I can say is get a life, go back to what was said and told you years ago, seek within your self what is true. Get out and smell the coffee again. there is much more than Gurumyi, AKA Malti poor thing!
Fascinating for me to stumble upon this website. Recently reached a point of disgust at the way Siddha Yoga is 'managed' and broke away. Seems to me it's imploding - there's a last desperate attempt to constrict and constrain those who remain, and encourage the ever diminishing pool of devotees to dig deeper to support - what? So glad to read the wonderful 'thank you Gurumayi' piece and find I'm not the only one counting the blessings as I close the door firmly behind me.
Don't get attached to the form. Don't get attached to the form. How many times did we hear this? It's so true.
I was never attached to GM's form.
Yet the spiderweb veil of lies and manipulations did not get torn until I realized just how much the SY-induced states, attitudes, and thought patterns (might I say "brainwashing") had imprisoned me.
It's NOT about the FORM. It's about the ABUSE.
Does anyone remember the story of Rumi and his Guru Shams? Shams lived with Rumi, and taught him and meditated with him, and Rumi lived in Divine Love. And then one day, Shams stepped out, saying he'd be right back - and vanished.
Rumi went mad. He had no closure, he had no explanation. His love for his Guru burned inside of him and drove him to create the first half of the collection of spiritual poetry (grief) for which he is known worldwide. And as a result of his profound grief, his mind was taken deeper and deeper towards Shams, and his rejection of the trivialities of the world grew ever more pronounced, until the sheer force of it broke him through to realization - and the creation of the second half of his collection of spiritual poetry (joy).
Does anyone remember the story of Milarepa and his Guru Marpa? Marpa had Milarepa build giant stone castles to an extreme level of perfection, only to tell him that his work was wasted and to tear them down. Again and again this happened until Milarepa went mad with frustration and left Marpa, only to end up in a cave grieving for the loss of his Guru and praying and meditating on him until his very grief brought him to realization.
Does anyone remember that Baba Muktananda ran away from Bhagavan Nityananda? Nityananda treated Baba worse and worse, and Baba's internal self-criticism grew stronger and stronger until, utterly disgusted with himself, he fled Nityananda to pursue his sadhana out of the gaze of his Gurus eyes. Yet Baba could never escape his profound love for Nityananda, and the contradicting, wrenching inability to resolve his inner conflict over his Guru pursued him wherever he went, until it grew into the conflagration at Suki that completely consumed him and released him into total realization.
Does anyone remember who wrote the phrase "Ashes at my Guru's Feet"?
What if the elevation of the worst of the worst to levels of power within Siddha Yoga, and the far reaching wreckage their hypocrisy and cruelty has created, served the brilliance of Gurumayi's plan in two ways at once? What if it drove out those who truly accepted her Grace into their hearts so they could start the final burning part of sadhana that only the truly blessed ever get to experience, because it ends in realization? And what if it attracted those who, left to their own devices in the world, would have spread catastrophe and misery in everything they touched, but instead are now satisfied with the egomaniacal infatuation they are allowed to have "running" Siddha Yoga?
Lord Krishna taught Arjuna that we are allowed the work - not the fruits. It is my humble suggestion that people accept the divine fire Gurumayi has ignited in them, find her guidance inside as the "Inner Guru" that Baba himself taught it was the "Outer Guru's" purpose to introduce the devotee to, and leave Siddha Yoga to Gurumayi's still completely capable hands.
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shantihi
Sadgurunath Maharaj Ki Jai!
Hello all,
I have just stumbled across RoD (while trying to find out if Gurumayi had a world tour planned somewhere soon), and am in for a few surprises.
I used to live in GSP as a child during the 70s and until 87, then went back for a short stay in 95, when we were informed about the "new rules" of the time: we had to stay outside of the ashram and were allowed in only to do a few hours of seva & attend Guru Gita, Rudram and Evening Arati.
Needless to say, it was not a nice surprise, especially since we were only told that upon our arrival at the ashram gates in the late afternoon... During close to 10 years living in the "outside world" I had been missing my home, and coming back to such a welcome was very saddening. However, I decided to make the most of it.
At first, while I was doing my cleaning-the-courtyard seva, I felt really miserable, it felt like being home and yet not. I could not go into the gardens, could not stay for the evening chants (my all-time favourite practice), could not enter the meditation hall or go to Annapurna.
But, as the days went by, I came to realize that Baba had prepared me for this. He was always telling us that things evolve constantly, and that even on the spiritual path, you had to learn to let go at some point.
I am sorry, I cannot give you any actual quotes. You have to remember I was a child, and as such I was not hanging on to such things as adults tend to. Instead, I grew up with Baba's teachings being my education for life. When most children learn nursery rhymes, I learned Bhajans. My way of thinking was fashioned by Baba's talks.
In addition to that, my parents used to travel quite a lot, so there were always moments when we'd be away from Ganeshpuri or Fallsburg for a few months, and the next time we came I'd find it all changed. So I learned from very early on that things in life are in constant motion. You can never go back to how it "was".
So here I am, scrubbing bird shit from the marble floor of the courtyard, and reflecting on how much frustration I feel about coming back home after 10 years and not even being allowed inside, listening to the tape of Baba singing the Guru Gita... and little by little, the frustration started leaving.
Realization came that it had always been like this: the whole concept of Siddha Yoga (from my perspective) was to move you from one situation to another, to shift you as soon as you were getting too comfortable somewhere. It is only by facing new and unexpected situations that we are encouraged to progress. When we are comfortable somewhere, there is no reason to move our a**es (forgive the language).
And it is only when we cannot find a ready answer outside that we turn towards the inside. "God lives within you as you". Remember that? "Play of Consciousness", remember that?
I remember a story of Narada : one day Narada asks Krishna to explain him what Maya is, so Krishna takes him for a walk. After a while, they come to a well where a beautiful damsel draws some water for them. Narada falls in love, asks for her hand and marries her. They live in her village, have a couple of kids, etc.
But one day there is a flood, and Narada's wife and kids drown. At that moment of total misery, Krishna appears and tells him that none of the above ever happened, it was all Maya, and that life is an illusion from which it is difficult to escape...
(end of first part)
(...second part)
I find it to be exactly the same in our own lives. Being in the Ashram is very comfortable. You have a comfortable routine, you indulge in spiritual practices and have nothing else to worry about. You have left the world "outside" for the period of time that you are there, whether it is for a few days or a few months or even longer.
But the Ashram is a school, it is not a permanent dwelling! Baba always said that you came as a student, to learn, and that that knowledge was to be applied in your everyday life, in the outside world.
What is the point of having thousands of ascetics staying indefinitely in the Ashram? Isn't it more challenging to face up to the world we are living in and apply there what we have learned in the cozy, protected environment of the Ashram?
Sure, it hurts to see that what we were attached to has moved on, that Siddha Yoga is not what it used to be. Personally, I still feel nostalgia when thinking about Baba's days, when everything was raw and wild—Gurumayi has softened things up, modernized them, maybe made them more available to the western mind.
But nothing of all that matters, no more than the actual situation matters. The message of Siddha Yoga is simple, and it does not depend on subscribing to courses and buying incense sticks or photos from the bookstore. It does not depend on living an ashramite's life (in or out of it) or on seeing the Guru, or even on who runs Siddha Yoga today and how.
The message is about being aware, about seeing what lies beyond. Instead of complaining that we "don't have anymore", how about turning things around and seeing that we were incredibly lucky to "have had"? Once is enough. After that, it is up to us. The message has been transmitted, the seed is sown. We have all the tools we need within ourselves, so why complain?
I never went back to Ganeshpuri or South Fallsburg. I went to see Gurumayi in Sitges in 96, and was thinking to take my husband & kid to a satsang if she was going on a world tour sometime soon, to show them which environment I grew up in.
I feel good about having grown up with Baba's message. I feel good about my childhood in Ganeshpuri and Fallsburg. They have given me solid bases that enable me to see life through a "different pair of specs" (lol). I miss the old days, but don't we all, that's a part of growing up/old.
But I don't grudge Siddha Yoga's evolution. I have never cared too much about the details, in any case. What always mattered what the core. And that will always be in me, and will continue to be transmitted.
"Poornamadah Poornamidam
Poornaat Poornamudacyate
Poornasya Poornamaadaaya
Poornamevaavashishyate"
That is perfect. This is perfect.
From the perfect springs the perfect.
If the perfect is taken from the perfect,
the perfect remains. (Mahabharata)
Wow. Saraswati - that was really beautiful. Thank you.
I am a former long-time ashramite (SMA) who hasn't had anything to do with Siddha Yoga outwardly for a long time. The current configuration is obviously ridiculous.
Still - there is wisdom and beauty and truth to be found in what we once experienced and came to see while practicing Siddha Yoga.
Saraswati, I feel deep gratitude towards you for you clarity and reflection.
Thank you!!!
there's so much rationalization and denial in these comments. i think that shows that once you are in a cult you truly can never leave.
i feel sympathy for the confused, none at all for the user. haven't you read about the curious selection of gm and her brother as successors, the sexual abuse, the political intrigues and competition between brother and sister? what does all this tell you? you put your faith in a false leader.
she didn't leave you to teach you to how to separate from her, she abandoned you because she was sick of it, had enough money and wanted something different.
To Anonymous (May 4, 2010 10:19 AM): It may be confusing and difficult for one who focuses on the leader (of whichever faith/organisation), but less so for one who focuses solely on the message...
It IS very possible that GM left the stage to lead another life... However, I wonder what kind of pleasures one who has led her kind of existence since such a young age can derive from a normal rich person's life—she already had the best of what money & power can bring.
She might enjoy anonymity (to which extent?), but what activity do you imagine could compensate for the "lost glory"? I personally find it hard to imagine her sipping cocktails on a private beach listening to lounge music, or attending Hollywood parties! Seems pretty boring after being THE center of attention, lol.
However, be that as it may—her personal life doesn't really interest me. I prefer to concentrate on my own life and facing my own challenges.
"the normal rich parson's life" is exactly what she wanted...even being worshiped can be a turn off if you are worshiped by needy and emotionally insecure followers who need external direction and are too spineless to question what they see. i really sense how infuriated with all of you she must have been. gm is like a bored child who has tired of stepping on ants. she knew how to run a good game and knew when to get out. she at least has been able to leave the cult.
Anon June 4:
fascinating that you have absolutely no idea how revealing your comment is to "all of us"
I recently re-read this entry and I want to share my profound appreciation for this part:
***
Oh, Gurumayi, I loved you once and truly and for the sake of that love I ask one thing. Leave for good. Shut it all down. Give yourself the deep satisfaction at last of telling the trustees to go to hell. Dare them to reveal whatever it is they threaten you with; their very complicity makes their threats impotent.
Give yourself and your dearest, truest, closest followers the experience of total truth; release those who have sworn their lives to you. Tell them what you have known for years now; you no longer want their lives, you want your own.
Have the grace---the Grace!-- to let your followers go. Give us the freedom you would have for yourself. Realize that nothing you can say will ever take away what we all experienced together, not even an admission of your own culpability in the travesty that Siddha Yoga has become. We can heal and forgive; then live together as true seekers, or as separate expressions of that divine Self. As hard as the way forward may seem, it is preferable to the perpetual purgatory that we are all suffering now.
Take up the grace and the courage we all know you possess and lead us one last time, our Dear One.
****
Thx also to Saraswati for her comments, I see her making peace with herself and her own personal past.
But that past doesn't change the facts about what's real or not real in SY, doesn't change the fact that for some people the past in SY was more of a nightmare call to awaken than a dream lost, and it doesn't change the supreme logic in the closing points of this fine blog entry.
Only thing is - the call to GM to show us the Grace to give closure to the experience of SY calls on a Grace she may not possess.
Imagine growing up in an ashram where elevated talks, mind bending experiences, and the knowledge of your role model's secret sexual indulgence are your daily experience?
A childhood in SY under Muktananda's tutelage and in the company of the girls he molested must have had very destructive effect on Malti.
There's no "brilliant plan" here. There's just a fuel eating flame that burned itself out.
I think things happened in SY as they did because they could unfold (and eventually collapse) no other way.
K.
Narcissists suck your energy/resources and then when you are depleted, you are abandoned. They go looking for new supply. The old timers are used up, needy, weak. She has absolutely no empathy for them. None. When I think of the sweet people she used this way. It was not for anyone's spiritual evolution, but her own rather sadistic pleasure. I was a victim of her cruelty many times. Was a physical and emotional wreck when I left the ashram. She sucked everything out of me. Vampires do these things.
Will be interesting to see what happens in the future.
I hope GuruMayi takes a break.
Soaks her feet in some cool ocean water. Enjoys the peace of being GuruMayi.
Or even Malti.
Either way GuruMayi is my Guru.
Sunderdas,
Are you kidding me? GM has been soaking her feet in cool ocean waters for a long time. She has had the best of the best the material world can offer. And she still wants more. And all this while many of those who loved her, served her for decades are indigent and physically and spiritually wasted and in pain. GM turned her back on all of them and you too. Are you sure you need her in your life at all? Can't comprehend why you would.
Anonymous, your comment confirms that those "victims" failed to take responsibility for their own actions. You condone putting the blame "out there". Each & everyone of those individuals are responsible for their own current states of being. Blaming Gurumayi is more of the same. You & your victims need to grow a pair & realize they created their own realities, or delusions in your case.
But you won't see your error.
You'll continue giving your power away and milk your alleged victimization for all it's worth.
Quit being a pussy.
You want Siddha Yoga Baba style? Go here: http://www.shantimandir.com/en/index.html
Subhash is keeping the torch aloft.
What controversy? Does anyone have documented proof of any wrongdoing? Unless there is substantiated evidence you are all participating in nothing more than a smear campaign. Get some proof and you get credibility.....simple as that. I have been in Siddha Yoga since I was ten. George Afif treated me like an piece of crap once.....does that mean I curl my tail up between my legs and run for cover? There are a-holes in every organization. There are people that steal from churches,synagogues, mosques etc. If your faith is so loosely tied to outside comfort than you need to move on. Spirituality is work...it's not a lunch date. The Guru teaches that even he/she must be renounced. In my twenty plus years of intense sadhana/study never have I heard Gurumayi tell me to bow to her every gesture or spend all of my money in the bookstore or offer up my life savings. And don't tell me she has said this to you unless you are willing to provide taped conversations or video to the contrary. The bashers will bash because it's easy....the meditators will keep meditating because it's not.
Benjamin--
I understand your pain, I really do. But what is not easy is having to admit to yourself that you've been living a lie. You ask for proof. Read all the links embedded in this earlier post: The Spectrum of Our Beliefs that can be found in the RoD archives under December, 2007. But be certain that you are ready for what you will discover about SYDA and Gurumayi if you do.
"The ONLY guru is God."
--Ramana Maharshi; Anandamayi Ma
Stuart Resnick is posting hate about Guru Mayi.
I'm sure he started this thread.
Resnick has set himself up as a quasi guru at Empty Gate Zen Center of Berkeley.
The alleged faults he whines about SYDA & Guru Mayi having are really reflections of his own.
Om Nama Shivaya is a powerful mantra that has sent me off on some great meditation sessions. I never met Gurumaya but one look at her photo convinced me she was another in the longest running lineage of rich frauds setting themselves up. How can anyone fall for this sort of balderdash for a moment? i mean, hoe desperately delusional do you have to be to see the huge product line, and the political intrigues in the super rich organization, to have the founder caught with his pants down and his dick in one to many follower's fronts or backs, depending on his taste in such matters, to get the idea? How many lungs full of Rolls Royce exhaust, recall BSRajneesh how acquired 93 of them, does a stupefied delusional seeker need to inhale before they realize what most of us always knew..that these people are all criminal frauds. Let them run around India in diapers chanting for free where everyone knows what a joke it is....but come to America, this bereft slime pit, where we worship anything that calls itself an authority, talentless rock stars, sgitbag politicians...gurus...whatever....
Anyone who sets up another person as a god is an idiot and deserves whatever he/she gets. All of you want another person or thing or 'god' outside yourself to take over responsibility for your sense of well being...truly weak and pathetic....But the good news is...meditation works...not because you believe some 'advanced spiritual being' is floating around in a another dimension grating some fantasized benediction..but because the rythmic breathing and repetition calm the cardiovascular system...all the rest is hogwash and a way to fill in the emotional deadness in a world where it's almpost impossible to get love sex, or money, things that REALLY make you happy...and so we resort to fantasy, TV, drugs, gos gurus religious nonsense....
Too painful to lift even the peacock feathers to bless those trusting souls, but as long as you have a new hat to wear and your petty Swiss bank account - who cares? Right?
You call your self a satguru? You can not even love your very own brother? Your ego is your big downfall. Screw you all the way to the bank!
Baba left two successors. One was forced out by the politics of SY, yet he still humbly remains. Gurudev keeps doing the work and gives darshan -www.shantimandir.com
And remember, we are to look within, not outside. Baba said, 'God dwells within you as you.'
Om
Thank you for your comments. It has been quite enlightening. I hope all of you find peace in your life now that you have carried this bitterness around for awhile. Why not let it go and find yourself again.How many lifetimes do you want to live like this? Move on and be truly happy.This I wish for you.
The Guru will always be here in any form wether you like it or not.
Oh, bravo Om, well said. The Guru lives within you as you. Sounds familiar?
Guys, isn't life about growing, and finding happiness?
Okay, sometimes things look tough, but one way of dealing with that is to see the opportunity of learning something new about oneself. Maybe it is just learning to let go. Nobody can control it all...
GM made choices. So do we all.
When I read all this criticism about Siddha Yoga it seems so "The cup is half empty." For those who claim abuse, I can't really speak to that, but the vast majority of people just seem greedy. They received a lot and they want a lot more. The store shut down, changed its clientele, reopened and is now serving a totally different cuisine, and the old customers are angry about it. Here's a story:
A man was lost in the desert and dying. He was starving and without water or friends.
A man came along and fed him. This stranger brought the lost man back to health and cared for him. Then the stranger taught the man many of the secrets of life and love.
One day the stranger left, but before leaving, he pointed the man in the right direction and he made it home.
Later, when the survivor met others and told them his story, their reactions were varied. Some said the stranger was a great man and others said they knew him and he was abusive and evil.
However, no matter what anyone told him about the stranger, he could never deny within himself how the stranger saved his life and gave him lasting peace. He honestly could not speak to others experience, but he knew his own and was grateful.
When I read all this criticism about Siddha Yoga it seems so "The cup is half empty." For those who claim abuse, I can't really speak to that, but the vast majority of people just seem greedy. They received a lot and they want a lot more. The store shut down, changed its clientele, reopened and is now serving a totally different cuisine, and the old customers are angry about it. Here's a story:
A man was lost in the desert and dying. He was starving and without water or friends.
A man came along and fed him. This stranger brought the lost man back to health and cared for him. Then the stranger taught the man many of the secrets of life and love.
One day the stranger left, but before leaving, he pointed the man in the right direction and he made it home.
Later, when the survivor met others and told them his story, their reactions were varied. Some said the stranger was a great man and others said they knew him and he was abusive and evil.
However, no matter what anyone told him about the stranger, he could never deny within himself how the stranger saved his life and gave him lasting peace. He honestly could not speak to others experience, but he knew his own and was grateful.
When I read all this criticism about Siddha Yoga it seems so "The cup is half empty." For those who claim abuse, I can't really speak to that, but the vast majority of people just seem greedy. They received a lot and they want a lot more. The store shut down, changed its clientele, reopened and is now serving a totally different cuisine, and the old customers are angry about it. Here's a story:
A man was lost in the desert and dying. He was starving and without water or friends.
A man came along and fed him. This stranger brought the lost man back to health and cared for him. Then the stranger taught the man many of the secrets of life and love.
One day the stranger left, but before leaving, he pointed the man in the right direction and he made it home.
Later, when the survivor met others and told them his story, their reactions were varied. Some said the stranger was a great man and others said they knew him and he was abusive and evil.
However, no matter what anyone told him about the stranger, he could never deny within himself how the stranger saved his life and gave him lasting peace. He honestly could not speak to others experience, but he knew his own and was grateful.
I still have great respect for Baba and Gurumayi. I really don't dig this Leaving Siddha Yoga to find truth bullshit. If you find the truth it is siddha yoga. That's all Siddha Yoga cares about is the Truth.
Spiritual retards Alert!!! the guru is bad crew will think this about the pro-guru and vice versa. Spiritual retards Alert!!!
Have you not yet realized? There is no Guru. Have you not learned to look inside your own self? There is no Guru it is just your own confusion. If it is not inside yourself it is not. The Guru is giving you what you want. Grow up and come into your self. Time to stop being children.
You keep looking outside of yourself. Have you not learned yet? All Reality lies within. You keep blaming the outside...of course it is not what you want. Rise above...go beyond...look within. Stop blaming and Be. Beingness as a verb not as a noun.
If you see the Guru on the road....kill him.
What is left? Chop wood, carry water.
Look into a mirror....there It Is. Just that simple.
Embrace your ignorance. Embrace your confusion. Immerse youself in the moment on unknowing and have the courage to be Unknowning, Ignorant and Free.
The smallest morsel from a can of garbage can be ambrosia.
Why blame Gurumayi and Baba and Nityananda? Perhaps they did disgusting acts. Perhaps they cheated, lied and stole from us? What do you expect from the world? I felt they stole from me but I now understand it was my own insecurity with coming into my own awarness and embarcing my Unknowingness and being able to say...I don't know and I don't care that I don't know. I am not Enlightened and so what? That is freedom. Dive into the blackness of unknowing and feel the freedom.
Unless you become as children you can never see Me.
Do you now understand?
How may more times?
Um...don't you people have something useful to do with your time? Maybe she just got sick of your whiney bullshit. I'm just sayin'...
Every experience with Bhagawan, Baba, Gurumayi and Swami Nityananda and SYDA has brought you to this moment. Why blame anyone? Why feel sorry? Be happy with the understanding of the One, of the Self. Listen to the sound of your own breath and Be in the space of stillness between the breaths. Everything else is a story. How great these Beings are to demonstrate the illusion.
All of the posts are true and correct
and perfect. Everything is exactly as everyone thinks and exactly as they perceive it to be. There is only your own perception, your own understanding, your own love and your own acceptance of Grace - as you perceive it to be.
What is true is true for you. That does not mean that it is true, only that it is true for you.
If you find others who agree with your truth then you have a group consciousness based on agreement, not truth. If you have enough they become a cult, larger still and your truth becomes a religion.
That does not make it true - that does not make it God or about God.
That makes it about you.
How many "friends" did you have that are no longer your friends? When did you become an adult and have your mom and dad become your friends through your love of them and their love of you? When did you stand on your own two feet after bowing to your own two feet?
When did you realize that what you realized isn't what you thought it was - or that it was what you thought in the beginning?
When you give up being 'responsible' and start behaving 'appropriately' then no one is to blame and no one is responsible - they act and think and say what they do - and you act and think and say what you do. If you act, think and say the same things you are in agreement - not right, not correct, just in agreement.
It's about you. It's only about you. There is only you and what you perceive. And what you perceive is about you.
You are That. You are This. I am.
i never understood this guru stuff. why not be one's own guru? wear your own picture around your neck. but hey, thats just my truth....
To the generous contributors of this blog,
First and foremost, let me say that reading the personal stories of all of you has been a great form of inspiration and therapy for me. Thank you so much for your wonderful openness, and most of all for the courage to take a very bad situation in which your trust was taken advantage of, and make the most of it. My mom was one of the less fortunate ones who was not able to leave. She suffered a great deal as a result of her involvement with SY and it’s time for me to tell her story.
My mom was involved in SY during a stretch in her life when she was battling with a debilitating depression, which escalated during the 1970s through early 2000s. She had tried to alleviate her pain with many holistic and western remedies, but the guru was her main form of medication. Like an addict, she needed her daily regimen of the guru not so much to elevate her up high, but to get her back to zero. When the guru finally gave my mom nothing, that's exactly how much progress she made.
"One of the sweetest, most generous and pure-hearted souls you would ever meet" is what those who knew my mother describe her as. It was not unlike her to utter phrases such as, "Hitler wasn't a bad person, he just had bad behavior!" Her kindness was almost not of this world...
She would make several long trips to the South Fallsburg, NY Ashram per year, frequently accompanied by other members of our family, including my aunt who was also a long-time devotee, my big sister and myself. While most kids were living normal suburban lives, I was spending my school vacations in the daycare system of the Ashram at Sadhana Kutir and Atma Nidhi. As a baby, I was given the spiritual name "Krishna" by Gurumayi, and that is what I was known as during the on-and-off trips we would make to South Fallsburg from 1985 through 1997, at which time I was aged 0 through 12. My father, a headstrong self-made type of guy who is just as in touch with his own spirituality as my mom was, but nonetheless a realist, always had a healthy skepticism of the Ashram and especially of Gurumayi. He tagged along once or twice out of respect for my mom, but seldom participated.
I always knew how kind-hearted and devoted of a person my mother was. But I also knew she was very weak and suffering from depression. At times this was frustrating for me being an energetic young kid who wanted to run around and explore. Even though my mom had a beautiful home with a loving family, something about the Ashram kept calling her back, away from her family obligations. It was as though there was a deep hole in her soul that was looking to be filled.
"I release my daughter. I release my son. I release my husband"
That is an example of one of the final entries in her spiritual journal, which she wrote in over the course of years during her practice. Through reading these journals as a young adult, it became obvious to me that she gave 100% of her power up to the Guru, and there simply wasn't any juice left in her tank for anyone else, not even for her own family or herself. Oftentimes my mom would remain in bed for days on end, wearing diapers, unable to move. Gradually, the icy grip of depression had taken a strong hold on her, further frozen over by a thick layer of coldness from Gurumayi, the one person in the world who she trusted.
As I looked back through these journals, many of them were laden with expressions of love and utter devotion to Gurumayi, with the exception of one. Her final journal entry was very brief, with only the words "My guru has forsaken me" written.
(continued in the next comment)
(continued from the previous comment)
...Later that day, on May 8th, 2001, she was found by the police with a self-inflicted knife wound in her chest. In the driver's seat of a totaled car, which had impacted into the side of an abandoned building off the shoulder of a highway. There was a brief suicide note in her pocket. It didn't say anything hurtful. Just a simple "I love you. Please forgive me. I know I've done the very best I can."
I don't hate Siddha Yoga. I think it’s done wonderful things for some people. I'm just a guy who misses his mom and needs to understand why her life had to end the way it did. Why would a guru demand such an unconditional level of blind devotion to allow somebody to reach this point? Didn’t she realize what she was asking?
Like yourselves, I am fortunate to have left SY and have found meaning in other areas of life. By the time I was in my mid-teens, I was playing sports, singing in bands, hanging out with friends from my own town, getting into mischief like any normal suburban teenager. But I was always haunted by those memories from the Ashram which was a culprit in the brainwashing and murder of my poor mother. All that beauty and pureness I experienced as a young kid at the Ashram, juxtaposed with tragic ending of my mothers life, has left me with questions that I am still conflicted over to this day. Could this place really have all been so evil? I was only a child when I was exposed to the teachings of SY and the guru(s). In hindsight, I actually got a pretty good deal. Sure, I was jealous of those kids from "normal families" who had the basic luxury of spending their school vacations doing more "normal" things. But I learned to meditate, I was surrounded by a warm community, I got to experience the beauty of the ashram and the natural beauty Catskill mountains. What's more, I made a few adult role models along the way who were "seekers" and helped me get in touch with my spiritual side of myself that, even though I didn't know I needed it at the time, laid the foundations for the person I am today and are helping me to overcome these very conflicts it created. (It’s funny how sometimes a riddle answers itself.) But perhaps most pivotally, I was exposed to all these positive things without having to put a veil over my eyes and sacrifice 100% of my personal power to Gurumayi as so many others had.
I never understood why my mom needed meditation until I got out of college, and realized how crazy the real world can make you. Since then I've taken up yoga and meditation and have only just begun to discover their health benefits. Even still, every time I sit down to practice meditation a little voice in my head says "Psssst. Be careful. Remember what happened to mom." It hurts to have such a strong defense mechanism against spirituality as a whole. This voice will never leave. But if anything, harnessing my ability to reduce the voice to a whisper without drowning it out further validates my practice. It helps to remember: All spirituality is not SY! SY is only one piece in a great encyclopedia of spirituality which has been practiced by billions for thousands of years. Some of it more pure than others.
(continued in the next comment)
(continued from the previous comment)
Reading my mom's spiritual journals many years after her fatal crash has helped me to understand that her decision to end her life wasn't the fault of the practice of meditation, but of a combination of the crippling disease of depression, and a naïve and selfish guru who misguided. Whether or not Gurumayi knowingly misguided, I am not sure. But one thing is for sure: If everybody told me I was a great architect, but I didn't believe it for myself, I would not go building a skyscraper and invite people to come inside. Perhaps the action of Gurumayi leaving her devotees is an implied admittance of guilt. But it's not enough. The next step should be a public apology from Gurumayi. On some level, this woman must know she was in over her head and did not have the spiritual wisdom necessary to send weak, vulnerable people on the blind, destination-less path that she did. Let me join you in chorus and say that an apology from Malti Shetty, or the woman known as Gurumayi, would be appreciated.
If anyone can offer further insight into what my mom may have meant by "My Guru has forsaken me," my family and I have been looking for some closure on this matter for some time. We believe there may have been a singular incident on Gurumayi’s part which provoked my mom to write this as her final journal entry before taking her own life. But then again, maybe not. Either way, any insight is appreciated. The journal entry was dated May 8th, 2001. (The same day she passed.)
I'd like to end my note to tell you that I'm grateful. Through the years, I've made attempts to vent the sadness of my mother's suicide to therapists, family and girlfriends, many of them great listeners, but there's only so much understanding someone who wasn’t directly affiliated with SY can offer. Hearing your stories offers a deeper level of compassion that can only come from someone who has traveled along that same path. I have not met any of you, but I feel as though we are on a journey together, a journey back to discovering that inner light for ourselves. I owe that journey to my mom. I wish all of you all love and light. May you continue to focus on the best in yourselves as you look not only inward, but forward.
If there are other children of Siddha Yoga who would like to share their stories, please speak out. I'd be keen on hearing them.
With gratitude,
The Former Siddha Yoga Kid, all grown up
1)April 6, 2010 at 6:08 PM
Anonymous said...
Does anyone remember the story
2)Saraswati...Pts.1 & 2
***
1) Genius! You 'got it'!
2) Saraswati...you too (your spiritual name befits you)!
Thank you both for your discernment in seeing the truth.
It's been a year since "The former Siddha Yoga kid, all grown up" wrote. I just ventured onto this site and am sorry no one has attempted to address his concerns. If you're there "all grown up" I hope the pain of your loss is becoming less and less. You ask what your mother meant when she said, 'my guru has forsaken me.' Unfortunately only your Mom can know but I offer you the following:
As you were taught the Guru is an outer being as well as an inner state or quality. If your mother's depression continued to grow, the inner state was becoming darker and darker. It would seem as if the inner Guru had left, and I'm sure, if her repeated attempts to reconnect with the inner Guru did not achieve their intended goal, she could be overcome by despair.
The outer Guru of course had departed. Closed ashrams and unanswered letters (if she had attempted to contact Gurumayi) would add to the feeling of loss, betrayal, and abandonment.
Have you read, "Come Be My Light?" It is Mother Teresa's autobiography. She says that Christ cried out "Why have you forsaken me?" on the Cross because having taken on the sins of the world, he was in his human (and not divine) nature. His God had forsaken him. In a way it makes sense ... in reconciling man with God and God with man, he would have to experience the desolation of separation. In her own life, Mother Teresa felt utter darkness and despair for over 50 years of her life, even to her death. The divine inspiration she experienced when she began her work was the LAST time she heard Christ's voice or felt His heart. She lived a lifetime in despair -- even through the dedication and "apparent" joy of her work.
Of course, St. John of the Cross describes the dark night of the soul. People very advanced on the spiritual path will often experience the loss of their connection with God, the Light, Truth. Unfortunately, there are few here who can counsel and advise or comfort those who are experiencing the dark night.
Perhaps, prone to depression, your mother might have been experiencing the dark night but didn't know it...couldn't identify it as such. Indeed, it feels like depression ... or worse...like being forsaken.
Although she felt forsaken, she can never be lost. Once the spiritual attainment is there, it cannot be taken away.
At least this may be a spiritual understanding of your mother's journal entry and her taking of her own life.
I hope it helps.
With love,
Michele
Well spoken Michele in your description of the journey through the path of the dark night of the soul. It is a journey of physical, mental and spiritual pain. A state in which you feel that you are all alone, no one understand your pain and a total feeling of "I don't care"! But the truth be told, on the other side of that tunnel of darkness is the brilliant beautiful light of Self discovery of who you are. And as painful as it may sound, one realize that the true Guru is a direct reflection of who we are at every stage of the journey back to that which we all seek. The Self, The I AM That, I AM...Nothing more.. Nothing less. I do not dismiss the pain we all have experienced while sitting directly in the Fire. We all at one stage have stepped in and been scorched by the flames. The question is do get caught up on focusing on the fire, it flame and all its brilliants and see ourselves as getting burnt by that fire or do we find the inner courage to let go and become the Fire and all it's Essence. When I became the Fire, there was no separation from the Flame and the Light of that Flame. The Guru is like looking in a mirror, if we never look beyond the smoke, we can never discover the fire. If we never discover the fire, we can never be baptized by the flames of the fire. Without being Bath by the Fire, one never understand that which we seek is who we are. THAT, I AM... without limits.... unless I choose.....
I Love you as I always have and always will.
Love,
I AM
pmd
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