Monday, August 23, 2010

Just Living is Enough

NOTE: the following letter is from the Salon webpage dedicated to SYDA's response to the recent article on Gurumayi and Eat, Pray, Love. I'm reposting it here because as I read it, I wondered if maybe I had written it myself while sleepwalking, it so encapsulates my experience. Thank you, Lucid 2010 for so eloquently stating what so many of us have gone through, finally putting the path in our rear view mirrors.


just living is enough

I began my slow departure from SY the day after Gurumayi delivered her 2004 New Year’s address. My exit wasn’t dramatic and didn't occur overnight. It took years to become involved with SY and its taken years to move away. The fact that I’m reading and posting in forums like this tells me I’m still going through the process.

My main reason for leaving? The short answer is one day I finally felt strong enough to stop suppressing my intuition and listen to what the voice inside me had been trying to tell me for years: despite the wonders of the path and my largely positive experience, there was something sinister at SY's core.

I decided I no longer needed to know, see, or have some traumatic “direct experience” of what was rotten about SY. I decided it was more important to honor myself, my intuition and the voice I’d tried so hard to silence that kept telling me it was time to go.

It’s wrenching having to end your relationship with the ultimate parent, let alone discard your entire spiritual belief system. It is a death, to be sure. I was a shell for a year. But gradually I re-grew from the inside out and am back living comfortably in the world now, both feet on the ground.

It’s funny, “the world” was the term we used to use whenever we referred to anything outside of SY. All the mishaps and human foibles that occurred in “the world” provided Gurumayi with an endless stream of anecdotes for her talks. And we all laughed right along with her because we were all in on the joke. Though we did feel pity for all those poor souls out there who were still “asleep," we also knew we had been blessed. We were the lucky ones who understood the difference between life in “the world” and life with the guru. And in SY there was never any question about which was the better side to be on.

But, for all it’s horrors and yes, joys too, now I’m back out here I’m kinda digging it. My day-to-day existence is no longer dominated by some belief system I must incessantly adhere to in order to avoid dropping off into the abyss of delusion. The world isn’t a bubble that can be ruptured. The world isn’t a sets of beliefs that can be threatened by an article at a website, or shattered by some secret someone's hiding.

The world is too old and too big for all that.

Once I got some distance from my SY experience, and reached a middle point somewhere between true believer and total skeptic, the entire thing became far more fascinating to me than when I was involved. For me, the whole SY phenomenon is far more interesting when viewed from where I am today (halfway through my life, having traveled, worked for a cultish corporation or two, and become a parent) vs. where I was when I encountered SY (a depressed teenager, desperate for a “way out,” open to/with absolutely no frame of reference for anything).

When you are in SY you can spot others who have “met Gurumayi” (a designation, by the way, which doesn’t require having actaully met her in person). Today, although it’s rare when I run into someone I recognize from my SY days, I can always tell whether or not they’re still practicing. It’s a guru-dar that apparently continues working even after you become a non-believer. People who’ve practiced SY intensely long-term have those unmistakable “ashram eyes.” It’s a look that privately spooked me even when I was involved in SY, but back then I told myself everyone had their own personal relationship with the shakti – some more intense than others – and I tried not to judge.

But what I notice now when I encounter these people today is the disconnect. And I’m talking here about devotees who’ve spent 15+ years in SY, lived in ashram, done tons of seva. Devotees who’ve been through all the wars and still stayed committed. For all their dedication, to me, kind and thoughtful as may be, these people seem less “present” not more. Even when I was in SY, the hard-core “sevittes” as we called them, seemed to in no way emulate their guru. For reasons I could never find the answers to, her good qualities didn't seem to rub off on them. Gurumayi supposedly embodied ultimate example everyone was aiming for, yet the entire time I was in SY I never met any long-term devotee who was anything like her. (And by her, I mean Gurumayi’s public persona, which is all I ever saw, and all the positive attributes that came with it.)

It’s a challenge to have much of a conversation with anyone still in SY. Heck, it was a challenge when I was in SY, if the topic of conversation wasn't in some way related to Gurumayi. There is now of course the elephant in the room that they’re still in SY and I’m not – something neither side can speak about. But mainly, because we’re no longer both on the same path, there simply isn’t much to say.

I have no regrets whatsoever about my participation in SY. I had to learn what I had to learn and there are far worse things I could have done with my time.

Would I let my own child go anywhere near SY, or something like it today?

No way in hell.

I’ve not read all of “Eat, Pray, Love” and won’t see the movie. There was a time in my life I’d have been first in line for both but now I have no interest in either beyond the conversation that’s occurring here.

I don’t meditate, chant or pray anymore.

Just living is enough.

34 comments:

SeekHer said...

Apologies if I'm compounding my error by adding a second letter from Salon written by Lucid 2010 here, but it is also excellent, and if it reaches only one more person here than it did here, it will be worth it.

count me among them

If the “few former practitioners” the SYDA Board of Trustees emphatically rejects includes the countless thousands who’ve raised their voices against the organization for the past thirty years, count me among that handful.

Years ago in one of her talks, (while referring to a devotee who’d been a bit non-complaint with some ashram rule) Gurumayi leaned into her microphone and said with a sly smile, “Haven’t you noticed? People who really go deep into meditation don’t have problems. Whenever you give yourself to the chant,” she continued, “you’re ready to do whatever anyone says.”

In the video of this talk her comment garners a unanimous, knowing laugh from the congregation. The subtle but potent (because it was coming directly from the mouth of the guru whose every word was a multi-layered teaching) implication was this: those who complain about the path aren’t truly walking it. And in Siddha Yoga, the joke was always on them.

I attended my last program on New Years’ day in 2004 and watched (albeit via satellite broadcast, by then a typical way to “be in the guru’s presence”) as Gurumayi announced her highly anticipated message for the year. After decades of attending talks where I’d been held in suspension by her every word and often moved to tears, everything she said that morning struck me as jarringly generic. Her message for that day, “Experience the Power Within ” – which would be available later in the ashram bookstore emblazoned across pens, post-its, mugs, tote bags, spiral bound workbooks and journals – was to be our beacon of light for the next twelve months. It also happened to the current slogan for a Sony Electronics TV ad, and identical to the theme of the prior Winter Olympics.

In contrast to every other talk of Gurumayi’s I’d attended, on that morning I found myself quite unexpectedly bored. Somehow her call to tap into my inner power rang hollow. I thought, who is this message and talk for? I felt like I'd heard it all before. Apparently I was no longer part of her target audience. It was unsettling, this odd disconnect, this sudden awareness that maybe I’d outgrown her. After all, how can you be ahead of your guru on a path she’s already “followed it to its completion.” Yet there I was.

The feeling was extremely awkward, even embarrassing in away.

SeekHer said...

CONTINUED:

In Siddha Yoga one does not feel bored in the presence of one’s guru. One’s entire being is present in such moments – to absorb the wisdom the guru selflessly, compassionately provides for no other reason other than the upliftment of all. If you were to find yourself bored in the presence of the guru it is not something you'd ever speak about because it is based on some lack of understanding on your part. It has nothing to do with the guru. The guru is the guru; the guru is “the unchanging principle.” So I set aside my feelings that morning, did my best to strain something of value from her talk, and later kept any honest reactions I had to myself.

At the peak of my involvement with SY, I lived in some sort of parallel, mystical universe. I felt everything that happened in my life was guided (in an almost-too-big-to-wrap-my-mind-around way) by Gurumayi. The experience was something I never dared speak about. It felt too private and frankly too outrageous. But everything that contained within the SY teachings, everything spoken about in the public programs and cafeteria lunch lines, supported my belief. My belief in this woman who I knew almost nothing about and had never spoken to but who nonetheless knew intimately every significant detail of my spiritual life, perhaps even past lives, this woman who could read my every thought and emotion, this woman who understood, accepted and loved me at me core.

This sense that you’ve found the ultimate, all-knowing, all-loving parent who will protect, guide and never abandon you is a feeling without compare. In Gurumayi words to us: “When you think my love is with you, it is with you. When you think my love is not with you, it is still with you. Always remember this, wherever you are in your life, my love is with you always.”

When you are deeply invested in SY and you hear Gurumayi say things like that, your heart melts. You feel like nothing bad can ever happen to you. You feel like you will be taken care of, no matter what.

If only someone could be that for us. It would indeed feel like it’s own kind of liberation – from fear, stress, and anything in our lives we don’t feel capable of facing.

What a relief if you truly could place all your anxiety into someone else’s all-knowing, all-loving hands and let it go . . .

—Lucid 2010

Anonymous said...

SeekHer, you're not the only former SY'er who felt that Lucid's words completely mirrored their own experience.

Lucid, if you're reading this, I must say that your writing has indeed justified your handle of "Lucid". Of the various folks I've seen both on Salon recently and here on ROD and on EXSY, the two people I personally think, have mirrored my own experience and described it so, so incredibly clearly, are you and Sadhvi. Your handle describes your writing perfectly.

Lucid, I hope that you will consider writing a book or blog yourself someday about your process of getting involved with SY, experiences while in SY, and the process of leaving SY. Personally, with the clarity of thought you have demonstrated through your writing, I believe that many, many people still in SY, already out of SY, and even contemplating getting involved with SY or other cults but who haven't fully made the leap in yet, could stand to benefit tremendously.

Just my two cents which you are free to take or leave. Personally, I hope the public gets a way to see more of your writing on this subject.

Anonymous said...

After 30 + years of SY involvement, Marta's book broke my inner world open to listen to my actual experience and not the one it is suggested I should be having.

I've been reading, recovering, healing and learning from this site, the Leaving Siddha Yoga site, lots of reading and many long private conversations with a few trusted friends that I felt I could confide in. I want to express my deepest gratitude to you SeekHer, Lucid, Sadvi and many others who keep writing and who so often mirror my own experience. You've helped me formulate words of my own by pointing where to look.

I recently was with a group of devoted followers in a social situation and that disconnect in their eyes and body language was there in many but not all. (The same energy I've notice with my sister's born again Christian friends) Turns out, however, I've always known a few who quietly kept true to themselves but appeared to be part of the group. Well, it has been a very nice group of people on the whole and I bear no ill will to any of them. I'm still healing from my own painful awareness that I neglected my own self's truth while filling my life's time with someone else's idea of self (Self?)

Actually, the company wasn't so bad, all in all, for me personally. Just deeply disappointing. I'm glad to be out. Free, really.

Anonymous said...

I think we should form a club--or maybe a cult! I am completely with you both on Lucid's lucidity, and also on Sadhvi. Theirs have been most reflective by far of my experience of that huge pile of comments.

I left around the same time as Lucid, after a couple years of increasing creepy-crawly discomfort with what was going on, the disconnect between what was happening and the way it was spoken of especially.

Thanks to you, SeekHer, Lucid, and Sadhvi (who I know well from the "ex" lists).

older but wiser

Anonymous said...

SeekHer,
thanks for posting this from Lucid. I agree that Lucid's posts on the Salon site have been so.............LUCID. They were a welcome relief from the waves of siddha-speak, passive agression, nastiness and really creepy energy. I had forgotten just how dense that energy is. Thanks so much, Lucid, for your contribution to understanding. And thanks to those who have thanked me....one of the most heartening things for me since leaving siddha yoga has been the discovery of so many thoughtful, intelligent and compassionate "ex" yogis. Maha pranaaaaaams to all of you...lol. I knew you were there all the time.

love,
sadhvi

SeekHer said...

Sadhvi:

They say every gambler has a "tell", a small unconscious gesture they make when bluffing that gives them away. I find nothing more telling about Siddha Yoga apologists than the invective they use against anyone who questions the path. I've thought about stepping out from behind my nom de plume from time to time, but then people like Marta and Dan are attacked so personally and viciously for being the brave public face of ex-SY and I think again.

If the world really is as you see it, these people live in a very different world than the "See God in Everyone" word they claim to uphold

Anonymous said...

SeekHer,

The only thought I could possibly add to that last comment of yours, is "No Sh*t!"

Anonymous said...

>>>"away. I find nothing more telling about Siddha Yoga apologists than the invective they use against anyone who questions the path. I've thought about stepping out from behind my nom de plume from time to time, but then people like Marta and Dan are attacked so personally and viciously for being the brave public face of ex-SY and I think again.
"<<

Dear SeekHer,
I hear you. It seems important to me that we ARE willing to be identified if the s**t hits the fan, meaning if we are "outed", we need to be prepared to be transparent about our real world identities. When I began to post on ex-syda, I was just too ignorant about computers to hide my identity so whoever knew me in syda, knows who I am. There are not that many "sadhvis" in syda. For a few years, I did alot of on-line jousting with people..including Kumunda/Sharon. Part of that, for me, was letting go of the terrible fear I had about speaking what I felt was true (a fear that arose during my time in siddha yoga) and learning how to deal with passive-agression. I am ok with direct confrontation (within reason) but the spiritual-speak and the passive-agressive stuff is difficult for me so I think it used to push me into overly combative states. Talking to a passive-agressive person is like wrestling with a poisonous snake...you never know when they might suddenly spit venom in a blast of sugar. I recall some "conversations" with Swami G. and Rasa Von Werder that went way beyond any kind of rationality (although neither one seemed overly concerned with rationality). In retrospect, I can see my own fear in those interactions...fear of EVER betraying myself again. And I also see my real NEED at the time to stand up to what I perceived as someone claiming "spiritual authority". It served its purpose, I guess. And, for me, the post-syda groups were important. Through them, I learned how to speak what was true for me and not be so reactive about what others were saying (a big thanks to Stuart here..lol) but, geez, it took a LONG time for that to happen...just as long as it took me to begin to realize that the "fear" was about my own egoic identity and its frailty. Once that happened and the reality of the whole "identity misconception" began to stabilize, the fear kind of dissipated naturally.
Marta, Dan, Radha...all three have taken on very public roles and I applaud their courage. I don't give a damn if Marta makes a million dollars from her memoirs, Dan buys a nice big house in Nyack with a pool out back and Radha becomes a famous talk show host (lol...I can just see this all quoted as 'fact' by some idiot). Without their willingness to stand up publically, we would all be dismissed as "imaginary"...one person with alot of on-line tags or a disgruntled Fallsburg local.
Anyway, SeekHer, to me the issue amounts to being willing to step out if that becomes necessary. Just satisfying someone's "curiosity" is not what I would consider necessary. I think the occasion presents itself...or it doesn't..either way is ok.

love to you,
sadhvi

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

SeekHer,
sorry to take up so much space but I wanted to be clear that I am not criticizing siddha yoga devotees for their beliefs. I am just asking them what they mean by some terms that they use. And I don't pretend to know the answers to these questions by any means.
There is an absolutely beautiful essay online by Cathy Boucher about Nisargadatta Maharaj and the Navnath Sampradaya. In it, the question of lineage and lineage holders is addressed by Nisarga with a clarity I could never come close to.
There are many people now who claim that their "lineage master" is Ramana Maharshi just as there are many people (some of them quite bizarre) who claim "lineage" from Nityananda and many others who claim "lineage" from Papaji. Alot of it seems to stem from a desire for legitimacy....a way of hitching your wagon to a "Great Soul" and having some of that believability rub off on you as a teacher. It's a good thing to be clear about what, exactly, lineage really means. I know I was not when I was in siddha yoga. If I had asked some of the questions that I am asking others to think about, the whole house of cards would have collapsed.
Prajna comes from a union of Heart and Mind. Without Mind, we can be like naive and silly sheep; without Heart (and I don't mean "feelings and emotions" but Compassion), we can fail to see the human dimension in all of this.
Thank you for opening this forum to the possibility of further discusssion.

sadhvi

SeekHer said...

Sadhvi

you are not taking up space, pixels are free, and unless and until I think someone has begun to hijack a conversation here I make no effort to moderate posts. Your perspective is welcome

Anonymous said...

Dear SeekHer,

I have a story to tell you and you’re never going to believe it. Please bear with me, I am going somewhere with this:

In January of 2008, after back-to-back deaths in my immediate family, a devotee friend called and told me Gurumayi had actually come out of hiding (my words, not hers) and spoken at that year’s New Year’s Day address. At that point it had been, what, three or four years since anyone had heard from her? “It was so wonderful,” my friend said, “to be with her again in that form.” We spoke for awhile about other things and then, at then end of our call, my friend gently mentioned Gurumayi's talk again. “I think it’s still available at the website, if you’re interested.”

I hadn’t actually thought all that much one way or another about Gurumayi since the last time I'd seen her via satellite in 2004. Energetically she had all but dropped off my radar. I hadn’t “felt her presence” in my life in a long time, so long in fact I almost hadn't noticed I was no longer feeling it.

After hanging up the phone I sat down at my computer and regressed back into a well-it-couldn’t-hurt-and-maybe-this-time-things-will-be-different (meaning maybe I'll actually resonate with something in the talk) kind of feeling. I logged onto the SY site where in all prior years the message had been displayed free for all to see, in synch with its actual delivery. But instead of the New Years Message I received another one “inviting” me to register and pay $100 for the pre-recorded audio talk. Some things in SY, I thought, never change.

No biggie. I knew in 2008 some devotee somewhere must have blogged something, left the SY site and started googling around. At some point, after not having much luck, I just started making up random things and plugged in “Where is Gurumayi?”

Boom.

Your site popped up along with words “When what we had hoped for came to nothing . . . ”. Talk about foreshadowing! Then, while reading further down into your entries I happened on the link to Marta’s blog. At the time, The Guru Looked Good and all the comments that came with it were still there, still hot from the oven.

The rest, as they say, is history . . . Or perhaps better shared at some later date over coffee.

Flash forward to two weeks ago, the EPL premiere, salon.com article, SY rebuttal and all the dust getting kicked up and mud being flung, yet again. After I hammered my own 2,000 cents into salon I went back and started reading through all the letters – and lord have mercy, I’m only halfway there! Doing so brought me to your letters and back to your blog, middle of last week, for the first time since 2008.

So here’s the part you won’t believe, it’s hard for me to believe too (but maybe it will make believers of us both!):

I came her tonight with the intent of telling you I am two years late on saying Thank You. I came here tonight to say what I said above about finding your blog once upon a time and through it finding Marta’s as well. I came here to let you know you acted as a key catalyst in one man's very important growth process. I came here to tell you a lot of what you’re now adding to the conversation here and over at salon makes sense to me. I was struck especially by “Why Eat, Pray, Love means you’ll never see Gurumayi again” as well as, and even more so, the message you posted yesterday at salon.

And then, tonight, just as I came here to thank you I see:

“Thank you, Lucid, for so eloquently stating what so many of us have gone through, finally putting the path in our rear view mirrors.”

Cue twilight zone music.

There's more to say but, for now: Thank you.

– Lucid

Anonymous said...

Dear SeekHer,

I have a story to tell you and you’re never going to believe it. Please bear with me, I am going somewhere with this:

In January of 2008, after back-to-back deaths in my immediate family, a devotee friend called and told me Gurumayi had actually come out of hiding (my words, not hers) and spoken at that year’s New Year’s Day address. At that point it had been, what, three or four years since anyone had heard from her? “It was so wonderful,” my friend said, “to be with her again in that form.” We spoke for awhile about other things and then, at then end of our call, my friend gently mentioned Gurumayi's talk again. “I think it’s still available at the website, if you’re interested.”

I hadn’t actually thought all that much one way or another about Gurumayi since the last time I'd seen her via satellite in 2004. Energetically she had all but dropped off my radar. I hadn’t “felt her presence” in my life in a long time, so long in fact I almost hadn't noticed I was no longer feeling it.

After hanging up the phone I sat down at my computer and regressed back into a well-it-couldn’t-hurt-and-maybe-this-time-things-will-be-different (meaning maybe I'll actually resonate with something in the talk) kind of feeling. I logged onto the SY site where in all prior years the message had been displayed free for all to see, in synch with its actual delivery. But instead of the New Years Message I received another one “inviting” me to register and pay $100 for the pre-recorded audio talk. Some things in SY, I thought, never change.

No biggie. I knew in 2008 some devotee somewhere must have blogged something, left the SY site and started googling around. At some point, after not having much luck, I just started making up random things and plugged in “Where is Gurumayi?”

Boom.

Your site popped up along with words “When what we had hoped for came to nothing . . . ”. Talk about foreshadowing! Then, while reading further down into your entries I happened on the link to Marta’s blog. At the time, The Guru Looked Good and all the comments that came with it were still there, still hot from the oven.

The rest, as they say, is history. Or perhaps better shared at some later date over coffee.

(continued in next post) . . .

Anonymous said...

Dear SeekHer,

I have a story to tell you and you’re never going to believe it. Please bear with me, I am going somewhere with this:

In January of 2008, after back-to-back deaths in my immediate family, a devotee friend called and told me Gurumayi had actually come out of hiding (my words, not hers) and spoken at that year’s New Year’s Day address. At that point it had been, what, three or four years since anyone had heard from her? “It was so wonderful,” my friend said, “to be with her again in that form.” We spoke for awhile about other things and then, at then end of our call, my friend gently mentioned Gurumayi's talk again. “I think it’s still available at the website, if you’re interested.”

I hadn’t actually thought all that much one way or another about Gurumayi since the last time I'd seen her via satellite in 2004. Energetically she had all but dropped off my radar. I hadn’t “felt her presence” in my life in a long time, so long in fact I almost hadn't noticed I was no longer feeling it.

After hanging up the phone I sat down at my computer and regressed back into a well-it-couldn’t-hurt-and-maybe-this-time-things-will-be-different (meaning maybe I'll actually resonate with something in the talk) kind of feeling. I logged onto the SY site where in all prior years the message had been displayed free for all to see, in synch with its actual delivery. But instead of the New Years Message I received another one “inviting” me to register and pay $100 for the pre-recorded audio talk. Some things in SY, I thought, never change.

No biggie. I knew in 2008 some devotee somewhere must have blogged something, left the SY site and started googling around. At some point, after not having much luck, I just started making up random things and plugged in “Where is Gurumayi?”

(continued) . . .

Anonymous said...

(continued from previous) . . .

Boom.

Your site popped up along with words “When what we had hoped for came to nothing . . . ”. Talk about foreshadowing! Then, while reading further down into your entries I happened on the link to Marta’s blog. At the time, The Guru Looked Good and all the comments that came with it were still there, still hot from the oven.

The rest, as they say, is history. Or perhaps better shared at some later date over coffee.

Flash forward to two weeks ago, the EPL premiere, salon.com article, SY rebuttal and all the dust getting kicked up and mud being flung, yet again. After I hammered my own 2,000 cents into salon I went back and started reading through all the letters – and lord have mercy, I’m only halfway there! Doing so brought me to your letters and back to your blog, middle of last week, for the first time since 2008.

So here’s the part you won’t believe, it’s hard for me to believe too (but maybe it will make believers of us both!):

(continued) . . .

Anonymous said...

(continued from previous) . . .

I came her tonight with the intent of telling you I am two years late on saying Thank You. I came here tonight to say what I said above about finding your blog once upon a time and through it finding Marta’s as well. I came here to let you know you acted as a key catalyst in one man's very important growth process. I came here to tell you a lot of what you’re now adding to the conversation here and over at salon makes sense to me. I was struck especially by “Why Eat, Pray, Love means you’ll never see Gurumayi again” as well as, and even more so, the message you posted yesterday at salon.

And then, tonight, just as I came here to thank you I see:

“Thank you, Lucid, for so eloquently stating what so many of us have gone through, finally putting the path in our rear view mirrors.”

Cue twilight zone music.

There's more to say but, for now: Thank you.

– Lucid

SeekHer said...

Lucid:

Your comment made my day, so I'm especially happy it was the first thing I saw upon logging in to email this morning. There were several things about your "just living" letter that lept out at me as indicative of my experience leaving Siddha Yoga. First:

"The world isn’t a bubble that can be ruptured. The world isn’t a sets of beliefs that can be threatened by an article at a website, or shattered by some secret someone's hiding.The world is too old and too big for all that."

Yes! Dear God, yes! It is only in hindsight that I can look back and see how much mental energy was tied up in my maintaining the illusions that Siddha Yoga sold. Life is so much more scary and complex and contradictory and authentic than what we bought into. And so much more worth living.

I loved, too, when you wrote that Siddha Yoga became so much more fascinating to you when you reached that balance point between believer and utter skeptic. That is the exact space I was in when I started this blog. When you finally remove the mental blinders that prevented you from really looking at your experience, you realize that your life is so much more than fodder for an experience share. You came to SY as a teen, but I came as an adult and I abdicated my critical thinking little by little by little. I was a very skeptical person when I came to SY, having been burned badly by Catholicism, among other things. I willingly surrendered the capacity to see the bullshit I was being fed for the privilege of being led. Regaining that capacity was, and still is, liberating.

Of course, nothing in life is free. What we pay for such clarity is the loss of, well, I'll let you describe what must be lost:

"At the peak of my involvement with SY, I lived in some sort of parallel, mystical universe. I felt everything that happened in my life was guided (in an almost-too-big-to-wrap-my-mind-around way) by Gurumayi...This sense that you’ve found the ultimate, all-knowing, all-loving parent who will protect, guide and never abandon you is a feeling without compare. In Gurumayi words to us: “When you think my love is with you, it is with you. When you think my love is not with you, it is still with you. Always remember this, wherever you are in your life, my love is with you always.”

This quote of Gurumayi's, taken from "God is Your Constant Companion" has ALWAYS been, for me, the ne plus ultra of her talks. It is the only talk of hers I still have on my iTunes playlist. Just now, for the first time in years, I listened to it again. Of course, now, free from her enchantment, I hear things I never heard the many, many times I listened to it before. Perhaps I'll make these the subject of another post; they're too numerous for a comment. But this promise of a constant guiding presence that will forever remain with you is so, so slyly seductive. Again, I yield to your most apt description:

"If only someone could be that for us. It would indeed feel like it’s own kind of liberation – from fear, stress, and anything in our lives we don’t feel capable of facing.

What a relief if you truly could place all your anxiety into someone else’s all-knowing, all-loving hands and let it go . . ."

SeekHer said...

Lucid:

Oh! and more to the point of replying to your comment, what made my day is realizing that you had visited here and that RoD had helped, in some way, shape your experience of leaving SY and contribute to the realizations you so eloquently describe in your posts on Salon. I see Marta's influence even more, as her memoir is a great, instructive example of how to write about your own experiences cleanly, clearly and powerfully as you certainly do.

Now that the dust (and mud!) have settled over at Salon, please consider continuing writing about your experience. I would be only too happy to publish your posts here and, frankly, could use other contributors to keep this blog fresh while we await the sequel to Eat, Pray, Love, or some such other moment that will draw the battle lines once again. If you decide to do so, it would be helpful if you included contact info in your next comment which, I'll of course keep confidential.

And yes, your chain of coincidences would have made a lovely experience share of Wonders-of-the-Guru's-Grace once upon a time==how we were trained to think! But then, synchronicity certainly does not belong to Malti Shetty.

Anonymous said...

Dear SeekHer,

You mention about the next thing where the battle lines will be drawn once again.

I found it ironic how subtle yet clear invective was hurled at you by someone calling you the "King of Invective".

And it made it very obvious to me that although ROD, EXSY, and TGLG all helped tremendously with my exit from SY, when it come to the "battle" betwen "In" and "Ex", typically, discussion is utterly pointless. I have come to the conclusion that as beneficial as sites like this one are to the leaving process, something has to happen to bring a person to that balance point between hook-line-sinker total believer and utter skeptic, in order for sites like the ones I just mentioned to be any good, to do any good.

The veil over my own eyes was not rended, the lens in my SY way of looking at everything did not crack, until I allowed myself to acknowledge that things just weren't adding up anymore and maintain the courage to face the fears of what that entailed straight on, without flinching. Letting go of an entire system of beliefs, thought patterns, attitudes, and values absorbed from the sub-culture was a scary thing and for years it was far easier to look away from that and sink back into psuedo-blissful Siddha-think.

Until an "Innie" reaches that point of balance, our "Exxie" ears are closed to their thinking, and theirs are equally closed to what we assert. It all devolves rapidly into a lot of ugly rock throwing with a few clear-thinking people who write jewels of prose respectfully and beautifully...but they're buried deeply in the haystack.

(Problem all that rock-throwing is, for us Exxies, SY has long since been revealed as a glass house. Hmmm...for some reason an image of the Fallsburg Mandap just leapt to mind!)

And so...I'm currently utterly on the fence as to whether to even bother with these "opportunities" for discussion anymore. On the one hand, they're helpful, but on the other hand, given the level of mutual invective that seems to result, they're not.

What a conundrum.

Thanks for the opportunity to vent.
Deepak

SeekHer said...

Deepak

You're absolutely right about the gap between them "innies" and us "outties" (pun on navel-gazers duly noted!) Even just a few years ago this gap was not so wide that it could not be bridged, but now it seem a yawning abyss. No need to be on the fence about it, trust your instincts about the futility of further dialogue.

Those who remain in Siddha Yoga are happy in their never neverland, like Amit Singh who titled his letter to Salon "I Get It", and who imagines that one day, after many lifetimes, we "outties" will get it too and have a good laugh at our obstinacy. Or, that Sharon Kumundu creature who thinks Baba's big mistake was letting the riff-raff in the door when he should have hoarded his shakti and dispensed it solely to the truly worthy (i.e. her).

Thanks for the heads up that J. Whitehouse (which, for some reason, I keep reading as "Whitewash") responded to my Salon letter, anointing me with the title King of Invective. I suppose that's fair, I've certainly been that here on RoD, among other things (my favorite knick-name came from a reader who christened me Mr. Ninth-Grade Creative Writing Winner.) I wrote back to Whitehouse, asking simply for more information about the satsangs he claimed to attend with Gurumayi in the past year. He may reply but I don't expect an answer--if he's telling the truth I would imagine the programs were strictly of the "for your eyes and ears only" sort served up to wealthy donors and full-time sevites, whenever Gurumayi is contractually obligated to show up in saffron and look beatific. I would like nothing more than to be proved wrong, of course. Should Whitehouse provide actual details that confirm Gurumayi's presence at programs in the last year I think it would amaze many, many people in Siddha Yoga who feel they are out there going it alone.

Although, of course, that would open up a whole other can of worms.

Anonymous said...

And the majority of us are going it alone. The centers seem devoid of shakti. And those of us that are not wealthy enough or privileged enough to be part of that ultra exclusive inner circle are left in the cold. The closing of the south fallsburg ashram really marked a turning point for me. I was quite upset by it and subsequent news that buildings were sold or allowed to decay. I mourned and now I am moving on. It's a very slow process but I have come to the realization that hey, God dwells within me as me! My happiness or closeness to God doesn't depend on someone in an orange robe.

Anonymous said...

SeekHer,

As for that "yawning abyss", I used to wonder why the dialogue had died down so starkly, not just here at ROD, but on EXSY, LifeAfterSY, The Guru Looked Good, etc. Barely any discussion traffic went on, on any of these sites, for a very long time.

Now, I can see why. That abyss has now gotten so wide, so much has already been said on both sides, that neither side really has anything to offer the other.

Fish and birds cannot speak to each other intelligibly.

Apparently, neither can Innies and Exxies.

Deepak

SeekHer said...

Fish and birds cannot speak to each other---that's good, and makes me wonder which one we are? I vote birds, since we flew the coop and the others are still circling the goldfish bowl.

Lurching through metaphors, the "innies" have had seven years of navel gazing to hone their rationalizations. Either they are part of a small elite, like Whitehouse, who still have limited access, or they are out there on their own hoping against hope that absence really does make the heart grow stronger. Either way, their reality in no way synchs up with mine anymore. It is literally a different path than the one we were all on together.

BTW---Anon 4:13 comments here that the Fallsburg ashram is closed. Does that mean shuttered, cleared out, up for sale? Or simply that it only occupied by, what's the euphemism, "long-term retreat participants"? Anyone know?

Personally I think SYDA will hold on to its property in Sullivan County as long as possible and then sell the gas mining rights. They are said to be worth as much as $1,000 per acre and that ashram sits on MUCH more land than the casual visitor would imagine. Ka-ching to the tune of millions of dollars just for signing over some relatively worthless property in a depressed county that SYDA no longer even uses. Of course, as anyone who has seen the documentary Gasland on HBO knows, that would pretty much destroy the ground water system of South Fallsburg, Fallsburg, Hurleyville, Kiameha Lake and maybe even beyond. What a lovely parting gift to the people of Sullivan County after decades of depressing their tax rolls, if SYDA left behind the miracle of tap water that could be ignited with a match.

cobra said...

hi, sorry I wasn't clear. When I mean SMA was closed i mean closed to visitors and short term stay.It still really hurts me because of Bede baba's temple, which belongs to everyone. All the time i spent at SMA was in that temple and to be denied access to that unless i intend to stay there long term is just horrible to me. It made me do a lot of thinking about how that is not a very devotee friendly environment to cultivate and that led me to do a lot of soul searching and ultimately to your blog.

Anonymous said...

SeekHer,

There are natural gas deposits underneath SYDA's property???

First I'd heard this. Where'd you learn about it? This is significant.

First, even with as large as a plot of land that Anugraha and its surrounding held lands hold on both sides of Route 42, and with the somewhat smaller Atma Nidhi added, natural gas deposits tend to cover a larger area than just that. It would surprise me of some of the locals didn't decide to get rich quick by selling their own land's mining rights...using the same deposit(s) underneath the S. Fallsburg SYDA facilities.

What I'm saying is that I'm surpried somebody else hasn't yet capitalized on the natural gas under the area, particularly as interest in this substance as an alternative to crude oil and gasoline grows.

And yes, I saw the "Innies" as the fish since they're still swimming in the bowl of Kool-Aid and would feel lost and/or suffocated with out it, and us "Exxies" as the birds since we have indeed flown away and recaptured our freedom to soar. You were on the same page as me.

Deepak

SeekHer said...

Deepak: From local So Falls newspaper

Sullivan bracing for enormous rush by natural gas companies

Big money's at stake

By Steve Israel
also by Adam Bosch

Times Herald-Record

Published: 2:00 AM - 07/06/08

Sullivan County, and your Pennsylvania neighbors along the Delaware, brace yourselves. The natural gas rush is on, and your lives will forever change.
Prospectors from national energy companies hoping to tap a fertile crescent of gas that stretches from Ohio to the Delaware River are knocking on doors, hoping to secure leases to drill on private property.
Supporters of the gas rush, like farmer Bill Graby of Callicoon, see opportunity beneath the lush fields of quiet towns like Fremont, Cochecton and Delaware.
Gas drilling will be a bonanza bigger than long-awaited casinos, supporters say. Workers in a county with one of the region's highest unemployment rates will find new jobs. Hotels, restaurants and gas stations will be jammed.

"It'll make this area bigger than Texas," says Graby.
Critics say the drilling could do more harm than the massive proposed power line, New York Regional Interconnect, that would slice through much of the same Sullivan area.

SeekHer said...

Deepak:

Sullivan County sits at the north eastern edge of the largest natural gas deposit in the US---stretching from the Catskills across Pennsylvania, West Virginia and a half dozen other central states. The gas exists within a layer of shale a thousand feet below the surface. Unlike oil, this gas cannot be extracted by drilling one or two wells and syphoning it out. Instead, a process called "fracking" is used which requires hundreds of thousands of gallons of water and a witches brew of toxic chemicals to be pumped into the ground, shattering the rock and releasing the gas. Under the Bush administration, Dick Cheney exempted the process of fracking from Clean Water Act, and the literally thousands of wells that have already been drilled have poisoned ground water all over the US.

See here for more:

http://gaslandthemovie.com/about-the-film/

SeekHer said...

Cobra:

I agree that Bade Baba temple is special in way that literally no other part of the So Fall ashram is---we were taught that the murti is chaitanya and meant to be worshipped by the entire sangham. Keeping it (him!) locked up away from his devotees is a violation; they might as well submerge him in Nityananda Lake.

Anonymous said...

Ah, so.

Fracking is "hydraulic fracturing".
Well...now the existence of a natural gas deposit THAT large underneath all that Eastern U.S. shale, is a natural resource datum I wasn't aware of. Most interesting.

Think the Foundation is "holding out" for when demand for those mining rights get bid up even higher, can earn them top dollar on sale for those mining rights?

And perhaps this explains the unusual name of a Pennsylvania town I used to pass through on Interstate 81 on the way to/from the 'shram: Frackville!

As for the Nit murti in SoFall: As far as I'm concerned GM and her brahmin cohort must have "drowned" him because I used to have incredible experiences sitting in that temple with the old murti that Muk put in...but after the brahmins finished whatever Vedic processes they conducted to withdraw the prana from the old murti, and re-install it into the new one...whatever they did, I don't think it worked. I would sit by the new murti and feel absolutely NOTHING. No "shakti", no vibration, no "messages" (if you know what I mean), no NOTHING. For me, the new one was as inert could be.

Deepak

Anonymous said...

And by "drowning" I meant that per my understanding the Foundation had the brahmins submerge the old murti of Nit into the depths of Lake Nit.

(Of course, my understanding could be inaccurate since it was 'shram hearsay. With all the fallacies and pure imagination that we now know was floating around over the years, what really happened is anybody's guess.)

Deepak

Anonymous said...

Dayum.

That "Marcellus Shale Deposit" is freakin' HUGE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shaleusa2.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellus_Formation

I'd rather predict that much of Appalachia north from New York State, west through Ohio, and southward into northeast Tennessee...will someday be natural gas boomville while also (unfortunately) poisoining the groundwater across the USA. Same for much of Michigan if you look at that other huge deposit in that state.

Given how economically depressed both Appalachia and Michigan are, I'm basing my prediction on the forces of economics eventually winning out over environmental and other social considerations, as they usually do.

Personally, I'm on the fence. This is a hard one. I'd never sanction harming the environment or harming the water tables of the people that live in the region and rely on the water.

By the same token, so many are jobless, so much opportunity to grow prosperity, could result, it's hard to dismiss it totally out of hand. (Unless one wishes abject poverty on folks.)

I find myself torn between being excited and being aghast.

SeekHer, this was quite an eye-opener.

Deepak

Anonymous said...

The quoted material below from SeekHer is very interesting. It could indicate Muktananda's vision of where SMA needed to be located.

'No, not there', etc., until the current location was discovered and purchasing began.

Records of geological mineral deposits have long been on record for areas of the USA and around the world. It would only take the knowledge of someone who knew where to look to seek these records. The rest would be history.

Siddha Yoga, SYDA, Shree Muktananda Ashram has its own water supply (listed as ground water). This alone is worth a good deal of money in today's world.

The destruction of all aspects of the natural habitat of Lake Nityananda and the surrounding land area tells us that SYDA had no care for what it did to the environment.

It was only after SYDA was forced into compliance that the restoration work in the Lake Nityananda are began.

When an entire ecosystem is wiped out, as SYDA did with this project, it takes a long time before one begins to be establish itself.

It is no stretch of the imagination to consider that the development of mineral rights would
be of no concern to SYDA if monetary gain were available.

Siddha Yoga, SYDA, Shree Muktananda Ashram, under the guidance of Gurumayi Chidvilasanda has purchased large swaths of land surround the ashram.

-------

From SeekHer
Quoted material...

Sullivan bracing for enormous rush by natural gas companies

Big money's at stake

By Steve Israel
also by Adam Bosch

Times Herald-Record

Published: 2:00 AM - 07/06/08

Sullivan County, and your Pennsylvania neighbors along the Delaware, brace yourselves. The natural gas rush is on, and your lives will forever change.
Prospectors from national energy companies hoping to tap a fertile crescent of gas that stretches from Ohio to the Delaware River are knocking on doors, hoping to secure leases to drill on private property.
Supporters of the gas rush, like farmer Bill Graby of Callicoon, see opportunity beneath the lush fields of quiet towns like Fremont, Cochecton and Delaware.
Gas drilling will be a bonanza bigger than long-awaited casinos, supporters say. Workers in a county with one of the region's highest unemployment rates will find new jobs. Hotels, restaurants and gas stations will be jammed.

"It'll make this area bigger than Texas," says Graby.
Critics say the drilling could do more harm than the massive proposed power line, New York Regional Interconnect, that would slice through much of the same Sullivan area.

August 29, 2010 5:20 PM

SeekHer said...

LUCID

I am truly sorry; by unmoderating comments on RoD I inadvertantly allowed your comments to me to be automatically posted here. I deleted them immediately as soon as I saw this. I didn't even wait to read them, so I don't know what you wrote. If you wish, please write and tear me a new one at the following email address. I created it especially for RoD:

seekher2010@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

Just sent you an email.

Thanks!

Lucid