Quote
The Anticult
The problem is that some folks into the Nondualist ideas, seem to believe that we create all of our own realities, not just its perception.
So if a brick falls off a truck and takes your eye out, you created that.
Lightning hits you on the head, yep, same deal.

So its a short walk to believing that if you get murdered in your sleep in a Genocide, then you created that too.
Or that you are 100% responsible for the lies being told to you by a Guru.

Stuart aka RandomStu with all his harping on taking responsibility seems to fall into this category.

People following this thread may want to check out the following new thread re some info uncovered about RandomStu's zen teacher and a possible connection with Byron Katie:

[[url=http://forum.culteducation.com/read.php?12,58393]Zen and the Art of Organization?[/url]]

(Seung Sahn- Kwan Um School of Zen)
[forum.culteducation.com]

Wow, some very strange developments indeed.
We've had some spirited debate recently with our new Warrior Zen friend RandomStu aka Stuart Resnick, about Byron Katie and her techniques of persuasion.

Stuart Resnick advertises on the internet that he practices Korean-style Zen at Empty Gate Zen Center www.emptygatezen.com
He says he has been with the Kwan Um School of Zen for 18 years.
__________________________________________________________
[www.allexperts.com]
Expert Profile: Stuart Resnick
Expertise: I'm a long-time practitioner in a Korean-style Zen school. I can answer questions regarding Zen, formal sitting meditation, self-inquiry, the practice of "koan" transmission, and offer the particular perspective of this school on the great life questions.
Experience in the area
18 years of formal practice with the Kwan Um School of Zen, currently with the Empty Gate Zen Center of Berkeley, currently a "Senior Dharma Teacher" at this center, I give periodic talks and informally answer questions of students interested in Zen practice and teaching style
__________________________________________________________________

The Zen Master named "Seung Sahn" founded the "Kwan Um School of Zen" which controls Empty Gate Zen Center, where Stuart Resnick has been formally for 18 years.

Turns out that Byron Katie's husband Stephen Mitchell edited books for Zen Master Seung Sahn.
The Whole World is a Single Flower: 365 Kong-ans for Everyday Life with Questions and Commentary by Seung Sahn and Stephen Mitchell (Paperback - 1992)
So maybe it IS a conspiracy!
;-)

Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell together run their own massive companies, which are associated with the Kwan Um School of Zen, and Seung Sahn, in at least the content of these books.
Guess who is writing most of the silly Zen-like Koans in the recent Byron Katie books? Maybe Seung Sahn from the grave!! Who knows...
Well, as they say, there are no accidents in the universe...grasshoppers...seek and ye shall find...


But seriously, perhaps now Stuart Resnick can point us to the explanation of how Zen Master Seung Sahn was having sexual relations with his female students for years, and got away with it?

((Seung Sahn) Kwan Um School of Zen, sexual abuses of students)
[forum.culteducation.com]

...as far as Zen Master Seung Sahn...
there are some very very strange inconsistencies here...above its stated that Seung Sahn, the Buddhist Monk leader of the entire school was having sexual relationships with a number of his female followers.

But the Statement Of Ethics for the "Kwan Um School of Zen" forbids this explicitly.
And if a person does not "apologize", that is supposed to lead to EXPULSION.

Why does that not apply to Zen Master Seung Sahn himself? Did he make a written apology and admit what he did? Or did he try to deny it, or rationalize it?

Why does it say on Wikipedia that...
"The sexual affairs were apparently not abusive or hurtful to the women. By all accounts, they were probably strengthening and certainly gave the women access to power."

Who wrote that on Wikipedia????
Are you kidding me? Below it says the exact opposite...

"The recent history of Buddhist organizations in America shows very clearly that sexual relationships between teachers and students can lead to great pain..."

Does this make any sense at all?
How can you revere a Zen Master Seung Sahn, the founder of your entire organization, when he has violated the code of ethics numeorus times, (violated his vows?), appears to have concealed it and lied about it for YEARS, and not apologized by trying to RATIONALIZE the sex by saying it was not about the sex?

That is a screaming red flag of organizational cover-up.
Can someone explain how that works?


PS:
of course...RandomStu has nothing at all to do with Byron Katie...nothing at all.
Except that his Zen Master wrote books with Byron Katie's current husband.
There is no connection there whatsoever. I agree totally.

One assumes clarifications about the skirt-chasing Zen Master are forth-coming.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2008 06:03AM by The Anticult.

Just want to vent a little bit... which btw is a valid psychological tool...

I find it incredibly annoying when folks come here speaking with forked tongues and attempting to divert attention away from Byron Katie et al.'s culty techniques. I think it is absolutely appropriate to call them on it, as well as attempt to determine any affiliations they might have relevant to the topic of cults and the like.

Okay, venting over. For the moment anyway!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2008 10:28PM by helpme2times.

and might I add that is especially true when the person in question is acting self-righteous, manipulative, dishonest, arrogant, hypocritical, unprepared, and apparently going out of his way to be personally insulting.

Some of these guys seem to think they can dish it out to their "Zen students", but one would have thought they would have learned the first lesson of classical Zen, which is rigorous self-honesty, which in classical times was often learned at the end of the Zen-masters stick to the head. (of course now a Zen-stick to the head is called assault, now I bet you have to sign a waiver before each Zen-stick smackdown).

oh man...came across a blog about Siddya Yoga by Marta Szabo below.

What I found shocking, is that the EAT PRAY LOVE lady, Elizabeth Gilbert...is she into the current Siddha Yoga?
I saw her on Oprah one time, with her eyes bugging out of her head talking about EAT PRAY LOVE. (I thought is was going to be like Sex in the City, or something).
But then she started going off about her India Ashram yadda yadda, and I just switched it off. (I can't bear to watch more Yuppies finding India...its too painful...but anyways...)

But I do remember thinking...this women is seriously flaked-out on something...totally tripped-out.
Of course, she did NOT mention the specific Guru or methods, or problems! Of course not, gotta hide that behind FOOD and "GOD"...
Didn't Oprah make that book #1? EAT PRAY LOVE?


I tell ya, these krazy kults are going to end up "controlling the world", as they target powerful people, and use their techniques to bring them under control, and then use the same techniques to control large masses of people with mass persuasion.
Social POWER is created by managing the minds of large groups of people, and small groups of powerful people.



THE GURU LOOKED GOOD by Marta Szabo
[the-guru-looked-good.blogspot.com]
"This blog presents my memoir describing ten-plus years on staff in Siddha Yoga ashrams, the same ashram described, in a very different way, in EAT PRAY LOVE by Elizabeth Gilbert."

and after looking at the comments on the Marta Szabo blog above...
...surprise...Werner Erhard appears to have had his fingers in Siddya Yoga too, according to some comments below, by a "Dan Shaw" who if I am not mistaken, was bantering with Stuart Resnick years ago on Usenet about all this same stuff!!
I am liking what I have read so far of "Dan Shaw"..someone being intellectually honest? WTF?!

They also make some comments about NLP, but NLP was really about "modeling" and not really a thing in itself. What they probably mean is that NLP studied ERICKSONIAN HYPNOSIS in great detail, and then this was mis-used by many many people to gain Unconscious influence/control of people.
People have NO IDEA of how powerful this stuff is.
This is EXACTLY what Byron Katie does, as detailed in these threads. She does it by the book, literally. But I guess "spiritual" people don't read academic books.
Byron Katie then fused it with the Nondualist stuff, but then publically backed away from that a bit, as that is too weird for the mass public at first.

This might explain why former people from Siddha Yoga seem to use/abuse language in a similar way, as it appears their dang Guru Muktananda learned some of the same techniques from the LGAT's. Guys like Muktananda are not dummies, they read the literature, they knew what was going on around the world and where the money was.

It could be some former Siddha Yoga folks are still indoctrinated in the same thought reform system, and just switched license plates.
For example, Carol Skolnick, writes in this manner, I thought she studied that stuff directly, but its possible she learned it 2nd hand in Siddha Yoga?
Byron Katie is really just a fusion of those 2 systems, plus lots of add-ons...

Most of the most powerful thought reform and unconscious influence techniques in the world have CONVERGED, and the experts are mainly using the same techniques, just with different wrapping paper.



[the-guru-looked-good.blogspot.com]
_____________________
Dan Shaw said...
...
Werner Erhard sponsored Baba's first world tour, with Baba Ram Dass.

Many early devotees came to Muktananda through est, including John Denver.

Great bio of Erhard (real name, John Rosenberg) by Steven Pressman, called "Outrageous Betrayal." Tax fraud, child abuse, battering of girlfriends - Erhard was quite the pathological narcissist.

Catherine Parrish of SY fame had run The Hunger Project for Werner Erhard prior to hooking up with Gurumayi. You can look up the Hunger Project on Wikipedia - quite a shady operation.

Dan Shaw

August 29, 2007 7:57 AM

Many many early devotees were from est, and later GM had some staff trainings in Neuro Linguistic Programming - which is one of the bits and pieces Erhard used in est, including tons of stuff from Scientology.

Dan Shaw

August 29, 2007 7:52 AM

______________________________________________
Anonymous said...
Then perhaps, by quirk of fate, it simply happened that most of the people I first happened to meet in SY when I started back in '81 were dually heavily involved in EST and in Lifespring.
_______________________________________________
Anonymous said...
I remember people coming to SY in the mid-90's who had done the est training (or it might have become the Forum by the time they took it) who commented on the similarities in language control in the two groups. Several people mentioned this to me, not just one or two. I was offended at the time, lol.
______________________________________
etc?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2008 01:48AM by The Anticult.

Its not enough to call it 'Leaving Siddha Yoga'

We may have to speak of 'Leaving Siddha Yoga and Leaving covert application of LGAT iTrance Induction'

This possible scenario is further discussed here.

The people who are struggling with lingering effects of their time in SY, may not be dealing with just a corrupt guru system. They may, without knowing it have been affected by LGAT techniques used under the guise of Hinduism and ashram life.

How do you know the antidote to a poison if you dont even know what the poison is?

[forum.culteducation.com]

Quote
The Anticult
oh man...came across a blog about Siddya Yoga by Marta Szabo below.

What I found shocking, is that the EAT PRAY LOVE lady, Elizabeth Gilbert...is she into the current Siddha Yoga?

Got-damn, I KNEW Gilbert was into SYDA when I read Eat Pray Love!

She kept the guru anonymous in the book, but from the various descriptions of the group, it was so obvious it was SYDA. And it was laughable how she painted Gurumayi as some humble saintly type who didn't want large numbers of people flocking to her ashram in India. HA!

here is a couple more adventures into alleged Ex-Siddha Yoga.

Stuart Resnick and Dan Shaw back in 1997 on usenet.
[My experience has always been great - No regrets!!]
[groups.google.com]


And Carol Skolnick comments on Siddha Yoga on the Marta Szabo blog.
[the-guru-looked-good.blogspot.com]

You may notice that Carol writes in "stories" and uses embedded metaphors. What is she saying? Why does she write like that? (its a tech).

Then Carol Skolnick gives a Masterclass on Love-Bombing. Notice how what she describes is EXACTLY what she talks about when she "met" Byron Katie, and what she encourages the public to do in her comments about "love at first sight" with Katie?
Does anyone have a mirror handy?
The word "addict" is not just a mere Freudian slip.


__________________________________
Carol L. Skolnick said...
Hi I.M.,

I don't think you are particularly weak-willed. I think you are human.

What you describe is love-bombing - I call it the "Frosted Mini Wheats Commercial," if you remember those. "Get on the bandwagon! Our guru's the best guru! We're more blessed than anyone! This seva is divine!" We all wanted to believe that stuff because it created such a rush in the body-mind. Specialness is a deadly addiction, and a contagious one.

And speaking of addictions, that is operative here too in a very real way: we got a taste of shakti-heroin and wanted more of it. If going along with the crowd - with its aura of specialness, coupled with bad teachings that promise more good stuff down the road if you just "surrender" - felt good, and not going along with the crowd induced bad feelings (again due to bad teachings like those in the Guru Gita), what can the already addicted person do?

I think, like many addicts, many of us kept going for the fix until the fix failed to be enough. Hitting bottom is good. There's no place to go but up. There's no way to take responsibility for one's own happiness until we realize that the responsibility had been relinquished to someone or something else - peer acceptance, partner, guru, sex, chocolate cake.

September 4, 2007 2:22 PM