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jbrev01
[..]If you really want to reap the benefit and the clarity of his pointing, stop caring about his personal life or the little dramas that occur at Monte Sahaja. Again, all of it has NOTHING to do with the pointing. You are not your mind. Stop taking the thoughts inside your head so seriously. You - who you Truly Are - are bigger than the thoughts inside the head.[...]

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What “kind of thing” needs to be debated? Are they encouraging suicide or something?

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peaceatmypace 3 points 6 months ago*
Well that is the question. What psychological pressures was this guy under? Was it appropriate? Are there checks and balance and alternative viewpoints in the ashram? What is Mooji's stated opinion of mental illness? Does that undermine care? Does an individual's predisposition towards depression and self-harm excuse the complete lack of accountability in an organisation like that, where people can find themselves subject to the pressures of indoctrination? If an extreme reaction to that environment is rare, does that mean that the senior people there have no responsibility for what happens?

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[–]rndm_reddit_profile 3 points 6 months ago
All are good and appropriate questions to ask.

Sometimes getting in touch with "the bad" through meditation or by being lead there can lead to a greater attachment to it.

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[–]Justanormalguy44 1 point 4 months ago
I knew him personally as I lived at Sahaja and can tell you from my own experience that we all were under pressure to be like Mooji and speak like him. We had to give up our identity only to assume his. The Mooji would yell at me sometimes with the most degrading comments and then turn back around and say how much he loved me was really confusing. Im not surprsied this has happened as I mmyself have sought out counseling from being with Mooji.

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[–]LeanHao 1 point 4 months ago
Having spent a lot of time with Mooji, including at Sahaja, I am very surprised to read this as I have never seen or experienced what you describe. There is also a very wide range of people at Sahaja, of all ages, backgrounds and expressions, and never had the feeling that there was pressure to mimic Mooji.

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[–]Justanormalguy44 1 point 4 months ago
I can only speak from my own experience there, I watched a sangha member there work herself into the ground trying to prove to the sangha her commitment and loyalty. She would cry on and off each day confused about what was happening to her, I felt really bad for her and tried to encourage her to leave but she was afraid to face the world without Mooji. Mooji made matters worse by yelling at her extremely violently in front of everyone. After that it was like something snapped in her and i dont mean in a healthy way. The way he spoke to me one time completely shocked me. He said things to me that I never imagined someone like him would say and behave. In my opinion he is very arrogant and he publicly humiliates people, especially if he thinks you are "ripe" enough for truth, which is only determined by how submissive and desperate you display yourself. while i was there i couldnt recognize what was happening to me until i left and really contemplated my time there. The recent suicide there is no shock to me as I had expected such things to occur. Any rational minded person who goes there can see and feel the cult vibes.

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[–]LeanHao 2 points 4 months ago
I can also only speak from my own experience. That is really all we can do, and I have never ever seen Mooji behave in any way even close to "yelling extremely violently" and I have spent quite some time there. Many hundreds of people come and go every year, and I am sure the vast majority are "rational minded" and despite this do not "see and feel cult vibes". The suicide that happened is tragic, but unfortunately such things happen for many reasons -- quite often in the most unexpected situations. I myself know of two people who have committed suicide (who, just for clarity, were not connected with Mooji in any way), and from the outside things seemed perfectly fine for both -- their decision came as a shock and no-one could figure out the 'why'. Your assumption to know the circumstances, the 'why' of this tragedy, feels misguided to me unless you actually knew and spoke with the person at that time. Anyway, I guess we all see and experience things through our own perspective... I just find it hard to relate to yours because its so different to what I saw and felt there.

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[–]Justanormalguy44 1 point 3 months ago
I spent almost 3 months there last year, I have seen him yelling at people on MANY occassions. To the ones who are just "passing by" wont really notice much because everyone seems so nice. I really got to have some serious conversations with some of the members there and one in particular really troubles me because this person could snap at anytime and no one seems to be able to recognize this, in fact she went to Mooji for help and he relentlessy yelled at her l in front of over 200 people. She was completely shaken up and her parents are extremely concerned about her. There is a cult around him. A cult consist of a few factors. 1. There needs to be a person of reference who the group sees as God or believe that he is more than human, also there needs to be a group idea that strips away critical thinking. One time i expressed that I didnt agree with mooji's behavior and was told that it was only my "mind" not agreeing and not to pay attention to it. You are right when you say that rational minded people go there, but they don't stay there. It is not so rational to kiss someone's feet and worship pictures of him and sing praises to him. From my understanding from people who have known him for a while it is agreed that he has really fallen into the guru role as of lately and his behavior has become more erradict.

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[–]Justanormalguy44 1 point 3 months ago
If you want to see him angry just demonstrate that you don't understand what he is pointing to, and this can be done by simply speaking as a "person". You will see his angry side, I noticed that this was a trigger for him. Also to say someone is speaking as a person and not give any attention towards their human emotions and experiences is VERY dangerous which is why I suspect many suicides from this movement. I have studied mooji's techinique very carefully and it is one that is full of error and will not make for a healthy mental state. This video I found of him giving an exorcism is prime example of him believing in the non sense his followers tell him.....[www.youtube.com]

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[–]Justanormalguy44 1 point 3 months ago
I hope I dont offend you im just really concerned, I believe alot of people will be hurt by him mentally and emotionally. Talk to the sangha memebers who try to leave him and cant bare the real world because of the bubble he as created for them. Alot of them are afraid to face life outside of his protection, I know this for a fact. I myself have had to accept the fact that I was a victim of psychological abuse and also accept the fact that I joined a cult. I had been warned about Mooji before but chose not to listen, just figured they were misguided. Trust me it was hard to let Mooji go as I loved him dearly but after i saw those things in him it was beyond clear that this guy is not what we all think he is. Quite sad actually he seemed to be a really nice guy. he really needs someone to be honest with him and have him. I hope that he finds the help he needs. I do believe that his search for truth is genuine, and I hope he continues to search.

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[–]Justanormalguy44 1 point 3 months ago
Its hard not to cry as I type these things because I never imagined that I would be saying these things about Mooji. He really was my hero. I guess at somepoint even your hero has to let you down too.

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[–]AlesDostal 1 point 3 months ago
Mooji’s huge hypocriticism is to talk about and explain states of the pure awareness or the self-realization, which he has not permanently experienced yet and to present them as if were his own spiritual achievements. Mooji pretends to be an enlightened being and a beloved master, but he is only a teacher. For these reasons, Mooji has also created the cult of a self-realized Guru in ashram to be better excused, covered up, and protected from his own spiritual failures and sadness.

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[–]AlesDostal 1 point 3 months ago
I was very disappointed in Mooji after these satsangs; I do not understand that, Mooji read several letters at the beginning of the video; “You Cannot Be Changed, ‘You’ Must Be Exchanged” and made a fun of them, laughed at them, practically put them down and made jokes about them. Some people had some mental health problems, or were in despairing situation, and maybe confused in their letters. Mooji's followers also laughed at that in the audience. there has not been at the first time, it happened in few of other Mooji’s videos. Mooji does not has to read each letter openly in publics, he could pick up only some letters for inspiration and the other he could privately answer or simply trash them. I think Mooji likes receiving only letters about the instant spiritual awakening, profound spiritual discoveries, and experience of oneness with the big thanks and Mooji's blessings. I wish that Mooji makes more spiritual progress, go into deep meditation, and start working on himself to control your spiritual teacher ego…

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[–]AlwaysBeNice 2 points 6 months ago
Because this thing usually raises a bunch of metaphysical questions with a lot of tension surrounding the topic, I'd like to share what I find the most logical and sane view on it.

Physical life is not a mistake, nor it is created as a punishment.

It is a gift, and even though it may not always seem as one, it's because humanity has temporarily lost touch with the natural state of emotional openness and a connected world view, and so the 'purpose' of life is to awaken and life an enlightened life, to be happy.

After all, experiences of higher states of unity are always extremely positive, the experience of our immensely loving free nature (which does not want to remain formless, but express itself in form also).

So cutting one's healthy life short won't serve that purpose, though neither is it a problem, it has created our life from nothing in the first place, that said, isn't the unique path of our circumstances and relationships not very precious?

So from this rhetoric, and from what I gathered from a source I trust, there's no punishment (whom would there be to punish?), yet one would probably chose to have another life in order to do experience the blooming of enlightenment in form it wanted to experience in the first place, and to grow from overcoming the challenges you wanted to face.

So it's also not a solution, as there is nothing to run away from.

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[–]Urban_RoninTao 2 points 6 months ago
Suicide is natural within spiritual circles. Many people who seek out meditation have serious mental illnesses, get enough of those people together, and the unfortunate truth is that it will happen eventually.

Nobody is to blame for it, a master is only master of himself, he is not a god or all-knowing.

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[–]jodyrrr 2 points 12 days ago
It was said in another thread, but it bears repeating: Mooji is a tape recorder, also known as a parrot. He has absolutely no experiential understanding of his own awareness in the nondual condition. He merely recites the words that he knows will fool people into believing that he is enlightened. Those words are part of a system of ideology labeled the folk theory of nondual enlightenment. By saying the words and looking the part, his followers are primed to experience something they would consider "spiritual," and since the unconscious mind is like an experience printer, it will produce the experience that an uninformed devotee would expect to have in the presence of somebody who is purported to be God. His entire enterprise is built on the lie of his enlightenment and the power of the human mind to create phenomenology to meet expectations.

[medium.com]

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[–]jty87 4 points 6 months ago
It's not that big of a deal. Clinging to life so tightly is what causes many people to be neurotic and suffer in the first place. It's nothing to freak out about. We're all going to die sooner or later. So what? Relax and enjoy life. This person was clearly suffering greatly. Everyone wants to pay lip service to non-attachment but no one wants to bite the bullet and truly face death fearlessly, with no clinging to life. It's exactly that sort of commandment to go on living compulsively that drove this person over the edge. How about genuine freedom for a change?

I know it may sound harsh and every ounce of ego you have may reject it, but I'm just stating the truth. "Oh my goodness we must avoid our own death and the death of even a single person among tens of thousands of people at risk for mental health issues!" Is not the attitude of freedom. Frankly, the reaction to things like this strike me as virtually pure pandering to fictitious insecure egos. True freedom looks like madness to the ego, which I guess is why most spirituality isn't attuned to true freedom but to the sensibilities of the insecure.