Corboy,

Mooji only spent a few months with his own guru poonja. Most of it in a public satsang environment as far as I can gather (since he's avoided giving any clear details on this publicly).

There is a picture of osho in the ashram, next to many other gurus.

I think it's more of a catch-all, Scientology-like attitude to other teachings.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2018 11:00PM by happytown.

haha, happytown, thanks for the heads up ;).

You're right that these discussions can be helpful clarifications for those who come out of the spell of the absolute, and wonder.

In fact, one of the reasons that I decided to write these posts, is that for some people who experience this falling away of false beliefs about Mooji, and start to question things, pretty much as I did, there is a tendency to start mistrusting everything, and lose all trust whatsoever.

As Sahara71 told me here, a remark that was very kind and helpful, when I was questioning the rhetoric devices used by corboy on this site, it is ok to be questioning everything for a while.

Just as the trust in Mooji grows out of proportion though, there is a point where we need to balance things out and have the right proportion of trust and critical thinking to come as close to the reality of the situation as we can get.

Sadgame wrote:

>But it is also my opinion that though reform in itself is not malicious or harmful,
it is the purpose for which it is employed that makes all the difference.
If the purpose is to make people free of their suffering or bring the to a fundamental knowledge about reality,
which as an apologist I would say the purpose of Mooji's group is,
than I would put the enterprise in the same category as I would psychiatry or academia,
which both employ though reform techniques to bring people to a view of reality
that is “sane” or one that is “scientific”


The difference is that psychiatry and academia are peer reviewed, supervised, measurable, and accountable. They don't function in a bubble. In this context, there are no checks and balances for incompetence. Mooji can (and did) claim that his new rebranded guided meditation has enlightened hundreds of people. It is an unfalsifiable statement.


>Actual reports of coercion and exploitation remain exceedingly scarce,

One is enough.

- entering into a relationship with a student is enough.
- dividing couples is enough.
- causing people to inform on each other is enough.
-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2018 01:03AM by happytown.

happytown Wrote:
>
> A double bind contains four basic features:
>
> 1.You must do A.
> 2.You must do B.
> 3.B is the opposite of A.
> 4.You cannot discuss this contradiction.
>
> For example:
> 1. You must come out of your egoic mind and
> surrender to God in order to be happy.
> 2. You must accept that your mind will never
> willingly surrender.
> 3. You must do what you can never do.
> 4. If you don't understand, it's because you
> haven't surrendered. I'm not interested in
> explaining it to your egoic mind.
>
> The more willingly you embrace the task of
> resolving this, the faster the result. And the
> result is a psychological collapse which, compared
> to the anxiety-producing double bind, feels
> frickin' awesome.
>
> If you resist, it means you're in your mind.The
> mind is the problem (i.e. you are the problem) and
> so the mind (you) will be pressured and treated
> with increasing contempt until you either
> surrender, run away, or go insane.
>

I think Happytown sums this thought-reform process up really well. It's a total escape from rational thinking that can feel like freedom, at first. But then it doesn't. It kind of feels more like confusion, the longer you sit with it. And confusion is very unpleasant.

This actually happened to me. I went through this process, watching Moo videos online. I was a victim of thought-reform. Only one problem; I knew that if I really was experiencing a kind of spiritual enlightenment, then I wouldn't feel so confused.

Because I had already had some spontaneous transcendent experiences when I was younger. These experiences were wonderful, but not confusing. In fact, they were very clear and bright and happy experiences. Comparing the two - confusion induced by thought-reform and spontaneous transcendence, they were very different.

Moo dresses up confusion as 'enlightenment' and I think this is manipulative and deceptive. I can't see how thought-reform can be for a 'person's own good'. I can't see it that way. It is not to anyone's benefit to be deceived in this way. It is setting people way back on their spiritual paths: but that is not the only problem.

People are giving up their jobs and their families and their hard-earned money to something that is only a scam.

Sahara71, I hope that you will take courage from the bright
and happy experiences with transcendence that you have had spontaneously when you were younger.

Even if I don't think that Mooji intentionally tries to deceive us or harm us, that is no excuse for putting out video's to the public that put you in such a state of utter confusion, because they do contain thought reform and hypnotic content. I wish it never happened to you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2018 05:09AM by SadGame.

SadGame,

I just hope it doesn't happen to too many more people. But I think Mooji's following is actually growing. People need to be aware of the dangers of this kind of thing. They need to know how these people operate.

Thought-reform techniques really do work. Otherwise, cults couldn't continue to exist and there wouldn't be so many of them in operation- around 3,000 different groups in the U.S. right now. Their methods are unfortunately very effective.

It's all about power and money, and not much else.

Chapter 12 of this book is an account of a Mooji satsang in Brixton in 2005:

[books.google.co.uk]

It sounds like a different Mooji back then, one who didn't expect to be worshipped.

And then....

[i.kym-cdn.com]

Meditation can have undesirable side effects, just like aspirin.

Anything powerful enough to be beneficial can have undesirable side effects.

One way to assess a meditation teacher or meditation group is whether the instructor says this - or goes defensive.


Meditation Is a Powerful Mental Tool—and For Some People It Goes Terribly Wrong

"I just felt shattered. I had a job, a wife, and two beautiful children, and yet I felt that I would never experience joy again.”

[tonic.vice.com]

When Meditation Goes Wrong - podcast

[www.vice.com]

The Ambiguous and/or Abusive guru phneomenon

[www.kheper.net]

From 2010:

"I had a great chance to see Mooji on his satsang this weekend in London Brixton.
I have to say he is one incredible human being. I felt like all he said there was aimed at me. lol
Probably everyone feels like this.

But I did had some strange things happening to me once the satsang was over. As I left the building in peace and meditation like state I could not help but wonder that this is not normal state I found myself in.
It was more like a trance state. I felt druged. I felt like this few times bf in the days when magic mushrooms were still not ilegal I took them few times and I felt similar to this state as being on mushrooms."

[web.archive.org]