It's obvious he and others in the organization read and advise based on this forum.

Somewhere on here it was said that Moo Org doesn't supply seva workers who clean toilets, etc with rubber gloves.

India this year, a video showing people flaunting pink rubber gloves while getting the ashram ready. I didn't know about this forum yet so found it odd how the gloves were pink and the camera folks focused on it. I just 'knew' without knowing that it was an arrogant response to something.

So much arrogance in this gesture. It wasn't humble nor loving.

It's often times hard looking at these groups at all, because after my experience with another one, the whole idea of sitting through another session like that is a painful idea to me.

Plus I'd rather the google algorithm not tailor its advertisement based on various cult videos I've watched.:P

Hi everyone!

I took a good break from focusing on m and instead focusing on my life again and this is the right step for me now.


So my own "getting out" process was like this:

1. doubts and questions about his teachings

2. gut and body reactions I did not know why

3. reading and meeting other teachers and realizing how much clarity can be provided by teachings/teacher compared to m (at this point I still believed he is enlightened but just his teachings are confusing and not well done)

4. Finally the insight, he is NOT what he is pretending to be. This was very painful for me. It felt like losing ground underneath my feet.

5. A phase of instability, pain, confusion, feeling betrayed and also blaming myself for haven fallen for m. I saw other people in that phase blaming him, so blame is a part here. This phase takes time and it is important to have support and the possibility to share. I was also checking what in myself had made me getting into this cult in the first place, like what was my weak spot or blind spot.

6. Then healing took place over time. I had to get rid of LOTS of conditioning which I got from m. I also sorted out what was real teachings and which was really bullshit on top of it ...and it is A LOT! For the healing it was essential to focus on daily tasks and activities (as we know, through m you are drawn away from daily life into lala land), to spend time in nature and with family and friends. It was also very important to find "myself" again, so reflecting was/is key.

7. I felt quite stable and healed when I started reading this forum. But it turned out that there were stll a few things to learn, how m operates and what it does to you. So a phase of education started and I learned a lot. I also realized how much "trauma" is connected with falling for a cult. I now believe that everyone who joins has some sort of unhealed childhood trauma and this is where m or leaders like him can "click" into your system, with the illusion in providing what was missing or giving a legal way in bypassing your trauma and what is connected with it. I also realized that you literally have to claim/take ALL your power back to yourself, which you have given to him conscioulsy and unconsciously. During this phase I spent quite some time checking FB, Youtube, this forum etc.

8. At a certain point, a few weeks ago I realized that it was now taking to much of my time and focus and that it is time to move on. That it is time to end this chapter of my life, lessons learned and giving the attention to what really matters to me.


So your process might be very diffrent from mine (we are all unique), I just thought maybe it helps someone to share.


This forum is immens helpful for everyone! Thank you to everyone who is contributing and to the people who have set it up and provide a safe space to share and speak freely. May everyone who reads here find clarity and real freedom. Om namah shivaya!

This story is about a music star who has reportedly preyed on young women for 30 years.

It is a heart breaking read and has many parallels to what we have been discussing here.

Jim DeRogatis broke the R. Kelly story in 2000. Now he’s compiled a damning case against Kelly.

“We thought we’d nailed the story. And we thought he would stop hurting young women. And it continues for 19 years after that.”

By Constance Grady@constancegrady Jun 5, 2019[www.vox.com]

Yoga and Buddhism Reform Movements: 16 Red Flags

[matthewremski.com]



Remski refers to an attitude he terms IGM, or I Got Mine-Ism.

[matthewremski.com]

Here is a small excerpt:

Quote

IGM is a defensive strategy by which a member who has not (or believes they have not) directly experienced abuse or institutional betrayal within the group deflects stories of abuse within the group by immediately self-referring, saying things like: “I don’t know about other’s experience; I find/found the teacher/teachings to be profoundly helpful in my life.” The statement is usually couched within an unwillingness to act on behalf on victims or mitigate future harm.

In my own two cult experiences, I adopted the defence of IGM to varying degrees, and I remember many others who did as well. In the circle of people I’m thinking of, none of us (that I’m aware of) had prior experience with therapy. We had all come from family and social cultures in which that just wasn’t part of the wellness toolbox. When we gravitated towards the techniques of meditation and yoga offered by the groups, we found that they could have powerful self-regulatory effects we had never felt before, and we were hooked.

I believe that many of us were under the illusion that the meditative/yogic technique was the key to our new-found capacity for self-regulation. I don’t think we understood that we’d been love-bombed, or acquired a new family / safe haven in one fell blissful swoop. We didn’t understand that our internal changes were as much relational as they were intra-personal. The messaging was always singular and privatized: “You can go within, you can find x, you can choose y, you can be responsible.” One was never encouraged to really examine who was saying this to you, or why, or what they might want.

A paradox formed part of the group’s deception: you were told you were entirely self-responsible, and yet the benefits you experienced were mostly if not entirely coming from the group dynamic. You were emotionally isolated within a group somatic process that made itself invisible.

My own, and I believe others’, prior training in self-responsibility (or lack of experience with therapy) gave us the impression that we were in a place in which we had to resolve all conflicts or grievances internally. In a cult you can’t ask people for help and expect transparency or existential honesty. It’s palpable, whether you cognize it or not, that anyone with standing in the community who you would go to for help will reframe your appeal in relation to some deeper way in which you must surrender to the teaching or the leadership. In other words: any counselling is highly motivated and manipulative. It’s designed to protect the dynamic by making it manageable. Nobody will suggest that you leave, when leaving might be the only healthy thing to do, as hard as it would be.

Thanks Corboy,

that is an interesting website. I'm not sure if anyone has shared this link before, but there is a good article from the same website about the concept of 'spiritual bypassing', which is a term that gets bandied abut quite a lot: [matthewremski.com]

There is also an intelligent pod-cast about the author's experiences with cults that is worth listening to:
[matthewremski.com]

I have become increasingly fascinated by what it is that makes people susceptible to getting involved in a cult. It's been widely established that it tends to be people who are above average in intelligence, often from middle-class or upper middle class backgrounds... this much seems to be agreed upon.

The jury is still out weather or not it is people with a lot of emotional problems who are attracted to cults... one study that I read affirmed this point, while other studies do not.

(I would say that in the case of Mooji that yes, absolutely, it is people with emotional problems who are getting involved- that is my anecdotal observation.)

I think it is also people who are idealistic who are attracted to cults. (Please bare in mind that they do not know from the beginning that what they are getting involved in is a cult- to them it is just an 'organisation'.) Idealistic people want to believe in something greater than themselves. They want to serve a purpose and have a meaningful life. This goes against the current grain of society where most people are conditioned to be very materialistic and self-centered.

It's very important to note that the vast majority of people who get involved in cults actually emerge virtually unharmed. Let me qualify that statement.

In the case of Mooji, hundreds of thousands of people watch his videos online for free and for them it is 'no big deal'. As far as I can tell, these people are able to maintain employment, have a normal family life and socialize normally. They may be a little weird and be attracted to other weird people and unusual ideas, but hey, who am I to judge?

These people would have no idea that they are involved in a cult and would just laugh at you if you suggested it. They could not care less about Mooji seducing his impressionable devotees and would say 'so what?'.

Then there are the people who get more involved. They have time on their hands and so they pay a monthly subscription to join 'Sahaja Express' and then possibly attend a silent retreat. These people are quite devoted, yet they remain unharmed (*). They may begin to keep the company with other devotees, all of which are just harmless, but seriously weird people. They maintain employment and family ties. Their families think they are nuts, but love them anyway. Their families probably think, "Oh well, at least they aren't on drugs."

(It's interesting that cult involvement can have a kind of addictive quality- just like being on drugs!)

Statistically, while all these people are susceptible to the harm Moo does, it's very few people who stay for an extended time at the cult compound in Portugal and who suffer PSTD from the experience. Some leave Portugal merely 'disillusioned' and go on to find a different spiritual teacher. Others leave feeling betrayed, because the experience was nothing like they though it would be, and to lose the hope and happiness they felt at the beginning is very disappointing. These people may be very angry.

And still others just never seem to leave!!! They lose contact with reality and with loved ones. If and when they do get out, they find it impossible to adjust to normal life and require professional help.

I guess this would explain why there are so many people (including some friends of mine) who are willing to defend Moo. The majority of people did not see any abuse take place, therefore they cannot believe it happened.

(*) When I say that these people remain 'unharmed', I actually believe that harm is being done at this point. But I don't think the families and friends of these devotees would see it as such. This kind of insidious psychologically harmful conditioning would be hard to prove.

I just wish that as reality lovers we could ALL admit that non dual awakening is not the cure for all that ails us; and it won't automatically make us infallible at the human level.

Enough idealism!Enough!

One person who experienced nondual awakening suggested that nondual awakening
ought to be seen as an aesthetic experience that is entirely unconnected to
moral or intellectual effort.

As the bloke put it, if you are a stinker before you have nondual realization, you will remain that way afterwords. If you want to stop being an asshole, you need to improve your behavior, which is entirely different from nondual realization.

As he put it, you do not learn to love your neighbor by becoming adept at playing the cello.

From the Wikipedia entry for Kensho:

Quote

Kensho does not eradicate our unhealthy habits [...] There is a sudden awakening to the fact of "no-self" and then this insight has to be integrated into one's life which means that it has to be embodied and not just be a memory.

Narcissistic personalities seem to be unable to progress from the awakening experience to a lasting, embodied awakening (enlightenment), since they are incapable of the required relinquishment of egotism. Yet it's these same narcissists who, by their narcissism, are attracted to becoming spiritual teachers. I think that's a big reason for why there are so many false spiritual teachers.

Here's some more from the mentioned Wikipedia article:

Quote

And the Soto Zen Master Jiyu-Kennett:

One can easily get the impression that realization, kensho, an experience of enlightenment, or however you wish to phrase it, is the end of Zen training. It is not. It is, rather, a new beginning, an entrance into a more mature phase of Buddhist training. To take it as an ending, and to "dine out" on such an experience without doing the training that will deepen and extend it, is one of the greatest tragedies of which I know. There must be continuous development, otherwise you will be as a wooden statue sitting upon a plinth to be dusted, and the life of Buddha will not increase.


Post-awakening practice is called seitai choyo, the "long nurturing of the sacred fetus". According to Spiegelberg,

It means a return to the purely secular life, a complete submersion in work and in the changing events of the world. Thus, for decades, many Zenists, after their awakening, went among the people, living among beggars and leading an existence of hard physical labor. Thus it was proved whether or not the truth received was of permanent value, or whether it would vanish among mundane affairs.

These insights are sadly missing in the present-day nonduality scene. Even most of the non-narcissistic teachers have only had an awakening experience and have not progressed beyond that. Like I said in a previous post about one such teacher: they are like seeds that have only just sprouted, teaching others how to be a tree.