Re: Mooji a cult?
Date: February 26, 2020 10:30PM
This “Open Letter” was written in good Faith.
Mooji deserves to Respond,
And it could well be weakness
on the part of his inner circle
that has prevented him from ding so up until now.
The thing is,
a true Jnani can “take it.”
His response will show a lot.
Open Letter to Mooji—
Mooji, as a Jnani,
Respond Appropriately, Please.
Your Helpers , In Trying To Protect You and to Promote Your Satsangs,
Are Hurting You.
Have an Interview with a Fair, Respected Person
Who Asks You All The Hard Questions.
Resolve this “Stuff” Once and For All
As this letter to you is begun, there are going on 2100 Posts on the “Mooji a Cult?” topic at www.culteducationforum.com. This topic, which is actually, “Are you, Mooji, really a worthwhile spiritual teacher, or not?”, is at least 90% negative in its reports, opinions, beliefs, and experiences related to you. These posts as of this late February 2020 evening have been viewed over 380,000 times.
Certainly you are aware of this, and of almost all of the other negative articles, blogs, YouTube clips, Instagram postings, and more.
Until now, a few of the “complaints” people have regarding you and some of what has happened around you have been semi-addressed in your satsangs, but never fully, adequately, or well.
Mooji, as a Jnani you are one who is inherently fearless regarding matters in Samsara, in Maya. Until now, though, your responses to these “attacks” have seemed weak and virtually “guilty.” (Hence, to your detractors, you are proving you are not a true spiritual teacher, or at least a worthy one.)
Please, do not let poor advice from your inner circle make things worse. Make a strong stand for (your) Truth. Publicly go over these accusations. If regarding some of them you made mistakes, say so. If only a wrong, negative perspective on some matters have been heard until now, say so! Give the real story. Whatever the case is, give your account, and then “rest your case.” Say the full truth once, and let that be it.
This list of your alleged various “high crimes and misdemeanors” seemto be summarizable as the following, although there will certainly be others that show up.
Mostly in the last five years or so, but in some cases earlier, you, Mooji stand accused of:
1. Ordering the execution by gunshot of a beautiful heron for the crime of eating his beloved carp- ‘koi’ - from5 the pond in his ashram. This seems indisputable, but is the full story out there? What steps were taken to save the crane? Couldn’t this be compared to a fox being shot to save the chickens? If so, why not say so? If not, explain why?
2. Not doing enough to prevent the suicides of at least three persons who had attended his satsangs, and who also apparently visited or lived at his ashram. Did you ever advocate suicide to anyone? Encourage it? In fact, considering the number of people who have come to you, three suicides, to many, is regrettable but not a large number. Go into this. Stop calling people liars and avoiding the topic.
3. Treating a number of people with mental disturbances inappropriately, including doing weird exorcism ceremonies for some. At least some of these ceremonies produced no apparent beneficial result and the recipients of some of these later needed serious clinical care. Strong questions have been asked about why anAdvaita Jnani is doing exorcisms. What was your reasoning? Did some of them do a lot of good for people? Did you ever stop people from seeking clinical orprofessional medical help? Are you still doing exorcisms? Why or why not?
4.(Two things here) Being a profound sexual athlete, misusing your guru status to leap from one young woman’s bed to another’s like Errol Flynn swinging on ropes in a pirate movie (well, actually, mostly they were all supposed to have come to his bed). All of this, as arranged by his upper echelon who in some accounts have groomed attractive young women for their session(s) with the Master. This, after having told his sangha that he didn’t need sex anymore. AND, Breaking one Senior Disciple’s heart by publicly breaking up with her and shifting sexual energy and time to another.
There’s a lot here to cover. Obviously, some of the accusations against you are mutually contradictory. How is it that upper level people are arranging trysts for you while at least one of the upper level people is your current lover? And if you broke up publicly with one upper echelon lover, how are your sexual goings on secret to begin with? Go into this in a big, fully honest way.
5. Allowing ashram conditions to be terrible. It was written that naive persons showed up to Mooji’s ashram and were forced to pay $1000 a month for the privilege of working their butts off seven days a week 12 hours a day while being yelled at by senior staff and an abusive Mooji
I won’t even go into this one in great detail because I’ve interviewed enough people who’ve come from your ashram to know that this is largely poppycock. Many people lived there for $10 a day and were given a tent to sleep in and three square meals a day. Not bad for 300 bucks a month. Couples got a hut for 900 a month and three square meals a day. Not bad for 15 bucks each a day. People report they never had to work more than six days a week, eight hours a day, and could always take a break when they needed to. There were emergency projects in which people put in some superhuman effort, but that was voluntary, too. Why don’t you say so?
.
6. Being mean, and even abusive, to many, not just persons doing ‘seva.’ The fact was, it was asserted, that in truth Mooji’s happy and friendly public persona is nonsense, and that in truth he’s a sinister, calculating fellow who uses his fake reputation to amass more sex, money, fame, and power over many.
I personally know people who you were hard on and who were crushed for a few days, but then came out stronger and better than ever as a result of you being hard on them. It could also be that you are very human and sometimes have bad days or moments.
The hair cutting apparently forced on some women some years back might be harder to explain, except perhaps as a not-to-be-repeated mistake.
Whatever the case, to share it publicly and fully will have a better long-term response then to hide whatever the truth really is.
7. Allowing, and encouraging, a wide range of traditional Indian “bhakti’ behaviors in his followers. Singing songs about him, touching his feet, calling him ‘Lord’ and ‘Master,’ and the full gamut. The ashram even raises (still?) money by selling pictures of his feet and vials of dirt upon which his Wonderfulness might have tread.
Here, to my mind, is where your helpers really mess you up. In the videos of your satsangs and on YouTube you can see multiple instances of bhakti type people singing songs to you, touching your feet, and all of this. Yes, your upper people love to see you be adored and to show how loved you are, but this just makes you look very strange to an audience looking for a Advaita teacher. It looks to some like you have a need for adulation, and a large egoic preoccupation with needing to be loved and adored. Is that what’s really going on? Or is it really just a small percentage of people who act this way, even after directions have been given to please not hug you?
8. Permitting his upper echelon folks to smuggle large amounts of cash into Portugal to help with the foundation and growth of the ashram.
9. Parroting the words of his teacher and others, and being ignorant of some spiritual matters, like Kundalini practices.
I personally believe that almost all good teaching consists of repeating in various ways the wisdom of our predecessors. I also personally believe that Advaita teachers need have no knowledge of things like kundalini practices, which in a way are like siddhis, in that they are a detour, a hindrance, and possibly a danger rather than something worthwhile for a person on the path of jnana. However, my thoughts don’t matter to m@ny. Yours, Mooji, do. Whatdo you think? That’s what’s important. Tell us, please.
10. Acting[and accepting adulation as if a fully enlightened being, when events seemed to prove otherwise.
Plus, there is the Be Scofield article. This had a large impact, most certainly. Her usually accurate articles about such sad cases as Aaravindha Himadra, Bentinho Massaro, and Swami Vivekananda of Agama Yoga have earned her a large following. However, she did apparently make many obvious mistakes in her attack piece regarding you. These include facts about celibacy, Hindu eating practices, Hindu marriages, and claiming you had sex with a confirmed, lifelong lesbian.
Mooji, if you’re truly a Jnani and therefore not worried about anything in the Maya (especially something so paltry is whether you wind up in a hut by a river by yourself meditating like Siddhartha in Herman Hesse’s book or with a huge Ashtam and a wonderful following), Help Us.
Clear the Air!
“Noble Silence” in this situation doesn’t exist.
As much as there can be truth in the duality, in the relative, please help those who would like to have you as a teacher they can respect and recommend people to in doing so. State your truths fully on these matters,
And with someone who won’t go easy on you. If someone goes easy on you the detractors will not be satisfied. Someone needs to demand and to get full responses. Otherwise many will want interview two and then interview three. One, covering these issues fully, should be enough.
Thanks for reading this. I look forward to your response.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2020 10:38PM by Traveler99.