Hello,

I just posted my writing on my life after I escaped James Swartz's cult.
I posted it on the other thread, "James Swartz--my original written account".

It's called Shaktipat, Kundalini, and My Escape from the False Guru

It starts on page 2 I think...

If you believe James Swartz is Innocent and "Okay"
After Reading this Forum, The "Heather" Book,
And Especially Heather's Posts just above,
Then you truly deserve James Swartz as a Teacher.

Compare the accounts of James Swartz as a person and a teacher, of what he did as Heather's "guru," and how negative with and controlling of he is with his students and regarding other teachers, with the words of a real spiritual teacher below:

"The true teacher however will not imprison his disciple in a prescribed set of ideas, feelings and actions, on the contrary, he will show him patiently, the need to be free from all ideas and set patterns of behavior, to be vigilant and earnest and go with life, wherever it takes him, not to enjoy or suffer, but to understand and learn.
"Under the right teacher, the disciple learns to learn, not to remember and obey. Satsangh, the company of the noble, does not mould, it liberates. Most of the so-called "surrenders to the guru" end in disappointment, if not in tragedy. Fortunately, an earnest seeker will disentangle himself in time, the wiser for the experience."

- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Students who are free? Who have nobody telling them what to do? Whose behavior is not (attempted to be) molded and controlled by their teacher? Who are encouraged to be vigilant, earnest, and go with life, wherever it takes him, not to enjoy or suffer?

Swartz could not conceive of being that type of teacher.

Because he's not one. Not a real one.

(To give him his due, he is an actual, and fair to middling, con man and criminal fraud.)

James Swartz is a false teacher. There are many like him in the world.

However, there are true teachers.

I believe Swami Shivom Tirth Maharaj was/is a true teacher. True as in...actually a part of a lineage of knowledge and teaching...true as in...being pure of heart and intentions...true as in...being of service to others...true as in...guiding students to turn inward and follow inner wisdom bestowed by God.

[www.youtube.com]

This swami wrote several interesting books--translated from Hindi to English.


People should be aware of false teachers, and not get caught in the trap of a con game.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/2019 12:58AM by MynameisHeather.

For those who wish to study traditional Vedanta, there are two fantastic living teachers I can recommend. Of course there are others but these teachers are top shelf, in the lineage of Swami Dayananda, via Adi Shankaracharya.

Swami Viditatmananda
Swami Paramarthananda

With regards to Swami P, it can take a bit to get used his Tamil accent but so worth it! Check out his Rama Gita teaching on Youtube below.

[youtu.be]

Blessings

As a Western seeker i was interested in the song called Bhagavad Gita. You may find on sale on James Swartz’s website his commentaries/explanations on this text.

A commentator of this Gita stated: “It takes one no less than Krishna to explain what the Gita means and it takes one no less than an Arjuna to understand what it could mean”. With this in mind, I asked myself who is really fit to explain and fully understand the meaning of that Gita. In my view it would require first and foremost an accomplished teacher. What could be the qualities of such a one?
Someone who is able to read the Gita in original Sanskrit; someone who was thoroughly trained in Indian philosophy & practice by a specific teacher of a lineage; someone who was endorsed by a teacher of that lineage to pass on the teaching of that lineage, but not without having undergone first a teacher training course.

1) Did J. Swartz study the Sanskrit language so as to recite and comprehend the Bhagavad Gita in all its intricacies and nuances?
2) Was he an accomplished student of the guru whom he quotes as his teacher?
3) Is he an endorsed teacher and by whom? Did he go through a teacher training course before starting his teaching occupation?
4) Has he demonstrated a purity of character and ethical behaviour as a teacher?

Point 4 has been seriously questioned by former ex-students of JS. We don’t have all the answers but let us think twice before submitting oneself to commentaries by a less-than-accomplished or self-appointed teacher about such highly a sophisticated text . Whether you want it or not, if as a student you accept someone as your teacher, you open yourself not only to a teaching whether correctly or uncorrectly understood but also to a teacher’s biases and leftover impurities. Why take more load on oneself than we already may have?

There are good sincere teachers around and they are a great blessing to this world. And it also wise to live one’s life as it presents itself until at a crossroad a prepared student meets an accomplished teacher.

Thank you Valma for your wise words.

If you're interested in this conversation, please see my new thread:

Spiritual practice after surviving a cult???

Leaving "The Continuum" behind,
Without Conscience, Morals, or Any Sense of Guilt or Responsibility
James Swartz continues to "Teach" Lies, Rubbish, and BS
Mixed with a Few "Real" Things
To Keep His Unlucky "Followers" Hanging On


Not all lawyers are greedy and bad. Not all politicians are corrupt liars. In fact, most live on a continuum, with the majority being as good as "common sense," 'being practical," and "facing reality" allows.

Living on a continuum, being as good as possible as long as I become rich, secure, successful, and, in the political world, reelected.

Spiritual teachers--real ones--are not on any sort of continuum. They live from a place beyond where worldly experiences, success, fame, and wealth matter. There's nothing wrong with fame or wealth if it happens as a byproduct of "How Things Are," but if only a hand to mouth unknown existence takes place, that is just fine, too.

James Swartz is off the continuum for a different reason. He doesn't believe in "good." He doesn't believe in any sort of guilt, at least mentally. In his mind, he has understood that, at the deepest levels of spirituality, that everything is impermanent, to attach to anything is to feel dissatisfaction, and that even the individual self is not "real." (These are the core teachings of the Buddha and of Sri Ramana Maharshi.) The problem is, for Swartz this is only a mental understanding. And he has twisted it, deliberately.

The now elderly man who can appear so grandfatherly and wise in fact laughs at people who have consciences or morals. He feels no sense of responsibility for anything he does, as 'he is not real, and neither is the person he is... raping, ripping off, abusing, or lying to.'

A truly Awakened person who has worked through their "Stuff" (samskaras and vasanas) regarding "Sex, Drugs, Money, Fame, and Power" doesn't need to focus his energy on attaining any or all of these five anymore. Again, if Money comes, fine. If a person wishes to share sex with him or her, and in the moment it happens, okay. But there's no need or drive to get laid, to get rich, or to be high, powerful, or renowned.

Swartz fails the test here, magnificently. He is not a true "spiritual teacher."

What he really is has been described many times on this Forum before, and in the book, "Guru? The Story of Heather," which is totally based on Heather's accounts of James Swartz's crimes and rapes while posing as a 'guru.' What James Swartz really is can only be described as a criminal conman and rapist.

How can any person go to this foul parody of a spiritual teacher and take him seriously?

In fact, most persons on "the spiritual path" have been fooled at one time or another. Almost every man or woman has crossed paths, and for a while tried to walk with, a "guru" who turned out to be only half-baked.

Usually, the worse that happens is they need some re-learning with a better teacher, and their pocketbooks are quite a bit lighter, when they leave the bad one as compared to when they came in.

James Swartz is worse than that, though. He's been diagnosed as being a Psychopath, a Sociopath, and a Narcissist. Based on the evidence and accounts posted here, he could well be all three (or is that even possible?).

Beware, good persons. There are better teachers-- real ones -- out there.

Avoid the Hell that is James Swartz. (You can see his real nature in his eyes. He can't hide it. Watch him when he thinks noone is looking. Is there any compassion in that person? Really?) Ask him about his mistranslations of "The Bhagavad Gita" or "Did you really poison a dog to death in India?" Watch, and listen.

Watch, listen, and then leave...

The Aristocrat by G. K. Chesterton

The Devil is a gentleman and askes you down to stay
At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away).
They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new,
And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do;
He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate,
Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids for a bait;
He scaled amid the staggering stars that precipice the sky,
And blew his trumpet above heaven, and got by mastery
The starry crown of God Himself and shoved it on the shelf;
But the devil is a gentleman, and doesn't brag himself.

O blind your eyes and break your heart and hack your hand away,
And lose your love and shave your head; but do not go to stay
At the little place in What'hitsname where folks are rich and clever;
The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse forever;
There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain,
There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain;
There is a game of April Fool that's played behind its door,
Where the fool remains forever and April comes no more,
Where the splendor of the daylight grows drearier than the dark,
And life droops like a vulture that once was such a lark:
And that is the Blue Devil, that once was the Blue Bird;
For the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't keep his word

On cunning:

"Cunning is natural to mankind. It is the sense of our weakness, and an attempt to effect by concealment what we cannot do openly and by force."
William Hazlitt, Characteristics

On Wisdom:

"Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it."
Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha


This one particularly rings true,

"Memory is the mother of all wisdom."
Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

Swartz is a fool. He has the skill of cunning, but no wisdom. He poses as a teacher with knowledge, but the information he uses is stolen from real teachers.

Cunning leads nowhere. Fools in a fool's playground.

Have fun with that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2019 02:13AM by MynameisHeather.