The more I read on this forum, the more I remember. I knew JS as well as it was possible for anyone to know him. I met him in 1996 and had regular contact with him till 2010. He came to Tiru every year for 5 to 6 months, mostly parked himself off at Usha’s Cafe and hung around waiting for potential students. Weeks would go by sometimes without anyone engaging with him. The ShiningWorld thing grew after Isabella joined him around 2010. Although he had been starting to improve the size of his followers in the last four years. Isabella is, in my opinion,
A very ambitious lady who treasured the role of consort and knew how to make the firm work. The “Felicia” referred to here and also referred to as Charlene in the Heather book is, I am convinced in actual fact (or facts as they were told me by JS), his first wife. Her name was (is) Marlene. He described her as supremely beautiful. He said she was a dancer and had been chosen as Miss Hawaii during those times. Apparently they travelled all over the world with JS acting as her costumier and manager. Then all
I heard about her (as memory serves) is that she went mad and he had to commit her to an appropriate institution.

When he was not in Tiru he spent a lot of time at his log cabin in Bend Colorado. (I trust my facts are mostly right). That’s all for now.

[maricika.over-blog.com]

reflections on the teaching of Advaita Vedanta by Moo and James Swartz

bellajack Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> his first wife. Her name was (is) Marlene. He
> described her as supremely beautiful. He said she
> was a dancer and had been chosen as Miss Hawaii
> during those times. Apparently they travelled all
> over the world with JS acting as her costumier and
> manager. Then all
> I heard about her (as memory serves) is that she
> went mad and he had to commit her to an
> appropriate institution.

In his autobiography James writes that some people thought she went crazy because of his bad influence but that it was really because she was a product of inbreeding. I guess that's what enlightened people do, they expose their loved one's deepest secrets to protect their image.

Have you read or heard about the allegations of him repeatedly drugging and sexually abusing two of his female teenage disciples, and manupulating them into bringing in money by performing in strip clubs? What do you think of these allegations?

I first read the”Heather” story when it appeared appropriately two years ago on Medium Daily Digest from which it was promptly removed forever after retaliatory response from JS on same platform. I see it does not go away. My thoughts? Because of the depth to f evil embedded in the allegations, iss hard for me is o believe ths is all true.
true. I think perhaps I am afraid to face the confusion and anger emotional pain etc that proof of this allegation wd bring. It is of the most heinous kind. I would never recommend anything me to go with o JS for Truth. I am on th same page as everyone one els here. Oh, one thing, Swami Chinmayananda did MOT ask him to go out and teach. From what he told me their relationship ended on an unpleasant not. In fact he only started jumping on the Chinmayananda bandwagon about four or five years ago. Probably because he was using some of his texts. JS has never written his own commentary on even a short Advaitik text as far as I know.

bellajack Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Swami Chinmayananda did MOT ask him to go out and
> teach. From what he told me their relationship
> ended on an unpleasant not. In fact he only
> started jumping on the Chinmayananda bandwagon
> about four or five years ago. Probably because he
> was using some of his texts. JS has never written
> his own commentary on even a short Advaitik text
> as far as I know.

That's very interesting. That confirms what other sources have said and makes James a confabulator ("liar" sounds so harsh) and a "self-proclaimed traditional vedanta teacher", which is in itself a contradiction.

About the allegations, I get what you mean when you say that because of the depth of evil embedded in the allegations, it's hard to believe that it's all true.

Reading James's autobiography, it became obvious to me that he scores high on what in psychology they call the Dark Triad traits. Such people are more likely to commit crimes. But they are also more likely to make enemies, i.e. more likely to be falsely accused by someone with a vendetta.

I'm hoping that if the allegations are true, a stronger case can be made against James by gathering supporting evidence. And if they're not true, I hope they can be disproven.

If James really sent those emails to the author in response to the allegations (the emails that are included in the book "Guru? The story of Heather"), I believe supporting evidence for this can be found in the email headers, consisting of technical details, such as the ip addresses of the sender and relay servers. I don't know much about this but I believe these headers can be extracted from any email.

I've sent Traveler99 a PM about this yesterday, asking if he has looked into the possibility of having an independent expert analyze and attest to the validity of the emails.

If the allegations are true, you'd expect there not to be contradictory accounts of what happened in the story. I think I may have found a contradiction though. Not sure what to make of it.

On page 55 of the book, there's a transcription of a conversation between Heather and Sandy when they meet again for the first time, many years after they both left the guru. During this conversation Sandy understands for the first time that it wasn't just Heather that got drugged and raped, but she herself too:

Quote

H: The leader claimed to be spiritual, a guru, and in fact was a fucker, a liar, a
hypnotist, a drugger, and a rapist.
S: Absolutely he was the fucker, the liar, and the hypnotist. Drugger and rapist? I
only suspected about those until Wyoming. Then I found out for sure.
H: What happened?
S: I came back from town early once, and when I knocked with his mail I could
hear him banging around inside. He called, ‘Wait a minute,’ and came out sort of
sweaty, barely dressed, a bit out of breath. He took the mail and got rid of me
quickly, but you weren’t in the other building, so I got suspicious. I watched
toward the cabin, and a few minutes later you were kind of shoved out the door.
You weren’t dressed right, and you could barely move. You staggered back to our
hut, I grabbed you at the door and laid you down, and you slept for three or four
hours. When you woke up, you couldn’t remember a thing. You said you’d had
some tea with… him, and that’s the last you could remember.”
(Silence for almost a minute.)
S: I was going to talk to you about it, to tell you what I had seen and suspected,
but…
H: You had your own problems. Besides, you had to have been processing what
you saw with me together with what happened to you.
S: What? What do you mean?
H. You know, back in Palo Alto, when you woke up feeling like somebody was
on top of you, and you screamed and woke everybody up, and you thought you
saw somebody running out of your room, and then... then they came, the
husband and wife, and told you that you’d had a bad dream.
S: I... I’m not sure I remember that.
H. (quiet voice) You and I talked about it. You were scared for weeks. (pauses)
You did sleep a lot back then...
S: Yeah, I did. But since leaving Wyoming, it’s been hard to sleep much at all.
Even now.
(Silence, as they both digest what Heather had understood years before, and
Sandy is only now fully realizing.)
H: You’re right. I was leaving, and I wasn’t able to talk much, not with all the drugging and brainwashing that fake guru was doing to me.
S: To us…

On page 39, Heather gets a letter from Sandy. This was sent half a year after Heather left the guru, many years before the conversation quoted above took place. A quote from the letter:

Quote

Vishnu is divorcing Charlene. Basically, he threw her out. He thought
that she was getting even too strange for him; that she was becoming
clinically insane rather than just weird.
I would say that being married to him would drive anybody nuts, but
here’s the clincher--with her leaving he talked about marrying me!
Guess since I wouldn’t drink the tea he figured he’d have to make me a
legitimate stripper sex partner, like Charlene had been.

Here Sandy seems to say that she understands that the tea (which the guru used to put the drugs in to make his victims pass out) made her an illegitimate sex partner. I take that to mean that she knew the tea made her pass out and then the guru would have sex with her.

The following are two messages from Heather herself.

These were the first from her regarding the “James Swartz—What is the Truth?” message board.

Message 1:

Hi Guys,

I looked at the cult ed site...and wow...lots of responses!

the last one though...the fellow who said he knew js from 96 to 2010...I got slightly irritated with that one...simply because I'm tempted to log onto cult ed and try to set him straight...I feel a temptation to try to convince him that my story is indeed true...I feel I need to convince people, which is dangerous for me...getting involved in the drama all over again is not good for me...it always sets me back on the ptsd road...and it's not my responsibility to convince other people of the truth.

I guess it's hard for people to believe js could do something so "evil". Evil indeed...

I know the truth...I lived it...I'm still living it.

Sometimes I wonder if Sandy & I are the only ones he did this to...

No other people are coming out with similar stories...which is good on the one hand...But if we are the only ones...but not so good because people seem to need other accounts to corroborate mine. This is what irritates me.

Thank you for giving the good fight though...your courage and noble hearts help me...

Love

“Heather”

(End Of Message)

The only changes this writer made in her messages were to change her and other names to protect privacy. However, unlike in the book, this time the dance instructor’s name, and that of the first wife, were left unchanged. Joseph is said to have passed away years ago. If by some very slim chance the first wife of JS is still alive, and has recovered her balance after the reported destructiveness of years as the consort of Swartz, it would be wonderful if she would contact us.

Message 2 from Heather:

I would also like to add...

Marlene did indeed go "crazy"...that part the dude had right. She was nutty when I met her...and the whole time I was involved with those guys. But it wasn't her fault. JS did that to her. When “Sandy” and I first met them, it was through Joseph our dance teacher. He taught us dance class at the SF Dance Theatre. At that time, JS literally was pimping out Marlene for money. He got her into doing sex acts with Joseph in the skeeziest part of the tenderloin in SF...this was the "dance" and "performance" JS claimed Marlene had been doing at that time...nope, it was sex acts...the real, dirty, raunchy, disgusting stuff we all know exists, but don't want to look at.

Along with all that gross stuff...JS was running his spiritual gig...weird, but totally true! This is how he lured me and “Sandy” into the cult...he represented as a spiritual guru...we called him Rama at that time...then, after he groomed me...hypnotized me...drugged me...& sexually assaulted me...at that point all the spiritual stuff started to fall away...then he began to prepare me to do strip shows like “Sandy” & Marlene were already doing. It was when we lived in the cabin in Montana that things got horrific and crazy...some really dark stuff happened to me that still gives me pain & panic attacks today. Marlene finally went completely crazy...she threatened JS that she would leave him if he didn't dump me and Sandy... at that time, JS wanted to dump Marlene & marry “Sandy”...but she thought he was totally fat and disgusting and pathetic...no way would she marry him. At that point, everything fell apart. I escaped with the help of my family...soon after Sandy left...tried to kill herself...then finally got the help she needed. I never knew what happened to Marlene after that...

(End Of Message 2)

These messages were copied here at “Heather’s” request.

For a person new to this evaluation of the truth regarding James Swartz, the book, “Guru? The Story Of Heather” is available at www.reallyguru.com as a free to download PDF. It has been revealed on this site that this book is based on allegations regarding the alleged crimes, including systematic rapes of minors, of and by James Swartz.

I agree it certainly suggests that S knew the tea could be or was drugged.

Thank you Traveller99 for your messages and the ones from "Heather". That gives more flesh and blood to the human being who is depicted as fictional character in the story; her latest messages is enough evidence for me; i dont need to be further convinced of the veracity of her testimonial.

I fully understand that she does not want to get involved in this discussion. She did her part by writing her "story", difficult as it was to go back to this horrific past and all it long-term entailed.

Hello Everyone,

Just a couple of things. In response to Heather wondering if there are any more victims, it seems hard to think there hasnt been. However, tbe more awareness that the world get's with her terrible experience, and this forum, the better it is.

I can tell everyone, that this topic is gettjng watched by more and more members of Shiningworld, and Heather's book is also been passed around. There is most certainly a growing movement of people that are now wanting to disassociate themselves from James Swartz. There is a lot of unrest currently in Shiningworld, and it is reaching critical mass. There only needs to be more momentum gave, and more information about anything provided.

About the emails in Heather's book. The language, tonality and general thrust of the emails appear to be true to me. Obviously that means nothing in itself. And i'm not about to explain why (just yet( how I know. But i've integrity and if i found the emails published by the author suspicious, I would not support them here. This topic and the book is the lifeblood of this movement to try to have some protection for the world. Everything that is wrote here is very important as the whole world is reading it.

One of the major things that convinced my critical mind, in the book, was how obvious that the emails published were wrote by him. Put your faith in me, I wont lie about this. I wont tell you any lies, or embellish. There is no need, it's horrifying enough.

Yet, i'm having some frustration myself as I know some are continuing to bury their heads in the sand. But we will all get there. We will keep this going. The book, and all its supporters, we're going nowhere.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Around two years ago James and Isabella decided to sack one of their teachers. A new teacher, called Daniel Band. Daniels crime was to ask for donations for teaching vedanta so he could pay for medical expenses. In vedanta expectation of dakshina is appropriate. So, Daniel's 'crme' wasnt a crime in itself. Though admittedly, Shiningworld do have their conditions that a teacher should not ask for donations nor rely on them. That is up to them...

The actual traditional vedanta view is that a person can indeed life of donations, and this is why they are expected. After all, how do Swami survive!

Anyhow, fast forward two years to the most recent Berlin seminar. At the end, James SWartz decided to ask donations in order to pay for his new home in Spain.

Ok. So it is ok to sack, and publicly humiliate and ostracize someone for asking for donations for medical expenses, yet he can ask for donations for his spanish home?

Jesus, like.

Poor Daniel was made out to be a terrible person, and it got reaqlly ugly. Isabella being the medusa. The way he was treated, public humiliation and being shunned from the community, these are sure signs of a cult. As im certain this forum is aware of.

There are more signs, but, that will come out soonish, hehe.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another totally inconceivable teaching took place in the Berlin seminar.

JS began a rant about Donald Trump. Not that tht has got anything to do with teaching Vedanta. The Jagadguru of the tradition, Shankara, warned us all about focusing on these matters, so why it would be a matter to discuss in a vedanta class is beyond me really.

Anyhow, the rant went on, then a surreal pause, as JS exclaimed, "But it doesnt matter anyhow, as none of it is real!"

Well holy batshit! None of it is real?? WTF does that mean. HAhaha. Pure spiritual by-passing. It's crackpots like this that are causing much damage in Vedanta.

None of this matters from the point of Brahman. Yet I am still gonna go get something to eat after this. Cause I am hungry. At no time does Traditional VEdanta by-pass the transactional utility of what we see all around. To teach this to students is a highly dangerous thing. It invariably will lead to students not adressing things within themselves, or even feeling disconnected and walking away from their role, responsibilities and duties

VEdanta is about living more fully, free from suffering. Free from the fear that anything can change or limit the person. It means that sure as Brahman nothing changes one, but Vedanta is not for Brahman. It's for humans. That means that humanity is important. It means that what happens in life does matter. It means that we can't let him get away with this any longer.

I feel, that without a doubt he has been refining his methods over many years. But since he doesn't live the teachings, the mask slips quite often still.

More from Heather

Will You please pass on this message to Earthquake””? Thank you! Love, “Heather”

Earthquake…what you wrote reminded me of so much crap JS used to tell us.

When “Sandy” and I were with Marlene and JS…Marlene & “Sandy” were doing regular strip gigs overseas as well as in North America (Canada included). I was technically underage, and Rama felt uneasy with this…didn’t want to tempt “the law” (as he used to say). He was beginning to groom me for stripping, and even though this stuff was completely in contradiction to all the spiritual stuff he lured me in by…(people who have been in a cult will relate to this…) I went along with it anyway…I didn’t feel I had a choice in the matter…I couldn’t leave my spiritual “family”…I had no family of my own to go home to. JS had me completely in his control.

During this time JS had drugged me and sexually assaulted me several times. He put the drug in tea and told me to drink it. We sat face to face…and I hallucinated while he “talked me down”…what I mean by this is he used his skills in hypnotizing, and got me in a very relaxed state…he told me we had lived many lives together…he asked me which lives I could see in his face. He knew I was hallucinating, and he knew how to manipulate my hallucination. Not knowing what was happening to me…I believed JS when he told me that the faces I saw were people he had been in past lives…people I had known intimately. Then he told me to lie down…and keep looking at him…I became so relaxed that I could not move any muscles in my body.

…that’s how he sexually assaulted me. I never consented to sexual activity. NEVER.

…JS physically injured me in a permanent way with the sexual assaults…but that’s a whole other story.

I was in a constant state of confusion because of the dichotomy between the spiritual teachings, and the sexual assaults…and the sex entertainment industry to which JS was grooming me to enter. Nothing made sense…but I was being swept away in an impossible wave of nonsensical confusion. Anyone who has survived being in a cult knows exactly what this is!!!

Rama used to intertwine his spiritual teachings with the striptease work of our group. He used to say things like…it doesn’t matter what you do at the level of the small self…you can take off your clothes in front of lusty, dirty, old men…and it doesn’t matter! You are of the Self…Brahamin…they (the dirty old men) are of the small self…ego…so we can have fun with this! We can laugh at this funny joke…because we know we are the larger Self…Brahamin…and they are stupid, lazy, lusty, dirty old men of the small self…the ego…so let’s have some fun playing in this field of Maya…and the joke will be on them! Because we know the Self…and they do not! They are too stupid and of the ego to know what We know!!! Nothing matters…because none of this exists!!!

DOES THIS CRAP SOUND FAMILIAR TO ANY OF YOU CURRENT JS FOLLOWERS!!!??? I HOPE YOU WAKE UP!!!



This is a poem to and about James Swartz that I sent to a spiritual teacher I respect (name withheld to protect this teacher from attacks by James Swartz) a couple of years ago:



Love Hate


Guru, what have you taught me?
To know the Self and be selfless,
You taught me to love hate,

You,
Shining face, and open arms, taught me trust,
The attention you gave me, made me believe you were the only one,
To love me,
And care for me,
As God,
You interviewed me,
I was a glittering star,
You helped me to be nearer unto God,
But better yet…to know my Self, which is Brahmin.

You taught me of the Three Gunas,
And of Maya, the illusion of the material world,
You taught me I had something called Ego,
You said we all had Vasanas,
The forces that drive us,
From our past lives,
Into our present,

You disclosed to me you had imperfections,
And assured me I wasn’t alone in sin,
You listened to the stories of my life,
And asked questions, more and more questions…

Together we discovered all the things that had hurt me,
We exposed my regrets and the two things I felt most guilty about.
One, two…and three…

Come sit on my lap,
And let’s have a hug,
This is the best love you will ever know…it won’t get better than this…

You told me we were the same,
You were no better or worse,
You didn’t want to be my guru…
…but I could stick around just the same,

I kept coming back to your house,
I wanted so much to be close to God,
I wanted so much to be good and selfless,
Not the Ego,
Not the bad and selfish person I knew I was.

To know my Self,
And be Brahmin,

Guru, what did you love of me?
I was an injured, shattered person,
A wounded gazelle limping astray from the herd,

Did you love the chase?
Or the sickness of suffocating a young face,
Consuming what’s left of the light found there?

You,
Love hate,
Hate love,
Love hate,

Guru, how do I know my Self?
And not the unimportant small self, which is my Ego,
self—ruled by Vasanas,
Selfish needs and wants,
Likes and dislikes?

After tea,
You asked me what I saw,
Faces,
Contort,
Spiral, ever-moving and changing,
Many faces,
A haggard woman,
A regal king,
A small boy…

You and I had known each other before,
We’ve had many past lives together,


Guru, you taught me to see auras,
Go to sleep,
Let the light enter in,
My body,
My being,

When you first hurt me,
I didn’t know,
I was sleeping, sleep

You taught me pain was pleasure,
You told me I wanted it.

It was my idea,
I made it happen,
Vasanas,
And Karma.

Pain is pleasure,
Love is hate,
Hate is love,

One, two…and three…

I was bad,
I was guilty,
I wanted to be close to God,
So this is the Karma I must pay,
To know the Self…to be Brahmin,

Guru, what have you taught me?
To know the Self and be selfless,
You taught me to love hate,

When you brought me to the cabin in the woods,
We entered into a darker place,
There was no light there.

Your rape,
My torture,

You,
Your Shining face,
A demon,
Taught me cruelty, torment, more pain,
And death…
…if I was to talk,

You taught me I am self and selfish,
I had to pay the price.

Me pain,
Your pleasure,

My torture,
You love,

I cannot forget your face,
And the detestation in it.

Across time,
Words from your face,
Reverberate in me,

My spine twists but does not break.


Guru, what have you taught me?
You taught me the guru is the seeker,
The seeker is the guru,
To know the Self and be selfless,
You taught me,

Love hate.

This spell:

Hate Love
Love Hate
Hate Love
Love Hate
Hate Love…love hate…hate love…love…