Has anyone ever heard of this group called "Isha Foundation" lead by a fellow named Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev? They are a Yoga group that charges for sessions and two years ago a friend of mine has moved away from the US and into India to be a Yoga instructor. Having since educated myself somewhat in groups like this I am concerned.... there isn't much on Isha on the internet - there are a few cult warnings but very little compared to some others groups. Any help is appreciated.

Yes, this group is building an ashram in Tennessee. Have you been in touch with your friend?

Yes, through email once. She is teaching Yoga on what appears to be a volunteer basis and says that "she is well because although things bother her, she is more able to deal with those things thanks to her teachings". She made no mention of how else she is procuring income & was quite vague. I've sent another email and haven't heard back for at least a week. Her closer friends say they know of no way to contact her over the phone.

I've left a message and sent an email to the NYC cult hotline and haven't heard back from there either.

I think Ive seen photos relating to this group in a lot of free yoga magazines.

If so, the group has the money for PR, so they should not be vague about whether they have the ability to support their employees--or their employees 401(k) plans.

Ditto for health coverage. You could leave your pal out of this and check with the Department of Labor in the state where this ashram is.

Hi Pizzaslap et al.,

I was surfing for new Sadhguru stuff and stumbled on your thread.
I've been an Isha meditator for about about 4-5 years, and I spent two months at the Ashram in India in 04.
Right now I live in CT with my wife and new baby. I don't have any credentials as "official representative" or anything, but if you'd find it helpful,
I'd be happy to answer any questions about my experience with Isha as best I can. I can tell you in advance that Isha does not meet my criteria as a cult. I've always been a staunch skeptic, but to me Sadhguru and Isha are the real deal. Of course, that doesn't mean it doesn't meet your criteria, depending, of course, on what they are. I can also tell you Isha has no employees - it is a 100% volunteer organization; If your friend is working as a Yoga teacher, she's not getting paid any money at all; She's getting room, board, other basic needs taken case of and the self-chosen opportunity to give of herself fully for the benefit of others (which ultimately she is doing, as inherently we all are, for her own benefit) - not everyone's cup of tea, but perhaps hers...?

There's lots of video on the web/youtube of Sadhguru speaking in various contexts, including the world economic forum in Davos, which you may find shed some light on Isha for you.

Best wishes,


Eric

Umm8chr:

Is there a constitution with bylaws that governs the Isha Foundation, which requires regular elections by secret ballot to select board members that serve fixed terms? is there a democratically elected corporate board?

Does the Isha Foundation publish an independently audited annual financial report, which discloses how its funds are used in detail, such as any money spent to support Sandguru and his expenses?

How are Isha Foundation funds specifically controlled? Who has the responsibility to make any and all financial decisions?

Is health care included as one of the "basic needs" provided to the volunteer staff by the Isha Foundation? Is there health insurance? If so who is the health care provider?

What specific retirement program is provided by the Isha Foundation to long-term volunteer staff? How is that administered? Is there a pension fund?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2008 08:07PM by rrmoderator.

rrmoderator,

I don't specifically know the answers to any of these questions, but here are my best stabs at them:
Is there a constitution with bylaws that governs the Isha Foundation, which requires regular elections by secret ballot to select board members that serve fixed terms? Is there a democratically elected corporate board?
Answer: I don't know what legal/internal structure(s) Isha uses, but I would say certainly not these.
Does the Isha Foundation publish an independently audited annual financial report, which discloses how its funds are used in detail, such as any money spent to support Sandguru and his expenses?
Answer: I don't know – I never saw or heard about one, and would tend to doubt it.
How are Isha Foundation funds specifically controlled? Who has the responsibility to make any and all financial decisions?
Answer: I think that ultimately Sadhguru makes, or at least approves, all decisions, perhaps through delegation in some ways.
Is health care included as one of the "basic needs" provided to the volunteer staff by the Isha Foundation? Is there health insurance? If so who is the health care provider? What specific retirement program is provided by the Isha Foundation to long-term volunteer staff? How is that administered? Is there a pension fund?
Answer: Now we’re kind of confronting the American/Indian gap. I don’t know if India has those things, or what form they take. Nor do I know how these things are dealt with in the budding facility here. I do know that Isha has initiated a program which is providing free mobile medical care to tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of rural villagers in India. All the MDs are 100% volunteer. I also know that one of the US volunteers (an MD) has been working with the town of McMinnville (where the new IIIS is) to start a free medical clinic for townspeople. So given the kind of human resources Isha obviously has available to do these things (There are a lot of MDs in Isha) I know no-one is going without.
The thing to understand is that the vast majority of Isha volunteers are people of at least some means, who have found that those “means” are not enough to fulfill them. But they almost all choose to retain those means; they can and do take care of themselves, giving only what they feel appropriate (myself included). Isha is an amazingly non-solicitous organization. By contrast, my alma mater hits me up constantly; Isha has contacted me for donations and volunteer work exactly zero times.
As for the small proportion of people who devote themselves as celibate monks – it is all volunteer. Could such people, in their waning years, decide they wish to leave Isha and find themselves with no means of financial support in the “real world”? I suppose possibly – I really don’t know what, if any, provisions are made for such situations. I would suspect the same is possible with nuns, priests, and monks of any kind.
It seems to me the concern you’re driving at is that people may be tricked by a charismatic leader, used as “voluntary” slave labor for a number of years, manipulated out of their assets, and left to the wolves in their old age. This is a valid concern given that countless charlatans have committed such abuses over the millennia. At the same time, the existence of charlatans does not preclude the existence and significance, of true enlightened beings – those who have attained the pinnacle of human consciousness. If one’s world-view does not allow for the existence of such people, than the best one can hope to find are sincere, but delusional persons doing the best they can within the grips of their delusion. But if in one’s experience it becomes clear that such beings do exist, than having one make all the rules for an organization of willing volunteers might be a very good thing. In such a case, I would suggest the need for the kinds of western notions and structures of egalitarianism you raise are culturally and practically inapplicable. The question is, how to know what one is dealing with in their absence – and that, IMHO- is something each individual can only discern for himself.

Umn8chr:

Thanks for the answers, though at times you attempted to talk around various points.

Bottom line is that the Isha Foundation is essentially totalitarian and has no meaningful accountability for its leader through any elected board or financial transparency.

Volunteers have no benefits and work for "room and board."

No one knows how much money Sadhguru takes from Isha funds, and he has no accountability regarding such matters.

Your answers were based upon your experience as an "Isha meditator for about about 4-5 years."

To whom it may concern:

What is a destructive cult?

See [www.culteducation.com]

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, a former professor at Harvard Medical School, defines a cult using three primary characteristics:

1. a charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose their power;

2. a process I call coercive persuasion or thought reform;

3. economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie.

To better understand what Lifton means by "thought reform" see [www.culteducation.com]

Meditation can be seen as a form of self-hypnosis or trance induction. In such a state of altered consciousness people become more suggestible.

See [www.culteducation.com]

Clinical psychologist Margaret Singer writes how meditation may be harmful.

UMOchr wrote:

Quote

In such a case, I would suggest the need for the kinds of western notions and structures of egalitarianism you raise are culturally and practically inapplicable.

Corboy muses:

How endearingly forthright. Is this told, up front, to all current and prospective members of Isha? It should be. Or they will not fully know what they are getting into.

At most, I would want to learn yoga and meditation. That doesnt mean I would want to renounce the mental skills and beliefs that enable me to function as a citizen in a participatory democracy. I would want to remain a citizen as well as a yogi, not become a subject to a monarchical guru.

So if in Isha one must give up the mental and emotional skills of citizenship and allow oneself to be shaped into a suppliant subject to a guru-king, and that Isha considers this a necessary part of becoming a yogi--all prospective members need to know this before they get involved.

If a person shifts from being a citizen to becoming a subject, they should know this is what is expected of them, so that they can make that renunciation consciously, not sleepwalk into it and find themselves
unconsciously becoming subjects. That is not spiritual and I refuse to accept that matters are different in India.

I hope Isha will tell all its current and its prospective US members that "western notions and structures of egalitarianism you raise are culturally and practically inapplicable."

Wonder what neighbors down the road in Tennessee would think of this?

Isha has taken up in the US and proposes to build itself an ashram in Tennesse.

This means that an organization whose representative has stated that 'western nations and structures of egalitarianism are culturally and practically inapplicable."

But...these same principles and structures of egalitarianism are at the root of the concepts that underlie both the laws and institutions of the United States of America. And underlie, by extension the laws that enable "religious" entities like ISHA tax exempt status.

Isha therefore seems to favor a non egalitarian, perhaps monarchical guru system, yet is going to be allowed to accumulate wealth at a faster rate than tax paying unspiritual citizens of the United States, because it will be able to claim tax exempt status from a democracy that shelters it and has egaglitarian principles and structures...that Isha may consider 'culturally and practically inapplicable"---but whose tax exemption laws will be of the utmost practical importance in sheltering Isha.

At the very least Isha should concede that the generosity of US democracy is of the utmost relevance to its future, for US democratic institutions will give Isha shelter from taxation, even though Isha's belief system is different from the US mainstream religious traditions.

America may be spiritually inferior, but legally we are a model of generosity when it comes to our trustful willingness to offer tax exemption to spiritual projects.

So at the very least, Isha should show some verbal respect and even gratitude to Western structures and principles of egalitarianism for having made the USA and its tax exemption laws possible.

One final note:

Even if the members of Isha have private means, who is going to wait on them and clean the toilets?

We are expressing concern lest persons who are not already wealthy are coaxed to join Isha, do the peon jobs for room and board and a bits of gurus grace, and then get ejected in middle age, to become a care and burden to the society that Isha never supported with its taxes.

For this is what happened in Siddha yoga.

It is a remarkable thing that so very many Americans are willing to forget the principles of participatory democracy and think the only way to become spiritual is to enact the role of feudals in a petty kingdom.

And the gurus who come here acting as kings, nevertheless are quick to exploit the tax exempt catagories afforded by the western democracies whose principles they consider unspiritual.

These tax exempt policies result in Isha and entities like it, being tacitly supported by those of us unspiritual types who do end up paying tax and thus indirectly support the pretensions of wanna be kings and queens who dress in guru drag--and who by not paying US tax, are enabled to accumulate wealth at a faster rate and who can sneer at all demands for accountablity by referring to the cultural differences between India and the US.

This contempt for democracy combined with willingness to exploit its protections so as to build a feudal society that is anti democratic, while smilingly exploiting the resources of the host democracy is an insult to the US, and it is a practice that now troubles thoughtful and modern minded Indians.

Modern minded Indians love their spiritual heritage but dislike seeing gurus behaving as aggressive wealth accumulators, using the forms of tradition calling themselves Brahmins while behaving as commodities brokers using spirituality as product.

Thoughtful Indians even have a term, 'export guru' for those who come to the West using the guru profession to impose on persons who lack experience and dont know how to tell the difference between a mere spiritual entrepreneur versus a true teacher.

By tradition, gurus never gave diksa (intiation and mantra) for a money-fee, never. One offered a token amount of fruit and and cloth, and incense, but one didnt buy it as a commodity.

And when one became a sadhu, ones intiating guru chanted renunciation vows with the initiate, abandoning all wealth, family life, stable lodgings.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2008 09:58PM by corboy.