The only thing about transforming "a windowless warehouse of cement walls to the beautiful center that we have today" is that this center was recently closed for lack of interest.
Actually this "center" was on life support for much of its tenure. It was for the most part funded and supported by renters who used the space for totally unrelated projects.
So much for the "journey together to understand the human condition and learn to live beyond ego, which is an ever engaging and outrageously positive endeavor" and "bring[ing] a wave of enlightened revolutionary spirit to this great city!"
If you blow the horn loud enough maybe we'll all believe it?
The Cambridge EnlightenNext center was always over hyped, built on the grandiose vision of Andrew Cohen and never lived up to the pr. To carry its tremendous overhead, it had to be rented out to various enterprises which were happy to pay the rent in exchange for the space - not for the "journey to understand the human condition."
William Yenner

ENLIGHTENNEXT SELLING ITS ASHRAM

EnlightenNext, the non-profit which owns the 220 acre Foxhollow estate located in Lenox, MA, has decided to put the property up for sale. According to the broker, Stone House Properties, EnlightenNext is trying to relocate to smaller facilities and into the Connecticut River Valley town of Northampton. Foxhollow, described by EnlightenNext as its "World Center", was purchased in 1996 for $2.8 million; it's now being marketed for nearly $7 million.

During its tenure in Lenox, EnlightenNext has been subject of considerable controversy about its founder and spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen. Over the years multiple allegations of abuse of students have come to light including three books, one of which, The Mother of God, was written by Cohen's mother, Luna Tarlo.

In the fall of 2009 another book by another former student was published: American Guru, by William Yenner and contributors. Several Berkshire events have marked the introduction of the book including a book talk at the Book Store in Lenox and interviews on CTSB TV in South Lee on the Bob Balogh Show on WBCR Radio, as well as feature newspaper articles in the Northampton Daily Gazette and The Greenfield Recorder. In December American Guru was selected as one of 10 Best Non-fiction Books, by P2P Foundation, a media think tank.

Recently some of the public figures whose contributions Cohen has solicited for publication in EnlightenNext magazine have come forward to express their own concerns about the situation at Foxhollow; their statements can be seen on at American Guru.

Two articles

This first article goes very well with Professor Suttons examination of Assholism in the workplace.

But this article refers to a process termed serial bullying.


[www.bullyeq.com]

Quote


1) How do bullies select their targets?

The bully selects their target using the following criteria:

bullies are predatory and opportunistic - you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; this is always the main reason - investigation will reveal a string of predecessors, and you will have a string of successors.

Corboy note:

What the article does not mention is the bizarre and horrifying outcome when an ideology, such as 'evolutionary spirituality' or Wilberian Integralism is used to rationalize and even celebrate serial bullying. '

Item Two:

"Friday, February 5, 2010
Untangling the Guru-Disciple Relationship with Andrew Cohen"

[worldwidehappiness.blogspot.com]

More material quoted from the bully site. This refers to the secular world, not to the diseased world of New Age fascism that celebrates abusive gurus and writes off those who disapprove as having mean green meme mentality.

Quote


3) Personal qualities that bullies find irresistible (excerpt from a longer list)

*high expectations of those in authority and a dislike of incompetent people in positions of power who abuse power (If you believe in gurus, you are gonna have high expectations of those in authority-Corboy)

*a tendency to self-deprecation, indecisiveness, deference and approval seeking
low assertiveness (Corboy note: If you do not start out with those qualities, spending time in the New Age cultic milieu will socialize you in this direction. You learn to take things on faith, bow, show deference to strange behavior, give others the benefit of the doubt and this can set you up to, at a later time, become perfect bully fodder if you wander into the cross hairs of a bully who is looking for another human being to use as a toilet)

*a need to feel valued

*quick to apologise when accused, even if not guilty (this is a useful technique for defusing an aggressive customer or potential road rage incident)

*perfectionism

*higher-than-average levels of dependency, naivety and guilt

*a strong sense of fair play and a desire to always be reasonable (social assets when you are with decent people, and leaves you nakedly vulnerable when with a bully who is charming you and has not yet revealed the hidden Mr HydeCorboy)


*high coping skills under stress, especially when the injury to health becomes apparent

(Note: people to get panic attacks and easily break down into stress illness dont last long as bully fodder. They get sick or disabled and have to leave. They do not know how lucky they are, and sadly, risk assuming they are weaklings. By a paradox strong and resilient people risk staying long enough with a bully to incur very much deeper harm. Corboy)

*a tendency to internalise anger rather than express it

(Intelligent bullies avoid anyone who is capable of calling them on their stuff.

However some bullies may recruit violent people and use them as favorites, siccing them on scapegoats within the group. This is an inviting set up for violent types who want to rationalize what they do as as spiritual service (seva) to a guru. Its still violence, whatever you call it. Muktananda reportedly used scary people to frighten
the earliest persons to dissent.

In the very worst situations, a bully may cause anger ridden scapegoats to lash out at each other, or pursue dissidents with verbal abuse, instead of directing thier anger where it belongs--a leader who has brought out the worst in them, not their best. Corboy)

The typical sequence of events is:

8the target is selected using the criteria above, then bullied for months, perhaps years
eventually, the target asserts their right not to be bullied, perhaps by filing a complaint with personnel

*personnel interview the bully, who uses their Jekyll and Hyde nature, compulsive lying, and charm to tell the opposite story (charm has a motive - deception)

*it's one word against another with no witnesses and no evidence, so personnel take the word of the senior employee - serial bullies excel at deception and evasion of accountability

(Corboy note-remember, this article refers to the secular world. Imagine a bully supported by a diseased guru culture that excuses every behavior of a guru and puts all onus onto the target)

***the personnel department are hoodwinked by the bully into getting rid of the target - serial bullies are adept at encouraging conflict between people who might otherwise pool negative information about them

*once the target is gone, there's a period of between 2-14 days, then a new target is selected and the process starts again (bullying is an obsessive compulsive behaviour and serial bullies seem unable to survive without a target on to whom they can project their inadequacy and incompetence whilst blaming them for the bully's own failings)

*even if the employer realises that they might have sided with the wrong person in the past, they are unlikely to admit that because to do so may incur liability

***if legal action is taken, employers go to increasingly greater lengths to keep targets quiet, usually by offering a small out-of-court settlement with a comprehensive gagging clause

*employers are often more frightened of the bully than the target and will go to enormous lengths to avoid having to deal with bully (promotion for the bully is the most common outcome)

[www.bullyeq.com]

Two comments continuing discussion on World Wide Happiness site. The dialogue centers on whether the hurtful leadee can change.

[worldwidehappiness.blogspot.com]

Let us look again at the list of qualifications that a bully finds irresistable, especially if its a serial bully.

[www.bullyeq.com]

Quote

*once the target is gone, there's a period of between 2-14 days, then a new target is selected and the process starts again (bullying is an obsessive compulsive behaviour and serial bullies seem unable to survive without a target on to whom they can project their inadequacy and incompetence whilst blaming them for the bully's own failings)

Does this resemble the profile of someone who can be inspired to change by forgivness?

The qualities of kindness and forgivenesss manifested by Ellen and Martin in their discussion show up on the list of qualities that, according to the British bullying website, make you an attractive target for a serial bully--not qualities that inspire such a person to stop being a bully!

(again, this is a tiny excerpt of a larger list)


[www.bullyeq.com]

Quote

3) Personal qualities that bullies find irresistible

Targets of bullying usually have these qualities:

honesty and integrity (which bullies despise)

you're trustworthy, trusting, conscientious, loyal and dependable

a well-developed integrity which you're unwilling to compromise

you're always willing to go that extra mile and expect others to do the same

imaginative, creative, innovative

idealistic, optimistic, always working for improvement and betterment of self, family, the employer, and the world

ability to think long term and to see the bigger picture

sensitivity (this is a constellation of values to be cherished including empathy, concern for others, respect, tolerance etc)

slow to anger

helpful, always willing to share knowledge and experience

giving and selfless

difficulty saying no

diligent, industrious

tolerant

strong sense of honour

an inability to value oneself whilst attributing greater importance and validity to other people's opinions of oneself (eg through tests, exams, appraisals, manager's feedback, etc)

low propensity to violence (ie you prefer to resolve conflict through dialogue rather than through violence or legal action)

a strong forgiving streak (which the bully exploits and manipulates to dissuade you from taking grievance and legal action)

a desire to always think well of others

being incorruptible, having high moral standards which you are unwilling to compromise

high expectations of those in authority* and a dislike of incompetent people in positions of power who abuse power (Anyone who honors the guru role will have some of this)

a tendency to self-deprecation, indecisiveness, deference and approval seeking

('Approval seeking, as in giving a damn what color or level you occupy on Ken Wilber's classification scheme. Corboy)

low assertiveness

quick to apologise when accused, even if not guilty (this is a useful technique for defusing an aggressive customer or potential road rage incident)
perfectionism

a strong sense of fair play and a desire to always be reasonable*
(Bullies pretend to be reasonable, often when in public but show their primitive side in private, as soon as they figure no authority figure is looking. They are driven by personal needs which are unreasonable. A favorite bully tactic is to get all sweet and reasonable suggest you are the one being crazy if you start setting limits or want to end the relationship. Corboy. )

high coping skills under stress, especially when the injury to health becomes apparent
a tendency to internalise anger rather than express it

and here is what the bullying site describes as target selection by the bully.

Does this look like a pattern that can be solved through reason or by forgiveness?

Quote

The typical sequence of events is:

the target is selected using the criteria above, then bullied for months, perhaps years
eventually, the target asserts their right not to be bullied, perhaps by filing a complaint with personnel

personnel dept interview the bully, who uses their Jekyll and Hyde nature, compulsive lying, and charm to tell the opposite story (charm has a motive - deception)
it's one word against another with no witnesses and no evidence, so personnel take the word of the senior employee - serial bullies excel at deception and evasion of accountability

the personnel department are hoodwinked by the bully into getting rid of the target - serial bullies are adept at encouraging conflict between people who might otherwise pool negative information about them

I would add another feature to the list of characteristics that serial bullies find attractive in a potential target:

The person who defines his or her own identity as forgiving or compassionate.

("I am a forgiving person. I am a compassionate person")

A great way to get trained in this kind of identity is growing up in a family where there is ongoing disfunction and one of the kids, in this case you, gets selected to be the forgiving, capable person who puts up with hurtful crazy behavior in others. You are trained to make endless allowances for some other family member's behavior and are put in this enabling/forgiving/obligatory compassion role before you are old enough to

* Have sufficient autonomy to decide if you want that role or not.

*The persons who put you in that role are your parents or caregivers and you
are little and depend on them for your survival so you dont have any ability
to protest or exit the role when its too much for you to bear

* You lose touch with whether that role is too much for you to bear by stifling your
actual feelings and by getting praised for how forgiving and compassionate you are, when you dont even have a choice to do otherwise but put up with stuff beyond your
age capacity.

* You are put in this obligatory forgiviness role and are praised for it before you are even old enough to have conscious thought.

You equate your sense of self and worth with ablity to rationalize and even celebrate
horrid frightening behavior by persons who have parental role and authority.

Result is, you can emerge as a very nice and wonderful person, but with qualities that also make you an attractive target for serial bullies and a long term servant to serial bullies, unless you can find a way to get conscious of this.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2010 12:33AM by corboy.

'I would add another feature to the list of characteristics that serial bullies find attractive in a potential target:

The person who defines his or her own identity as forgiving or compassionate.'


Very interesting profile on the persons selected by the serial bully as targets. It rings true for me, and also highlights some of the appeal of the 'Hero's Journey' or 'Spiritual Warrior' marketing focus.

I found an interesting article that goes into the psychology of this and compares traits found in "heroic" and "sociopathic" profiles.

heroism

Very interesting, Stoic.

Journalist AJ Liebling covered the Bradley's North African campaign during World War II. Liebling spoke French fluently and was able to interview men in the Gaullist Free French division of that army.

These men were, in many cases, mavericks. As outsiders, they had little to gain from mainstream society, refused to put faith in the Vichy regime, and instead, chose to support de Gualle.

One man was wounded and when the medics cut off his shirt for surgery, found he had wrapped the French tricolour around his waist.

Leibling, smelling a good story, interviewed him and found that this man was a scary
brute from one of the worst and most dangerous suburbs in Paris--Bellevielle.

The guy had scars indicating he had been in gang wars with pimps. When asked what he did for a living, he smiled and replied, 'I lived on my income'--a polite way of intimating that he had himself been a pimp.

Liebling asked him why he had joined the Free French brigade--at a time when so very few others had done so.

The brute smiled and replied, 'Because I understood.'

The qualities that had made him successful in the Paris underworld before the war, had in the context of the Nazi occupation, led him, a sensation seeker and distrustful of limit
setting, join an army of rebels and mavericks--the Free French army.

Hero and psychopath/two sides of the same coin.

Ive read anecdotal reports of others who were heroes in wartime and had the utmost
difficulty settling into civilian life.

And remember there is an old proverb to the effect that 'A martyr is one who must
live with a saint.'

My great grandfather endangered himself late in the 19th century being a union organizer.

Eventually, he ended his days as a night watchman, because word got around that wherever he went, union organizing was sure to follow.

This brought grave hardship to his family. And it may have something to do with why one of his daughters, my grandmother, put up with a world of shit from an alchoholic
husband.

I witnessed families of hero activists in the peace movement, silently suffering in silence
as their loved one insisted on doing such things as long stays in jail or prison, or life
threatening 40 day water only fasts. Worst of all, the family members shared the values of the hero, and felt shamed into keeping silent about their very real misgivings
about what the person was doing.

Its hard to look at someone who is skin and bones from a fast and tell that person
that he (its often a man--it is harder for a fasting woman to assemble a team of enablers though some can do so if they have sufficient charisma)---it is very hard to
tell someone who is in a self imposed prison stay or a self imposed 40 day fast, looking like a skeleton, that they're being selfish as hell, and putting their families through hell.

But, Ive witnessed a callous indifference pathological stubborness on the part of such types.

Arthur Koestler, in his book, The Lotus and The Robot, gives information about the family troubles within Mohandas Gandhi's clan--the old man was brutally demanding of
his two sons, and one son died in great misery as an alcoholic.

A martyr is one who must live with a saint.

Bertolt Brecht, his play Galileo, has some lines.

Galileo has, under pressure from the Inquisition, recanted. Adrea, one of Galileo's students, is crushed and dismayed by his mentor's capitulation.

Adrea says, bitterly, 'Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero.'

Galileo replies: 'No Adrea. Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.'

Heroes are needed when something has gone wrong.

This list is worth re-reading:

[www.themodernword.com]

Eternal Fascism:
Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt

By Umberto Eco
Writing in New York Review of Books, 22 June 1995, pp.12-15. Excerpted in Utne Reader, November-December 1995, pp. 57-59

Eco suggests: "I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism.

"But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it. "

Quote

Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.

Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

Quote

9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.

Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such "final solutions" implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.

Quote

11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.

In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte ("Long Live Death!"). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.

12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.

This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.

An item from todays news that may be relevent.

If you want to stay in contact with your own life force, dont allow a guru
to intrude into it.

This article makes a distinction between obsessive passion and harmonius passion.

For fun, copy this to a word document. Substitute 'guru' for parent or parents and substitute 'disciple' for kids or children or child. and substitute
meditation for swimming music, intrument, clarinet and what have you.

So much for the worth of the surrender model. Without a sense of personal exploration and personal autonomy, you cant access your own harmonious passion and no matter how good your 'music' is, it will be joyless because you're doing it to satisfy your ego driven parents--or an ego driven guru.

Unless what the guru secretly is, is just being a serial bully. In that case, if a guru demands excellence and you manage to squeeze out some goodness in response to the gurus demands, the guru will bully you even more because of your willingness to go the extra mile and because your loyalty arouses the bully gurus inner self loathing.

Catch--22.

'Want Passionate Kids? Leave 'em Alone'

(Quote)Michael Torrice

livescience.com – Tue Feb 9, 8:50 am ET

Quote

Parents who want their children to discover a passion for music, sports, or other hobbies should follow a simple plan: Don't pressure them.

By allowing kids to explore activities on their own, parents not only help children pinpoint the pursuit that fits them best, but they can also prevent young minds from obsessing over an activity, a new study finds.

"Passion comes from a special fit between an activity and a person," said Geneviève Mageau, a psychology professor at the University of Montreal.

"You can't force that fit; it has to be found."

The study focused on what psychologists call autonomy, the basic need to feel like you're acting based on your own values and desires, not those of others. Controlling parents chip away at their child's autonomy, by pushing them into a hobby, the researchers say. So when the kid picks up his clarinet it's not out of a desire to play music, but due to a sense of obligation or a fear of disappointing his parents, according to Mageau.

To connect passion to autonomy, Mageau and colleagues performed three studies in which they surveyed hundreds of athletes and musicians ages 6 to 38 with different skill levels.

The surveys asked questions about the subjects' level of passion, such as how often they practiced a hobby or how much they loved it.

The psychologists then measured how much volunteers agreed with statements such as, "I have a tough time controlling my need to do this activity" to determine if their passion was obsessive and interfering with other aspects of their lives.

To measure autonomy, the researchers also asked participants whether they agreed with statements such as, "I have a say in what happens and can voice my opinions regarding my activity."

In one study, the researchers followed 196 middle-school students as they picked up a musical instrument for the first time. After five months, the psychologists found that one major variable that predicted whether children developed a passion for music was if their parents allowed them the freedom to practice on their own schedule.

The passionate kids on average scored 9 percent greater on the autonomy scale than the non-passionate kids, which is a big effect in a psychology study, Mageau said.

The two other studies also showed that children who had little autonomy but did develop a passion for an activity were more likely than others to take it too far, becoming obsessed with the hobby.

Not only could these children miss out on truly enjoying their hobby, the result could grate on their self-esteem, according to the researchers. Obsessively passionate people attach their self-esteem to the pastime: If they play the clarinet flawlessly one night, they feel great, but if they miss a note, they can get depressed.

One of the three studies involved swimmers, skiers and musicians performing at a national level.

Results showed that the participants' level of autonomy best predicted if they had an obsessive passion compared to a harmonious one, with higher autonomy linked with harmonious passions.

This *freedom* mattered more than the child's own desire to specialize in their hobby.

The difference between forming a healthy and an unhealthy passion is to strike a balance between, say, the clarinet and hanging out with friends. "They don't see [the activity] as defining their whole self," Mageau said. "It's a big part of who they are, but they have other interests too."

But the study's results don't mean parents should let their kids run wild.

"I'm not telling parents to let their kids do whatever they want without limits," Mageau said.

"The most important message is to focus on the child's interests and not to impose one's own on them." (unquote)

[news.yahoo.com]-

Note: craving to be a musician in order to become famous, is a sign of obsessive, ego driven passion.

For a wonderful read and some insights, get a copy of Lost in Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia by Mark Salzman, author of Iron and Silk and The Soloist.

Salzman grew up playing the cello and took martial arts and found himself in the obsessive pleasureless-passion trap. He wamted to become more famous than Yo Yo Ma. And he took up martial arts partly under the influence of the TV series Kung Fu, and because he thought it would be a way for him to beat people up without feeling morally or emotinally troubled about it. To be specific, Salzman said he hoped he could kick back at the assholes at school who picked on him.

Fortunately for him, and for delighted readers, young Mark found mentors who assisted him to identify what made him feel happy and alive--Chinese language and culture. Later, he rediscovered how he could play the cello for personal pleasure, even when fame was totally out of the question.

On the book jacket of a paperback edition of Lost in Place, Salzman said that his goal was the play cello well enough that his cats would not flee the room.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2010 04:21AM by corboy.

In the comments section you can see a great example of how non-dualism can be twisted around to invalidate concerns about a leader's abusive behavior.

[guruphiliac.blogspot.com]

If Cohen and his senior disciples treated one single dog the way human beings are reportedly treated if they are Cohen students, his public career would have ended in disgrace long ago.

We were quicker to reach consensus that it was wrong for football player Vick to misuse the love and loyalty of pitbulls by sicing the dogs to rend each other in dog fights.

But when Evolutionary Spirituality was reportedly used to rationalize slapping fellow students' faces, hot seat treatment in groups, dunkings in ice cold lake water, and nasty trash taking in cyberspace when someone tries to suggest all this is wrong

when human beings are egged on to act like pit balls any concerns are neutralized using nondual rationalization or claims that anyone with concern is weak or ego ridden.

This sector of the scene is a very dangerous and ugly neigbhorhood.

And unlike dangerous neighborhoods in cities, this particular area of the New Age scene hides its danger potential.

You do not hear gunshots in the middle of the night. You do not hear or see cars
spinning 'donuts' in the middle of the street.

[americanguru.net]

Spiritual club up for sale: by Derek Gentile, Berkshire Eagle Staff

[americanguru.net]

Letter to the editor, Berkshire Eagle

[americanguru.net]

[www.topix.net]