The real story about Yogajyotii - a critical look at the self-proclaimed Guru, my first teacher of 5 years.

To keep in mind:
Q. How can I make out whom to follow and whom to mistrust?

M. Mistrust all, until you are convinced. The true Guru will never humiliate you, nor will he estrange you from yourself. He will constantly bring you back to the fact of your inherent perfection and encourage you to seek within. He knows you need nothing, not even him, and is never tired of reminding you. But the self-appointed Guru is more concerned with himself than with his disciples." I Am That p.422

"Ej also thinks that he is the only boddhisattva on the planet who has evolved enough to take humanity to the next level in evolution, and he also feels that he alone represents the "True Teachings" - all other traditions and schoold of thought are watered down or what have you."

"He tried to have sex with Lisa the very first night she arrived from Europe"

"She had to give him oral sex once a week"

[u:46fc2b5b25]Below is the real story of Yogajyotii, my first teacher. Some very good sides to him, and some quite destructive.
He told me several times that every shred of self-interest/ego was gone from him - that he was perfect in the sense of being totally selfless. The sharing below is to give the real picture and therefore focuses on all the bad stuff. This is not intended to reveal Yogajyotii's good sides but rather to take away from his claims to being totally selfless as well as inform potential students of his of the tragic realities around Yogajyotii - Ej Fleming:[/u:46fc2b5b25]

From an e-mail exchange between Lisa, just having left the Guru, writing the Guru:

Lisa says:


"... why I was unhappy with you for two years?
I was unhappy with how I felt overpowered by you, controlled by you. I am unhappy that I did sexual favours for you although I never wanted to and you never really cared for me, someone who cared would never ever have done what you did the first night I came. I was unhappy with you putting your needs before your students. We put our trust in you and had established you as our teacher and mentor and such a person can not put his needs above the students, it was supposed to be for our development etc... ."

Ej, Yogajyotii, wrote back saying:


"I am sorry you feel that anything was forced on you because that
was
never my intentions. I always encouraged you to be your own person. I
always stressed that there was a separation between teacher and man
also,
but you would not separate the two, and that I feel kept this
misunderstanding in force. If you would have separated the teacher
from
the man as I asked you to do many times you may not feel the way you
do. I
a sorry for the whole thing then, please accept my apology. Because I
do
wish you luck in whatever you do.

Yes I have gone back to just being involved through the Internet.
I
stay away from any teaching at this point. I do not want any more
involvement with people per se as a teacher, I am working on developing
the
man more..

Thank you for getting back with me, ej"


So often when both Lisa and me would complain and say that we felt that it was our dependancy and unability to think outside the mold the Guru gave us, he'd say that it was the ego-self who wanted independance, and that it was okay to be dependant on him. Over and over, between the lines, it was stressed how much we needed the guru, that we wouldn't make it without him.


The real story about Yogajyotii - a critical look at the self-proclaimed Guru - Part 2:


Now below is more factual information, from a letter I wrote to a close student of Yogajyotii:


Hi Jane,

I hope all is well with you. I have some sad news.
Your Guru is not as great a man as you think. I just managed to yank Lisa away from there, and she is recovering from two years of serious mind-control. She is telling me some serious and very bad things that happened with Ej during the two years she lived with him (other than going to and from work, she never left his side - for two years!), and I feel you ought to know of them:
The first night they met, he tried to have sex with her.
...She had been sitting very tensly in Ej's car from the air-port, wondering what the hell she had gotten herself into. As he parks his car, he suddenly leans over and pouts his lips towards her and says: "kiss me".
Lisa told me this moment was VERY akward. It was upon entering his apartment following this that he tried to have sex with her.

When Lisa later asked how he couldn't have noticed that she was terrified and didn't want to have sex at all, he just said he thought she wanted to and that he thought of them meeting as a reunion and total passion. ...Lisa exclaimed to me that she didn't understand how ANYONE could not have noticed that she didn't want to, totally stiff, totally terrified. ...Ej was born in 1946 and Lisa was around 27... They had never met before, though through e-mails he had tried to convince her that they were in love and were soul-mates.
It was during this time, when me and the other male disciple were still in Sweden, that Lisa wrote us e-mails describing the extraordinary experiences she was having and how impressive Yogajyotii was - keeping up the lie that Ej and Yogajyotii were two seperate people. I wonder who told her to do this.


Once a week Lisa performed oral sex on Ej - all in the name of tantra and enlivening the system of course - "divine lover meditation".

Ej has been in jail for two years, this Lisa found out when her and Ej recently tried to get into Canada to suprise visit you, they couldn't get into the country because in 1988 Ej spent two years in jail - he said someone put cocaine in his pocket, he was just selling coffeine pills (appearantly a classical). As Lisa and Ej made their way back to the car after having been denied passage into Canada, he said: "I meant for this to happen, to test your loyalty" - or something like that. They had really intended to visit you. Also, with the police Ej has gone into schock, he said he noticed it because his face drained - he said: I have had bad experienced with authority.
Ej told Lisa that he had been running from the law for many years, hiding out mostly in Florida, starting a family (Lisa said that Ej's daughter refuses to have anything to do with him, why I know not). The many driver's liscences with different names Lisa found in his drawers testified to this.

Once in their appartment, when Lisa had recently gotten there and was being very subservient, Ej said: you are fulfilling all of my dreams.
Another time when she was bending over and wore tight pants, he said: wonderful, wonderful! - obviously excited at Lisa's figure.

Lisa also said that when they visited a friend of Ej's, his reiki master, Ej stole books and crystals from her - "unburdening her" because she has so much stuff. On their way back to CA Ej told Lisa: I hope you will get more into the amorous/erotic thing, I have an erotic nature after all.
Otherwise Lisa said Ej is a real poor cleaner - when she got their his little appartjment was
c o v e r e d with dust, well over 3 inches with dust on all objects. He hadn't cleaned for some 13 years. When Lisa and him were on vacation, staying over at Ej's aunt or something, Ej would cut his hair in the bathroom sink and just leave it there. When Lisa asked why he didn't respect the host enough to clean up after himself, he got annoyed and asked her why she was going off on a tangent.

As for myself, I knew of none of this. Ej had told me that they didn't have sex (I asked), among many other lies (among many lies one was that he had said that he had two disciples living with him - he had none). After a year at the zen center so much had become more clear for me, the main thing being that I had been heavily brainwashed, or rather, under severe mind-control, while with Ej. Reading a book called: overcoming destructive mind-control/destructive cults (something like that, by Steve Hassan)) [See disclaimer below explaining why Steve Hassan is not recommended by this Web site] - I saw that Ej used every single trick in the book to get us hooked. There were many lies and twists of the truth throughout our time with Ej - I am sure he felt that the ends justified the means - "If I had told you that I didn't have any discples, would you still have left Sweden? I knew you wouldn't have, so I told you what you wanted to hear".

To sweep Lisa off the ground when he first started sweet talking her, he actually had her beleive he appeared in the night sky as a star to her, to prove his love and the fact of them being soul-mates, connected since before even this Manvantara.
Many times Lisa asked about the lies and Ej would reply that he had said what we wanted to hear (his motto was otherwise "I may not say what you want to hear but always what you need to hear").

Ej also thinks that he is the only boddhisattva on the planet who has evolved enough to take humanity to the next level in evolution, and he also feels that he alone represents the "True Teachings" - all other traditions and schools of thought are watered down. He often reffered to his work as "The Next Level".

Lisa read some letters Ej wrote a girlfriend when he was in jail: he said something like: "the whole world is conditioned..... now there is only you and me.... I love you so much".
When asked why he had condoms in a closet, he said: you never know when a female could come.
I have personally seen him sweet talk all women who write him. When Lisa asked why, he said: well, women respond better to that kind of talk... he also said that he is really most comfortable with women.

When I announced to Ej that I was leaving, he wrote three poems pretty much saying I was betraying my destiny and that I would not find my true self through another school of though/teacher. He said I was braking the trinity vows I had taken at 19 through him pressuring me to do so.
(recall when he tried to get a girlfriend of mine to take life-comitting "Trinity Vows" after about 3 weeks of her talking to him.)

Lisa said that when I said I was leaving he told her: He won't leave, he doesn't have it in him. ...When I actually left he said: Okay, I give him six moths over there. ...Only when Lisa told Ej of my letters to her urging her to get the FUCK out of there, did he say: okay, maybe he is out of the picture.
Same story when "Sam", another european disciple first left the boat, Ej said: he'll back, what else could he do?"

Ej is ultra intelligent and not just a crazy fool. What makes him dangerous, I feel, is his extensive knowledge in mind-control and his unabashed usage of those skills.
Your Johannes

The real story about Yogajyotii - a critical look at the self-proclaimed Guru - part 3:

Below are recent memories of the earlier days with Ej:



I remembered the other night how it was... I was still living in Sweden and was a devotee of the guru. When I had selfish thoughts - which was any thoughts other than: Blessed is the Honored one, the Perfected one, Guru Yogajyotii! - I would slam my fist violently into my forehead, as punishment. Once when there was a lot of snow I was walking along a forrest trail, and everytime the guru mantra slipped from my mind I would throw myself down into the snow in a full prostration and stay in the icy sno till I couldn't stand the pain any more. The guru said: good, yes punish yourself for being foolish. Then, later, he said: don't hit yourself too hard, you seem to be knocking something loose because you seem to be hopeless. You are Light Mission property so just punish yourself mentally and then move on.



Some more information on this, from recent journaling that helped me process all of this:

"Needless to say, us three disciples who had moved from Sweden to California to be with him became more and more uptight and paranoid. Afraid of people who weren't in our group because they belonged to the 'herd'. Soon I couldn't receive a phone call from my mom without feeling guilty because of entertaining family attachments. The female disciple (and "soul mate") who lived with him would step on the scale several times a day to watch her weight. She was real skinny but he kept pestering her about not getting fat, indulging in food. "I don't want a fat disciple,” he would say."

The guru I ran across always spoke of the lofty ideals of selflessness, purity, no-self. We were to demand perfection of ourselves. Any hint of self-interest in our thoughts/actions (which were always being scanned and filtered through "the true teachings" - his words - he said he was the only fully enlightened Bodhisattva on the planet, here for those ready to go to the Next Level, those on the evolutionary cusp of humanity - and that all other teachers/schools were less than Pure) were to be pounced upon and we (the disciples) were to "crucify ourselves" for those defilements. The idea was that we were to confront the dirtbag of 'self' and get so angered and disgusted with ourselves for being the self-serving messes we were that we "fling off the self". Only such disgust, the guru said, would give s the impetus to renounce the ego.
Anger, when aroused in us, was to be driven against ourselves, channeled against ourselves. War on oneself was a must, and only the guru was to be trusted. Participating in a family game while home at Christmas (called Charades) was a 'no no' because only a 'self' (which was evil, buying into the concept of self) could do that. Our food was pureed in a blender, without spices, so that the ego-self couldn't derive pleasure/verification through the palate.
My main task was to pick apart my thinking and behavior and see what an arrogant disgusting monster I had become and through the mantra of "out damn spot" root it out.
Needless to say, us three disciples who had moved from Sweden to California to be with him became more and more uptight and paranoid. Afraid of people who weren't in our group because they belonged to the 'herd'. Soon I couldn't receive a phone call from my mom without feeling guilty because of entertaining family attachments. The female disciple (and "soul mate") who lived with him would step on the scale several times a day to watch her weight. She was real skinny but he kept pestering her about not getting fat, indulging in food. "I don't want a fat disciple,” he would say. In short, we were all soon afraid of taking piss without his approval. When I complained about this, he said "you come here for discipline and when the whip cracks you complain? Give me a break".

Yogajyotii would ask the female disciple ("Lisa") living with him - they were supposedly "soul-mates" to meditate and visualize her as she thought her Guru wanted her to look like - to visualize her new life with her new man. When she opted for following her breath instead (a legitemate practice)he retorted in annoyance: "Fine, do it YOUR way then, and not your Guru's Way!"

The irony is that the first night that the female disciple arrived in CA (she got there a couple of months before the other guy and me) he tried to have sex with her - unbeknownst to me. She had to give him blow-jobs at least once a week - it "rejuvenated the system".
I smelled a rat at some point when I had almost lost all touch with myself and my basic instincts and left, even though he was saying I was breaking my monk vows, etc. "He'll be back, just watch", the guru told the now only disciple left with him, the woman he had living with him.
After a year of Zazen at the Center the fog lifted enough for me to smell that I had been brainwashed. Books on cults and brainwashing confirmed this. I yanked the woman who was still with the guru out of there, and she came to Rochester and stayed at the Center for some time. It was then she told e about the sex, and that he had been in jail a few years ago for making and selling cocaine (she had happened to come across the information).
I had been with the guru for over 5 years and the pain of all of this was staggering.
When the woman I had yanked out of the guru's grip wrote him and said she was unhappy that she had had to give him sexual favors, that he had tried to have sex with her the first night even when it was obvious she didn't want to, and that he had put his own needs before his students when we had come to him for our own development, he answered like this: "If you had done like I told you from the beginning, which was to tease apart the man from the guru, you would not be feeling this way". And this was a man who had told me many times that he had no more conditioned notions to let go of, every shred of self-interest had been let go.


"The real story about Yogajyotii - a critical look at the self-proclaimed Guru" - to be continued in answering your questions if you have any.

- Johannes Kieding

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The Ross Institute of New Jersey/May 2013

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2013 09:12PM by rrmoderator.

Johannes,

It is a terrible story that took me a few goes to read all the way through - different gurus same stories it seems. It was a very honest and well written account, thank-you for sharing it here.

I am curious about Yogajyoti and what organisation if any he runs, how many followers he has and where in the world? How did you first become involved with him if you dont mind me asking?

Dear Cult-reporter,

Thank you for your reply, your sympathy, that was heart warming.

When living in Sweden I had a blue light appear before my forehead area when meditating. I searched the internet and stumbled upon his web-site (www.true-awakening.org). He said that anyone could e-mail him with questions or just to talk, so I did. For the first two years he mostly ignored me or wrote back very briefly, but for some reason I never gave up yanking his sleeve. When a woman became interested in what I was doing with him the guru suddenly said I had passed the test and that I was ready for discipleship, a welcoming into the "Inner Circle" of Light Mission (in reality there was no other disciples thus no inner circle, besides him and his dog), thugh he said he had two disciples living with him.
After yet another year or two three disciples move to Los Angeles, California, to be with him. 9 months later I smell a rat, on an unconscious level, and leave.
I continue my spiritual practice but find that the real wisdom isn't in the authoritarian, absolutist type nonduality gurus (one-sided anyway), but through people like Jack Kornfield and Rob Preece and some Zen teachers. Just entered therapy and that is helping A LOT. Called Davanloo therapy.
Thanks for asking, I gotta run.
Oh, Yogajyotii doesn't really have any more students, though I beleive one woman, I called her Jane in the post, still hasn't been able to let go - she''s been with him for some 15 years. But that is just an e-mail correspondance and rather benign.

Peace,

Johannes

p.s. thanks for asking!

Oh yes, you said you were curious about Yogajyotii....
Some interesting facts: he never meditated. He said it became eventless after he had finished his work on himself, after all ego was gone. He would be in constant activity, could never sit still really without doing something. Always had to do something, fix a radio, anything. When there was just nothing todo he would sit with a very very vacant look in his eyes and look very very distant and bored. He's also a chain smoker. When asked once why he smokes even though it is bad for the health, he said: "What's so great about the form anyway?"

Interesting to recall all of this and much more can come out of me.... :?

How about you? What's your story?

I also had a vision (or at least thought that I did, now I dont want to believe much) although mine was in a dream when I sought out my guru.

What you say about never giving up yanking at his sleeve rings a bell, it was difficult to get to mine too - I wonder if it is not just something that gurus do to create intrigue and cultivate gratuity.

This is my favourite that a friend I met through RR gave me - Krishnamurti on the dissolution of the Order of the Star

[bernie.cncfamily.com]

Glad to hear that therapy is working well for you. I use cyber-scream therapy, instead of recording my voice I put it all out into the internet :wink:

Peace

Cara

Dear Cara,

Thanks for the reply. Yes I love that talk by Jiddu as well. If you feel like sharing more about who your guru was and what happened, I'm all ears.

What was his name? How long were you with him? (or her?) Large following?
How long did it take you to recover?

A book I found really good was: Enlightenment Blues.
Heard of it? About a devotee of Andrew Cohen, a REAL slime bag.

Warmly,

Johannes

p.s. Another eye-opener is a book called: Guru Papers, Masks of Authoritarian Power.
Heard if it? By Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad.

Dear Johannes,

It would be naughty for me to cross post too much, but also naughty not to answer your questions.

I was with Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa (Chris Butler)
I studied for almost two years AC Bhaktivedanta Swami and Chris Butler, involved in the cult here in Australia for a year before I was banished. Before that it was a long time studying and being involved in other spiritual groups, out of lots of experience these are the worst people that I have ever come across.
I have written a lot about his cult Science of Identity on the Krishna in Hawaii thread right here and on my website www.cultofbutler.com you are always welcome to push the email button if you would like to chat too :)

I had a look at The Guru Papers online and I hope that I will be able to get a copy. Enlightenment Blues sounds very interesting too - great title.

I have The Devil's Party : A History of Charlatan Messiahs by Colin Wilson which I found very interesting and I have read the revised edition of Cults in Our Midst by Margaret Singer, which eventhough it is an awesome work I found is a bit heavy reading.

Recovery well I know I have been reminded that I am a lot more fortunate than most people, I didnt lose my kids or my family which a lot of ex SoI followers do (I only got my heart broken with a guy that I lived with for a year) but to be honest it still hurts and is almost a year since I last had involvement with them. Over that time I gradually lost the desire for all spiritual practices and notice that it has changed me a lot as a person. This forum and writing became very important to me and helped me a lot.

It was funny to read a guru that smokes :? How old was he? Did he have a spiritual teacher himself or teach out of any Scripture? Was he from India? I am always curious (too curious according to some people :wink: ) and you are a very good writer. I am sure that you could make a website or a book of your experience if you wanted to.

Peace

Cara

'Scuse me for butting in here...

Cultreporter -- the cultofbutler.com website is yours?? Well done!!! That's an amazing site, informative, comprehensive, and also funny in spots!

I was looking through the "Krishna group in Hawaii" thread on this site and found the cultofbutler.com through there. I've since had it bookmarked.

Congratulations on an excellent website!

Hello Cara!

It would be naughty for me to cross post too much, but also naughty not to answer your questions.

Is there a rule against cross-posting? If so please tell me about it, I just became a member. If it is inapropriate, e-mail me back instead of using this forum.

I was with Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa (Chris Butler)
I studied for almost two years AC Bhaktivedanta Swami and Chris Butler, involved in the cult here in Australia for a year before I was banished.

I'll definatly do some research on those names. Wonder why you were banished?

Before that it was a long time studying and being involved in other spiritual groups, out of lots of experience these are the worst people that I have ever come across.
I have written a lot about his cult Science of Identity on the Krishna in Hawaii thread right here and on my website www.cultofbutler.com you are always welcome to push the email button if you would like to chat too Smile

Can't wait to check out your site.... have to scurry to work now though.


Recovery well I know I have been reminded that I am a lot more fortunate than most people, I didnt lose my kids or my family which a lot of ex SoI followers do (I only got my heart broken with a guy that I lived with for a year) but to be honest it still hurts and is almost a year since I last had involvement with them. Over that time I gradually lost the desire for all spiritual practices and notice that it has changed me a lot as a person. This forum and writing became very important to me and helped me a lot.

Thank you for sharing this. I know the pain rather well... A year is not much, it's been two years for me, soon. I've done a lot of processing too.
If you ever want to inch back into your spiritual aspirations, Jack Kornfield helped me feel safe about it. Steven Hassan, a cult expert, recomends him as safe in the Buddhist world. His book "A Path with Heart" is a classical and is just awesome. Awareness based type work.
Amala Sensei is a wonderful zen teacher in New Zealand, you could look her up if you're interested.
When I found zen people saying that true spiritual practice will never ask you to try to 'get rid of anything' or change anything (such as the old "ego is bad, get rid of it cult mentality) - because that is just more of the old 'good and bad' thinking, I started feeling safer in embracing Zen as my path. Change comes, some say, in acceptance of what is, in non-opposition, and not through behavior modification and mental straight-jackets of trying to live up to 'how one should be'.
Pema Chodron is another wonderful teacher that helps many feel safe.
Sharon Salzberg too, she's probably the gentelest.

It was funny to read a guru that smokes Confused How old was he? Did he have a spiritual teacher himself or teach out of any Scripture? Was he from India? I am always curious (too curious according to some people Wink ) and you are a very good writer. I am sure that you could make a website or a book of your experience if you wanted to.

Yogajyotii studied for a few months with Chogyam Trungpa many years ago. Other than that he mostly read from all the religions. He means that he is taking the kernel of truth in all religions and putting it in modern terms. It is the "True Teachings" because they are "Complete and Pure", only for those Ready to go to the "Next Level". *gag sound*.
He's caucation, not from India, born in 1946.
Thanks for enjoying my writing, I will soon check out your site.



Warmly,

Johannes

Hi Johannes,

I am not sure that it is a rule, sometimes there is relevant posts on another thread that people pass along so that other people dont miss them, it is just that spending almost all my life online that I havent been able to avoid learning some netiquette - plus there are a few people that think I get too much attention as it is and I am still sulking about it 8)

My banishment was the usual asking too many questions and not following the rules type thing like not believing the end of the world is nigh and living with a good disciples daughter's ex boyfriend.

I am very interested to check out the teachers that you mentioned - I have yet to see anyone recommend a safe teacher in the world of Krishna Consciousness. I like Danavir Goswami with ISKCON probably the best, but that is by process of elimination that I havent heard of him molesting any children or women or men. Next time he comes to Australia I might go and see him. The temple president here was actually banished for breaking sanyassi and running off with someone else's wife but they were short of temple managers so they let him back in. A lot of the child molestor gurus were sent out to Australia - the fact that they are still gurus is enough to make anyone question the whole status of the word in my opinion.

Have you read The Guru Business by Sulocana das? [www.harekrsna.org] He is like my hero. Funny enough I just read about him recently the reason he did what he did was because his guru took away the woman that he loved and he wrote a letter saying if they didnt give her back that he would have to go digging about for the truth, which is pretty much what happened with me. He was murdered on the order of Kirtananda who later went to jail for racketeering but got out and went straight back to being a guru to some followers :o

www.surrealist.org has a lot of good reading about gurus and cults.

Quote

Yogajyotii studied for a few months with Chogyam Trungpa many years ago. Other than that he mostly read from all the religions. He means that he is taking the kernel of truth in all religions and putting it in modern terms. It is the "True Teachings" because they are "Complete and Pure", only for those Ready to go to the "Next Level". *gag sound*.

He sounds just like Chris only not as successful at being a guru, except did he do the one "A genuine guru doesnt concern himself with making followers and cannot be judged by the number of followers that he has" ?

It seems like you are still very young, since you mention that you took vows with EJ when you were 19, but obviously well learned in spiritual issues, maybe even younger than me (27) it is interesting to see the different perspectives in generations since it would seem that from the lack of attendants in temples that gurus are going to have to come up with new tricks in order to maintain themselves. Doesnt seem people are as unquestioning and faithful as they used to be.

I hope that the woman who you helped to get away from this pervert is doing well too. Do you think that you will hear from EJ since you are talking about him? Could he put on any mystic tricks?

Cx