To Whom It May Concern,

I have recently spoken with a disciple of Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa who is associated with the Australian School of Meditation who has taken time to address my concerns and who has expressed his willingness to resolve the current situation with regard to the website www.cultofbutler.com (currently down) and associated its projects.

I have never attempted to conceal my identity in being critical of ASM or the Science of Identity Foundation. I have never refused to accept responsibility for what I have done. I have expressed here on the Krishna in Hawaii thread that I have wanted to be wrong and that I have been open to communication with those who I formerly knew during my time with ASM or any other person who felt there was any issues worthy of discussion.

I certainly never wanted to believe that it was possible that Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa endorsed individuals being excluded from learning his teachings - not being welcome to the centres, not being able to purchase his lectures, in effect being discouraged and prevented from having a spiritual life. This is what happened to me.

For the purpose of the truth being known so that it may have some benefit the reason why I spoke publically about ASM and SIF had nothing to do with revenge or differing beliefs or to do with atheism or an agenda to attempt to dissuade others from taking up Krishna Consciousness. It was always my sincerest wish that noone be prevented as I was and rather than effectively ending their lives seeking a spiritual teacher would instead be the beginning of a much happier and more meaningful life.

I cannot say that I was deceived about ASM since my sole reason for coming there was so that I could attempt to become a student of Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa. I was confused as to the lack of recognition which he received in promoting the centres and as to the reason why classes were promoted as stress relief and in similar ways and disappointed at the lack of projects and the way in which new people like myself seem to be automatically regarded with suspicion and in need of proving ourselves.

A defining point for me was that I trusted wholeheartedly in my relationship with Krishna and believed that he had answered my prayers in providing a way for me to go to a spiritual teacher and to meet a 'friend' who when asked if they would help me promised that they would. I saw that this was a person who appeared to regard Jagad Guru as genuine without any question and who appeared to have strong faith and affection for Krishna. I saw that on account of following my faith to the utmost of my ability I was vilified instantly as a whore, which was never the case on account of family relationships which I have heard Jagad Guru's lectures on as being false identifications and which completely contradict his teachings regarding sectarianism.

I have heard it said now that devotees feel that they have been affected by the actions of this one devotee and perhaps he is solely responsible, but the fact is what he did was condoned and it was based on at least his understanding as a student of almost 10 years of what he understood the teachings to be (according to him). The disciples who were abusive towards me have been disciples of His Divine Grace and of Siddhaswarupananda since before I was born. The people that judged me did so without there being any website, without there being any wrong doing on my part whatsoever. I regret that I did not try a lot harder to make some contact with devotees prior to putting up my website and I regret that I associated with people whose agendas had nothing to do with what my concerns were. I will always hope that there will be some way that I will have a spiritual life, and eventhough I know the website did nothing towards achieving that it was for my part an act of desperation and complete sadness and hoping that it would not go on as long as it did before some reason that I followed Krishna and ended up with no life would become apparent and there would be something that I could do in order to go on living. Seeking the truth is my life and there was no other path for me to go down at the time.

I say all this not to diminish my responsibility or to detract from the fact that I am sincerely sorry for what I have done and if there is some way that I can make amends for it I would definitely do so.

I would hope that ASM has noticed things which may help to improve the work that you do and to provide for others to come to know Krishna. I would hope that ASM might consider that there are ways that people become confused and discouraged and that there are ways that Jagad Guru's teachings do not neccessarily do the good that they could. I would hope very much that the individuals who hurt me might realise the value of love and friendship because I am sure that this has never hurt anyone and may greatly enrich their lives.

Regards

Cara James

Cara,
I am not quite sure what the letter you posted means.You said quote "I am sincerely sorry for what I have done": what is it that you think you have done that needs apology?Are you considering re- joining the group?

This might or might not be useful to you as my interpretation of what you are saying may be completely wrong: during a certain stage of getting over leaving a group, it is normal to vacillate between hating the group, and wanting to go back to it.And there will be good people in groups: most people who get caught up in groups do so ( in my opinion) quite often because they are looking for something spiritual. That does not necessarily mean that the group itself is good or safe.

At the same time, there is an old saying " A mind once expanded, can never return to its original size" Are you really sure you will be able to "forget" everything you have learned in the last year or so?
I don't know your group, and can't speak from any personal knowledge of it. But it seems from what you have written that you have done a great deal of research and know a lot about it.
I am sure this is difficult for you,and the comfort of a group can be seductive. Sometimes it requires the very greatest courage to stand alone , with your own beliefs.
Good luck, Yasmin

Dear Yasmine,

Firstly thanks for your response, I was expecting to log in and get all manner of flames from the people on the other thread (which I supposse could still be coming) I have a lot more answers than questions myself really and the bottom line is I dont belive that all of the answers I have gotten from former devotees are absolute or even neccessarily close to the truth.

Over the past year I have considered everything about my life in relation to my knowledge and experience of ASM. When I look around I see a world that has all manner of dishonest, hurtful and hypocritical people and it has started to seem a bit absurd to me to criticise other people for the same traits. The people that have come along to criticise SIF do not put their names or really their time into it, although they insist that there is a great imperative for 'something' to be done. I cannot help but wonder if they sincerely feel this why they have not done anything and why some have even attacked me for trying to do something without having any constructive criticism to add to the proceedings.

I have met people that were associated with SIF for 20 years and even now find grounds to defend it - so how bad could it have really been for them? One person who I took to be very sincere told me all kinds of stories about how worried he was for his children and then came out with that he has a seven year old with his wife who is still a devotee, when he swears having seen through everything long before that and even a few months ago had no concern about letting his daughters go to their boarding school in the Phillipines by gladly signing the consent required. One of the critics is someone who is married to a devotees wife, who broke up their relationship and has been associated with devotees for almost as long as I have been alive. Another despite questioning every aspect of the philosophy is married to a devotee and is still friends with devotees. Actually there are a lot that I know that are still friends with devotees. They are obviously comfortable having association with SIF and appreciate someone like me who wonders what the truth is to be a front for their stories so that they can pretend that they are good people and good friends and that is quite bizarre to me.

I am sorry because I know that my desire was to have concerns addresses and I got frustrated by the lack of communication and with a lot of stuff that I was being told which may very well have been BS considering that it was coming from an individual that considers himself to be a good devotee at the same time he also considers it perfectly fine to use me with no regard for the consequences. I was good enough to be his friend, to try to help him, look after his son and take money from, but not good enough to be treated like a person unless there was anything in it for him. He certainly did not help the situation at all and I am sorry that I trusted him as much as I did after I spoke to other people about what he had to say and got perfectly reasoned responses as to why it was not true.

If anything since I am here I would say that ASM should in the name of decency ensure that a person who has no regards for anyone and who has opinions of his own passing them off as facts is never in a position where he can effect another person's experience and learning unless he starts acting like a reasonable human being, which at the moment he cant since he doesnt even see he has a problem. I also think it is questionable why a guru would appear to condone this behaviour.

You ask would I go back and the answer to that is that I would because eventhough I do see faults there I dont see anything that I like any better. I am 99% sure though that I would never be accepted which does raise questions about Jagad Guru and what SIF/ASM stands for in itself.

Regards

Cara

cultreporter:

This is a startling reversal from your previously posted positions and observations, which labeled Chris Butler and his followers at SoI a "cult."

See [board.culteducation.com]

"Internet trolls," SoI apologists and others have attempted to subvert that thread as you yourself have noted repeatedly.

Now you say this?

A recent email that I received speculated about why you have suddenly completely changed your position regarding the Butler group.

"SoI has offered her a lot of money to take down her website and offer a public apology. Done. Perhaps a personal interview with Sid himself was included in the deal."

"She has a genuine a disassociative personality disorder or she is faking so she can join and expose the cult later."

What do you have to say in response?

FYI--the purpose of this board is not to promote a meditation group or proselytize.

Hi Rick,

I do not see that this letter condones what happened in ASM or promotes ASM, I have put up a lot of information which is all true and mostly based on my own experience as far as ASM is concerned and I have made my criticisms about it known many times over. I have made my criticisms known to ASM also because I reason that if they were open and addressed some serious issues it would be to the benefit of their stated goals as an organisation. Realisitically I dont believe that spirituality or people's interest in it will ever be eradicated and I am not positive that it should be, although I personally see that there may be a genuine need to regulate meditation in the interest of public health and the concerns that it raises. I have wanted to communicate with SoI and on some level I have done that. I have been perfectly open about that publishing emails which I am sure that those who wrote them would rather that I didnt.

I do actually have disassociative disorder, I which I was diagnosed with in April of this year, I did not have it before joining the cult (yes I still call it a cult, the way people act there and the characteristics they maintain does not permit for it to be called anything else) and I was diagnosed after I slashed my wrists with a box cutter on 27th April this year, something which I mentioned on the other thread in passing. This is not multiple personality disorder, and I have read that it is common among people that have been in cults. SoI was a traumatic experience for me as I am sure that it has been for many other people who are former followers. Having said that it is very difficult to discount the attitude of former anonymous followers who claim to want to effect SoI, sometimes to see it change and sometimes to have it shutdown yet they do not seem concerned enough to act themselves or to have acted in many many years, despite the fact that some of them claim to have witnessed atrocious abuse, including statements which have been made publically and to me concerning physical and sexual abuse of children.

If a person wants to communicate with me they are welcome to do so. I am sure that I know who probably sent you the email but for all I know it could be anyone and the fact that they cant post what they think or speak with me, the same as Zelig (and friends) did when he vilified me with no apparent motive exemplifies what I mentioned above. The author of that email as it stands is no more than a gutless coward that is no better than any of the people they are criticising, a hypocrite and if they were out before 2005 I could well say their failure to do anything they are to blame for my situation anyway. I researched SoI before and I did not find ANY information online or on the thread as it stood at that time. These people who monitor what I do and have such concern about it if they were genuinely wanting to see something done as they all bleat on about would actually help when I am doing something dont you think?

As I have indicated before without me there would be pretty much nothing and the agendas that I have encountered are far more extensive than what I have been accussed of. Your forum is being used to facilitate a sister cult to SIF by aggrieved disciples.

This forum seemed a great help to me and I certainly support your work however I think it is obvious that I have been absolutely f**ked with from day one. I am a real person and only one at that who gets online whenever I can to answer questions do research etc. and pretty much do the best I can. It undermines ones faith that doing so is a good thing to be recently told by one of the noisiest posters on the other thread at the moment that I should kill myself because I am so pathetic because I am currently homeless and need to do more about SoI.

Enquiring minds need to know and in my honest opinion to enquire into the blatant hypocrisy of socalled former followers, there is no way to know if they are or not also needs to be looked at. Bottom line is I want the truth regardless of what it is. I think that you could respect (without wanting to assume) as a person who has his own spiritual beliefs and is not an atheist that you might respect that just because there are destructive groups in the name of your faith you do not want your faith overall to be 'blacklisted' or banned or that if you found out a hell of a lot of information in a relatively short period of time you would want it to be true, particularly if you were going to promote it.

I did not say anyone should join ASM the post was titled as an open letter addressed to ASM I cannot or will I lie and say that my actions were based on anything other than wanting to know what was being hidden from me and being concerned that the same thing that happened to me - being excluded from following my chosen faith and seeing it being wielded in a destructive manner by ASM. I have said that from the start. I question a lot of aspects myself and I dont believe in blind faith.

With regard to money I have none. I dont even have a computer of my own at the moment since my laptop was smashed as I talked about here and I could not afford a decent replacement. I have certainly not been offerred an interview with Chris Butler and I am still not convinced that he is actually alive or in control of the organisation. It has been confirmed through my research that while ASM is inextricably linked to SIF it is infact a seperate organisation and it is infact run by persons who may or may not accept Chris Butler's instructions, assuming that he gives any relating to day to day operations. As also previously stated and as I was there I do believe that it is quite possible that Chris Butler has been usurped over here, quite possibly some time ago and is just a figurehead.

It should be quite obvious that I published a letter to ASM on the internet, I had to resort to the internet to try to communicate with them at all. There is absolutely positively no way that they would ever allow me into the organisation or that I would feel safe within 100 metres of quite a few of the people that I knew when I was there.

I dont know if there is actually such a thing as a cult reformer, but there is an organisation called ISKCON Reform Movement (IRM) and I notice that there are quite a few Christians and Jewish people on this forum who oppose sects within their faiths without discarding the entire faith. Everyone knows that I am still a believer in Vedic knowledge.

Reformer maybe but I dont apologise for them and if there is no indication from them that they are willing to resolve certain issues which there has been an indication that they are interested in addressing then I will still be an activist and I certainly hope that is something which you may support.

cultreporter:

You said,

Quote

Everyone knows that I am still a believer in Vedic knowledge.

That's fine, but don't preach at the message board and/or use the board to promote a group.

DONT DEVIATE CR
STAY FOCUSED.....