Hello everyone.

I would like to find my old friend who got involved with this group around 1979. Her name is Diana Romero; she is American of English/Spanish extraction. I last saw her in 1980 in Auckland. She was involved with a NZer with red hair and they were going to Hawaii, as far as I can recall. Any info appreciated.

If anyone wishes to reply, send a PM to Quicksilver.

For security, avoid sending personal contact information.

to the children (victims) of the non education of the Butler cult.
i have found this open letter useful to acknowledge the tragedy.
to the parents reading this forum and still in denial, open your hearts and your minds.
release yourself from the mental slavery and realize you have been fooled.
stop serving Butler. stop the insanity.
I am a product of the second generation, and it is not easy to come to terms.

just exchange the words Christianity to bhakti yoga, or whatever you feel is suitable to personalize this letter.
read this.


"Dear parents,

I'm in several online groups consisting of thousands of the homeschool alumni of my generation, the "Joshua Generation", the products of the Christian homeschooling pioneers. And one major theme going on in our conversations right now is an overwhelming frustration that we cannot talk to our parents. We cannot be real with you. We want a relationship but don't know how to get past the mental and emotional walls you have put up to protect yourself, the denial that your choices for us caused pain. Your disapproval of our choices and rejection of how you raised us is thick enough to be cut with a knife, and weighs very heavy on our shoulders. Can we just for a moment sit here together, walls and guards down, and be honest with each other? There's so much we want to say to you, to help you understand. So much WE want to understand. So this is my attempt to give voice to so many, including myself.

Unless you're never on the internet, I'm sure you know by now that your kids' generation isn't turning out how you'd hoped and planned. How you were assured we would if you only followed the rules. Dissatisfaction, pain, anger, and disillusionment are plastered all over the internet by your children and their cohorts. Story after story written by the adult alumni of the homeschool movement, honest and real and painful. Stories of dysfunction and inability to cope in the real world because of the choices you made for them. Stories of pain suffered, feelings of betrayal, and honest, raw emotions that are probably hard for you to see and hear. Words like "spiritual abuse" everywhere, directed at you and the people you trusted to teach your children how to be godly. "Survivor blogs" are popping up, being written by your adult offspring. That's gotta hurt. We are walking away from so much that you held dear. We are raising our own kids so differently than you raised us. Even the leaders you followed have turned out to be frauds.

I've seen your reactions. Denial. Anger. Verbal lashings. Tears. Disbelief. Shunning. Excuses and justifications. Feelings of betrayal. Guilt. So much pain.

"How dare they!"
"We were just doing what we thought was best."
"We only wanted to protect you."
"We were trying to follow God the best way we knew how."
"We gave you the best we could and you repay us by rejecting it all and plastering your discontent all over the internet?!"
"You are dishonoring us by focusing on the bad!"
"You're just bitter and need to move on."
"We loved you and this is how you repay us?"
"It wasn't that bad."

I understand the sheer amount of unexpected consequences and the reactions of your children must be overwhelming. You didn't expect this. You did everything "right" and followed the people who had all the answers, who made promises about how your family would turn out if you did what they told you was "God's will". And when it didn't work, those teachers and their followers blamed you and your "rebellious" children. "You must not have followed the rules correctly." The broken relationships are like a knife in your heart.

Our rejection of your ways is not personal. It's not a "reaction", as we have been accused of ad nauseam. Many of us were taught to "stand alone", to figure out what was right and then go do it regardless of what everyone else was doing. Well....that's what we're doing. We have weighed the teachings of our past and found them wanting. We have chosen different paths for our own families, much like you did for yours. We have taken what was good and thrown out what was not, some of us throwing out everything because, honestly, there wasn't much good left to hold on to. Many of us are lost and dysfunctional, trying to put together pieces of a puzzle, trying to live in a world we were not prepared for because we were told we weren't part of it. Many of you have taken this as ungratefulness toward what you did for us, but this is not about you. This is about us....our lives, our choices, our own children who we must now make choices for. Can you please stop making this about our rejection of you and instead see it as our embracing of our own lives? We are your children yet we are not children anymore, many of us older than you were when you set out to raise your family the way you saw fit. We want to have relationship with you, but not as your children. As your equals. As friends. As fellow human beings. Please stop treating us as rebellious children. Think back to when you chose differently than your parents and remember what that was like before you treat us with the same disdain and disappointment.

For those of you invalidating our stories, saying "it wasn't that bad", can I ask you to take a step back for a moment? To gain a broader perspective? Because what may have been only a small part of your life, was our ENTIRE lives. You were adults when you chose to attend that Basic Seminar, when you picked up your first courtship books, when you decided to promote the modesty culture, when you chose to become part of a patriarchal system, when you made the choice to spend your kids' childhoods sheltered from the world in your own little reality and the culture you created. But us? We were born into it. We were raised our whole lives immersed in it. We spent the most formative years of our cognitive and emotional development in an alternate religious culture ruled by fear, shame, legalism, and authoritarianism. We had no choice. We knew nothing else. We had no other experience and knowledge and discernment to ground us like you did, to give us perspective, to compare anything to. For you, this was 10-20 years of your life. For us, it was our whole lives. It was all we knew. Our entire lives have been built upon a time period that was just a small part of your own life. So, yes, it was "that bad". Our experiences were nothing like yours and you'll have to see them through our eyes if you want to understand.

You had a different life before this, and a different one after. This homeschooling movement and the resulting culture is all we know. It made us who we are, for better or for worse. Our stories cannot be separated from it. We are the products of that movement. You were the facilitators who got to choose what affected you and what didn't. We didn't have the capacity as children to even begin to make that choice. What you only observed and instigated and perpetuated, we lived, felt, internalized, and became.

You keep telling us we're overreacting. You're offended because we "don't appreciate" what you did for us. But this is not about you. How we tell our stories and work through the consequences of your choices for us is not about you. It's about us. Our lives. Our hearts, souls, minds, marriages, relationships, spiritual journeys, and futures. The things we write about how teachings like emotional purity, the umbrella of authority, modesty, and courtship affected us, how they hurt us, messed us up, how we're working through the messages we received and internalize....these things are not about you. We aren't telling our stories to "dishonor" you. We're telling them because truth sets free and light banishes darkness. Because wounds fester in silence and heal in openness. We can love you, forgive you, and have a relationship with you and still tell our stories. We HAVE to tell them and tell them truthfully. Because sometimes it's the only way to wade through the muck and the crap and the dysfunction that you inflicted on us and we are leaving behind.

Some of you have regrets. You look back and say "What were we thinking?!" You know you made mistakes, big ones, and you know it hurt us, hurt our relationship with you. Some of you are watching your children struggle to overcome the consequences of your choices for them and hurt for them and are angry at yourself. Can you please just say it? Be as open and honest as we are. You know what I don't hear in the reactions of our parents that I listed above? "We are so sorry." Why is that so difficult to say? I know it's scary to think that the choices you made damaged your children. I'm a parent. I have the same fears that my choices will hurt my kids. But as a parent, I cannot imagine NOT telling them "I'm sorry" when they come to me and lay bare their souls, and explain how I've hurt them and how they're healing. Yes, it hurts. But I guarantee that holding it inside and bearing that burden alone will hurt you and your children far more than being honest with them about your regret.

So many of us get it. We get that you were duped. That you were victims of spiritual abuse yourself, who went on to unwittingly inflict that abuse on your kids. Give us a chance to express that. To openly forgive and to honestly work through the anger and the pain with you. Many of us have forgiven you, but we cannot talk about it with you because you refuse to go there. It's easier for you to just deny the past, our pain, and your part in it. Keep that up, and the denial and facade will eat out your soul til there's nothing left, while we move on with our lives without you. We want to have a real relationship with you, to repair what was broken, but you are holding so tightly to your elephants in the room, and we have to stay on the surface and walk on eggshells around you, playing your game of pretending that everything was peachy, trying to live well in the present while denying the past. Meanwhile we are frustrated and wonder how much longer we can keep up your charade. Please stop. As scary as it is to face pain you caused, it's much worse to pretend it never happened. So many of us are ready to start building a real relationship with you, to include you in this conversation. But it's your move. I can't promise it'll be easy or good, that' everything will turn out the way it is supposed to, but it will be worth it, for yourself and for your family. Honest and human is the only way to live.

I asked some of my friends...your children who are now grown...what they would say to their parents if they could. I'd like to end with their words. Listen to their hearts.

"Can you please stop focusing on the extremely few truly good things there were about the way you raised me and just admit, "I was wrong" with no conditions, qualifiers, buts or brakes? Can you please just admit that you were far too strict on standards which had nothing to do with my relationship with God and only hurt my relationships with others, without inserting qualifiers about how your extremism was justified because 'there was so much evil in the world?"

"The scars from our past are not the fruit of bitterness, but part of the healing process for us. It would help if you acknowledged our feelings and apologized for the pain you caused us instead of passing the blame to us. We don't demand any retribution for the hurt in the past, but for our relationship to be fully whole we need to be able to talk through what happened without being made out to be the bad guys."

"If what you did was perfectly right, why did you change with my younger siblings? And if you were wrong... why don't you acknowledge it??"

"You rejected how you were brought up, how is it wrong of me to do the same?"

"I know you've changed, I know you're trying to love us as best you can. But can you stop pretending the past was perfect? Can you please just say 'our choices hurt you and we're sorry'? I've forgiven you. But I'm tired of playing your charade, walking on eggshells, pretending that I wasn't hurt that I'm not still trying to wade through the mess of my past. Can we just talk about it, really, truly, honestly? You want me to 'move on' and I will, with or without you. I'd prefer with you. But we have to go back in order to go forward."

"You disagree with some of my life choices, but I disagree with some of your life choices as well. That is just everyday life: there are very few people with whom you will ever truly agree 100%. We're both mature adults and need to learn to respect one another's choices and learn to have a relationship despite our differences."

"I would like for my Mom to stop whitewashing the past. Instead I'd like her to acknowledge that she and my dad were controlling and manipulative, that they were abusive and authoritarian, that they didn't trust me (instead treating me as guilty until proven innocent) and they demanded things from me (like my heart) that was not theirs to demand. A lot of what I'd like to hear them say could be summed up as "I'm sorry". That would go a long, long way for me. But they can't even say that, not without 60,000 disclaimers like "We were doing our best" and "We were following God", or worse "YOU DID x, y, z". If they could ever acknowledge that they did something wrong without attempting to share blame with me... I'd really, really like that."

"There are parts of me I hide from you because even though you say you love me, I know they would break your heart and make you want to scream. I know because you've told me how you felt about my siblings. Since I can't share these vital parts of myself without disappointing you, I feel like an adult relationship between us is impossible."

"Please don't write off my opposition to Christian patriarchy as 'an ax to grind' and attribute all my adult decisions to a reactionary attitude or desire to flip off people who haven't been a part of my life for years. I make decisions based on what's best for my mental health. And you have to admit, I'm a lot more balanced and cool-headed than you were at my age. Did you get involved in the fringe movements you did as a reaction against your parents? If you did, please consider that I've learned from your mistakes and am not repeating them."

"Why do you act like I've turned my back on my upbringing and my faith, just because I don't agree completely with you? I still love you very much, and it kills me to avoid so many topics with you because you get upset and sad if I'm not parroting you perfectly. You made completely different life choices from your parents and yet you still love and respect them. Why can't you see that I'm in exactly the same place?"

"Even if you don't see anything as wrong in the way you raised me or treated me, please recognize and acknowledge I had a very different experience than you perceive. Acknowledge that I was hurt, deeply, and don't invalidate my childhood."

"I feel like I don't need any retribution for the pain of the past, but it would really help to have our feelings acknowledged. That would make a huge difference in moving forward."


Love,
your children

The person who wrote this grew up in a quite different group (Fellowship of Friends) than those who grew up in Butler's and the other Krishna groups.

But the disillusioned human heart speaks a universal language no matter
where one has been.

[animamrecro.wordpress.com]

Anonymous Says:

February 3, 2007 at 1:25 am

"I don’t even know how to begin this. I lived in the Fellowship from age five or six to thirteen. The sweetest and most wonderful childhood memories are there, running around in the woods or going to the ballets or the operas. Culturally, it was amazing. I had the finest of educations and am well-versed in the classical arts.

"Emotionally, I’m still devastated. To find out that the home of your childhood, the one place that set a standard for your environment is simply a facade for greed, power, and money is not easy thing to cope with. Having grown up there and spent almost all that time with the children, my main concern is the children.

"These children, including myself, are never going to be fully adjusted to the real world. The ones that I know who left are all self-destructive and are trying to find some way of ever relating to the world again.

"I’m not sure what my point is, but I thought I might as well comment. The Fellowship has granted me so much, but there’s no way they could ever make up for the emotional manipulation that the children and young adults end up having to put up with."

(Corboy: Please create support communities for yourselves. Do not let the wrong
side win. Living in truth should have a reward in this life, and that takes
some doing. If we are wounded by a community, we heal by creating a better
community.)

"About
Discover "Yoga of the Heart" Though Kirtan Yoga Community www.bhaktiyogashack.com
Description
Bhakti Yoga Shack hosts weekly Sacred Kirtan Gatherings Sunday 5.30pm Kirtan is a dynamic call-and-response sacred world music that incorporates the voices of the audience right into the performance. Kirtan is a spiritual journey, a form of bhakti yoga — the yoga of devotion.

So join us this Sunday for an evening of beautiful singing of sacred mantras, guided meditation, a fantastic vegetarian dinner and an inspiring talk that explores the spiritual essence of yoga.
Contact us for directions to the Bhakti Yoga Shack 808-551-6610
4240 Kuhio Hwy
Anahola, Hawaii 96703"

maybe we should start compiling a list of "yoga" studios and/or events and the like, that followers of Chris Butler own, use and operate so we can keep the word out about the recruitment/indoctrination centers.
there are quite a few.

Yes, jaggedguru, you are correct , Butler and his minions have many other places disguised as yoga or meditation centers. But the public must be made aware that these are really recruitment/indoctrination centers.
A quick perusal on the ‘net yielded these 3 “centers”:

1) Sedona Kirtan Yoga - Sky Center
- a non profit organization- (prominently posted- HUGE FALSEHOOD)
Sedona Kirtan Yoga Center 3270 White Bear Road, Sedona, AZ
ph 928-649-5868

2) Cottonwood Kirtan Yoga Center 551 N Main Cottonwood AZ 86326
ph (928) 399-9853

3) The Lotus Garden Yoga & Meditation Center
7225 Lincoln Avenue
Carmicheal CA 95608 PH 916-944-8505

All of these places and more, are easily found on Facebook, complete with pictures.

Yoga is the thing.

So many people are run ragged and kept so busy that matters have
reached a point where many will pay for a social setting in which
people not only have permission but are kindly and lovingly commanded
to turn off their smartphones and chill out.

Many harried people who do not feel able to take a break need social
settings which support taking time outs. Yoga classes and retreats are one
of those social venues.

At studios and in yoga classes, people confide in the instructor, confide in each other.

This is the perfect setting in which to make friends.

And, sadly, a yoga studio is also a perfect setting in which to ID persons who are useful targets for further recruitment into groups led by expensive gurus.

One can get a quick picture of how affluent one's clients are.

What kinds and brands of yoga clothing does a student wear? Jewelry?

Accessories?

Car? (Bicycle, motorcycle?)

What make of smartphone?

How often does the person come in with newly acquired clothes, bling, etc.

And it is only too easy to research each person online and then target the
ones who give clues of being vulnerable, and socially or financially useful -- useable.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2014 10:56PM by corboy.

The names of the centers change, the mantras change, the recruiters change. They are still young hippie types and/or the children of original members. The hook remains the same. As sweet and beautiful as it seems, it is fundamentally deceptive. There is a reason that the philosophy is given over in small increments. New people are scrutinized carefully for their ultimate usefulness (money, talent, resources). The goal is not to give you this beautiful lifestyle, but to introduce you to "selfless service" to their hidden guru as the ultimate.

Looking at the images from the Bhakti Yoga Shack link (Bhakti Yoga Shack Kauai ) NOTHING has changed from the days of Sai Speaks.

Sunset Beach - Late 1960's or early 1970's



Kauai 2013




Now that original members are aging (in their 60's and 70's) a recruitment frenzy has started up again. Target young seekers. Seriously, the only difference now is that guru Chris Butler is no longer pictured or makes personal appearances. Since the mid 1970's he has become increasingly paranoid and reclusive like Howard Hughes. He is an old man who is never seen publicly. All of his writings and photos are from the 1970's and 80's -- an unusual practice for someone who preaches the unimportance of looks and the material body -- and who claims to be God's representative on earth. You'd think he would have something new to say from Vaikuntha Loka (Krishna's planet).

No, Chris Butler just needs better retirement income as his most loyal followers are aging with him.

What's so wrong with singing, dancing, playing music, chanting, making leis, looking at pretty pictures of a flute playing blue boy, doing yoga, and cooking and eating vegetarian feasts? Well, nothing in of itself. Actually it is quite lovely. The problem lies in that it does not stop there. The beautiful sentiments are outright deceptions. It is a "gateway drug" to a genuine cult. Hard to believe when you meet these awesome people with angelic voices.

The problem is that by the time you find out the truth, you are already sucked in and have had your subconscious imprinted through meditation techniques that deprive you of your critical thinking. The adherents are quite sincere and do not think they are doing any harm. If some of them really understood the extent of the harm and loss these recruiters are about to inflict - they may be horrified. They honestly think that they are "saving" you from the wheel of birth and death. They really believe in what they are doing and that is precisely why they are so convincing -- and dangerous.

This thread is a testament to the real damages accrued by many former members and their families. In my opinion, few "recruiters" are consciously aware of the full extent of Butler's scam. That's a big problem. Only his elite members are laughing all the way to the bank. Some may disagree on this point, but I have found that the "first contact" people are farthest away from the "guardians of the gates". Many of Butler's people slaving away at his "brand", creating websites and social media outlets have never even met Butler. They may have a distant memory of him from their childhood. Perhaps they saw him once at a kirtan twenty years ago. They certainly grew up hearing legends from their parents and bowing down to his ubiquitous picture in their homes.

Shyam Dodge (who received death threats and is now shunned by the cult) describes what it was really like growing up with the Butlerites in his book Wet Hot and Wild American Yogi: A Memoir. The children of the cult are taught that they are superior to the ordinary population of "karmis". They wear their badges of doing yoga and meditation from birth with great pride. They have been groomed from birth to fear outsiders unless they can turn them into devotees like themselves. Like their guru, they carry his own sense of grandiosity. It may look like humility on the outside, but it is just another part of the deception.

If you are new to this cult, please take a serious look at this Cult Ed forum and read the full link below. I have pulled out a few related quotes.

From Free Thought Pedia

Quote
How Butler Recruits Surreptitiously
Deceptive and co-ercive tactics are used to recruit and maintain followers (devotees) such as claiming to be non-religious and non-sectarian or to be teaching meditation for 'stress relief' and yoga for 'fitness'. Details of Chris Butler's personal history and teachings are routinely concealed or fabricated. Shunning and retribution are imposed on disobedient and former followers.

Quote
Methods of Recruitment and Reach
New people are defined as those who are not deemed 'serious enough' by the controlling disciples to be given anymore than superficial access to the spiritual nature of the organization and Chris Butler's teachings. [Evidenced by all of the banal Jagad Guru quotes flooding the internet.]

If a person becomes involved when they are aged beyond their twenties they are regarded with suspicion and may never progress above open classes simply because Chris Butler preaches that the older a person is without becoming his follower the more degraded their consciousness has become. Other factors which are considered is whether a person has a spouse or children that do not attend, whether they are regular attendants and if they have any assets or skills that are useful to service.

Chris Butler has an estimated twenty thousand 'devotees' with confirmed prescences in Australia, Belgium, Canada,China, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Lithuania, New Zealand, Phillipines, Poland,Russia, Switzerland and the United States - particularly Hawaii, California, Arizona, New Jersey, New York, Washington and Texas.

SoI meditation and yoga centres, which serve as the primary means of recruitment, operate under various names. Typically titles are based on the location (eg- Australian School of Meditation) or favour the names of 'Chaitanya' or 'Gauranga' (eg- Chaitanya Mission and Gauranga School of Meditation). Names which contradict this general practice have also been documented (eg- Mantra Meditation in Hawaii and Gokula House in Melbourne,Australia).

SoI also carries on recruitment through dedicated 'outreach' operating in public spaces, such as libraries, community and youth centres, member's private homes, university campuses, through the WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms) project, Brandon Raynor Massage Schools and Down to Earth 'Lifestyle Centres'. [The newer centers no longer mention Butler of SOI and favor names like "Kirtan Yoga" "Kirtan Yoga Community" "Yoga of the Heart" "Sacred Kirtan Gathering" "Creating Devotional Community" "Sacred Chanting" "Meditation Chant"]

Subliminal indoctrination is attempted according to the belief that exposing 'karmis' (non-believers) to the sounds of Chris Butler chanting and the consumption of 'prashadam' (food that has been ritually offered to the deity
Krishna).

By the time you wake up to the danger quotient of the beautiful group, with the beautiful music and the beautiful singing...

You may have become married within the group.

You may have had children within the group.

You may have discovered, to your horror, that other people's children
have incurred harm, perhaps at one of the boarding schools.

And....your own children are in this school.

And your spouse is threatening to divorce you and sue for custody if you dare
question any of this.

And if there is a divorce and a custody fight, the spouse who stays with a
wealthy cult may get legal support via attorneys recommended by the group, or who are even themselves members.

By the time you are litigated into utter exhaustion, you may find yourself willing to sign a settlement that seals all records from the press, as the price
for rescuing your children.

And then, you have the task of helping them heal, and they may have been told all sorts of nasty and untruthful things about you, back during the custody battle.

All this is years in the future.

The nice, sweet kids with the tattoos and smiles and long hair who welcome you into the studio will themselves know nothing of this.

Just as the actors and actresses playing pirate roles at Walt Disney's Pirates of The Caribbean dont see themselves as pirates.

They dont imagine themselves as romanticizing a way of life that is, in its present day form, spreading horror and terror off the coasts of Nigeria and Somalia.

As Vera put it:

"The problem is that by the time you find out the truth, you are already sucked in and have had your subconscious imprinted through meditation techniques that deprive you of your critical thinking.

"The adherents are quite sincere and do not think they are doing any harm.

"If some of them really understood the extent of the harm and loss these recruiters are about to inflict - they may be horrified.

"They honestly think that they are "saving" you from the wheel of birth and death. They really believe in what they are doing and that is precisely why they are so convincing -- and dangerous."

Cute gorgeous young people are great for selling stuff.

Anything.

The girl scene attracts both girls, women -- and males.

Girls and women love the girlpal scene.

Males....whatever age, the males will love the presence of nice cute girls.

And in the West, yoga clothing has taken sexualized forms. Low rider pants.

Crop tops.

Some brands of yoga pants and shorts supposedly make your ass look prettier than
your ass actually is.

Underneath the edifying chat about spiritual lifestyle, it can be very, very
erotic.

Only way to be oblivious to this is if one is dead and rotten in the ground, or
reduced to cremains.

And even the youngsters will not know they are part of a larger strategy.

A strategy that benefits a just a few.

In these groups, only a very few are the brahmins, who profit.

Most members, who think they are oh-so spiritual, oh- so evolved and loving--
they occuppy a quite traditional role mandated by the caste system.

Most of the members are sudras. The peasants, the workers, the producers.

Who generate wealth for the Brahmins.

And the much venerated Bagavad Gita does, among other things, justify the caste
system.

Here is the straight dope according to the Krishna dot com website.

They wiggle by saying the Brahmins are the 'teachers'.

[www.krishna.com]

Read this folks. You are likely to be a shudra in any Krishna cult, unless you
come in already rich, with valuable social connections.

The Shudras

“For the shudras there is labor and service to others.” (Bg. 18.44) Sudras do work that is of service to the other classes, so they must depend on others for their maintenance. Srila Prabhupada writes, “The shudra class can attain all comforts of life simply by rendering service to the higher classes. … The higher castes should always look after the maintenance of the shudras.… A shudra should not leave his master when the master is old and invalid, and the master should keep the servants satisfied in all respects.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.9.26)

"Although in general shudras may be less intelligent, by faithfully carrying out their occupational duties under the guidance of a spiritual master they can attain the highest platform of spiritual perfection. Srila Prabhupada writes, “The process of devotional service is so strong that the pure devotee of the Supreme Lord can enable people of the lower classes to attain the highest perfection of life.” (Bg. 9.32)


But in practice, once you enter this Krishna cult, which is supposedly bhakti,
one lives in submission to superiors.

This is the idealized rationale.

"The Social Body

"The varnashrama system may be compared to a social body. The brahmanas, with their knowledge to direct society, can be compared to the head, eyes, and brain of the social body; kshatriyas, who offer protection, are the arms; the vaishyas, who support society, are the stomach; and the shudras are the legs.

"Common sense tells us that we need our head even more than we need our arms and legs, because without the head the entire body is useless. So the brahmanas are the most important, because of the guidance they provide. Yet without the labor of the shudras, the legs, society would not get anywhere. Without the support of the vaishyas, the brahmanas would be unable to devote their time to teaching and studying. And without protection and land from the kshatriyas, the vaishyas could not carry out their occupation of providing for society. But when each part of the social body performs its proper function, then the entire society can be peaceful and cooperative and can concentrate on its real goal, Krishna consciousness.
"

Cute gorgeous young people are great for selling stuff

This, Corboy states is a deviation from how bhakti (devotion) developed.

Bhakti originally developed among lower caste groups precisely to give
ways to have a relationship with God without needing to go to to the Brahmins
as intermediaries. Instead of Brahmin controlled ritual, the bhakti
devotees developed their own methods of devotion, making the Brahmins
unnecessary.

Only later, much later, did the Brahmins find ways to co-opt many bhakti
movements and turn them hierharchical.

For this and more, read The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doninger.

(The froth at the mouth Hindu nationalists hate Doninger, which indicates
she tells us what we need to hear, based on carefully documented evidence.)

All this -- bhakti co-opted by the Brahmins, exactly fits what old man Prab did.

He was from a high class family that was low in its fortunes following
the collapse of the economy in Calcutta/Kolkata, following transfer
of the capital to Delhi, and then the chaos following Partition in 1947, which disrupted many businesses which had enriched the city.

Prab, through his success in America and Britain, was enabled to return
to India in the style of a prince, living like a king, being waited
on hand and foot, complete with gourmet vegetarian meals.

To learn more of this, here is some older posts.

[forum.culteducation.com] (page 5of this thread --2005)

[forum.culteducation.com]

Prab was sex negative but no ascetic. He had an entourage, sat on a
THRONE and was pampered.

The old codger wanted money, and yet more money.

And it makes a glory of obeying orders without question.

Note: Spiritual Betrayal, by Nuri Muster, was written by a former ISKON
member who, atypically, was given a high rank from the outset.

She joined ISKON just after Prabhupada died.

She was assigned a secretarial position that, in those pre-Internet days,
gave her access to news clippings filed away.

Just by this job assignment, without her realizing it, Muster already beat the odds.

She should have been relegated to a shudra position, cleaning rooms or cooking.

Instead, she had a junior brahmin position as a secretary/archivist.

And it was there that to her horror she read through news clippings related to
ISKON and found the record of money making by any means necessary.

[forum.culteducation.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2014 11:12PM by corboy.