Found these links on the band Living Force to satisfy some of my curiosity about Siddha's involvement in the rock biz 8)

[www.sergent.com.au]

[translate.google.com]

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The origins of Living Force can be traced back to 1973, when both Ticket and Space Farm were in disarray. Harvey Mann and Eddie Hansen had been friends for a long while, and had both tired of the hippie-drugs lifestyle. Along with Glen Absolum, they moved into an Auckland flat and began playing together, whilst cleansing their bodies of all the harmful products they had been used to consuming. They were also searching for spiritual happiness.

Eddie Hansen = Prahlad das on the Gold Coast
Matt Matepi = long time devotee of Siddha who I have heard had a son named Vishnu who apparently made disciple

There's a few alternate line ups, probably some ex members who might be interested in talking to me if I can track them down.

No one has made a website in honor of Siddha's album "A Different World" ? although Ash swears to me that she has seen and heard a copy. For now I just have to resort to dreaming and checking the dollar crates at the vinyl store.

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cultreporter
...... I always wondered what a fire sacrfice for a KC marriage was like and wondered what got burned. Now I know in SOI it is your previous marriage certificate.

:lol: :D [b:bc6bf92e37]LMFAO[/b:bc6bf92e37] - That's a good one, Reporter!!! :lol: :lol:

:D

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cultreporter
Found these links on the band Living Force to satisfy some of my curiosity about Siddha's involvement in the rock biz 8)

[www.sergent.com.au]

Eddie Hansen = Prahlad das on the Gold Coast

No one has made a website in honor of Siddha's album "A Different World" ? although Ash swears to me that she has seen and heard a copy. For now I just have to resort to dreaming and checking the dollar crates at the vinyl store.

I used to have the Living Force album. Lost it in my many moves. I knew Eddie Hansen --- great guitarist! I have a sealed, never played copy of "This World, A Different World". Siddha doesn't have the greatest voice, but it is sweet in a Donovan kind of way. I also have a cassette of Mantra Electric.

I recently found a copy of Sai Speaks which was supposed to be destroyed....I sent one to my Mom and forgot before the order to burn. I found it in her library after she passed away recently.

[img:ce99cb8535]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/SaiSpeakscover.jpg[/img:ce99cb8535]

[img:ce99cb8535]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/SaiSpeaksbackcover.jpg[/img:ce99cb8535]

Looks like Barbara's boy alright!
[img:ce99cb8535]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/WhoisSaiphoto.jpg[/img:ce99cb8535]

[b:107513118e]The purpose of the following excerpts is not to preach but to demonstrate the delusional nature of Chris Butler. He was a very young man when he began the guru business and wrote this book. After surrendering to ACB he ordered all of these books destroyed and distanced himself from these teachings. He accepted worship and his photos were placed on alters next to krishna. I leave it to the Cult Ed members to discuss and debate and compare and contrast his teachings with the fruits of his movement. [/b:107513118e][/size:107513118e]

[img:107513118e]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/saispeakspage41.jpg[/img:107513118e]

[b:107513118e]Note the recommendation to put aside all critical thinking skills. This teaching never changed.[/b:107513118e]

[img:107513118e]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/saispeakspage42.jpg[/img:107513118e]

[b:107513118e] I can't help but see a bitter irony in these lines.[/b:107513118e]

[img:107513118e]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/saispeakspage43.jpg[/img:107513118e]

[b:107513118e]The following poems he quotes are from a minor Vaishnava not highly regarded by Gaudiya Vaishnava authorities and scholars. [/b:107513118e]

[img:107513118e]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/saispeakspage49.jpg[/img:107513118e]
[img:107513118e]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/saispeakspage50photosofKYCladies.jpg[/img:107513118e]

[b:107513118e]Interesting disclaimer at the end of the book. The photo of our hippie guru is from the days before he was germophobic and paranoid. Look at the intensity of his followers.[/b:107513118e]

[img:107513118e]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/saispeakspage55.jpg[/img:107513118e][b:107513118e][/b:107513118e]

[b:107513118e] this last photo is of the famous quonset hut and Sai in his dhoti (robes) with Sanscrit maha mantra written all over it.[/b:107513118e]

[img:107513118e]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/saispeakspage48clorphotoofsaiandtus.jpg[/img:107513118e]

[b:34d73029b0]Early biographical sketch of you know who.[/b:34d73029b0][/size:34d73029b0]

[img:34d73029b0]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/SaiSpeakspage4.jpg[/img:34d73029b0]

[img:34d73029b0]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/SaiSpeakspage5.jpg[/img:34d73029b0]

Butler's teaching are surprisingly similar today as in the Sai days. It is not difficult to see why he burned these books given the immaturity of his philosophy. The difinition of a spiritual master is not based on being God's representative which he is now that he is in disciplic succession and this book suggests that he might have only sought initiation to claim the title of bona-fide guru.

His claim of not being 'heavy' has carried through with the claim of SOI not having 'hard and fast' rules. That is until you're being yelled at whilst on your knees scrubing his floors.

But the inability for a person to know who is a spiritual master due to these imperfect senses does put an aspiring spiritualist in an impassale position. Butler offers the rule of thumb where questions that result in one accepting him as a spiritual master are acceptable while questions that find fault in him are simply nit-picking. We saw this in RKd's discription of accepting a guru recently.

The association was also a priority in this book. Whenever speaking to a devotee when I was not involved in the cult 'good and bad' association was the most consistent warning that I ever got. Yes the irony is clear that one should introduce others to Krishna who know nothing about Him whilst a devotee finds the company of non-devotees utterly sickening.

Very little of this has changed in 30 or so years and even after his initiation from ACB. The vague definition of a spiritual master and the overwhelming need for one. The lack of ability to know he is a spiritual master and the need to blindly accept whilst rejecting association with those who may help you see the folly of this arrangement.

It is like Siddhaswarupananda holds up an empty glass and tries to convince you that it is full by making you doubt your own ability to know it is empty.

It's so amazing thanks for posting it. It would be great to see more of this book Zelig. How many pages is it?

Yeah Ash! His teachings are like [b:a8db73e375]"chewing gum that has already been chewed"! [/b:a8db73e375]

I'd like to see more people add their thoughts to these excerpts like Maui, Cult R, Googling and others.

I'll post more excerpts later.

[b:a8db73e375]Sai Speaks [/b:a8db73e375]was really a recruitment peice for his [b:a8db73e375]Krishna Yoga Community[/b:a8db73e375], the commune in Hawaii that broke up and surrendered to ACB and scattered to ISKCON temples all over the world. Many returned to CB and Hawaii when the temple life just became too 'heavy', cold and impersonal.

CB has maintained his same vision. Chant the Yoga Sound! The paranoia, germ phobia, and the inability to "share the air" (as Cara mentioned to me) are newer pathological symptoms that have evolved over time. Even though this book was banned, the pattern remains the same.

I hope it is viewed as an artifact from the 60's and demonstrates the cultural yearnings for something more than a materialistic lifestyle. Not one of his followers from this time would endorse the war in Iraq any more than the war in Viet Nam. So there has been a radical shift politically in the opposite direction of CB's father.

[b:a8db73e375]Funny how they made Sai all yellow like Chaitanya......Ever the showman......... Ever the opportunist....[/b:a8db73e375]

[img:a8db73e375]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/Sai%20Speaks/SaiSpeakscover.jpg[/img:a8db73e375]

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emntk
Butler's teaching are surprisingly similar today as in the Sai days. It is not difficult to see why he burned these books given the immaturity of his philosophy.....

It is like Siddhaswarupananda holds up an empty glass and tries to convince you that it is full by making you doubt your own ability to know it is empty.

Ash, No truer words could be spoken. Showmanship, sleight of hand, mesmerizing, playing on a person's sentimental and tenderest yearnings, and then evolving into a bitter, materialistic cynic. You become what you focus on. The straw man CB has carefully built is what he has become. "All Nothing". And his followers are either cynics or fools grasping at the nothing.

I have not heard of Tukurama before, although he sounds like Sai's sort of guy.

If you meditate on the name of Govinda,
then you will become Govinda yourself.
There will be no difference between you and God.

[www.geocities.com]

Tukurama was a mystic, guided by dreams and speculation (the devil :wink:) but it seems to me that to present him as a follower of Lord Caitanya was a little fanciful.

Apparently very little is known of Tukarama's life and there are no shrines to him. He was devoted to Lord Vithoba who is a manifestation of Krishna and his mission in life given to him through a dream was to compete the abhangs (spiritual poems) of Namdev, who was around in 1269 - a full two centuries before Lord Caitanya even appeared. I am curious as to how Tukurama fits into Gaudiya Vaishnavism if at all. I guess only Siddha knows for sure how he came to receive guidance from such an obscure figure when he ignores the Panca Tattva, Lord Caitanya's closest associates.

Definitely nothing has changed with 'chanting' being pretty much the sole pursuit of Siddha's followers. How many times I have heard him and them all say - ALL you have to do is chant. Never mind preaching and following Lord Caitanya's mission, never mind charitable pursuits or building temples - which is something a bonafide spiritual master might have thought to do in thirty years, especially when they have no shortage of money.

In Sai Speaks he refers to Tukarama "By chanting His name you become like He in the course of nature." This is a curious feature of Siddha's continuing philosophy - that those who have been chanting for 5 years are more spiritually advanced than those who have been for two. Of all his followers he has of course been chanting for the longest so by virtue of his own self styled philosphy has become not God - that would be blasphemous - he is simply just like and completely equal to him.

Krishna's tinfoil mansion and aversion to the common air must have simply been lost in translation.

The only thing that really makes sense in Siddha's whole philosophy is the statement "I'm not a bonafide teacher..actually I am not a 'heavy' or great yogi'." Case closed.

Unless you have the grave misfortune of the Lord in your heart being as dyslexic as you must be to read Siddha's own words that he is not bonafide then you have now have no excuse or reasoning to fall back on.
Sai Speaks deserved to be burnt - but given what became of it's author possibly the last remaining copy - is of extreme value. Obviously it is the most valuable teaching of Siddha's in existence as irrefutable proof that he is a dangerous fraud.

As followers of Siddhaswarupananda the Lord in your heart by your actions of retreat and shame - denying any affiliation to him, and the Scripture must be screaming at you to save yourself.

One who is initiated into a mantra by a non-Vaishnava must go to hell. Therefore he should again be initiated properly, according to the prescribed method, by a Vaishnava guru. Srimad Bhagavatam 11.3.48

I am guessing that could be Tusta standing behind Sai in the last black and white pic posted. Seriously I can't stop thinking of Wham! :lol:

I love the idea of the commune. It would have been a beautiful ideal way to live and it must have been very hard to realise was not all that it appeared. I am sure that it had many good points back then.

www.xanga.com/carisjames gets more hits from Hawaii and Australia than anywhere else :? Unlike the old site I can see the country of origin of hits (and what page/s they look at) Don't worry you can't see any personal info about the visitors. Unlike the old it is a daily site (believe it or not some of those old articles took days to write because of the research that went into them) if you don't mind that it has a slightly broader focus, although it is pretty obvious what I spend most of my time thinking about.