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terrenaut
It also occurred to me, as I listened, that NO WAY could i share any of these tapes with a non-devotee, and in fact, I was ashamed of them. I cannot defend my spiritual master when he spews hate speak like this.
Comments?
Not only are they an embarassment, but in Australia and Canada (as was mentioned by Jagad Guru himself in at least one lecture) maybe other places as well, they are illegal. Australia has state by state vilification legislation that would punish the sale and playing of these lectures to an open audience (ie at a venue where general members of the public were invited to attend, not within a private club, which would have to be registered as such) Religious organisations are exempt from this but ASM and SIF in general do not want to be defined as a religious organisation, so it is definitely a slippery slope there. It has been considered by the directors that the religious freedom defence could be easily beaten.
Infact since CR all of the pamphlets have been changed so there is no longer any mention of being non-religious and non-sectarian because that is also something that could cause trouble with Fair Trading (false advertising). Too close to call is the reason.
There was talk about having a website where lectures could be purchased as sound files (sort of like I-Tunes) and how it would be managed so that only devotees could have access to it. Talk about preaching to the choir :oops:
What I am really curious about, and I know that I am not the only one who is still a devotee on this: Is there anything that the people here want to achieve? I have read it being said that some don't think that people should join, that they should be warned. Some have gone as far as to say that SIF should be shut down. Perhaps certain legal investigations of certain things could achieve serious charges. The disciples who run Transcendental Sound here were certainly happy that no-one came through with providing one of the vilification lectures to those who actually had a clearly defined idea of what they wanted to do. At the very least Trans. Sound would have been shut down and likely ASM and Vege Chips would have been fined as well since legally they are all the same business entity. That is how close to "change" this whole affair actually came.
It was a terrible thing to pick up the newspaper for the entire Gold Coast, the weekend edition no less, and read about an organisation that was obviously us and that a person that many of us had known, or at least seen around, blamed their involvement with us for destroying their life. Not everyone felt that the best thing to do in response was just to set up more yoga classes and get a new venue. No-one has the desire to be hurting other people. But devotees remained pretty quite on these thoughts and just go along with it. I honestly don't know if many of the instructions that I feel compelled to follow come from Jagad Guru or not anymore.
Many devotees have been very upset and concerned, myself included. We are not as concerned now that this is the only site on the internet, Rick Ross was never really taken seriously, but we accept that it is really likely only a matter of time before that changes again. Ultimately we trust that we have a quality of life here that while it is not perfect, in our opinions, it is better than anything else. We are all trying to live our lives the same as you are living yours now.
Dassi you say that all the exes you know - how many would that be really? I know many many devotees, numbering into the hundreds, that are also very happy and would not have their life any other way. I know that there are many devotees that have their disagreements and questions and frustrations with the way that things are as well. I know a few ex-members that are not happy at all that they are ex-members simply because they still want what to them was the good parts of being a devotee but just couldn't live with the bad.
Officially according to Jagad Guru we are NOT supossed to read here. We are not supossed to talk to the individuals here or to any former followers. There are former followers, who are still devotees, here that have not spoken to families that broke up when Jagad Guru got married for twenty years now. Yes, to me that raises a big red flag. I would not even have known that this forum existed, and would not have been looking for it, had it not been such a concern to devotees what was being said.
Jagad Guru is obviously out of touch with what his own followers are concerned by and interested in. He has not been out here in over ten years, and yes he is still alive, really disciples are just doing what they think is best, and they are not always getting it right. I wish that he was reading here too, although I am fairly sure that he would not be concerning himself with such things. It was very disturbing for me to read the letter posted here from Jeannie Bishop that Jagad Guru does not concern himself with who becomes his students here. Such an annoucement clearly shows that there is no reason for us to be bothered with even having a spiritual master. We may as well just watch Oprah or Phil Donohue.
Just consider this : where would the people leaving here go? If the whole of ASM was pulled down by whatever means there would be many people who lost their jobs. There would be many children put into public schools where they would be taught rubbish and have to worry about such things as bullying and sex education at 10 year old. I went to public school myself and decided before I was a devotee that home schooling was a much better option. There would be no more gatherings where people have formed genuine friendships and genuinely believe that they are getting some form of spiritual sustenance. It is one thing to say that couples should not be expected to split up just because one of them does not want to be a devotee of Jagad Guru anymore - but how would such a relationship work? Those two people would be entirely incompatable, each choosing to live very different lives.
Even when devotees do the "wrong" thing they are at least trying to uphold certain values, values that are not necessarily of concern to non devotees.