Dear MeanReds...

My take on it...and of course, I could be way wrong...
is that Jivan posed himself as a Christian scholar, and rented / reserved the Four Springs Retreat for this 3 day "Yoga workshop". From other retreats they seem to offer and advertise, the place does indeed seem like a Christian based retreat center.

I think Brandon Peele is in part looking for answers, and in part being a web entrepreneur! Tell my vaired spititual search stories, and what the heck...want to donate a few bucks if you liked my story...go ahead ;)
Yep, the boy is all over trying to make money w/his new age spiritual services...I guess I'm not so concerned with that aspect....should I be?
I may be naive, but my gut tells me he's not affiliated w/ Science of Identity...of course, I could be totally wrong.

Note he does say that this workshop he attended at Four Springs was "hosted by Lotus Gardens".
He didn't say he went to Lotus Gardens.
Lotus Gardens exist, is alive & happening.
Yea, Chris' disciples will use ANY back-door to get in any where they think they be able to recruit. Sad, but true. They like using 'karmi' avenues to wiggle in & preach their dogma.

The truth is out there...
we just have to all speak up!

Peace be with you.

MeanReds...

I guess the bottom line for me,
I don't really care what this guy Brandon Peele is up to.
But he did give some good info on his blog...like young people being involved in Lotus Garden.
The important thing to me was, and is, the meditation center:

Lotus Garden Yoga Studio/ The Meditation Retreat Center
7225 Lincoln Ave. Carmichael, CA 95628
(916) 944-8577

The fact that it's an ashram...young people are involved, live there etc...that's the information I want to get out there.
If some crazed disciple of Chris' wants to chant there brains out
on the street or in private...up to them. When they form an ashram,
and children are envolved / effected...then, I'm concerned.

It's very late where I live...off to bed ;)

Peace be with you.

oops wrong link.. www.foursprings.org

Shanti.. That is how most of Iskcon and Siddha's group became involved. AC Bhaktivedanta swami gave particular instructions that he wanted his centers set up close to universities and in '72 ACB, Tusta Krishna and Siddha were discussing a university of their own that would hold hindu subjects that students may like to attend. This was in NZ but soon after TK and Siddha set up a farm in Byron Bay, Australia where five months later a woodstock style music event was organised as a ten day pot, LSD, nudity, meditation, Krishna and environmental activism. Two weeks after Tusta arrived the Students Union came to scout the location. Many of the drugged out students of which there were thousands stayed to form commune farms. some still exist there today including "Siddha Farm". Iskcon temple is not far away.

Read the Mahaksa posts and see how they describe Siddha's followers setting up events for kids and standing outside other events chanting and waiting for all the drugged 'out of their minds' youngsters to rope them into chanting.

Siddha's group still runs many of it's programs in universities because these are the people making lifelong decissions about their lives. The whole ISKCON movement was swept along by the pyscheadelic figures of the 60s who used eastern phiosophy to turn people onto drugs and ISKCON, SIF, other cults and communes indoctrinated them along with a place to drop-out. AC Bhaktivedanta swami's arrival in california marked the beginning of the Summer of love which inturn put the I in ISKCON.

This has always been the way and don't be suprised if all over SIF you find young runaways and ex-drug using teenagers. Having been there for decades you must know of this?

One of ACB's youngest disciples was 16 who ran away from california and met up with Siddha's group in Hawaii, after a breif stop in American Samoa no less, at 14 years old.

The old disciples chanting themselves to their hearts content in universities were once young disciples too recruited through similar means. Hawaii passed a law that allows children the freedom to choose to join a cult if they wish as United Nations human rights for children. Parents don't have a say any longer.

BTW- You know the ISKCON Govinda's restaurant idea came from Hawaii. ACB was against the idea but once he started receiving money they opened up internationally and gave ACB another feather in his cap and venue to recruit people of all ages. Look at the photos of the Kids who stayed at Uddhava Harvey's Lotus Gardens on the blog that Cara posted a week or so ago. They do look very young and while they arrived to tend to the small farm they awoke to loud chanting at 6am in a best attempt to attract these kids into SIF. Same thing would occur at the isolated Dharma farms Hilo.

Siddha with his pyschic sleep and drugs was how he was the only disciple with a following by the time he joined ISKCON. He had two followers running the Laguna temple which just happened to be located next door to Leary's Brotherhood of Eternal Love drug smuggling ring which also ran out of Maui where Ramesvara the Iskcon drug guru was found out. Telling drugged out surfers to leave their intellect behind and hear from him submissively - doesn't work as well without the Beatles and LSD although the teaching is much the same. Many of his friends and followers from those early days are in Hawaii in other cults and they are all in contact still - Tripurari, Turiya, Babhru and others and joined with him on WVA. Hawaii started Krishna Hip-hop raves as the electric kirtan went out of style with the teenagers - so now they have a tv show/modelling agency in the Phillipines. Guru needs to move with the times. Ninjai - Wai Lana Little Yogis. They are marketing for children. What do the devotee kids have to do without a proper schooling besides run around and hit each other with sticks? No Playstation for these kids. Children are valuable currency with regard to wayward parents.

All the young wannabe movie stars, hip hop stars, surfing stars or warriors for Krishna.

None of this is new it's just revised.


JivanaKrishna dasa was indeed initiated by A.C. Bhaktivedanta swami in 1972 hawaii. John Moore would be related to Christina Moore mentioned on the previous page for Summit Productions '81? She seems to turn up on other more recent registrations.

Another name drop would be Dr. Caroline Sinavaina-Gabbard, professor of english at Hawaii University, yet Mike never seems to mention she is his only sister/sibbling living in Hawaii. Caroline had many beat poet influences when attending the same university as Mike in the earliest 70's in California. Recently some of her Haiku poems were published although she is said to be buddhist. Could she be the rumored lesbian sister?

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shanti
if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it probably IS a duck!

Either Jivan's become a saint...NOT! ...or his line of BS has gotten even better.

Shanti,
I can confirm everything you to be true. I was there too. The one thing you forgot to mention is that Jivan aka John Moore ran unsuccessfully for office for the Independents for Godly Government (1976 ish) which was the mastermind of Siddhaswarupananda. I don't recall for which office.

His total loyalty always puzzled me because he was one of those people continually blasted by Siddhaswarupananda. Bi-polar would explain a lot. His life is a tragedy because of all the ladies and children left behind and hurt as well as his own life. He was extrememely intelligent and musically talented. He could have been an incredible success both in life and with a good woman like you. I blame Siddhaswarupananda for the wake of emotional havoc that was visited on all the people connected with Jivan.

The whole RR website is all about helping families and victims of cults. And never lose sight of the fact that current members are also victims.

I think one of the main points I want to leave on this forum is my view that all the people I knew in the group were good people. We were mostly well educated, intelligent, creative and philosophical. A lot of brain power. Look at how many artists there were - musicians, painters, writers, a few intellectuals, farmers, people sensitive to the environment. The rest were really sweet, "mode of goodness" people, even the ones who developed nasty personalities later on. We were the generation that made it so blacks didn't have to sit in the back of the bus and could eat and go to schools with whites. We started the ecology movement and the women's movement. We stopped the war in Vietnam. These were no small feats.

The destructive side of our generation came in the form of opening the Pandora’s Box of drugs and free, non-committal love which brought in a generation of damaged, unwanted and neglected children. CB got some people off drugs, (and I do credit him and ACB for this but at what price?). Unfortunately, it was replaced by a different kind of drug; discipleship, mind control and false euphoria. If drugs and excessive sex was the downfall of our generation, then the KC philosophy brought the down fall of the creative, the leaders, and idealistic of the generation.

Just like the good part of the hippie movement got perverted and off track with drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, Siddhaswarupananda got off track with his narcissism, hedonism and delusions of grandeur.

I want to say that people like Mike and Carol Gabbard were really fine people, but they apparently let go. They seem to have let their very selves become puppets. They are also victims of Siddhaswarupananda, as we all were. I'd like to see Mike's complete voting record to assess the level of cult influence. My point is that people let go of their own thoughts and let them get replaced with someone else's and then turn and change. We experienced this too, but got out of it, often by some trauma or tragedy.

I have a lot of compassion for ex as well as current followers. See the “New Scientist” article I posted on 4-19-07. Here are a few excerpts:

[b:7c722bc6c1][i:7c722bc6c1]” …such transformations are surprisingly common. You find them in just about any environment in which an individual is subsumed into a group or is reacting to what others are doing: rioting mobs, football crowds, committees, social networks, even panels of judges. In such situations a group mentality can easily take over, leading people to act out of character or adopt extreme or risky positions. ”[/i:7c722bc6c1][/b:7c722bc6c1]

[b:7c722bc6c1][i:7c722bc6c1]” Zimbardo has famously shown how easy it is to turn peaceful people abusive and hostile.”[/i:7c722bc6c1][/b:7c722bc6c1]

[b:7c722bc6c1][i:7c722bc6c1]”When any group of like-minded people get together, the result can be equally alarming. One common effect is that the group ends up taking a more extreme position than the one its members started with - it becomes polarised.”[/i:7c722bc6c1][/b:7c722bc6c1]

[b:7c722bc6c1][i:7c722bc6c1]” It is not surprising that people should be so susceptible to the dynamics of their social environment. After all, we evolved as social animals in environments where cooperation and group cohesion were key survival tools. Our reasons for being influenced by others are often valid, but if we are not careful this tendency can get us into trouble. In a classic study carried out in the 1950s, for example, social psychologist Solomon Asch revealed how the peer pressure associated with being part of a group can lead people to deny the evidence of their own senses. When asked simply to match the length of a line on a card with one of three reference lines, 70 per cent of his subjects ignored their own judgement and sided with the rest of their group who, unbeknown to them, had been primed to make a blatantly wrong choice. .”[/i:7c722bc6c1][/b:7c722bc6c1]

[board.culteducation.com]

I also think that it is possible that CB was good in the beginning but he got possessed of a mental illness – pooled with natural leadership tendencies and creative energy -- a dangerous mix.

We got out. Others, even long time members, can still get out. Adult children can still get out. But what they need to know more than anything is that it is safe to leave and there is a soft landing place when they get out. At this point they have no idea of what it is like on the outside!

I think that intimidating, aggressively attacking and further alienating current followers is counterproductive. People who leave cults walk towards a kind hand, not the threatening one. IMO the focus and goal of all efforts should be to help current members get out as well as educating potential members to the truth. Since they already feel isolated and fearful of the “outside” why play into the hands of their guru? Those that chose to remain in face of the facts will remain and there is nothing you can do. But I am fortunate to have had great people walk out with me. Who will break their fall when others decide to leave?[/quote]

BTW, the Christian library is not a surprise. Jivan loved Christianity. He initiated the chanting of "Christe Elizon..Kiriye Elizon" (sp?) "mantra" at kirtans in the late '70's. I believe that it is from Catholic liturgy.

Shanti, I admire your courage to speak about your experience and the conviction that information should be made available. It is clear from the decades of deception that it is the secrecy that allows SoI to continue to destroy lives.

I am sure that it is correct that they simply rented this centre, here in Australia they use Burleigh Library and Nerang Neighbourhood Centre, and at one time we even using an Eckancar centre (another cult) to run their meditation classes. Everything is cloaked in euphemisms which are designed to be misleading and the ashramas are hidden - although they do exist here as well. When I spoke to the Gold Coast Bulletin and they printed a comparison to Waco SoI was very upset via Radha Krishna das that this had been said. "We dont have a compond or anything like that" he forgets that I have been to "the farm".

Chris Butler is a businessman much as ACB was but as a Westerner he had a cultural advantage. The path of ISKCON would have been greatly diffferent if CB and his followers had not been involved. They were into everything - the drug running, the abusive schools, scandals over money and runaway kids CBs followers were central in all. CB simply polished the product, got rid of the wearing a skirt and carrying a stick and those boring temple services - because who needs to worship Radha-Krishna when you can knock off your rounds on a crowd counter on your way to a shift at Down to Earth or Chateau de Guru? The fact that the followers of CB dont even worship Radha-Krishna, dont even know who the Panca Tattva is should raise some red flags on the spiritual front. Culturally the Hare Krishna movement could never happen again so it has to be repackaged to keep the professional gurus who got high with Krishna and dont ever want to come down in business. This is the issue with names. Any account of SoI to serve the purpose of a warning needs to include as much detail about the people involved as possible because they are the only constant feature.

In this time when CB is approaching the end of his life - (he may live for another few decades - but he is certainly not a picture of health in recent shots and has not aged well so far) is a build up for potential catastrophy and/or a new era of deception to begin. It is a window of opportunity to bring an end to SoI that will not be repeated.

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I think that intimidating, aggressively attacking and further alienating current followers is counterproductive. People who leave cults walk towards a kind hand, not the threatening one. IMO the focus and goal of all efforts should be to help current members get out as well as educating potential members to the truth. Since they already feel isolated and fearful of the “outside” why play into the hands of their guru? Those that chose to remain in face of the facts will remain and there is nothing you can do. But I am fortunate to have had great people walk out with me. Who will break their fall when others decide to leave?

Well the simple solution to this Zelig is that instead of having profoundly negative opinions about everything I do you can start your own effort and then you can do it [b:bbdf48fb65][u:bbdf48fb65]EXACTLY[/u:bbdf48fb65][/b:bbdf48fb65] as you see fit.

I happen to know that people have already left because of my efforts and others have not gotten involved because of my efforts. You admit "Those that chose to remain in face of the facts will remain and there is nothing you can do." and what are these facts? That these people are willing to lay down not ony their own lives but the lives of their children and the lives of their opponents for a guru that they have never even met. They are prepared to buy yet another armageddon prediction eventhough they were around for the last one that hasnt come true yet. These people live with the facts about CB and the contradictions every day and it doesnt make them wake up to themselves it makes them become secretive and militant and sly - in conclusion part of the problem. There is no known cure for stupidity. There is a known and effective cure for ignorance which in the case of CB followers leads to stupidity down the line and prevention is better than cure.

What you neglect to mention is what Mike Gabbard has gained out of his time with CB like a lot of the other "once good people" according to you have. They would not have their businesses and own wealth if not for them being founded on devotee labour. Willing or not long time disciples are part of the cycle of abuse, they are wiling parties to it and gaining from it themselves.

I almost fet sorry in my recent communications with Radha Krishna das who has a family and is renowned among devotees for the level of affection and devotion that he has to his own wife and he spends all his time serving by teaching others for all I know he whoeheartedly believes is the absolute truth. Yes it is easy to feel sorry for him.

Then there is the other side of the story - that RKd set himself up really well by marrying the Doyle daughter after hearing a lecture from CB that unmarried men were avoiding responsibility that they should have - how romantic :roll: That he has a career because he works for Brandon Raynor, another disciple that has scored the good life off the back of followers. RKd broke up my relationship and had me kicked out of my own home and then tried to bribe me - not because he had time to think about it and was sorry but because I didnt just shut up and go away and he wanted to put a stop to the rocking of the nice little boat he has set sail away from reality in. He has counselled men to leave their wives and children to become devotees, he condones his first leiutenant (funny yes, but an accurate enough term) having two wives. He keeps a devotee living under his house and got him a job at Vege Chips so that he too need never set foot in reality again. He knows that eating toenails and having sex once a month and only then to make babies that you cant love because love is wrong is unappealing so he calls it meditation and mantra rock and to me he calls it introducing people to the yoga lifestyle, conceeding yes it could be called indoctrination, but only if you want to see it that way. Yeah I could concern myself with trying to save him - or I could give my sympathy to the two little boys he has that dont get to go to school or have medicine when they are sick and will be if he has his way married off to other disciples so that his family can continue in getting ahead in the way that big fish in a small pond have of doing.

If people are with CB because they believe in his teachings then they need only crack open a Veda to see what a hoax he is. This is not the reason at all.

As for your reminiscences about what your generation achieved how about a bit of honesty there? The KC philosophy was so appealing because it said the world was crap and you looked around and lo it was and here was a way to turn your backs on it and not be a part of it or come down with the man. The hippies didnt change one damn thing and no one got off drugs in ISKCON - there were more drugs in that place than outside. Laguna Temple was the biggest distribution point of LSD on the West Coast. Your God-brother Patrick Bowler Paramahamsa das is in jail for life for trafficking hashish and where did that money go? Straight into CBs pocket. I have seen the drugs and proceeds of them with my own eyes. Having a chant didnt stop the war, sorry if you thought it did. The Black Panthers made it possible for Black People and Gay Rights were won with a riot too.

Okay folks...
That was my 3 cents worth ;)
Wanted to pass along info about Lotus Garden Yoga Center,
& "who is" this cosmic channeling man Jivan Krishna das.

I'm outta here for awhile again...
I have a house to work on!
Will check in from time to time.

For all that are courageous enough to run for your lives,
I also wish you soft landings back into the world sans Chris Butler.
Believe it or not, there is help every where.
To all ex-Chris disciples, we are a force to be reckoned with!
Truth is on our side.

And a BTW...
All the women and children (w/o exception) that Jivan was closely involved with during those crazy years, are all doing quite well these days...leading very productive and happy lives.

Peace be with you all~

Shanti

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Zelig wrote: I think that intimidating, aggressively attacking and further alienating current followers is counterproductive.

Zelig, would you please be specific in explaining the above allegations? Possibly you might list some specific points or examples that you see as intimidation, aggressive attacks and alienating followers to illustrate your point. Siddha and his disciples appear to do a excellent job in this regard by themselves but I'm not sure how anyone on this forum could be the cause of this.

After explaining the above please would you elaborate on how a person could avoid this practice which you see as causing people to stay in the cult of Siddhaswarupananda and exactly how one should go about tempting people to leave by offering a supportive hand? It is not at all clear as to what *if anything* you are talking about.[/quote]