All the full size scans of the Bramachari Times, the official cult school paper of the Chris Butler Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa in Baguio City, Philippines.

https://atleastweknowhescool.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/the-bramachari-times/

...and the hits keep coming.

From another new article on Ian's blog.

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I'm eating rice and some sort of vegetable dish. Chayote and potatoes in some yellow curry sauce. Ramen noodles on the side. I'm reflecting on the prashadam prayer, "O Lord, this material body is a lump of ignorance, and the senses are a network of paths leading to death. Somehow, we have fallen into this ocean of material sense enjoyment, and of all the senses the tongue is most voracious and uncontrollable. It is very difficult to conquer the tongue in this world..." I'm not entirely sure what it all means, but it sounds scary and awful, this tongue that we have. I'm a bit worried about my tongue. I ponder the ways it has created trouble for me. Mostly because I have a big mouth and always say stupid shit that offends people... Suddenly I'm thinking of death. Domodar and Mohan's little brother dies last year. Hit by a car while skate boarding. I recall how funny he was...

Once, back in Malibu, I went up to my gurus ocean front home. It was me and a few other guys and randomly little Gauranga was there. Maybe cause his mom did service for the guru... Anyway, we were there because Butler wanted to ask us why we wanted to go to the PI and give a talk on the importance of brahmachari life and discipline. We all sat. Nervous. Except that little Gauranga. He was just happy and basically a little spark plug. Maybe to break the ice or whatever, Butler asked little Gauranga a few questions. Then, he asked him what his name meant, to which the little boy replied very confidently and proudly, "SILVER!". Everyone laughed. After talking to Butler, we were sent to a sort of "prep-home" in Oxnard where we were to be trained and taught about brahmacari life before flying out to the school...

I posed the question in the comments:

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So Ian, this is Rama Ranson, just wondering if this Oxnard house

"Everyone laughed. After talking to Butler, we were sent to a sort of "prep-home" in Oxnard where we were to be trained and taught about brahmacari life before flying out to the school..."

Was this prep home the location on 1300 block of Offshore street in Oxnard, cited as the site of young Gauranga Giazzon's death in the local article.

I would then assume that he died being poorly supervised in a prep home for the boys school, and in turn his two brothers were shipped off to Baguio very shortly after this family tragedy. Trauma compounded with the sterile loveless cult indoctrination school.

As within this cult or most cults for that matter, the answer to ALL problems is to push the individual deeper into the indoctrination of the cult, just chant more and serve Chris Butler with greater dedication is the cure all problems solution which, in Mohana Giazzon's case, has seemed to be less than effective.

But again, the cult would never look at the poor troubled dude's problems as being in any way due to the influence, abuse and trauma of the cult, he is just seen as a wayward and lost person who couldn't hack it, his alcoholism and constant arrests are completely independent of his being raised in a "High Demand Closed Group" or cult.

http://baguiobrahmacharislive.blogspot.com/2015/12/pink-turtleneck-chronicles.html

All of these cults, weather it's Butler, or some ISKCON guru or the many offshoots out there have the same basic formula. They all suffer from major internal disfunction. All the devotees are often left with no real sense of security about who to follow and what to believe. This is of course buttered over by the senior devotees like Acharya Das (every cult has their Acharya Das)—they are there to keep the peace and hide the crappy parts. Everyone from SIF, ISKCON, CHAITANYA SARASWAT MATH, GAUDY MATH, NARASIGHA CHAITANYA ASHRAM, AUDARYA and everyone in between suffers from deeply rooted guru conflicts, philosophical discrepancies, disciple fanaticism, personality worship, flawed appointing systems, governing bodies, criminal involvement and misconduct ranging from sanyasi/woman inappropriateness, child abuse, property disputes, political upheavals, money fights, warring over what the guru's will states, and even crazy stuff like dream initiations, and the obvious watering down of core principles within the tradition to accommodate and be more appealing to the public. Devotees who leave and start their own groups are criticized and vilified and flawed acharya's are left as pawns for the unwitting devotees to worship even though senior members are disgusted with the arrangements. This has been the issue with every cult I've been associated with. The excuses abound. Entire lectures are given to justify the utterly flawed internal dealings of these groups, yet devotees are expected to wholeheartedly follow, trust and surrender to these cults and their gurus. Verse after contradicting verse is quoted in support of and to justify some crooked dealings or philosophical discord. And folks are just meant to move on. Everyone claims to have some upper hand over the next group or a claim on the "authentic lineage" etc. Gurus are not meant to be appointed yet, all of them are, in some way, appointed by someone. Vast properties are bought by slaving devotees to house the guru who is surrounded by some small entourage to whom they preach the same stuff over and over. Devotees mindlessly huddle around the guru who they know almost nothing about in any personal way and the guru speaks 90% of the time about stuff that has very little practical application to daily life: Stories about saints and sages of yore, outlandish cosmological events, mythical pastimes of mythical characters that no sliver of evidence exists for yet we sit in transfixed awe and yell, "JAI GURUDEV!!!" as they wave about their hands which are ironically always clad with expensive watches, or golden rings. The ground they walk on is worshiped and devotees spend all their waking hours hanging off their words. Children are easy targets as with advertising and such, so they are now all initiating kids left and right. Kids who have barely any real world experience and have not been even allowed to think and question the world for themselves. We think it's cute to see a young child bowing to some guru or an alter or quoting scriptures, but really what we are seeing is one of the most saddest aspects of cult culture: Kids being robbed of a lifetime of being in control of their mind and deciding accordingly what is right for themselves. Instead, they grow up, go through puberty and enter a dark well of existential conflict and guilt that then either leads to drug abuse or simply going back to the one thing that they know: Their cult. So the next generations starts up their quasi spiritual bhakti yoga kirtan groups etc. They marry their own, or they go around the world following their guru like a fly, hanging on their every word. And then they are left confused and frustrated when the guru dies or there is some internal strife within the cult that shines a spotlight on the completely frail infrastructure that they have built every ounce of their sense of reality on. Talk about a mental rollercoaster like no other. Scary times. What people will subject themselves to in order to avoid facing their mortality and the world around them. A world that is bound to sneak in and bust up your little illusions.

The entire article about the truck accident in 1993, amazing stuff when you read it all.



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Welcome to the forum, Ian, You are absolutely killin it, man! Popeye just crushes it anyways, ha ha

Harsha Brennan (Kailua, Blue River Productions) chillin in the back of the truck (leaning on the pole) I believe the smiling boy in the front is Domodar Giazzon (who broke his shoulder I believe) Boy on roof smiling in the light turtle neck is Garuda McCarthy, I knew him in 1990 as kids, but not sure if he is still in the group.

Thanks. Glad to be here.

Don't believe Garuda is in the group.i was in the Oxnard prep school with hi brother jiva. We stopped calling Dom giazzon "jiva" when it became confusing and started calling him damodar. But then another damodar came to the school anyway. Blond guy. Talked to him some time ago. Not sure if he's in the group any more. I forget who was at the prep school but Garudas older brother, jiva, was there for sure.

Welcome Ian, good to see you here.
You are among friends.
Vox

I can’t help feeling ecstatic every time I hear from ex-haribol millennials. Unlike us from the late 60s and the 70s we were wide-eyed to spiritual fantasy but blind to reality, the Generation Y seems to have the BS meter intact that we either lacked or willfully get rid of. BS was our way of life. BS was like our sustenance, without which we were like fish out of water. We were so ignorant of so many things. And the innocent children suffer. If the Victorian Age is the most hypocritical in the human history, the 60s is the most delusional.

Corboy wrote:

If mom is addicted to crack or heroin, is being abused by a man and neglects her children to this extent, Child Protective Services would be called in, stat.

But if the parent is addicted to a guru rather than a drug, society tolerates it.

As parents, we owe it to our children to snap out of this delusion. Help lessen the sufferings perpetuated by religious cults. To choose a warped guru over a family member is simply ... warped.

The millennials seem to be an entirely new species. I’m hoping this will embolden others to speak their minds, challenge en masse their parents' stupidity and ultimately bankrupt this racket that is long overdue already. Bowing down to capricious gurus is simply unreal. Cults have simply no place in a free and open society, period.

Ian, thanks for being brave and helping to dispel the power of delusion Haribol parents are trapped into.

Good to see you here Ian.