Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: XKRISHNA ()
Date: April 20, 2024 04:23AM

Here are some questions that I'd ask Tulsi Gabbard or her dad, if I had the chance. Maybe I will submit them to her, via her Facebook page or something.

"If you believe that children, minors, can give informed consent to be subjected to experimental medical procedures in which they will be chemically castrated, have their bodies mutilated and be sterilised for life because of their gender dysphoria, then what else do you think that children can consent to?"

"If you knew somebody had anorexia, then would you help them lose weight? What if that person was a teenager? Would you give them diet tips, or would you try to get them some help for their psychological troubles?"

"What do you know about transhumanist ideology, and how it relates to transgender ideology?"

"Have you ever heard of the WPATH Files or the Cass Report?"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2024 04:25AM by XKRISHNA.

Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: April 20, 2024 05:30AM

Ask her. I'm sure she is all about jumping all over it to militarize it and keep spreading her fear-hate-mongering. It's how her guru taught her to roll.

RUN.

Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: rrmoderator ()
Date: April 20, 2024 05:46AM

XKrishna has been banned.

Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: April 20, 2024 05:51AM

There is a God!

Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: rrmoderator ()
Date: April 20, 2024 05:56AM

Sorry about that, but I tried to be fair.

But in the final analysis a troll is a troll.

Totally off topic and sef-indulgent, self-serving behavior.

Either pontificating, ranting or going on about himself.

No one here needs to be subjected to that crap.

Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: corboy ()
Date: April 20, 2024 11:38PM

Brachas!

Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: April 22, 2024 03:51AM

A nice rational perspective on Hinduism that I can get behind, rather than the nationalist nonsense that pervades much of the fanatical religious impulse present in politics and practitioners of faiths these days:

https://www.hindu-blog.com/2024/04/why-hindus-dont-believe-that-god-created-us-in-his-image.html#google_vignette

In Hinduism, the divine is often perceived through a multitude of deities, each representing different aspects of the ultimate reality. These deities, such as Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer), among others, are often depicted with human-like attributes and personalities. However, these forms are understood as symbolic representations to help human minds grasp the complexities of the divine, rather than literal embodiments of divinity.

Meanwhile, another interesting perspective on the cult-like following of, in this case, hindu-nationalist PM Modi: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/charisma-or-cult-modis-fading-appeal-leaves-indian-elections-wide-open/ar-AA1niwuE

Yet it cannot be overlooked that a narrower Modi cult – as distinctly different from ‘charisma’ – is still very much intact. A cult is characterized by the unquestioning faith the believers put in the unlimited authority and wisdom of the guru/the Master/the Fuhrer; for the believers of a cult, the “Bhagwan” is blessed with powers to protect the community (and humanity) from all kinds of adversities and from human follies. For the Modi cult’s believers, he can do no wrong and he has all the answers to all our problems and has what it takes to remove all obstacles on our path to national glory and greatness.

[www.msn.com]

This is precisely what Tulsi will capitalize on with American Hindu voters and the already nationalistic cultish following of supposed Christians. It plays upon something that she has grown up with: a fanatical belief that a personality like Chris Butler, AKA Siddhswarupananda Paramahamsa, is some golden ticket for humanity. It's a personality cult on the lower end and a fanatical spiritual mind trap on the extreme.

One of the grand claims to fame of this cult, as evidenced by its website for the Science of Identity Foundation, is that it is in the supposedly Unbroken lineage called Brahma-madhva-gaudiya sampradaya.

https://sif.yoga/about/heritage

We all know who Brahma is. He was the mythological four-headed creation God of this particular universe (not recognized as such in the original Vedic texts—not really even mentioned). He was born from a lotus flower that grew out of the naval of an even bigger massive Vishnu (Again, a minor, hardly mentioned Vedic god) who is lying down on a bigger and more enormous bed of a thousand snakes. I'm just putting that out there.

The second part, Madhva, refers to a 1200's medieval guru, Madhvacharya. Who was he? Aside from writing a smorgasbord of mumbo jumbo like many gurus can't seem to help themselves to do, his big claim to fame was that he proclaimed himself in his texts as being an incarnation of the rig-vedic wind God, Vayu. As he went out of his way to make that clear, and so, needless to say, his dumb followers also accepted that claim at face value. He probably blew in people's faces when he initiated them...

You can read more about it here: [www.jstor.org]

the views put forward by Madhva on the superiority of Väyu are original creations of his for the sake of strengthening the avatära-claim...

Now, fast-forward. A fringe, later addition to the lineage title, is the "Gaudiya," which is basically just a strip of land in Bengal associated with the epileptic Chaitanya saint.

So there you have it; take it or leave it. But that's the history of the so-called "unbroken, long lineage".

Read more here: [docslib.org]

Next up:

Brahma-madhva-gaudiya-kailua sampradaya.

I mainly laugh because Bhaktisiddhanta and his dad stomped around, making such a big deal about this lineage. And, of course, we all know that Bhaktivinode took Siddha Pranali Diksha and imagined himself to be a Manjari.
Basically, a 12-year-old cowherd girl who helps Radha and Krishna get their rocks off for eternity. His son, Bhaktisiddhnata saraswati also had a "manjari" spiritual body he was said to have. Ironically his disciples were forbidden from talking about it or making a big to-do about it. In fact, it's not uncommon for many of the cult leaders to supposedly have achieved a "status" or level of spiritual achievement that they actually forbid their followers from entertaining, yet it's hung in front of them as the supposed "goal" of their ideology, but no one ever seems qualified to achieve the goal lest they be labeled an upstart... In fact this very thing happened in Gaudiya Math and in Butlers group as well. Butler devotees often claimed that one of his followers, Katyayani Devi dasi, had an eternal spiritual form akin to Mother Yashoda, Krishna's mother in the mythologies. However, once Katyayani started to get too much attention, her status was revoked by butler, and factions formed within the cult. And many times, the factions within the overarching "gaudiya" sects are based on nothing more than this type of superiority complex related to so-called "esoteric" revelations that someone has. Usually based on literally nothing more than a personal dream/vision/revelation that no one can verify.

RUN.

Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: April 22, 2024 07:30AM

Interesting also that cult followings like this tend to capitalize and gravitate towards places where people are ripe for their kind of rhetoric:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/why-is-trump-kicking-off-2024-campaign-in-waco/

And so, Butler's top disciple, Tulsi Gabbard, has positioned herself and chose her place of residence in a locale ripe for her message and rhetoric (short drive, 1hr, to Waco). And in solid alignment with her political ambitions to be Trumps VP. She'll appeal to both Christian and hindu supporters. Or will she? Oftentimes this is to the eventual detriment of a lot of people who hope for or naively strive towards appealing to everyone. Or naively calling their ideas Universal. They rarely ever are and oftentimes the deeper seated ideologies unravel and come to the surface eventually as they pretty much have in her political journey of flip-flopping and trying to appeal to everyone but ultimately not appealing to anyone.

SIF remains a largely unheard of and uninfluential cult. They're only claim to any kind of recognition is the fact that they are pushing a political Pawn around. But otherwise, socially, they have zero influence on either religious thought, or even any kind of major pull as a simple Eastern philosophy school.

ISKCON likewise has very little to no influence and is not taken seriously by the world. They are only able to build bigger and taller temples to try to be noticed. But otherwise nobody really takes their ideas seriously and they have mostly simply become a quasi Fringe Hindu organization that amounts to nothing more than a garden variety church with a shitty history.

https://freedomofmind.com/the-dangerous-world-of-harmful-yoga-cults-with-yoga-teacher-and-author-matthew-remski/

Amen, namaste, RUN.

Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: April 26, 2024 12:38AM

Butler's cult heiress, Tulsi Gabbard spreads her fear-mongering just like her spiritual master: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/23/tulsi-gabbard-repeats-false-hillary-clinton-grooming-claim

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/donald-trump-has-a-path-to-victory/ar-AA1nEnhk

Gabbard's formative education all the way through her teens was within a highly controlled, closed-off cult. That is a fact. And she never left. In fact, she opened her campaigns years ago, giving public praise to her "gurudev" Siddhaswarupanada. She is seen putting flowers on an altar with his image surrounded by his followers as recently as the last five years.

Show me one Krishna school that provides a comparable education to even the worst public schools.

Yet they have the balls to criticize modern education. Bhaktivedanta and Butelr were constantly going on about schools being the "slaughterhouse of the mind". These types of comments were in relation to schools somehow, in their estimation, preparing kids for a life of "material pursuits" and "sense enjoyment." I dunno about you, but I don't see a tremendous amount of "sense enjoyment' and grand "material pursuits" going on in schools. They try to give you the bare minimum so you don't burden society... you know, like many devotees end up.

Why didn't Bhaktisiddhanta stay in university, where he could have debated and influenced people? Or why did he not travel by train to Europe to preach? He chose the easiest target: people already ripe for his BS. His preaching demographic was literally people who already pretty much believed in like 90% of the shit he peddled.

Same with Swami Prabhupada—he chose hippies as his targets. The fucking disgruntled, drugged-up mental wasteland of the American counterculture.

The most scary part of all cults is that their leaders are often driven by a compulsion to save humanity. Mind you, this is a preposterous, arrogant obsession for any human being to have. So when it's on the level that many of these spiritual cult leaders have, it's bordering on a mental illness. And in the case of some, they no doubt suffered from some brain malfunction, like in the case of Chaitanya and his epileptic seizures that his gullible disciples mistook for some kind of ecstatic state.

The reality that any single human being feels that they are worthy of being worshiped and allows others to worship them and hang on their very words and actions as if they are that of God and some kind of a gospel that is unquestionable is preposterous and indicative of a mass hysteria akin to the type of fanaticism one might see in unstable teenagers at a concert. Basically, all bets are off, hormones are on full throttle, and the mind is pretty much open and susceptible to accepting all manner of crazy information. When you get people dancing and chanting into a frenzy, and they're surrounded by other people, there's no telling what one's emotional state might manifest. The fact of the matter is that cults and many spiritual/religious traditions often tend to capitalize on this type of phenomenon and work themselves up into frenzies that they then associate with Mystic or ecstatic feelings when they are nothing short of euphoria, adrenaline, and flooding of feel-good chemicals in the brain and nervous system. The deeper the collective allegiance is to a particular personality, ideology, set of beliefs, or rituals, the more euphoric the state becomes.

One can do a very simple experiment for oneself, which is to chant the same series of mantras by oneself and not accompany it with dancing and jumping around, and of course, the euphoric effect dwindles or is non-existent. Yet, the same sound vibration is being chanted. The same thing applies to sitting in a lecture where fantastical stories are being told versus more academic and dry philosophical discussions. Of course, one is more interested in hearing superhero-like comic book tales than they are in hearing about the various, more technical aspects of the teachings. In all honestly, you could swap any old hare Krishna scripture reading with Neil Gaiman and keep the same wrapped audience. In fact, Scientology cult leader L. Ron Hubbard pretty much did just that. He was a prolific Sci-fi writer and wove a lot of that shit into his culty nonsense. There is little reason to believe that much of the mythology of these cults is anything short of figments of someone's imagination mixed with a heavy dose of sectarian religious fundamentalism.

When I was in Butler School in the Philippines, by the time I left, I had an education equivalent to perhaps a 6th grader by modern academic standards. Education is not valued and is often preached against and looked down upon by Cult leaders because it creates a questioning and curious mind (the dreaded doubting Thomas). Those with a more intellectual and academic bent often don't fall so easily for many of the claims made by such personalities. And naturally, Swami Prabhupada and Butler have no shortage of quotes criticizing great thinkers, scientists, and basically anyone with a brain between their ears.

So-called devotion, in the end, often amounts to nothing more than euphoria mixed with sentimentalism and fanaticism. It depends entirely on personality worship and others around you believing in the same thing. As soon as there is doubt around the core personality and core structure of the ideology, the whole thing unravels quickly, as evidenced by the fact that many of these Cults fall apart soon after their founders die. In the long run, the only thing that keeps them together is sentimentalism, in other words, old devotees trying to keep the flame alive of the good old days when the Swami was around and naive and hopeful brainwashing of their offspring and future generations.

RUN.

Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity
Posted by: RUN_FOREST_RUN ()
Date: April 26, 2024 12:45AM

All of these Cults would have you believe that they stand for Unity. But even within the very small Hari Krishna group of cults, they can't muster cooperation.

The founder of ISKCON left his guru's mission to start his own. Many other splintered off of that. And many others continue to Splinter, claiming Supremacy and uniqueness over all the others, even though they all fundamentally believe in the exact same bullshit.

The only way that they can distinguish themselves with any sense of self-importance is by associating themselves with either large amounts of money, followers or grand Temple structures.

That, in the end, becomes their Grand claim to fame. Or an unmatched level of fanaticism.

Many small Krishna groups within this cult define themselves by nothing more than their strict adherence to irrational and unsustainable rituals, practices, and beliefs that make their followers feel as if they are following the one true authentic fundamentalist faith. Those are often some of the most comical ones, and only a small group of adherents follow the "leader" who surrounds themselves with yes-men and has very little to no success in preaching or spreading the particular flavor of their gospel beyond the already tight circle. This was largely the case with SIF, but it was never enough for Butler. He naively tried to use political power, attempted to make movies, and used other covert methods to recruit and appeal to a larger demographic. Nowadays, his followers are mostly indistinguishable from those interested in garden-variety yoga exercises and Sunday kirtan singalongs.

In a contemporary religious climate, all they have to hide behind and define themselves by is crawling under the already messy Banner of Hinduism. Whatever that means. It's the only way to legitimize their insanity mildly.

It's like Mormonism trying to stay within the fold of Christianity, but if you look deeper under the hood, it's as far off from that faith as you can get. The same is true for these Hare Krishna cults. They have to pander to the larger Hindu demographic, with little to no real aspects of what they truly believe is a universal or shared view in many Hindu circles.

In recent years, you see many Hare Krishna groups celebrating things like the "Holi" festival or other generic Hindu festivals. We did not EVER celebrate that stuff. In fact, if and when we found ourselves walking into an actual Hindu temple or during my early visits to India, it was both spiritual and cultural shock to see how "different" it was from what we were brought up to believe (whitewash anyone???). It's like night and day. And in fact, in our early years in SIF, it was FORBIDDEN to try to visit India and go to any of the holy places in our scriptures. The first time we went, our family got in big trouble by Butler and were sent letters of disapproval and like we committed some offense. Even though the scriptures urge practitioners to visit these places...

Having been to India many times, I can assure you it resembles NOTHING like what was taught/shown/raised within Butler's cult.

The general mood was that he had a wholesale understanding of the teachings and practices of this cult, but in fact, he did not. His teachings stopped shy of anything deep and the rest was accepted for no other reason than his word. All inquiries, studies, and questions stopped, and they mainly became about him, his projects, and his persona.

This cult emphasizes keeping busy with "seva" and useless rounds chanted on beads (64 apparently gets you front-row seats). My hunch is they are afraid of the "idle mind" and don't want people to think or ask too many questions. There is no better way to disengage the brain than rote rituals and "service." You want to serve humanity and future generations? You know what to do...

RUN!

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