Kawa Lhundrub Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Here is one example of the questions and answers:
> A lady asked Ole: I have a family in Venezuela.
> They are poor people and are constantly asking me
> to give them money. I cannot help all of them.
> What should I do with this fealing of guilt?

It is possible that they were teasing him or provoking to say something about his marriage to the woman from Venezuela. It might not have been a serious question. It looks like a tease to me.

Anita 2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't know much about Alexandra Munoz Barboza
> but I kind of sympathize with the previously
> presented opinion that Diamond Way activities in
> South America and Caribbean had something to do
> with tax avoidance of its executives. Every tax
> advisor will tell you that the key to avoiding
> paying taxes is not to settle for longer in any
> place. As long as you are not an american citizen,
> you don't pay taxes if you live a nomadic
> lifestyle. I would not be surprised if Ole, Caty
> and Tomek has significant fortunes, obtained in
> tax free way, safely nested in South American
> banks.

Back to this topic. I do have an impression that religious activities of diamond way have been merged with the business activities of its executives. Caty is a heiress to her family's German property business. Ole was always saying that her family was in property. Tomek comes from the family of a Polish diplomat. His sister Maggie (Margareth?), a diamond way celebrity, lives in Germany and was/has been married to a guy who is an architect. I think that with Tomek's and Caty's contacts they were not only running diamond way but also a property investment consortium. The problem was/has been that they seemed to have been leveraging diamond way as a resource to obtain their business goals. I think that positions within diamond way structures (positions of diamond way teachers for example) were traded against their business objectives, such as, for example, a preferential access to certain markets. That would explain strange and unexpected diamond way careers of certain exotic individuals, who in my view should have never become teachers in the first place. You give me certain business incentives or concessions and I give your nephew a status of celebrity in the precious diamond way structures. In my view, that was the name of the game. Travelling intensely around the word, Caty was perfectly positioned to run a global property business.

There would have been nothing wrong in her becoming rich, while also being religious. I wish her good, I really do. But... I think it was an average Joe, an average naive believer and Sangha goer who ultimately paid the price. There were far too many diamond way teachers who popped out of nowhere, who were absolutely not qualified, either intellectually or ethically, to be in this position and who were making real decisions about other peoples practice and lives. I think that the price that an average Joe paid for these arrangements was far too high.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2021 01:54AM by Anita 2.

Two more quotes from the article of Bee Scherer (https://info-buddhism.com/Ole_Nydahl_and_Diamond_Way_B_Scherer.html)

___________

Bee Scherer: The reality might be less sensationalist: The Diamond Way is a complex phenomenon; neither black nor white. As scholars we need to resist simplistic answers. Queue the infamous Facebook relationship status: it’s complicated.

It is complicated, I agree. If you ask me whether Ole’s transmission was an authentic one, I will respond: Yes. I think that he carried an authentic Kagyu transmission from XVI Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje. Some of the meditations with Ole were simply mind-blowing. They were pure bliss. They opened my heart completely.

Was diamond way a perfect container to carry on this transmission? My opinion: It was far from perfect.

Did people get hurt in the diamond way centres? My answer: Yes, absolutely yes and it was the level of hurt that words cannot describe.

Ken Wilber again here: [www.youtube.com]

It is complicated, I agree.

__________

Bee Scherer: The post-charismatic future of the Diamond Way will largely depend on its positioning towards the Karma Kagyu tradition. Nydahl has fostered (or at least: tolerated) a personality cult around him, which is openly breeding sectarian tendencies and calling for a stronger break from the Tibetan tradition.

I think the key question is whether Ole fostered or merely tolerated a personality cult around him. This is an absolutely the key question for me. As I already wrote before: Exclusions from diamond way buddhist centres are systemic and have been deliberately practiced. The existence and persistence of a cult of a guru banks on a systemic existence a scapegoat. (...) The point I am making is that the cornerstone of a personality cult is the scapegoat mechanism. I remember that people were citing on this forum a French philosopher who in his works described how a personality cult emerges and how scapegoating and exclusions from “religious” (or rather para-religious) communities are a necessary and founding mechanism of such cults.

Kawa Lhundrub Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Here is one example of the questions and answers:
> A lady asked Ole: I have a family in Venezuela.
> They are poor people and are constantly asking me
> to give them money. I cannot help all of them.
> What should I do with this fealing of guilt?

One more comment about Alexandra Munoz Barboza. I don’t know her but I think she found herself in a peculiar place. Diamond way is openly right wing leaning, they oppose immigration, they supported Donald Trump and his ideas to stop migrants from South America coming from US. Diamond way is openly anti migrant. The paradox of Alexandra’s situation was that on one hand she was a wife of Ole and as such a diamond way celebrity and on the other hand she was from the poor Venezuela and therefore, in the eyes of Ole’s followers, the very embodiment and of an unwanted migrant. So being at the top of diamond way hierarchy, she ultimately epitomized what many of diamond way practitioners didn’t want.

My last comment today is on the legal aspects on posting on Forums. As long as things happened in public, you can discuss them. You can absolutely discuss whatever diamond way teachers did publically or said in their lectures. Mumbo jumbo theories that you cannot do that are nonsense. Whatever happened in public belongs to the public domain.

Moreover it is also ok to comment on these teachers or quasi-teachers lives and how they, in general, conduct themselves. In the same way as you can comment on the lives on, for example, Catholic priests. Once they claim they are Buddhist teachers, they make themselves public figures and therefore open themselves to public scrutiny.

If they teach you how to live, if they teach you how to make choices, if they claim that they teach religion, you have a right to scrutinize them. You have a right to do a background check on them. It is in public interest that you do.

If someone publicly claims that he teaches religion, then you absolutely have a right to verify his background and his credentials. You have a right to talk about what s/he did in the past and whether s/he is the right person to teach.

Moreover, if something happened in private and such teacher was involved, you have a right to talk about it too. As long as s/he has a public function, s/he has public responsibility.

Keep that in mind.

As far as I know the reason for the divorce of Ole and Alexandra was following:
Alexandra's parents owned a farm in Venezuela. The farm was confiscated by Maduro's government. Alexandra went back to Venezuela to support her parents and help with court proceedings in order to try to get the farm back. This required Alexandra to stay in Venezuela long time, she asked Ole to stay with her in Venezuela as her husband - a normal thing to ask - in my opinion, but Ole could not be bothered and said to her, that in his life his travelling and teaching is a priority, not a relationship with his wife. At this point their marriage was disolved.

Just for the record. I have reviewed this forum and I have noticed that a significant part of previously existing posts has been removed from this thread.

I remember some of these posts were truly, truly important. It is difficult to find the language and the courage to describe these complex realities. Thus any effort to do that is invaluable.

I understand that the team that manages this website is under pressure.

After all we are discussing the inner working of the organisation that hires lawyers to silence critical voices and has invested a lot into closing forums and websites down.

Nevertheless I just want to say that having this possibility to express our experiences means a lot.

Link: [spiritualteachers.proboards.com]
www.spiritualteachers.proboards.com/thread/28/ole-nydahl-fraud-diamond-cult

I will copy from the other blog, before it gets deleted there.

Spiritualteachers.org Discussion Boards
antoncarson
Oct 16, 2021 at 4:02pm

I would like to comment on the topic which has been continuously discussed online, namely the topic of Ole Nydahl’s political views.

Ole has reputation to be associated with right wing movements in Europe in US. He has always been openly expressing his right wing sympathies. These views have been expressed in his lectures; however there are no YouTube videos available to prove it. There is only one interview in which he says that he really doesn’t like Islam.

I have however found an interview with diamond way teacher Karol Sleczek in which exudes, to an extent, how diamond way understands politics. I will translate a fragment of this conversation.

[www.youtube.com]
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxe1S3yydvo

Karol Sleczek (12:49): We grew up in a scientific world which tries to explain that the reality exists objectively somewhere. Indeed, it exists somehow but it exists as a permanent change. And of course this change happens in such and such way, but this world is dependent on how the experiencer experiences it. There is an illusion that we see the same world, but of course not. So the common part of the experience, which we have, is probably very small. This is why it is very hard for people to find shared understanding. Not because people are bad by nature but because, simply, they each see a completely different word. They are absolutely convinced that I am right because I see a real world. Probably the greater the common part, the better the society functions. This is why people from different cultures; different races cannot find a shared understanding at all. It is so because the part, which is called in English an overlap, is very, very small and related to the senses (sensory impressions) and not at all to values. So then, there is only conflict. This is how it works. If today we think correctly, tomorrow we talk correctly, wisely and day after tomorrow we act wisely. If today we think stupid, then probably tomorrow we will talk stupid, and day after tomorrow we will act stupid. This is how it works.

Karol Sleczek (22:52): Lack of information is like a disturbing emotion, because if we don’t know how this world functions, it is so because we don’t want to find out. Recently I was in Germany and I had such a vivid experience that ignorance is a disturbing emotion. I was talking with one German and I was explaining him how fatal the consequences of Angela Merkel’s actions are going to be. She brought to Germany, against the European law, people who are unfit to live there (Translator note: namely refugees). What consequences of these actions are going to be? He didn’t want to hear about it, he didn’t want to talk about it, because ignorance is a disturbing emotion. He had an impression that if he wasn’t going to talk about it and if he was not going to hear it, then it (Translators note: this problem) was not going to exist. He is also trying not to see it but either way, it is there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/2021 09:30PM by Anita 2.