Authoritarian leaders (or authoritarian managers given free rein by a
weak leader) often drive away their best members.

Quote


(Corboy note: If exit costs are high people will remain and endure
the situation for much longer. (eg The economy is poor and jobs are
scace, or this is a cult in which members have been trained to fear punishment if they leave, have severed ties with family and outside friends)

These things will lose your best people.


1.Hire for the past, not the future. Choose talent based on what worked before, not on where the company is heading now. Emphasize candidates’ narrow former experience over a more generalized, nimble agility to adapt in a fast-changing world.

2.Downplay values and mission. Send the signal that anything goes in pursuit of profit, making employees guess about what choices are truly acceptable. Fail to spend time articulating to your workers why they come to work every day and how the greater community benefits from their efforts.

3.Bungle the teams. Avoid mixing generations and skill sets, instead grouping like with like and producing stale and predictable solutions that are safe and excite no one.

4.Put jerks into management. Reward the old-fashioned, autocratic style that stifles unorthodox, creative thinking and feels threatened by fresh ideas, energy and dynamism.

5.Measure hours, not results. Keep an expensive cadre of stern enforcers busy with policing everybody. Don’t trust your talent to use their time wisely. Crack down on social media. Forbid personal activities during the workday, even as you continue to expect work to be conducted over the weekend as well.

6.Promote people straight up the ladder. Fail to give them exposure to different parts of the business through lateral moves or cross-training, giving them the sensation of being narrowed over time, rather than being broadened and improved.

7.Leave talent management to HR. Expect the staff who must deal with the minutiae of personnel issues to also be exceptional visionaries in hiring. Detach the C-suite from talent recruitment and retention since it’s not their department.

8.Hoard information. Keep decision-making securely ensconced in the executive wing. Avoid empowering mid-tier managers or employees lest they suddenly become entrepreneurial and unpredictable.

9.Don’t bother with training. It’s costly, and employees will probably jump ship with their new skills. Instead, have your workers do the same tasks over and over in the very same way.

10.Hire outsiders. After you’ve failed to train and develop your best people, follow it up by stifling their ambitions for increased responsibility. When they come to you and say, “I’m leaving,” express astonishment.

(For full article and to get the highlighted links go here:

[www.linkedin.com]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2015 08:30PM by corboy.

Quote

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/17/books/holy-cow-a-myth-an-indian-finds-the-kick-is-real.html

Holy Cow a Myth? An Indian Finds The Kick Is Real

By EMILY EAKIN

Published: August 17, 2002

''Holy Cow: Beef in Indian Dietary Traditions,'' is a dry work of historiography buttressed by a 24-page bibliography and hundreds of footnotes citing ancient Sanskrit texts. It's the sort of book, in other words, that typically is read by a handful of specialists and winds up forgotten on a library shelf.

But when its author, Dwijendra Narayan Jha, a historian at the University of Delhi, tried to publish the book in India a year ago, he unleashed a furor of a kind not seen there since 1989, when the release of ''Satanic Verses,'' Salman Rushdie's novel satirizing Islam, provoked rioting and earned him a fatwa from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

As Mr. Jha's book was going to press last August, excerpts were posted on the Internet and picked up by newspapers. Within days the book had been canceled by Mr. Jha's academic publisher, burned outside his home by religious activists and -- after a second publisher tried to print it -- banned by a Hyderabad civil court. A spokesman for the World Hindu Council called it ''sheer blasphemy.'' A former member of Parliament petitioned the government for Mr. Jha's arrest. Anonymous callers made death threats. And for 10 months Mr. Jha was obliged to travel to and from campus under police escort.

After months of legal wrangling, Mr. Jha's lawyers succeeded in having the ban lifted this spring. And now his book has been published in Britain and the United States by Verso, with a new preface and a more provocative title: ''The Myth of the Holy Cow.'' But though copies have been shipped to India, few bookstores there are likely to stock it.

His offense? To say what scholars have long known to be true: early Hindus ate beef.

Mr. Jha says his book has become a casualty of the culture wars that have plagued India since the hard-line Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party took office five years ago.

But while cow veneration and vegetarianism may be the hallmarks of Hinduism today, Mr. Jha compiles copious evidence that this has hardly always been the case. Citing sources ranging from the ancient sacred scriptures, the Vedas (circa 1000 B.C.), to Sanskrit epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata (200 B.C to A.D. 200) as well as data from archaeological digs, Mr. Jha contends that ''the 'holiness' of the cow is a myth and that its flesh was very much a part of the early Indian nonvegetarian food regimen and dietary traditions.''

Not only were oxen and other animals offered as sacrifices to the Vedic gods, he writes, they were routinely eaten by mere mortals as well.

One religious text declares meat to be quite simply ''the best kind of food,'' while another captures Yajnavalkya, a revered Vedic sage who lived around 500 B.C., confessing to a particular weakness for beef. ''Some people do not eat cow meat,'' he is quoted as saying. ''I do so, provided it's tender.''

Meanwhile, the Mahabharata recounts the story of King Rantiveda, who earned his renown by slaughtering 2,000 cows a day in his royal kitchens and distributing beef along with grain to apparently grateful Brahmins, the Hindu priests.

Even the Buddha, on record as opposing animal killing for either food or sacrifice, was apparently not above the occasional carnivorous nibble. Mr. Jha cites passages from early Buddhist texts suggesting not only that the Buddha ate meat but that a meal of contaminated pork may ultimately have been what did him in. (Mr. Jha dismisses a dissenting interpretation that the offending food was not pork but mushroom.)

None of this, scholars say, is news. In a recent review in The Times Literary Supplement, Wendy Doniger, a professor of the history of religion at the University of Chicago, called Mr. Jha's book ''a dry, straight academic survey . . . proving what every scholar of India has known for well over a century.''

''This is not 'Satanic Verses,' '' Ms. Doniger added in a telephone interview. ''This is just a relatively intelligent, academic book. It doesn't depict Hindus as horrible people.''

Indeed, until the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power, said Michael Witzel, a professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University, much of the history Mr. Jha records was taught in Indian schools.

The Myth of the Holy Cow
by DN Jha


[www.theguardian.com]

One Man's Beef

Pankaj Misra

Quote

DN Jha, a respected historian of ancient India, is under attack for daring to examine the myth of the sacred cow.

His book was turned down by its original publishers in Delhi, who were afraid of provoking the Hindu fanatics who have recently been seen vandalising art exhibitions and burning books. One extremist even sentenced Jha to death in a fatwa - plainly a venerable Hindu tradition, this.

Quote

Jha elaborates on how variously the ancient Indians saw their cattle; and he does so, if not with a graceful prose-style, then with an impressive range of textual evidence.

It is good to have all the relevant facts in one book. But, perhaps, Jha would have better engaged the general reader had he explained in greater detail why upper-caste Hindus have been more passionate about the cow in the last century and a half than at any other time in India's history. Or, as DD Kosambi put it in his Ancient India (1965), why "a modern orthodox Hindu would place beef-eating on the same level as cannibalism, whereas Vedic Brahmins had fattened upon a steady diet of sacrificed beef".

The answer lies in the 19th century, when many newly emergent middle-class Hindus began to see the cow as an important symbol of a glorious tradition defiled by Muslim rule over India. For these Hindus, the cause for banning cow-slaughter became a badge of identity, part of their quest for political power in post-colonial India. Educated Muslims felt excluded from, even scorned by, these Hindu notions of the Indian past; and they developed their own separatist fantasies*.
*
(Corboy note: This movement has been termed 'The Hindu Renaissance'.)

The newly invented traditions helped create two antagonistic political elites, defined primarily by religion, and eventually led to the disastrous partition of India. The nationalist myths are now incarnated by the two nuclear-armed nation-states of India and Pakistan.

DN Jha is their most recent victim; but probably no one has suffered more from them than the poor holy cow that, bereft of a clear economic or religious role, slowly dwindles on Indian roads, until the day it is run over, when it receives the final kindness of being allowed to bleed to death

'Hindu Renaissance' -- Further Reading

Agehananda Bharati The Ochre Robe

Concerning the Bhagavad Gita, he writes:

“I view this particular piece of scripture with much reserve…My gravest misgivings about the poem derive from its inane eclectism and its blatant moral contradictions.

“It preaches violent Junkerism in one place, and extols complete withdrawal from worldly affairs in another; it propounds a half hearted absolutism, avoiding offense to the monistic teachers who seem to have dominated the theological academies of the time, and then it disports a naive theological dualism with a strong sectarian flavor as its doctrinal consummation. Samkaracharya had a hard time to explain away the fundamentally dualistic purport of this scripture and he did not really succeed.

‘Later rationalizations were legion and today the apologetic tells us that the recipient of this teaching starts off as a crude mind and is taken into the deepest truth step by step, so that the doctrines of the later sections supersede the earlier ones.

'This is an argument that I find not only unhelpful but decidedly nauseous, for if the earlier teachers, especially the ones entailed in such a charming deal as – ‘if you are killed in action, heaven will be your lot; if you survive, you will rule the world, hence fight!’ –are directed to a crude mind, why should they (that is, these very same lines?) be quoted as profound wisdom whenever they are expedient?

‘Finally the BG is not a canonical text in the strict sense but it has become one of the emblems of the Hindu Renaissance, and it is hardly any use resenting its popularity.

'Politicians and saints (Indian colloquial usage for any monk or yogi) term philosophers and secular teachers have been editing it, rendering it into their own idiom, commenting on it, emphasizing those aspects that corroborated or condoned their particular interests.

‘That is the main difficulty. the text lends itself to any theological slant.’

More References - 'Vedic Hinduism' is a modern construction, an ideology
that began in the 19th century and now presented as an 'ancient wisdom' to
both Indianswho, via Western education, have been cut off from the actual
sources of Indian history and culture.

Corboy, IMO, a bit like learning American culture from reading only Batman and Superman comic books. At least the creators of Batman and Superman
knew they offered only entertainment and never pushed themselves forward
as politicians or as gurus -- or as yoga teachers.)

Further reading and sources cited here.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2015 11:01PM by corboy.

This comment was published in response to an article about a rather extreme
homeschooling program.


"Silvercloak50" wrote

Quote

About damn time. I’ve been in this cult over 20 years ago, and many people, including my own family members - DO NOT believe it’s a cult. I guess they all think every cult out there drinks Jim Jones branded Kool Aid, sacrifice to goats, and chant worship songs to demons.

Unfortunately, cult members these days wear nicely starched shirts, sit down for family dinners and greet everyone politely with a smile.

The only way you can detect a cult these days are by how insular and out of touch with mainstream society they are. How circular their reasoning is, in defiance of all logic. And sometimes even... the moms are dressed like they came out of some godforsaken version of Little House on the Prairie.

Flowerchild wrote:

Quote

5/26/15 6:33pm

.Because normal people who see this group as crazy, also have to understand the insidiousness of this movement. It has gone from rare, backyard cult, to common knowledge (thanks to the series). But, very few realize the history behind it, nor do they realize the virtual brainwashing that it takes to be fully immersed in it.

They have become so emboldened, they have entered the political arena. Republicans have embraced them completely. It is their ideal voter base. Men have all the power. Women are barefoot, pregnant and silent. They are so culturally sheltered, they might as well be from the 1800’s.

If they were to have kept off tv, stayed out of politics, virtually no one would have cared.

They aren’t, so as far as I am concerned the more light that is shown on this cult, the better.

Quote

marmalade
5/26/1510:08pm

It cannot be repeated too often, so whoever has already made this point, I’m just saying it again for emphasis: this sexually demented creep Bill Gothard and his creepy Christian institute for Biblical creepery received major, major funding from the Green family—owners of Hobby Lobby, purchasers of the Supreme Court majority, perverters of the US constitution, and natural fascists. In the midst of all this uproar, let’s not forget that the Hobby Lobby people really need to be heckled and shamed.


Like Gothard, like the Duggars, like all these Dominionist nutjobs, the Greens are dreadful, awful, horrid, genuinely evil people. Let them sell glitter glue and styrofoam balls until the end of time, but they really must not be allowed to continue to dictate this nation’s morals or in any way determine its destiny

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2015 10:37PM by corboy.

Life sometimes feels very, very surreal. Now that James Arthur Ray is out of jail he's back to charging big money to hear his New Wage crap. People are not only paying for this experience, they're defending him.

Self-Help Author Imprisoned For Sweat Lodge Deaths Is Making a Comeback

James Arthur Ray spent two years in prison after a sweat lodge ceremony in 2009 left three people dead. His experiences behind bars now forms the bulk of his new self-help program.

by Matt Stroud
1:05 PM EST
March 3, 2015

Standing in the kitchen at the back of the Tatum Ranch Community Center in suburban Phoenix, James Arthur Ray hears the rolling chorus of Paramore’s Ain’t It Fun start to play in the background.

That’s his cue.

He jogs out of the kitchen to a standing ovation from around 30 name-tagged men and women who last week shelled out $495 for his daylong presentation on “Resources for Epic Living.”

Six years ago, Ray wouldn't run out of a kitchen unless it was to speak to thousands of people—or the audience had paid four figures each for the privilege.

After being featured in the book and movie of self-help sensation The Secret in 2006, Ray was propelled onto the national stage. At the time, he was touted as the latest in a long line of prominent self-help gurus who claimed to hold the keys to living a happy and successful life. Two appearances on Oprah followed, as well as his 2008 New York Times best seller Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want. The price of joining Ray's World Wealth Society—a program of one-to-one mentoring—peaked at $90,000, and he bought a luxurious home in Beverly Hills. A glowing profile in Fortune magazine dubbed him heir to Tony Robbins’s motivational-speaker throne.

Then, in October of 2009, three of Ray’s followers died.

In Sedona, Ariz., as many as 75 men and women who had paid $10,000 each for one of Ray’s weeklong programs participated in a sweat lodge ceremony that involved successive sessions inside a makeshift hut draped with tarps and blankets and heated by scalding rocks. As temperatures soared to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, several people inside started passing out. Kirby Brown, 37, and James Shore, 40, died of heatstroke that night. Eighteen others were hospitalized for everything from burns to kidney failure. Nine days later, Liz Newman, 49, died of organ failure.


Witnesses say Ray encouraged people who were passing out, hallucinating, and vomiting—symptoms of extreme heat stroke—to fight the discomfort and stay in the lodge as long as possible. Those seeking a true spiritual awakening, he told them, needed “to surrender to death to survive it.” In November 2011, Ray was sentenced to two years in prison after being found guilty of three counts of negligent homicide.

Since his release more than 18 months ago, Ray has largely stayed out of the spotlight, focusing instead on private clients and online courses. He rarely speaks in public.

“I. Am. Responsible,” Ray begins to his captive Phoenix audience, pausing between each word for effect. “You’ve got to think to yourself, ‘What would happen if I took complete and total responsibility?’”

Ray looks much younger than 57. His full head of dark hair is streaked blonde, slicked back, and long enough to curl at the nape of his neck. Once a competitive bodybuilder, Ray is now much smaller, but still stands with his shoulders back and his barrel chest out.

He begins his session by addressing the deaths in Arizona, but without referring to his victims by name—only describing the event as “a terrible tragedy.” “In October 2009, my world changed dramatically,” he says, his voice somber. “I lost my business, I lost my home, I lost my relationships.” (He now lives in a “modest condominium” in Los Angeles with his girlfriend.)

Almost half of Ray's eight-hour talk is dedicated to the “tragedy,” his time in prison, and the notion of responsibility. The rest is largely what he preached before 2009: His theory of “harmonic wealth,” the idea of energy fields attracting similar energy fields, and “attracting the life you want.” He’s a powerful speaker and pauses often to smile widely, showing his perfectly white teeth. He alternates between being near tears to showing borderline fury.

Ray says he initially blamed everyone but himself after his arrest. He felt betrayed—as though he were an unfair target for something he couldn’t have prevented. It was the first case in U.S. history in which “adults participated willingly in an event and then the organizer of the event was brought up on charges,” he says. He vividly describes his time in prison, which he says was the “worst time in my life," and he always returns to his idea of responsibility.
“This is the dark side of pursuing your power and your passion. Sometimes life out-and-out freaking sucks. But if you never had a bad day, what would a good day be? ... The fact is, it happened. I messed up. I missed some things."

Donnita Parker, a life coach from Phoenix who followed Ray for years before his prison stint and attended his talk last week, believes Ray is now even more qualified to give advice. “From a tragedy like this comes a teacher who has experienced life from a totally disempowering perspective,” she says. “He might be able to help someone else as a result.”

“You’ve got to think to yourself, ‘What would happen if I took complete and total responsibility?”

“I don’t think it was fair ... what he went through,” adds Kevin Steele a marketer who also attended the Phoenix presentation. “It was just an accident. People were adults, were in adult situations, having given adult consent and signed agreements. Did anyone set out to murder three people that day? Absolutely not. So it’s water under the bridge today.”

One person not ready to forgive is Ginny Brown, whose daughter Kirby Brown was pronounced dead on arrival after being airlifted from the scene of the sweat lodge in 2009. Brown has since launched Seek Safely, a nonprofit that aims to educate the public on dangers of getting in too deep when it comes to practices preached by motivational speakers.

“The question I would ask him is, if he’s responsible, why hasn’t he paid restitution?” she says in a phone interview from her home in Westtown, NY. “How does Ray take responsibility for the fact that he told people to ignore the signs of heat stroke at the sweat lodge?”

Ray declined an on-the-record interview with Bloomberg Business, but did answer one question from me during a scheduled break in Phoenix: Why has he never tried to make contact with the families over the tragedy? He says Ginny Brown has taken out a restraining order against him—an assertion she denies. He doesn't mention the families of James Shore or Liz Newman.

After seven hours, Ray opens the floor to a Q&A. The audience asks about how to improve their lives and how to continue following his teachings. Ray had already advertised upcoming events and programs, including a six-hour, $15,000 private mentoring session.

I manage to get in one more question before the end. Why would Ray, after being held responsible for the deaths of three people and serving prison time for it, go back to the same pursuit that led to his downfall? There is nothing else that can bring him fulfillment, he replies. There is, he says, “a power that works through” him—a faith, not in his “finite abilities,” but in his “clarity of purpose” and his power to captivate audiences.

“If you see any level or mastery in my abilities, it’s not me. It’s something that was given to me that I developed.”


[www.bloomberg.com]

A large discussion of Ray and the persons who died during that infamous retreat
can be read here:

[forum.culteducation.com]

A recent defector from Scientology described his 27 year involvement.

Here is a description of level management.
If you are in a church, human potential group or some other 'spiritual' project which operates in this manner, this is a very bad sign.

It also re-enacts the dynamics of a secret keeping dysfunctional family.

[www.forum.exscn.net]

Quote

Being in the SO is like being part of a spy ring--everything is compartmentalizations and need to know. ASHO examiner only knows indicators of PCs, students, and staff making originations, RPFers only know about their section, their twin, and renos schedules, even B1 doesn't get starts and GI and completion stats if DM lies about them.

IMHO, That's how people can be lied to, manipulated, conned and kept in a false world.

And it worked pretty effectively till there was an Internet and cell phones and tablets when people can actually find out the shit that's been hidden from them for decades, and they don't have to try to hide their paper copy of Paulette's or Russell Miller's book somewhere their 2D won't find it. After that, the place starts emptying out and the data-controlled wake up!

Another participant replied

this is so true! The mark of a really "good" cult is having the adherents self-police themselves. I'm so glad my non-Scn brain won out in the end! LOL

Another way to turn people into shame ridden wrecks:

Make them feel 100% responsible for a job yet deny them the respect
and resources needed to do the job well.

Quote

A few months after this reorganization, the first CO Estates got reposted, and I was selected to be his replacement! It was a staggering and daunting task to make this mess function at all from one week to another, while dealing with putting out 3 meals a day at 5 or 6 different locations, unscheduled health inspections at the galleys and the Cadet Org, vehicle breakdowns, emergency building repairs, and orgs often refusing to pay anything or severely reducing the allocations for their food, childcare, or the cost of training their EPF or RPF members.


I was completely overwhelmed by the enormity of it. Yet according to Sea Org tradition, I was 100% responsible for the condition of all of it from the first day I assumed my new post, with no excuses possible. I was expected once again to make it go right, and I don't think the idea of refusing this post ever occurred to me, though I hadn't the faintest idea of how to go about making these long-standing situations and conditions radically improve.

[www.forum.exscn.net]

A total stranger can learn quite a lot about us if we are trustful and talkative.

My younger friends tell me there are some effective pick up strategies.

"Have I seen you somewhere else?"

"WHERE do I know you from?"

"I am SURE I know you from somewhere else!"

(say) Marin, Arizona/New Mexico, Ibiza, etc)

"You look so much like my (friend/brother/etc)

Much of this may be said in an eager, flattering tone of voice.

Most of the time its harmless.

But do be aware that you may fall into a trap of divulging Too Much Information.

These opening lines can be used at colleges, bars, clubs, retreats or festivals by recruiters for exploitative agendas, whether its someone who
is a pick up artist or someone looking for especially complaint people to be routed toward exploitation by a guru.

If someone insists (note how they insist) that they know you from
somewhere else, and seem eager to insist, this is so:

* It is subtle flattery for someone to direct so much intensity
at you. This is very seducative when we are feeling lonely or frustrated.

(Keep in mind you are not that special. Heh. If you are world famous, you will have so many people wanting access to you that you'll need
a private secretary to screen your calls. )

* Two, you may find yourself led to reel off a long list of places
where that person might have seen you. You are doing the work for them
and you are divulging your interests and affiliations.

"Nah, I almost never go to Marin, because I don't have a car. But I did go to
X Festival in Sonoma, or to Y Retreat Center ..."

See? You've just now revealed you don't drive, but have interests that led
you to make the effort to go to X or Y event in Marin, and if one or both
events are expensive, this suggests you have money.

Bang. You've divulged a lot of information about yourself by trying
to convince a stranger who insists he or she has seen you before in
Marin that its a case of mistaken identity.

A conversation starts. Most of the time things work out fine.

But, you may land in a situation where you have trustfully divulged Too Much
Information about yourself, and find you are in a conversation in which
refusal becomes difficult if the other person makes requests or demands you
do not feel comfortable with.

One person was accosted by a cute guy on the street who used the "I know youuu!" routine.

She stopped, chatted -- then he displayed a clipboard and proceeded to
do a money pitch for some organization. She fled.

So if someone you don't know eagerly insists there has to be some sort
of prior connection between the two of you, don't divulge too much
info about yourself.

Let the person do the work.

"Nope, I wasn't in Arizona. Nope, don't go to Marin....etc."

Make them do the work, especially if they seem bright eyed and eager and
just a bit too pushy.

You can be politely friendly and give a message that you are
not the type to put all your cards on the table at first acquaintance.

If you are accused of being stuck up, cold, or a (insert obscene word here)
this proves you're right to be wary.

(Another pick up strategy is more subtle: someone suggests the other people are inferior, makes it seem you are superior because you are being
let in on this. Anyone who writes off most of humanity is a cold blooded
type - not nice.)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2015 10:34PM by corboy.

It has become popular for Westerners to get involved with various sects of Tibetan (aka Vajrayana) Buddhism.

Use of logic in Tibetan Buddhism has a different purpose than use of logic
in Western, Aristotelian logic.

Here is a description of some differences between Gelukpa logic and Western logic

(There are various sects of Vajrayana Buddhism; the Dalai Lama is leader of the Gelukpa sect).

Quote


NOT SEPARATE

Glimpses of Life Inside a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery

Drepung Monastery, Mundgod, South India, rebuilt in exile from Lhasa, Tibet, after the Chinese occupation

[ericlancetraub.com]

This explains better than I can one of the main parts of my study here at this time. Excerpted from TIBETAN LOGIC by Katherine Manchester Rogers:

“An important feature of Tibetan logic is that it is used to acquire new and valid understanding about oneself and the world. Valid knowledge is considered to be irrefutable, unshakable; it is authentic, true, and certain. Western logic is fundamentally different from Tibetan logic. In the Western system, a sharp distinction is made between empirical knowledge and knowledge acquired through application of the rules of formal logic. Empirical knowledge depends on experience and observation and is


considered to be necessarily contingent, indefinite, conjectural; it is not discernable as definitely and irrefutably true. Only in mathematics and formal logic can there be certainty; all other knowledge must remain conjectural. This point of view is reflected clearly in the words of the Western logician Karl Popper,
"In the empirical sciences, which alone can furnish us with information about the world we live in, proofs do not occur, if we mean by “proof” an argument that establishes once and forever the truth of a theory. On the other hand, pure mathematics and logic, which permit of proofs, give us no information about the world, but only develop the means of describing it.”

This points to a fundamental difference between Western and Tibetan logic. In the point of view of some Western logicians, no new knowledge about the world is possible through logic; it is not the purpose of logic to produce new knowledge. The aim of logic is strictly propositional, in that it depends strictly on the form of propositions for its validity. In Western logic, validity attaches to the proper logical


form of an argument. A Western logician, Stephen Barker, explains, In logic, we are mainly interested in considering arguments whose validity depends on their logical forms. … When the premises of an argument are linked to the conclusion in the right sort of way, the argument is called valid.

In the Ge-luk-pa system of education, the purpose of logic is to generate new knowledge, not about propositions, but about phenomena; that is, about oneself and the world. Logic is used to develop a path of reasoning, in order to acquire valid knowledge. Tibetan logic is transformational, in that it is intended to bring new and valid knowledge that changes one’s relationship with the world and brings one closer to the truth and to enlightenment—closer to the truth, in that one’s understanding of the world is more accurate and one’s relationships with people are based on true understanding of the nature of reality rather than on illusion and ignorance.“

[books.google.com]


[www.google.com]

This accounts for the puzzlement and dismay reported by Nicolai Grozhni
after he arrived in Dharamsala, was ordained into the Gelukpa sect
and began to study 'logic' and 'debate' at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics.


[forum.culteducation.com]

Preparation for this kind of debate required memorization of memorized texts.

What the Gelukpas called 'debate', seems more like indoctrination.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2015 08:45PM by corboy.

(Warning -- painful to read)

This guru has reportedly persuaded a couple hundred followers to surrender
their "family jewels".

This bears witness to the power of persuasion.

We can bet that none of the victims would have done this if told, in the beginning,
that this was what they would give up.

[www.google.com]

Two of the stories:

Quote

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3019202/Brainwashed-devotee-Hans-Raj-Chauhan-allegedly-castrated-400-orders-superstar-Indian-Guru-bling-Gurmeet-Ram-Rahim-Singh.html

Castrated to be 'closer to God': 'Brainwashed' devotee relives moment he had horror procedure – along with 400others – on the orders of India's superstar 'Guru of bling' who lives in heart-shaped compound
Hans Raj Chauhan, 34, was once a devotee of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh
Claims Singh, 47, ordered the removal of his testicles when he was just 19
Singh has fortune of $50 million and is also known as the 'Rockstar saint'
Runs 'real place of truth' sect from massive compound outside Sirsa City
Haryana-based guru is being investigated over alleged mass castrations

By Helen Roberts and Tim Macfarlan For Mailonline

Published: 07:32 EST, 31 March 2015 | Updated: 10:40 EST, 31 March 2015

Singh, who has a penchant for garish clothes and jewellery and is also known as the 'Rockstar saint', runs his Dera Sacha Sauda - the 'real place of truth' - spiritual organisation from a massive compound outside Sirsa City in Haryana.

The group is supposedly non-profit but its sprawling headquarters include a full-sized cricket stadium, schools, and a 400 bed hospital shaped like a heart, within which are three buildings shaped 'S', 'M' and 'G' in honour of the Dera's three leaders to date.

In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Hans claims he and around 400 other men were castrated at the Dera's compound between 2000 and 2009.

He is now left permanently scarred, not able to have children and struggles to have an erection or ejaculate.

He said: 'They're all too scared to speak out, we've been blackmailed into keeping quiet, but I'm not afraid any more.

'I can never marry or have children and I am no longer the man I used to be. My life has been ruined because of him. '

The Dera was founded in 1949 and has an estimated 50 million followers worldwide.

On its website the group describes Singh, its leader since 1990, as a saint as well as an author, inventor, scientist, philosopher, philanthropist, peace activist and 'the ultimate humanitarian'.

But India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is investigating Singh for alleged criminal intimidation and causing grievous bodily hurt in connection with the reported castrations.

No charges have yet been brought and Singh denies the allegations.
In January he told a press conference to plug his film MSG - The Messenger of God that he is considering legal action of his own against his accusers.

He said: 'Such allegations disturb me, when I am doing good for humanity. Therefore me and my legal advisor are going to move the court challenging the allegations.'

Singh is also facing trial for conspiracy over the murder of a journalist in 2002 and is accused of raping two female members of his group in 1999 and 2000, for which he was charged in 2007 in a case that continues to rumble on.

Hans joined the Dera at just 16 after his strict devout parents decided it would be best for their son, who still refers to Singh by the honorific title 'Baba'.

He said: 'Baba came to our house and told my parents that I should become a religious man and my parents didn't question him.

'I was sent away and brainwashed without any choice in the matter. Then, in 2000, my testicles were removed on his orders.'

Hans said Baba used to tell all his male followers that castration would get them closer to God.

'I remember a few days before the operation Baba gave me a lot more attention than the others. He was continually saying castration will bring me light and I believed him.

'I was brainwashed, we all were, but I never thought he would ever go through with anything so severe. I was a fool for ever trusting him.'

Hans was escorted to a hospital run by the Dera, in Sri Ganga Nagar, Rajasthan, and he was admitted for almost a fortnight.

He added: 'I get so angry when I think of what he did and how naïve I was not to ask questions. But no one asked any questions; we all just followed him.

'My body and mind was controlled by Baba. I was young and trapped.'

When the doctor told Hans his testicles had gone he was devastated but was terrified of telling anyone.

He said: 'I was shocked but it was too late for me to do anything about it, I had to just accept it. I couldn't turn to anyone, not even my parents; they would've been devastated as my chances of a future family were ruined.

'I tried to leave the Dera several times but you cannot come and go as you please. They decide your fate and destiny and control your every day.

(Picture ofHans' medical examination report confirming his castration)
.
After Hans' castration his access in and around the religious group grew, but he still feared for his life. He was desperate to leave.

He said: 'I became one of the trusted men. Only those who were castrated had access to the main house and I became one of those trusted men. I felt the pressure even more; it was suffocating.'

Eventually, Hans escaped the group in 2009 and went straight into hiding. In late 2012 he heard that former Dera colleagues had also quit the sect and gave him the courage to finally speak out.

'I have feared for my safety since I left the group but now I have spoken out they cannot do anything. I now have the law on my side,' he said.

'I am now hopeful that there will be a fair judgment since the case is with the CBI. I have complete faith in our country's judiciary and I am hopeful that a judgment day will come,' he added.

'I know Baba is very powerful but I am not going to withdraw my case. I have been forced to take many bribes since I started this but I will not give up.

'I am jobless these days but I am thankful to my parents who are standing by me. I am not scared of him or his followers.'

Hans' lawyer Navkiran Singh, who is representing him at the Haryana court, said: 'Hans was mislead by the Baba Rahim with false promises and revelations of a divine power. Rahim is a very powerful man and will do anything with those powers."

Doctor reports ordered by the court confirm Hans has no testicles and has been the victim of castration.

Hans, who earns a living singing at weddings, is now dealing with the humiliation of his revelation.

His decision to go public about his sexual status has come at a price and he has since been shunned by society.

He said: 'I had to either suffer at the hands of the Dera or reveal my incompetence to the world.

'My life is devastated. I can't have children and now people laugh at me too. Since the castration my body has undergone hormonal imbalance and I've had a huge loss in body and facial hair, and more worryingly development of breasts and fatigue.

'I've lost 14 years of my life. My parents are devastated and feel very guilty. They trusted this man and gave me to him, never imagining he would do such a thing.'

Haryana court has provided Hans with police security to ensure his safety.

Quote


[www.news.com.au]

Followers of Indian guru Ram Rahim break silence about mass castration

February 26, 2015 5:37PM

HE is adored by millions of followers worldwide, is the star of a major film and has convinced hundreds of men to castrate themselves.

The so-called “guru in bling” has also been linked to a murder and there are allegations of sexual abuse, but Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has always managed to stay one step ahead of authorities.

There are signs though his luck and influence might be running out.

His hold over followers was so powerful he convinced up to 400 followers to have their testicles removed because by doing so they would be able to speak directly to God.

Most feared for their lives and were worried about being social outcasts if they spoke out against him but it appears some have finally broken ranks and are prepared to go on the record with their allegations.

Until now hundreds of followers have been united in protecting him by not speaking with investigators, sources told India’sMail Todaynewspaper.

But it seems the cone of silence is about to smashed open as officers from the Indian equivalent of the FBI, the Central Bureau of Investigation, have reportedly obtained statements from some victims.

They have been building a case against Ram Rahim for months and intend to lay charges of grievous bodily harm against him.

“CBI sleuths met some old Dera followers and were, thus, successful in tracing some others who were castrated in the name of God.

“Some of the castrated followers, who agreed to record their statements before the judicial magistrate, have left for Delhi where the case has been registered,” a source told Mail Today.

Some of the witnesses have told police the castrations happened at a hospital run by Ram Rahim’s organisation.

It’s far from the first time he has come in for attention from authorities. In 2002 he faced conspiracy charges over the murder of a journalist who was investigating him and there have also been allegations of sexual abuse of female followers.

So far he has managed to escape having convictions of any wrongdoing, partly because he is a favourite of politicians, who see his value as a source of votes, Fairfax reported.

Ram Rahim has an estimated fortune of $50 million and as many as 50 million followers worldwide.

But in a sign his grip on followers could be weakening, ticket sales for his new film MSG: The Messenger have fallen since the castration controversy became public.

In January the film opened to a world-record audience of over 150,000 at a public premiere in Gurgaon, a city just outside of Delhi.

The film supposedly shows Ram Rahim breaking a tree trunk with his bare hands and walking on air, among other miracles.

But according to reports in India, audiences have been so low at many cinemas Ram Rahim has been bulk buying tickets to improve box office returns.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2015 11:58PM by corboy.

I stumbled upon this on a quite different venue, one discussing
the vagaries of relationships with active addicts and alcoholics.
One person wrote that prior to recovery

Quote


I couldn't tell an anecdote, it had to be an epic.
I did not have dialogues, I had monolgues.
I awfulized everything that happened to me, making me feel special.
My bad day was your bad day, too.

Look at the gurus who keep disciples up all night, listening to them rant.

The claims of being God, or Avatar of the Age.

The claims that one is in touch with everything in history, every saint and famous personage.

The guru doesn't just have a bad day, but is bearing the sufferings of the world, or being attacked by dark forces.

If the guru is suffering a bad hair day, the disciples' negative thoughts
are to blame.

Disciples lose their identities because they give their attention to anticipating the guru's bad moods and attempt to prolong his or her good moods.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2015 07:58PM by corboy.