Hi this my first post.

I saw a flyer on campus today that just sent my alarm bells ringing:

The Sudarshan Kriya
Experience the Art of Living
Health Energy Happiness... Only a breath away

Learn the Sudarshan Kriya (tm) a rhythmic breathing-meditation technique offered only through the Art of Living course!

I didn't find anything on the forum here about it but Wikipedia says its associated with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar whose Wikipedia page seems to be edited by rabid "followers."

Does any one have any more info on this group?

Thanks!

See [www.culteducation.com]

Sri Sri Rava Shankar is a former disciple of Maharishi, the founder of TM.

He then set up business for himself as a guru.

Seems to be a personality-driven cult-like group.

(note: If anyone has a friend or relative in Bangalore, feel free to contact RR.com if you have seen this for yourself)

[www.mid-day.com]

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Dude beggars
By: Team Midday Date: 2009-08-04 Place: Bangalore


Men and women trying to camouflage their affluent breeding and chic clothes are going about begging in south Bangalore. People at signals were startled yesterday to find smart, English-speaking men and women seeking alms. The beggars, with grime smeared on their faces, looked like characters out of a college play. Motorists, shoppers, and pedestrians dropped small change into their hands, but continued to gape. The beggars bought food with the money they had earned from begging, and ate in public.

MiD DAY discovered that they were disciples of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who runs the Art of Living spiritual movement from his headquarters on Kanakapura.


Thumbs up: The beggars at BTM Layout had tried to mess up their clean clothes with grime. They posed for MiD DAY but wouldn't tell us who they were. pics\Ramesh HS




The beggars, it turned out, were well-bred professionals told by their instructors to go "lose the ego" by begging. "Our areas are frequented by educated beggars from Sri Sri's ashram," said a resident of BTM Layout.

"They come in batches, beg, and feed themselves." South Bangalore extensions such as BTM Layout, Jayanagar and Banashankari are often flooded with dude beggars wearing Nike tracksuits. Disciples who register for some personality development courses are put through the routine of begging, said a source. They are asked to beg so that they can "conquer" their self and rid themselves of inhibitions. "It's an exercise that works on Buddhist principles, which emphasise sacrificing the ego," said an AoL volunteer.





Till 3 pm


STYLE GURU: The beggar MiD DAY tracked was clearly star-struck, and wore his hair like his guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (above)

The beggars we spoke to shared their email IDs with us. They were fluent in English and Hindi, but refused to talk about their act.

"Don't ask us anything," said a beggar. "Our exercise ends by 3 pm today. We will be able to talk about it only after August 12."

Such beggars are common on buses on Kanakapura Road, especially between south Bangalore extensions and the ashram.

"We were astonished to see them," said Chandru, a bakery owner in BTM Layout. "They are so cultured they don't seem like beggars."

Cops' angle

Begging is illegal and the dude beggars can be rounded up.

"They haven't taken any special permission from us," said D Sudhakar, Karnataka's social welfare minister. "Such permission can't be given either."

AoL's public relations machinery, always eager with press notes about the guru, clammed up when MiD DAY sought a reaction for this story.

"We can't comment... most teachers are travelling and Sri Sri Ravishankar is on a temple tour in Tamil Nadu," said Sham, an AoL volunteer.

I take it this Ravi Shankar has nothing to do with his namesake the sitar player?

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I take it this Ravi Shankar has nothing to do with his namesake the sitar player?

Zero. The sitar player is Ravi Shankar.

The guru, who is a spin off of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of TM, engaged in title inflation and has awarded himself the double dose title of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, as if one 'Shri' was not enough.

Being a fan of the sitar player, I am relieved. I thought he had become another Chick Corea for a moment then. lol.

India Mike's Travel Forum is an excellent resource.

"The Sudarshan Kriya, a cornerstone of the attraction of Sri Sri, is almost identical to several of the cleansing kriyas found in Vivekananda Yoga."

There was some discussion of Sri Sri here. Many liked him. But one person who served
time in AOL had this to say. He noted that he didnt see anything unique about the Sudarshan Kriya system.

[www.indiamike.com]

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It has grown from a very small group to a large company, and now there is a manager of the ashram, and people in charge of all the departments.

They recently started up a Construction Company to build this village, and a real estate company to handle the property aspects.

I was involved with them for ten years, and spent a long time living at the ashram.

I still have friends there, but can't see them anymore, because I lost my security pass, and am not allowed in the off public areas anymore.

My job at the ashram was to look after the farm which grew Guruji's Food.

After ten years, I had a falling out with the manager at the time, and he made it impossible for me to stay there anymore.

Consequently, I decided to stop the practice I was doing. I still do a lot of the things I did as a Sanyassi.

But since leaving and travelling India, I have seen a lot of the practices which were thought "exclusive to be nothing more than Simple but advanced breathing techniques from different sources.

The Sudarshan Kriya, a cornerstone of the attraction of Sri Sri, is almost identical to several of the cleansing kriyas found in Vivekananda Yoga.

My personal opinion is that he's not a living God, He's not been sent from another world, and he's probably just another Guru.
He was seen as special when he walked into his parent's room at the age of four, and recited word for word the Bhagavad Gita.

If people think this entitles him to pronounce Sri Sri status, I don't.
In ten years of observing and serving him, I never saw anything that was extraordinary.
He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times, but a lot of people are nominated.
This doesn't make him a god.
Some of his disciples, are incredibly beautiful people, some are complete arseholes , who went to him to be fixed.
Nonsense really, no one can fix someone else.

I 'spose it could be considered a sect, but I wouldn't put it in the same league as David Karesh, or Sai baba, or Guru Rajneesh.
No special clothes are there. No particular belief systems, but most people are hindu.He has two nephews which are educated in Ive League American schools at the expense of the ashram.

What angered me in reading about wealthy AOL ashramites reportedly being sent out into the streets of Bangalore to do some play begging is that this greatly confuses matters and may make it that much harder for those who are destitute and actually do need alms.

Given the above report that Sri Sri did not himself grow up in povertly it is all the more repugnant that he is reportedly turning mendicancy into a game for his affluent ashramites to play at.

There is a proverb from someone who travelled in Asia:

'Beware of fat persons in thin countries.'

If approached for alms by some sadhu with a pot belly, I'd offer the buy the bastard a package of urine sugar test strips to see if he's got diabetes yet and pissing sugar in his urine.

One very experienced traveller to India provided descriptions and information here:

[www.heartspace.org]

(Note from corboy--I would change Phil's advice in one area. Do NOT give candy to begging children. Some dentists doing pro bono medical care in the Third World have sent home reports that they see terrible cases of tooth decay in local children given too much candy by tourists. In areas where dental care is hard to get, anything that promotes tooth decay is a disaster. )

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Beggars

We tipped beggars 2-5 rupees. Everyone makes his/her own decisions about beggars. We gave to the elderly and infirm, and occasionally to families. But watch out for a scam--we saw old men rading crutches among themselves...there was a different man sitting outside the restaurant with crutches in front of him every time we walked by. Beware of women who trade babies for the same reason. Bottom line suggestion: I would rarely give beggars 100 rupees....big sums of money are best given to reliable charities. I'd stick with 2-5 rupees, unless you really believe this is a special case. If you start giving 10 rupee notes, you will be mobbed by beggars. With 2-5 rupees, you won't. (I know that we are talking the difference between 15 cents (5 rupees) and 30 cents (10 rupees). Its just that for Indians, the 10 rupees will go much further and is akin to giving a homeles person $5 instead of spare change. Givng more than 10 rupees to beggars marks you as a mark. (REMEMBER, I am writing after a trip in 1996. If you are reading this post in 1998, check the current rate of conversion!!!)


(*Note from Corboy: This site is excellent for currency conversion--and for metrics, too.

[www.xe.com])


Phil S continues: Always give beggars money when you are leaving a place, as you get in the car. Otherwise, you will be mobbed. Everyone makes their own decision about children. We have been advised by some to carry candy to give to children, since children beggars may be giving the money to their parents. On the other hand, we saw plenty of homeless children. I don't mind giving children 2-5 rupees, but doing it only when we believed they were truly in need (not sent by their parents to beg). Begging is the hardest, most heart-wrenching thing about India. Beggars routinely make hand-signs for being hungry. We ended up setting a daily limit of money we would give away (50-100 rupees) and that was it for the day.

Here is a thread giving varying opinions on professional religious mendicancy in India. Last thing needed is for Sri Sri to add to an already existing mess that troubles many people.

[www.indiamike.com]

Sadhus and sanyassis do solicit alms as part of the religious tradition. So do Buddhist monks. But they did this in ways that did not stress the society on which they relied for support.

The monastics behaved in harmony with the environment. In rice paddy areas of asia, the monks avoided tramping through rice paddies where seedlings were planted---they knew to avoid destroying the plant that was the food grain on which all lives depended.

Sadhus traditionally begged for a single days supply of food and took only what was offered. In his memoir, Ochre Robe, Agehananda Bharati gave a detailed description of the alms protocol for the sadhus when he walked through India in the late 1940s to 1950s. A begging monk followed a traditional pattern of behavior which ensured that the beggar lived 'low maintainance' and did not put an intolerable strain on a village and its resources--or its collective patience.

Bharati tells us this:

* The monk woke up early, prayed and bathed. Then he began his day's walk so that he would arrive at the next village right at the time breakfast was ready for the locals.

The monk went door to door favoring no particular household. If one followed textual protocol one did exactly that...a monk did not head straight for the richest house in town. He went door to door, and took only what each household could afford to give, which added up to food supply for the next 24 hours. You ate what people in the area ate, and Bharati was precise about this---if in the wheat growing area, you were given chapatti or roti (flatbreds) you'd store them in a fold of your robe. Lentil stew (dal) would go in your begging bowl. If in a rice growing area, you'd put the rice along with the dal stew into your begging bowl.

THe monk then ate by himself, rested, then spent the rest of the day teaching and answering questions.

Next day he would move on to the following village. If a monk needed to stay longer, due to monsoons or illness he would negotiate terms.

But note that the old protocol was designed to ensure that the begging monk provided a resource by teaching, and his behavior, food intake, and itenerary were designed never to put intolerable strain on local resources.


A search of 'beggars' on India Mike's forum turned up scads of citations.

[www.indiamike.com]

Scams and Tragedies

A little girl kidnapped by beggars

[www.indiamike.com]

Milk scam in Dharamsala (HH Dalai Lama lives there, so the place is packed with visitors)

Milk scam

[www.indiamike.com]

Milk and Rice scam

[www.indiamike.com]

The general and complex topic of Baksheesh

[www.indiamike.com]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/2009 11:35PM by corboy.

Giving Food, Not Money is the Tradition

Key statement:

Quote

If I remember rightly, the sadhus are not supposed to ask.

Traditionally, they would be given food, not money. Also, if I remember rightly, they are not supposed to take more than they need for that day only.

from 'Saffron Clad Beggars' on the India Mike Travel Forum

[www.indiamike.com]

This post from India Mike validates Agehananda Bharati's descriptions, from fifty years before:

Quote

Raghu's posts on this are very balanced, and very practical.

I don't give like I used to; I guess that even my few years in India have hardened me.

Sometimes I give to a single woman with a child; it is true that the child may not be hers, in fact sometimes she is patently too young. She may be an elder sister. Sometimes her plight is genuine: she may even have a husband/father, who may even have a job, and who may drink all his earnings and beat/abuse the family. How are they to eat?

If I remember rightly, the sadhus are not supposed to ask.

Traditionally, they would be given food, not money. Also, if I remember rightly, they are not supposed to take more than they need for that day only.

I do not see why I should pay to support somebody else's religion. I used to meet middle-class families, educated, well dressed, who would ask for money for their pilgrimage. Let them pay for their own pilgrimage.

People come with carts with sound systems blaring out Sai bajans, wanting to be paid to go away; let them just go away!

Sometimes people also come, asking for contributions for some temple festival. They give receipts. Your name should be included in the puja. But my wife tells me that even those receipt books can be a scam! What is one to do?

Mrs N, along with many Indians, mostly does not give to beggars. SHe used to make an exception for the blind --- but at our local main road junction, it has obviously become an industry, with three or four blind people being steered by their minders from car to car.

I'd add one more to Raghu's list of the truly deserving, and that is the mentally ill. Of course that is not obvious, more often than not, but when it is, those people have little chance of earning through a job.

Well... what one is to do... is to give a little when one feels it is right to do.

"A True Sadhu Does Not Touch Money"

These two shares from India Mike illustrate that religious mendicants do not ASK for money.

Food yes, money, never.

That alone shows how, if the report 'Dude Beggars' is true, Sri Sri and his Bangalore crew are perverting the tradition they claim to be part of.

This is true. In his memoir, Ochre Robe, Bharati described how he was given assistance by some hosts who learned he planned to travel to another area.

Alms and assistance are, by tradition, given in such a way as never to compromise a monks renunciate vows. According to Bharati, even in parts of India where lay persons eat meat, they dont give meat to a monk--only vegatarian fare, because they know that a monk cannot eat meat.

And for that same reason, by tradition, one never directly handed money to a sanyassi, because his vows forbade him to touch money.

Bharati's hosts wanted to help him travel. Instead of giving him money and putting his vows at risk, they bought him a train ticket.

Another insight into religious mendicancy in India from India Mike's forum

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http://www.indiamike.com/india/chai-and-chat-f73/saffron-clad-beggars-t76667/2/

The saffron-clad folks are just smart but fake guys. If they were true sadhus they would just stand with their bowls in the front of some grihasta's* house, to accept some roti. Vaishnava renunciants in the North are permitted to go to 5 houses per day on their alms-round, and not every day to the same houses. If they get some roti, then fine, if not, they go to their kuti and do not eat that day. Street-begging is unheard of for a sadhu, let alone asking for money. A true sadhu does not touch money. Full-stop.

*grihasta is a householder.

another person on the same thread wrote

Quote

9 times out of 10 I do not give to the beggars in KTM, especially in Thamel or Boudha. The gangs of kids that used to swarm around me every time I would do kora in Boudha were gone when I visited last year. If I see monks or especially nuns sitting on the sidewalk chanting sutras I will usually give 5 Rs. or so but if they are agggressively begging then I assume they are scammers - one time at night in the Barkhor bazaar in Lhasa I had a monk pulling at my clothes begging... 1. He is a MONK so not supposed to touch a woman...

A good, general purpose article here:

[www.women-on-the-road.com]

Why supply all this information about this very tragic and complicated subject?

Because the last thing needed is for some cutsy smiley guru to complicate the mess yet further--especially a guru who never grew up in poverty himself.

Shame on him.

There are also reports that Sri Sri sometimes shows up late for his events.

In India, it is a power move to keep people waiting. The higher your rank the later you are allowed to arrive.

The lower your rank, the longer you are made to sit and wait.

It must given some Indians great pleasure to keep pale faces, especially Brits, squatting on their haunches and waiting, as if they're peasants. And for the pale face devotees to consider this an honor, and an exercise in renunciation, when in Indian protocol context, its the equivalent of being kicked in the arse and thinking thats part of the ritual of being knighted by the Queen.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2009 12:21AM by corboy.