In the sixties I wandered through many cults. Scientology, Gurdjieff, Arica, later EST. I did the est training just to make a girl happy though, but the one that fascinated me the most was Sidda Yoga. It was the mid 80s and my marriage was going to Hell, and my wife and I did counseling with psychologist. Well mine was into meditation, and from there she got me into her books... sidda yoga. Then she thought it would be fun is she and I went from DC to South Fallsburg and do some courses. It was a hoot. A cult of wealthy shrinks and upper class New Yorkers. They worked the hell out of us, charged us plenty for EVERYTHING, gave us all tons of love, and then we drove back hundreds of miles. And then we had "therepy" later that week, and also meetings of the local DC ashram.

[www.siddhayoga.org]
Have any of you all heard of them?

_

a very good overview on how to evaluate any group or teacher

[www.deikman.com]

[www.leavingsiddhayoga.net]

The remarkable readiness we have to experience amazing things, and then attribute them to an external source

[vm.mtsac.edu]

[members.tripod.com]

(these last two may generate annoy pop up ads. Just close the junk and keep reading)

finally, this article on one of the Google groups discusses what can happen if people are encouraged to become dependant on ecstacy and then attribute it to an external source (dont panic, just click the link-citations for Google discussion threads are gigantic)

[groups-beta.google.com]

Swami Muktananda. Now run by GuruMai; she beat out her brother for the leadership when Muktananda died. GuruMai wears cute hats.

Swami Muktananda and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi were friends.
In the seventies sometime they had a meeting with some of their followers in attendance - was much publicized in both groups. Then a bunch of their followers were busy jumping from one group to the other.

After that, they stopped meeting together (publicly) because "it caused too much confusion among the devotees. Jumping between different paths was detrimental to spiritual growth. To reach enlightenment, one must choose ONE path and continue on it" In other words, continue giving money and unpaid labor to the same guru for all the advanced meditation courses.

Years later, at the request of a friend, my exhusband (from old TM daze) and I attended a Gurumai/ Sidha Yoga event in Oakland. The similarity in presentation was daunting! Every detail. My husband said "This is just like old-home week. Maharishi and Muktananda MUST have compared marketing techniques!"

Guru Mai must be extremely wealthy now. The seminars were a couple of hundred dollars in the 80s. Everything was first class, the books, tapes, beads, rings.

Muktananda was introduced to America by Ram Dass in 1970. Franklin Jones (Adi Da) had earlier made several trips to Muktananda's ashram in the late '60s.

The classic exposés of Muktananda and SYDA were done by William Rodarmor in 1983 ( [www.ex-cult.org] , scroll down), and later by Lis Harris (now teaching at the Columbia University School of Fine Arts) in the [i:6b97a739ff]New Yorker[/i:6b97a739ff] magazine in 1994 ( [www.culteducation.com] ).

For a concise overview of the homophobic Muktananda and his (literally) shit-eating guru, Nityananda, I have an essay posted online: [www.strippingthegurus.com] .

In 2002, former journalist and long-time Muktananda/Gurumayi devotee Sally Kempton (Durgananda) returned to "the world" to teach, "with Gurumayi's blessing." She has been a recent interviewee of "the Einstein of consciousness studies," Ken Wilber, on his Integral Naked forum: [www.integralnaked.org] .