The inner workings of the SGI cult:

[www.hosshakukempon.com]

Nichijew

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rattyboy
I . . . . . was given cold stares when expressing this.

Those cold stares were because you were doing something that you were not supposed to be doing - thinking. "Guidance" is just code for go get reprogrammed how to not think for yourself and become even more dependent on others thinking for you so that they can manipulate you further on down the road.

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Nichijew
The inner workings of the SGI cult:

As paranoid, dysfunctional and malignant as ever. What a repugnant organization.

Hello, everybody, very interesting posts, but I am going to continue with my story, as I feel that my mission here is to share my experiences of being in the status of SGI enemy. I really symphasize now with Nichiren Shoshu priests and other SGI victims in Japan, because I know from my own experience what they are going through and how they feel.
After my "triumph" graduation from USC I sent my resumes to some colleges, but as I mentioned before SGI had information about which colleges I applied to, and they made sure HR offices of those colleges received plenty of negative "references" with my name on it. I don't know, how about other fields, but in academia world people are particularly sensetive about those kind of things. I guess what I am trying to say, if I was a contractor or masseuse, that wouldn't be so easy to affect my potential employer by smear campaigns, but American universities are very sensetive about it. And so after receiving negative replies from universities, I went to one private music school, which was owned by a successful Korean immigrant. But in that school I had to teach kids as little as 5 year old. I decided to put up with that, even though money I was making there barely covered my rent. So, get ready for a punch-line! SGI folks found out that I worked there, so they quickly sent out "defamation team" to deal with me in this new environment. They talked to every teacher in this school and they even talked to parents of each of my student explaining to them why they shouldn't use my services as teacher. I can't say it really worked but it put some huge pressure on my boss's shoulders giving him a dilemma. To keep or not to keep a teacher with a Doctorate degree (which definitely gave his private school good name), but who was being followed around by cult people who talked to students' parents (which gave his school pretty bad vibe). Being a good person, he chose the first, to keep me, but after three year contract expired I left the school myself - it was very difficult to teach kids piano, when I had Doctorate degree. To be continued...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/2012 09:19PM by bobze39.

Thank you bobze 39. Important stuff!

An interesting conversation re: gajokai (kaikan-HQ baby sitting) -

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Mav

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Yzak
And like you mentioned Awaken7, when people come to you saying that their philosophy is the ultimate experience you will have, it is because something not quite right is happening. The last time I had to do Gajokai, there was a technical issue, but it was rather no big deal, the meeting continued smoothly. Well, after the meeting was ended, the leader of the Gajokai was so furious(I mean, someone could not see his head getting red, but the way hi showed his discomfort with the issue troubled me a bit), he was like THE MEETING WAS SPECTACULAR, BUT BECAUSE X HAPPENED THE WHOLE MEETING WAS A CRAP! I wasn't even close to where the problem happened! After that, this gajokai leader took me a ride(one of the so nice rides....) back home. In that trip he was kind of insulting me, with nice words but insulting, that I wasn't chanting good enough, that we have to work hard for Pres. Ikeda, I feel you are not doing enough for yourself, i feel you are not happy enough,YOU WANT TO BECOME HAPPY? YOU HAVE TO CHANT EVEN MORE! (that was the alert that hit my mind telling me something is wrong here) and he forced me to PROMISE ME YOU WILL CHANT MORE AND HARDER!....
I never saw that guy even with a smile, always prepearing things that the next meeting and the meeting after that were coming. He is younger than me and he is devastated with debt, and here he come and giving orders to me to become happier.
Thats crazy, but thankfully I realized this sooner than later! otherwise where I might be >_>!

Oh man, Yzak, you mention Gajokai and that strikes a personal chord in me because I did it for years. First of all, I'm glad you found this group and it has helped you! Your story just shows how out of touch a lot of these young guys in SGI-USA are. These aren’t the old NSA days where some Gajokai chiefs thought it was the military or something and ordered their Gajokai assistants around. Those guys talked just like your guy, and yet they were in debt and had huge personal problems. That's back in the 80s and 90s. Now, those guys are in Men's Division and their lives are no different than people who don't chant.

All the gestapo gajokai chiefs I remember were some real tools, in their personal lives and even more so while "on-duty." Some of these guys had coke bottle bottom glasses, mussed up hair, were uncoordinated and had stained white uniforms that always needed a washing and were always coming untucked and ruffled, etc.. Whenever there was a meeting to oversee, it would be like watching Clark Kent transform into his superhero role right before your eyes and they'd start with the slogans "we must protect the precious members, the kaikan, the joju gohonzon, the parking lot, the cars, the toilet", . . . . . and of course the big wig "senior" leader that happened to be attending. They'd yell and scream and practically break out the whip until the "senior" leader arrived, then they'd run around at that person's heels like a little lap dog being lead around on a leash. God forbid that anything went wrong, like some member losing their keys and not being able to find them, because it would always be lower gojokais' fault. After the meeting, you transformed into night custodians and watchmen (back in my day, you had to stay overnight and be the human security alarm). Every few hours you had to walk around outside the building with a clipboard checklist and check such mundane things like make sure the outside water faucet wasn't "on", that building light "x, y & z" were burning at the desired wattage settings and not malfunctioning, make sure there were no stray gum wrappers blowing around the parking lot or hiding under a bush somewhere. Just a bunch of busy bodytasks to make you feel like you were doing something and to make the time pass. Never mind the stupidity of walking about at 2 or 3 in the morning amongst the circling thieves and winos who may have been loitering in the shadows (and yes, there were incidents of gajokai themselves getting robbed) with your only weapon being the juzu beads in your pocket, the pen in your hand and nmrk (the roar of the lion) in your mouth.

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Mav
This kind of uptightness, holier-than-thou attitude was all pervasive within SGI volunteers. They think that going to the community center and volunteer for a couple of hours per month is such a serious and important activity, that you can't be yourself while you’re there, it's such a joke. I'll give an example. Last year, at LA Friendship Center, I was still volunteering once a month on a Tuesday night to help out. As a Men's Division (MD), I would show up and sit in the lobby room to support the two Gajokai young men who do most of the work and provide security. A byakuren (young woman's division) also sits there to operate the switchboard and answer calls. There's really not much to do for the MD, it's just really a courtesy to help out the youth, pretty boring actually just sitting there and chit-chatting with the girl and the guys when they’re in the room. The last time I did it, I was chatting with a particular byakuren I had never met for about an hour, just shooting the breeze, talking about our lives, work, etc. She was about 25. I told her that night was my last planned shift as I was becoming real busy with work. I didn't tell her that I was having serious doubts about SGI at the time and just wanted to back off. She seemed cool. Then, my buddy Tom called on my cell and, of course, the conversation turned to women, our usual topic :), and I talked about dating this girl, that girl, or whoever I was trying to chase at the time at salsa clubs since I'm a dancer and was really in that scene. Just guys' stuff. Well, when I hung up the phone, the byakuren girl started acting weird, and told me I'm not supposed to be talking on the phone, because my "duty" was to be on the alert, in case something happens. I was like, "What the heck are you talking about?" So, she gave me this mini-lecture about how the volunteers on shifts are supposed to put aside our personal business and be ready at any moment's notice to answer the members’ concerns and to attend to their needs. I said, "Well, a few people have been coming up to ask what room is so and so meeting is in, or whatever, and you and I have been helping them, what's the big deal? Besides there are two gajokais here." I also pointed out that she and I had been talking about personal stuff anyway before I was on the phone, now was that off-limit, too? Needless to say, she didn't like my answer and said that I didn't have faith. I kind of got pissed, and went off on her about how serious and uptight she was, why doesn't she act like a regular young woman then, instead of enacting this serious, robotic role. Needless to say, she got upset and resentful at me. I just said “Fine, whatever,” and waited till the end of my shift and didn’t even say goodbye. I was so glad to be out of there. At the risk of being presumptuous, I think the truth was that she was just pissed that I was talking the “playa” stuff with my buddy and maybe that brought up insecurities within herself. She needed a boyfriend was what I gathered about her.

None of the gajokai cheifs could get girlfriends either (see my description above). In fact, if they could, they probably wouldn't have even been there in the first place.

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Mav
When the members used to come up to ask questions of us volunteers, I remember a lot of them acted like babies. They have this instant-gratification kind of mentality when it comes to SGI. They live in a neighborhood and want to find a meeting near their house. Instead of doing their own research, they call the volunteers and expect us to do all their work for them. Even when told that the nearest meeting is 20 minutes away in another neighborhood, they whine. Instead of telling them, “Well, I’m sorry but there’s nothing we can do about it right now,” the volunteers are taught to try “do the impossible” and call leaders or whatever to help the members find a meeting right in their neighborhood so that they don’t have to drive the 20 minutes. In fact, you’re encouraged to chant with this whining member and create such a meeting. I always shook my head and wondered how these people survived in the the real world when, let’s say, a local store tells them “No, I don’t have such and such product, we have to order it.” Start whining? I don’t think so. But they think the rules are different in the organization. I hated babying them.

People wanted to be babied and that's the whole purpose of going to get guidance. After every big meeting, the senior leader retires to a back room to dispense handbook cliché guidance and the members literally lined up for it.

To make a long story short (I know kinda late, but thanks for sticking with the story, if you're still reading), at one point when I had had enough of it all, with one particular gajokai ss-officer going psycho I flat told him to protect the kaikan with his superhuman faith and soka spirit shield on his own and that I was leaving. My last image of doing gajokai was a wilting gajokai cheif hunched over mumbling over and over to himself with a look of disbelief in his eyes saying . . . . . "but, but, you can't leave, . . . . . you can't just leave like that." Well, I did and I had no accidents driving home, never been a victim of any type of crime and went on to a great, long and happy life. Just one of many episodes in my slow realization of climbing the learning curve that sgi-"x" is a psycho organization made up with lots of psycho people.

I was doing some "teeth of the castle" [Gajokai] or Sokahan [whatever the hell that really means] activity in Trets, the brainwash center in France. It was like two in the morning. Some big muckety muck pulls me aside and escorts me outside to a wooded area. It was absolutely dark. In between a grove of trees, about fifty yards from the building, he leads me to brass plaque on a concrete base on which is etched a dedication to President Toda. He tells me to guard the plaque with my very life. Hell, its two in the morning and the stupid plaque is in the middle of an out of the way tree stand bolted to a concrete slab that even a tsunami couldn't dislodge. Immediately, I said "HAI, I'll guard it with my life!" [as if anyone would wander into this grove of trees at 2:00 AM]. I stood there in the pitchblack guarding this gdmn plaque like an as--ole for three hours [that's what I feel now but then, I felt like a true disciple of Sensei, a Bodhisattva of the Earth]. Its not as if I were an infantry man guarding a vital supply route or a samurai believer guarding Nichiren Daishonin, or even a security person assigned to guard the members money and valuables. A stupid plague. A stupid guarding a stupid plague. I feel ashamed, at times, for thinking that this was Buddhism. It was power and control. Wanting to fit in, wanting to become a true disciple of Sensei so bad, I would have jumped into a fire if they told me to. And they knew it.

Nichijew



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2012 08:33AM by Nichijew.

"Power and control" is exactly right. This is at the core of what disturbs me most about the organization-cult. A supposedly "humanistic" organization that champions democracy and human rights, yet goes on to deprive its very membership of those same things by dehumanizing them (incorporating them into a single collective group think), demanding unthinking obedience without dissent (leaders' code of conduct) and segregating them (MD,WD,YMD,YWD - even different financial/social strata - and treating/manipulating each group according to the collective's needs). On top of all of this, it takes people's money, time and leaves shattered lives.

@Hitch

These discussions are great!

Man, I recall many hours doing TOBAN at the Chicago Kaikan on Foster avenue and seeing the same games acted out over and over. Of course at that time I was "full in" for NSA, but occasionally the rational part of my mind would pose the question "why?" and I didn't have an answer :)

For some reason, the TOBAN was supposed to be some sort of door mat that would jump and run whenever told. You could eat during your shift at assigned times but that meant that you could buy something from the machine in the basement which was always empty. You couldn't go outside except to check the security and you certainly couldn't walk up the street and buy a hamburger.

I do recall one of the tasks was to check the President's room several times per night. Just an empty room, but I guess they expected he might materialize in there when nobody was looking and the good old TOBAN would be there to announce him. Either that or out of worry that some homeless person would sneak in and set up housekeeping in there.

I recall also getting a lecture from Ted Ozaki about the importance of TOBAN. At that time in my faith this was a BIG DEAL for me and I was in seventh heaven for the night. Sometimes they would double up the TOBAN's and I'd usually end up with someone who either didn't have the "right" attitude, or someone who thought the same about me. In either case, there was very little "life to life communication".

At the time I was in my late twenties and had already spent my time in the military, so the 'guard duty' bs was pretty much familiar, but I do recall a lot of harassment being dumped on the YMD who didn't jump high enough or had wrinkles in their black tie or white shirt. Mmmmm - "good times" :)

This has brought back some long forgotten memories.

Wakatta1

(Need I say it again? "better out than in I always say" --Shrek)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2012 10:33AM by wakatta1.

Wakkata1 - I couldn't check the Ikeda room, because that was the chief gajokai's job. But, he really couldn't check it either (he could only jiggle the locked doorknob to confirm that Ikeda didn't unlock it) because the key was controlled by a "top" Japanese WD who I think was always nearby and could be called if there were a real Ikeda materialization. His picture was always smiling over us, though, as a reminder of the possibility.

My precious "golden memories" were made all the more wonderful by the fact that I had to drive 2 hours (more with heavy traffic) each way for the privilege of being free labor, getting yelled at and building up my fortune bank. A lot of the harassment rolled downhill, if the chief screwed up or even if the previous toban didn't do something they were supposed to, it would also be on us lower guys because we were "out of rhythm" with the universe (some of the really glassy-eyed chiefs would then order mandatory strong diamoku sessions, between checklist rounds, to command Newton's and Murphy's Laws to conform and genuflect to The Mystic Law).

(PS - Ted Osaki was a pioneering bigwig who always had a goofy smile on his goofy face. I definitely remember him. He wasn't around as much in my area, but others were. Mike Kikumura was another bigwig anorak-otaku looking dork who seemed to always be obsessed with "spaghetti, spaghetti, spaghetti" in his speeches. Maybe he ate too much of it at home, I don't know. Looking back, all of those senior leaders were case studies right out of the pages of DSM-IV [en.wikipedia.org], all the way up to the top, including Mr. Williams.)

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Nichijew
I was doing some "teeth of the castle" [Gajokai] or Sokahan [whatever the hell that really means] activity in Trets, the brainwash center in France. It was like two in the morning. Some big muckety muck pulls me aside and escorts me outside to a wooded area. It was absolutely dark. In between a grove of trees, about fifty yards from the building, he leads me to brass plaque on a concrete base on which is etched a dedication to President Toda. He tells me to guard the plaque with my very life. Hell, its two in the morning and the stupid plaque is in the middle of an out of the way tree stand bolted to a concrete slab that even a tsunami couldn't dislodge. Immediately, I said "HAI, I'll guard it with my life!" [as if anyone would wander into this grove of trees at 2:00 AM]. I stood there in the pitchblack guarding this gdmn plaque like an as--ole for three hours [that's what I feel now but then, I felt like a true disciple of Sensei, a Bodhisattva of the Earth]. Its not as if I were an infantry man guarding a vital supply route or a samurai believer guarding Nichiren Daishonin, or even a security person assigned to guard the members money and valuables. A stupid plague. A stupid guarding a stupid plague. I feel ashamed, at times, for thinking that this was Buddhism. It was power and control. Wanting to fit in, wanting to become a true disciple of Sensei so bad, I would have jumped into a fire if they told me to. And they knew it.

Nichijew

Great comments, everybody, about Gajokai - Teeth Of The Castle, I tell you, now I am really repulsed by all this militant terminology. (I used to be almost charmed by it, like people are charmed by samurai movies, even though they are violent). Teeth Of The Castle, Break And Subdue (Shakubuku), Human Revolution (book by the cult leader Daisaku Ikeda, why not softer, why not "human evolution" or "evolution of human consciousness" - because they need to keep people in this militant mood), Fundamental Darkness, Possessed By Devils, Fighting Evil and many many more - I can't recall now, maybe you can help me - all this militant terminology is meant not to inspire people, but rather keep people in militant, aggressive, hateful state of mind. And this state of mind makes people more submissive to their SGI leaders. People in a relaxed state of mind are not going to run to execute someone's orders, that's why you need to wind them up first - then they will get up and start running around following your orders.