Quote
Awaken7
The ‘friend’ who invited me to the only 2 SGI meets I attended NEVER called me back
I want to thank all of you again because this time she wasn’t able to convince me and manipulate me to get involved with SGI. I knew there was no way I was going to buy into it. And I did it with confidence after all things you have taught me. It’s not nice that you had all of those experiences, but now you are doing something great posting this and letting us know the truth! I hope more people would do their research before joining cults like this.
I WILL FOREVER BE THANKFUL TO ALL OF YOU!!!!!
First, these so call "friends" seemed to have erased me from their SGI world, and I think is great! its been 2 weeks after I officially quit SGI and I feel more human, or should I say more alive, being myself and allow myself explore more. It was sad to think leaving SGI at first, but I had to make an effort, to realize that the "kosen rufu" cause is just a self interest profitable scheme from SGI. And it is sad to know that 12 million PEOPLE actually believe they are doing something good for world peace when is not. It just had to happen, these "friends" weren't really friends, we were just comrades in SGI, but in the outside world, or REALITY we were no one. Just like a member said before, I don't remember who sorry >_> but "WE DIDN'T REALLY MEET AS FRIENDS, THEY ALWAYS CALLED ME FOR MEETINGS, NEVER FOR, YOU KNOW, JUST TO HANG OUT AND HAVE A COFFEE. WELL YOU MIGHT SAY WHY I DIDN'T DO THAT TO SHARE WITH THEM, BUT I WAS AFRAID TO HANG OUT WITH THEM TOO, FOR THEY MAY KEEP TALKING ABOUT SGI INSTEAD OF OURSELF, OUR LIVES OR SOMETHING ELSE" totally agree! (Its not exactly what the user said, but sort of). I also was afraid of trying to socialize with SGIers outside SGI, but it seemed impossible to me.
One experience I had was with a SGI graduate student from a UC, that I wanted to chat with him about how universities work here in the US and all of that. He invited me to Starbucks to talk, OK thats fine. When I was talking about my academic interest, and that I was(and still am) very motivated to do something great with my life but don't know actually what is it, Guess what? he's only advice was to read Pres. Ikedas guidance, in his newspaper and try to apply it, and CHANT MORE! YOU WANT TO FIND THE ANSWER TO THAT? CHANT EVEN MORE!!
Finally I dared to ask this SGI member nicely
"WELL YOU KNOW, LIKE IT OR NOT, PRES. IKEDA IS KIND OF OLD, AND HE MIGHT DIE SOONER OR LATER, SO..." and even before finishing the question he went:
"THATS WHY WE HAVE TO STUDY IKEDAS LECTURE, WE HAVE TO APPRECIATE THAT WE HAVE A MENTOR THAT IS ALIVE, THATS WHY WE HAVE TO STUDY AND UNDERSTAND HIS GUIDANCE AS MUCH AS WE CAN, FOR THE MOMENT HE MAY DIE, WE WILL FEEL SORRY ABOUT IT."
At the time I felt very encouraged by his words, but now I feel that the conversation we had at the time lead me to nothing, totally pointless, didn't conclude anything new but with the same idea of to love Ikeda and chant more.It is sad to know such smart people being naive, with such great skills being wasted for the well being of a corporation. This proves that "intellectual smartness is not everything in life", but society somehow makes us think that it is.
My guess is that when Ikeda dies, things will get waaaaay nastier! I want to see that ceremony, and hopefully that might bring some doubts among SGI, but maybe I'm expecting too much. I don't meant to see this man dead, but as seeing it outside SGI its kind of predictable. Now that I'm writing this, I feel, like many members here in the forum have told, a gap of nothingness during my 2 year period in SGI. While my primal purpose of joining SGI was to simply have friends and share a same philosophy, I was being carried away from my purpase. While I think if I weren't in SGI for that period of time I wouldn't learn these things, at least I learned something good out of this, a unique experience. I don't regret leaving SGI and loosing so many "friends", when I know the only person I was lying or "betraying" the whole time was myself.
This is my personal advice; if you are interested in any culture, say as an example, in Japan, and you want to learn something about the culture and society, DO things from that country that won't limit of being yourself, for example, PRACTICE ANY MARTIAL ARTS, LEARN HOW TO COOK SHUSHI OR RAMEN, LEARN IKEBANA, LEARN A JAPANESE INSTRUMENT, TO READ JAPANESE CLASSICAL LITERATURE OR TO SIMPLY STUDY ITS HISTORY,whatever, but NEVER EVER, ALLOW YOURSELF JOINING SECTS, in this particular case, Soka Gakkai!