Quote
Mav
Awaken, I'm really happy for you that you discovered this forum and decided for yourself what's right for you!
All that talk SGI leaders say about you can be a "Christian and a Buddhist" is pure B.S.! Sorry to be graphic, but I've seen them saying that to new members, and we regular members all knew it was with a wink-wink-nodd-nodd attitude, with the understanding that "Hey, let's just say that so the new member will start chanting." But I guarantee you, if you start becoming a member and still pray to Jesus or have Christian beliefs, somebody will berate you, "Why are you doing that?" if they catch you. Or, if not a berating, it would be in the form of gentler pressure, such as “Oh, let’s have two leaders come and do a home visit on you and talk about your other beliefs!”
Wow, I have been gone from the forum for a long time and this just screamed out at me as I was reading. Yes, this is a classic. This is what I was referring to in my earlier comments.
lthomas, I've read some of your postings and talk about relating. Your experience of getting involved with SGI is so similar to my own. It's like they have the radar out for someone who is in pain mentally and then they pounce. I didn't catch how long you were in SGI, but even after chanting for only a year I actually had guilt when I stopped and fear that something bad would happen to me. It is quite amazing how they do this. Ironically the Catholic Church used to be kind of like SGI and that is why so many people left. It is very different now. Of course, in all my years as a Catholic I never experienced anything like the people in SGI, or those meetings. I found very little warmth or compassion, or empathy. Indeed, these qualities did seem to be abhorrent to these people. There is no way I could survive or thrive in this type of atmosphere. Where the emphasis in my parish is loving one's neighbor, forgiveness, and truly helping those who are hurting or less fortunate, the emphasis in SGI seemed to be getting for oneself exclusively. I'm sure if SGI ran a soup kitchen, as my parish does, it would be for the purpose of enrolling more members, where the purpose our our soup kitchen is to feed people exclusively.
Anyway, those are my thoughts for today. Who would have thought that one short meeting with my neighbor would have brought all this out. I guess it still stings.