Quote
rattyboy
Really. I could have done that personality test instead while walking down the sidewalk in the city and be a Scientologist instead with a different charismatic leader, a different great mission for peace and personal behaviour, a different list of celebrity adherents in the group, different loaded language and buzzwords and questionable money practices and treatment of doubters. Different?
Thank you.
Amazing! This should be the motto of the 'Ex-SGI' forum. :)
I totally agree with you rattyboy. If the Buddha was alive today he would be devestated at what has happened to his teachings. Yes the Buddha encouraged people to listen to his teachings and read his sutras, but these were simply guides, the Buddha always encouraged people to obtain their own realization through personal experience, and he encouraged people to critically question his teachings and find out for themselves if they were true.
He did not encourage people to listen to a teacher thousands of miles away who you will never meet, who also demands a large portion of your income to be part of his organisation.
As for the other point about 'bad things' happening if you don't chant. I am still affected by this myself. I may be losing my job soon, the other day while walking to work I had an extremely strong sensation apear from the back of my mind that this was only happening because I have stopped chanting and stopped going to meetings. I caught myself realizing this and felt ashamed of myself for falling back into that thought pattern. SGI's manipulation is extremely strong, I think I underestimated the amount of effort I would need to put in to get it out of my mind.
So now instead of chanting I am actively and positively looking for a new job, I'll report back on which action brings about the best result. :)
I mentioned in a post a few pages back that I've taken up martial arts, I can't even describe what a positive impact this has had on my mind and self confidence. I've also begun reading into Taoism (oooh all the buddhists in the room start getting their backs up) but from what I've read so far its ultimate teaching is exactly the same as buddhism, just without defining it as 'enlightenment', and no 'Buddha' character to look up to. Its very refreshing. :)
(The above is in no way an attack on buddhism or the Buddha, just a different way of thinking about things.)
@ Findingmywaytoday and lthomas: I think you're doing exactly the right thing getting professional counseling. SGI certainly cannot help. The experienced people on this forum can help with 'de-programming' from SGI and dealing with some of the SGI specific issues. But you are really doing the best thing speaking to a professional counselor about the non-SGI issues. I wont say that I'll pray or chant for your success, but I will earnestly, sincerely hope. :)