OH S@i%!! It was not my intention to give my real name. I swear I can be sooo absentminded sometimes. Well I guess the cats out of the bag. The chances of anyone from my area, I believe are very slim as far as coming onto this site are very slim. Although I still have a close friend who is connected with the organization. Not sure how she would feel knowing I've posted on here. Damn. Oh well. About the guy being evil. Don't know. I know he's been known to hold a grudge and can get very angry, but evil I don't think so. Anyways quiet one four members? Wow. That would have made my anxiety level go up. One from time to time will send me rock-the-era emails, and text to let me know "how worthy I am. I can say this for sure if anyone were to find out that I've posted on here. I know for a fact that my "happiness" would be the last thing on my mind. In some ways I feel elated. Maybe it's a sign that I am one step closer to to letting go of my butsudan and gohonzan. at some point in time I know it's going to happen. However, I find it hard to part with the Omamori one.


Take Care,
lthomas (although the cats out of the bag)

Hi lthomas
well in my case I have a close family member still in the organisation. Since I left the relationship deteriorated considerably. To be fair though I hardly had time in the evenings for the last couple of years due to evening college. On the other hand she is quite high up in the ranks of the national leadership here.
I did have two SGI members as neighbours, one moved to another part of town now. One neighbour now and again tried to get me to go to meetings or discussions when meeting on the street. I turned the discussions then to issues that the average SGI member would not be aware of and quite easily got rid of that person.
The other one I do often meet while shopping groceries etc and must say its not problematic at all, the usual how are you and quick update what is going on in each others life and no mentioning of SGI at all. So I guess its very individual and what makes the other person tick.
I guess what makes us feel uncomfortable to meet those still active in SGI is that they at times know things about our lives that the usual acquaintance would not be aware of – even if we did not tell them ourselves. Discretion is not top on the agenda in SGI as we all know.

I don't often run into SGI members. I don't feel comfortable when I do. Like quiet one, I don't like conflict....it's like when Jehovah Witnesses come to my door. I don't believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, any more than I believe in Mentor/Disciple, and that won't change, no matter what they say. And they're not going to change their minds, no matter what I say....so why even go there?

I also agree with Rothaus's comment that it can be uncomfortable that SGI members may know or guess at some of your personal business, and are generally not discreet about discussing it. Before I left, I also argued with a women's division leader. I would suspect she's told other members a, shall we say, slanted version of our last discussion. So when I do encounter other members, I wonder what they may have heard about me.

But, in the end, they're going to think what they want to think. If they choose to accept this woman's version of things without even listening to my side -- they were never really my friends.

If I see them, I'm polite. I discuss neutral things, and refuse to debate SGI with them. I don't think I'd let any of them in my house, if they were so foolish as to drop by.

its funny you mention the Jehovah's Witnesses. There were some ex Witness SGA's (second generation adults) at the conference. we had a lot of things in common. one was all the prostelytizing going on around us. our parents were constantly working to teach/force others to learn about the true way. SGI isn't bible based but the weirdness of cult life still abounds.

it feels like my parents make it a point to discuss SGI and it makes me uncomfortable. On a deeper level, I don't even think they know how to relate to others who aren't in SGI so they just quote Ikeda or use SGI language. They are telling others about me cause I've gotten some messages from different people out of the blue who just want to say hello - people who wouldn't know my phone number any other way than through them. Its gotten so I don't answer my phone if I don't recognize the phone number. I run into members here and there. I tell people I don't go to meetings. They continue to behave as if I've lost my way and will come back eventually. Sometimes I want to scream that when I go to meetings it actually makes me sick to my stomach. I want to tell them my heart is not going to change. I tried to force myself to just accept them when every cell in my body screamed not to, so in acutality I left in my heart many years ago. but I keep it short and sweet like you guys mentioned. there really is no point.

Exactly evergreen, there is no point. For them we are still members, inactive maybe, confused at the moment. It would be worse for them if we would have joined Nichiren Shoshu. This actually says a lot, in any other somewhat more mainstream faith your fellow believers would have worried that you’ve lost your faith – and from their perspective I could relate to that worry in a way. But in SGI things are always a bit different. Evergreen why not be a bit provocative at times and if your parents use those terms either ignore them or ask if they could elaborate on what they actually mean. Its sad in some ways I know – being in a cult can really transform a person in such a way that they become ‘socially handicapped’, I do not know how else to put it – they can only interact with their kind. It is so bloody weird.
Yesterday I was watching a programme on musicians in North Korea. Apart from the fact that ‘their beloved great leader’ has personally written most of the music and operas performed in North Korea (yea right), I was shocked by the terms used by those interviewed. Okay it’s a dictatorship, but one could not get rid of the feeling that some of those interviewed (certainly selected before) were seriously brainwashed and you know what people? It sent shivers down my spine, because it was so extremely similar to the SGI jargon. Have you not heard too, that some felt as if Ikeda was like a father to them? One singer showed the western beauty products the ‘beloved leader’ had sent her - it reminded me a bit of the Danish biscuits Ikeda always ‘sent’.
I just thought to myself if Cousin-Rufus was to come - that’s what people would talk like.

Quote
evergreen
its funny you mention the Jehovah's Witnesses. There were some ex Witness SGA's (second generation adults) at the conference. we had a lot of things in common. one was all the prostelytizing going on around us. our parents were constantly working to teach/force others to learn about the true way. SGI isn't bible based but the weirdness of cult life still abounds.

it feels like my parents make it a point to discuss SGI and it makes me uncomfortable. On a deeper level, I don't even think they know how to relate to others who aren't in SGI so they just quote Ikeda or use SGI language. They are telling others about me cause I've gotten some messages from different people out of the blue who just want to say hello - people who wouldn't know my phone number any other way than through them. Its gotten so I don't answer my phone if I don't recognize the phone number. I run into members here and there. I tell people I don't go to meetings. They continue to behave as if I've lost my way and will come back eventually. Sometimes I want to scream that when I go to meetings it actually makes me sick to my stomach. I want to tell them my heart is not going to change. I tried to force myself to just accept them when every cell in my body screamed not to, so in acutality I left in my heart many years ago. but I keep it short and sweet like you guys mentioned. there really is no point.

Dear Everegreen:

Not to sound flippant because I mean this in all sincerity, were you to join the Nichiren Shoshu [Buddha forbid] or the Kempon Hokke, I think they would threaten to disown you like the Ikegami brothers. I know I will get a lot of criticism, even from my good friends here, for what I am going to say but it is the truth. It is a source of great satisfaction that, in regards to the SGI members who too, oft made me sick to my stomach that now, I make them sick to their stomachs while I am mostly peaceful and at ease. Good medicine tastes bitter and one reserves the most powerful and noxious medicines for the most seriously ill.

Nichijew

Quote
Rothaus
Yesterday I was watching a programme on musicians in North Korea. Apart from the fact that ‘their beloved great leader’ has personally written most of the music and operas performed in North Korea (yea right), I was shocked by the terms used by those interviewed. Okay it’s a dictatorship, but one could not get rid of the feeling that some of those interviewed (certainly selected before) were seriously brainwashed and you know what people? It sent shivers down my spine, because it was so extremely similar to the SGI jargon. Have you not heard too, that some felt as if Ikeda was like a father to them? One singer showed the western beauty products the ‘beloved leader’ had sent her - it reminded me a bit of the Danish biscuits Ikeda always ‘sent’.
.

Evergreen and Rothaus, I think that comparing SGI to North Korea or the Jehovah Witnesses is quite apt. When I read threads on the "New Cults, Sects and Religious Movements" it is amazing how similar so many of these groups and leaders are. The Rick Ross archive has some interesting articles about North Korea.

--Dictators and cult leaders are often very charismatic, power seekers with enormous egos and a huge sense of entitlement. Kim Jong Il feasts on imported lobster and caviar while North Korean peasants starve. Ikeda, a billionaire, has no problem asking for donations from members struggling from paycheck to paycheck.

--Ikeda has met with, and praised dictators -- Noriega of Panama, Fidel Castro of Cuba, officials of the People's Republic of China, and Ceaucescu of Romania.

--Both Kim and Ikeda have amazing propaganda machines that crank out their praises. Both men are given practically mythologic, and heroic life stories -- Kim as "The Dear Leader," Ikeda as the great mentor. At the same time, they're also portrayed as Daddy-like, being concerned with the smallest details of their subjects' lives -- Kim would buy make-up for a singer, Ikeda would send cookies to a meeting. Both SGI members and North Koreans are constantly fed stories of how much the Great Man is doing for them.

--Both Kim and Ikeda control the flow of information to their subjects and control through fear. With Kim, this is literal and heavy-handed: banning cellphones, foreign media and the internet from North Korea, and subjects who won't cooperate are executed or thrown into gulags. With SGI, members are told only what Ikeda wants them to know about SGI, and are kept too busy to think much about what they're being told. Members who still question can be pressured by friends and family who are in SGI -- and told that all sorts of calamities will fall upon them if they leave or criticize SGI. Yes....it is very scary outside of North Korea/SGI! There are wicked people, enemies all around ready to attack poor innocent SGI/North Korea!

--Kim and Ikeda manage to get a great deal of free labor from their underlings.

--Both men are the chosen heir of a great leader -- Kim Il Sung, previous dictator of North Korea and father of current dictator Kim Jong Il, and of course, Josei Toda, mentor of Ikeda.

--I think it was both Nichijew and Antony Elmore (www.proudblackbuddhist.com) who described the old NSA (Soka Gakkai) conventions as "Stalinist." Huge pictures and posters of Ikeda everywhere, cheering crowds, performances, just like the video I once saw of some North Korean festival. No roller-skating pyramid of young men in North Korean festivals, though. Ikeda gets an extra point here.

--North Koreans have pictures of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in their homes; SGI members have pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Ikeda in theirs. North Koreans are required to wear buttons with either Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il's pictures on them. SGI members aren't doing that -- at least as far as I know. The point goes to Kim Jong Il in this round.

Cousin Rufus would be utopia, a perfect-strife-free world where everyone is equal? Funny, some people thought that communism would be like that too.

quote from tsukimoto: "Cousin Rufus would be utopia, a perfect-strife-free world where everyone is equal? Funny, some people thought that communism would be like that too."

I felt the same way to!! Especially at the last Rock the Era meeting before I left for good. It was very scary and very creepy. All of these young people were giving "experiences" and the number one thing that they kept was, " I don't know if I can keep up with Sensei, but I will try my best to shakabuku as many people as I possibly can. It was the last meeting that I ever attended at any community center. I knew in my heart that the "world peace", that they were talking about was not in tune to what my perception of world peace was. Just my food for thought for today.

Hello, It has been a while since I have been on this board. My sponsor had called me back in March, and left a message saying that it was obvious that I was cutting ties and she didn't care if I chanted or not, but that my happiness was what mattered to her (yeah right).

Leading up to her phonecall, I was not chanting, and I was feeling weirded out by the practice (which I still am). I had been debating whether to give up my Gohonzon and what to do. The phonecall from my sponsor kind of bothered me. I talked to her just to say hi.

Shortly after, I had a spell of anxiety ( I have suffered from anxiety in the past). This anxiety had gotten so bad, I finally did turn to my Gohonzon and chanted because I was so desperate. I talked a little bit to members of my district just to touch base. Now, I am for sure feeling still weirded out by the SGI.

I feel like I want to try other things. I am gratefully in counseling ( not necessarily for the SGI, but for my self esteem). When I think about my life the past four years since I got my Gohonzon, it feels like it has gotten worse. I moved to a bad neighborhood a month after receiving Gohonzon. I have lived here since then, and it has been a terribly depressing experience. I have had benefits with my Gohonzon as well, but I am so over the way things are in the organization. I am thinking about all of this particularly since my Gohonzon Birthday would be Friday and I am having mixed feelings about it. I just wanted to say hello to the board again.

@ findin gmyway. You sound just like me in a lot of ways!! I to suffer from anxiety. As a matter of fact I went to my therapist today and we talked about SGI. This seems to be the topic of discourse at our sessions nowadays mixed in with other issues. It's funny that you mentioned that you were in counseling for your self-esteem, because today when I was talking to my therapist, I was honest when I said, I don't blame the SGI for what happened to me. However, I do believe that the group served as a band-aid to cover up all of the emotional issues that I was going through. As far as the chanting, if you read a few posts back I to have had some struggles with whether to chant or not and have been tempted, yet after careful consideration this week, I had a few epiphanies that, I am ok if I never do it again and probably never will. I still struggle though, with thoughts of bad things happening from time to time as a result of me leaving, in spite of the fact that I am almost confident that it is time to do away with the big gohonzan and butsudan in my closet. We have a lot of similarities: I to practiced for four years and this Friday would have been my Buddhhist birthday to. I used to live in a terrible neighborhood at first but now I live in a better place. I will say this though as I am sure I have said before on this thread; While it's true that the organization never contributed to my low self-esteem, I can attest to the fact that their was a lot of mind-control, directed at me and other members. I've seen and heard it first hand, and those that (just like me) that were subjected to it knew it was wrong but for the most part chose not to say anything for fear of being labeled an outsider and being isolated from the group. This right here is the glue (and other things) that keeps the organization together. Keep your head up. Even on the days that you are negative and cannot get out of bed. And always remember the people that truly love and care about you, even when you don't love yourself. Sometimes this is all I have to keep me going.


Take Care,
lthomas.