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ShavoyQuote
Findingmywaytoday
Thank you Rattyboy. Ugh, it is really annoying, and I agree with you that it would be time to find some new friends. I also was thinking and wondering if SGI members feel like they can "win" and "create value" without chanting. I think and know you can, but caught myself doubting it because of my time in SGI.
Findingmywaytoday, hello...people of all faiths absolutely create value and win every day without ever hearing of SGI, Gohonzon and Senor Ikeda. ("Create value" seems to be an SGI trademark.) They live full lives with all the ups and downs without ever having heard of SGI, Gohonzon and the Big Dude. And I can speak of family and friends who died content at ripe old ages, despite disease in some cases. They had no regrets on how their lives had played out.
No SGI. No Gohonzon. No you-know-who!
I've always kept one eye cocked open throughout my years with SGI and when I've spoken about this "phenomenon" that other people seem to experience benefits, gotten prayers answered, felt satisfaction in their soul, wellll...what can die-hard SGI-ers say? Some do agree, plenty grit teeth and chomp out the Refute-This-Inferior-Mindset-STAT! response....
SGI has not and will not ever have the True License on Life. We are human, and with all the individual DNA's, how can we think or feel exactly the same??
I'm with you,
Shavoy
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Findingmywaytoday
Also, it was noted once that the more you participate in SGI, the more you participate in your life. Whatever..
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wakatta1
List,
I am not a psychologist nor a cult expert however one thing that seems evident is that once someone severs their life away from an organization like SGI a void is left behind. In fact, an organization like SGI which so strongly touts having a "Purpose" to your life certainly will have been deeply embedded into ones psychology. People who in the past did not have a unifying component in their life end up like shipwrecked sailors sitting on a strange beach wondering "what happened?" The safe and comfortable world they once inhabited is now in wreckage all around them.
Like those sailors, some take the wreckage and attempt to rebuild their lives using what they found, like Gilligan's island it ends up being just a copy of what once was. Machinery fashioned out of coconuts and sea shells are just empty reminders of a once promising but long gone past. Acting out one's role as if nothing had happened seems to me to be deluded.
In a practice such as ex-SGI-ism, the 800 pound gorilla in the room is the question of whether it worked or not and if it was so effective, why did it evolve the way it did.
When I severed ties with SGI one of the first things that went was the chanting and gongyo. My reasoning was this: Like an iceberg, the part of the practice that was visible was flawed. If Ikea could change gongyo on a whim, if he could change and re-manufacture the gohonzon on a whim, then it was reduced to being just some human creation, subject to all the distortions of an organization motivated by power - and that was only the part that was visible! What lay beneath the surface?
Gongyo, being the fundamental and essential practice beyond chanting clearly appeared to malleable without clear reasons why. Turning back to NMRK, there was equally debate over what it meant, using Namu or not, it's significance at the core of the practice, etc. and it's ability to change and revitalize a life - obviously, when the very core of an organization based on the daimoku slips into corruption and loses its way, the essential component of that groups "salvation" needs to be scrutinized as truly embodying what is claimed. If the entity of the gohonzon could be "manipulated" then so could the daimoku! The canonical claim that somehow daimoku is an eternal truth and a unifying force continues to be made but the evidence in history that it hasn't unified anything at all. Can a life philosophy be based on flash comic books simply because some guru says so?
Once the self-consistency was shown (to me) as being non-existent - just some marketing hype, I decided that attempting to go back down that path would be nothing more than putting "new wine in old skins". Having practiced very hard as a member, consuming a lot of reading material and struggling to grasp the teaching, I decided that (for me at least) it didn't make sense to simply move to another, "NSA-like" organization and simply resolved to go on with my life divested of the vestiges of that old philosophy. The core of the practice and the belief system in my opinion had been polluted beyond reclaim, and everywhere I looked I just saw facets of the same pollution, just under different names.
Now, each person must map out their own salvation, but based on what I experienced in my years of practice there is an undercurrent of darkness wrapped up in the SGI experience and until that organization comes to honest recognition of the "parasite in it's bowels" I'm afraid it's disease will have to run its course before I would ever consider it as a viable life philosophy again.
This is a painful thing for me to say given the relationship I once had, but the truth is the truth. The aspects of the "old practice" are all interwoven one with another and buying into one element brings all the rest along as well. I don't see how the wreckage can be reassembled, and looking beyond the reef and the wrecked hulk, I see many other wrecks out there too which causes me to believe this isn't a "safe harbor".
I'm sorry if I might have offended anyone with my analogies, I only speak for myself and am sharing my insights with the group.
Wakatta1
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Findingmywaytoday
I know what you mean Doubtful. I also find chanting NMRK to be a different experience than deep breathing. After chanting, I must say I feel more motivated. It isn't so much about relaxation, but whatever works for people is what is good. I see nothing wrong per se, with chanting NMRK, but I see a lot wrong with the context that it is under.
Anyhow, I was just thinking that when one is supposed to give an experience at an SGI meeting, one is supposed to mention that you got what you wanted because you chanted, and also more importantly that you participated in SGI activities, and you wrote to President Ikeda. I remember hearing from an area leader that we should only talk about SGI things at meetings, and not about the Secret, or self-help books. This area leader said she had been to meetings where the guests were giving guidance to the SGI members.
I remember thinking that if I am only supposed to reach my goal through chanting and participating in SGI activities, then this alone was not working for me, and I felt bad about myself and my life, which now in retrospect is ridiculous. It is amazing how SGI gets one to believe that if you think those things don't work, then it is like you are saying your life doesn't work. I think that is silly. I now find it refreshing to reach my goal however I see fit. It has nothing to do with SGI activities. I find volunteering for an organization of my choosing just as helpful to help me overcome myself, and my self pity.
I once posted on here that I felt inclined to help the firefighters as they were battling a blaze here in my city. They were accepting donations of gatorade, water, and snackbars to help the firefighters. I told some SGI members about that, and they said: ooh, that's nice, but if we donate, then we won't have money for our family funfest. I didn't see that a priority, so maybe I was never a dedicated member.
When there is a disaster somewhere, very often the first things SGI members think about are other SGI members. I found this as a red flag, because world peace to me means helping everyone!