To clarify, not commenting about making 'goals' and all that of course.
For example, a person might make a "collage" with photo's of some of their goals, which might be a new car, and the rest of it.
Just by making those goals, and focussing your mind on it everyday, your mind will start to come up with ideas on how to achieve those goals.

So if a person had a "goal collage" on their wall, and it contained a white Mercedes convertible, and flat Abs, who cares. Its their business.

But to kneel down in front of this, and start chanting "sacred syllables" for a Mercedes in every pot, and what the hell, world peace, and flatter abs...it really is laughable.

SGI are experts at mixing things together to control people.
They also turn SGI into your 'family' and then guilt the hell out of you to make you work harder. They must have learned that one in Japan!

Sorry for the profanity, but it has a purpose.
SGI is a gigantic mindf*ck, from top to bottom.

There are two types of benefits to chanting Namu Myoho renge kyo, inconspicuous and conspicuous. About the inconspicuous benefits, Nichiren teaches:

"Why do you not, if only this once, try planting the wonderful seeds that lead to eternal and unchanging Buddhahood? Though at present you may taste only a tiny fraction of the everlasting joys that await you in the future, surely you should not spend your time thoughtlessly coveting worldly fame and profit, which are as fleeting as a bolt of lightning or the morning dew.

and

"Since childhood, I, Nichiren, have never prayed for the secular things of this life but have single-mindedly sought to become a Buddha."

Neither Toda nor Ikeda were enlightened so why would anyone follow them or their unenlightened organization.

As far as conspicuous benefits, there are testimonials in every religion but here again, we look to Nichiren. Nichiren's abilities to survive far surpassed other religious and secular figures such as Jesus, Osama Bin Laden. and Napoleon. He attributed his survival to Namu myoho renge kyo

I have only escaped certain death twice in my life [that I know of] so, among other things, I too believe in the conspicuous benefit of Namu Myoho renge kyo.

Nichibu



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2012 11:48PM by Nichijew.

Its interesting, if a person really really believed that SGI chanting had some type of quantum mechanical power to affect the fabric of space-time and make things happen...
Then if they had 25 or 100 goals, and were chanting and thinking about them everyday, or 10x a day, then sooner or later one of those goals is going to make an appearance.
Either by quantum mechanics, or by the law of large numbers. [www.skepdic.com]


If a person wants a new DVD player, and is chanting for it, they will also be thinking about it too.
Then a while later, they are walking home...and by a chanting miracle, they see a DVD player beside someone's garbage, and so the universe gave them a free DVD player through quantum mechanical chanting power.
Or someone put the DVD player out as they got a new one, and since you were thinking about it, you noticed it, then made the connection. [www.skepdic.com]

SGI are experts at inserting themselves at the center of their people's lives.
All of their life goals, become property of SGI chanting.

But what if a person could get better results without SGI chanting?
What if they made their life goals list, and thought about it as much as they chanted about it?
Then did what needed to be done to achieve those things, as much as they are able?
What if that in fact produced better results, without the negative SGI side-effects?


But again, SGI is brilliant.
They get people to take their most important things in life, and make SGI the center of it.
So if you give up SGI, you are giving up the most important things in your life.

But a person can take their own goals, and just de-brand them from SGI, and get better results.


But you can understand the appeal of the concept of SGI chanting for stuff.
Its the EXACT same belief system as New Thought, just with different window dressing.
New Thought [www.skepdic.com]
and it is very difficult to get out of those slippery belief systems.
As what do you replace it with?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/2012 12:01AM by The Anticult.

A couple of days ago a SGI Leader showed up at my house and tried unsuccessfully to get me to come to a district meeting, when I declined he held out his hand and told me I should give my Zimu directly to him with no envelope . Just to stop by unexpected is one thing but then to solicit money on somebody’s front porch is another. Any donation to any organization is of spiritual continence, and some members are so brainwashed they think it more or the most spiritual to donate to the SGI. To the members of such an organization I say my money will be of more benefit to at least a dozen other organizations. One phrase comes to mind for the SGI “from my cold dead grip.”

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The Anticult
Its interesting, if a person really really believed that SGI chanting had some type of quantum mechanical power to affect the fabric of space-time and make things happen...
Then if they had 25 or 100 goals, and were chanting and thinking about them everyday, or 10x a day, then sooner or later one of those goals is going to make an appearance.
Either by quantum mechanics, or by the law of large numbers. [www.skepdic.com]


If a person wants a new DVD player, and is chanting for it, they will also be thinking about it too.
Then a while later, they are walking home...and by a chanting miracle, they see a DVD player beside someone's garbage, and so the universe gave them a free DVD player through quantum mechanical chanting power.
Or someone put the DVD player out as they got a new one, and since you were thinking about it, you noticed it, then made the connection. [www.skepdic.com]

LMFAO!!

Is chanting a wave or a particle, neither or both??? Can someone please explain it to me by using a Feynman Diagram??

LOL!

The hard-cores are shakabuku/zaimu/membership-increase driven EXACTLY as what's been expressed here, because they all want to be HAPPY! It is allll for them, and in their minds, even if a member tells them no way, no how anymore, or people show no interest in coming to meetings, they can brush it off and walk away toward the next one...because THEY ARE MAKING THE CAUSES TO BE THE HAPPIEST, MOST FORTUNATE FOLK IN THE UNIVERSE!!!

It's still a carrot to me. And they want this happiness and fortune sooooo much, because it's been promised to them! Yes! PROMISED, DARN IT! AND THEY DESERVE IT! And the Lexuses and Rolexes, too!

Just the fact that a leader came to the door to rally attendance to a meeting, and THEN held out the hand for a contribution-no envelope!....lordy be. Lordy be.

I'll say it again: SGI is an insular world unto itself. If everyone jumped on the KR wagon train around the world, what a scary world it would be.

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Zhinichi llamamoto
A couple of days ago a SGI Leader showed up at my house and tried unsuccessfully to get me to come to a district meeting, when I declined he held out his hand and told me I should give my Zimu directly to him with no envelope.

Having a total lack of shame is very helpful when you're an SGI member. I was once badgered by my district leader to go with him on a home visit to a guy who had stopped coming to meetings. I tried to convince myself that what I was doing was good for this member, but once the district leader began yelling the person's name loudly when there was no answer at the door, I became really embarrassed. When he started to look for a way to go around to the back of the house, I just wanted to disappear.

and I am not making fun of anyone...anyone involved in any sort of modern cult believes some version of this.
New Thought used to say it was the power of the Christ Consciousness...now they say its Quantum Physics, as that sounds more acceptable.
These abstract concepts become a catch-all for "then a miracle happens".

In reality, its mainly the Confirmation Bias, if one really tries to be honest and look at only the evidence.

Everyone has been through this, one way or another. If its not SGI, then maybe it was was something else.
So you can bet anyone posting on these boards has wasted years of their lives on these various sects and cults, and spent lots of money they didn't have to spend.

There are people locked into Byron Katie for years and years, or any one of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of these sects.

The Secret nonsense that was popular a few years ago, was the exact same thing.
People seem to want to believe they can get everything in life they want, without effort, and without failure and the human condition.
So the salesmen like SGI and a hundreds other cults, sell them that delusion, and people keep buying it, but of course they are being deceived in the sales process.

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Hitch

Is chanting a wave or a particle, neither or both??? Can someone please explain it to me by using a Feynman Diagram??

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SGBye

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Zhinichi llamamoto
A couple of days ago a SGI Leader showed up at my house and tried unsuccessfully to get me to come to a district meeting, when I declined he held out his hand and told me I should give my Zimu directly to him with no envelope.

Having a total lack of shame is very helpful when you're an SGI member. I was once badgered by my district leader to go with him on a home visit to a guy who had stopped coming to meetings. I tried to convince myself that what I was doing was good for this member, but once the district leader began yelling the person's name loudly when there was no answer at the door, I became really embarrassed. When he started to look for a way to go around to the back of the house, I just wanted to disappear.

I've got a similar story to share along these lines:

It was a Sunday (YMD) morning and more bodies were needed to drag out to the meeting place, SO . . . . . off we go in little groups to go and corral some "taiten" (cult speak for no longer practicing and not likely to ever again) or "sleeping" (more cult speak for someone who is no longer practicing, but is malleable enough to lure back) (ex-)members.

We go up to one lonely, poor looking ranch house, with no yard, just pure dirt and a beat up car sitting in the driveway. The senior "leader" (who serves as the "teacher" and all of us young ymd are the apprentices, learning how it is all done) goes into action.

Knock, knock.
No answer.
Ding-dong.
No answer.
Double-ding-dong.
Still no answer.
Louder-KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
No answer.
Two triple ding-dongs in quick succession.
Still . . . . no answer.

"Leader" goes up to side window, cups his hands to his brow and peers in looking to see if anyone is there. No luck.
"Leader" dispatches the most brainwashed underling to run around to the back of the has and knock on the back door and see if he can see anything inside any of the other windows.
Short wait, with all of us other ymd stunned, subtly picking our jaws up off the ground.
Nope, no answer, all curtains closed.

"Leader" then rechecks his notes. Confirms with local members that this is the right place and what kind of car the guy drives. Yep, it matches the clunker sitting in the driveway (guy obviously only has one car).

More knocking and ringing on the door bell, this time followed up with yelling, "FRANK!!! LOOK I KNOW YOU'RE HOME, BECAUSE YOUR CAR IS SITTING HERE IN THE DRIVEWAY. COME ON, ANSWER THE DOOR. WE JUST WANNA TALK TO YOU FOR A COUPLE OF MINUTES AND SEE HOW YOU ARE DOING? ARE YOU OKAY!?!?" (For discussion's sake, we'll just call the guy "Frank.")

Long delay. Frank responds, mumbling, "All right, all right, just a moment."

We wait, smiling. "Leader" full of smug satisfaction.

Frank finally opens the door, dressed only in his boxer shorts. Frank's a young, decent looking guy, athletic, muscular, probably in his early 20's, hair all mussed up. It's obvious we just woke the guy up.

"Leader", with big sh**-eating grin and over done handshake, makes some small talk quickly followed up by telling Frank to come on out to our meeting today. Frank's hesitant. "Leader" tries different tactics to lure Frank out. Nothing is working. "Leader" eventually say, "FRANK, what would you rather do? Sleep in late on a Sunday morning and waste your day or come on out with us and make a good cause and create some fortune for your future?"

Frank's still not listening.

Finally, a lady's voice calls out from Frank's bedroom (Frank is a single YMD, btw), "Honey, would you come back to bed, please." Frank says, "Yeah, babe, I'll be right there."

Frank turns back to the "leader" and says "Look, you guys got me at a really bad time, OK. Maybe some other day. I'll call you." Door shuts and CLICKS (is locked).

"Leader", is silent and for the first time, at a loss for words. With a shrug of the shoulders, we all turn and start to walk away. Many of the ymd are now whispering amongst themselves and one of the things said was "I'd rather be doing what Frank is doing, too."

**********

True story. I was there.

PS - To Anti-Cult, I'm not laughing at anybody either. I just think it is hilarious, that's all.

Btw, my offer still stands, I'll be awaiting that Feynman Diagram. (I'm serious.)

Ok....I see the point! What can I say, I practiced a long time! I do understand what u r saying! I just now took my sgi off facebook. That felt odd. Sad I really liked some of the members! But the one I cannot deal with is awful! She used to turn around & tell me how to chant...It really never felt right after the priesthood left & I was gone for sev. yrs! So, I will have to reexamin myself! I really appreciate the truth & enjoy looking at all this...never want to go thru this again!