I did want to let everyone know that I've started an sgi-refugee interactive blog; it's my first attempt, so I appreciate your patience as I learn the process. We already have a couple of really good conversations going over there, and I welcome any of you that would like to join in. In no way is it an attempt to detract from this forum - I owe this "place" my sanity! It's just another venue to get together and chat. I do have permission from Rick Ross to make this little announcement, by the way - don't want anyone to think I'm doing anything underhanded!

It's located at:

taitenwisdom.weebly.com

Thanks!

In case anyone is interested, here is an article in which the author, Bronte Baxter, asks very serious questions about the actual implications of mantra
(aka chanting, japa, dhikr)

The author uses different terminology and classification than some of us would prefer, but the questions are dead on.


Blowing the Whistle, Chpt. 1: The Hidden Agenda of Mantra Meditation

What I expected to see when I came back to the Fairfield scene after 20 years
away from Transcendental Meditation was a group of mainstay meditators ...
brontebaxter.wordpress.com/mantra-meditation-reveals-a-hidden-agenda-are- the-gods-alive-and-well-and-working-towards-the-new-world-order/ - 192k - Cached - Similar pages

This is disturbing on a number of levels; while I don't buy into the concept of a variety of gods, certainly the adoption of a "god's" characteristics (Kali, for instance) is unsettling to say the least.

It's troubling that meditation become trendy (again) - you can't swing a cat on Huffington Post without hitting an article on the benefits of it. I suppose it's harmless enough on its own . . . who doesn't need to shut their brain down every once in awhile? But those who claim to be teachers of it? We've all had the experience of trusting a teacher who appeared to have our good/the good of the world at heart, and it didn't turn out so well for any of us. The more popularized something like that becomes, the shadier it gets. For unscrupulous people, those who crave power or money or both, it's a golden opportunity for abuse. Back in the 60s and 70s, there weren't a lot of opportunities to get sucked by a maharishi or hare Krishna people; they just weren't that accessible. Now there's a guru on every other street-corner promising miracles.

We've come to learn here that the safest source of spiritual guidance is ourself; there's nothing wrong with reading and finding material that resonates with you, but we have to be prepared to listen for the slightest dis-chord. I always go back to good old Walt Whitman, who knew a thing or two:

". . . re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."

Just a test post - please ignore.

I was trying to post a link to the sgi usa site, and my post was rejected. Apparently there was a security issue with it.

The reason I wanted to post it is that it seems they have removed the password barrier to the leaders resources page. I just wanted to kind of peek over the wall. I found it interesting that they are still administering those lame exams; they said early last year that 2013 was going to be the last year for them.

I have to report a small but significant victory - I was told that my contract at work will end on 3/7.

Ah! How is this a victory you might ask.

I didn't chant. I didn't even think about chanting until a couple of hours later when I thought "Hey! My first response was to start to go into damage-control mode, not to chant."

This is a major thing, and the more I think about it, the happier I become.

> “Your chanting-addict friend reminds me of a
> former friend of mine who’s heavily involved in
> SGI. I went on vacation once with her, and another
> friend of ours who isn’t an SGI member. My SGI
> friend just became extremely anxious, perhaps from
> being away from home and in a strange place. We
> were at this beautiful beach — and all she
> wanted to do was sit in the motel room, very
> withdrawn and irritable, curtains drawn, and chant
> for hours. Our non-SGI friend and I tried to get
> her to come out and do things with us, and she
> refused. All she wanted to do was sit in that
> motel room and chant. She’d come out for meals
> and that was about it. So, the other girl and I
> just went out without her and had fun…what were
> we going to do?” –Tsukimoto
>
> “This is really sad. I talked to a lot of people
> suffering from anxiety in the course of my
> healing, I noticed that isolation was a common
> theme, and I was no stranger to that. I’m very
> grateful that I had people that were pushing me to
> get back out into life. There seemed to be a lot
> of anxious people in SGI and my SGI “mentor”
> would tell me stories about these various members
> of the group that I was in and their various
> conditions — this one has depression, that one
> has anxiety — and they had been in SGI for
> years. I said, wow, that’s amazing. If they’ve
> been chanting all this time why haven’t they
> gotten better? Her answer: They’re doing it
> wrong. They don’t attend enough meetings and
> they’re not chanting with determination to
> overcome their fundamental darkness.” — Kitty
> Luv
>
My former friend has a tendency to anxiety and depression, as I do. Depressed, anxious people are great targets for SGI members looking to shakabuku someone. If you feel desperate and hopeless, you will do anything to feel better. Initially, the love-bombing that guests are given, being told that you can chant for, and get anything, and the effects of chanting on the brain and nervous system -- it all can make you feel like you've really changed something.

As time goes by, maybe it takes more chanting to get the same high. Maybe it's hard to admit to yourself that you put all this time into chanting and SGI activities, and life really isn't any better. If you get guidance, you will have been told what Kitty Luv's leader said: You aren't chanting enough, or with enough determination, you don't do enough SGI activities. So on top of the anxiety and depression you may already be feeling -- you also feel like you've failed. So you try harder -- and it becomes a real vicious cycle that sucks people in for years.

My former friend, like many SGI women that I knew, spoke many times of wanting to be in a relationship. Yet these women spent so much time chanting and doing SGI activities. When did they have time to meet anyone, or develop a relationship? There are not many SGI members in my area, so the odds of finding love with another local SGI member were not very good. And realistically, how many nonSGI members could accept the amount of time that these SGI women spent chanting and in SGI activities?

People can lose so many years, so much time, to SGI.

You raise good points, Tsukimoto. Sgi seems to have the ability to sniff out the vulnerable, anxious and depressed - all who are so easily manipulated and prone to all that love-bombing.

And forget about finding relationships; if members of your preferred gender aren't already in a relationship, I think we were able to sort of see that there was something broken in them. And - let's be honest - we were a little broken ourselves; who outside of the org is going to be interested in someone who sits down in front of a box twice a day and chants themselves into a trance? Not an appealing prospect.

For a very long time, I naively believed that if I could ever finally get into a marital relationship with a woman that chanted, it would be an absolutely ideal partnership. Hogwash! I eventually proved myself wrong about that idiotic notion not once, but twice! Where did I ever get such a bone-headed idea? You guessed it - das org programming!

My two years of (seemingly) self-imposed monkhood was supposed to create a big enough supply of "good fortune" to foster the discovery of a perfect YWD member to marry and live happily ever after with. I begged and pleaded with the scroll and my senior leader endlessly, but the"right" girl still didn't magically materialize. So strange how "Love" never had any bearing on any of this warped magic plan for marital bliss. As a matter of fact, deep human love has absolutely no importance or bearing on anything when it comes to SGcult dogma and agenda, unless of course, love (or lack of) can be used to strengthen the crushing grip the SGcult strives to wield over its confused and mind controlled members.

Talk about "looking for love in all the wrong places"! I, too, chanted to find a nice Buddhist boy. I can only imagine how near-impossible it would be to extricate yourself from sgi if you have a partner in the practice.

My ex-friend in WA had gone taiten for a while (many years ago), and then she met her now-husband who was YMD. He brought her back in more than 30 years ago. Her entire life revolves her practice and sgi activities, as does her husband's. Their 20-something daughter lives in Hawaii (poor thing); the last I heard, which was several months ago, Miss-Fortune-Baby was still as involved as ever in das org, but was expanding friendships with non-members. Her mother was ever-worried that the little princess would fall for a non-member; her daughter countered that with "well, I can always shakubuku him." I wonder what would happen if she fell madly in love with someone who wasn't interested in being shakubuku'd?

I often thank my lucky stars that I never did meet that nice Buddhist-boy; it's been hard enough losing the friends I have - how do you pull yourself from the quicksand when you're with someone who doesn't see the danger? It has to be incredibly hard. I haven't seen any postings describing that situation, but it has to be as difficult as quitting drinking, smoking or doing drugs yet having a partner who's sitting there next to you with a Natty Boh, a pack of Kools and a crack-pipe in front of them.