Never Build Ashrams!

for ex-BKs to discuss matters related to experiences in BKWSU & after leaving.
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Pink Panther

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Never Build Ashrams!

Post10 Dec 2014

When the Yogic student starts an Ashram, slowly luxury creeps in. The original Vairagya (dispassionate state, non-attraction to wordly things) gradually wanes. He loses what he has gained and is unconscious of his downfall. Ashram develops a begging mentality and institutional egoism. He is the same house-holder now in some other form (Rupantara-bheda) though he is in the garb of a Sannyasin. O aspirants, beware! I warn you seriously. Never build Ashrams.

- fromKUNDALINI Yoga by SRI SWAMI SIVANANDA

I felt this was a worthy quote given the recent revelations at the Royal Commission into institutional abuse of childrenat Australia’s oldest Yoga ashram, the Satyananda ashram at Mangrove Mountain NSW, as well as the bourgeois ways of the BKIVV whose sole purpose has, since the repeated failure of their expected apocalypse, changed from one of personal ”salvation” to one of institutional sustenance, propagation, promotion and aggrandisement, accumulating real estate and supporting the lives of those who never expected to live this long and have no independent means of support!
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ex-l

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Re: Never Build Ashrams!

Post10 Dec 2014

Funnily enough, this is one of the points the PBKs make ... that the Murli clearly stated *not* to buy properties (leading to that the religion should only expand family home to home). However, like the "no pictures of Lekhraj Kirpalani rule", the "Baba" was thrown out with the bath water.

Did he realise in advance what an economic and spiritual/egotistic burden it would create?

A few years back now, as an experiment addressing attachment/power plays, the cult tried to move around a load of center-in-charges to other centres. Apparently they were so unhappy that it only lasted a few weeks and then they all went back to their own "kingdoms".

Shame the cult is not more mature to document all such episodes. It lack a true chronicler/s as other religions had. Indeed,, it prefers whitewash and reinvention ... the pretentiousness of pretending the polished, wealthy now is how it has always been. And certainly not acknowledging all the lack of ethics, abuse and exploitation - and waste of resources - that has got them to where they are today.

I think it is attracting/engendering a kind of conceitedness/arrogance amongst followers ... not just what we would have called body consciousness but property conscience or status conscience in people quite often not capable of doing it for themselves, e.g many of the 'mata matriarchs' who, essentially, have evolved a strategy to live off men and other younger women, or the drop out, odd ball Westerners ... the 'welfare benefit BKs'.

I suppose for the donors there is some kind of egoistic pay back too?
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Pink Panther

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Re: Never Build Ashrams!

Post11 Dec 2014

Listen to this man’s recounting of his harrowing experiences growing up in the Mangrove Mountain ashram and what became of him in life. Audio - 9 minutes.



Just like this Mangrove mountain ashram, the top BKWSU leaders, although not themselves sexual or physical abusers, were as criminal as the parents and others in the Satyananda ashram this boy grew up in, equally complicit in the crimes.

Even Dadi Kumarka, whom many look back on nostalgically as a paragon of virtue and wisdom hushed up abuses, did not report anything to authorities, did nothing for the victims, was part of the cover up, as were the BK parents of the children whose cases I am aware of.

This cover-up mentality continues today in the BKs in various cases reported here.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Never Build Ashrams!

Post15 Feb 2015

Update: The Royal Commission into Institutional Abuse of Children has turned its eyes to Jewish insititutions. The main cases have emerged from orthodox jewish schools, called yeshivas, where cases reported to the school authorities were covered up for years.

It came out at the commission that there is a tradition in judaism to never report crimes committed by a fellow jew to non-jewish authorities. This culture goes back to their days under Romans and others historically, and is still upheld in modern secular society. It unfortunately also provided cover for the schools to do nothing, not even reprimand, let alone dismiss, the perpetrators.

We also just had the Australian Human Rights Commission Report on the treatment of children in immigration detention ( asylum seekers) which was scathing of both political parties that have governed in the last few years and support the same policies - of using cruelty as a deterrent to other potential asylum seekers. (Yes Australia has sunk that low) .

The current government, like most institutions, made it all about themselves rather than concern for the children in question, accusing the Human Rights commissioner of being politically motivated by releasing it now rather than during the previous government’s term.

This report reveals institutional abuse of children by the government and should go to the Royal Commission too.

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