John wrote:Ex members are now giving inside stories. One being, although preaching celibacy he had sex with female devotees to realign their chakras
I must remember that as killer chat up line ... " Hey babee ... how about coming back to my place to have your chakras re-aligned ... ! " Some how I don't think it will work, but one never knows one's luck.
Actually, it all sounds sick and sad and suggests that the whole guru - chela relationship has been poisoned time and time again. This seems to relate back to what Joel wrote on more than one ocassion in the old xBKChat forums about recognising the reality of one's sexuality and dealing with it. The guus seem to be just about as victim to their system as their victims are. By which I mean, they seem to be unable to be honest about their sexuality and find equal partners to express it with and then deal with it.
But, don't allow me to seem to be too light about this matter. It is a very, very terrible abuse for a spiritual leader to take on their students as lovers. Very, very wrong.
There were numerous similar allegation about Sai Baba. Much more worse, in that he had a prediliction for young boys and would touch them up using the similar excuse of " raising the Kundalini ", or removing blockages.
Strange human beings. Even though there are countless such allegations over many years it does not seem to diminish his appear right up to the top of the religious and political life with even the President of India turning up for his birthday parties.
There seems to be an intense blindness that overcome humanity in its need to believe, e.g. " do not criticise him, he is our God "; a need to have a perfect being in one's life even at the expense of reality.
Interestingly enough he has also inspired an ex- website, at ; http://www.exbaba.com/
And it is not only in Hinduism. Putting aside the whole Holy Roman Church of Paedophiliacs, Buddhism has had its fair share too. The founder of The Western Buddhist Order and Friends of the Western Buddhist Order [ FWBO ], Sangharakshita was queer and had relationships with his students. I know of one that became so distressed or confused [ or had their confusion added to ] that he committed suicide. Sangharakshita used to refer to these relationships as " his little experiments " as if their other human being and their feelings / mental well being, involved did not exist or count.
Actually, it is reported that two committed suicide ;
http://www.ex-cult.org/fwbo/fwbosection1.html. He was apparently chucked out of India for sexing up young Buddhists there, then out of the Hampstead Vihara, covered by others for the sake of the " good name of Buddhism ". Here is another cause of the spread of the decline of religion.
Sogyal Rinpoche of Rigpa used to have regular flilngs with his female followers. Even the Dalai Lama when asked how many of the Red Hat monks in the West followed their principles of celibacy replied, " not one "! A Japanese friend told me that in Japan, piles are known as " monastery disease " due to the high level of sex abuse of young make followers.
I am in no fear of having to preface any of those allegation with " alleged " or " allegations ". I would go to court to stand by them.
OK, so let's face it. Human beings are highly sexed up monkeys and will stop at nothing to create structures that allow them to exploit others if given half a chance. Equal to equal with consensing partners, fine. But to compound that with the abuse of power that exists in teacher - student relationships is 100 times worse.
How do we deal with it?