RSSB guru agrees to answer questions about his financial dealings

Well, this is a bit of progress.

The guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, says that he will answer questions about the seemingly shady financial dealings he, his family, and possibly RSSB itself (a charitable organization) have been involved in.

Today someone sent me a link to a story in The Indian Express, "Upcoming payouts a possible trigger for Singh brothers feud." Excerpt:

According to a source privy to the development, some senior members of the sect recently asked Dhillon about his reaction to various news reports regarding the Singh brothers. The source said that Dhillon told these members that he has answers to all the questions that have been raised and he will give the answers himself at an opportune time. Dhillon told the senior members that spiritual and business aspects of our lives are separate and that devotees should focus on the former and not get diverted from it.

The RHC Holding as well as the RSSB did not respond to the queries sent by The Indian Express. Another source — involved with RSSB’s corporate dealings — added that Dhillons have been in business with Singh brothers for a very long time. “Take the example of Luminous Holdings, which was set up in 2002, and has Babaji himself as a director. Moreover, his wife Shabnam Dhillon is the other director of this company,” he said.

According to documents with corporate affairs ministry, Luminous Holdings had a long term borrowing of Rs 6.5 crore as on March 2017. Of that, around Rs 4.4 crore came from Delhi-based Fern Healthcare. In June, a probe by law firm Luthra and Luthra found that Singh brothers moved about Rs 475 crore from Fortis to various private companies. Fern Healthcare was one of them.

I've got a couple of thoughts about this. 

(1) Indian business publications have been reporting on the tangled web of financial dealings involving the Singh brothers and the guru's family for a long time. To date, every story I've read has said that RSSB and the guru refused to comment to a reporter. So it's odd that now Gurinder Singh Dhillon is saying he'll answer questions "at an opportune time."

That time was quite a while ago. So every day the guru isn't willing to stand up in front of a press conference and answer pointed questions about his financial involvements is a day people are going to be wondering, "What does Gurinder Singh Dhillon and Radha Soami Satsang Beas have to hide?

(2) As I noted in a recent post, apparently the guru has never read a book published by the spiritual organization that he heads. "Honest Living" makes clear that, contrary to what Gurinder Singh is claiming, actually the spiritual and business aspects of our lives are closely related. If you do bad stuff in your business life, your spiritual life is going to suffer -- even, or especially, if you are a guru who is considered to be God in Human Form by the RSSB teachings.

(3) Yesterday I shared a CNBC TV 18 video of a program where there was a call for the RSSB charitable trust to be audited, to clear up questions about whether the Dhillon family, or anyone else, has been benefitting from a co-mingling of RSSB money and private money.

If RSSB and Gurinder Singh Dhillon have nothing to hide, they should be pleased to open the books of RSSB to inspection by a independent auditor. And the Dhillon family's own finances also should be audited so questions about their dealings with financial entities involving the Singh brothers can be cleared up. 

The Business Insider story ends with these passages, which show the need for an investigation into whether the Dhillon family or RSSB benefitted from the purported illegal financial transactions cited by Shivinder Singh. Sunil Godhwani is reportedly the guru's "right-hand man," and is a RSSB insider.

Meanwhile, PTI reported on Tuesday that Shivinder has alleged in his petition before the NCLT that his elder brother Malvinder perpetrated illegal financial transactions, forged Shivinder’s wife’s signature and led the company into an unsustainable debt trap.

Malvinder and Godhwani “used their respective positions to perpetrate or cause others to perpetrate illegal financial transactions and various acts of mismanagement by and through RHC, leading to massive losses to RHC and its subsidiaries, and a depletion of the wealth,” the petition said, according to PTI.

Comments

[Bombay Blonde]

@ Jesse : Well, I can't disagree. As believers, we tend to fill our voids and inadequacies through a longing that we think is love for the Guru. But, if you strip it down, it's just a belief, not love. It took me a long time to understand love versus the idea of love. Most disciples chase the idea of love. Humans always disappoint and to somehow think that there's a living Guru out there who is deserving of your unconditional love is very appealing to some.

[Jesse]

Bombay Blonde, I think it's appealing because it is easy. It's an escape from the agitation of dealing with real humans. Sort of like the internet or TV.

I asked Gurinder a question in a crowd at dera once, Osho has asked many, Brian met him a few times, and some have known him somewhat intimately, but those who know anything about him as a human being on a personal level or a drop in the sangat.

What are the lovers even loving? A picture? I guess the same goes for the haters like myself.

Big name gurus aren't real humans to us. They're murthis. My wife has a real personal guru who's an old man. He calls her, advises her about things, asks personal questions, knows me and others in the family. He has "skin in the game" as they say.

He also says that we should all follow our own religion and eat what we want, which is a nice relief from the RSSB idea that you become better at your religion by leaving it...... and joining RSSB.

I'm rambling now, but this love for the man on stage could be applied to Lady Gaga for all I care. It's too abstract to be real.

[tucson]

They profess love for the guru because he represents the possibility of everlasting life and saving their soul from the tortures of life in chaurasi (the wheel of 84 lakh species). They are told the path to this salvation lies in love for the guru. So, they talk themselves into their love for the guru because of what they think he can do for them.. not because they love him as a human being. They don't even know him. He's just a remote figure on the dais 400 meters away if they're lucky to even get that close.

[Bombay Blonde]

@ Jesse : Oh, absolutely. A Guru-Shishya relationship is an intimate bond. It's the " murshid-mureed " equation, a personal space. Impossible to have that in a sea of followers. I'm so glad someone is with me on this ... :)

People love projections, they get completely absorbed in them. The greater the distance, the stronger the faith. Come a little closer and the projection begins to tear. It's in tatters by the time the personal audience is over.

[Jen]

I still have a very fond visionary memory from reading a story in one of the Sant Mat books about Sawan Singh who was travelling with his sewadars up the mountain pathway to give darshan to the villagers who were welcoming him by singing shabds and throwing flower petals onto the pathway.

Just shows how much we can fall in love with a story especially a mystical and emotional one. I imagined what it would be like to be there and feel the love and worship that these people had for him. We don't really have that kind of spiritual quest in this modern day world in the West and the so called mystical East is fading away as well.

[Bombay Blonde]

@ Jen : The esoteric routes are always an option for anyone who wants to go deeper ... :)

The one thing that RSSB is doing right is the translations of Sufi poetry. ( RSSB has published no titles of its own for the longest time. ) The two academicians, Professor Puri and T.N Shanghari have done such a marvellous job, there's no better work in English. If you're interested, write in.

[Jasbir]

Experience in spiritual path will not put you off your current track... Master is perfect and the path too... lack of experience will make people think something is going wrong but its nothing like that... let the time decide who is correct . We must not forget our main goal of life is to go inside and do our duties for our soul... Babaji is constantly saying from 2001 they may be this is our last place radhasoami will not be perfect because no one is doing it's duties of meditation and also not following santmat the way he wanted ... He may shut down the whole system and then frauds will come and sit with same concept .... Now it's happening and he knows who is frauds . He will take all his efforts to make it down and people will loose the faith in this path and new era of santmat will come from somewhere else... just go inside and cross 8 petal lotus and check the truth... as he is perfect without any doubt but he is willing to get a successor or he will make this so called rssb go down that's what all masters with correct path did if we check the history.... the satsangi who is reading it's 90 percent correct that who ever is close to master and who ever is doing seva are only looking for some profits in real world ...only very rare chance may be few people are only his true followers... whenever I use to ask him he always told me i may have to shut down this whole preaching as I see no true deciple who are willing do the duties told during namdan..... Now let's see what he does... He is a perfect master that's my own spiritual experience those who lack the experience will think about other options the way writers of this page is doing...