Church of the Churchless

RSSB guru responds to allegations of criminality (weirdly)

Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, has been decidedly silent about allegations of criminality (financial fraud, death threats) made against him by his cousin, Malvinder Mohan Singh.

But someone emailed me this exchange that reportedly occurred on April 10, 2019 during a surprise visit by the guru to a meeting of the Singapore RSSB group. I won't even attempt to comment on it, since the guru's responses are so weird.

Q: Babaji:  what do you have to say about the financial scandal?

A: RSSB has nothing to do with it. In case you want to read we have an article on the website. 

 

Q: In case someone asks what should we say?

A: Tell him my baba was getting bored he needed some excitement and he came with a bang. 

 

Q: Are you sure I say this?

A: Yes, it’s up to you whatever you want to believe.

 

Q: How come you have been silent on it and made no comments?  

A:  If I don’t tell you to react then how can I react.

 

Gurinder Singh Dhillon

Changing your mind is a superpower. Use it.

I have a superpower. But unlike those with superpowers who inhabit the pages of comic books and the screens of movie theaters, my astounding ability is available to everyone.

It's called changing your mind. 

I'm sure you've used it  -- many times. After all, we change our minds about countless things during the course of our lives. For example, I've changed my mind about my...

Politics (Used to be conservative, now I'm a liberal).
Cars (I've gone from a 57' VW bug to a 2017 VW GTI, with many other makes in between). 
Marriage (Got divorced, then remarried).
Profession (Earned a master's in social work, then went into health planning/research).
Eating (Loved meat until I became a vegetarian in 1970).
Residence (Grew up in the country, then lived in cities, now back in the country again).
Religion (Was Catholic for a while as a child, then a believer in an Eastern religion, and now an atheist).

So how is changing your mind a superpower? After all, everybody does this, all the time. True, but since we're so used to changing our minds, it's easy to overlook how marvelous this ability is.

First, to change your mind you need to have one.

Rocks don't have minds. Nor do stars. Living beings, though, have various sorts of minds. We humans have a powerful one. Other primates, ditto, though to a lesser degree. Plants have some sort of cognizance, but probably not a mind. Computers are very adept at certain tasks, yet so far lack what we would call a "mind."

Thus people are able to learn, adapt, modify our thinking, feeling, intuition, and such.

Because very little of human behavior is controlled by instinct, we have the capacity to transmit knowledge between people and across generations. We can read Plato and understand a great mind that lived thousands of years ago, thereby altering our own.

One of the best things about being able to change our mind is how good it feels, and how freeing it is. 

Yesterday I wrote on one of my other blogs about how I struggled to figure out why my DR Field Mower wouldn't start. I changed my mind several times over several days, with a foolish "fried battery" mistake thrown in. But in the end I learned what the problem was, with the aid of a friend who is much more knowledgeable about machines than I am.

I watched him methodically evaluate possible reasons for the mower not starting, with his mind changing about the various possibilities as he went along. This is similar to what a doctor does when arriving at a diagnosis, or a scientist when testing a hypothesis.

If a mind stays stuck, it can't move in a more productive or realistic direction. We have to be willing to give up an idea in order to embrace a better one.

Of course, "better" and "worse" can be difficult to discern in some situations.

When a mower won't start, it's easy to tell which is the better idea. It's the one that, when followed, leads to the mower starting. (In my case, we disabled the neutral switch, which was broken, and the mower started just fine -- so that was a good idea.)

In the examples I gave above about some of the areas in which I've changed my mind during my 70 years of living, most people would agree that in these areas, there aren't objective criteria about which of my mind-changes were better or worse.

Subjectively, though, I can confidently say that my current 2017 VW GTI is a much better car than the 1957 VW bug that I drove in college.

For one thing, the heater works in my GTI, so I don't have to scrape ice from the inside of the windshield while driving along, like I had to at times in college. But if someone is a collector of old cars, a '57 VW bug (or beetle) could be much more attractive to them than the modern car I have now.

Ditto for the other areas.

Though I'm a proud progressive, I'd never say that this is the only valid way of thinking about politics, since conservatives can have equally good reasons for thinking the way they do. And when it comes to marriage, my first wife and I were pleased to be done with each other after 18 years of wedded bliss that eventually turned into non-bliss.

Yet she and I both found other partners with whom we were wonderfully compatible. That's the nature of life: it changes. And as life changes, so does our mind (or, as our mind changes, so does life).

I'm not saying that change is always welcome, or even tolerable.

That isn't what I mean by changing your mind being a superpower. Sure, it is possible to reduce anxiety, fear, suffering, and such by altering one's thoughts and feelings, but I'm not aware of anybody who can remain completely unmoved by severe pain, disappointment, or loss. 

What is possible, though, is altering our psyche to embrace a new reality, even though it may be unwelcome. That's a superpower in and of itself -- the ability to say "This is...," no matter what those three dots stand for.

Here's some examples of what I mean.

On this blog I've been writing quite a bit about the legal, financial, and ethical troubles involving the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), Gurinder Singh Dhillon. I was a member of RSSB for 35 years, so I like to use this organization as an example of how religions can be wrong, and do wrong, since I'm so familiar with it. 

(If I'd remained a Catholic for 35 years, then became an atheist, likely I'd be using Catholicism as an example of bad religion.)

Fairly frequently commenters on my blog posts about the Dhillon family's alleged criminality will say something like, "Brian, when it turns out that the guru did nothing wrong, you're going to be unable to accept this." 

That really isn't true. 

Because I'm adept at changing my mind, if the Indian legal system ends up exonerating Gurinder Singh Dhillon, I'll accept that reality with very little trouble. In the same fashion, back in November 2016 it took a few days for me to fully accept that Donald Trump had been elected president of the United States.

But it didn't take long for my mind to adjust to a new reality.

Now I'm hoping Trump will be a one-term president. If that doesn't happen, and he is re-elected, I'll be disappointed. However, I won't deny that this happened. (I do worry, though, that Trump won't be able to accept the reality of a 2020 defeat.)

I'll end by noting that even though I'm used to many varieties of religious craziness after 15 years of regularly writing here on the Church of the Churchless, it still surprises me when a commenter expresses extreme surprise at how I could have changed my mind about the validity of the RSSB teachings after being a member of the organization for such a long time.

Often I'll ask them how many things they have changed their mind about during their lifetime. Have you stuck with the same job, same car, same residence, same friends, same political views? Almost certainly not.

There's something about religion that encourages a rigidity of mind that isn't nearly as evident in other areas of life. Members of some religions, like Mormonism or Scientology, will shun people who leave the religion. Yet if someone changes their mind in a way that leads them to join the religion, that's not only fine, it's marvelous. 

For many fundamentalists, mind-changing is a one-way street. It's great if you convert to their religion, yet horrible if you deconvert.

Strange? Yes.

But since just about every religion believes that it, and it alone, is privy to the eternal ultimate truth of the cosmos, this encourages true believers to denigrate anyone who embraces that religion, then chooses to leave it. I guess changing one's mind makes those fundamentalists fearful that their chosen faith really isn't true.

Which, almost certainly, it isn't.

I feel good about having changed my mind to realize this. It's much more pleasurable to accept reality as it is, or at least as it appears, than to cling to a rigid way of thinking that no longer makes sense to me.

Open Thread 20 (free speech for comments)

Leave a comment on this post about anything you want to talk about. Remember that I'm moderating comments, so it could take a while for your comment to be published. Almost every comment submitted to an Open Thread will be approved. Personal attacks devoid of substantive content are an exception.

Though I haven't been doing too well on this, I'll try to remember to always have an Open Thread showing in the Recent Posts section in the right sidebar. If one isn't showing, I've added an Open Threads category in, naturally, the Categories section. You can always find an Open Thread that way.

So if you're a believer in some form of religion, mysticism, or spirituality, this is where you can put your "praise God," "praise Guru," or "praise _______" comments.

Mumbai dance team, The Kings, rocked it on World of Dance

OK, got to update my previous post about other-worldly dance performances. 

My wife and I just finished watching the second hour of Sunday's World of Dance show that we'd recorded. Wow!

The Kings, a group from India (Mumbai), won the senior team division and made it into the World of Dance finals next week with an amazingly powerful performance.

It was inspiring that one member of The Kings was injured in practice, yet resolved to compete in the performance. I believe he was the one who ended up in a wheelchair after the Kings performed.

They said the theme was an Indian myth about a half-man, half-lion creature. They sure brought that myth to life. Enjoy.

Other-worldly dance performances on World of Dance

I don't really believe there is a God of Dance. But after watching these other-worldly performances on recent episodes of World of Dance, I'm open to that possibility. 

Here's Briar Nolet, The Kings (from India), and Poppin John. I find Nolet the most amazing. She's a gymnast turned dancer who does moves that seem impossible. But they're real.

 

Rabbi Goldstein is wrong. A moment of silence in schools is useless.

Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who lost a finger in the attack on the Chabad of Poway synagogue where one person was shot to death yesterday, has a perfect right to be deeply upset by what happened to his congregation.

But today I heard Goldstein speak about what he thinks the proper response should be to the attack, and I heartily disagree with him. 

Goldstein said that prayer used to be allowed in public schools. Now, it isn't. Instead, the Rabbi wants every school day to begin with a moment of silence. We should know that God created us, he said.

There's a big problem with this -- the separation of church and state. Children shouldn't be subjected to a religiously-motivated moment of silence, which really would be the only reason for such a practice.

The remarks I heard from Rabbi Goldstein made it clear that he wants God to be reintroduced into public schools. He didn't say why he thinks this would prevent mass shootings, probably because there is no reason to think that it would make any difference  in United States gun violence.

Here's part of a transcription on San Diego Jewish World of remarks made by Rabbi Goldstein. These are close to what I heard on my car radio today, but lack the mentions of God and prayer.

Rabbi Goldstein

And I want to take note for other victims who suffered yesterday, physically, emotionally, spiritually. The best we can do to combat is to grow, build, and be stronger, stronger and stronger.  And yes, every single one of us can do that. I look around at the myriad of cameras that are here.

The message needs to be brought out to the public ‘How does a 19-year-old, a teenager, have the audacity, the sickness, the hatred to publicize such anti-Semitism in [h]is manifesto?  How does he come here to a house of worship to do what he did?’ 

Perhaps we have to go back a little earlier and think about what are we teaching our children?  What are we educating our children?  We need to perhaps consider re-introducing in our public-school system a moment of silence when children can start the day with pausing and thinking, ‘Why am I created?  Why am I here? And what am I going to do?’

After listening to Goldstein speak, I heard a MSNBC panel of experts discuss the synagogue attack. They had a very different take on the cause of anti-Semitism. It was pointed out that anti-Semitic attacks rose by 57% in 2017, the year after Trump was elected. Trump's implicit and explicit endorsement of white nationalism is a likely reason.

A panel member also said that the Department of Homeland Security has eliminated a branch that was focused on combatting domestic terrorism. So the truth, this person said, is that the Trump administration isn't doing everything it should to reduce the threat from people who espouse white supremacy and white nationalism. 

A moment of silence in schools seems wholly inadequate to counteract a president who said, after white nationalist marchers in Charlottesville clashed with protesters, "You also had some very fine people on both sides." Here's what the white nationalist "good people" were chanting in August 2017.

They immediately went after the Jews. At their Friday night rally at the University of Virginia, the white nationalists brandished torches and chanted anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans, including “blood and soil” (an English rendering of the Nazi “blut und boden”) and “Jews will not replace us” — all crafted to cast Jews as foreign interlopers who need to be expunged. The attendees proudly displayed giant swastikas and wore shirts emblazoned with quotes from Adolf Hitler. One banner read, “Jews are Satan’s children.”

Yet I heard Rabbi Goldstein speak approvingly of his 15-minute phone conversation with Trump, who reportedly likes the Rabbi's idea for a (useless) moment of silence in public schools.

Our gun culture is the main reason this country has so many gun deaths. 

I've written about this in quite a few blog posts, such as "U.S.A. has more gun deaths because it has more guns." And Rabbi Goldstein should realize that Israel tightly regulates who can own a gun, as I noted in "Australia and Israel tightly regulate guns. Why can't the United States?"

After every mass shooting there's a call for thoughts and prayers. Which, obviously, do exactly nothing to prevent the next mass shooting. 

Rabbi Goldstein would be better off giving up his nonsensical moment of silence idea, and instead study the chart below from a CNN story, "How U.S. gun culture compares with the world in five charts." The United States is one of the most religious of advanced nations, yet we have by far the most gun-related deaths per 1 million people. 

Hmmmm. Could the reason be that we have almost half of all of the guns in the world, but only 4% of the world's population? Answer: YES.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon ignores sexual abuse of a child

Below you can read an email message I received yesterday from someone who observed first hand how Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, essentially endorsed a father's sexual abuse of his child -- by telling a tearful wife, "Don't involve the authorities." 

Now I'm sure some fundamentalist devotees of the RSSB guru will excuse his disgusting behavior by saying things like "No one can question the wisdom of the guru" and "Gurinder Singh can do no wrong, being a perfect master."

That's bullshit. To show why, let's imagine this scenario: 

A woman goes to a minister and tells him that her husband is sexually molesting their daughter. The minister tells her to be more loving and affectionate to her husband, and not to go to the police or a child welfare agency.

Wouldn't you think this was exceedingly bad advice by the minister, likely even criminally bad advice? (Here in Oregon, as in many other states, clergy are required to report child abuse or neglect.)

After all, almost all jurisdictions here in the United States require various professions to report child abuse.  Failure to do this can result in criminal and civil legal liability. So I don't see how anyone can defend the guru's indefensible action, since he is viewed as a trusted advisor by those who believe in him.

Read on for the details. (Here's a link to a recent post alluded to below, "How many people has Gurinder Singh Dhillon indirectly killed?")

Hi Brian,

I’ve been wanting to get back to you. I'm so disturbed by the posts of the last couple of days, I’m going to get this down on paper now. Please publish it if you think it relevant. It’s this:

 

I first came to the path in 1970 during Huzur’s North American tour. [Huzur is a title of respect for Charan Singh Grewal, the RSSB guru who preceded Gurinder Singh Dhillon.]

 

I was a devoted seeker, got initiated by Huzur Maharaji, visited Dera 7 times, was a multi-term secretary, a treasurer and a local & regional speaker, which is where, if you remember, Brian, we were first acquainted.

 

I am heartbroken by the recent revelations of criminal (there’s no other word for it) financial conduct by the Dhillon and Grewal (Charan Singh’s surname) family. Shivinder and Movinder are Huzur’s grandsons; their mother Nimi is Huzur’s daughter, BBJ is Huzur’s sister’s son and therefore 1st cousin once removed to Shivinder and Movinder Singh. 

 

[BBJ stands for Baba ji, an Indian  honorific that means father. Here it refers to Gurinder Singh Dhillon.]

 

I, however, wish to relate the incident prior to their fraud, which was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.

 

It was in 2013, at the Haynes Park, UK international satsang weekend.  The audience numbering maybe 1,500-ish people were seated on folding chairs, in a very large tent, on the grounds of the estate.  This is what I observed first hand:

 

A succession of young, pretty Indian girls came to the mic, one after the other, for Q&A. There was Baba ji’s usual, flirty and lame attempts at cleverness, and the giggly, giddy responses from the girls, despite the call for serious, spiritual questions only. 

 

Then came an Indian woman in western dress, mid-to-late 30s.  She was crying.

 

She proceeded to tell BBJ (and all of us) that her husband was sexually molesting their daughter.  The woman couldn’t leave the house to go to work because the daughter feared being left alone in the house with the father.

 

“What shall I do, Baba?” she tearfully asked.  "Should I go to the authorities?”

“No” replied the guru. “These things are better handled by being more loving and affectionate to your husband” (yuck!!) “Don’t involve the authorities in a family matter, blah, blah, blah…”

 

That was it for me.

 

In that moment BBJ made himself an accessory to a crime by advising the mother to remain silent. Needless to say, something Huzur Maharaji would never have said, if for no other reason than he was an attorney.  BBJ also made every person in the room, who heard this disclosure of criminal child abuse, an accessory after the fact.

 

(No, I’m not a lawyer but I was 2nd in my class at law school so not completely uninformed in common law.)

 

What BBJ did was not only heartless and ignorant. It was a crime and advice of the worst sort; as any mental health professional will tell you pedophiles do not quit. Pedophilia is a psychiatric compulsion with an almost non-existent rate of “cure”.

 

This is only one example of the many instances of disastrous advice BBJ is always anxious to espouse.

 

At least Huzur had the humility to preface the common sense advice he’d reluctantly give when asked, with the declaration that he himself was no expert in family matters and can be heard on audio tape admitting to be a poor example of a husband and parent.  

 

BBJ however fancies himself an expert in all things, above the law of man and blithely gives the most jaw-dropping and disastrous advice imaginable. The fact is BBJ's “advice” has caused satsangis I know personally the most painful consequences imaginable. 

 

In Spiritual Perspectives vol. 1, Huzur responds to questions about the end of this line of RS [Radha Soami] gurus by explaining that this institution and this line of masters is just like everything else of this world: impermanent.  

 

He says that one day this line will come to an end, the teachings will be bound into a religion, and a new line of sat gurus will rise up elsewhere to enlighten seekers about meditation according to Sant Mat principles.Most satsangis who have heard Huzur’s satsangs have heard him say as much.

 

It is clear from current events that time is at hand.  BBJ needs to just go home to Singapore, enjoy his ill-gotten gains and await the coming karmic retribution for being such a poor steward of Huzur Maharaji’s legacy.

 

Due to the violent fanaticism of so many readers, please just sign me:

Awake

Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru who thinks sexual abuse of a child is no big deal

My Zen snow globe

BEHOLD... my mystical magical enlightening Zen snow globe!

You turn it over to stir things up, then it settles down. Until things get stirred up again, after which they settle down.

Just like life.

Buddhists, the mind isn't like a mirror. Science knows better.

In my churchless frame of mind, it's rare that I can get very far into a book with some religious overtones before I start using my highlighter to make question marks in the margins.

The book I'm reading now, As It Is by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, was bought because I was curious to learn more about one of the Dzogchen/Buddhist teachers mentioned in Sam Harris' Waking Up book -- which I like a lot.

(But which also has some question marks in the margins; just a few, though.)

I'll write about what appeals to me in As It Is in another blog post. Buddhism gets a lot right about reality, so long as the supernatural aspects of Buddhist teachings are stripped out. The doctrine of no-self and no-soul is very much in accord with modern neuroscience, for example.

Since Buddhist philosophy emanates from pre-scientific times, it's surprising that Buddhism gets so much right about how the mind works. However, it also gets quite a bit wrong, as evidenced by these quotations from As It Is that I read this morning.

Better to be like a mirror, letting reflections occur in the state of rigpa [knowledge of original wakefulness] without fixating on anything. That is the state of suchness.

...To reflect the pure development stage, first be a bright mirror. First understand, then experience, then realize. Try first of all to be a good mirror, a mind essence mirror, a rigpa mirror. 

Suchness. I don't like that word. Back in 2010 I wrote "My main gripe with Buddhist meditation." Here's some excerpts that apply to the As It Is book also.

Bare knowing. Actually happening. Just as they are. Inner life naked. As they truly are.

Many Buddhists actually believe this stuff, that through their many hours of meditation they're able to enter into an experience of suchness and thus so'ness -- which supposedly is an awareness of things as they are, not as they seem to be to deluded minds like you and I have (I'm assuming you aren't an enlightened Buddhist practitioner; if you think you are, congratulations).

Every human being, without exception, knows reality through his or her own idiosyncratic brain filters. Experience leads us to see things in a certain way, then our seeing feeds back into our experience in a never-ending cycle.

I do believe that meditation and other forms of mental training can help us become more aware of what's going on in both our inner and outer world. However, these awarenesses are of reality as we know it, not reality as it is nakedly, purely, actually.

Nine years later, I believe what I said above even more strongly. This is basic neuroscience: the mind/brain actively constructs reality; it doesn't passively reflect reality.

Recently my wife and I re-watched the first episode of David Eagleman's PBS series, The Brain. That episode is called "What is Reality?"

The description of the episode on the PBS website shows that Buddhism may be correct about many things regarding the mind, but viewing the mind as a mirror isn't one of them.

Dr. Eagleman takes viewers on an extraordinary journey that explores how the brain, locked in silence and darkness without direct access to the world, conjures up the rich and beautiful world we all take for granted. 

‘What is Reality?’ begins with the astonishing fact that this technicolor multi-sensory experience we are having is a convincing illusion conjured up for us by our brains. 

In the outside world there is no color, no sound, no smell. These are all constructions of the brain. Instead, there is electromagnetic radiation, air compression waves, and aromatic molecules all of which are interpreted by the brain as color, sound and smell.   

Cutting edge graphics show that data from the outside are rendered into electrochemical signals inside the brain, which map meaningfully onto physical reality. Our experience of reality is an electrochemical rendition of the world outside. It is not a faithful rendition.

Visual illusions are reminders that what’s important to the brain is not being faithful to ‘reality’ but being able to perceive just enough so that we can navigate successfully through it. The brain leaves a lot out of its beautiful rendition of the physical world, a fact that Dr Eagleman reveals using experiments, and street demonstrations. 

We meet the men and women whose experiences of reality reveal important clues about how the brain constructs our own reality, including the Alcatraz prisoner who was locked in the notorious ‘Dark Hole’ for 29 days, and yet experienced richly colorful moments of reality.

His experience, along with those who have experienced total sensory deprivation show us that even when sensory input to the brain stops, the show still goes on. Why? Because, amazingly, our senses – eyes, ears, skin, nose - only modulate an internally generated simulation of what the brain expects is out there. This so-called ‘internal model of reality’ allows us to move through the world, recognizing it rather than constructing it anew, moment by moment. 

We meet a man who is blind despite the fact that he has eyes that can see. His story reveals that it’s the brain that sees, not our eyes. A woman with schizophrenia, whose psychotic episodes were her reality, emphasizes the fact that whatever our brains tell us is out there, we believe it.

We have no way to get beyond what our brains allow us to perceive. Like the rest of the animal kingdom, we inhabit a miniscule slice of reality, and yet we believe it to be the whole picture. 

Eagleman also explores time, and takes a look at how – and why - the brain alters its perception of time, depending on the situation we find ourselves in. Time, it turns out, is not an absolute to the brain. 

Each one of our brains is different, and so is the reality it produces. What is reality? It’s whatever your brain tells you it is.

I just made this comment

I just made this comment to someone who tried to justify the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas' unfeeling response toward people with suicidal tendencies. See here and here. 

I'm curious if anyone disagrees with what I said. It sure makes sense to me.

Dungeness, you're presuming that being "spiritual" is something different from being a decent human being. I heartily disagree. Being a decent human being is the foundation of spirituality.

Absent that, it's possible to justify lies, deceit, abuse, and other things that gurus sometimes engage in.

When someone shares a serious personal problem and seeks support/advice, I've never heard a decent human being say, "Stop feeling sorry for yourself" or "That's a sin."

Yet Gurinder Singh Dhillon said those things.

This shows that at least when it comes to talking about mental health issues, including suicide, the RSSB guru doesn't act like a decent human being.

Like I said, spirituality should enhance the qualities of a decent human being, not negate or lessen them.

If the RSSB teachings negate/lessen those supports of positive qualities, obviously someone should run from those teachings as rapidly as possible.

How many people has Gurinder Singh Dhillon indirectly killed?

Yesterday a commenter called "BlackRose" asked the question that I made the title of this blog post.

It's impossible to know the answer.

All we can be sure of is that Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, lacks both normal human compassion and the most basic understanding of how to talk with someone who was, or is, suicidal. 

UPDATE: I just made this comment to someone who tried to justify the guru's unfeeling response toward people with suicidal tendencies. I'm curious if anyone disagrees with it. It sure makes sense to me.

Dungeness, you're presuming that being "spiritual" is something different from being a decent human being. I heartily disagree. Being a decent human being is the foundation of spirituality. Absent that, it's possible to justify lies, deceit, abuse, and other things that gurus sometimes engage in.

When someone shares a serious personal problem and seeks support/advice, I've never heard a decent human being say, "Stop feeling sorry for yourself" or "That's a sin."

Yet Gurinder Singh Dhillon said those things. This shows that at least when it comes to talking about mental health issues, including suicide, the RSSB guru doesn't act like a decent human being.

Like I said, spirituality should enhance the qualities of a decent human being, not negate or lessen them. If the RSSB teachings negate/lessen those supports of positive qualities, obviously someone should run from those teachings as rapidly as possible.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the uncaring guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas

BlackRose commented on a post I wrote a few days ago, "Why a guru shouldn't give mental health advice." In it I shared a tale from a woman, Sonya, who told Dhillon about her attempts to commit suicide and got a response from the guru that included these unfeeling words:

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself."

Below you can read about another instance in which the RSSB guru turned a blind eye toward someone who told Dhillon that she was thinking about suicide. 

His reported response: suicide is a sin.

A few years later, this person killed herself. Neither her mother, who accompanied her to the interview with the guru, nor Dhillon, did anything to help the woman.

This is beyond shameful.

It borders on criminal negligence, failing to take the most basic steps to help someone who is thinking of taking their life. If a counselor or teacher had behaved the way the guru did, dismissing someone's cry for help with a curt "suicide is a sin," they'd be guilty of professional malpractice.

A guru should manifest the best of human qualities, not the worst. Rightly or wrongly  (I'd say wrongly), many people trust what a guru says.

After all, why did this woman and her mother ask for an interview with Dhillon? Almost certainly, because they believed the RSSB guru would offer some wise words.

Instead, the suicidal woman got worse than nothing.

Compassion, understanding, empathy -- that's what she needed, along with being told that it was imperative she get professional psychological help as soon as possible. The Mayo Clinic describes what should be done if someone is suicidal.

Dhillon did the exact opposite. He didn't tell the woman to get help. He wasn't compassionate. Instead, he was judgmental. Read on for what BlackRose said:

I really resonate with this post. A few years ago my cousin committed suicide. At first it came as a huge shock as it was very sudden and I thought no one knew she was suffering. Turns out I was wrong.

Both her mother and Gurinder Singh knew and did nothing. After the suicide my cousin's mother revealed that two years prior to the death she had gone with her daughter for a private interview with him where my cousin confessed to him that she was thinking about suicide.

I did not hear this story first hand but he apparently told her that suicide was a sin and her mother yelled at her for saying such things. I do know that no action was taken.

Neither Gurinder nor my aunt told a single soul about this at the time and so no one took action to get my cousin the help she needed. If Gurinder Singh, who my cousin believed was god incarnate, was compassionate to her and encouraged her to get help she may still be alive today.

The surprising thing is that there is another satsangi young person tangentially related to the same family who I have heard is suicidal. I don't know her name or know her personally but I sincerely doubt she is being given the help she needs either because of Gurinder's denial of depression as a real thing people all over the world of any class experience.

How many people has he indirectly killed because of this? I feel deeply sad for my cousin and the other girl.

What's also disgusting is how another commenter, "Grateful one," tried to make it seem like Gurinder Singh Dhillon was blameless in the woman's death. 

Below you can read a confirmation that the RSSB guru said suicide was a sin -- a horrible thing to say to someone contemplating taking their own life. 

The uncaring attitude shown by "Grateful one" makes me exceedingly grateful that I no longer put any faith in gurus. True believers like "Grateful one" are unable to recognize how blind they are to a guru's shortcomings, instead going to great lengths to excuse inexcusable behavior. 

As you can read below, "Grateful one" is deluded enough to argue that a suicidal person wasn't depressed or had any problems. That is flat out insane. Because devotees of the guru believe he is God in human form, they consider that the guru can do no wrong. 

But he did.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon did nothing to help a suicidal woman. Yet somehow "Grateful one" believes he wasn't involved in the situation at all. That's a lie. In a personal interview he told the woman suicide is a sin, and did nothing to help her. So it is entirely appropriate to ask, how many other people has the RSSB guru indirectly killed?

Here's the comment from "Grateful one."

Blackrose, I’m sorry but I know your cousin she was a very good friend of mine and I know the entire family as well. Yes she may have mentioned to her mother that she had these thoughts but her mother did not take it seriously as she never thought she would do it and I also know for a fact that Babaji was very sympathetic to her situation and told her clearly that suicide is the biggest sin and one should not do it.

She even asked this in a q and a and I heard his response myself as I was there. Your cousin(my good friend) was neither depressed nor had any problems. I find it’s very easy to blame someone else(in this case the master) for what she chose to do to herself.

That is very wrong as he was not involved in this situation at all. Your cousin wasn’t initiated or followed the path or any vows so how can this be related to the Master or his teachings? I know first hand because my friend stayed with me and we talked about it. This is the problem with these kind of comments where people write whatever they want which is non factual and only hearsay and many people tend to believe.

Our ordinary life is way more important than our religious life

Looking at the title of this blog post after I wrote it, at first I wondered if "ordinary" is the right word for what I'm talking about here. 

Namely, our everyday life. What we do that's personal, intimate, immediate, direct, experiential. How we spend most of our hours. What we honestly describe when someone close to us asks, "How was your day?" 

On further reflection, ordinary seems like the right word. 

Sure, often people have the notion that being ordinary isn't good enough. But this seems crazy. What's wrong with having an ordinary life that's mostly meaningful, satisfying, pleasurable? 

And when that life entails some suffering, pain, despair -- that too is perfectly fine. An ordinary life is going to have ups and downs, smooth running and rough spots. 

I got to thinking along these lines after sharing a wonderfully honest comment from Sonya in the form of a blog post, "Why a guru shouldn't give mental health advice," because the comment deserved more attention than it would have gotten otherwise.

What struck me about Sonya's description of her suicide attempts, panic attacks, and sorrow at how badly the guru (Gurinder Singh Dhillon) treated her was that it seemed way more important and real than the spiritual teachings the guru represented -- which are largely conceptual, not being grounded in everyday reality.

So it makes much more sense to say of someone -- not just Sonya, anyone -- "in addition to being a [fill in the ordinary life details], they also believe in [fill in the religious, spiritual, or philosophical details]."

After all, few people outside of monasteries elevate their religious life above their ordinary life.

When I think about the 35 years I was associated with Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the organization now led by Gurinder Singh Dhillon, what comes mainly to mind is getting married, the birth of my daughter, going to graduate school, getting my first jobs, moving to Oregon, buying houses, some memorable family vacations, surviving my child's teenage years, seeing her mature and form a family of her own, spending time with my granddaughter, getting divorced and then remarried, settling down on ten acres in rural south Salem with Laurel, writing books, becoming an avid blogger, involving myself with Salem politics, dealing with the deaths of my mother and the father I barely knew, and so on.

Yes, during that time I also was very active in RSSB. I meditated every day, as I still do. I went to India twice to the headquarters of RSSB. I served as secretary of our local RSSB group for many years. However, all this wasn't the most important part of my life. 

My ordinary life was.

People engage in some strenuous disagreements on this blog, via comments. Being active on Facebook, I've often wondered what a difference it would make if everyone had to leave comments under their real name. 

Likely it would improve communication, because anonymity tends to lead people to say things that they wouldn't say to someone face to face. 

What Sonya did with her comment -- and I'm deeply grateful to her for this -- was illustrate how what binds us together is ordinary life, not religious life. I've enjoyed reading the reactions to what she shared, which almost universally are supportive. We all know what it is like to suffer, to feel terrible, to face crushing disappointment. 

In comparison, religious dogma seems distant, abstract, detached, unimportant. Sure, I realize some people are willing to die for their religion. But I'm confident hugely more people are willing to die for their child, spouse, or other loved one. 

I'll end by sharing a comment on Sonya's post from Spence Tepper. In it he shared some personal details that gave me a broader perspective on him. Before, I knew what Tepper thought about various spiritual subjects. After reading his personal comment, I had at least a glimpse of what really matters to him in his "ordinary" life.

Depression is a first world problem like obscene greed and corruption are third world Guru problems. Maybe he has something there?

I'm at the Boston Anime Con right now waiting in a line surrounded by a sea of cosplayers (my special needs son and I went yesterday; he was Dante from Devil May Cry 2 and I was Dante from Devil May Cry 4...( I made the props including the guns, and the sword with skulls, it was fun) and for the third year in a row there are transgender bathrooms.

How much pain, real trauma, have people had to go through to first accept themselves, and secondly, to assert their basic human right to be respected?

It is all around me today. The free right to be whatever role they wish to play, in whatever clothes and makeup. The sheer joy of each hand made costume, and the laughter of friends, the selfies of cosplayers, and the mythic anime stories of coming of age, and triumph over ignorance and stupidity, we have all come to see and to hear the journey of the creators to bring their worthy stories to creation, are all around.

You see women dressed as male heroes, men dressed as beautiful Geisha girls, and beautifully indeterminate but happy faces.

This happiness was won. It was earned. It was fought for. This is their heaven.

Gurinder's problems are his world. And no one's fault but his own. We offer to help any way we can. But we are not obliged to live there. We live in our own magical place of our creation.

Sonya, depression is a powerful event. Own it. Be proud of it. Your heart feels deeply, your mind sees something others would rather ignore. You have triumphed.

But if you have been able to establish by your own standards that you, alone, are a world, a worthy place carefully grown by time, nature and circumstance more valuable than anyone else, then, welcome.

You've graduated. You have your super powers. On to the next school.

Religare is committed to getting its money back. Bad news for RSSB guru.

Given my goal of bringing readers of this blog all the news in the Indian financial press about the Singh brothers'/RSSB guru's misdeeds that's worth sharing, here's a mildly interesting story in The Economic Times, "New management committed to ensure good governance, says Religare Enterprises."

Below are a few excerpts relating to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. Dhillon orchestrated the installation of Sunil Godhwani as CEO of Religare, after which Godhwani proceeded to illegally funnel money from Religare into shell companies controlled at the time by the Dhillon family and close associates.

Since most of the money reportedly ended up in Dhillon real estate ventures that went bad, it isn't good news for the RSSB guru and his family that Religare is committed to finding out how the fraud took place and getting its money back. The story says:

Religare Enterprises Friday said the new management team is committed to ensure that good governance and accountability are the hallmarks of the group as it dubbed allegations made by its former chief Sunil Godhwani as an attempt to divert attention from fraudulent transactions.

..."The company has the full support of its shareholders to bring to justice the erstwhile promoters and management and recover all the monies siphoned away by them," it added.

It also said that the new management team is committed to ensure that going forward the ethos of good governance, ethics and accountability become the hallmark of the Religare Group.

"Religare Enterprises has suffered over the years on account of unbridled mismanagement and misappropriation of funds orchestrated under the erstwhile promoters (Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh) and Sunil Godhwani," the statement said.

Why a guru shouldn't give mental health advice

There are many reasons to be wary of gurus.

An overarching reason is that often, if not usually, devotees of a guru trust them way more than is justified -- since gurus obviously are human beings, flawed and imperfect like we all are.

Below you can read the experience of "Sonya," a regular commenter on this blog who shared a comment today that I felt deserved to be featured in a blog post. 

Gurinder Singh Dhillon

Sonya describes how Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (an Indian religious organization), responded after she courageously asked him about suicide. His response was uncaring, factually wrong, and distasteful.

Gurus shouldn't give mental health advice. If you wouldn't trust a guru with no medical expertise with telling you how to deal with a physical health problem, why would you trust what they say about a mental health problem?

I say this as someone who has been married for 29 years to a woman who was a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice for quite a few years. My wife counseled people with a wide range of problems. Previously she worked as a school counselor, and before that, at a mental hospital.

(I have a Master's Degree in Social Work also, but I never actually worked as a social worker after graduate school, going into health services research instead.)

Reading Sonya's comment made me simultaneously sad and angry.

Sad, because she was treated so badly by Gurinder Singh Dhillon. Angry, because no one should make light of suicide or depression, especially someone in a position of authority -- like a guru.

The good news is that the experience led to Sonya losing faith in the RSSB guru. I enjoy hearing "deconversion" stories about how people come to the realization that spirituality is best practiced independently, rather than within the confines of a religious organization.

Here's Sonya's story. I've corrected some typos and added some paragraph breaks, but didn't change her comment otherwise. "Satsangi" means an initiate of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. "Dera" refers to the RSSB headquarters. "Sant Mat" is the RSSB philosophy.

Hi Arjuna and Jen, OK, I'm going to attempt to respond to both of you with one very long answer. :)

At the Dera during a Q&A session I asked Gurinder what happens to a soul when it commits suicide because I had tried to commit suicide twice in a 6 month period when I was 26.

I asked him this because I thought maybe my thoughts and actions of self harm during that period of my life and my continual self loathing that existed after that event might be at the root cause of my panic attacks which I had been suffering from for 15 years. They started about a year before I became a satsangi.

I was diagnosed with severe panic disorder because the attacks would last longer than an hour. One attack lasted 8 hours and I had to go to the hospital. It took me 6 months after that to feel like a normal human being again.

It felt like one day I was a normal person, then I had an 8 hour panic attack and the next day I was paraplegic. I wasn't really paraplegic, it's just that's how much my life had changed and permanently changed. I guess having a really long panic attack is like going through battle and then you have PTSD from the panic attack.

BTW, It was a miracle that I lived both times because I was truly very happy that I would never wake up again. I didn't leave a note... it wasn't a cry for help. I tried to make sure no one would find me till it was over.

And if you ask me why I tried to commit suicide (looking back it seems really dumb), I was really depressed after my boyfriend and I broke up. We had a very serious relationship... I was madly in love... He asked me to marry him and then I found out he was seeing someone else.

You know, the usual.

Anyway, yes I am fairly blunt and outspoken and the only reason I shared something this personal was because there was no way for me to get an interview with him [Gurinder Singh Dhillon] and I wasn't sure I'd ever be back at the Dera.

He said "Nothing happens to the soul. It's just the mind. Depression is a first world problem. You don't see poor people getting depressed because they're too busy working. Stop feeling sorry for yourself." That's what he said. Just like that.

The weird thing is that I had really been starting to question Sant Mat and him. However, even then I was very much in awe of him and somewhat "in-love" in a Master/disciple kind of way. I thought he would be the last person on earth that would ever hurt me.

My heart was absolutely broken and if my husband hadn't been with me I guarantee you I would have taken the 3 months supply of sleeping pills that I happened to bring with me. I would have taken them all at once right after that happened.

So, I went from the memory of one betrayal and broken heart to the realization that there isn't really anyone you can totally trust in this world. So, maybe I deserved it.

The reason I think he was so harsh was because I had been talking with some ladies after one meeting about how inappropriate he had behaved. They brought it up and I joined in because we all witnessed the same thing. Basically he was just being super flirtatious with some young women but it's not like he "took them home or anything". It just seemed a bit off-color.

And I think the word got back to him that some people were concerned about it.

Of course, that may not be it at all. He may never have even heard about it. Maybe I just needed someone to tell me that I was a selfish fool for trying to commit suicide twice over some stupid guy (I didn't tell him about the guy - I didn't say exactly why I did it--just told him I had been depressed).

And maybe I needed to realize that a guru isn't going to be there for you either to comfort you. Maybe he wanted me to learn that it's a mean, mean world, and that only the god inside of me can ever comfort me. Maybe he also wanted me to understand that love is bullshit.

He also told me that mental health problems are a first world problem. He made that very clear over and over. During that session someone asked him about people with serious mental health problems (like it was their family member or something) and he just shook his head and said you don't want to know what I think about mental illness.

He said that. Exactly like that.

So, I would never ask him about depression or anxiety if I were you. And God forbid you mention anything more serious like bipolar or schizophrenia. I think besides being born blind at birth, having a serious mental health problem like bipolar or schizophrenia are the only other things that will keep you from being able to be initiated today.

Now all that is very dark. It's hard for me to see how I could have been in such a dark place like that at one time in my life when I'm usually really happy these days. I also don't have panic attacks anymore.

After that experience I left Sant Mat for good and when I left Sant Mat I stopped having panic attacks. The panic attacks were horrific and I no longer have them, nor do I have depression.

So, yes Jen, I think you're right. He gave me exactly what I needed. And what I need is not him.

I shared some other comments by Sonya in another post, "Being worshipped leads Gurinder Singh Dhillon to behave badly." Here's how that post starts out:

I no longer believe that any person deserves to be worshipped. Respected, yes. Everybody is deserving of respect. But worship, no. 

For a long time, though -- some 35 years -- I was a member of an Indian religious organization (Radha Soami Satsang Beas, or RSSB) headed by a guru who is considered to be God in human form.

Just imagine how Christians would act around Jesus if he appeared on Earth. Worshipful, right? Well, that's how RSSB devotees act around Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the current guru. 

Recently Dhillon was accused of criminal conduct by his cousin, Malvinder Singh. Defenders of the guru are fond of saying that the death threats and massive financial fraud are just allegations. That's true, but they're believable allegations, given what's been previously reported on this blog about Gurinder Singh Dhillon.

To put it charitably, Dhillon doesn't act like the traditional RSSB guru. Less charitably, Dhillon acts very much like many other powerful men: full of ego, greedy, controlling, using women in less than admirable ways. (The Me Too movement has done a lot to raise awareness of this.)

Below is a comment left by Sonya on a recent post.

She does a good job of explaining why Gurinder Singh Dhillon behaves the way he does, given that he's worshipped everywhere he goes. Of course, other men are worshipped who don't end up behaving badly: the Pope, Dalai Lama, many others. 

The RSSB guru, though, is treated like the god he is believed to be by his devotees, while the Pope and Dalai Lama are just considered to be holy men. Of course, this doesn't excuse Dhillon's behavior -- it just helps to explain it.

Here's the first comment from Sonya. I'll share another one also.

Deepak Chopra quote generator shows ridiculousness of New Age'ism

Religions are absurd by definition.

They make confident proclamations about God, heaven, life after death, and such, even though there is zero convincing evidence that God, heaven, life after death, or other supernatural phenomena even exist.

But there's plenty of absurdity floating around in the sphere of "spiritual but not religious," which includes New Age ideas.

Deepak Chopra is a notable purveyor of this sort of crap. I've written about Chopra here, here, here, and here. The blog post linked to in the last "here" is called Deepak Chopra's inanity makes my head explode.

OK, not literally. Otherwise I couldn't be writing this post. Figuratively, for sure.

Thanks to regular commenter Jesse, I've been turned on to a Deepak Chopra quote generator that allows me, or anyone, to produce Chopra inanities on demand that sound very much like the real thing in Chopra's books.

Here's what Jesse said in an email:

Hey Brian, not sure if you've ever seen this thing, but it's one of those quote generators like hundreds of others, but this one is made up only of words from Deepak Chopra's tweets. http://wisdomofchopra.com

 

"Perceptual reality compliments the light of space time events" 

 

So many of the quotes it makes are indistinguishable from much of the "wisdom" coming out of the Guru scene that it really raises the question about what these guys are even talking about.

 

I've long suspected that many of the adherents of these philosophies and religions hear a lot of words over and over and begin using them without having a firm grasp on the concepts either because they don't have the capacity, or because their teachers are repeating jargon that sounds fancy but never actually forms a coherent point.

 

The newness and exoticness of the terminology is very attractive and can make people feel like they're part of something very secret and special.

 

I wish I could remember more and better examples, but for example Jehovahs Witnesses refer to people as 'ones' quite often, Hare Krishnas often say 'demoniac' or even things like 'plenary expansions' which I think they struggle to translate into a useful concept. There are a bunch of words I remember using a lot when I was in RSSB but I'm not thinking of any now.

 

Anyway, check out that quote generator. Maybe slip one of them into an article some time and see if anyone notices.

Jesse

 

Well, I'll consider doing that, Jesse.

However, I need to remember that the unexplainable fears a symbolic representation of miracles. And it's common knowledge that eternal stillness transforms the door of knowledge. In the end, though, perception quiets exponential self-knowledge.

So likely I'll use the Deepak Chopra quote generator. Just did, in fact. Three times.

It's hard to tell fake Chopra quotes from genuine ones. The one below likely is genuine, because it makes such little sense. I'll keep looking for that place inside myself, though. I really want to be able to run a mile in under four minutes to show people that us 70 year-olds can do anything.

Just need to find the nothing-is-impossible place within me.

RSSB You Tube channel has exactly zero content from Gurinder Singh

I usually don't publicize social media of religious organizations, but since I used to be a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas before I saw the clear light of atheism, and quite a few visitors to this blog either have been or still are associated with RSSB, here's a link to the organization's recently unveiled Official You Tube Channel.

You Tube says the RSSB channel has 882 videos. Clicking on the "Videos" tab, I was curious to see how many videos were from the last four gurus of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

It wasn't possible to tell exactly, since the titles of many of the videos are truncated online, so the person in the video isn't always shown.

Still, this is what resulted from a search of the first names of Gurinder Singh (current guru), Charan Singh (previous guru), Jagat Singh (guru prior to Charan), and Sawan Singh (guru prior to Jagat).

Gurinder... zero
Charan...162
Jagat...12
Sawan...30

It's decidedly weird that Gurinder Singh, who has been the RSSB guru for 29 years, has never, to my knowledge, written anything public, been in any public videos, and does his best to prevent photographs from being taken of him. 

Yet his name is all over the Indian financial press, since he and other members of the Dhillon family reportedly are the recipients of almost a billion dollars in loans that were either fraudulent, or at least decidedly suspicious. Plus, he's been accused of making a death threat against one of his cousins, Malvinder Singh.

So I can understand why Gurinder Singh doesn't want to speak publicly about his financial and legal troubles. It just seems very strange that a guru whose job supposedly is to guide people to knowledge of the highest spiritual realities is so unwilling to say anything on the record.

Maybe it is because Gurinder knows that he doesn't really any possess any special spiritual knowledge. Another theory is that since he appears to have been markedly changing the RSSB teachings, at least in talks to non-Indian audiences, he doesn't want to make it obvious how what he says differs from what is in the RSSB books.

Shabnam Dhillon, RSSB guru's wife, implicated in financial fraud

Well, today there was another story in the Indian financial press about the Singh brothers' fall from riches and how their involvement with Gurinder Singh Dhillon, guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, has contributed a lot to the legal trouble they're in.
Download Malvinder and Shivinder Singh and the ‘missing’ funds of a billion-dollar empire | Business News

The Indian Express story contains intriguing details about the involvement of the guru's wife, Shabnam Dhillon, in financial dealings that a criminal complaint filed by Malvinder Singh says were fraudulent.

Here's an image from the story that shows her connection to several shell companies that allegedly engaged in illegal transfers of money.

As you can read in the following excerpt from the story, Malvinder says that Prius Real Estate and Prius Commercial Projects engaged in a "wrongful loss" to RHC Holding. 

In the image above, the blue boxes indicate companies where Shabnam Dhillon was a director until August 2016. Those include Prius Real Estate and Prius Commercial Projects.

It's hard for me to believe that she was the mastermind behind the shady financial transactions. But she could be held legally responsible, unless her husband, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, breaks his silence and admits that he helped orchestrate the fraudulent transfer of funds.

Here's the excerpt from the Indian Express story. I've boldfaced parts for emphasis. Rs 6,000 crore is about $863 million.

The ‘Baba’ Factor

Earlier this year, Malvinder filed a complaint with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), pointing fingers at his younger brother and RSSB spiritual head, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, for causing “wrongful loss” to him and shareholders of RHC Holding.

Malvinder’s affidavit filed in the Supreme Court this year claims over Rs 6,000 crore in loans and advances are to be recovered from “various individuals and entities belonging/controlled/linked to a few major companies and individuals, not a party to the arbitral award”. These include companies like Prius Real Estate and Prius Commercial Projects, Sunil Godhwani as well as the RSSB head himself, it alleged.

Shabnam Dhillon, Gurinder Singh Dhillon’s wife, was a director in Prius Real Estate and Prius Commercial Projects until August 2016, shows the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA).

“I say that these loans and advances have become due, however, due to the differences within the family, the recovery process for the same has been blocked… In order to further strengthen the recovery process, I have even initiated criminal proceedings against some of the borrowers who owe money to the judgment debtors before the Economic Offences Wing,” read Malvinder’s affidavit.

His EOW complaint alleges that Shivinder, along with Sunil Godhwani and Dhillon, conspired to “siphon” money from RHC and settle the Dhillon family’s debts and dues by absorbing them in RHC. This includes an alleged plan by the younger Singh to take over six companies, including Modland Wears, Best Healthcare and Fern Healthcare, “without initiating any financials and legal due diligence”. The EoW complaint further alleged that the six companies in question had extended loans exceeding Rs 1,000 crore to the Dhillon and Godhwani family.

Modland, Fern and Best — in which the MCA says Shivinder is a director — were involved in “fictitious and fraudulent” transactions of over Rs 400 crore withdrawn from Fortis through ICDs, according to the Sebi.

Malvinder claimed his younger brother signed a “family settlement” with Dhillon agreeing to “absolve” him of “any wrongdoing whatsoever and agreeing that no liabilities or legal proceedings or criminality would be attributable” to the RSSB chief under any circumstances.

Furthermore, Daiichi in 2018 alleged that the brothers had siphoned funds through a complex “web of companies”, to render its award, now valued over Rs 3,500 crore, a “mere paper decree”.

Summary of Singh brothers saga features misdeeds by Gurinder Singh Dhillon

Today someone sent me a link to a The Week story about the saga of the Singh brothers' financial downfall that contains several mentions of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas who has been accused of criminal wrongdoing in this unholy mess.
Download Malvinder Shivinder Singh: The boom-to-doom saga of the brothers

You can read the entire story below. I've added some comments of my own after several sections in red italics. 

One thing I learned from the story is that seemingly Malvinder and Shivinder Singh aren't nephews of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, because the story says that their mother, Nimmi, is the guru's cousin.

I'm terrible at genealogy, but a person who is more knowledgeable than me emailed me last year, saying that the relationship of the Singh brothers and Dhillon is first cousins once removed. Some news stories say Dhillon is their uncle, and I've gone back and forth between "uncle" and "cousin" in my blog posts.

Now, though, I'm going to stick with cousin. Here's the story. I've boldfaced parts that relate to Dhillon.

LOVE AND VIOLENCE. Faith and betrayal. Goons and gurus. The boom-to-doom saga of brothers Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh is peppered with all these in good measure.

Once the poster boys of India Inc (their pharma company Ranbaxy Laboratories and later ventures Fortis Hospitals and Religare Enterprises had all crossed billion-dollar valuations under their watch), they messed it up big time, as their businesses collapsed in just about a decade.

Yet, as the drama plays out at the highest court of the land, it is clearly symptomatic of the many lacunae in India’s corporate regulatory framework.

It all started with money, lots of it. And greed.

On the face of it, the amount that is making the headlines—Rs 3,500 crore the brothers are ordered by the court to pay Japanese pharmaceutical company Daiichi Sankyo—is grave enough. But it is loose change in comparison to the Rs 22,500 crore the brothers are said to have blown up since they sold Ranbaxy to Daiichi Sankyo in 2008 and ventured into a blitzkrieg of business expansion into multifarious areas.

They lost control of their businesses—some sold to the highest bidder, while some were taken over by lenders. Even their sprawling bungalow in Lutyens Delhi was sold to pay the dues.

“We would now like to fight for our justice and pride... and not for economics,” the brothers said in a joint statement a few months ago. But that was before they turned on each other, even coming to fisticuffs. “He assaulted me. He injured me,” Malvinder alleged in a video he posted online, showing his injuries, last December.

A few months earlier, Shivinder had alleged that Malvinder forged his wife Aditi’s signature in some documents, but they kissed and made up after their mother, Nimmi Singh, intervened.

The seeds of disaster were sown right at the time the brothers sold their family business, Ranbaxy, to Daiichi Sankyo. Ranbaxy had made a killing in the generic drug business to become India’s most valuable pharmaceutical company. At that time, Japan was modifying its drug laws to facilitate generic drugs, and acquiring a company specialising in it seemed like a fast way in for Daiichi Sankyo. Also, Daiichi got a drug maker with access to the lucrative American market.

The brothers got solid cash, nearly Rs 10,000 crore, and they promptly ploughed a chunk of it into their new businesses, Fortis (Rs 2,230 crore) and Religare (Rs 1,750 crore), which then kicked off an ambitious acquisition and expansion spree.

A similar amount of money (one report puts it at Rs 2,700 crore) was transferred to companies owned by the family of Baba Gurinder Singh Dhillon, head of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a Punjab-based spiritual sect that commands lakhs of followers in northern India and abroad.

It was only the beginning of a stream of cash flow from the Singhs to Dhillon, who is Nimmi’s cousin. The brothers say Dhillon was like a father to them, especially after the death of their own, Parvinder Singh, in 1999. On Dhillon’s advice, they appointed Sunil Godhwani as the head of Religare Enterprises.

Along with the Singh brothers, Godhwani has been booked by the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police on charges of cheating, criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust. So Gurinder Singh Dhillon's advice hasn't worked out very well, legally and ethically. 

At first, all seemed hunky-dory. Fortis grew rapidly—once even crossing Apollo to become India’s biggest hospital chain—and Religare’s multiple wings performed well. Dhillon, on his part, invested in real estate, cashing in on the spiralling land rates in Delhi’s satellite towns in 2010 and 2011. More money flowed in to the many companies floated by him from the Singhs or through a complex maze of their companies and subsidiaries.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has found that the "complex maze" alluded to above resulted in fraudulent loans made to shell companies controlled at the time by members of the Dhillon family and close associates. A Business Today story gives some details about this.

Then, disaster struck.

As the real estate bubble burst in 2011, Dhillon’s investments came a cropper, leaving him with huge debt. The rapid expansion of Fortis and Religare, all funded by massive loans, suddenly came back to bite the Singhs as the slowdown took hold.

“Appropriate risk, appropriate growth, transparency in financial dealings and having an independent board which could question their actions were all steps that could have contained their greed,” said N. Chandramouli, CEO of the business consultancy TRA Research. A vicious cycle of mortgaging assets and shares to pay off initial debt plunged them deeper into the debt hole. According to information with the Registrar of Companies, assets worth more than Rs 15,000 crore were pledged, many of them possibly to pay off earlier debts.

To make matters worse, Daiichi Sankyo alleged that the brothers did not disclose that the US government was investigating Ranbaxy when it acquired the company in 2008.

A few months after the deal, the Federal Drug Administration, America’s powerful drug regulator, banned medicines from two Ranbaxy plants in India and launched an investigation into the company’s practices. In 2014, Daiichi sold Ranbaxy to Sun Pharma.

In 2016, a Singapore tribunal directed the Singhs to pay about Rs 2,500 crore to Daiichi Sankyo (the total amount now is around Rs 3,500 crore, including interest and legal fees). The brothers, however, delayed the payment, prolonging the wrangling and setting the stage for the denouement at the Supreme Court.

In between, the Singhs lost control of both Religare (taken over by equity investors) and Fortis (bought by Malaysia’s IHH Healthcare last year).

Religare now is seeking to get its money back, which involves tracing the flow of money that ended up in the hands of the Dhillon family.

A month ago, in a complaint to the economic offences wing of the Delhi Police, Malvinder accused his brother, Dhillon and Godhwani of criminal conspiracy, cheating and fraud. He claimed the outstanding from Dhillon was Rs 8,646 crore as of 2016, and that he was threatened by Shivinder every time he asked for it.

Malvinder also has accused Dhillon of making death threats against him.

“Shivinder initiated these actions and permitted siphoning and malfeasance of funds with the ulterior motive of gaining control of the seat of the spiritual head of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, which was promised to him by Dhillon in lieu of the financial gains,” he said. Shivinder, however, said the fraud happened while Malvinder was running the company. Shivinder had renounced his corporate posts to join the ashram. He returned in 2015.

This appears to be a lie by Shivinder, though it is possible that Shivinder did join the Radha Soami Satsang Beas ashram at some point prior to when documents show he was actively involved in corporate affairs.

“It is not about individual honour... it doesn’t look good for the country’s honour,” said the Supreme Court while hearing the case against the Singhs. Corporate India’s recent track record when it comes to payments has not been very good.

It begets the question, what needs to be done? “Corporate laws are well formed, but poorly implemented,” said Chandramouli. “It is difficult for those erred against to get justice. In a world which works solely on trust, it is important that transgressors of trust be taken to task.”

Sam Harris shows my meditation is on the right spiritual track

There's many forms of meditation. They all have strengths and weaknesses, pluses and minuses. But only a few forms of meditation lead to an increased knowledge of reality, since most are based on unfounded religious dogma.

I'm confident that the meditation I've been practicing for about fifteen years -- after I wisely gave up a religiously-based form of meditation -- has me on the right spiritual track.

I explained why in "Real spirituality is realizing you aren't a soul, or self." Here's how that 2014 post starts out.

Just as predicted, I'm really enjoying reading Sam Harris' new book, "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion."

I'm about a third of the way through. Which is far enough to have discovered the central theme. Harris writes:

My goal in this chapter and the next is to convince you that the conventional sense of self is an illusion -- and that spirituality largely consists in realizing this, moment to moment.

...Most of us feel that our experience of the world refers back to a self -- not to our bodies precisely but to a center of consciousness that exists somehow interior to the body behind the eyes, inside the head.

The feeling that we call "I" seems to define our point of view in every moment, and it also provides an anchor for popular beliefs about souls and freedom of will.

And yet this feeling, however imperturbable it may appear at present, can be altered, interrupted, or entirely abolished. 

...Subjectively speaking, the only thing that actually exists is consciousness and its contents.

Wow. 

Now, I realize that some people would say "Yeah, makes sense, no big surprise" to the above scientifically- and experientially-persuasive truths.

But I spent decades as a devotee of a mystical philosophy that, like many others, taught that we humans have, or are, an eternal soul. The soul supposedly could return to God through meditation at the "eye center" -- that place behind the eyes and inside the head Harris, a neuroscientist and Buddhist practitioner, says doesn't house a self or soul.

So it sure seems like those who claim that this world is an illusion, with soul-realms being true reality, are the ones who have gotten it wrong. 

There is no enduring soul or self to be liberated. As Harris says in his book, genuine spirituality is realizing this. Thus a belief in the existence of soul leads one farther away from the truth, not closer. This is basic Buddhism, yet even many Buddhists still harbor fantasies of living on after death as... something or other.

Other posts I wrote about my first reading of Harris' "Waking Up" are here, here, and here. I re-read the book in 2016 and wrote another post about it. I had some quibbles about how Harris views consciousness, but upon a closer reading of certain sections I was able to better grasp his viewpoint.

The past few days I've been reading "Waking Up" a third time. I switch highlighter colors with every reading. By now some pages are almost completely highlighted.

This book is my favorite in the spiritual but not religious genre. Harris is famously down on religion, yet decidedly up on understanding the nature of ourselves through Buddhist Vipassana (mindfulness) meditation that's aimed at dissolving the illusion that we are, or have, a self/soul.

Harris writes:

Unlike the doctrines of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the teachings of Buddhism are not considered by their adherents to be the product of infallible revelation. They are, rather, empirical instructions: If you do X, you will experience Y.

Although many Buddhists have a superstitious and cultic attachment to the historical Buddha, the teachings of Buddhism present him as an ordinary  human being who succeeded in understanding the nature of his own mind.

Buddha means "swakened one" -- and Siddhartha Gautama was merely a man who woke up from the dream of being a separate self. 

Compare this with the Christian view of Jesus, who is imagined to be the son of the creator of the universe. This is a very different proposition, and it renders Christianity, no matter how fully divested of metaphysical baggage, all but irrelevant to a scientific discussion about the human condition.

...Although the experience of self-transcendence is, in principle, available to everyone, this possibility is only weakly attested to in the religious and philosophical literature of the West.

Only Buddhists and students of Advaita Vedanta (which appears to have been heavily influenced by Buddhism) have been absolutely clear in asserting that spiritual life consists in overcoming the illusion of the self by paying close attention to our experience in the present moment.

Beautiful. 

What I love about this approach to spirituality is that it's solidly founded in modern neuroscience, which also says that our sense of being a "self" is almost certainly an illusion, so meditation needs to be aimed at realizing what we are not by paying close attention to what we actually are.

Namely, thoughts without a thinker; perceptions without a perceiver; emotions without an emoter; and so on.

Sam Harris writes:

The claim that we can experience consciousness without a conventional sense of self -- that there is no rider on the horse -- seems to be on firm ground neurologically. Whatever causes the brain to produce the false notion that there is a thinker living somewhere inside the head, it makes sense that it could stop doing this. And once it does, our inner lives become more faithful to the facts.

How can we know that the conventional sense of self is an illusion? When we look closely, it vanishes. This is compelling in the same way that the disappearance of any illusion is: You thought something was there, but upon closer inspection, you see that it isn't. What doesn't survive scrutiny cannot be real.

Harris uses this visual illusion as an analogy.

There appears to be a white box in the center of the figure. But, Harris says, "when we study the image, it becomes clear that there are only four partial circles. The square has been imposed by our visual system, whose edge detectors have been fooled."

Try blanking out all but one of the black figures with your hand. That makes it easier to see that what appears to be a white square actually is an absence, not a presence. 

Just like the self, or soul. It appears to be there, but this is an illusion. Look for it, and it's nowhere to be found. If that feeling of nowhere'ness persists, congratulations. You're enlightened! Or, awake.

Singh brothers stay out of jail. Malvinder's attorney says RSSB guru duped them.

Here's the latest news in the saga of the Singh brothers and the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. First, a Business Today story, "Singh brothers get a breather from top court." Here's how it starts out.

The Supreme Court (SC) has reserved its order on a contempt plea filed by Japanese pharma company Daiichi Sankyo against the Singh brothers over non-payment of Rs 3,500 crore arbitration award. However, the apex court said it was deciding the issue of 'contempt of court' only. During the hearing, Daiichi told the SC that former Ranbaxy promoter Malvinder Singh had given undertaking in the Delhi High Court, and that the value of their "unencumbered assets" was only Rs 452 crore.

The top court on March 14 had asked the duo to submit a concrete plan for repaying the Japanese firm as well as consult their accountants and financial/legal advisors and appraise it by April 5. But during the hearing on Friday, the bench was miffed at the responses given by the Singh brothers.

Senior lawyers Kapil Sibal, representing Malvinder, had told the bench that the brothers had been duped and that "nearly Rs 6,300 crore has been siphoned off by some 'baba'", while requesting that properties of the contemnor be sold under the instruction of the court. To this, the bench had responded saying that the court will "only adjudicate on the violation of our orders", adding that they can sell their own properties.

Not being familiar with Indian legal language, which differs some from what's used here in the United States, I'm assuming that "reserved its order' means that for now Malvinder and Shivinder Singh aren't being served with a contempt of court order, even though they haven't paid the Rs 3,500 crore [$507 million] arbitration award to Daiichi Sankyo.

So it appears they're being given more time to come up with the money, though the story goes on to say that the Supreme Court justices weren't happy with the progress made by the Singh brothers on this front.

The "baba" who duped the Singh brothers, according to Malvinder Singh's attorney, is Gurinder Sigh Dhillon -- who allegedly siphoned off Rs 6,300 crore from companies once controlled by the brothers. That's $913 million.

It looks to me, from the last paragraph in the excerpt above, that Malvinder wanted the court to order the sale of properties owned by the Dhillon family (and maybe others also) that were bought via the siphoned/fraudulently-obtained Rs 6,300 crore worth of money.

But the court said, "No, you sell the properties on your own."

Much, if not most, of the above-mentioned money went into real estate investments made by the Dhillon family. Another Business Today story, "How Singh brothers got into trouble -- bit by bit," includes mentions of the RSSB guru and his role in the downfall of the Singh brothers business empire. Here's excerpts from the timeline.

June 2008

The Singh brothers sell their family firm, Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd - at the time India's largest drugmaker - to Daiichi for $4.6 billion. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cracks down on two of its plants just months later, a development that only snowballs into a bigger mess.

...2009-2012

Nearly Rs 2,700 crore from the Ranbaxy proceeds are routed to entities owned by Gurinder Singh Dhillon's family and companies associated with senior Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) functionaries over three years. Dhillon, better known as 'Babaji', is RSSB's spiritual guru. Of that, Rs 2,000 crore is invested in two firms, Prius Real Estate and Prius Commercial Projects.

Separately, Rs 1,750 crore is invested in Religare Enterprises (REL) and about Rs 2,230 crore in Fortis - again from the Ranbaxy proceeds - to fuel their growth. All these turn out to be fatal mistakes.

The money transferred to Dhillon and associates - estimated to be between Rs 4,000-6,000 crore, with interest, depending on who you ask - remains unpaid to the Singhs. The rapid and reckless expansion spree that REL and Fortis embark on lands them in a debt trap when the slowdown hits in 2009. That's the beginning of a vicious cycle of mortgaging assets and equity in group companies to raise loans to pay off their previous liabilities.

...November 2016

Troubles mount at the Singhs' NBFC REL, under the helmsmanship of family confidante Sunil Naraindas Godhwani, who had come on board on Dhillon's recommendation. The promoters, who had not been on REL's board since April 2010, return this month after subsidiary firm Religare Finvest writes off Rs 794 crore due to non-receipt of dues from Strategic Credit Capital associated with ABG Shipyard. The loan and the write-off are under regulatory scrutiny.

...February 2019

On February 5, Malvinder Singh files a criminal complaint against Shivinder, the Dhillon family as well as the Godhwani kin - Sunil and Sanjay (who headed loss-making REL subsidiary Ligare Aviation). In the complaint filed before the Economic Offences Wing he seeks Rs 8,742 crore owed to him by the alleged accused.

Seemingly the Supreme Court is doing its best to insure that the Daiichi award is paid by the Singh brothers. If they could come up with the $507 million on their own, surely they would have done so by now, since a contempt decree and jail time could await them if they don't pay up.

Thus the spotlight is on Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family, since they appear to be the ones who ended up with almost a billion dollars siphoned through fraudulent means from companies once controlled by the Singh brothers. 

Given that Malvinder and Shivinder are nephews of Dhillon, as well as initiates of the guru, there must be a lot of heated discussion among members of the Dhillon family about this unholy mess. Maybe one day we'll learn about what's going on behind the scenes, if only to provide more of a basis for the plot of a Bollywood movie about this scandal.

Shivinder Singh lied about becoming a full-time RSSB sevadar

Here's another twist in the oh-so-fascinating big-money drama involving the Singh brothers (Malvinder and Shivinder), the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, and a host of supporting characters.

A Business Today story says, "Singh brothers case: Shivinder drew Rs. 9 crore salary during 'retirement'; misled SC about 'Sanyaas.'" (9 crore is about $1,300,000; SC refers to the Supreme Court of India)
Download Singh brothers case: Shivinder drew Rs 9 crore salary during 'retirement'; misled SC about 'Sanyaas'

Here's how the story starts out:

Singh brothers Malvinder and Shivinder are on the verge of being thrown behind bars on April 11 when the Supreme Court hears contempt proceedings against the two in the $500 million order given in favour of Japanese pharma maker Daiichi Sankyo.

In the run-up to the proceedings, Shivinder's affidavit before the Supreme Court claimed that he had been on a 22-month Sanyaas - a sabbatical devoted to serving at the Radha Soami Satsang Beas - starting January 1, 2016. Hence, the contempt proceedings should not be applied to him as he was not in control of the affairs of the group. "...Deponent is not and at all material times was not in control of the entities against whom any contempt is alleged," he said in his affidavit.

However, fresh evidence available with BusinessToday.In suggests that Shivinder had never dissociated from the group. Instead, he was not only keeping abreast of and directing crucial decisions in the group but was also drawing salary from two group companies.

Hopefully this drama will be made into an Bollywood movie, because the plot lines are so complex and deliciously scandalous. I've hugely enjoyed following the saga for quite a few years. 

In February 2016 I wrote a blog post, "Billionaire Shivinder Singh plans to volunteer for Indian guru." At that time Shivinder reportedly planned to be a full time sevadar/volunteer at the Beas headquarters of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, giving up his business responsibilities.

In July 2018 there was a rumor in the Indian financial press about Shivinder becoming the next RSSB guru, succeeding his uncle, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. I wrote about this in "Gurinder Singh's billionaire nephew rumored to succeed him as RSSB guru."

Then, in February 2019, Shivinder's brother, Malvinder Singh, filed a criminal complaint against Shivinder, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, and several others.

Part of the complaint alleged that Dhillon, the RSSB guru, was willing to pass on the leadership of Radha Soami Satsang Beas to Shivinder in return for Shivinder forgiving a massive amount of money that was fraudulently loaned to the Dhillon family.

When Malvinder refused to sign the family settlement, he says a death threat was made against him by Gurinder Singh Dhillon -- which sure doesn't seem like a "spiritual" thing for a guru to do.

So now the Business Today story says that Shivinder Singh, who wanted to succeed Dhillon as RSSB guru, lied about giving up his business responsibilities to devote himself to volunteer work at the Dera.

However, documents in possession of BusinessToday.In suggest that in the period January 1, 2016 to September, 2017 when he said he was not involved with the affairs of the group as he claimed to be in 'full time charitable service', he was in fact drawing a salary from group firms ANR Securities & Ranchem.

Shivinder's Form 16 submitted to the Income Tax Department suggests that he drew a gross salary of Rs 21.75 lakh per month each from the two subsidiaries of RHC Holding - the group holding firm. Together, the two firms paid him Rs 9.12 crore in the period January, 2016 - September, 2017 as gross salary and Rs 5.9 crore as net post-tax salary during the period of 'retirement'.

Besides, multiple documents suggest that, far from retirement, Shivinder was deeply involved in the group's affairs, directing deals, advising board meetings and schedules and often intervening in discussions, even leading them at times.

It's an unholy mess, for sure.

Likely the Supreme Court isn't going to look kindly on Shivinder making false statements to the court -- especially since Shivinder tried to use his supposed stint as a full-time RSSB volunteer to get out of a contempt decree issued by the court.

It's interesting that someone appears to have leaked documents to Business Today regarding Shivinder's ongoing business involvements while he supposedly was on a spiritual sabbatical. It could well be that more leaking/whistle-blowing is going to occur.

People in the know could have various motivations for doing this.

Such as: not approving of what the Singh brothers, the RSSB guru, and others have been doing; wanting to cooperate with authorities to avoid being implicated in the wrongdoing; revenge for having been treated badly by Malvinder, Shivinder, and others involved with this scandal.

It's virtually certain that more twists and turns are going to occur in this drama. Hopefully justice will win out in the end.

New Delhi police investigating criminal complaint against RSSB guru

Here's a Bloomberg story from February that escaped my notice until a Google search brought it to my attention yesterday. Someone mentioned the story in a March comment, but I didn't read it in full until now.
Download Indian Tycoon Accuses Brother and Spiritual Guru of Fraud - Bloomberg

Those of us who've been associated with Radha Soami Satsang Beas for many years (35, for me) are marveling at the fact that the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, is the subject of a criminal complaint being investigated by the New Delhi police.

This is a fact that I don't recall seeing in other stories about Malvinder Singh's complaint against his brother (Shivinder), Dhillon, family members of the guru, and several close associates of the guru.

Sure, defenders of the guru like to say that so far he hasn't been convicted of a crime.

But that's a really low ethical standard for a a guru who supposedly is God in Human Form, according to the RSSB teachings. No previous RSSB guru has been accused of massive financial fraud and making a death threat.

Not even close to anything like that.

And part of the criminal complaint alleges that Gurinder Singh Dhillon was willing to sell his position as guru to Shivinder in return for Shivinder forgiving the money owed by the guru.

How anyone can see this guy as a "spiritual" leader baffles me. He's used his position as RSSB guru to enrich himself and his family, while failing to take responsibility for his unethical actions.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the investigations into financial wrongdoing that benefitted Dhillon and his family. In my opinion, it's likely that Dhillon was involved in the scheming that funneled money into shell companies once controlled by the guru's family and associates.

I could be wrong, though. Just as those who say "The guru can do no wrong" also could be wrong.

Here's a screenshot of the story's headline, and excerpts from it. I've boldfaced parts relating to the guru.

Former Indian billionaire Malvinder Singh has filed a criminal complaint accusing his younger brother of siphoning funds from their family holding company and fraudulently diverting them to a renowned spiritual guru, the latest twist in the unraveling of a $2 billion empire.

Shivinder Singh allegedly directed the holding company to acquire debt-ridden firms which collectively lent 10 billion rupees ($140 million) to the family and associates of their guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, according to a complaint filed to the Economic Offenses Wing of the New Delhi police seen by Bloomberg. In return, the younger Singh was promised he would succeed the guru as head of one of India’s most powerful spiritual sects, according to the document.

The public fight between the former billionaire brothers follows the collapse of one of India’s most storied business families that once controlled the nation’s top drugmaker and second-largest hospital chain. The siblings have lost much of their corporate empire to debt, and are still being chased by creditors. Meanwhile, India’s stock market regulator and fraud office have open investigations into wrongdoing at companies the brothers used to run.

New Delhi police have opened an investigation into the complaint, said a police official. A criminal prosecution would be pursued if the probe establishes criminality, he said. Malvinder and Shivinder have declined to comment on the allegations in the criminal complaint. The brothers have previously denied any wrongdoing at their companies.

Dhillon’s lawyer and the secretary of his spiritual sect did not immediately respond to text messages seeking comment on behalf of the guru and his family members referenced in the allegations.

The criminal complaint alleges that the 43-year-old Shivinder “initiated” as well as “permitted this siphoning and malfeasance of funds entrusted to him with the ulterior motive of gaining ultimate control of the seat of the spiritual head of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas,” promised to him by Dhillon. The spiritual sect, founded almost 130 years ago and based on a commune in north India, boasts four million followers worldwide.

...In his criminal complaint, Malvinder claims Dhillon had threatened him to sign a settlement absolving the guru of any wrongdoing and abstaining from any legal or criminal action against the spiritual leader. Malvinder alleges Dhillon, through his lawyer, told the tycoon he "would be eliminated by persons from the Radha Soami Satsang Beas," if he did not proceed as demanded, according to the complaint. The elder Singh claims he has recordings of these threats and is "fearful for his life."

Besides Shivinder and Dhillon, the complaint also names as references Dhillon’s wife, his two sons, and four alleged associates in the allegations.

Critical thinking welcome here. Preachiness, not so much.

On this blog I've gone back and forth with moderating comments. After deciding a few weeks ago to return to approving comments before they're published on this blog, I'm feeling good about doing this.

I'd rather have just a few -- or even just one -- thoughtful comments on a post than a bunch of irrelevant comments, especially if they're of the "Praise God!" or "Praise Guru!" variety.

But for many years my boundless Buddha-like compassion for religiously-minded beings has led me to offer an "open thread" option to those who want to express themselves in a fashion that isn't appropriate for comments on regular blog posts. Such as, being preachy.

(Here's the newest Open Thread that I just put up.)

This is a big difference between open-minded atheists like me, and dogmatic religious devotees.

I can pretty much guarantee that few religious web sites or blogs allow commenters to criticize their faith, while most non-believers are fine with open discussion of their viewpoints. 

Critical thinking is key. I love comments that exhibit thoughtfulness, even if the commenter disagrees with me. 

Now, I don't have a definition of "critical thinking," nor do I feel like looking one up. Instead, here's my ideas about what this entails.

I'll start with the most important word, critical, since I think most people understand what thinking means. Critical can mean "important," and that's certainly true with critical thinking. It also connotes a certain skeptical questioning, not taking things on faith.

A critical thinker isn't a blank slate, since all of us have preconceived ideas, assumptions, world views, and such.

However, we need to be willing to hold the attitude "I could be wrong." Many, if not most, religious believers aren't willing to do this. Though they may use critical thinking in other parts of their lives, they put it aside when it comes to their belief in God, heaven, life after death, and so on.

The main goal of critical thinking is to understand reality as clearly, completely, and accurately as possible. A related goal is to enable individuals to have productive discussions of what reality consists of, since without critical thinking as a foundation for such discussions, they'd degenerate into people making claims that stifle open debate.

Let's imagine a group talking about global warming -- it's causes, consequences, and what should be done about it. Then someone chimes in with "Jesus saves!" or "God is in control, so no worries." That would stop the discussion in its tracks.

Critical thinking mainly is directed at objective reality, the world outside of our internal subjectivity. 

If someone says, "I believe in God," or "I like chocolate ice cream," there's little that I'd feel like saying in response except, perhaps, wonderful. However, if that person says "God is real," or "Everybody should like chocolate ice cream the best," I'd want to argue with them.

During the 15 years I've been posting regularly on this blog I've seen countless (almost) examples of religious believers mixing up their subjective faith with objective reality. No reasons need be given for subjective faith, but very good reasons must be provided if a claim is made about objective reality.

Typically, truths about objective reality require an extensive process of review, discussion, debate, and criticism.

No one gets to say "the world is like this: _____" without that claim being put under the microscope of critical thinking. Saying so doesn't make it so. Facts, evidence, sound arguments -- those things make it so.

Look, I'm not saying that every comment on this blog outside of an Open Thread needs to be an intellectual tour de force. I'm simply encouraging visitors to this blog who want to leave a comment on one of my posts to be thoughtful in your arguments. Which doesn't mean serious, necessarily. Humor and thoughtfulness are allies, not enemies.

Each of us should be able to laugh at our mistakes, our tendency to believe that we're correct even in the absence of evidence, our unwillingness to admit I could be wrong.

Again, I see this as a difference between us atheists and religious believers.

I'm not certain that God doesn't exist. I'm open to evidence and arguments that God does exist. All I ask is that religious believers have the same attitude. Admit that you aren't certain God exists. Be open to evidence and arguments that God doesn't exist.

If this happens, we can have a dialogue based on critical thinking. 

Here's a few cartoons about critical thinking.

 

Open Thread 19 (free speech for comments)

Leave a comment on this post about anything you want to talk about. Remember that I'm moderating comments, so it could take a while for your comment to be published. Almost every comment submitted to an Open Thread will be approved. Personal attacks devoid of substantive content are an exception.

Though I haven't been doing too well on this, I'll try to remember to always have an Open Thread showing in the Recent Posts section in the right sidebar. If one isn't showing, I've added an Open Threads category in, naturally, the Categories section. You can always find an Open Thread that way.

So if you're a believer in some form of religion, mysticism, or spirituality, this is where you can put your "praise God," "praise Guru," or "praise _______" comments.

Queen's Live Aid performance shows power of Freddy Mercury being himself

Last night my wife and I finished watching Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie. It ends with a re-creation of Queen's famous performance at the 1985 Live Aid event at Wembley Stadium in London.

A New York Times story about the performance says, "Freddie Mercury’s set in July 1985 is often called one of the greatest live performances of all time." For sure.

You can view it via the video below, which has gotten over 211 million views. Mercury performs for about 21 minutes. I found watching him to be both highly entertaining and deeply inspiring.

Mercury was a gay man at a time when homosexuals mostly were expected to stay in the closet. Watching Mercury's struggles with his sexuality in the movie made me appreciative of how far society has evolved in its acceptance of LBGT people, who are, of course, almost certainly born that way.

The New York Times story speaks about how Mercury sent a message to the audience, estimated at 1.9 billion people in 150 countries.

Mercury’s pinnacle bow at “Live Aid” was charged by a poignant sense of subversion. Here was a gay man stuck in a pop culture moment that continued to insist his identity remain shielded in code. But what glorious code he chose! Through his balletic gait and florid presentation, Mercury rubbed the nose of Live Aid’s global audience in a powerful brand of effeminacy, seducing them into adoring something they might otherwise view with contempt.

Such is the power of authenticity, being who you really are.

Freddy Mercury had an amazing amount of talent. But he wouldn't have been able to captivate the 70,000 people in Wembley Stadium, and almost two billion watching on TV, if he hadn't possessed the courage to show the world who he was -- albeit in code, as the NYT story observes, given the backwardness of society in 1985 as regards homosexuality.

Queen's performance was a secular "miracle." Likely few people who saw it live will ever forget the experience. There's so many ways other than religion to be uplifted, transformed, touched by a higher power, feeling one with the world.

Here's one of them.

 

More focus on RSSB guru in Singh brothers financial scandal

Following up on yesterday's post, "Bad karma: Singh brothers may go to jail if RSSB guru doesn't pay up," here's two additional mentions of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, in the Indian financial press.

Someone sent me this image of a Hindustan Times story with the mention of the guru outlined in orange:

"Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing one of the brothers, said 'some babaji' has siphoned off the money of the two brothers and they have been duped."

Babaji clearly refers to Gurinder Singh Dhillon. Kind of strange that the attorney wasn't willing to say his actual name. Sort of reminds me of Lord Voldemort, the Dark Lord in the Harry Potter series, who was sometimes called He Who Must Not Be Named.

And I came across a story in The Times of India, "Will send you to jail, SC warns Singhs; to hear contempt plea." Screenshot of excerpt:

The second paragraph fits with what I said in yesterday's post about there being a contest between Daiichi and Religare for money owed to them by the Singh brothers -- which seemingly would include the massive amount of money owed by the RSSB guru. In that post I mentioned various "actors" in this financial scandal drama.

 

It's dawned on me that the relatives of the Singh brothers and their uncle, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, also have a role here. Likely leaders of the family are shocked that Malvinder and Shivinder could go to jail if Uncle Gurinder doesn't pay back the money he got from them via fraudulent means (allegedly).

 

Sure, squabbles happen in every family. But usually they don't lead to prison time. Or death threats, since Malvinder has filed a complaint against the RSSB guru that says this happened after he refused to sign a letter his uncle prepared that appeared to absolve the guru of having to repay hundreds of millions of dollars in shady loans.

 

So the drama continues. It sure seems like the RSSB guru is going to face continued scrutiny by both financial and criminal investigators. After all, the Dhillon family was the recipient of about $900 million in ill-gained money, and it's very unlikely that those who got the money weren't involved in the illegal scheming.

 

If marked money from a bank robbery turned up in someone's bedroom closet, they'd have a lot of explaining to do. It's possible that someone gave them the money and they had no clue about where the money came from, but that would be extremely unlikely. 

And in the case of the Dhillon family, we know that some of them were directors of the shell companies that got the fraudulently obtained money from companies once controlled by the Singh brothers. That makes claims of innocence even less believable, especially since the shell companies were active participants in the fraud.

Bad karma: Singh brothers may go to jail if RSSB guru doesn't pay up

I'd love to be able to listen in on what Malvinder and Shivinder Singh are saying right now about their uncle, Gurinder Singh Dhillon -- the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. 

According to the India Supreme Court, it seems that the only way the Singh brothers are going to stay out of jail is if Dhillon repays a massive amount of money that was loaned to him by Malvinder and Shivinder, seemingly in a fraudulent manner involving the siphoning of funds from companies controlled by the Singh brothers and the guru's right hand man, Sunil Godhwani.

So says a NDTV story, "Will Send You To Jail," Ranbaxy Singh Brothers Told By Court: 10 Points."
Download Ranbaxy Laboratories: Will Send You To Jail Ranbaxy Singh Brothers Told By Supreme Court-10 Points

NEW DELHI:  The former promoters of pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy, Malvinder Mohan Singh and his brother Shivinder Mohan Singh, were told by the Supreme Court today that they could go to jail for disobeying orders to pay dues to Japanese firm Daiichi Sankyo. "We will go into the issue - why you violated our orders. We will send you to jail. We have given you a chance but you are unable to pay," the court said.

Here's the first three points. I've boldfaced the mention of the RSSB guru.

1. The top court was hearing a petition by Daiichi Sankyo which is seeking to recover Rs. 3,500 crore awarded to it by a Singapore tribunal in its case against the estranged brothers.
2. Last month, the top court had asked the brothers to inform it on how they plan to comply with the order passed against them by the Singapore tribunal.
3. One of the Singh brothers today told the Supreme Court that his assets can be sold and that he is yet to get dues to the tune of Rs. 6,300 crore from Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the head of the Radha Soami Satsang. "You may be owning half of the world but there is no concrete plan as to how the arbitral amount would be realised. You said that somebody owed you Rs. 6,000 crore. But this is neither here nor there," a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said.

In US dollars, Rs. 3,500 crore is about $505 million, while Rs. 6,300 crore is about $939 million. So a heck of a lot of money is at stake here.

It's difficult to tell what happens next in the financial drama, or more accurately scandal, involving the Singh brothers, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the Dhillon family, and Sunil Godhwani, the guru's right hand man who was installed as the CEO of a company, Religare, that siphoned vast amounts of money into shell companies controlled by the Dhillons and close associates.

Everybody involved in this unholy mess has a different interest and motivation.

Daiichi Sankyo. The Japanese firm that won the above-mentioned $505 million award from the Singh brothers, after a court ruled that Malvinder and Shivinder covered up problems with adulterated drugs prior to their sale of Ranbaxy to Daiichi, wants to get the money they're legally owed. Likely Daiichi doesn't care how the Singh brothers come up with the money, so long as it is paid. If the Singh brothers go to jail, that means no money for Daiichi.

Malvinder Singh. He has filed a criminal complaint against the RSSB guru, alleging that Gurinder Singh Dhillon orchestrated the fraudulent loans, then made a death threat against Malvinder after his nephew refused to sign a "family settlement letter" that seemingly would have absolved Dhillon of the responsibility to repay the loans. Malvinder doesn't want to go to jail. He wants Dhillon to pay back the $939 million owed him. But...

Religare. The board of a Religare subsidiary has filed a complaint with the Delhi Economic Offences Wing alleging that the Singh brothers, Godhwani, and unnamed other co-conspirators (some of whom appear to be Dhillon family members) engaged in a conspiracy to siphon money from Religare into shell companies.

Religare, like Daiichi, wants to get its money back. And it seems that this will only happen if the RSSB guru pays back the money that was funneled to him and his family. So it looks like Religare and Daiichi are both competing for the same pot of money.

if I'm right, it's an interesting legal tangle.

Leaving Indian law aside, which obviously I'm not familiar with, it seems that Religare has the strongest moral case, since the money that ended up in the hands of Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family came from Religare coffers. It doesn't seem right that Daiichi could be paid by the Singh brothers if the RSSB guru somehow was able to come up with the $505 million, since this was money obtained fraudulently, it appears.

Shivinder Singh. Malvinder's complaint says that at one point Shivinder was in line to replace Gurinder Singh Dhillon as the RSSB guru in exchange for Shivinder forgiving the money owed him by the Dhillon family. It's unclear whether Shivinder still has a close relationship with his uncle, the guru. What does seem clear is that Shivinder and Malvinder are at odds. Last year Shivinder filed a complaint against Malvinder that seems to be more or less a mirror image of Malvinder's complaint against Shivinder and others. 

Sheetal Talwar. He's sort of a bit player in this drama, being owed only $1.5 million by Gurinder Singh Dhillon. But he's also filed a criminal complaint alleging that a death threat was made against him by someone associated with RSSB.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon. The RSSB guru is a centerpiece of this scandal, but so far I'm not aware that he has made any public statements. Perhaps his attorneys have advised this. I suspect that he is hoping that even if his nephews go to jail, no one will be able to prove that he was involved, or even the ringleader, of the conspiracy to funnel fraudulent loans into the pockets of the Dhillon family.

Well, good luck with that.

In my opinion the odds are stacked against Dhillon, though there's a chance he could escape at least some of the criminal charges -- especially if he was able to repay the $939 million, or a big chunk of the money. That might be the price of Malvinder requesting that his complaint against the RSSB guru and others be dropped.

But if Dhillon was able to repay the loans, seemingly he would already have done so. Instead, it appears that real estate deals made with the fraudulently-obtained money have gone bad, or bad enough to leave the Dhillon family unable to provide the money the Singh brothers need to satisfy the Supreme Court and Daiichi.

The Religare complaint makes it quite clear that in addition to getting the money back that was siphoned out of this public company, Religare wants to get at the bottom of who orchestrated the massive financial fraud and benefitted from it. That's a finger pointing directly at Gurinder Singh Dhillon, since it is difficult to imagine that Dhillon's wife, his sons, or close associates would have engaged in the fraud on their own.

So my bet is that the bad legal karma currently focused on the Singh brothers will eventually migrate to the RSSB guru. Naturally I could be wrong about this. It's just an educated guess, based on what has been reported in the Indian financial press about Dhillon's involvement in this scandal.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon

Here's the problem with living: we're going to die

This isn't exactly breaking news, but I'll say it anyway. Each of us is going to die. 


Those seven words are undeniably scary. Life isn't always pleasant. Yet the gulf between having a difficult life and no life at all is more than immense. It's immeasurable. There's no way to compare being alive and being dead, or existence and non-existence.

The worst day anyone can have is on a different dimension than not existing at all.

Understand: I'm not saying that life is always worth living. Suicide and death with dignity testify to the fact that sometimes people prefer to check out of life early, rather than waiting for the involuntary eviction notice.

There are many reasons most people on Earth embrace some form of religiosity. However, a central reason has to be the reassurance almost every religion provides that when the last breath is taken, that doesn't mark the end of their life, but rather the beginning of a new form of existence.

I don't believe this is true.

There's no convincing evidence of life after death. Nor is there convincing evidence that human consciousness can exist without a functioning brain. Comas, anesthesia, being hit on the head with a baseball bat -- there's abundant evidence that consciousness is a product of the brain, though how this happens still isn't fully understood.

Still, each of has to come to grips with the reality of death whether we're an ardent atheist, committed religious believer, or somewhere in-between. 

Leaving aside the option of not thinking about death until it stares us in the face (which can be a good way to live, for those capable of doing this), it seems to me that there's two basic approaches to preparing for the inevitability of our eventual demise.

One is to try to expand our self. The other is to try to shrink our self. 

Almost all religions take the first approach: expanding the self. For example, some religions say that after death there is either bodily resurrection (Christianity) or reincarnation (Hinduism). Mystical aspects of religion proclaim that the soul can merge with God, taking on divine attributes. 

Aside from the fact that self-expansion, or consciousness-expansion, likely isn't possible in any sense that extends beyond the bounds of a single physical life, there's other reasons to shy away from this approach.

It encourages grandiosity.

I see this all the time in comments religious believers leave on my blog posts, notably those who are devotees of an Indian form of spirituality known as Sant Mat, or the Path of the Saints. They're fond of claiming that this is the highest form of religion, supposedly leading as it does to knowledge of an ultimate divine reality.

Of course, just about every religion makes this same claim.

Since there is no evidence of one religion being superior to another, almost certainly because they all are "fake news" (to borrow a phrase from Donald Trump), it seems ridiculous for a member of any faith to say that their way is the only way -- sort of like people arguing about which unicorn color is the most attractive, given that unicorns don't exist except in one's imagination.

So I prefer the other approach to dealing with life and our eventual death: shrinking the self. 

After all, us humans already are pretty damn insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Aside from having a lot of company here on Earth -- the human population is about 7.6 billion -- we are on a planet circling one of about 100 billion stars in our galaxy, which is one of at least 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe.

And we're very lucky to live 100 years, which is an infinitesimal blip in the 13.7 billion year old universe we inhabit. 

Thus it doesn't take much for us to shrink down to almost nothing, either figuratively or literally (the whole "ashes to ashes' thing). But our egos enjoy pretending that we're way more important than we really are, which goes a long way toward explaining the appeal of religions.

God so loves us, he sent his only son to die for our sins. The soul is destined to return home to its heavenly father. Humans are the pinnacle of creation. 

The myths of religion are innumerable. I much prefer reality:

Each of us is nothing special. We're connected to all other living things through the secular "miracle" of evolution. We live for a while, then we die. Humility is not only a virtue, it's the way things are in a world that is much grander and longer-lived than us.

Of all the world's religions, in my opinion Buddhism and Taoism are the best at offering ways to help us shrink our sense of self. One reason is that neither posits an enduring Self, or Soul. Rather, they teach that life is ever-changing, as are we. Our existence is intimately connected with that of everything else on Earth. We're humble parts of the whole.

He who stands on tiptoe is not steady.
He who strides cannot maintain the pace.
He who makes a show is not enlightened.
He who boasts achieves nothing.
He who brags will not endure.
According to followers of the Tao, 
    "These are extra food and unnecessary luggage."
They do not bring happiness.
Therefore followers of the Tao avoid them.
    -- Tao Te Ching

As a concrete example of the difference between grandiose and humble approaches to spirituality, I spend exactly zero time and effort on religious web sites or blogs trying to push my atheist point of view. Sure, I enjoy sharing churchless/atheist ideas here on my own blog, but I don't go out of my way to convince others that they should adopt my perspective.

But ever since I started this blog in 2004, religious believers -- mostly of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas/Sant Mat variety -- have commented in droves on my blog posts. The way I see it, this shows that they're not very confident in their belief system, since when someone presents arguments against what they believe, they take this as a battle cry to fight against.

Thus I'm pleased to be a humble churchless blogger rather than a grandiose believer in religious dogma. It's much more relaxing that way, since my only commitment is to the truth as best I can understand it. Truth doesn't require any attempt to boost it up, since it stands tall on its own.

Regarding death, my bet is that what will happen to me is exactly the same thing that happens to every other person: we die and are gone forever. The way I see it, the more I can reduce my sense of ego and specialness, the easier it will be to let go when the moment of dying comes.

Until then, I'll enjoy life.

Sure, religious believers typically derive comfort from a fantasy that death won't be the end for them. But the price they pay for their belief strikes me as too high -- feeling like they are the special beloveds of God or some other higher power, which leads to a sense of separation from everybody else who won't enjoy such a marvelous afterlife.

I'd rather feel like I'm simply part of the dead-and-gone-forever crowd. If somehow I discover that I'm living on after I die, that'll be great news. I'm not counting on it, though.

I'm an atheist with more faith than any religious believer

A week ago I came up with the title to this blog post.

The next day I wrote a comment in reply to someone who goes by "In Search Of" that ended up being a good start to explaining why I consider that atheist me has more faith than religious believers.

Here it is.

Following my comment you'll find excerpts from one of my first Church of the Churchless blog posts from way back in 2004, "Just have faith." I'm pleased that while I've become more of an atheist over the past fifteen years, my basic faith in reality hasn't changed.

In Search Of, you asked: "Brian, help me out here. Am I being unreasonable? Why can't I get an intelligent response to my question? Are we unable to differentiate between logic and faith? Or are the two at opposite poles? Is this the real question we're trying to answer? And is it an answerable question?"

Great questions. Interestingly, I came up with the title of a future blog post yesterday that I wrote down for future reference: "I'm an atheist with more faith than any religious believer." In brief, here's what came to mind that led to the idea for this blog post.

I have faith in reality.

Not just bits and pieces of reality, but reality as a whole -- the entire unimaginably vast cosmos, including the aspects that we humans currently know about and also the parts that remain a mystery. Sure, I also have faith in discrete entities. My doctors. Scientists. My VW GTI. My MacBook Pro.

But it isn't possible to have 100% faith in anything discrete.

For example, every finding of science is open to revision if new facts are revealed. Ditto for my faith in my car, which has had defects that needed to be fixed. And certainly ditto for religious leaders, even those like Gurinder Singh Dhillon that are supposedly "perfect masters."

Yet even given all that, I believe in a cosmos that operates according to some beautiful laws of cause and effect.

This applies at the quantum level also, though the laws appear to be more probabilistic than deterministic. Still, probability is a law, or quantum mechanics wouldn't be such a precise science that's responsible for much of our modern technology.

So my mantra is: "I open myself to reality, however it may appear." I wrote a blog post about this: "An atheist meditation that pleases God."

Where I went astray during many of my 35 years of being devoted to RSSB and the Sant Mat meditation practice was having undue faith in a particular aspect of reality. Namely, RSSB and the gurus in that tradition. My observation is that many others fall into the same trap.

They ignore evidence that doesn't fit into their mental model of what reality is like.

But reality doesn't give a shit about our mental models. Reality is simply what it is: reality. As another favorite saying of mine from Philip K. Dick puts it, "Reality is that which, when we stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

The guru's financial dealings/wrongdoing aren't a matter of belief. They're well documented. But RSSB devotees are so used to relying on belief, they aren't able to accept that no matter what they believe, reality remains.

So no, I don't believe that faith and reason are opposed.

At least, not in how I view faith: as trust in a reality that exists independent of our beliefs about it. Thus my view is that it's up to us humans to do our best to understand reality, not for reality to comport with our beliefs about it. That latter option leads to magical thinking.

I see it all the time in comments on this blog. RSSB devotees feel that if they only scream loudly enough into cyberspace, "The guru did nothing wrong! The guru is God! Stop criticizing the guru!", somehow this will change the reality of the guru's behavior.

All of our mental models are false to some extent.

However, we get so attached to them, often there is no crack in the mental model armor where greater and more accurate knowledge can enter.

Religious people are especially prone to this, because their need to believe that not only this life, but also their afterlife, is in the hands of a higher power is so strong, so compelling, so desperate, their reluctance to adjust their mental religious model is equally strong.

With my VW GTI, which I like a lot but am not hugely devoted to, I still found it difficult to accept that a creaking in the sunroof really was a major defect. I tried quite a few ways to fix it before it finally dawned on me, and my dealership, that the whole thing needed to be replaced, basically. See: "My VW had a creaky sunroof. Here's the tale of a 5-week repair."  

There's an analogy here.

Sometimes an entire mental model needs major refurbishing, or even replacement. That's what happened with me and the RSSB teachings. Well, looks like I just wrote a good portion of the above-mentioned planned post. Thanks for giving me that head start.

And here's the excerpts from the above-mentioned "Just have faith" post.

Faith is wonderful.
Faith is all we need to be spiritual.
Just faith. Faith alone.
So we shouldn't have faith in anything other than pure, naked, empty faith.

...Here's how to tell the difference between true faith and false faith:

Imagine that you are standing in the middle of a bare windowless room. Two doors lead out of the room. Both are closed, but can be opened with a turn of the doorknob. The doors are marked with signs that describe what awaits on the other side: (A) Reality, (B) Belief

After you open a door, you have to walk through it. The door then will shut and you never will be able to leave the place you have entered.

Choose Reality and you will know things as they really are, from top to bottom of the cosmos.

You will know whether or not God exists and, if so, the nature of this ultimate divinity. You will know whether death is the final end of your existence or if it is the beginning of another form of life. You will know whether there is a meaning to the universe beyond what human beings ascribe to it.

Or, choose Belief and you will know only what lies within the confines of your current suppositions about the nature of the cosmos.

For the rest of your life you will be confident that what you believe to be true, really is. Any evidence to the contrary will not make an impact on your mind. You will remain doubt-free, faithful to the beliefs you now hold about God, creation, life, death, and the purpose of human existence.

Which door would you choose to walk through?

Before answering, consider carefully the potential ramifications of your choice. Reality is an unknown, a mystery. It could be frightening or fabulous, painful or pleasurable, warmly loving or coldly uncaring. Do you want to embrace absolutely real reality? Or would you rather hold on to your beliefs about what is real?

Someone with the type of faith extolled by the Church of the Churchless would unhesitatingly choose Door A and boldly stride into Reality. For their faith is not in anything particular, but is a faith that truth can be known, should be known, and, indeed, must be known.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon isn't adhering to the message of "Honest Living"

Below is a recent comment written by Radh(er Not) Soami that struck me as well worth sharing as a blog post. The comment points to something important that I feel has been overlooked by defenders of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru who are fond of saying, "Innocent until proven guilty!"

(If you're not familiar with what the guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon (GSD), has been accused of, it is a conspiracy to commit massive financial fraud and death threats. A criminal complaint filed against the guru is discussed in "Legal filing against Gurinder Singh Dhillon is fascinating reading.")

The important thing being overlooked is how strange it is that a spiritual leader with millions of followers, who is considered to be God in Human Form according to the teachings of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), is at risk of being convicted of engaging in financial fraud and making death threats against people who demanded their money back.

Nothing remotely this scandalous has ever occurred in the lineage of RSSB gurus. And as you can read in the following comment, RSSB has even published a book called "Honest Living" whose message is decidedly at odds with how the guru who leads this organization has been conducting his life.

Read on for what Radh(er Not) Soami says. The family settlement letter mentioned in this comment can be read in this post. 

@jay, you wrote:
"So far no one has disputed the accuracy of the bad news about the RSSB guru"
Brian, this pinpoints where we disagree. Strictly speaking, the facts (a thing that is known or proved to be true) presented have all [been] about the associates of the RSSB guru. But they're not facts about the actions of Gurinder Singh himself.

Does the letter written by GSD talking about the Family Settlement, reversal of properties, and settling of accounts constitute "facts" with some "accuracy of the bad news", or at least admission of some "facts" with some "accuracy" of the news, whether bad or not?

To all RSSB defenders, please help me in putting this scandal in the context of Honest Living. As opposed to the previous RSSB related dramas, this one cuts directly to the heart of what the head himself does in his private life, something 99.99% of the sangat is not privy to, and something that he has not been transparent to us at all, ever.

Not in their books, wikipedia page, or even on their own website. Not even now! And here I thought Saints like Nanak and Kabir show openness and transparency to set themselves up as good role models for the followers.

Most people tend to think that GSD has (or had) business in Spain. And that is all, the end of thinking and discussion.

Honest Living book:
Page 21: Honest living necessitates self-control. It requires that we exercise restraint in all our dealings, that we use our sense of judgement, our God-given gift of discrimination, to shape our lives. Honesty implies being faithful to our spouse, or, if we are not married, being faithful to a chaste life. It implies fairness and justice, openness and transparency, the absence of deceit—in contrast to wealth, power and passion, which lead to oppression, extortion, deception and pain.

Page 34: The extreme subtleties of the law. The law of karma is inexorable and subtle beyond our imagination. For example, even if we are party to someone else’s dishonourable actions, we too are culpable as an accessory to the suffering caused.

The second quote clearly highlights the reason for our moral, ethical, spiritual, and legal dilemma here - allegedly a fraud on such a grand scale, discomfort due to this round of news cycle that is not even remotely in the league of previous RSSB related controversies (and I thought I had heard it all ever since joining this mission), and inability to easily shake it off when put in the context of "spiritual before material wealth", "living within one's means" and "not even a single grain..." mantra of Honest Living.

If one were to say this drama is all his wife's or sons' doing as far as his family involvement is concerned, then they are not the ones writing a signed letter to Singh bros either. And they are not the ones to whom Malav [Malvinder Singh] has addressed his reply letter either. They are also not the ones with whom Shivinder is siding with, and Malav going to court against.

That alone should tell you about who likely pulls all the strings on the Dhillon empire side and the level of involvement.

The language in the GSD letter also does not suggest or say "my wife and my sons or family got a loan and would like to settle with you" or appear to act on their behalf. When asked about being called as the third brother of Singhs, Sunny G [Sunil Godhwani] also says his allegiance is to the guru and guru alone. Perhaps that could also give you some hint.

And then you look at the other RSSB characters involved. A natural question arises about who the fountainhead of all these activities is or the head cooks involved in baking this dish are. Even if only occasional gusts of wind have blown (yet), the picture does not seem to be rosy behind the curtain.

To me, this letter and the "fact" that a coterie of RSSB leaders were installed on most significant and top positions of Singh empire, indicate that the crisis could not have come from and just due to the actions of GSD family members alone on the Dhillon side.

But that he himself was involved to a large extent, even if not in day to day activities (more like a 36,000 ft view than a bird's eye view). But he simply could not have been passively involved as a mentor or business consultant. And if actively involved, should he then not be "culpable as an accessory to the suffering caused" due to "someone else’s dishonourable actions" like in the quote above?

So GSD's involvement for sure is there, what needs to be ascertained is a) how much, and b) whether it was knowingly malign at any point during this saga or simply a cruel fate resulting from vagaries of economic cycle.

Even if that is settled, what needs to be truthfully questioned - as if our soul's fate depended on it, which actually it is if we go by GIHF-moksha formula - is that, as an RSSB Saint, should he have indulged in all these affairs to such a ginormous extent, lest the name of the organization is tainted even by remote association?

This is not to say that you can't run a business. To the best of our knowledge, he already was running a small business. But then when the scale of effort goes from 1X to 1000X or more, then how do you rationalize the involvement in gathering of such large scale material wealth, particularly when you are a spiritual head. What is the objective?

It is one thing to have a cool business idea where you can rationalize you are helping society in some way or bringing something new and along the way a misstep or two inadvertently occured.

But it is totally different when it is simply garden variety real estate hoarding on a massive scale and that too done with questionable practices like Trump family's bankruptcy strategies. Most stable and well-known businesses expand on a 2-3X scale.

Some here are confusing loans with donation! I am sorry, even if these were donations, they were not routed to RSSB. And if it were to him or his family, how could he even accept it as a living honorable Saint?

What happened to those stories that Saints don't take a penny/paisa even if a King comes to their door and leave gold bullions, diamonds, etc? Weren't they supposed to earn their own wages for themselves and their family? And that they live within their means and not covet what belonged to others..

And then how do we square these revelations with the mission: as the spiritual head, who best to show us the way to live within one's means, to set himself up as the best example of what is taught in "Honest Living", and to focus on spiritual gains more than on material wealth?

It's also equally absurd to think that somehow the master is arranging/planning a grand heist to shake us from our beliefs and concepts and see who the true believers are or separate the wheat from chaff. What an aweful way to do it and that too pulled off on a decade and a half long initiative, with suffering of many non-satsangis (yet curiously enrichment of some satsangis).

This kind of reasoning is a cousin to the beliefs of Jesus fanatics thinking Grand Canyon or dinosaurs or fossil records were put by him to mess with our beliefs and test our faith. Is Earth really 6000 years old and really flat? If they have to test it, they can equally walk into a bar or put an alcohol bottle with some chicken tandoori on the satsang dais and see what happens, without this much scandalous pain.

Or is it simply what it appears on surface, the classical mantra: "Do as I say and not as I do"!

Relevant to this critcal question of ethics, morality, and spirituality, which to my mind is even more important than the legality of the situtation, is if the Singhs' direct relatives (Huzur and his family members) did not get involve in business initiatives with Ranbaxy empire - likely a carefully considered position - then why did GSD agree to work with the Singh brothers on such a large scale and not follow the path of his predecessor?

Clearly, it wasn't just mentorship. And it's not like GSD's sons or his wife were India's most successful businessmen or had the experience necessary that led to the fateful decision by the Singhs that parting ways with nearly 1/3rd of their hard earned money (actually their fathers') for a lucrative business, is a no-brainer!

His sons were just in the 20's during this time frame (in 2009, Gary would be 24 and Gurkirat just 18) and had not done any serious venture of any sort to showcase their talent. This would be true of GSD's wife as well. On what grounds were the Religare shares awarded to the two GSD sons in 2006?

Even some in the RSSB inner circles seem to think that GSD's wife lives the life of a sevadar and can't possibly do this on her own. (Was that snippet in the orginial Bloomberg article?)

MMS [Malvinder Mohan Singh] also doesn't seem to be targeting or talking about his sons or wife but rather refer to him being involved as a mentor and allegedly a behind-the-scene business partner, an involvement that has turned into a legal (and unholy) quagmire.

Evidently, the whole conglomeration transpired because of GSD due to his experience in dera activities, real estate dealings as well as the experience of dera head honchos who regularly conducted such dealings.

A degree of youthful naivete and trustfulness of Singhs coupled with the experience of GSD/RSSB honchos likely lured the Singh bros into marrying mentorship with business. The awarded shares in the names of wife and sons were likely a dowry for this marriage. They were not in his own name to present a clean image to sangat and avoid probe. But the timely sale of Rabaxy sealed the fateful path.

One's you ponder over it, you will see why many of us are uncomfortable with these revelations and are seriously questioning not only his pivotal role and the involvement of dubious practices but even the very decision to participate in such a large-scale wealth gathering effort in the first place.

Again, what is the objective? And if his heart was clean, then as a spiritual mentor, why did he not call into question or intervene in the dubious practices by his family, Godhwani, and the Singh bros?

It does not appear that he was not acquainted with issues cropping up, given the settlement plans first discussed in 2013, then in 2016, then 2018 letter, followed by Malav's rebuttal letter. Undeniably, there must have been more discussions involved than what just appears on paper.

I applaud what Brian is doing here. He is surely not a saint and can be rightly biased, but then how else do you reveal the truth than by asking tough questions?

“Truth has nothing to do with the conclusion, and everything to do with the methodology.” ― Stefan Molyneux

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him will believeth in anything. - Hitchens 3:16”
― Christopher Hitchens

“When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons.”
― Anaïs Nin

If you care for truth, then I say right now your heart and mind should say: "I want truth and nothing but the complete truth". It is better to die living with an uncomfortable truth than living with "ignorance is bliss". So ask we must, and ask as assiduously as we can to peel behind this curtain. If there is nothing to be seen, well then how lucky will we be!