Excellent analysis of RSSB guru's absurd response to a question

lt's great that videos of Gurinder Singh Dhillon are being posted on You Tube by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the religious organization that is led by Dhillon -- a guru who is considered to be God in Human Form by the RSSB teachings.

This allows people to critique what the guru says.

Sure, RSSB devotees, like true believers everywhere, typically consider that Dhillon can speak no wrong and do no wrong, which ignores the fact that he is enmeshed in a financial scandal involving hundreds of millions of dollars.

Below is a comment on a recent Church of the Churchless post by "j" that I like a lot. It starts with a reference to a previous comment. Satsangi means an initiate of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. I've corrected a few typos.

The question asked of the guru pertains to why someone would leave RSSB, as many have done. I'm one of them. Dhillon's response is typical of fundamentalist religions, which denigrates anyone who chooses to deconvert from the religion. 

This is strange, since religions have no problem with someone leaving a different religion to join that one. But when a person decides that they've found a better spiritual path than the religion they joined, suddenly leaving a religion becomes a horrendous moral failure.

Doesn't make sense. Which isn't surprising, since religions don't make sense. Here's the comment from "j." After it you can view the portion of a video referenced in the comment.

"It was one sentence."

With all due respect, it was not one sentence. Gurinder Singh goes on at length to explain that leaving RSSB for any reason is inexcusable, and is due to:

1) The mental weakness and moral cowardice of the satsangi.

2) A personal rejection of the satsangi by God, who "only takes those he wants to take."

3) The satsangi acting like a willful and rebellious child, for whom the Guru has created a "conducive atmosphere."

4) The satsangi was done in by the "weight of his karmic burden" (huh?)

5) The satsangi is taking "the easy way out." "Then he will have to bear the burden" (again, huh? Wasn't Gurinder just saying that it's a misconception to believe that a Guru can take anyone's karma or bear anyone's burden?)

6) The Guru cannot "study" for the satsangi. This is an ironic choice of words for Gurinder to use, for it's study of our experience of the path and the guru's bold claims that leads many satsangis to abandon RSSB.

7) It is an error for the apostate satsangi to "choose his own path." Gee, I thought that Gurinder taught that all spiritual paths can lead to salvation. Or so I've been told by fans of Gurinder.

8) "The Lord is going to give what he's going to give." Gurinder is supposed to be the Lord, so that's just doubletalk.

9) To the question of whether errant initiated satsangis "get another chance" to come back to the path: This question has been answered ad infinitum by previous gurus that the guru never leaves the initiate for all eternity and watches over him until he finally returns to God.

But here Gurinder hedges and stops to think about the question as if he's never heard it before.

He then goes on with a bit of philosophical gymnastics to argue that since the satsangi has issues with the Guru now (like, for questions of financial impropriety, false claims about possible meditation experiences, false claims about the salvific power of the shard, false claims about RS history, false claims about the guru's power, false claims about the "law" of karma, disaffection with the guru's triumphalist claims for himself, etc), it follows that he may never come back to the path in future lives.

I find it curious that Gurinder equates initiation and RSSB's theological claims of the Guru's power and the power of initiation with "atmosphere."

We're told before initiation that it and the guru have the actual power to hasten our spiritual development, but here this is downgraded to "atmosphere," which seems to portray the path as nothing more than theater. Gurinder also likens initiation to a meal (gurus dearly love analogies, though an analogy is never an explanation for anything).

I've studied guru controversies for over 30 years now, and I know this pattern all too well. Gurinder is simply using the same trick that every guru uses when questioned: He blames the person leaving the path for being a weak and spoiled child.

If I may be so bold: READ CLOSELY (or should I say listen closely, since Gurinder never writes anything down) when the guru speaks.

Is he really facing the questions put to him, or is he dodging them with rhetorical BS? As as ex member of a sant mat path, I've found that it's easy to still buy into the guru's arguments even after one leaves the path. But a close reading of the guru's words can show the evidence of his linguistic sleight of hand.

Never forget, everyone joins Sant Mat because they were SOLD on it through words. People join Sant Mat because of the argument Sant Mat makes. But that argument is a sales pitch, it's not a description of reality.

It's important to really look closely at a guru's words to see if what he says actually makes sense.

There are a lot of things that gurus say that seem like strong and reasonable arguments, but they're just piles of analogies that never address the question being asked them. This latest Gurinder video is an example of that.

Above is the video, which I've made start at the 8:45 mark, the beginning of the interchange with a questioner discussed by "j."

Comments

[Dungeness]

@ Yes, but to say that suicide is the worst sin a human being could commit
@ (as GSD said in 010) is to say that one is predestined to commit sins. Also,
@ it’s like saying that a person can slaughter a million people but if another
@ person leads an average life not committing any crimes against humanity
@ but takes their own life that that person is somehow more evil.

Yes, that's the nastiness of the theory of karma. You're bound
by the relentless chain of events you've entrapped yourself in.
It's you committing actions then reactively thinking/judging
what the reward and punishment will be.

In other words, even thoughts are part of this grinding karma
machinery. If you commit suicide, then there's a predestined
reactive thought "Uh oh, that was a no-no. The big Kahuna
too. There's gonna be hell to pay for that." So. the gears whir
behind the scenes and the drama master auto-magically
writes a "punishment scene".

You probably aren't even aware you've thought about the
punishment. Our self-awareness is so fragmented and attention
so anemic we don't pick up that this monotonous pattern is
always occurring in consciousness. Endless choreographed
sequences of thought ad nauseum. Good acts, then reward.
Bad acts, then punishment. Very mechanical. Once a thought
is imprinted in the mind you're on the roller-coaster. Sick, very
sick, right?

The mystic says the good news is that there's an escape hatch.
We set one up when we cooked up this sick scheme. Roller
coasters are fun until nausea overtakes you. Then you want the
hell off... right now, not when the ride finishes which it never
does of course.

So how does the exit ramp work? That's a more advanced
course I'm in no way qualified to speak about. It's a course of
mindfulness that takes you inside, back into consciousness
itself. That you set up too, complete with a stage actor to
prattle to you at your level. Plenty of sermons and chock full
of lofty sentiments about love and devotion and humility.

Maybe it seems unicorn-ish now but you'll start feeling better
once you step outta that damn roller-coaster. Don't just trust
empty promises though. Insist on getting something for that
nausea right away.

[S]

“Plus, Great Master’s wife was so miserable that she asked him if she could die and he said she had her grandson’s funeral to attend (Charan) and she didn’t care. She just wanted to die. So he told her to go ask her Master and she told him she had and that her Master told her to ask her husband. ANYWAY (what a bizarre story now that I think about it) she died.“

Posted by: S | June 28, 2020 at 12:13 AM

Meant to say “grandson’s wedding” (obviously).

[Other Jen]

In other news....
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/28/asia/india-largest-coronavirus-hospital-delhi-scli-intl/index.html

[Uchit]

Anami/ spensor
U laugh at demons/ supernatural forces yet you believe a guy with a turban on a stage is god in human form, who talks about his previous master and so called many layers factual, and who spensor says he talks to, what a complete contradiction. Both positive forces and negative forces exist. Why do you think rssb and spensor don't mention these negative forces and dismiss them as only projections of your mind? It's because these negative forces don't want you to think they exist and everything is just love and light, what a perfect trap from kaal. These forces are totally against your betterment, and thrive off your worship and fears . Rssb and GSD work for the negative, and a very clever way of trapping souls that think they are getting enlightenment or salvation. Anami you mention christianity, but doesnt the fake guru very happy to quote regularly from the bible? But there are 66 books in the bible which talk extensively about the negative forces, why has the fake guru forgotten to mention them, and just dismisses them as projections , what a hypocrite, selective teachings that only serve the survival of the rssb business

[Uchit]

Anami
Just live your own life. Stop running to people that make so much effort to look like a perfect guru and that sit on a stage and that chat absolute bull, for answers. Answers you can google or listen to a 5 year old kid for better clarity. If you can do that, then you learned your lessons, theres no magic pill.

[S]

@Uchit

I wouldn’t go so far as to say GSD and RSSB (which heretofore I will refer to as “The Council”) are working for the negative. We all contribute to the negative to some degree—that’s the unfortunate inherent nature of humanity—we’re not perfect. However, there are forces that intentionally manifest negativity. Just not the ones you’re familiar with. And yes, “evil” does exist. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We know this to be true. It’s also true that for every positive force there is an equal and opposite negative force. Well, almost every positive. There is a point where evil doesn’t exist but we’re all so far from that that you might as well assume it does exist and be on your guard and avoid it.

The dark night of the soul is all about that. I doubt Spence or The Council or GSD would disagree with that. It’s not that they’re in a state of denial, they’re just trying to focus on the positive to give power to the positive not the negative.

If you focus on dark forces, you are more likely to attract them into your life. Coincidentally I just had a 2 hour conversation over pizza and brownies with a bunch of 13/14/15 year olds about this. Teenagers can be quite naive wanting to investigate “true” stories of hauntings and possessions. Seems feather ridiculous to an adult but sometimes when you’re young you just don’t know any better and you go looking into things you shouldn’t. You start wandering into territories where “angels fear to tread”. All of these scriptures are just powerful metaphors. They’re just metaphors but they should be ignored because “as a man thinketh, so his life shall be”.

But I’m no preacher. Just sayin’ please don’t go all Rosemary’s Baby on us.

[S]

Updated edit:

@Uchit

I wouldn’t go so far as to say GSD and RSSB (which heretofore I will refer to as “The Council”) are working for the negative. We all contribute to the negative to some degree—that’s the unfortunate inherent nature of humanity—we’re not perfect. However, there are forces that intentionally manifest negativity. Just not the ones you’re familiar with. And yes, “evil” does exist. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We know this to be true. It’s also true that for every positive force there is an equal and opposite negative force. Well, almost every positive. There is a point where evil doesn’t exist but we’re all so far from that that you might as well assume it does exist and be on your guard and avoid it.

The dark night of the soul is all about that. I doubt Spence or The Council or GSD would disagree with that. It’s not that they’re in a state of denial, they’re just trying to focus on the positive to give power to the positive not the negative.

If you focus on dark forces, you are more likely to attract them into your life. Coincidentally I just had a 2 hour conversation over pizza and brownies with a bunch of 13/14/15 year olds about this. Teenagers can be quite naive wanting to investigate “true” stories of hauntings and possessions. Seems rather ridiculous to an adult but sometimes when you’re young you just don’t know any better and you go looking into things you shouldn’t. You start wandering into territories where “angels fear to tread”. All of these scriptures are just powerful metaphors. They’re just metaphors but they shouldn’t be ignored because “as a man thinketh, so his life shall be”.

But I’m no preacher. Just sayin’ please don’t go all Rosemary’s Baby on us.

Posted by: S | June 28, 2020 at 06:04 PM

[Dungeness]

@ U laugh at demons/ supernatural forces yet you believe a guy with a turban on
@ a stage is god in human form...

You're right. The stage actor with a turban isn't GIHF. He says
he's only a sevadar of his own master and the real form of
the master is inside you and can be realized there. Yes, he
explicitly directs disciples to go inside to find and verify that
the real master is within. He himself is only a friend pointing
the way. He adds that we're all potentially GIHF when our
awareness reaches that level however. No turbans required.

If the RSSB practice doesn't deliver, cast it to the demons
and follow another. Great Master encouraged Ishwar Puri
to do exactly that and tell him if he found a better way. He
was open to it. Was this offer just a trick of a demonic cult
master? Go in and see. In all sincerity, come back and
explain what you find.

[anami]

Uchit,

Oh, you're an atheist? Me too!

[Sonia]

@anami

Are you really atheist? Just curious. You’re comments are clever but usually not very revealing. You’re kinda stealthy.

But I do know you live in an apartment somewhere in the Brooklyn-ish area. (That narrows it down.)

[S]

Uchit,

In all seriousness, I hope you’re not worried about demons and evil spirits. Just tell them to go to the light. That’s what I do. 🤷‍♀️ 😉 I’d rather send them to heaven than have them hanging around me. (Think about it. I’m just trying to illustrate a point here.)

Some famous idiot said there’s nothing to fear but fear itself. The truth is, that is the worst kind of fear there is.

—S for Sonia because I’m too lazy to type out my full name. (Actually I like it because it’s gender neutral.)

[s*]

Hi Dungness,
About Karma..
I stopped thinking,feeling,being frightned of that.
Point Period :0)!
Living in the here and now is Fun...or sometimes not.. and then it's just not fun in that moment..
Living in here and now..from moment to moment..feels soo yeahh sooo Freeing.

It has been terrible frightened for me the Karma thing.
It is no Love.. it is just frightening in my feeling.
Maybe people learn, I do not know.
When people or living souls only learn from karmic pains..ohh my good Lord..
Why is that then?
So just letting go is the best..

[anami]

Sonia,

Yes, atheist. What does "God" even mean? People argue to the point of war and atrocity. The safer pursuit might be "Self."

Uchit,

Maybe that's what you mean in a way but without the mysticism. In your opinion is all mysticism satanic and delusional?

[Um]

@ Anami

If one suffers from nightmares and other nasty inner experiences,
where does one gor for help,
if one cannot solve the problem?!

To psychiatrists or clergy men.

Which religious denomination is most interested in demons, sects, guru's etc?

[Uchit]

Anami Sonia spensor
You laugh at demons / unseen forces yet you believe a man that works very hard to look like a guru who talks about talking to spirits, his master, and inner regions without any proof, how hypocritical. You are told to see everything as love and light and a mental projection, therefore fail to see the negative forces can manipulate innocent souls as angels of light but with dark agendas. You mention christianity as a label yet doesnt charan and gsd very happily quote from the bible, only those parts that support the rssb agenda. But they convieniantly fail to mention that there are 66 books in the bible and many speak of these demonic forces and to be beware false prophets and promises. In fact S talks about the hexes and spiritual portals around satsang house in dera , have a look at google maps.

[Dungeness]

@ When people or living souls only learn from karmic pains..ohh my good Lord..
@ Why is that then?
@ So just letting go is the best..

Hi S, yes, I have no idea :). I agree letting go is best...or
some version of it. And we don't learn anything that deep
inside we didn't already know. We blindfold ourselves. Is it
just to feel something. To feel fear and sigh in relief when it's
over. To know friendship, love. To live in the moment and be
eternally be grateful. To have peace and stillness after long
struggle. To arrive where we started?

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our
exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the
place for the first time." - T. S. Eliot

[Sonia]

OMG, Uchit, I do not deny the existence of demons and I certainly don’t laugh at them. I know better than anyone that they exist. But you shouldn’t believe that the negative is stronger than the positive. Demons want the same thing we do—to be free, forgiven and to go Home. (And whatever you do, don’t try to send them to hell. Trust me.)

[S]

@anami

Yeah, that’s the million dollar question—“what does God even mean?”

I included this clip on open thread but I could watch it over and over and over again. I just love it. It brings science and consciousness together for me in a way that makes more sense.

(Rupert Sheldrake again)
The Rebirth of Nature
https://youtu.be/90fD3FWL53s

[S]

Again joking about the magic thing. But here’s a pic: https://images.app.goo.gl/tzKsMrZrz52JwJEG8

It’s a 5 pointed star but not a pentagram because it’s encased in a pentagon and not a circle (Wicca 101).

They’re probably more closely affiliated with the Illuminati. Wicca is so high school.

(again, jk)

[anami]

Um,

Yes, I hear what you're saying.

[s*]

Thanks Dungness,

Idd we come to a stillplace at times,what we recognise
There is acceptence..

[manoj]

Dera Beas is sorry sadistic place where an individual places his trust to a deceptive Santa who never gives any presents to anyone except himself. Fattening and Indulging himself to extreme gluttoney. BABA GSD Black Sheep, time for the butcher to take his share back. Karma's a *itch