Well, it's been a while since Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, cousins of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas in India, have been in the news.
(Being bad at genealogy, I used to think they were nephews; now I'm pretty sure they are cousins.)
But that changed yesterday. December 7 is remembered here in the United States as the day in 1941 when the Japanese attacked ships at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Looks like the Singh brothers wanted to make that date memorable in India for their own brotherly fireworks. Check out a December 7 The Times of India story, "Brother attacked me: Malvinder; no, he hit me, claims Shivinder."
Shivinder Singh has been mentioned as a possible successor to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, a guru who is considered to be God in Human Form by his devotees.
But the guru isn't so divine as to shun worldly wealth, since as I've been reporting on this blog, Dhillon and his family have amassed hundreds of millions of dollars during his reign as RSSB guru.
As reported by Bloomberg and others, this money accumulation was funded in part by shady loans made to the Dhillon family by companies controlled by the Singh brothers at the time. The chart above shows the money trail.
The Singh brothers' business empire has fallen apart, leaving them as destitute as billionaires can be. So the fight between them involved money, not surprisingly -- the loans associated with the guru's family shown on the right side of the chart. I believe 2,000 crore rupees equals $20 billion in U.S. dollars. TOI is Times of India.
Since Shivinder Singh had gone to the RSSB headquarters to do volunteer work, perhaps in anticipation of his becoming guru one day, he seems to be the most "spiritual" of the brothers. But not so spiritual as to avoid getting into a fight with his brother over the loans to Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family.
Just goes to show that religion does nothing to make people better human beings. In fact, religion often makes people worse, feeding their ego and sense of entitlement. "God is guiding me; God wants me to be wealthy."
Here's a guest post from the always-interesting Osho Robbins. Plus, a video Robbins made to accompany what follows. It has a "69" joke, so that alone leads me to recommend it.
Robbins has an intriguing take on the Sant Mat version of spirituality. Since I wrote a book called Return to the One, I'm sympathetic to the notion of oneness.
However, I'm also sympathetic to the notion of non-oneness, since as Robbins observes, if everything was really One, there wouldn't be anybody who could stand outside of the oneness and say, "This One is absolutely wonderful!" (or we might say, onederful)
Anyway, here's Robbins' thoughts on the absurdity of believing in Sach Khand. But when I Googled this term, I found that you can take a train there -- along with luggage. Cool. Who knew heaven was so close at hand?
How absurd! The absurdity of believing there is a Sach Khand
Many religions believe that the ‘soul’ (or some equivalent) goes to a certain ‘place’ after death; either a heaven or a hell. They also believe in the concept of a ‘being’ that is in charge of that place (God or the Devil, respectively).
However, they cannot see the absurdity of all this, until an actual example is put before them – then they will laugh and say something like, “Oh, it’s not a place and God is not a person.”
Oh, okay – so it’s in a non-place and the God and Devil are ‘non-persons’?Now that makes sense? The God and devil are depicted as actual beings in the relevant holy books. Some examples are:
Sar Bachan:One hair on his body has the light of a thousand suns.
(that means you would get instantly blinded if you look at him, but of course, the soul has super-eyes that cannot be blinded)
The Bible: “Then God said….”“And God was a jealous God.”
(so apparently God is just like us, made in OUR image: he speaks, he gets jealous, he gets angry and brings a flood to destroy his own creation, which incidentally means he also makes mistakes, he even tells lies when he told Adam not to eat of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil because ‘you will surely die’ but it was a lie because he did not die, instead God cursed him).
The point I am making is that God appears to be like a human. He talks, he thinks, he has emotions. He makes decisions. So he must be a ‘noun’ (an entity that has a shape and a form). He cannot both have a shape and be formless, just as you cannot have a “Square Circle”.
So the video I have created goes into the belief of a Sach Khand and a Sat Purush (or Anami Purush) who apparently resides there.
This belief is held by all followers of Radha Soami and Sant Mat; although they will say “But they are spiritual regions and not physical” but this is just a nonsensical get-out clause. “Spiritual” is just another concept to explain what you cannot explain.
Non-Duality is different.
In non-duality you cannot have a God or a Devil and they cannot interact with you – there cannot be any transaction or communication. In fact there cannot be a YOU separate from the ONEness (non-duality) as that is no longer ONENESS.
I remember having discussions with “Jim Sutherland” telling him to avoid meeting Anami, because the moment he meets him, he will merge him into himself and that will be the end of Jim!
Jim, like many followers of religions, don’t like the idea of non-existence. They want to know that they will continue to exist after death and also when they get to heaven or Sach Khand. Non-existence doesn’t seem to be a viable goal.
After all, it seems absurd doesn’t it?
Imagine the conversation:
“So why exactly are you meditating 2 hours a day?”
“Oh, so I can merge into the supreme being and stop existing.”
“You mean you just want to disappear into nothing?”
“No, I will still be there, just different from the way I am now.”
It’s fantasy land. You cannot become the ONE and remain separate. There cannot be more than one ONE!
Anyway – here’s the video:
The absurdity of the scenario in the video makes it obvious that it’s all nonsense; but then, the follower has to ask “If this is absurd, then what is the truth? What will actually happen when I get to the non-place called Sach Khand?”
Even though I no longer belong to Radha Soami Satsang Beas, I know that many people who visit this blog are still interested in the RSSB philosophy, and how the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, is taking that philosophy in a new direction.
Here's a message I got today from Osho Robbins, who enjoys speaking with Gurinder Singh, a.k.a. "Baba Gurinder," about subjects few, if any, people raise at RSSB meetings, or satsangs.
As I've noted in previous posts, it's good that Gurinder Singh is acting less like a traditional RSSB guru and more like a Zen master. However, even the new slant he's putting on the RSSB teachings is still way too religious for me.
This is what Robbins sent to me, suggesting it could be a blog post. Which, it now is.
There are two distinct “paths” in Sant Mat.
The path of karni (doing).
The path of surrender.
So last Sunday, I asked Baba Gurindera question at Haynes Park Sunday satsang.
This was my question:
It is said there are TWO ways on the path. One is KARNI and the other SURRENDER.
You are famous for saying……
“My way or the highway” – he says, interrupting me, but quite accurately, as that was exactly what I was about to say.
Yes, exactly. Which means there is only “my way” because “highway” is not a way.
Would you agree that actually there is only ONE way, which is surrenderand that karni is just a means to arrive at surrender, since you also say that “your efforts will not succeed, but keep on doing anyway.”
His reply was,
“Well, yes, ultimately the path of doing leads to surrender and very few of us can surrender without the struggle. Hence most people are on the path of karni.”
He then explained in detail that surrender means to let go of the mind and to accept everything the master says, without fighting it.
His reply was interesting for a few reasons:
He is making it very clear that ultimately it’s about going beyond the “trying to do it your way”.
He is in effect saying that the whole path of doing is about tiring the ego, until it gives in.
The previous path was about seriously achieving and attaining exact regions and making progress was a specific task. You had to meditate for 2.5 hours a day, in order to take your soul upwards and inwards to the Astral Region and meet the Radiant Form of the Master. As far as I am aware it was not about tiring the ego out.
The point I am making is that these are two very different and distinct paths.
Trying to get to a certain region, meditating to leave the body, struggling to get somewhere, seeing light, getting to the radiant form, traversing inner regions, meeting Sat Purush, having tea with him, while chatting about old times.
That was the old path.
The new one is very different: just realize the ONE. You already ARE the one, you just need to realise it, not attain or merge in it.
Merging means you are now separate and have to do something to merge.
Now this is the really interesting part:
He plays to both audiences, and now I know why.
Those who are on the old path, he lets them carry on, but more than that, he actively encourages them to continue on the old path.
He only engages in a discussion on the new path, if the person conversing with him is clearly on the same page.
So, WHY does he do this?
He told me exactly why.
If someone is unable to understand the new path, why bother to explain?
Let them carry on and when they finally get tired, they will begin to see what the truth is. Telling them prematurely does not help as it just becomes an idea to them, not a reality.
So he lets them believe what they want to believe.
So he clearly says one thing to me and the opposite to another just a few minutes later.
Unless the other person questions it – he just carries on.
He plays both sides, because it is up to the seeker to fathom what the fuck is going on here.
What becomes very clear is that there are no seekers of truth in the audience, as any true seeker will raise this point.
For what it's worth, this is the basic schema of the old path referred to above, which I found with the grace of the Great God Google. Since I experience darkness when I close my eyes and meditate, it looks like I've reached a pretty damn high region of the divine cosmos, Maha Sunn, the Great Void.
Feel free to worship me, since neither our dog nor my wife does. (Well, our dog does a pretty good imitation when it's time for me to take her for a walk, or feed her, but I strongly suspect that worship is highly conditional.)
Religions often come in for well-deserved criticism. They're dogmatic, judgmental, holier-than-thou, and divisive -- since every religion considers that it knows the truth about God, while all those other religions are false.
(This is why atheists like to say, as Ricky Gervais put it to Stephen Colbert: "There are about 3,000 gods to choose from… Basically, you deny one less God than I do. You don’t believe in 2,999 gods. And I don’t believe in just one more.")
Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) is an Indian group that traditionally has denied it is a religion, but rather a "science of the soul." During the 35 years I belonged to RSSB I went along with this, because I liked to think of myself as a spiritual but not religious sort of guy.
And during the 14 years that I've had this Church of the Churchless blog, I've typically called RSSB a spiritual organization, which is how RSSB refers to itself. See:
But thanks to good research by Sarah, who shared some links in comments on my posts, it now is clear that Radha Soami Satsang Beas officially considers itself a religion. Here's proof.
As shown above, an application by RSSB for development of land in Melbourne, Australia for a "place of worship" says that Radha Soami Satsang Beas is a worldwide religious organization.
And a newspaper story about the development describes the thoroughly religious activities that will occur at the Melbourne center: spiritual discourses, devotional songs/hymns, meditation areas.
Lastly, Michael Cooke, the RSSB head in Australia, said that he was happy the Supreme Court ruled that Radha Soami Satsang Beas truly was a religion, not a philosophical organization.
So now it can be confidently said that RSSB is a religion like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc. etc. It is based on faith, not science; blind belief, not evidence; communal rituals/worship, not individual experience.
In the past, including during the days of the previous guru, Charan Singh, RSSB didn't have so many religious tendencies. But the current guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, has put a lot of emphasis on building centers around the world, and expanding the RSSB headquarters in the Punjab.
Dhillon also has spent a lot of time and effort enriching himself and his family through highly dubious financial schemes, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Thus it is entirely fitting that during his reign as guru, RSSB has openly become a religion.
Thanks to the Great God Amazon, who answers my prayers by delivering to my doorstep pretty much whatever I desire, I'm the possessor of two books published in 2016 by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB):
Since I no longer believe in the RSSB teachings, after being a devotee of this Indian spiritual organization for 35 years, I figured that I wouldn't agree with much in these books. Still, since I'm interested in the general subject of concepts and illusions, I also anticipated that the books would be food for thought.
I was right about that, having finished reading "A Wake Up Call" this morning. Here's some impressions of the book, focusing on what Oberoi and Chapman say about the notion of a perfect master -- which is a central concept in the RSSB philosophy.
Oops! I just used the word "concept," and the book argues that we're supposed to go beyond concepts.
But here's the thing: there are a great many concepts in the book's 152 pages. It isn't possible to write or speak without using concepts. And it also isn't possible to be a member of a spiritual organization such as RSSB without embracing concepts such as "God," "guru," "meditation," "perfect master," "enlightenment," and such.
If Oberoi and Chapman had really wanted to go beyond concepts, they wouldn't have written a word. However, then they couldn't have urged RSSB initiates to go beyond concepts.
I do agree, though, that the authors make some good points about how RSSB initiates have a lot of crazy ideas about karma, meditation, seva (volunteer service), satsang (spiritual meetings), the guru, and other subjects.
If they had simply argued that all a disciple should do is meditate assiduously and experience what happens with an open mind, then I think the content of their book would have matched up with the title.
Yet this isn't what is in the book. There are several key concepts that Oberoi and Chapman accept without giving any reasons for why they are true, or why it is necessary to accept them on faith.
Chief among these is the core concept of a "perfect master." The photo above is of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the current RSSB guru, who is viewed by most RSSB devotees as just that -- a perfect master.
But here's what Oberoi and Chapman say at the beginning of their About the Master chapter:
It has been said that if all the seas were ink and all the land were paper and all the trees in the world were pens, you still couldn't write a description of the master. To understand who the master is and what he does for us is beyond the ability of words to describe.
Whether we call him a friend, a teacher, a saint or God himself -- these are all concepts. We can discuss them, we can heap long lists of adjectives on them, we can even argue heatedly about them -- but the fact remains they're only concepts. If we want to understand the master and his role in our lives we will have to go to a higher level of consciousness.
OK. I'm doubtful this higher level of consciousness exists.
Yet if the chapter had ended at this point, I couldn't argue much with it. Meaning, let's leave aside any and all concepts of who Gurinder Singh Dhillon is in his role of RSSB guru, and simply meditate to understand the wordless nature of the guru.
However, there's a lot more words in the About the Master chapter. And some of those words speak about a key concept, that of a "perfect master." For example...
(1) "When we assume we know how a perfect living master should dress, how he should speak, move, gesticulate and behave, we should pause and reflect for a moment -- what on earth are we doing?"
(2) "What if the master behaves differently from our expectations? Do we then get shaken? Do we find ourselves doubting whether he's a perfect master after all because he doesn't conform to our idea of the perfect master?"
(3) "Let us approach the challenge of being disciples of a perfect master with open minds -- as clean slates -- and allow the master to reveal himself to us, to show his real self, one facet at at time."
(4) "The delusion that we know what a perfect master should be like could derive from the word 'perfect'. The Indian term 'puran sant satguru' is generally translated into English as 'perfect master'. The literal meaning of 'puran' is complete, nothing lacking. He is a 'complete' master because his realization is complete instead of partial."
Well, who says? And who knows that Gurinder Singh Dhillon is perfect, or complete? Aren't "perfect" and "complete" concepts that, earlier in the chapter, Oberoi and Chapman said can't help us understand who the master is?
Yet they presume that Gurinder Singh Dhillon is a perfect master, as evidenced by the numerous times they use this concept without expressing any doubts about it.
Look: you can't have it both ways.
If the nature of the RSSB guru is beyond concepts, then the authors of "A Wake Up Call" should have simply said something like, Only meditation can lead us to a true understanding of the guru, and this can never be expressed in words, being ineffable.
But they didn't do that. They repeatedly talked about the concept of a "perfect master" as if this was an unarguable reality, which belied the key goal of their book -- to go beyond concepts and illusions.
Since I consider that the notion of a perfect master is both a concept and an illusion, I was disappointed in the book for several reasons.
First, it didn't live up to its title, since it presumed certain concepts to be true. Second, even if someone is a RSSB devotee, the book confuses the issue of a "perfect master," since it argues both that the guru is beyond concepts, while presuming that the RSSB guru is deserving of the concept, perfect master.
So as I said in the title of this post, there's no way a guru can be a perfect master. Either such doesn't exist (my view), or there is no way to tell that someone is a perfect master other than experiencing an ineffable understanding in meditation (the RSSB view).
Either way, the words "perfect master" are meaningless.
Someone sent me another story about the long-running Indian financial drama involving the Singh brothers and the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) guru -- Gurinder Singh Dhillon, a relative of Shivinder and Malvinder Singh.
So Jaffe looks upon the tangled web of the Singh brothers' business dealings from a different perspective than the numerous stories on this subject that have appeared in Indian business publications. Plus, Jaffe specializes in "family enterprise consulting" that aims at helping families manage multi-generational businesses.
Before sharing some quotes from the story, and my own take on it, here's what the person who emailed me a link to the Forbes piece said about it. "Satsangis" means initiates of RSSB.
Hi Brian,
Yes, the $2B question has been covered numerous times already, but this one is my favorite. I could highlight so many observations made in this new coverage... points 1, 2, and 3 at the end of this article are excellent.
Another thing I really like is that this is an Editor’s pick from Forbes (about as credible and reputable as we’re going to get) focusing on the ethics of what transpired.
I really hope you’ll be able to share this in a post at some point on your blog. People need to see this from a Western business perspective. That alone shows how incredibly unethical this whole mess was.
Seems that a lot of Satsangis and non-Satsangis are disputing facts when from an American perspective it’s beyond just individual facts—it’s a story of gross unethical conduct leading to the point of criminal investigations.
Today’s “gurus” need to start adhering to the principals of transparency, especially if they’re going to be getting involved with other people’s money (unfortunately not likely to happen as most view themselves above the law). Does Dhillon view himself as above the law since he’s “GIHF”? [GIHF means God In Human Form]
Sadly, a lot of his followers do. One of GSD’s favorite sayings is “it’s my way or the highway”. Wow. Glad I’m not on that road anymore.
Not enough has been said about how much damage has been done to the non Singh/Dhillon shareholders of the public companies in question. GSD’s lack of good business practices, secrecy and poor advice cheated many people invested in these companies. That should alarm everyone. The lack of transparency and the honor system among India’s gurus make them the perfect “offshore-banking-system-for-greed”, so to speak.
If you haven’t read this piece yet I think you’ll really appreciate it.
Yes, I did appreciate it. I invite you to read the entire story. Here's some excerpts regarding the RSSB guru and the notion of "honor cultures."
In just a few years since inheriting a fortune from a company founded by their grandfather, brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh have managed to lose almost everything — including control over two public companies. Their story seems to affirm the axiom of “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations,” a curse that plagues too many inherited family businesses.
Reflecting on their recent history (and recognizing the lack of public information available), there are lessons to deduce on how to avoid this sad, but common, occurrence.
The Singh brothers were heirs to Ranbaxy Laboratories, which was then India’s foremost pharmaceutical company, founded by their grandfather Bhai Mohan Singh and stewarded by their father, Dr. Parvinder Singh, who died in 1999. The brothers, who each inherited one-third of the company, engineered its sale in 2008.
After that, they heavily invested the proceeds into the fast expansion of Fortis Healthcare and Religare Enterprises, two other public companies they owned.
They also loaned vast amounts of money to companies owned by a family headed by a spiritual leader whom they followed and who was a relative of theirs — Gurinder Singh Dhillon. Dhillon was a businessman as well, and he and members of his sect were central to investments made with loans from the brothers, including investments in a wide-ranging real-estate portfolio.
...The story of their decline and their web of investments is very complex and very opaque. What seems clear is that the brothers made loans and commitments to many different entities. What is also clear is that their spiritual and personal relationships led them to make business decisions that in hindsight appear to be extremely ill advised.
...While many aspects of this story are uniquely Indian — such as the deep connection to a family spiritual leader, moving funds among family ventures, and opaque business structures — similar situations can be seen in many cultures when family enterprises pass to the third generation.
India is an example of a type of culture that has been called an “honor culture.” Such cultures, common in South Asia, South America, Africa and southern Europe, are characterized by a strong family hierarchy with a single family leader, intense loyalty within the family and to a close network of long-term allies, and little trust of anyone outside the family and its network.
These cultures are oriented around power, loyalty, secrecy and distrust of external powers. They take root in societies where there is little long-term stability and limited or developing rule of law.
...Honor cultures emphasize secrecy and reliance on a strong — and often unquestioned — leader. Today, this time-honored secrecy and lack of transparency is giving way to global agreements that emphasize transparency. Secret agreements with governments are being questioned, and businesses, even those owned and controlled by a single family, are becoming regulated.
But it seems that the Singh family businesses were caught midstream in this evolution. The Singh brothers’ trust of the Dhillon family that led to their no-interest loans with little accountability have little place in an arena of more open dealings with greater accountability. And while family members tend to be satisfied with secrecy when they receive predictable profits and wealth, when things go south, conflict erupts.
What's particularly interesting here is that the Singh brothers' family relationships were intimately mingled with their spiritual relationship with the RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. Dhillon, who is the Singh brothers cousin (I used to think he was their uncle, but I've been corrected about this).
Thus Malvinder and Shivinder Singh both respected Gurinder Singh's authority as a familial father figure, but also looked upon him in the guru's God In Human Form guise -- someone with divine wisdom and mystical powers. So it's no wonder they went along with questionable business decisions involving the Dhillon family and Sunil Godhwani, who reportedly was the guru's "right hand man."
Bottom line: question authority. Especially when the authority is a single person, or just a few people. As Jaffe points out in his Forbes piece, it is vitally important to have an independent board of directors overseeing the decisions of a CEO.
As a family enterprise passes across generations and becomes truly immense, its governance and oversight cannot be limited to the skills of a single leader, especially one who only trusts old alliances and does not seek new talent.
I can't resist pointing out that while Radha Soami Satsang Beas is a charitable spiritual organization, not a profit-making business, it's my understanding that RSSB is basically under the control of a single person, the guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. RSSB is secretive and mistrustful of outsiders, so it also operates much like an "honor culture."
Which is dangerous. Both for family businesses, and for spiritual groups.
Though Sheena describes the guru to whom she was once devoted only as "Guruji," and doesn't name the center headed up by Guruji, it is clear that the guru is Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the leader of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a spiritual organization headquartered in India at a place commonly known as the Dera.
I've written several blog posts about Sheena's book. I liked how she wrote so honestly about losing faith in Gurinder Singh after coming to the Dera and doing volunteer work that brought her into close contact with the guru. You can read excerpts from her book, and my defense of Sheena, in these posts:
Sheena has been reading the posts and related comments on this blog. Today she sent me this message. I'll share some thoughts about what Sheena says after the message. "Satsangis" refers to RSSB initiates. "Hukm" means command or divine order.
Hello Brian
I deeply appreciate your mature, fair reviews and comments, for respecting others need for anonymity and staying with the subject instead of playing Sherlock Holmes as some are doing. Makes you a trustworthy and honourable man! My comments/questions to satsangis who constantly have debates on your blog:
Who Sheena is, is inconsequential. If Sheena wants to remain anonymous, she must have good reason and the constitutional right to stay anonymous.
Why do they spend time reading your blogs and then spend even more energy and time arguing when their faith and belief are supposedly intact? Sense of insecurity, doubts?
Why do they react to criticism so ferociously when RSSB declares "Critics are our best friends?" Is their faithlessness coupled with lack of following Master's 'hukm'? Doesn't reflect well on both the disciple or teacher.
They claim that the teachings are important. Yes, teachings are important when following a religion or a spiritual path. But isn't it equally important for the teacher to follow 'his' teachings too? Or are the teachings only for disciples?
Sheena
I agree with everything Sheena says.
Regarding her first point, the message of her book is indeed much more important than the messenger. So far I haven't heard any commenter take issue with the accuracy of her disturbing stories about Gurinder Singh, including that he ignored a report of sexual molestation at the Dera.
Regarding her second point, I also find it strange, and amusing, that many RSSB devotees spend a lot of time reading my churchless posts and commenting on them.
I've become an atheist after belonging to RSSB for 35 years. I spend zero time on blogs, websites, or discussion groups praising the glory of the RSSB guru and the RSSB teachings, because I'm confident in what I believe and don't believe. So I think Sheena is right. Arguing on this blog does seem to show a sense of insecurity and doubts among RSSB initiates.
Regarding her third point, I've heard that the critics quote is indeed what Gurinder Singh has said to his audiences. Yet the attacks, insults, and threats I get regularly from supposedly "spiritual" RSSB devotees does go against their guru's words about viewing critics as our best friends.
Regarding her fourth point, Sheena directs our attention to a crucial difference between the teachings of RSSB (a branch of Sant Mat), and traditional religions like Catholicism. Here's how Wikipedia describes Sant Mat:
The expression Sant Mat literally means "Teachings of the Saints" – the "Path of Sants (Saints)", "Path of Truth", "Right or Positive Path". As "point of view of the Sants", the term Sant is pivotal. Derived from the Sanskritsat (सत) and has overlapping usages (true, real, honest, right). Its root meaning is "one who knows(is) the truth" or "one who has experienced (merged into) Ultimate Reality." The term sant has taken on the general meaning of "a good person" but is properly assigned to the poet-sants of medieval India.
According to the RSSB teachings, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, like previous RSSB gurus, is considered to be a modern living saint. As such, supposedly he has taken on the godly qualities of someone who has directly experienced, or merged with, an ultimate divine reality.
So if the guru acts like a normal flawed human being, which includes being desirous of making lots of money, enjoying the company of pretty women, and ignoring reports of sexual misconduct at the organization he oversees, this is a much bigger deal than if Catholic priests, or even the Pope himself, exhibit immoral behavior.
Jesus is a long-dead "saint" to Catholic believers. Nothing a living Catholic can do affects their belief that Jesus is the Son of God who came to earth to redeem a sinful humanity.
On the other hand, Gurinder Singh Dhillon is a living "saint," so his actions do reflect on the validity of the RSSB teachings. As Sheena aptly said, "Yes, teachings are important when following a religion or a spiritual path. But isn't it equally important for the teacher to follow 'his' teachings too? Or are the teachings only for disciples?"
This goes a long way toward explaining why so many RSSB devotees are unwilling to face unwelcome facts about Gurinder Singh's business dealings and the stories about him that Sheena relates in her book. They attack the messengers -- such as the Indian business press, Sheena, and me -- rather than admit that the guru they believe in is a flawed human being, just as we all are.
UPDATE: Well, now I've heard from somebody in India that the meeting did happen on September 17, and that it happens every year around this time. It's strange that, if I recall correctly, only one commenter on this blog said it was an annual meeting. Just goes to show that when it comes to RSSB, it's difficult to get straight answers about what is happening with this rather secretive spiritual organization. Anyway, it's good to have a confirmation that my original blog post on this subject wasn't "fake news."
-----------------------
Juan just left the comment below, indicating that the September 17 meeting of 1500-2000 Indian RSSB secretaries I reported on in this post was indeed scheduled, then cancelled.
I've also heard that Gurinder Singh Dhillon's scheduled initiation ceremony in New Delhi, which was last weekend, I believe, was cancelled. So it still seems to me that something is up. We just don't know what.
In line with what Juan said in his comment, I feel that if a notice of a meeting, along with a churchless blogger's guesses about what the meeting might be about, shake up someone's spiritual faith, then that faith is resting on a very insubstantial foundation.
Some people like this blog. Some people don't like it. After 14 years of regularly writing here on the Church of the Churchless, I've come to expect both praise and criticism.
Not surprisingly, I prefer hearing good things about me and this blog. So when I got the following email message today from someone in India I've been corresponding with, it made me feel good.
I'll explain why after the message.
I've corrected some typos and made the formatting easier to read. Otherwise the message is as written. "Sewa" means service, or volunteer work. The Dera is the Indian headquarters of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a spiritual organization I was a member of for 35 years.
Here's the message, minus an introductory part related to a subject this person and I have been discussing.
And I would like to mention and please mention the following in your blog too (of course only if you wish to ) :
I have been reading your blog since last year Feb, after I was of course suggested by an important member of RSSB committee and I was still doing sewa in Dera. And I must admit after reading each of your blog I thought you must be a very arrogant man. Or you didn't make much efforts in meditation and are a coward to quit early.
But knowing that people living in Dera in fact people running that place as incharges are equally unsure of the path as the people who criticise it, my thinking changed and then of course seeing the condition there by my own eyes, a place lacking love, the very foundation it was supposed to be built on.
I don't know if the path is true or not. I haven't really made complete effort in meditation to comment. But talking to you personally on emails and listening to your reply it is my understanding that you are a very humble and an understanding man.
You have a blog, there are many things i told you personally and you know my real name, you could have written those things on your blog if you had to be aggressive towards your critics. You kept your word, a quality that is rarely found today. Your view point comes from experience and logic and deep thinking.
At the end of the day you might be wrong or the people who criticise you might be, in reference to this path. But the truth is none of us are aware for sure. But at least you support logic and see what's written on the wall.
And for the people coming to your blog and trying to defend RSSB, if they were enlightened they wouldn't care for your blog or try to protect the image. They wouldn't waste energy on that. What I have learned from the limited conversation we have had is whether you are right or not but you are a man with right intentions.
Like the person who wrote this message, I also can't be sure about what the ultimate truth regarding reality is. None of us can be. We all make educated guesses, or assumptions, that are founded in our experience, upbringing, culture, education, and so on.
All we can do is keep facing toward the truth as we have come to understand it, while being open to fresh ideas, new facts, different ways of looking upon the world.
It is difficult to admit, "I don't know." So I liked this person's willingness to say about the RSSB teachings, "I don't know if the path is true or not."
But what this person does know is how they were treated while doing "sewa" (again, volunteering) at the Dera. Just as I've heard from other people, this person says that the Dera lacks love -- which is a sad commentary on a spiritual community.
I liked how this person said that my viewpoint comes from "experience and logic and deep thinking." That's what I aspire to, though sometimes I fall short. Now, I realize that some spiritually-minded people believe that love and devotion is all that counts.
I disagree -- strongly.
History is full of examples of individuals, or masses of people, who were fervently devoted to destructive causes and leaders. It makes no sense to be devoted to some unworthy person or entity. Going down that route leads to authoritarianism, being taken advantage of, dangerous blind obedience.
My wife was a psychotherapist in private practice for quite a few years. One of her specialities was domestic violence. Most of her clients were women being abused by men. Without giving their names, she'd explain to me how many women stay in an abusive relationship, even when they're being hit, yelled at, threatened.
Why? Many reasons.
Some are that the women didn't know what to do if they left the relationship, or they were afraid of what the man would do if they stood up for themselves. So my wife would give them options, and help the women recognize that they had more strength than they thought they possessed.
Likewise, one of the reasons I started this blog in 2004 was to encourage people to realize that when it comes to religion, spirituality, mysticism, and philosophy, independence is a virtue, not a vice. I haven't changed this blog's slogan over all those years: Preaching the gospel of spiritual independence.
Sometimes it makes sense to stay in a relationship with another person "til death do us part," as wedding vows in the United States often say. Yet sometimes it doesn't.
And sometimes it makes sense to remain a member of a religion or spiritual path for the rest of your life. Yet sometimes it doesn't. Think for yourself. Nobody else can do that for you. Nor should they.
It's fitting that yesterday I heard from someone who had skeptical questions about a book I wrote about last month, "Memoirs of a Seeker," by Sheena (a pen name, not her real name).
Fitting, because the United States, where I live, currently is embroiled in a fierce debate about a reported sexual assault by a Supreme Court nominee, whose female victim has said she is willing to testify at an open hearing next week.
Christine Blasey Ford kept silent about the attack for many years. Now she's being criticized for waiting so long to speak out. But it is widely recognized that women have excellent reasons for remaining silent, especially when there is a large power imbalance between the woman and the man involved.
In Sheena's case, the man she refers to as "Guruji" was Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB). In her book Sheena speaks about several sexual-related encounters involving Gurinder Singh. They weren't anything close to sexual assault, but they disturbed her nonetheless.
And Sheena also describes a case of sexual molestation at the Dera, which is the RSSB headquarters in India. She told Gurinder Singh about this, but then realized he already knew about it and had ignored the molestation. She also realized that this wasn't a one-off incident.
You can read excerpt's from Sheena's book in my blog post, "Sheena's 'Memoirs of a Seeker' throws light on Gurinder Singh Dhillon." Because I applaud her courage in writing the book, I'm pleased to defend Sheena against the questions raised by Catherine Muller in an email to me.
As you can read below, Muller invited me to post her message on my blog, which I've done. Muller's message is shown in red, and my interspersed responses are in black. (Sorry for the italics; seems to be related to me copying Muller's message from her email; couldn't find a way to undo the italics in HTML, which I'm not expert in).
Brian,
Having read your review on Amazon of Memoirs of a Seeker, I have three comments:
1. You say in your review that you haven't read all of 'Memoirs of a Seeker.' Do you usually write reviews for books that you have not engaged with in their entirety? (If it was such a good read, as you claim it was, why did you not finish it?)
Yes, I've written Amazon reader reviews before finishing a book. Can't remember how many, but at least one other. Here's a link to that review.
Regarding Sheena's book, I was told about it in an email from someone who knows Sheena and thought I'd enjoy her book. I paid $9.95 for the Kindle edition. I looked through it fairly quickly, zeroing in on the parts of the book that describe her interactions with a guru, and the "seva" (volunteer work) she did for the guru.
I'd heard that the guru was Gurinder Singh Dhillon, and the seva was done at the Dera. However, I didn't see any mentions of the guru's name in the book, so at first this perplexed me. Which gets us to Muller's next question.
2. Secondly, you write in your review: "From what I have been told, the guru Sheena writes about is..." Who told you this exactly? Or are you repeating hearsay? Why don't you acknowledge who your unattributed source is? (Or sources are?) As a man who purports to love science and truth, are you aware that under many legal systems around the world hearsay is inadmissible as evidence in a court proceeding?
After I looked through all of Sheena's book, and read closely the portions that were of most interest to me, I had several email communications with the person who knew Sheena and could forward questions to her. This was my first way of confirming that the guru in her book was indeed Gurinder Singh Dhillon.
After I published my blog post about the book, and defended Sheena against commenters who were challenging her truthfulness, I got a relayed message from Sheena saying, "Hi again .... just heard from her and she wants me to thank you for fiercely defending her!" That made me feel really good.
It also was another confirmation that the guru in her book is Gurinder Singh, since I had said this in the blog post, and one would expect that if I'd gotten the guru's identity wrong, Sheena would have corrected me. Finally, I've also heard from a RSSB insider who knows Sheena's real name, and is familiar with who she is, and what she did at the Dera.
So there's plenty of confirmation that the guru Sheena writes about is Gurinder Singh, and that Sheena is a real person who did seva at the Dera. This isn't at all hearsay.
3. Thirdly, you praise Sheena for 'displaying that brave commitment to the truth'. Well, how brave is it to write under a book under a moniker? Need I remind you of a contemporary example - a man like Edward Snowden who was truly heroic enough to take on the NSA and flee into exile when he exposed his story? And should I remind you of the whistleblower who broke the Cambridge Analytica story, Chris Wylie? Pick any social justice hero of significance in recent times, Brian. Nobody of any real credibility and clout does anything radically brave by writing under a moniker.
As noted above, there are good reasons why women are reluctant to reveal their true identity when they are speaking "truth to power," as a familiar saying goes in my country. And in general, anonymous sources often are used by journalists in the United States and elsewhere.
"Deep Throat" in the Watergate scandal is a good example. It took many years before this person's identify was exposed. So I don't agree with you that speaking anonymously under an assumed name shows that a person lacks credibility.
Over the 14 years I've been blogging on the Church of the Churchless, I've received many emails from people who wanted to share information about RSSB or some other religious entity, but didn't want their name revealed. I've always honored their request, because I know from personal experience how vicious true believers can be when their beliefs are challenged.
Unlike those folks on 'Church of the Churchless' who seems to be 'inside experts' on RSSB and the goings on of the guru, I can't comment about the voracity of what 'Sheena-who-will-not-be-named' writes in her book. I'm no maven.
Then you should pay more attention to, and trust more, people who have direct knowledge of Gurinder Singh, his business dealings, and goings-on at the Dera. I frequently hear from people who have such knowledge, and relate disturbing stories to me, but aren't willing to go public with what they know, even anonymously.
There's no doubt that there is a largely unreported dark side to Radha Soami Satsang Beas, along with the public reports of this dark side. People in the know who live in India are justifiably worried about what could happen to them if RSSB zealots learn their identity and seek retribution for their truth-telling.
Believe me, RSSB is no longer the warm, fuzzy, loving spiritual organization that I remember from most of my 35 years as a RSSB devotee. Of course, maybe it never was such, and RSSB officials were just more adept at covering up the bad stuff. Regardless, it's good that the truth now is coming out, thanks in part to people like Sheena.
(Also, to journalists with Indian business publications.)
All I will say is that as a member of the book buying public your Amazon review read as trading in gossip. And that's really unfortunate.
Again, a book written by a real person, whose true identity is known to quite a few people, about her experience with Gurinder Singh Dhillon and the Dera is absolutely NOT "trading in gossip." Those words are insulting to Sheena and to truth-tellers everywhere.
Feel free to post this to your site/blog.
Hey, I've been pleased to do this, because it gives me another opportunity to speak the truth.
Regards,
Catherine Muller
Now, Muller sent me some additional emails where she questioned why Sheena's book was selling for $9.95 (Kindle edition) and $17.25 (paperback edition) on the U.S. Amazon site.
Having written several books that are for sale on Amazon, all I can say is that these prices aren't unusual. And I can confidently say that almost certainly, Sheena isn't even getting paid minimum wage for all the hours she spent writing her book, and then finding a way to get it published in both paperback and Kindle formats.
For almost every author, writing and publishing a book is a labor of love, not of money.
Lastly, I'll note that I asked Catherine Muller if she had bought and read Sheena's book. This was Muller's response:
Yes, I have indeed bought the book - I got the Kindle edition for $11.49. I’ll get around to reading it one day. It’s not high priority.
To which I thought, "Wow! You're criticizing the veracity of a book you haven't read, and you're criticizing the motivation of a woman who you know nothing about."
Gossip can be interesting. Also, it can be true. Here's a comment that was left today on a Church of the Churchless post. GSD stands for Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).
I have a bit of “gossip” – I was talking to a relative, in India, earlier today, regarding RSSB/Singh Brother controversy. His boss is the ex-Director of the Board of Directors for Fortis hospitals.
Here is what he had to share –
1) There is truth about the deal between GSD and Singh Brothers. GSD’s son gets the money and RSSB guruship goes to Shivinder Singh.
2) Money was siphoned off to Singapore where GSD’s son lives.
3) In February 2017, GSD was sick and was given 3 months to live.
Here is what was reported at that time – “Babaji Don Gurinder Singh Dhillon was admitted in Fortis Hospital, Mohali because of Food Poisoning. The doctors have advised him One week rest, so his programme of satsang of 12th Feb. 2017 is cancelled. There are rumors that he will be leaving for Singapore. Posted by: Juan | February 10, 2017 at 07:39 AM”
4) He nominated Shivinder Singh to succeed [They probably prepared/updated the “will” to ensure a smooth succession]. They were quite close to announcing it publicly.
5) Obviously, GSD survived [Divine Intervention? GSD is God?]
6) When Singh Brothers were in charge of the Fortis hospitals and GSD was getting treated regularly for his medical conditions at Fortis Mohali, GSD was charged a token amount (Rs 5K/10K) for treatments that would cost around Rs 200K for a normal patient at the same hospital.
7) After Singh Brothers were out of the picture, GSD was treated again at the same Fortis hospital in Mohali and was charged the normal patient bill of Rs 200k. He was quite upset about it. Take it for what it’s worth. It comes from a reliable source.
On a different note – “Dhillon has been given Z-Plus Security Cover and his security was enhanced significantly when ADGP Security of Punjab Government visited the Dera Radha Soami Beas town to review the security arrangements. “
Yesterday this comment was left on a Church of the Churchless post, "Great BusinessToday video about RSSB guru and Singh brothers." The commenter wondered how to break the news about Gurinder Singh Dhillon's financial misdeeds to Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) devotees who had put a lot of faith in their guru.
Dear Brian Thanks for your blog and exposing the truths!! It is really sad to learn all the truths of recent events. I had a feeling somethiing is corrupt but it still came as a shock when my intuition was confirmed with facts.
I am not part of Sant mat myself but do know people that I love that is. They don’t know yet and I just don’t have the heart to break this news. I can just imagine that if your whole belief system was based on the idea of a perfect living master and to found out he is not so perfect after all, will pull the rug underneath you.
Especially this path’s standards are so high in terms of diet and moral life. How do you break such news to somebody you love while you know their world will be shattered? How have other Satsangis took the news? Is it best to just keep quiet and wait till truth be revealed? Ruth
Ruth asked some good questions.
Since I was a member of RSSB for 35 years, and embraced the Sant Mat teachings for almost all of that time before I stopped believing in them, I've had to deal with the same difficult process of breaking away from a spiritual philosophy that used to mean so much to me.
All I can do is suggest the following advice, which I've shared in a "laundry list" form -- because everybody is different, and I want to give people a variety of ways to deal with disillusionment in a spiritual path or religious dogma. So I'm going to list these ideas as they come to me, without trying to arrange them in a particular fashion.
(1) Truth, Sat in an Indian language, has to be our primary concern. Without truth, we're lost in a maze of falsehoods. So whenever truths are revealed about a guru, master, religious leader, or whoever, those truths should be embraced, not pushed away.
(2) Truths can be painful. But the pain of living a lie, or living in illusion, is greater. Yes, fantasies can be fun. But eventually fantasies are revealed to be much less substantial than truth, since truth always wins out in the end. Why? Because reality is hugely more powerful than illusion.
(3) This is one of my all-time favorite sayings. When I used to give talks at RSSB meetings (satsangs), I'd often cite this quote from Philip K. Dick: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." So if a spiritual or religious belief is given up, nothing is lost, because reality is beyond beliefs.
(4) When we expect someone to be perfect, we're bound to be disappointed. So don't expect perfection. Not of your spouse, friend, relative, co-worker, boss, political figure, or... a guru. Everybody makes mistakes. Some are innocent mistakes. Some are willful mistakes. Regardless, expect imperfection, not perfection.
(5) Taoism, which I'm drawn to as a philosophy, says that the world is made up of yin and yang, light and darkness, positive and negative, substantial and insubstantial, embracing and rejecting, and so on. Opposites are what make the world go 'round. If we welcome only one side of a pair of opposites, we're ignoring a big part of reality.
(6) Often people think, "If such-and-such happened, my life wouldn't be worth living." But usually, when that thing does happen, life is still very much worth living. We humans are resilient creatures. Don't underestimate your capacity to adapt to a difficult situation, and then move on from there.
(7) It's natural to want to feel special, which includes being part of a special group, one especially favored or beloved by God. However, what if God, or the cosmos, actually doesn't play favorites? What if it doesn't matter whether someone believes in this or that, but simply does their best to be a good human being? (As you can guess, this is how I consider reality operates.)
(8) Consider: out of all the religions, spiritual paths, and mystical teachings in the world, what is the chance that you have come across the Only One that is objectively true? Very small, right? Yet almost every believer feels that they have found that Only One. Isn't this more than a little egotistical or self-centered?
(9) What people often find most satisfying about a religion or form of spirituality isn't so much the concepts that make up that teaching, but the good feeling they have from being part of a group that accepts them, welcomes them, supports them. Yet it is possible to have that same good feeling after someone leaves a certain group, because there are countless groups that accept, welcome, and support.
(10) Think about how many changes have occurred in your life. Most likely you've changed homes, friends, jobs, cars, lovers, pets, hairstyles, clothes, sports, and so much else. So it isn't strange that people also change their religion, spiritual path, or mystic teaching. This is normal.
(11) Doubts also are normal. Often people who belong to a certain religion or spiritual group wrongly believe that everybody else in the group but them has perfect faith, because usually expressing doubts isn't welcomed. Believe me, almost everyone has doubts, whether they admit this or not.
(12) Trust yourself. If you trusted yourself when you decided to join a religion or form of spirituality, also trust yourself if you decide to leave it. Don't be led astray by a group's teaching that leaving it will bring horrible consequences, such as a nasty afterlife. Almost every group has ways to keep members from leaving. Know that you are stronger than those ways.
I've read numerous complicated stories about the problematic financial dealings of the RSSB guru, Baba Gurinder Singh Dhillon, his family, and the Singh brothers. But this video keeps things clear and simple in just a bit over 6 minutes.
This is the You Tube description:
"An influential 'Baba' and his family with a weakness for materialism; two young businessmen loaded with nearly Rs 10,000 crore from an asset sale; and a family confidante have together cooked a cauldron that Bollywood potboilers are made of. Their machinations wrecked a flourishing empire and vapourised nearly $3.2 billion (Rs 22,500 crore then) into thin air. Watch BusinessToday.In Editor Rajeev Dubey discuss the fall of the Singh brothers' empire."
I'll use this post as an opportunity to address the many new visitors to this blog from India and other places around the world who are either devotees of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), or sympathetic to the RSSB teachings.
I was a dedicated follower of RSSB for 35 years, 1970 to 2005. I was initiated by Charan Singh in 1971 and did a lot of seva (volunteer work) for RSSB following the succession of Gurinder Singh Dhillon as guru in 1990.
So I know how important the RSSB teachings, also known as Sant Mat, are to those who believe in them. Those teachings were a foundation of my life for over three decades. It was very difficult for me to pull away from them, but I did so after I concluded that I needed to pursue a different spiritual path that made more sense to me.
Here's how I see the current situation with the RSSB guru and the financial dealings involving the Dhillon family.
There are two main issues with Gurinder Singh Dhillon, One is whether the Sant Mat/RSSB philosophy he teaches is true. The other issue concerns the controversial financial dealings he's been a part of since he became the RSSB guru.
I'd like this blog to be a welcoming place for people who are interested in, and worried about, the second issue, even though they still believe in the RSSB teachings. And I see these as separate issues.
Recently l've been focused on the guru's financial dealings, because this is what's being reported on by Indian business publications. I've written a lot about why I don't believe in the Sant Mat/RSSB philosophy any more, but again, this is a different issue from whether Gurinder Singh Dhillon has violated ethical, and possibly legal, norms with the Dhillon family financial entanglements.
Likewise, some people who visit this blog are supporters of Donald Trump. I'm not. But hopefully we could all agree that if the Mueller investigation finds that Trump was engaged in legal wrongdoing, there should be consequences for this.
It doesn't matter whether someone likes Trump, or endorses his policies. Wrongdoing is a separate issue from Trump's policy positions. Likewise, I'm trying to differentiate between the RSSB guru's position as a religious leader, and his involvement in questionable financial dealings.
Lastly, I hope visitors to this blog from India and other countries keep in mind that the United States, where I live, has a strong commitment to free speech embedded in our Constitution as the First Amendment.
So in my country, we're free to criticize or praise religions with few, if any, restrictions. My understanding is that other countries, including India, have different laws.
I mention this because I can tell from comments left on this blog along the lines of, "You can't say that about Baba Gurinder Singh!", that some visitors to this Church of the Churchless are viewing things from their own cultural perspective, rather than from how free speech is viewed in the United States.
But we all live in the same world, and we all are human beings. So what unites us is, really, greater than what divides us. Open discussion and debate is a wonderful thing, because it helps us to understand each other better. That's what I'm trying to accomplish on this blog.
We may disagree at times, but we always can respect our differences. If everybody was alike, this would be a hugely boring world.
It takes a subscription to read the full story, so my correspondent sent a file that I converted to PDF. Here it is: Download Singh brothers story
Like other stories about the Singh brothers and their relationship with the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the details are astoundingly complex.
Here's some easy to understand excerpts from the beginning of the story.
ET Prime pieced together this triangular love-hate story between the Godhwanis, Singh brothers, and Dhillons by speaking with several insiders, going through public disclosures, and poring over numerous corporate filings.
It is a story of a win-win association turning into a nightmare, an unending downward spiral.
...The transactions and movement of money and the multiple roles played by the individuals involved raise questions of corporate governance and conflict of interest. They show how Indian promoters continue to consider listed companies their private fiefdoms.
They also make one wonder about the Radha Soami sect's principles, including that the master "does not accept gifts or money for himself or his family from the sangat; all the money donated in seva is channelled into supporting the sangat".
I'll repeat what I said in a blog post about a Business Today story about this same subject -- the tangled web of highly suspicious financial deals involving the RSSB guru, his family, and RSSB insiders.
If you read the Bloomberg and Business Today stories, you'll learn that whatever we might call the financial schemes the guru is deeply involved with, it's very difficult to call them honest living. Download Honest Living
Falsehoods bother me. Including falsehoods about me.
Like the completely unfounded rumor that I started criticizing Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the Indian spiritual group I belonged to for 35 years, after I was fired as a speaker at meetings of the group.
I've noticed this falsehood popping up in recent comments on this blog, most recently from "manjit." Like so many religious believers, "manjit" is repeating a conjecture that isn't correct, but since it feels good to spout it, it gets spouted.
Well, here's some truth-telling. I've shared it before in comments, but I wanted to write a blog post that I could link to when the Brian was upset when he was fired, so he started criticizing RSSB lie surfaces again.
Actually the truth is just the opposite: after I started critiquing RSSB on this blog back in 2005, I was told that I could no longer speak at RSSB meetings (satsangs) because my blog posts were making RSSB devotees upset and uncomfortable.
Read all about it in "I was fired," an October 2005 post.
Well, my Meister Eckhart fantasy has been fulfilled. I’ve been fired from giving talks (known as “satsangs”) at meetings of my spiritual group because my Church of the Churchless writings have been too heretical.
Yesterday our local secretary informed me that he had been told by a regional representative, Vince Savarese, that my blogging about Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) had caused a lot of people to be uncomfortable. In New York. In India. All around the RSSB world.
Naturally I blurted out “Wow, that’s great! People are reading my blog!” It didn’t bother me to hear that I’ve been making some people uncomfortable. I regularly hear from others that they appreciate my posts, so it all evens out. Yin and yang. Like and dislike. Attraction and repulsion. That’s the way of the world.
Regardless, the RSSB powers that be don’t want me to be a speaker anymore. I said, “That’s fine. Now the folks at the Radhasoami studies discussion group who have been taking bets that I wouldn’t last as a speaker beyond mid-2006 will feel vindicated.”
Interestingly, it was "manjit" who wrote that October 2015 discussion group post linked to above who said about me, "Yes, he's writing some interesting stuff. I now often check out his blog," then predicted I wouldn't last as a satsang speaker past mid-2016.
"Manjit" was wrong about the timing of that, just as manjit now is wrong about why I was fired as a satsang speaker. I guess he's forgotten the early Church of the Churchless blog posts that made RSSB devotees uncomfortable.
My turn away from RSSB and organized religion began long before October 2005, and the posts I've written since have been motivated by a commitment to truth-telling, not resentment at RSSB.
Here's links to some of those pre-October 2005 posts, along with excerpts:
I’ve become a bit of a Sant Mat “heretic,” just as you seem to be. Maybe more than “a bit of” in fact. My quest these days is to discern the essential in spirituality. The rest seems to be in the realm of religion, not mysticism or what I like to call spiritual science. There is a lot of religiosity in RSSB even though this path supposedly isn’t a religion. When blind belief and faith are elevated over direct experience and questioning, I call that a religion.
This has been one of my criticisms of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the spiritual path that I’ve been associated with since 1970. Gradually over the years it seems that personal experience of the divine gained through meditation has been downplayed in favor of fawning guru-worship. Disciples are urged to surrender to the master, who is expected to take them back to God if they simply have faith and believe. Well, if that’s what I wanted I would have remained a Christian.
I “signed up” for RSSB some thirty-five years ago precisely because I wanted to be a member of a non-religious spiritual group. Now, either RSSB has changed or I’ve changed. A third alternative is that both RSSB and I have changed: RSSB in the direction of becoming more religion-like, and me in the direction of liking religion even less.
When people fall into the trap of saying “I’m a Christian,” “I’m a Muslim,” or “I’m a satsangi” (in the case of RSSB), they enclose themselves in one more layer of illusion. This further distances them both from God and from their fellow human beings. Like this fair façade, their spirituality may be superficially attractive. Yet a closer examination reveals that it lacks depth and is flimsily propped up by artificial supports: dogma, blind faith, self-righteousness, unquestioned adherence to arbitrary moral codes.
But the reality is that my current preference for churchlessness is an evolution from my previous attachment to a church—the “Church” of RSSB. So my personal experience with organized religion stems from this source, as does the experience of my correspondent and quite a few others who visit the Church of the Churchless.
If I had remained a Catholic, I’d be focusing on the rigidity, narrow-mindedness, and self-righteousness of Catholicism right now, because this would be the religion that I knew best. Instead, I’m making the same criticisms of RSSB, because that is the religion I’m most familiar with.
My point is that what’s written below speaks of the failings of RSSB and its members. Yet these failings are present in all organized religions, as is pointed out by the author.
However, when it comes to spirituality I really do want my belief bubble to burst. I can say this with some confidence because I’ve been pricking away at my own bubbles for quite a few years now.
“I am a member of a special spiritual group.” Pop. “My guru is God and will make me just like him.” Pop. “The course of my life is being guided by a higher power.” Pop. “If I have a sip of wine I’m a sinner.” Pop. “There’s only one way to meditate, the way I’ve been told.” Pop.
Some or all of the above statements may be true, but I no longer believe them to be true. Lacking certainty, I hold these beliefs in abeyance.
So these posts written prior to when RSSB "fired" me as a satsang speaker demonstrate that RSSB devotees are wrong when they claim that my criticisms of RSSB stemmed from my being upset that RSSB rejected me.
Again, the opposite was the case: my critical questioning of RSSB dogma caused devotees to become uncomfortable, which led to my firing. I was pleased to speak the truth as I saw it then, and I'm pleased to speak the truth now.
Someone sent me this video, along with a description:
"An illegal encroachment by Radha Soami Satsang Beas in Fatehpur Beri in Delhi that is being demolished by the Forest Department today. News reporting is by Punjab Kesari. They are breaking the shed, the building and the road. RSSB had been given several notices to vacate. Several acres of the forest land had been illegally purchased and the reporter is saying that it would be interesting to see how the government justifies this."
Some commenters on this blog like to claim that Radha Soami Satsang Beas never does anything wrong, since it is led by a guru who is considered to be a "perfect master."
Well, my attitude is that everybody is imperfect, and so are organizations. This is normal. We shouldn't expect perfection of any individual or group, because this isn't possible. But what is possible are learning, improvement, progress.
Here's a good overview of why it makes sense to raise questions about the financial affairs involving the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon.
It was written by Spence Tepper, who left the following comment on a recent blog post. I like the logical, reasonable way Tepper laid out the reasons concerns have been raised about those financial affairs in the Indian business press.
As he says, other people might draw different conclusions from the facts known to date. That's fine. And as more facts come out, other conclusions can be reached.
Here's links to some of the stories in the business press: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-16/billionaires-and-the-guru-how-an-indian-family-lost-2-billion https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/the-hub/the-baba-singh-brothers-and-the-squandered-rs-225000000000/story/281437.html https://www.cnbctv18.com/views/the-devotion-of-the-singh-brothers-of-fortis-runs-deep-into-their-businesses-63575.htm
I've corrected a few typos in the comment. Otherwise, what follows is how it was written.
All this is only to support an open mind, and encourage the courts to investigate thoroughly. There already is the court judgements and the FDA judgments against the Singh brothers. Those are thoroughly documented.
Now we have the Luthra investigations and those of the Fortis board, and others, into illegal loans, and the terminations of the Singh brothers. Those are matters of record.
Next are the $400M in unauthorized and uncollateralized loans to the Dhillons basically embezzled from the Fortis hospital system. And finally that those Dhillon loans were never paid, but serviced by creating new loans based on collateral of the Dhillons in part based on the artificial value bolstered by the prior loans.
When you look at all the information, you see that one individual funded the expansion from the trusts into Religare, mentored the Singh brothers, signed his wife and family members as principles in a number of new shell companies, including the Fortis healthcare acquisition, and then promoted the Singhs as principles at Fortis : Gurinder Singh Dhillon.
The legality of all this is up to the courts. The atribution of blame is up to the courts.
But the ethics of nepotism involved, of siphoning and embezzlement, of illegal leveraged loans on top of leveraged loans, and the business entity whose name is the center of all of this is well supported: Gurinder Singh Dhillon.
Such activists have nothing to do with being a Sant Sat Guru. Is devotion to saving souls really just a sideline? All that I was taught by Maharaji, by Sawan and Jaimal Singh, says the opposite. Love of the lord is the single occupation of the Saints.
You might draw a different conclusion. It is your right to do so.
And if any of this is actually Baba Ji's intention, it is not to throw off those who accept their responsibility to make their own decision, regardless of the outcome. It is to throw off those who cling to superstitious myths, so attached to their salvation they cannot let any risk enter in, even relinquishing their dignity as adults.
Yes, this may be part of Baba Ji's plan. Though you would have to go within to see it. And the plan is the destruction of the religion that RSSB had become, and the corrupt financial institution that is the current RSSB.
UPDATE ON SEPT. 25: Juan just left this comment, indicating that the September 17 meeting of Indian secretaries was indeed scheduled, then cancelled. I've also heard that Gurinder Singh Dhillon's scheduled initiation ceremony in New Delhi, which was last weekend, I believe, was cancelled. So it still seems to me that something is up. We just don't know what.
UPDATE ON SEPT. 11: I've heard from someone with close ties to RSSB that actually there isn't a meeting of Indian secretaries happening on September 17. If Juan reads this, I'm curious to know how he learned of the meeting, and whether there was any written documentation of the meeting notice. It's strange that nobody from RSSB said that the meeting wasn't happening after I wrote this post. The only skepticism was from a few commenters who said a meeting happens every year around this time. -------------------------
I was the secretary of our local Radha Soami Satsang Beas group for many years. Periodically I'd get written communications from the Dera (RSSB headquarters in India), but to my knowledge this is a first in the history of RSSB -- requiring secretaries to come to the Dera for an obligatory meeting.
UPDATE: Above is another comment from Juan, which was published on this post. If I read it correctly, the meeting is only for secretaries in India. So I've reflected that new information in this blog post. I've added another guess, (3) below, as to what the meeting is about.
What's the reason for this meeting? We could wait and see. But that's not as much fun as speculating. Which is what I'll do.
First, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru, has said that he intends to answer questions about his suspicious financial dealings, which have attracted a lot of attention in India. However, it doesn't seem likely that the guru would require the secretaries to journey to India to hear a report that could be communicated in written form.
So what else could the reason be? These are my top guesses. Feel free to suggest your own via a comment on this post.
(1) Gurinder Singh is going to announce that he is resigning as RSSB guru, and wants to explain his reasons in person. He then will announce his successor, who could be a woman.
(2) Gurinder Singh is going to announce a major change in how RSSB operates. Perhaps there will be less emphasis on overseas centers, and more emphasis on initiates' private meditation and spiritual life. Going back to basics, so to speak.
(3) Gurinder Singh is going to announce his response to the allegations about financial impropriety concerning RSSB and the Dhillon family, urging the secretaries to communicate that response to the Indian members of RSSB.
(3) Gurinder Singh is going to announce that Brian Hines (me) has been correct that the RSSB guru is just an ordinary person who lacks mystical powers, and appoints me as the new "guru" who will deliver messages to RSSB members through this blog. (OK, I'm joking.)
I'd like to get back to writing about other subjects on this blog, but news about the Singh brothers, RSSB, and Gurinder Singh Dhillon (RSSB guru) keeps coming in from links people send to me.
And it's a fascinating story -- this tale of how a supposedly spiritual sect, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, has gotten deeply entangled in some highly suspicious financial dealings.
Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) is looking for a deeper investigation of all associated firms related to brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh – Ranbaxy, Religare and Fortis Healthcare.
"This is not an ordinary case; it seems there are more people are involved in a web of transactions," source privy to the matter told DNA Money. "Initially Singh Brothers blamed the third person, Sunil Godhwani, and now they are blaming each other, which needs more thorough investigation by Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO)," he said.
SFIO, which is already probing into the affairs of Religare and Fortis, may extend the investigation to other related entities of Singh brothers including Ranbaxy. The trigger point for further investigation is the recent accusation of Singh brothers.
...The role of Godhwani and Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a religious sect and the management who joined the business with Singh brothers are also on the radar.
The common point of Singh brother and Sunil Godhwani was RSSB. Both have a close relationship with the sect. Godhwani was the financial head and adviser of RSSB.
Godhwani became managing director of Religare Securities on April 15, 2002, and later also held a 1.3% stake in the listed firm Religare Enterprises. Along with Godhwani, other Satsang members, including R K Shetty and Padam Bahl, had joined the Religare Enterprises Board.
As I've noted before, this scandal bears a close resemblance to what's happening with the investigations involving President Trump. Numerous associates of Trump have either been indicted, pled guilty, or are cooperating with investigators to avoid more serious charges.
But so far Trump himself hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing. However, it is well known that investigators (in Trump's case, the FBI/Justice Department) start with with lower-level people, then work their way up to the top people in an organization.
Likewise, so far the RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, hasn't been implicated in any wrongdoing. But since, as the DNA story says, Sunil Godhwani was the financial head of RSSB and the guru's right-hand man, it is difficult to believe that Gurinder Singh wasn't aware of what Godhwani was doing with Religare.
More facts will come out, I'm confident of that.
One big question is: to what degree will RSSB insiders choose to protect the guru and RSSB higher-ups, if this means that they will face serious legal problems? With Trump, we're seeing previously loyal associates of the President choosing to cooperate with prosectors to avoid jail time.
Trump, though, isn't viewed as God in Human Form by his associates, while the guru is. (Trump must envy gurus, since he loves to be worshipped.)
The guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, says that he will answer questions about the seemingly shady financial dealings he, his family, and possibly RSSB itself (a charitable organization) have been involved in.
According to a source privy to the development, some senior members of the sect recently asked Dhillon about his reaction to various news reports regarding the Singh brothers. The source said that Dhillon told these members that he has answers to all the questions that have been raised and he will give the answers himself at an opportune time. Dhillon told the senior members that spiritual and business aspects of our lives are separate and that devotees should focus on the former and not get diverted from it.
The RHC Holding as well as the RSSB did not respond to the queries sent by The Indian Express. Another source — involved with RSSB’s corporate dealings — added that Dhillons have been in business with Singh brothers for a very long time. “Take the example of Luminous Holdings, which was set up in 2002, and has Babaji himself as a director. Moreover, his wife Shabnam Dhillon is the other director of this company,” he said.
According to documents with corporate affairs ministry, Luminous Holdings had a long term borrowing of Rs 6.5 crore as on March 2017. Of that, around Rs 4.4 crore came from Delhi-based Fern Healthcare. In June, a probe by law firm Luthra and Luthra found that Singh brothers moved about Rs 475 crore from Fortis to various private companies. Fern Healthcare was one of them.
I've got a couple of thoughts about this.
(1) Indian business publications have been reporting on the tangled web of financial dealings involving the Singh brothers and the guru's family for a long time. To date, every story I've read has said that RSSB and the guru refused to comment to a reporter. So it's odd that now Gurinder Singh Dhillon is saying he'll answer questions "at an opportune time."
That time was quite a while ago. So every day the guru isn't willing to stand up in front of a press conference and answer pointed questions about his financial involvements is a day people are going to be wondering, "What does Gurinder Singh Dhillon and Radha Soami Satsang Beas have to hide?
(2) As I noted in a recent post, apparently the guru has never read a book published by the spiritual organization that he heads. "Honest Living" makes clear that, contrary to what Gurinder Singh is claiming, actually the spiritual and business aspects of our lives are closely related. If you do bad stuff in your business life, your spiritual life is going to suffer -- even, or especially, if you are a guru who is considered to be God in Human Form by the RSSB teachings.
(3) Yesterday I shared a CNBC TV 18 video of a program where there was a call for the RSSB charitable trust to be audited, to clear up questions about whether the Dhillon family, or anyone else, has been benefitting from a co-mingling of RSSB money and private money.
If RSSB and Gurinder Singh Dhillon have nothing to hide, they should be pleased to open the books of RSSB to inspection by a independent auditor. And the Dhillon family's own finances also should be audited so questions about their dealings with financial entities involving the Singh brothers can be cleared up.
The Business Insider story ends with these passages, which show the need for an investigation into whether the Dhillon family or RSSB benefitted from the purported illegal financial transactions cited by Shivinder Singh. Sunil Godhwani is reportedly the guru's "right-hand man," and is a RSSB insider.
Meanwhile, PTI reported on Tuesday that Shivinder has alleged in his petition before the NCLT that his elder brother Malvinder perpetrated illegal financial transactions, forged Shivinder’s wife’s signature and led the company into an unsustainable debt trap.
Malvinder and Godhwani “used their respective positions to perpetrate or cause others to perpetrate illegal financial transactions and various acts of mismanagement by and through RHC, leading to massive losses to RHC and its subsidiaries, and a depletion of the wealth,” the petition said, according to PTI.
Last night I spent a pleasant half hour on the phone talking with Ekta Batra, a reporter with India's CNBC TV 18.
She asked if I'd be OK with getting up at 5 am, my time, to be part of a live 20-minute program about Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) and a recent lawsuit filed by Shivinder Singh (cousin of the RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh) against his brother, Malvinder Singh and an RSSB insider, Sunil Godhwani, who used to run a company founded by the Singh brothers.
UPDATE: Someone in Australia said the link above was blocked by his Internet provider's server. I found a video of the program on the CNBC TV 18 You Tube channel. So you can watch it by clicking below.
Before I talk about the program, a screenshot from which is shown above, I've got to deal with some very important personal stuff.
First, this isn't the first time a reporter has used what probably is the worst photo I've ever taken of myself, which somehow found its way onto Google Images. The photo I usually use is shown above.
I like it for a couple of reasons: (1) It was taken about ten years ago, so I look younger in it, and (2) the image is cropped from a photo where I was holding my one-year-old granddaughter while we were talking a walk around a lake near our house, so it brings back good memories.
Next, I'm pleased that CNBC TV 18 chose to use the only part of the interview where I mentioned the name of this blog. Yay! Publicity! I wasn't so pleased, though, to realize that I used "you know" an annoying number of times, completely without my knowledge as I was sitting on our living room couch, phone in hand, trying to respond coherently to the reporter's questions
That CNBC TV 18 web page has a transcript of what one of the Indian guests on the show had to say near the end of the program. Since he was a bit difficult to understand, here's what he said.
JN Gupta: Shivinder cannot absolve the responsibility because he was knowing very clearly that there are financial dealing between the company and RSSB. The moment you involve religion in to the business, what type of business you are running.
I am a religious Hindu, you may be a religious Hindu, but that does not mean that I will take shareholders fund into my faith. You have given up your fiduciary responsibility, you have failed in your fiduciary responsibility because you were put in the board to safeguard the interest of the company and shareholders, and you cannot be using shareholders money to propagate your belief in religion.
The following image from a Bloomberg story about the Singh brothers' downfall illustrates what Gupta was getting at.
Note that the four arrows on the right side of the illustration show investments and loans flowing to entities affiliated with the guru's family. The three cross-hatched arrows on the rightmost side are loans associated with the guru, which total 25 billion. I assume this is 25 billion rupees, which equal $357 million dollars.
So, yes, as I indicated in the interview, the guru is indeed acting as much or more like a businessman than a guru. And a rather shady businessman at that, given the revelations in both the Bloomberg story and other stories by Indian financial publications.
Gupta says (if I heard correctly) that he feels an audit should be conducted of RSSB finances. The other gentleman on the program wasn't confident this would happen, at least not anytime soon, given religious sensibilities in India.
Lastly, here's a comment that Spence Tepper, a frequent Church of the Churchless visitor, left on one of my posts a few days ago. I can't vouch for everything Tepper says in his comment, but it's a cogent general explanation of what is going on here. I've corrected a few misspellings.
Michael Cooke is Gurinder Singh Dhillon's lawyer. Baba Ji is another name for the guru, Gurinder Singh. Satsangi means an initiate of RSSB. Maharaj ji is a reference to Charan Singh, the guru prior to Gurinder Singh.
Dear Michael Cooke
Fraud is fraud.
The Singh brothers, along with Shabnam Singh Dillon (Baba Ji's wife) and Sunil Godhwani, engaged in purchasing companies on credit, then leveraging their projected valuation for loans used to buy more companies and land, making loan payments by shuffling loans, and giving loans to themselves that have yet to be repaid.
They overextended their credit speculating on the growing realty market, letting ambition cloud judgment.
I'm a devout Satsangi. And I love Baba Ji very much. And tonight I'm heartbroken, because I see it very clearly.
My meditation has sharpened my understanding, not dulled it.
So when the Singh brothers write that they wish to restore their pride, it's clear they haven't learned the lesson of humility. Their pride is the problem. Their intentions were fine: The ones they paraded about and believed to be true. Their hidden ambitions were their undoing.
They didn't come forth. They were exposed. Years of shuffling money, siphoning money has been exposed. I'm sure they meant well. But that's how corruption works, subtly. You find yourself hiding things you know are wrong rather than being honest and making them right.
Corruption has its hands untied when you stop listening to your own inner voice, when you stop meditating.
How do people skilled in hiding their actions repent and do the opposite?
By blaming other corrupt people? LOL!
No. Integrity doesn't work that way. They left the Path long ago.
Their crime wasn't a one-time thing. It happened over a series of decisions over at least two decades to cut corners to leverage growth, to grow assets at the expense of service and quality; grow personal wealth instead of solidify company and service performance, over and over, year over year.
The greatest investment fraud in India's history and the largest Food and Drug Administration penalty in the history of the United States both at the hands of the Singh brothers, under the tutelage of Gurinder's chosen mentor for them, Sunil, with the support of Gurinder's wife, Shabnam. Yes they all became famous. Infamous.
This shame will forever be connected to Baba Gurinder Singh Ji and Radha Soami Satsang Beas. If he wasn't famous before, he is now. And this will be something he will never be able to recover from. It serves no purpose to cheat, nor to allow that to proliferate. No Saint has ever advocated any such behavior.
Michael, we don't need explanations / excuses. These guys who wanted fame got it. They are infamous, and now, so is the Master. Over one hundred years of toil; Jaimal Singh's careful and loving development of his beloved Sawan Singh and the foundation of the Dera; Sawan Singh's lifetime of devotion and toil to His master, to the colony and the disciples; Jagat Singh's life's work and love; Maharaji's decades of work and love, building free hospitals, giving his entire life, and all his time to the Sangat; all destroyed in a career tainted by ambition over land speculation.
We should have seen it coming when Baba Ji started acquiring lands all over the world. They were donations. What corruption could be connected to it?
But why build such large sites, built for a crowd that might only be seen once in many years, and which today, mostly sit empty?
But by linking RSSB investments to these various Religare companies, and those to Fortis and other larger acquisitions, the valuation of these donated lands became the paper collateral for an obscene number of unsupportable loans. The very largess of their value was the irresistible Tolkien's ring.
And then efforts to sell the lands to help pay back the loans were thwarted, because in India, donated land cannot readily be sold. And as land values softened, depts exploded, and bankruptcy abounds in truth, though not quite yet on paper.
Baba Ji knew better. Material wealth is meaningless. Sad beyond words.
Inner wealth, inner peace of mind is everything. When was the last time Baba Ji actually sat in meditation and submitted all this to Maharaji?
Divided interested, and lost focus. The sword has slipped from his hands.
The kingdom razed to the ground by the nefarious and secret actions of GurindEr's closest relatives, including his wife. His own ambition, taken to corrupt ends by those near him who loved him and were, in their eyes, emulating Him.
Gone.
But not the Practice. And not the Truth of the Inner Realms and of the Spirit.
But that mantle will now be passed to someone else, whom life and nature has already been grooming for the purpose. Someone who values those things more than life itself.
Former Ranbaxy promoter and founder of Fortis Healthcare, Shivinder Singh, said that he has filed a case against his brother Malvinder and former head of Religare Sunil Godhwani in the NCLT court for oppression and mismanagement of RHC Holding, Religare and Fortis.
Shivinder Singh said in a press release issued on Tuesday that the action was long overdue but got delayed in the hope that "better sense shall eventually prevail and another ugly chapter of family feud would not be written in our family business’ glorious history."
Stating that he was dissociating with his brother, Shivinder claimed that "The collective, ongoing, actions of Malvinder and Godhwani had led to a systematic undermining of the interests of the companies and their shareholders as also the committed and loyal employees of the group."
Shivinder and Malvinder Singh
This is turning into quite a financial and spiritual drama.
Spiritual, because Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), is related to the Singh brothers. Dhillon and his family are deeply enmeshed in the shady financial dealings that led to the dismantling of the Fortis/Religare business empire.
Shivinder Singh has been rumored to be the successor of Gurinder Singh Dhillon as the RSSB guru. Yet Sunil Godhwani, named in the lawsuit by Shivinder Singh, is Gurinder Singh's right-hand man, and other RSSB insiders also are heavily involved in the tangled web of enterprises related to the Fortis/Religare debacle.
(See here and here for in-depth stories about this by prominent Indian business publications.)
Lawsuits between family members often have a way of bringing out facts that otherwise would be kept secret, both because of the openness required by court proceedings and a desire by one side of the family to reveal "dirt" about the other side. So it'll be interesting to see how all this plays out.
The big question regarding Gurinder Singh Dhillon is akin to the big question regarding Donald Trump. Scandals, investigations, indictments, and such have been circling around Trump.
Now the big question is how directly Trump himself was involved in the Russia collusion stuff, and attempts to interfere with the investigations. Likewise, the next big question regarding Gurinder Singh Dhillon and the Singh brother's dealings is how directly the guru has been involved in the shady side of the financial machinations.
After fourteen years of blogging here on the Church of the Churchless, I'm not surprised anymore by this evident fact about most religious believers:
They make two mistakes. They ignore aspects of this evident physical reality that conflict with their chosen religious dogma. And they embrace fantasies about supernatural realms that almost certainly don't exist.
Thus religious believers close their eyes to what can actually be known, while making up stories about what is unknown -- such as what, if anything, lies outside the bounds of our universe.
Here's some examples of what I'm talking about.
I've written several posts about recent stories that reputable Indian business publications have published about a guru's highly questionable financial involvements. (See here and here.)
These are well-researched stories that lay out in considerable detail how Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), is deeply enmeshed in the tale of how two brothers, Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, who are relatives of Dhillon, have lost billions of dollars through shady business deals.
But RSSB true believers refuse to accept the facts that are right in front of their eyes, even going so far as to consider that the guru is orchestrating the bad press about him as a test of how devoted and obedient his devotees are.
Obviously this is crazy.
But since crazy is the foundation of every religion, including the teachings of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, followers of the guru who comment on this blog, such as "One Initiated," have resorted to name-calling and insults because they are unable to come up with facts to refute the tell-all stories published by Bloomberg and Business Today.
(Additional stories about Gurinder Singh Dhillon and the Singh brothers have been published by other organizations.)
What's obvious to everyone but those head-in-the-sand acolytes is how readily religious believers ignore facts that threaten their belief system, while accepting extremely spurious dogmas that have no demonstrable evidence to back them up.
I'm proud to be a member of the Truth Telling Club. We aren't an actual club, of course. But I feel a close connection to everyone who does their best to accept reality as it is, and to dismiss fantasies that aren't real.
This is difficult work. It requires research, an open mind, a willingness to admit errors and mistakes, a heartfelt commitment to following the truth wherever it leads.
By contrast, religious believing is easy.
So is ignoring facts about the ugly side of one's chosen religion, such as the sleazy financial dealings Gurinder Singh Dhillon has been engaging in while he supposedly was dedicating himself to both his own spiritual uplift and that of his disciples.
The good news is that the truth always wins out. Reality always has the last word. Why? Because truth and reality are vastly more powerful that falsehood and fantasies.
Likely there is more truth to come out about the RSSB guru's financial dealings.
We live in a world where secrets are difficult to keep, even by the rich and powerful.
Fortunately, our world has plenty of people who value honesty above lies, truth-telling above dissembling, straight talk above meaningless blather. Religions likely always will be with us, but I'm confident that their power will diminish as reality increasingly comes to be valued above fantasy.
I've grown accustomed to lawyers saying strange things, especially in this age of Trump, but this message from Gurinder Singh Dhillon's lawyer is especially weird.
Dhillon is the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a spiritual organization headquartered in India.
Recently several Indian business publications have published detailed stories about how the guru and his family, plus RSSB followers, are deeply implicated in shady financial dealings involving the Singh brothers, Malvinder and Shivinder, who are the guru's nephews cousins. [Someone emailed me with a genealogy analysis that seems to show they're the guru's first-cousins once removed.]
The journalists who wrote the stories noted that neither Gurinder Singh Dhillon nor RSSB officials have been willing to answer questions about those financial dealings.
But today someone sent me a message that Michael Cooke, who says he is Gurinder Singh's lawyer, has been distributing in response to the uproar created by the revelations about how a supposed God-man is implicated in the gain, and then loss, of billions of dollars in some exceedingly unseemly ways. BBJ (BabaJi) is a reference to the guru.
" The Bloomberg article caused so much angst with endless troubled souls contacting me that I started sending my standard response. My view on the Bloomberg article: the extremely short version based on all that I know, which is a lot more than most given my lawyer position, is as follows: I see all this Religare stuff as the modern version of mud platforms.
Centuries ago the guru could puncture his disciples' false confidence in him by mud platforms because he only had a handful of disciples. Now a modern day guru with 4 million followers worldwide uses Bloomberg to get his message across that they don't know shit about him or who he really is and it is time that they should meditate earnestly to find the answer inside themselves.
I have been around long enough and witnessed so much that I have no difficulty in believing that BBJ ( Baba Ji ) can do this effortlessly. He is the hunter of souls and he couldn't care less what the minds of men think about him. Feel free to pass on to anyone you like ... And you can attribute it to me since it may help people to know his lawyer is standing by the Man. "
~ Message by Michael Cooke
Wow. Below I've copied in the story of the mud platforms, which is a Sikh tale relating to two of the gurus in the Sikh heritage. Radha Soami Satsang Beas has retold it in some of their books.
As you can read, the story is about how a guru made his followers build, then destroy, mud platforms over and and over in a seemingly capricious fashion. Only one follower obeyed his guru to the bitter end, and he was rewarded by becoming the next Sikh guru.
Let's unpack the strange stuff in Michael Cooke's message.
First, Cooke says that Gurinder Singh Dhillon is "using Bloomberg to get his message across." So we're supposed to believe that the guru, who is considered to be God in Human Form by the RSSB teachings, is somehow mystically controlling the journalists who wrote the Bloomberg story, "The Billionaires and the Guru: How a Family Burned Through $2 Billion."
Now this goes against the updated version of the RSSB teachings Gurinder Singh Dhillon has been talking about, where the guru says that he is just a human being like everybody else who can't forgive sins or erase karmas.
But apparently this message hasn't gotten through to the guru's lawyer, who still believes Gurinder Singh has special powers. Like being able to get Bloomberg to write a story that casts the guru in a critical light.
Why?
Well, Michael Cooke has the answer to that: Gurinder Singh is testing the devotion of his disciples by doing stuff that looks to be ethically wrong, and maybe even illegal, because he wants those disciples to meditate assiduously so they can learn who the guru really is, not who he appears to be.
This is an argument that would be laughed out of court, obviously.
"Your honor, and members of the jury, my client isn't guilty as charged because his apparent misdeeds actually were part of his mission from God. He acted wrongly so that most people would make the mistake of thinking, He acted wrongly, whereas those with a certain mystical vision would be able to see that he really was acting rightly. The fact that your honor and the jury don't have that sort of vision doesn't matter. Just believe me, and come to a not-guilty conclusion."
So Michael Cooke and other true believers in RSSB dogma are trying to have it both ways.
The guru is acting like God, "hunting souls," when things are going smoothly, and the guru is also doing God's will when things go badly -- because now his disciples won't be able to rely on what they know about the outer form of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, who is enmeshed in many questionable business dealings, but rather seek an inner form of the guru who doesn't have those weaknesses.
This whole "mud platform" thing strikes me as an authoritarian's dream story.
Yes, I realize that this story means a lot to Sikhs and others who view unquestioning obedience as a manifestation of love for God and the guru. However, the story also can be used, as Cooke is using it, to justify looking away from apparent wrongdoing by a spiritual leader.
Here's the story. Read it. Then decide whether you want to be a person who does whatever someone else says, or a person who thinks and feels for themselves, choosing to avoid behavior that seems to be wrong or misguided. I want to be that second type of person.
When Guru Amar Das wanted to select the capable disciples from among His followers, He devised a test. Remember, Masters always test their followers, each in His own methods. These tests are for the advanced disciples - those who have advanced by the Master's grace - and usually they are not aware of what is happening.
Guru Amar Das told each of His disciples to make a raised platform out of mud, and they were all willing and anxious to begin. We are usually quick to jump and obey, but how long can we keep it up? When they had each made one platform, He inspected them and decided that they were not satisfactory, and should be made again. They all remade them; but when the Master inspected the work, He told them that they were still not satisfactory, that the clay was not the right type and should be brought from another place. This was done, and the platforms were remade.
Again the Guru declared that they were not right, and the disciples remade them once, twice, thrice more. When Guru Amar Das inspected the platforms again, He was still not satisfied and told the disciples that they should change the site, shift all the clay to a different place, and there remake the platforms again. When they got to the new site and the clay was moved there, the remaking started again. Again and again the Guru rejected the work once, twice, ten, twelve times. Again the site was changed and the clay carried over.
You may wonder how many disciples were left doing the work. Very few; for one by one they had left, until only Jetha Ji remained. Jetha Ji later became Guru Ramdas when He succeeded Guru Amar Das. But at the time of this story, Guru Amar Das was over 120 years of age, and the people who saw Jetha Ji faithfully doing this work told him, "Why waste your time like this? Your Guru has become old and senile, He is not in His full senses; He tells you to make and remake these platforms again and again - is this the action of a sensible man?"
When he heard these words, Jetha Ji cried. He was a soul of no small enlightenment, and could see the Light of God working in his Guru. He could not bear to hear people speaking of Him thusly. Through his tears he said, "Brothers, you do not understand: the whole world's thinking may be wrong, but never my Guru's, for He is the only Awakened One, the God-realized Guru. If He tells me to make and remake these platforms my whole life through, it will be a joy to do so, for I want only to obey His orders."
"Baba" is a term of respect that's often used with spiritual leaders. According to a couple of currency converters I found online, Rs (rupees) $225,00,00,00,000 equals about $3.2 billion in U.S. dollars. So we're talking some real money that was squandered.
Gurinder Singh Dhillon is on the right in the photo above, and the Singh brothers are on the left.
Below I've shared some excerpts from the lengthy Business Today story, boldfacing the mentions of Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family. The whole story is well worth reading, of course.
Here's a few observations about how the guru of a spiritual organization ended up getting entangled in so many suspicious financial dealings.
First, it's more than a little strange that Gurinder Singh Dhillon heads up Radha Soami Satsang Beas, which has published a book called "Honest Living."
If you read the Bloomberg and Business Today stories, you'll learn that whatever we might call the financial schemes the guru is deeply involved with, it's very difficult to call them honest living. Download Honest Living
Here's an excerpt from that RSSB book.
Second, when someone in business hasn't done anything wrong, they're usually pleased to talk about their dealings. But neither Gurinder Singh Dhillon nor any of his family members or business associates has been willing to talk with reporters. This is a pretty good sign that they're hiding something.
And obviously those refusals to comment on stories involving the Dhillons and the Singh brothers isn't causing business journalists in India to back away from their reporting. I suspect that, if anything, this makes reporters confident that there's more "dirt" to divulge, so they dig deeper.
Lastly, I've heard that many Radha Soami Satsang Beas true believers are discounting the recent stories about Gurinder Singh Dhillon's financial problems, rationalizing these as being a part of some grand spiritual plan, or the guru's inscrutable mystical ways.
Which reminds me of a cartoon I came across in the Washington Post today.
The cartoon refers to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who, along with most of his Republican colleagues, is ignoring the ever-increasing evidence of scandals involving President Trump. I like the reference to "Little Red Hiding Hood."
This is exactly what true believers of any sort -- religious, political, etc. -- do when confronted with information that challenges their belief system: they do their best to look away and pretend that disturbing information doesn't exist.
But that doesn't make the scandal go away. It just makes the true believers further divorced from reality, which is never a good thing.
You'll read at the end of the excerpts that there's a question about whether loans by the Singh brothers to the Dhillons pertained to whether given "Shivinder's apparent desire to emerge as the sect's next spiritual head, the brothers gave loans to further his chances of being backed by Dhillon to head the sect and its sprawling operations."
An influential 'Baba' and his family with a weakness for materialism; two young businessmen loaded with nearly Rs10,000 crore from an asset sale; and a family confidante have together cooked a cauldron that Bollywood potboilers are made of. Their machinations wrecked a flourishing empire and vapourised nearly $3.2 billion (Rs22,500 crore then) into thin air.
...Such decimation of a flourishing and diversified empire within a decade is unprecedented in India's corporate history. So, how did this happen?
The answer lies hidden in a maze of a dozen companies. But before we get to that, let's understand the family dynamics between the Baba, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the brothers and family confidante Sunil Naraindas Godhwani.
Dhillon-better known as 'Babaji' or the 'Saint of Beas' is the spiritual guru of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB). The head of RSSB works pro bono, draws no salary nor any benefits from the sect. Dhillon battled cancer and recovered from it in 2013. RSSB has over two million followers and a vast land bank across the country. It has over 5,000 centres that can accommodate between 50 and 5 lakh people during congregations. The sect is a 1918 breakaway faction of the Radha Soami sect founded at Agra in 1861 by Shiv Dayal Singh. Dhillon has headed the sect since inheriting it in 1990 from maternal uncle Charan Singh who was the spiritual guru between 1951 and 1990. Charan Singhs daughter Nimmi Singh is Malvinder & Shivinders mother and wife of Late Parvinder Singh. Thus, Dhillon is the brothers' maternal uncle.
In comes confidante Godhwani, who was recommended and backed by Dhillon to run non-banking finance company Religare Enterprises. The Singhs often referred to him as their third brother but he once said he owed his allegiance to nobody except Dhillon. He is now called the "self-proclaimed third brother". The bond was to strengthen further as Godhwani's daughter Simran was engaged to Dhillon's younger son Gurkirat. The proposed marriage, however, never went through as the two parted ways. It was fine as long as it was all within the family. But that was not to be.
Too much money spoiled the brotherhood.
There are three dimensions to the Singh potboiler-Singh brothers' relationship with Dhillon; their ties with each other and the relationship with Godhwani. In the first, being the head of the sect and a father figure to Singh brothers, Dhillon had an upper hand; in the second, equal partners Malvinder and Shivinder were led by Malvinder; in the third, Godhwani, being backed by the Dhillons, pretty much ran Religare independently.
But it all begins and ends with money. Once the proceeds of the Ranbaxy sale were received, the Singh brothers paid nearly Rs2,000 crore in taxes and previous loan repayments. Of the remaining Rs7,500 crore, Rs1,750 crore were invested in Religare to fund its growth; about Rs2,230 crore was invested in Fortis' growth.
But most importantly, Rs2,700 crore were transferred to companies owned by the Dhillon family, Gurinder Dhillons wife Shabnam Dhillon and companies associated with RSSB's senior functionaries. While Religare and Fortis are examples of reckless expansion and its consequences, the money transferred to Dhillon and associates-which (with interest) is now estimated to be between Rs4000-5,000 crore-remains unpaid to the Singhs.
It isnt clear why this money was never returned. Dhillon and the Singh brothers did not respond to detailed questions on whether this money was owed to Dhillon and associates for any previous transactions or was only loaned to them.
Loaded with massive cash, Religare and Fortis went on a rapid-fire expansion and acquisition spree. On the other hand, the Dhillon family and RSSB associates got lured by the real estate sector, which was delivering phenomenal returns between 2008 and 2011. Recipient companies raised further loans at 12-14 per cent interest to buy more real estate.
All turned out to be fatal errors.
Once the slowdown hit, Religare and Fortis were unable to service the massive debt raised during the expansion spree (see graphic). The Singh brothers' only fallback option may have been funds given to Dhillon and associates. But that was not to be. In the slowdown-ravaged economy, the real estate sector had gone into a spiral by then and prices crashed. The Dhillons were trapped and so were the brothers. A detailed mail sent to Dhillons and Singhs did not elicit any response on this.
...'Prius Platinum, Ground Floor, D3, District Centre, Saket, New Delhi-110017' could pass off as a nondescript address. Until you notice a striking similarity: Company after company registering it as their official address in the RoC records. At least 16 at last count. Many of them have even declared the same email ID in the RoC records: [email protected]; and are also being audited by the same firm.
Prius Real Estate, Prius Commercial Projects, Best Healthcare, Modland Wears, Fern Healthcare, Addon Realty, Hillgrow Infrastructure, Bestest Developers, Platinum Infrastructure. Even the Singh family's holding companies, RHC Holding and Oscar Investments, have declared it as their address.
Nearly Rs2,700 crore was routed to these Dhillon-RSSB functionaries companies between 2009 and 2012 through a layered and complex web of subsidiaries. Of that, Rs2,000 crore was invested in two firms--Prius Real Estate and Prius Commercial Projects.
RoC records say Prius Commercial is 84 per cent owned by Dhillons wife Shabnam and 16 per cent by RSSB Delhi head Yuvraj Narain Gorwaney. Prius Real Estate is 50:50 owned by Dhillons elder son Gurpreet and RSSBs Rajveer Singh. Addon Realty, which got Rs100 crore from Fortis, is also run by RSSB's Yuvraj Narain Gorwaney, his wife Sangeeta Narain and another Satsangi and Singh brothers cousin Sharanbir Singh Sandhu. SGGD Projects is run by brothers Vaibhav and Rahul Wadhwa, both employees of RSSB at Beas. Rahul Wadhwa was also a former Fortis employee. Lowe Infra and Wellness is another realty firm run by Sharanbir Singh Sandhu and Rahul Wadhwa. Singhs now own a majority of this firm. Hillgrow is run by another senior RSSB functionary & Singhs cousin, Jagatbir Singh Sandhu, as its director and signatory.
While many of these firms are alleged to be directly or indirectly controlled by the Dhillon family, the Dhillons themselves have had direct dealings with Singh family firms. During Religares public issue in 2007, 62.50 lakh shares representing 9.17 per cent equity each were allotted to Dhillons sons Gurpreet and Gurkirat.
Prius Platinum's swank six-floor building in Saket district centre is one of the biggest real estate ventures where the Dhillon/RSSB associates money was sunk. Besides the Saket property, Prius Commercial owns three properties in Noida, one in Ahmedabad and another in Mumbais Vile Parle. Dhillons attempt to sell these properties to Blackstone have not materialised so far. Prius Commercials website claims: "We own over two million square feet of commercial office space with another 1.5 million square feet in development and land capacity to develop a further 4.5 million square feet". Prius Platinum, though, is still sparsely occupied.
The reception and adminstration get edgy as soon as Dhillons and Singhs are enquired about. The names of Dhillon/RSSB associates companies are displayed in a glass plaque behind the reception but guards warn against photography. At least some of these firms have gained notoriety ever since law firm Luthra & Luthra, which was hired to investigate a case of Rs473 crore being siphoned off from Fortis Healthcare, mentioned Fern, Modland and Best as the companies to whom the money was transferred, allegedly against management advice and without proper sanctions. A claim that is denied by Singhs.
...With both the Dhillons and the Singh brothers refusing to respond to detailed questionnaires, it's hard to decipher what transpired in their business dealings. But l'affaire Dhillon-Singh leaves several unanswered questions: Were the brothers consumed by naivete in not just handing over a substantial chunk of their wealth to the Dhillon family and RSSB associates but also in giving Godhwani a free hand? Naivete is surely not one of their virtues. So why did the Singhs let it go this bad, this fast? Or, was the money actually owed to Dhillon family and associates? As a result, it was never returned!
Or, in Shivinder's apparent desire to emerge as the sect's next spiritual head, the brothers gave loans to further his chances of being backed by Dhillon to head the sect and its sprawling operations.
After someone told me about a book, "Memoirs of a Seeker," that described a woman's relationship with a guru, I purchased the Kindle version.
Because I'd been told that the guru was Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the leader of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based religious organization that I was a member of for 35 years, I was perplexed that Sheena, the author, apparently never mentioned the guru's name, from what I could tell from a quick browsing of the book.
But the person who recommended the book knows Sheena (not her real name), and separately another person emailed me with some mentions of the book, further confirming that the guru is indeed Gurinder Singh, and the ashram is Dera Baba Jaimal Singh, the RSSB headquarters in the Punjab.
I haven't read the entire book.
I've just looked through the parts describing Sheena's initial infatuation with Gurinder Singh and the RSSB teachings, which led to a massive disillusionment when, after a lot of personal contact with the guru, she realized that he was just a flawed human being, not a "perfect master."
I invite you to buy the book. I was impressed with how clearly and honestly written it is. I found no reason to doubt Sheena's sincerity, nor her accuracy. Here's how her book ends. (I'm sharing screenshots, because it isn't possible to copy text from a Kindle book.)
What follows are some additional screenshots of portions of the book relating to her time as a Gurinder Singh devotee, and a sewadar (volunteer) at the Dera. I'm sharing these excerpts because I want to stimulate people to buy Sheena's book, and I'm pretty confident that she wants her story as widely known as possible.
I've added some comments of my own after each excerpt.
This is a really weird story. It reminds me of the "Me Too" movement in the United States, a groundswell of women speaking out about sexual harassment in the workplace (and any place, really).
It sounds like India hasn't gotten on board with the Me Too and Times Up movements, or at least the Dera hasn't -- because Gurinder Singh's concern was with how he would be viewed, not with how Sheena would be seen, or whether the accusation that the guru "chased" a young female disciple had some truth behind it.
In this excerpt Sheena mentions an incident of a woman being molested by a male sewadar that Gurinder Singh knew about, but ignored. She also talks about the hypocrisy of the RSSB teachings saying one thing, while the reality of how things operated at the Dera was quite different.
Sheena got to know Gurinder Singh and his family much more intimately than most members of RSSB. Given the guru's shady financial dealings, as detailed in a recent Bloomberg story, these observations about how Gurinder Singh changed after gaining his new-found wealth fit in with what I've heard from others.
"Sweeto" refers to the guru's wife.
This is a beautiful, and brave, critique of how the atmosphere of spirituality that used to permeate Dera Baba Jaimal Singh (I visited for two weeks in 1977, when Charan Singh was the guru) has been shunted aside by a steadily creeping materialism.
Another brave and truthful observation by Sheena. What went through my mind after reading this passage was, "The guru is a jerk!" Also, sexist and, as Sheena says, a very ordinary human.
Sheena is correct: power and wealth do corrupt. Gurus such as Gurinder Singh Dhillon aren't immune from their allure. Thankfully, Sheena saw through the guru illusion.
Sheena says that she found God, but not through the guru -- who was an impediment, not a means, to divinity. She is grateful, though, for her experience with RSSB and Gurinder Singh. Often it takes following a wrong road to get on the track of one that leads where we want to go.
For Sheena's full story of her seeking, and finding, get "Memoirs of a Seeker." I've just scratched the surface of what is in Sheena's book.
Thank you, universe! You work in mysterious (and also non-mysterious) ways.
After I was quoted in a Bloomberg story that described the shadowy connections between Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru, and the Singh brothers, Shivinder and Malvinder, the number of people visiting this blog has gone up a lot the past three days.
This blog has gotten about 13,000 page views in that time, whereas usually it would get about 3,000. Good karma! (if I believed in karma)
Today Bloomberg, a business publication, published a tell-all story about Gurinder Singh Dhillon's hugely complicated, and ethically dubious, financial dealings with Shivinder and Malvinder Singh, nephews of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru.
Still, Dhillon hails from a family of major landowners in Punjab, and was himself a businessman in Spain prior to his ascension at the spiritual group. So he took an active interest in the Singhs’ holdings, the people said.
“I think he’s a businessman in his mind first, and a guru second,” said Brian Hines, an American who was a member of the sect’s U.S. community for 35 years and has visited Beas. He now blogs critically about it, having since left.
Anyone who reads the story would find it difficult to argue with what I said.
Altstedter lays out in convincing detail how the Dhillon family has enriched itself while Gurinder Singh Dhillon has been the RSSB guru, an organization that has published a book, "Honest Living," whose ethical tenets go against the sort of shady business dealings described in the story.
Here's some excerpts concerning the Dhillon family's real estate investments.
By 2010, another business opportunity emerged. Towns outside India’s capital, New Delhi, were experiencing a property boom that was turning farmers into millionaires. The Singhs’ resources were marshaled to help the Dhillon family build a real-estate empire.
Two companies, Prius Real Estate Private Ltd. and Lowe Infra and Wellness Private Ltd., were set up by people close to the guru, and although partly hidden by layers of shell companies, the Dhillon family had ownership interests in both, people familiar with the matter said and filings show.
Over the next two years, these firms together received about 20 billion rupees in zero-interest loans from the Singhs’ private holding company or its subsidiaries, according to the people and the documents. Funds were then disbursed to other companies controlled by the Dhillons. The Singhs owned a 51 percent stake in Lowe.
These loans proved costly to the Singhs, coming on top of other major financial commitments that were underway. From 2011 onwards, the brothers’ holding company went on to sink at least 12 billion rupees to cover losses at their investment banking venture Religare Capital Markets Ltd. Other loans went to Ligare Voyages Ltd., a money-losing charter airline.
The Singhs’ holding company also loaned at least 7 billion rupees to cover losses at a firm that had been spun out of Religare to manage the financial firm’s administrative costs. The loss-making firm’s biggest expense was rent, much of which was paid to buildings owned by the guru’s family, according to documents and people familiar with the matter.
In some cases, Religare had no use for all the space it was leasing from the guru’s buildings and large parts sat empty, the people said and internal documents show.
RHC, the holding company, also made personal loans of 5 billion rupees to Dhillon family members, via a network of shell companies, people familiar with the matter said.
The Singhs funded all these outlays to the guru’s businesses and to their own ventures with borrowing. And a substantial portion came from Fortis and Religare, often through the same network of shell companies used to lend to the guru’s family, people familiar with the matter said.
Taken together, the zero-interest loans to Dhillon firms and Singh investments gone bad created a crushing debt load that required even more borrowing to service. Their total borrowings hit about $1.6 billion by March 2016, filings show.
The Bloomberg story has an illustration of how large amounts of money were shuffled back and forth via various actual and shell companies in efforts to keep the financial empire of the Singh brothers and Dhillon family afloat.
Note that the four arrows on the right side of the illustration show investments and loans flowing to entities affiliated with the guru's family. The three cross-hatched arrows on the rightmost side are loans associated with the guru, which total 25 billion. I assume this is 25 billion rupees, which equal $357 million dollars.
So, yes, the guru is indeed acting much more like a businessman than a guru. And a rather shady businessman at that, given the revelations in the Bloomberg story.
A few days ago I published a post, "Gurinder Singh completely upends Sant Mat dogma," that described how Gurinder Singh Dhillon is acting like an earthy Zen master these days, not a guru with mystical powers who guides disciples to a heavenly region known in RSSB teachings as Sach Khand.
This fits with Gurinder Singh's upending of how a RSSB guru is supposed to act: humbly, earning his own living in an honest manner, not being concerned with amassing worldly wealth but rather with spreading spiritual wisdom.
I have no problem with Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family making huge amounts of money.
I just have said, and will keep on saying, that this has been done while the guru supposedly was giving most of his attention to the spiritual elevation of RSSB disciples, and clearly this hasn't been the case.
(1) Many commenters on this blog are devotees of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based religious organization headed by a guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon; and (2) these same commenters refuse to believe that Gurinder Singh has completely changed the traditional RSSB teachings that they defend so strongly.
Hopefully the following will change some minds.
Today this message was emailed to me by Osho Robbins, who has previously shared his take on what can be called Sant Mat v. 2.0 and v. 3.0, to distinguish the new RSSB teachings being promulgated by Gurinder Singh from the old v. 1.0 teachings.
So what you'll read below isn't new news. It is very much in line with my 2011 blog post, "Has Gurinder Singh revised Sant Mat to v. 3.0?" (Note: "Baba of RSSB" refers to Gurinder Singh, the guru.)
When you arrive at a train station and the announcement is made "all change" everyone gets off the train and catches a new train.
Its like that now again at RSSB.
This time it's so obvious it simply cannot be denied.
I was at Haynes park on the Sunday before the UK national satsang.
I went on the mic and had what can only be described as a most intriguing conversation with the Baba of RSSB.
The exchange between us went on for approximately 20 minutes.
This is what he stated clearly in that conversation:
(1) You are right, there is no journey because you are already there and you just have to realise it.
(2) You are correct in saying there are no regions.
(3) I have never read the Sar Bachan and what it states there is just a story, not literal. None of those regions or the lords of the regions exist.
(4) There is only the ONE. There is no individual soul. So you don't actually merge back. You are already there.
(5) Don't focus on the physical master. I am only here to clarify. I am just a human being like you. I cannot forgive sins. I cannot erase karmas.
(6) Meditation just means to quieten the mind and turn inwards and let go and realise who you are.
I also had another briefer conversation with him yesterday at Haynes.
This time the whole session, not just the exchange with me was clearly conveying the new sant mat.
"I will not give you false consolation" he says.
"The master is only here to give you the teachings and guide you. I cannot do it for you. "
He also makes no claims for himself. He laughs and jokes about just about everything.
On the Sunday of the national satsang he said "there is nothing. What will you get by coming here? Nothing"
Then he smiles while the penny drops.
I am impressed.
I also am impressed. Gurinder Singh is sounding a lot like a Zen master, or Alan Watts, rather than a guru who is considered to be God in Human Form who guides disciples through higher regions of reality back to a "heaven" called Sach Khand.
All that has disappeared from the RSSB teachings. However, as noted above, old-time initiates refuse to accept that the old teachings are gone.
And here's an amazing but true fact.
A few minutes ago I read Osho Robbins' message to my wife, who is an extremely ardent atheist. She said, "I like it." So this shows that Gurinder Singh's new message basically is indistinguishable from atheism.
Which makes me feel good, since I've embraced atheism since about 2005, following 35 years of being a RSSB devotee.
Ah, life is pleasingly strange. I've gotten lots of criticisms from RSSB initiates because I no longer believe in Sant Mat dogma. Well, guess what?
Neither does the RSSB guru.
So I accept the apologies of everyone who has called me a RSSB heretic.
It turns out that actually I'm the one who has been faithful to the freshened-up RSSB teachings of Gurinder Singh, while all of those commenters on this blog who blab on about inner regions, divine sound/light, inner guidance of the guru, and such actually are the heretics.
Well, Gurinder Singh Dhillon and I have something in common: we both enjoy looking at naked women.
But the difference between us is that Gurinder Singh is the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru, so supposedly is "God in human form," and I'm just ordinary me.
Here's an email message I received from a woman who found Gurinder Singh's behavior at "satsang" (a spiritual meeting) in India to be appalling. Again, it isn't unusual to hear men talk in this fashion.
However, one expects something different from a guru who is purported to have elevated his consciousness to an enlightened level.
In 2013 I visited Dera for the first time and made four more visits following that. My last visit was December 2017. Not sure if you have heard reports from other Satsangis regarding the 'Christmas' session last year, but it was appalling.
Gurinder’s comments and behavior during evening Satsang with the westerners went from somewhat off color to completely inappropriate. He bragged about flying around in his new helicopter and having his own private jet that allows him to avoid waiting in lines (among other luxuries). He asked us, "who wants to wait in lines?".
The worst part of the session began when his constant teasing and joking started revolving around bathroom jokes, nudity and how he couldn’t stop himself from looking at all the pretty girls.
He said, "Wayne, (Overseas Satsang Sevadar — not sure exact title), is always admonishing me not to make these sort of comments because of the reputation many of the babas in India have, but I just can’t help myself." He said beauty is to be admired. He even joked at one point that he was looking forward to his next trip to Ibiza and that he couldn’t wait to see the naked women on the beach.
He said it as a joke but it was still nauseating.
One evening in particular Wayne became very upset with Baba Ji when he made another bathroom joke about flushing the toilet and actually used the word "sh*t". He covered his mouth after he said it as if it were a slip of the tongue. Half the audience laughed and half looked shocked. Wayne looked furious.
I used to believe Gurinder Singh was a satguru and I felt great affection for him but after having spent several sessions in his company, my faith has been challenged by cold hard facts. There are so many more stories to tell... not enough time in this one email but it truly is a sham.
I hope in time light is shed on the true dealings of the current guru at RSSB. I have tremendous respect and regard for Charan Singh though.
However, there are a few things about Charan Singh’s will of successorship that seem odd to me. Like why does it keep saying he was 74 years old when, even by Indian calculations, he was 73 years old when he died. And the will was signed May 30th... then he died June 1st. Baba Ji said that Charan Singh chose to take a minor illness (I’m paraphrasing) as an opportunity to "go home". That whole sentence raises a lot of questions.
All I can say is I really hope that someday soon Gurinder’s financial and moral decisions are brought to light.
It looks like the financial misdeeds of Shivinder and Malvinder Singh, nephews of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, are catching up to them.
According to The Business Standard, the high court asked the Singh brothers to personally appear in the court on August 10 to explain the reasons for discrepancies in their statements over their holdings in FHL. The court wants to understand that whether the Singh brothers and entities related to them have sufficient funds to honour the arbitration order.
In the course of the arguments, Justice Rajiv Shakdher observed that "things are getting out of hand" and sent out a strong message to the siblings asking them to cough up the arbitration award money "by any means" or go behind the bars. "Wherever you have to get it (money) from, you get it. You can't take the court for a ride," the judge said.
...Sources close to the Singh brothers told the daily that the duo is trying to monetise real estate assets of family members to raise funds. "The brothers cannot sell their assets as there is a 'status quo' order on them. Therefore, they are trying to strike deals on properties that belong to the Dhillon family, who are related to the Singh brothers through their maternal side," said a source.
Private equity giants are reportedly interested in buying some of the office real estate portfolio that belong to the Dhillons -- Gurinder Singh Dhillon, maternal uncle to the brothers, currently heads the Radha Soami Satsang Trust - and the deal size can run to Rs 100 crore.
What a mess. I don't claim to fully understand the tangled web of financial problems here, but it's clear that they involve Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru.
There's a well-known Carl Sagan saying, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
So if someone makes a claim about having experienced a supernatural realm of reality, that extraordinary claim obviously requires extraordinary evidence in order for it to be believable.
And a related requirement is that other explanations for the supposed mystical experience should be seriously considered, since most likely an extraordinary claim actually is the result of something quite ordinary.
To give a mundane example, when I was a young child I recall waking up in the middle of the night and seeing an intruder standing at the foot of my bed. I was terrified. Eventually I got up the courage to turn on a light. What I'd seen was my cowboy hat that I'd put on a bedpost. I was nearsighted, so I couldn't see what it was very clearly without my glasses.
Below you can read an email response I sent today to a Church of the Churchless visitor who had some questions about how I view people who claim to have had profound supernatural experiences. As you'll see, the visitor suggested two possibilities, that these people either are liars or nuts (meaning, in English slang, mentally off).
Our findings represent a demonstration proof that hypnotic suggestion can play a viable role in inducing mystical-type experiences of varying degrees among about a third of participants in a laboratory context and support the hypothesis that the ability to experience hypnotically induced mystical-type experiences varies as a function of hypnotic suggestibility.
Part of what the blog visitor was interested in was whether my decision to leave Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based spiritual organization, was affected by the lack of mystical experiences reported by RSSB devotees. I mention this because the first part of my response addresses this question.
This is how I responded to the person. Earlier I'd pointed out to the person that this was a decidedly secondary reason for my RSSB disilusionment. I cleaned up some language in my reply that wasn't as clear as I wanted it to be upon second reading.
Your thought experiment, “what if they’d come forward with detailed accounts of inner visions…,” is one of those counterfactual cases that (usually) strikes me as rather unproductive.
It assumes that life, or reality, hinges on a single happening, a single fact, and if that happening or fact had happened, rather than something else happening, then such and such would have occurred rather than this and that.
Obviously there is no way to test this, since reality moves only in one direction, forward in time. It’s like people saying, “What if Hillary Clinton hadn’t decided to have her own email server?” Yes, it does seem like this would have removed obstacles to her becoming president.
But then we have to think about what would have made Clinton decide not to do this. Seemingly some changes would have had to occur in her consciousness, in her personality, in the advice of those around her, likely in other things also. How would those changes have affected her candidacy?
Likewise, lots of satsangis having reports of profound mystical experiences wouldn’t occur in a vacuum. This would entail widespread changes in their psyches, which likely would alter the culture of RSSB/Sant Mat, and so on.
I understand the allure of “if only…then…” Our minds are made to think of alternative futures. That’s a strength of being human. But there are limits to retrospective ponderings of how life would have been altered if only something different had happened.
Regarding the choices of liars or nuts, there are other possibilities. Jesse just addressed this in a comment:
One Initiated, You are literally reading me quotes from your cult's handbook on a website written by an ex cult member. You ask about first hand experiences- "What's your take on those ? All illusions ?" And my answer is "Yes." Absolutely I think that as far as people seeing things in their head when they sit still for a few hours it is all illusions. As I said earlier- auto suggestion. When you can find a way to prove otherwise, let me know. Otherwise, keep rambling about your cult while your Greedy Guru gets richer and richer and your country gets poorer and more corrupt. Doesn't matter to me. Jesse
Sitting for hours every day for years with eyes closed, focused on visualizing the form of one’s guru, repeating words associated with the names of rulers of supernatural regions — that has to have a big influence on one’s mind. I’m reading several books about how the mind uses prior knowledge to make predictions about what will happen next in the world.
Meaning, we don’t simply see the world as it is. We see the world as we expect it will be. The mind is continually making predictions, then comparing those predictions with what is actually occurring.
When it comes to inner experiences, there is no “actually” to compare to. Everything is happening in the mind. So it is easy to see how ardent devotees of Sant Mat whose most fervent desire is to see the guru within and experience supernatural realms have their minds generate those experiences, largely or entirely through unconscious means.
Something similar could also happen with people who aren’t connected to an organized religion or spiritual path, since their unconscious could produce visions without the person’s conscious awareness of the source of those visions.
In a dream, there is no way to know that you are dreaming until you wake up.
I suspect the same is the case with mystical visions generated by the brain as a response to long-held desires. I could be wrong, and the experiences could be genuine. But I’m not aware of any instance of someone having a mystical experience that resulted in valid knowledge of some aspect of the physical world that wasn’t already known to them.
No mystic has ever revealed a new law of nature, or even anything else about the world that wasn’t common knowledge.
This indicates that if mystical visions occur, they have no bearing on knowledge of this world — which seems strange, because this world commonly is considered to be a lower version, or reflection, of higher realms of reality. So one would think that knowledge of those higher realms would bring along with it increased knowledge of this lower realm.
The brothers referred to are Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, the nephews of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) guru Gurinder Singh.
RSSB is headquartered in India, but has a worldwide reach. I used to belong to this spiritual organization whose guru is considered to be God in Human Form by true-believing devotees.
I say "true-believing," because Gurinder Singh, shown above, has been promulgating revised versions of the RSSB teachings, so it is unclear whether the guru himself believes in v.1.0, v2.0, or v3.0. The latter versions downplay the "perfect living master" dogma that was a core tenet of v.1.0.
What I found most interesting in the story was a section called The Radha Soami connection. I've boldfaced the part about Shivinder Singh being expected to serve as the next RSSB guru.
Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a self-described “philosophical organisation” was founded in 1891 by Dera Baba Jaimal Singh. Shivinder is the nephew of the sect’s current guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillion, referred to as “babaji” by followers. The previous guru, Charan Singh, was Shivinder’s maternal grandfather. Gurinder is the fifth leader of the sect, which is based out of Beas near Amritsar.
Film actor Shahid Kapur is one of its followers and his wedding with Mira Rajput was facilitated by the sect. Their wedding was held at a farmhouse owned by Shivinder. Gurinder played a pivotal role in putting Shivinder and Malvinder at the top at Ranbaxy after a battle for control of the drug maker followed Parvinder’s death in 1999.
Shivinder is expected to succeed Gurinder. “Gurinder has looked after Shivinder as his own son and he is expected to take over the leadership of the sect,” said a person close to the family, who did not want to be named.
There have been significant business links between Fortis Healthcare and Religare Enterprises (both promoted by Malvinder and Shivinder) and RSSB. The family of Gurinder Singh, including his sons Gurpreet and Gurkirat, owned a significant stake in Religare, as reported by Mint in July 2015. Gurinder’s son Gurpreet served as the chief executive of Religare Health Trust (RHT), a subsidiary of Religare. Singapore-based RHT is the holding company of Fortis Healthcare.
Looks like Shivinder is on his way to become the next Guru ..... What do you think Brian and Dr. Lane?
Well, I didn't really know what to think then, and the same is true now. All I can say is that the business of being an Indian guru has changed a lot from the time I was initiated in 1971 by Gurinder Singh's predecessor, Charan Singh -- who was Gurinder Singh's uncle.
Back then the RSSB teachings said that spirituality should be job #1 for people seeking God-realization, not making gobs of money. But as I've reported in previous blog posts, Gurinder Singh has become hugely rich himself during his stint as guru, and he is intimately entwined in the shady business dealings of Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, as detailed in the recent story about them.
There's also mention of the connections between the Singh brothers and RSSB in a post I published recently, "Devastating criticism of Gurinder Singh Dhillon by a RSSB insider." Here's one of the comments included in that post that were left on my blog by the insider. What's said below will make more sense if you read the story about the Singh brothers' business problems.
Nietzsche. Great ! You've made the effort to backtrack into Gurinder's current financial status and what you've stated sums up the facts very well. I'm relieved that what I've been harping about on the COTC ( that makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist in the process ) has some validation from an independent fellow blogger... :)
My additional thoughts are : Gurinder ordered the Ranbaxy sell-out, and as a faith policy, Shivinder and Malvinder do not over-rule anything HE decides. The final " go ahead boys " was given by Gurinder. I know this because the celebratory cheers resounded with a boisterous " Baba-ji does not make any mistakes ! " that came from none other than Sunil Godhwani, Baba-ji's right-hand man.
Before the news hit the press, everyone knew that a chunk of that booty would be pumped into Religare. Of course, Ranbaxy's health was generously inflated, but the sell-out was the best possible move from a financial standpoint — considering that the Singh Brothers made quite a mess of the succession when they inherited the company, which subsequently reflected in the company's performance over the years.
There was a joke in the corporates circles here that Parminder Singh was in a big shock in heaven when he learnt that Gurinder had advised his sons to sell Ranbaxy. His reaction was : " What ? Who the f*** is he ? " ( LOL ) This entire Religare affair that Gurinder's having with the Singh Brothers is in direct conflict with his role as a Guru, whether he's teaching 1.0 or 3.0. His insatiable appetite for wealth is sick, specially when there is no charitable initiative for the poorer sections of the Sangat that make up for ninety-five percent of his following.
IMO, Gurinder wants them to remain hungry and foolish otherwise they will not be interested in the salvation promise, which is why I think that Sant Mat 3.0 will never be introduced to the langar. You are absolutely right about the Mc-Donald's style of operations at Fortis. Also, the services they provide are the Micky-D's equivalent of fries and nuggets. It is all about the money, with little regard for ethical practice and human life.
But, it is interesting to note that post Ranbaxy, none of the Singh Brothers' businesses have been particularly profitable. It is too early to call, but Fortis is struggling. And, going forward, the competition will intensify. Religare is hemorrhaging under the acumen-devoid leadership of Sunil Godhwani and is showing no signs of recovering. Religare continually gets mini bail-outs from the huge cash reserves that the Singh Brothers are currently sitting on, but the well could dry-up in less than a decade if their current run continues.
It is also possible that Gurinder could make some bad ( not-so-GIHF ) decisions. Our comments here are forming a valuable archive for those who will seek to find out more, specially after the radical shift in the Sant Mat teachings. I like the Japanese quote, it applies to all of us.
The livemint story has this to say about Sunil Godhwani, who, as noted above, is called the guru's "right-hand man" by the RSSB insider. (Baba-ji is an honorific for the guru).
Religare was run by the Singh brothers’ one-time close confidante Sunil Godhwani from 2001 to 2017, before he decided to step down. “He was introduced to the Singh brothers by the RSSB,” the person close to the family said, adding that Godhwani was also an ardent follower of the sect.
So there are very close ties between the Singh brothers' business dealings, RSSB, and Gurinder Singh, which basically, can be summed up as a complex mess. Here's how the livemint story ends:
Godhwani could not be reached for comment. The Ranbaxy business dynasty is now in disarray. With a slew of legal and regulatory battles ahead, the Singh brothers have limited elbow room to start a new business or revive remnants of existing ones. A rich legacy has been squandered.
Well, not really mail (who writes personal letters these days?), but an email.
I always like to hear from people who feel supported by what I write on this blog. I enjoy speaking truth and exposing the falsities of religion.
Here's part of what an emailer who has recently deconverted from the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) belief system, also known as Sant Mat, said:
I related to a lot of what you wrote about Sant Mat. In fact, I didn’t find anything I disagreed with!
It seemed you had many of the same thoughts I did – the same doubts. It was good to see someone else share their experience of disillusionment with RSSB, its teachings, and so on. I felt my doubts were validated.
I wasn’t necessarily a spiritual lost cause. There were others out there that left Sant Mat and found a way to live that was more authentic and that led to them becoming a better human being in this world, in this very now. I yearn for some of that.
To feel okay being grounded in the here and now. To do some meditation that doesn’t center on repeating a bunch of holy names and sitting for hours on end waiting and hoping to “see” the Master and/or hear the bells and see the lights…
Science of the Soul is another name for Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a spiritual group headed up by an Indian guru that I used to be a member of.
I'm not at all surprised to read that the organization was fined £364,000 for an attempted cover-up after scaffolding collapsed at the Haynes Park meeting center, which equals $484,000 in dollars.
Amrik Blaggan, 57, died in hospital two days after he fell about 2m (6.5ft) from a platform at the Science of Soul centre in Haynes Park, Bedfordshire,
The scene was cleared despite the group being told to leave it untouched, Luton Crown Court heard.
Science of the Soul had pleaded guilty to health and safety offences.
Police attended the scene on the day of the fall in April 2014 and told the group that under no circumstances should the scaffolding platform be touched because experts would need to examine it.
However by the time environmental health officers arrived for an inspection, the tower had been removed and there was no evidence of how it looked and functioned, the court was told.
However, a police constable who attended the scene on the day had luckily taken photos of the tower in situ before he left.
Ethics often takes a back seat when a religion such as the Science of the Soul feels threatened by worldly authorities.
One would think that people involved with a "spiritual" organization would be extra-careful to be honest and open with a health and safety investigation, but obviously one would think wrong in this case.
Radha Soami Satsang Beas volunteers -- sevadars is the Indian term -- tend to think that whatever they are doing in the name of the guru is OK, even when it isn't. Here someone died because of gross negligence.
Sentencing the group, Judge Barbara Mensah said an expert who looked at the photos taken by the officer had concluded the tower was "unsafe".
Prosecutor Michael Vere-Hodge QC said a meeting hall had been constructed in the grounds either in 2009 or 2010, without planning permission.
Mr Blaggan, a volunteer at Science of the Soul, climbed a mobile scaffold as lighting was fitted, and sustained serious head injuries when he fell..
Mr Vere-Hodge said the scaffold was "grossly unsafe by anybody's reckoning".
He said police and paramedics were called but said there was an "attempted cover-up" as the scaffold had been removed and the roof repaired before investigators arrived.
Shameful. But I wouldn't be surprised if many Radha Soami Satsang Beas true believers consider that the man's death was the result of the guru's will, or at least of the man's bad karma.
Which is crazy, of course. Along with every other sort of supernatural religious belief.
Gurinder Singh Dhillon is the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a spiritual organization headquartered in India that has a worldwide reach.
In this post I'm sharing 27,000 words worth of comments left on this blog by "Tara," a woman who had an up close and personal view of both Gurinder Singh (photo below) and the RSSB organization prior to her becoming disillusioned by what she saw, which led to her leaving the RSSB fold.
What you'll read below is an extensive sampling of the comments left by "Tara"from 2010 to 2014. I selected comments that struck me as being particularly interesting, either because they related to Gurinder Singh's financial dealings, RSSB goings-on, or Tara's personal doubts about the validity of the RSSB teachings.
I figured this would be an appropriate time to share Tara's comments, since tomorrow is Independence Day in the United States, and in many of her comments, Tara celebrated her newfound independence from religious dogmatism and hypocrisy.
Since Typepad, my blogging service, organizes searchable comments by date, with the most recent appearing first, for convenience this is how I've ordered Tara's comments. In other words, the comments Tara left in 2014 appear first, and those she left in 2010 appear last.
Click on the continuation link to read more than the first few comments. I had to insert that break because otherwise this very lengthy post would make it difficult to find my previous posts.
I realize that readers of this blog who aren't familiar with Radha Soami Satsang Beas will find much of what Tara talks about somewhat difficult to understand. Here's explanations of some of her abbreviations: GSD or GS means Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru; RS refers to Radha Soami, shorthand for either Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), or the Radha Soami philosophy.
What impressed me as I read through Tara’s comments is how intelligent, witty, and well-informed she is. And I rarely came across a typo, or even a poorly-worded sentence. She writes clearly, passionately, honestly. I regret that, most likely, I’ll never be able to meet her.
I've copied in the comments, which are separated by a dashed line, exactly as Tara wrote them -- aside from a few instances when I noted a repeated word, such as "the the." I've added paragraph breaks to make the comments more readable, since Typepad eliminates paragraph breaks in the comment search feature that bloggers like me are able to make use of .
It's really remarkable how much time and effort Tara put into these comments. In one of her comments, she says that a therapist advised her to write about her deconversion from the Sant Mat philosophy espoused by RSSB, since, as Tara repeatedly notes, it was quite difficult for her to leave an organization that her family had been part of for four generations.
I applaud Tara for her courage to speak her mind in these comments, and to disclose what amounts to devastating criticisms of both Gurinder Singh Dhillon and the RSSB organization that he heads up.
Lastly, if you're not familiar with the Radha Soami Satsang Beas teachings, a blog post of mine about how Gurinder Singh has been altering them would help you better understand many of her comments: "Has Gurinder Singh revised Sant Mat to v. 3.0?"
Now, on to the comments from "Tara"... --------------------------------------------
Avi, GSD [Gurinder Singh Dhillon] is constantly on the move and a private jet is always at his disposal. IMO, how does it really matter whether it is from Religare or whether it is a private charter from another aviation firm. The important thing to find out is whether these trips are billed to Beas.
Gurinder has become astoundingly wealthy over the last few years and I believe that he can afford his own private travel. In this day and age and in GSD's current position, it would be normal to want to save travel time as RSSB's operations are global. Cyclically, it would probably take two years if GSD keeps his Satsang schedule and visits each center. I don't really think private travel in such a big deal !
What concerns me more, is the entire shift in ethos, the making of a quasi-religion, Dera's profitability driven motives, the creation of unimaginable personal wealth through dubious means and the total absence of humanitarian initiatives. ( Sant Mat demystified ? )
Oh ! I remember Charan [Singh, the previous guru] sitting in the co-driver's seat of his ivory Fiat, wearing his Ray Ban aviators, arm resting on the window and the wind blowing through his beard. A cloud of dust left in the tracks of the car at the Beas river bank ... through which a cacophony of voices would come alive, Seva interrupted.
Men and women would rush to catch a glimpse of him and he would oblige with a smile, hands folded, a " Radha Soami " ... I think I'm still lost, somewhere, in these childhood moments, where I do believe that Charan's love for the Sangat, despite the loopholes in the philosophy, was genuinely present and felt by all.
I've been trying to get in touch with the Babani family ( Mr. Babani was Charan's secretary ) to find out what really went wrong after Charan passed. There was a dispute between Dera and Babani's kin. It had to do with a property that was willed to Dera, or so Dera says. By some accounts, Babani died an unhappy man. It will be interesting to hear what the Babani family members have to say.
It is futile to compare Charan's and Gurinder's expenditures or any similarities, including the Gurudom. Charan's followers, the old school, are either off the path, confused or are reluctantly on the fringes of ( RS ) Sant Mat ... My own, rather hardcore RS family, is too proud to admit that it has all gone astray.
The love is gone, and with it, all traces of spirituality that the mission possessed. The fool from the old school thinks that Gurinder is carrying out Charan's will.
------------------
Gaz, I live in India, but I go to the UK and US quite often. I've got extended family who is very close to Baba Ji [Gurinder Singh] and equally close to most people in his first circle. That is how I get to learn about ' the latest ' though it has now become tiring and boring. But, GSD's a great administrator, you got to hand him that.
Well, the mildly interesting thing is that even the government / government departments in India are weary of questioning holy men. Somewhere in their collective psyche they do not want to ' mess ' with Guru's. They come cracking down on innocent men and treat them like dirt, but even if they have a sack of mud on a Guru, you'll rarely see them do too much about it.
In the case of RSSB, their PR is slick with the bureaucracy, so no one can touch them. I think GSD in particular, has established a good equation with the red tape ... just like is the case with the other corporate giants and power houses of the country. In that sense, I do not see the difference between RSSB's practices and the practices of other corporations, the only difference being that RSSB is seldom questioned and can get away with much more undemocratically, and leniently so ... :)
Well, with regard to the video, it was factually correct, IMO. Forget Rampal, he's a weirdo, the same has been chronicled by the oldest Sikh families of the Punjab. I happen to know a very prominent Sikh historian and he told me the same. This information is archived, but some of it is so old that it doesn't seem to have a valid voice.
The Sikhs of course, bring their hot-bloodedness to the fore and start quoting the GGS [Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book] and that's a distraction from the real facts. Also, I don't think RS is ' ahead ' of Sikhism by any stretch of the imagination. Okay, I'm Sikh by birth, but I'm a fringe-Sikh and I'm all for criticism. ( I even pushed the head priest < granthi > of a gurudwara once, in full public view, for reasons that will make for a funny post, someday. )
It is just that I think that RS philosophy is more psychologically damaging than the dictates of other missions and religions. Of course, this is my personal opinion, I was a real bummer at meditation and I couldn't see the light. The question is, how many have ?
Since there are quite a few devotees of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) who use the comment sections of my blog posts as sort of a Sant Mat discussion venue, I wanted to revisit the question of how the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh, has been altering Sant Mat teachings to a surprising degree.
Five years ago I wrote a post about "Sant Mat, version 2.0." This is how I summarized the changes that Gurinder Singh apparently has made to the RSSB teachings.
(I say apparently because the current guru doesn't allow his talks to be recorded, and he doesn't write anything himself. So this makes it difficult to pin down what he's telling people.)
Sant Mat v. 1.0 --The guru is God in human form --The guru is perfect, possessing God’s divine qualities --God has chosen certain souls to return to Him --God delegates the guru to initiate these “marked souls” --Without initiation by a perfect guru, God-realization is impossible
Sant Mat v. 2.0 --The guru is a human who is seeking God, just like us --The guru is imperfect, just like us --Whether we want to pursue God-realization is up to us --The guru is a spiritual guide, not a savior --There are many paths to God, not just Sant Mat
Now it looks like Gurinder Singh is wandering even farther from the tradtional Sant Mat path. On a recent Church of the Churchless post, someone who signed his/her comments "A Typical Follower" shared these thoughts:
I was at the national satsang [gathering of disciples] in the UK last weekend. Gurinder has changed from the old days. His teachings are going through a noticeable change - and so is he himself.
What I noticed is that (1) He talks a lot about The ONE (2) He laughs and jokes a lot (3) He tells people not to be so serious (4) He tells them that the master will not come at the time of death - that they have misunderstood the teachings. Just as it does not take four lifetimes. (5) He says there are no regions - that Sach Khand does not exist - neither does Sat Purush. He says they are levels of consciousness
He says the purpose is to REALIZE that there is only the ONE - and that we are caught in maya - duality.
Having the darshan of the physical master is not even mentioned anymore. He says seva will not help you make any progress - it simply makes you humble if done correctly. There is no spiritual merit.
You will NOT be able to succeed through meditation. Meditation is just to make you give up. You can never get there through your efforts.
Now these kind of teachings have never been given before in rssb.
It struck me that the philosophy Gurinder Singh is now espousing bears a considerable resemblance to what Alan Watts talks about in his marvelous book, "The Wisdom of Insecurity."
Recently someone emailed me, noting that they had some addiction problems and wanted to know if I could suggest a mystical/spiritual book that might help them with this. After a bit of thought I took "The Wisdom of Insecurity" off of my bookshelf, thumbed through it, and sent this person the following excerpts from the book.
These passages fit with Gurinder Singh's observation that we are caught in duality, which is maya, illusion. Part of that illusion, according to Watts, is believing that there is a true self within us that is different from our bodily self. We divide ourselves into two when we view ourselves as "I" and "me."
For example, we'll say to ourselves, "I wish that I didn't have such a craving for chocolate," as if the "I" that wishes is separate and distinct from the "me" that likes chocolate so much. On a broader scale, this is akin to the false distinctions we make between man and nature, mind and body, creator and created.
Here's the excerpts from Watts' book:
It is as if we were divided into two parts. On the one hand there is the conscious “I,” at once intrigued and baffled, the creature who is caught in the trap. On the other hand there is “me,” and “me” is a part of nature — the wayward flesh with all its concurrently beautiful and frustrating limitations.
“I” fancies itself as a reasonable fellow, and is forever criticizing “me” for its perversity — for having passions which get “I” into trouble, for being so easily subject to painful and irritating diseases, for having organs that wear out, and for having appetites which can never be satisfied — so designed that if you try to allay them finally and fully in one big “bust,” you get sick.
…How are we to heal the split between “I” and “me,” the brain and the body, man and nature, and bring all the vicious circles which it produces to an end? How are we to experience life as something other than a honey trap in which we are the struggling flies?
…We do not need action — yet. We need more light. Light, here, means awareness — to be aware of life, of experience as it is at this moment, without any judgments or ideas about it.
…The principal thing to understand is that there is no safety or security. One of the most vicious circles is the problem of the alcoholic. In very many cases he knows quite clearly that he is destroying himself, that, for him, liquor is poison, that he actually hates being drunk, and even dislikes the taste of liquor.
And yet he drinks. For, dislike it as he may, the experience of not drinking is worse. It gives him the “horrors,” for he stands face to face with the unveiled, basic insecurity of this world.
Herein lies the crux of the matter. To stand face to face with insecurity is still not to understand it. To understand it, you must not face it but be it.
It is like the Persian story of the sage who came to the door of Heaven and knocked. From within the voice of God asked, “Who is there?” and the sage answered “It is I.” “In this House,” replied the voice, “there is no room for thee and me.” So the sage went away and spent many years pondering over this answer in deep meditation.
Returning a second time, the voice asked the same question, and again the sage answered “It is I.” The door remained closed. After some years he returned for the third time, and, at his knocking, the voice once more demanded, “Who is there?” And the sage cried, It is thyself!” The door opened.
…We do not actually understand that there is no security until we realize that this “I” does not exist.
Spencer Tepper, a frequent commenter on this blog, bought a copy of the book, which I appreciate. I also appreciate a comment he left where he critiqued some of what I said in the first part of God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder.
It's a bit strange that I feel the need to defend a book that I don't totally believe in, but Tepper focused on a topic that I do consider to be absolutely true: that materiality is different from spirituality -- at least as spirituality is viewed through the lens of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) or Sant Mat, which was the perspective from which I wrote the book back in the 1990s.
So it's sort of weird that Tepper is criticizing part of a book that was welcomed by the current RSSB guru, who arranged for several thousand copies of my book to be bought by RSSB, which greased the wheels for its initial publication by Threshold Books.
I say this because Tepper is an RSSB devotee, albeit seemingly not a standard one, since his views differ from the RSSB teachings in certain important respects. Anyway, here's Tepper's comment, and my responses in blue.
Hi Brian I'm working my way through your book and it did strike me in a completely different way today. It is elegant in its prose. But it's logic, at least in the first few pages, seems hopelessly flawed. You wrote "Materiality can be observed and measured with the physical senses of sight. hearing, touch, small, and taste. This distinction is important because it separates material science from spiritual science."
Yes, I consider this to be true. If something is material, meaning part of the physical universe, it isn't "spiritual" in the sense I'm using that term. The mystic philosophy of Sant Mat (which, again, is what I based the spiritual aspect of my book on) teaches that there are five regions of reality beyond the physical. The goal of Sant Mat meditation is to raise one's soul consciousness to those regions, aided and guided by spiritual light and sound.
This may be a case of reductum ad absurdum. The "material sciences" measure many things well beyond the range of the physical senses. From the distant cosmos to subatomic waves of pure energy, to brain waves and the firing of dendritic interlaces, science extends our vision and understanding. And in distinction to your claims, it often does so measuring indirectly.
When Tepper reads more of my book, he'll see that I note that science uses instruments to aid the human senses. Telescopes aid the eye, for example. And other instruments allow humans to detect electromagnetic frequencies beyond the range of the senses. But the measurements Tepper refers to all have to be cognized by one or more of the physical senses. How else would scientists know about the results of their experiments and observations? I talk a lot about quantum theory in my book, and this area of science deals almost entirely with indirect measurements, since there isn't agreement about the nature of the quantum realm.
We learn about gravity from objects that fall or move in space, not a direct measurement of gravity waves. When you wrote this you faulted, I believe falsely, the physical sciences for being unable to measure spiritual events because they have no apparent measurement in physical reality. Today you fault spirituality for exactly the same reason. Despite your development, your reasoning remains based in the same argumentation.
I don't understand what's being said in the comment above. Gravity waves are a physical phenomenon. Human senses interpret the observations made by highly sensitive machines that are able to detect gravity waves emanating from deep space. Given my definition of spiritual events, which is that used by Sant Mat, it isn't possible for a physical entity to detect a non-physical entity, such as the shabd or sound current posited by the RSSB teachings.
These days I regularly point out on this blog that there is no demonstrable evidence of a spiritual reality. This is consistent with what I said in my book, because physical reality is distinct from any spiritual reality that might exist. Thus any spiritual reality can only be known by an experiencer of it, since as I say in my book, that reality would be non-symbolic -- incapable of being described in words, symbols, images, numbers, or such.
Earlier you constrained science to what could be measured at the time. Today you constrain spirituality because of those same constraints. But in both cases the argument is premature. Your argument extends well beyond your evidence. Even thoughts are correlated to biochemical events. What happens to us is connected to this world.
I totally agree, given my current materialist perspective. However, mysticism as taught by the RSSB gurus has a different perspective: that soul consciousness is separable from the human brain, and it is possible to be aware of spiritual realms of reality that have no connection with this physical universe.
Spirituality and all the classic experiences noted repeatedly in mystic literature and mythic symbols throughout recorded history must at some point find measurable correlates. You quote Max Planck "Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and, therefore, part of the mystery we are trying to solve."
Tepper is wrong on this point. Most mystical literature teaches that God, and associated"heavens," are incapable of being described symbolically. They must be experienced, not talked about. The Planck quote cited above supports this notion. Spiritual mystery can be comprehended only by becoming it, or at least grasping it in a non-conceptual fashion. So it is entirely wrong to claim that mysticism seeks "measurable correlates" of mystical experience.
This echoes the same argument for analogous reasoning made by Thomas Aquinas, when he wrote that God cannot be understood by deduction, since God is not a reducable element that can be manipulated, but is in fact greater than this creation. And this echoes Kant's argument that reason cannot accurately extend too far beyond its premeses of common experience to explain metasphysic experience.
Agreed, in the sense that I noted above: mysticism teaches that reasoning can't reach into spiritual realms of existence, a point I stress repeatedly in my book.
But as the tools of science are honed in studying mystic experience we certainly can and will gain greater insights into it. All the modern research into meditation and its physiological effects are evidence, hard evidence of this. I think the same flaw in reasoning from your book pervades your current thinking. You once dismissed scientific inquiry as too limited to capture the full range of reality. Your argument then seemed to be 'If science can't test it today, science must be too constrained to witness true mystic experience' . You now dismiss mystic experience for the same reason.
I disagree, given the RSSB/Sant Mat form of mysticism I based my book on. Again, the RSSB teachings aim at merging the drop of the soul with the ocean of shabd, the sound current that is believed to be the source from which lower levels of creation spring. This is very different from meditation approaches that aim at making the mind (which is the physical brain in action) more relaxed, concentrated, and such. Tepper's definition of "mystic experience" isn't the one I use in my book, which is the same as that taught by the RSSB gurus.
You seem to now be saying 'If mystic experience can't be tested it must be false, non-existent.' Brian, I hope you can see both of these are unscientific and fallacious claims, based as they area on a single false premise: Your arguments are too final for either science or statements of divinity, based as they are on flawed human limitations, either in meditation or science. But in both cases development invalidates that argument.
Tepper clearly hasn't finished reading my book. What he says above is the exact opposite of what I say in the book. God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder is founded on the premise that there are objective, yet non-symbolic, realms of reality that lie beyond the bounds of material science. So I say over and over in the book that it isn't possible for material science to find signs of a spiritual reality.
You site [sic ] Joe Rosen's definition of science based in the study of what is reproducible and predictable (reliable). All meditation practice and specifically the internal experiences that accrue must at some point meet these same criteria in order for the practitioner to conclude they are witnessing truth. Your approach to criticizing science as a means of creating a space to defend meditation is based on a flaw that had to crumble at some point.
Yes, I correctly describe what material science is all about. Spiritual science is not material science. As I say in my book, if there are spiritual realms of reality that are non-physical, a physical science can't be aware of them. This is why I say that non-symbolic contemplative meditation is the only way of (possibly) contacting a spiritual reality. The fact that there is no agreement among the world's religions and mystical teachings about what a spiritual reality is like now leads me to believe that no such reality exists.
I wonder why you would choose to write this book without first having a thorough grounding of spiritual experience that met the conditions for reliability and repetitive reproducibility at your volition, so that you could test it, and get beyond imagination and subjective experience.
Well, I spent 35 years meditating every day for several hours, as instructed by Charan Singh, the guru who initiated me in 1971. I consider that a "thorough grounding" in the Sant Mat mystical teachings. I conducted the experiment of contemplative meditation with fortitude, diligence, and attention to detail. Tepper is free to engage in judgmentalism, and he appears to consider himself superior in spiritual wisdom. Maybe he is. But there is no way to know, because I continue to believe that genuine spirituality isn't capable of being communicated in words or any other symbols.
I'll end by noting to Tepper that this book was reviewed and read by numerous "higher-ups" in the Radha Soami Satsang Beas organization, and was approved by the guru Gurinder Singh himself. So even though Tepper believes that my book doesn't accurately reflect the mystical teachings of Sant Mat, the guru and other leaders of Radha Soami Satsang Beas considered that it did.
This proves nothing except that seeming synchronicities sometimes occur in a pseudo-miraculous fashion.
This afternoon I was thinking about what to write about on this here Church of the Churchless blog, and came up with the idea of talking about how I happily allow about 90% of the blog comments to be from religious believers, almost all of whom are still adherents of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) faith that I deconverted from about fourteen years ago -- after being a strong RSSB devotee for some thirty-five years.
I was going to point out that this shows how much more open-minded us atheists are than religiously-minded people. What do you think the chances are that, for example, a Radha Soami Satsang Beas or Catholic Church web site would welcome a majority of comments that denigrate the teachings being promoted on the site?
Slim to none. (Much closer to none, than slim, I'm pretty sure.)
That's because most religions are dogmatic, while most atheists and agnostics are open-minded. Regular readers of my posts will note that almost always I say things like "Almost certainly there is no God." I talk about my atheist beliefs in this fashion because I can't be sure God doesn't exist; I just see no demonstrable evidence for the existence of God.
If that evidence came to light, either out there in the world or in here within my consciousness, I'd be pleased to change my mind. Yet how many religious believers are willing to say that? "Almost certainly there is a God, but I can't be sure about this."
Anyway, I was all ready to write a post along these lines when I saw that a new comment had been made by Jen. It was so close to what I'd been thinking about, I'd call it "miraculous" if I believed in miracles. Which, I don't.
Spencer, I should point out, is another frequent Church of the Churchless visitor who loves to use this blog to leave comments extolling the Radha Soami Satsang Beas teachings that I no longer believe in. Here's what Jen said:
Spencer you say: "What Brian writes is simply out of ignorance, and prejudice of others he does not know, understand or choose to believe. He simply invents an explanation that works for him. But it denegrates the legitimacy of true spiritual experience. He himself is victim to his own mind's refusal to acknowledge the evidence before him."
Spencer you also say: "This is why I strongly encourage people not to judge other people's personal experiences whom we have never met and do not know. It can't be done objectively and is generally just the bad habit of personal prejudice."
Why should we believe someone else's inner experiences? We aren't supposed to speak about them because its very egotistical and we are not really interested anyway and it just sounds like boasting. Spencer what makes you think you have the right to criticise another, especially when this is Brian's blog.
I think Brian has the patience of a saint, either that or he does not read through all of the comments, or if he does read them he allows others to have their own point of view, which is something you do not allow.
We are all entitled to choose to believe what we want. He is entitled to be an atheist, he does not preach about it and wtf has it got to do with you and vinny? Quote vinny: "Problem with atheists is that their half-baked mind is unable to comprehend Atomic energy/Shabd vibrating since ages, so the solutions they offer are half-baked. These Atheists are not worthy of sitting at the feet of any Physicist, forget about Saints. Always misguiding innocent people, more dangerous than Snakes, these Atheists are a threat to any civilized society."
Spencer, I don't understand you and vinny, you preach about love and yet you show no respect for others and their opinions.
Excellent points, Jen.
Spencer and other religious believers are very much welcome to comment on this blog, because I'm committed to open discussion and dialogue.
Regarding Jen's noting that either I have the patience of a saint, or don't read through all of the comments, the truth is about halfway between these extremes. I have considerable patience with people who disagree with me, and I also make a habit of scanning every comment to make sure it isn't "spam" but is at least somewhat on topic.
I read some comments in their entirety, but lengthy comments often get just a quick glance. Even though I'm retired, I still feel pressured for time, in part because my wife and I live on ten non-easy-care acres in rural south Salem (Oregon) that require a lot of work to maintain.
And I've got two other blogs that I write for, along with three Facebook pages related to my local citizen activism. So this Church of the Churchless blog is just one of many activities that compete for my attention.
I don't believe in God. But I believe in the feelings that accompany belief.
So now that I've realized the falsity of religion, I've discarded the theological aspects of my former belief system and kept the positive feelings.
Here's some examples.
I used to enjoy the feeling that God was looking out for me, managing my life in such a way that even bad experiences were aimed at bettering my long-term salvation chances. This made me feel hopeful about the future, since I considered there was a trajectory to my life that would end with me becoming familiar with divinity, and maybe actually merging with it.
Now, I'm simply hopeful. The feeling is the same. I've just eliminated the crazy theological reasons I had for believing that the future would turn out fine.
Serving God (or a guru, for I was a member of an organization that believed the guru was God in human form) was another enjoyable feeling. Back in my true believing days I engaged in a lot of seva, as it was called, which is an Indian term for service, or volunteering.
Well, I still like to feel like what I'm doing is benefitting others.
But I've discarded the notion that there's some sort of special benefit to being of service to a supposedly Godly person or organization. This allows me to enjoy the sensation of "selfless service" without having that feeling rest on an imagined theological foundation.
People cling to religion because they like the good feelings that come with believing.
What I'm suggesting is that those feelings are separable from the theological framework, rituals, holy books, forms of worship, and other trappings of a religion.
In the same fashion, happiness is a feeling. But obviously there are many ways for someone to be happy. There isn't a single cause of happiness, just as there isn't a single cause of the good feelings that people enjoy from embracing religious beliefs.
You can give up religion and keep the feelings.
For many years I was the secretary, or leader, of the people in my town who embraced the teachings of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, an Indian religious organization.
I'd arrive early at the place where we held our Sunday morning meeting to get the room ready. I'd sweep the floor and arrange folding chairs just so, getting them all lined up nice and neat. I enjoyed the feeling of seva, being of service.
Today I went to Lowe's and bought 16 bags of garden fertilizer and 6 large containers of weed preventer (we have a really big yard, living as we do out in the country). My wife had noticed spring weeds beginning to pop up, and March is when I spread weed preventer, so today seemed like a good time to do it.
I was careful. I did my best to put the weed preventer every place in our yard that needed it. I enjoyed the feeling that after some rain arrived in a few days, it would be activated and stop weeds from sprouting. This was "seva," service -- just not to any imagined God or other divinity.
It was service to my wife and to myself, because we enjoy our yard more when it looks good and doesn't have a bunch of weeds. The good feeling I had after a couple of hours of work was very similar, if not exactly the same, as the feeling I used to have when I was performing volunteer service for a religious group.
So it doesn't make sense to cling to a religion because you enjoy the feelings that come with being a believer. Those same feelings can be produced in a myriad of different ways. Keep the feelings; ditch the theology.
I've always been scientifically-minded. What's changed is that I've realized the absurdity of trying to cram Eastern (or Western, for that matter) supernaturalism into a scientific worldview.
For example, when I was a devotee of an India-based spiritual group, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, I wrote a book for RSSB called "Life is Fair." It set forth a karmic justification for vegetarianism.
Much of the book talked about the positive health effects of being a vegetarian rather than a meat eater. But some of the book discussed karmic theory in which causes and effects carry over from one life to another via reincarnation.
Discarding that unproven speculative stuff leaves us with determinism.
Causes produce effects, which produce more causes, in an unbroken chain of causes and effects that goes all the way back to the Big Bang some 14 billion years ago. So nothing valuable was lost when I gave up a belief in the supernatural side of karma.
Because I'm left with determinism, the aspect of karmic theory that makes sense.
Likewise, I used to have faith in God, a guru who was God in human form, soul, spirit, life after death, and journeying through higher supernatural realms of creation.
I enjoyed believing in these entities, even though there was zero demonstrable evidence that any of them actually existed. I had faith that one day all would be revealed to me through copious meditation, adhering to certain ethical vows enjoined by Radha Soami Satsang Beas, and the grace of the Guru/God.
Now I've come to realize that faith is foolish.
People have faith in all sorts of mutually incompatible things. Christians have faith in God, Muslims in Allah. Members of opposing football teams each have faith that a divinity is on their side. Religious adherents have faith that their own peculiar rituals and theologies will lead to eternal salvation.
I much prefer hope in my current churchless frame of mind.
Hope is faith shorn of supernaturalism. Hope recognizes that almost always in everyday life the future can't be predicted with 100% accuracy. Yes, determinism rules. But often, if not usually, life is so complex some form of chaos theory comes into play, where small causes can have big effects.
Or, known causes can have unknown effects.
Either way, hope springs eternal, as the saying goes. Even when things look really dismal, and no way out seems apparent, there's the possibility of something unexpected happening.
Being found when you're lost in a wilderness. Recovering after a dismal diagnosis. Feeling better even though depression seems like it will be with you forever. Finding a true love after many years of loneliness.
Hope is realistic. Faith isn't. Just as determinism is, and karmic theory isn't.
Here's some excerpts from the well-written piece about the disappearance of Barry and Louise Berman, whose bodies were found almost three years later after heavy rains uncovered a skull seven miles from a remote campground.
The late summer of 1988 brought flash flooding to Saline Valley. On Nov. 12, 1988, a hiker stumbled upon a human skull. He marked the spot with a cairn and carried the skull to camp.
Tom Ganner, the new campground host, called the sheriff on his two-way radio. Sgt. Lucas found the skull jauntily arranged atop a picnic table with flowers in its eye sockets and a patch of moss for a hairpiece. "I quickly took care of that," he says.
Lucas, Mottweiler, Ganner and the hiker drove up the Corridor for miles, beyond where most of the searching took place in 1986. The hiker led the way up a dry wash, and Ganner soon found the second skull.
Then, in a narrow side channel of the wash, which easily could have been overlooked, the men discovered a grave-sized pile of rocks.
The next day a forensics team unearthed human remains, the underwire from a bra and the waistband from a pair of underwear. There was no sign of Louise's wedding ring or Barry's silver belt buckle, unique pieces that Korb, the jewelry maker at El Capitan, had handcrafted. And the forensics team found an item of spine-chilling significance: a handcuff key.
Dental records confirmed the remains were Barry and Louise. "Barry was our only child," the grieving Jules [Berman, father of Barry] said in a Nov. 16, 1988, Los Angeles Timesarticle. "It just leaves our lives completely empty."
...Some of Barry and Louise's fellow spiritualists believe that, in the truest sense, they are still alive. Healer-acupuncturist Mary Sullivan says, "We have a living master, his job is to take you back home — it doesn't matter how you die."
Jules Berman, who died in 1998, didn't enjoy such peace. Three years before he died, Berman told UCLA's oral history program that, because of the brutal killings of his son and daughter-in-law, "My philosophy is, if there's a God, he's not for me; he's for someone else."
Michael Westerman says his mom and Barry "were two souls headed in the same direction." That direction led them to the vanishing point.
The spiritual significance of this tale connects to how Sant Mat believers like Mary Sullivan, who was quoted near the end of this LA Weekly story, look upon “bad things happening to good satsangis.” It’s a lot like how Christians rationalize bad things happening to good believers in God/Jesus.
In brief, God or the guru works in mysterious ways.
Louise and Barry Berman at the ashram in India known as the Dera (from LA Weekly story)
Sant Mat teaches that the Bermans had the radiant form of the guru implanted in their consciousnesses at the time of initiation. This form supposedly was aware of everything that happened to them, and could communicate with the physical form of the guru at any time.
So a true believing satsangi, which I definitely am not now, would have to accept that the horrendous murder of the Bermans was allowed to happen by the guru — perhaps with some theorizing that the Bermans had some sort of Bad Karma relationship with the killer.
Another weird thing is that a la Jesus, satsangis believe the guru takes on himself much or most of the disciple’s karma, “turning a sword thrust into a pinprick,” as a favorite Sant Mat saying goes.
Well, damn, if this is true the Bermans got a hell of a pinprick from the guru. Which is one more reason, among many, that I’ve given up believing in not only Sant Mat, but any form of religion.
May I ask a question and if you don't wish to reply - please don't. In what ways did you begin noticing Gurinder Singh was just as imperfect as the rest of us?
This may help this soul as I need closure on the above question.
Regards Arjuna
I'm pleased to reply to you, Arjuna.
Here's some experiences that come to mind. Understand: my memory about some details of what I'll describe below regarding Gurinder Singh Dhillon is sort of hazy, since many years have passed. But I'm quite confident that the basic message of what you'll read is correct.
Gurinder Singh
Irritation with a manuscript. l heard this story from someone who either had written a draft of a book to be published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB, the organization headed by the guru) or had brought a draft written by someone else to the guru. Regardless, I was told that when the person entered a room where Gurinder Singh was meeting with several people, he picked up the draft and threw the stack of papers at them.
I had the impression that the guru was angry about the manuscript. As you might expect from the way ardent disciples act around the guru, the person who told me the story seemed to feel that what Gurinder Singh did was justified -- maybe as some sort of lesson that the person needed to learn.
However, this story disturbed me at the time, and it still does today. If anyone else had done what the guru did, a CEO of a company, say, we'd say "He acted like a jerk." I no longer believe that a guru's negative actions should be interpreted generously. If a guru acts badly, let's just say it like it is -- acting badly.
Upset with a photo being taken. In the 1990s Gurinder Singh began visiting the United States. Since I was learning karate at the time, I ended up being assigned to security seva (service) when the guru gave talks in Palm Springs, California. I remember being with the guru and other people when he was walking around the venue, an auditorium complex. I believe Gurinder Singh had just visited the child care area.
We were outside on a walkway when the guru saw someone quite a ways away taking a photo of him. At this time the guru had a strict rule, no photographs. But the person taking the photo was on public property, as was Gurinder Singh. Nonetheless, some RSSB security people dashed over to the person with the camera and demanded that they surrender the film (this was before digital cameras).
In retrospect, this was a ridiculous demand.
Like I said, the guru was out in public. It is totally legal to take photos of people in a public place. Yet for some reason that I still don't understand, Gurinder Singh was adamant that no photographs be taken of him, and if any were, the photo had to be destroyed. Now I'm bothered both by the fact that the guru had this attitude, and that his devotees (of which I was one, back then) were so willing to comply with anything the guru wanted to have done.
Jiti Khanna's resignation as an RSSB representative. On another visit, Gurinder Singh visited Vancouver, B.C. Once again, I got to do some security seva. Mostly I, along with other volunteers, hung out at the place the guru was staying, a home belonging to Jiti Khanna, who was the RSSB representative for British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest (where I lived, in Oregon; I wrote about a charming episode with Dr. Khanna in "From Sant Mat to Buddhism.")
It was a fascinating experience.
Back then I was very devoted to the guru. One night I was assigned to stand outside the window of the room where Gurinder Singh was sleeping. At 3 am I recall wondering what the heck I would do if a van, say, pulled up with armed Sikh separatists who wanted to do the guru harm. I figured that the only thing I could do was try to stop them, even though I couldn't, because it would be too shameful to have failed to try to protect the guru, even if I lost my life.
Anyway, I thought it must be wonderful for Jiti Khanna and his family to be hosting the guru in their house -- getting all up close and personal with him. So it was quite shocking to hear that soon after Gurinder Singh's visit, Dr. Khanna resigned as RSSB representative and reportedly became a Buddhist. I have no idea what led him to do this. It just struck me as strange that after having some intimate contact with the guru, Dr. Khanna did what he did.
What did Jiti Khanna see in Gurinder Singh? I don't know. But if he had seen a God in Human Form, as the guru is supposed to be, seemingly he wouldn't have resigned his representative position and turned to Buddhism.
Life is Fair cover screwup. I spent several years writing a book for Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the Indian spiritual organization currently headed up by Gurinder Singh, who succeeded Charan Singh. I agreed to write Life is Fair after being told that one of Charan Singh's wishes before he died was to have a fairly short book that described the karmic rationale for being a vegetarian.
Since Charan Singh was my guru, I felt this was a wonderful opportunity to do some volunteer service in the name of my guru. I ended up traveling to India to finish up the book with the help of Faith Singh, who was in charge of the English language books published by RSSB.
After I got home, the process of publishing started. I recall that I got an email from one of the volunteers working in the Publications Department that there was a problem with the first batch of books, several thousand copies I seem to remember. Gurinder Singh, had personally chosen the type of paper for the cover. But it turned out to be too thick, so it was difficult to open up the pages of the book.
When I got a copy of the book and saw the problem with the cover, I had the thought, "But how could this happen if the guru is supposed to be a Perfect Living Master?" However, at the time I believed that whatever the guru did had some deeper meaning, even if his action appeared imperfect. Now, though, I consider that Gurinder Singh just made a mistake with the cover.
So here's four stories that are some of the reasons I became disillusioned with the guru.
As I said in the above-linked post, I also was bothered by seeing that disciples/initiates who had the closest contact with Gurinder Singh appeared to be no more "spiritual" than me or any other ordinary person.
I'm always (well, usually) glad to admit when I've been wrong about something.
So I'm pleased to say that during my true believing days, which stretched into over 30 years, I was decidedly wrong about the world's major religions having a common denominator.
Namely, an all-pervading conscious spiritual energy known in India as shabd. Various "Radha Soami" sects claim it is possible to return to God by connecting one's individual soul-consciousness with this universal divine-consciousness -- which manifests as inner sound and light.
Shabd is referring to spiritual current which can be perceived in meditation as inner light and sound. Yoga is referring to the uniting of our real essence (soul) through an inner listening with focused mental concentration (surat) upon an inner sound (shabd) which it is maintained emanates from Radhasoami the Supreme Being. It is therefore taught as the unchanging and primordial technique for uniting the soul with the supreme being via the power of Shabd.
Following the practice of meditation under the guidance of a spiritual teacher who is himself in contact with Shabd, is considered of paramount importance.
Pre-requisites for successful achievement of the meditation practice are a lacto-vegetarian diet, abstaining from drugs and alcohol, and maintaining a pure and moral lifestyle.
Now most people, religious or not, would find the description above to be at odds with the teachings of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Taoism, and even Hinduism.
To offer up some examples, Christians believe in the divinity of Christ, obviously. They don't meditate "under the guidance of a spiritual teacher" unless they're in some sort of a cult. Buddhists don't believe in a Supreme Being, nor in a soul. Islam and Judaism don't promote vegetarianism, though some members of these religions may choose to be vegetarian on their own.
And certainly adherents of the world's major religions would never go to their church, temple, mosque, or wherever and hear someone preaching the glory of shabd as the "unchanging and primordial technique for uniting the soul with the supreme being."
Yet some (and maybe all) of the Radha Soami sects claim that their "shabd yoga" spirituality is part of the core of every religion, even if this isn't widely recognized.
To which I now say, bullshit, though I used to say "so true." Radha Soami followers have to stretch religious scriptures to the breaking point to find mentions of shabd in them.
To them the Gospel of John supposedly praises shabd because of the words, "In the beginning was the Word." But "Word" is a translation of the Greek "Logos," and one would be hard-pressed to connect the Indian notion of Shabd with the Greek conception of Logos as it is used in the Bible.
In some recent comments on a Church of the Churchless post, there's a debate about the universal nature of Radha Soami teachings.
As you should be able to tell from the above, I'm in agreement with "RS Sceptic," who wrote:
The notion that SHABD is some kind of universal truth and the way of all religions is a myth propagated by radha soami. It is not true. All religions are not the same. They don't all teach shabd yoga. Once you believe this then you think sant mat is the only way and only truth. It is not. And by the way I am not saying this because I hate rssb or anything like that. It is a simple observation.
Yes, all religions are indeed not the same. And it is very rare to find any argument about this. When have you heard a Christian, say, claim that every other religion agrees with the central tenet of Christianity? This would be a ridiculous assertion.
Actually, the world's major religions revel in their differences, not their similarities. Each claims to have some special understanding of the cosmos that the others lack. So we'd have to believe that the followers of Radha Soami sects somehow comprehend other religions more accurately than members of those religions themselves.
I can't accept that. Nor can I accept that shabd is a common denominator of every religion.
For over 30 years I was a devoted initiate of an Indian guru, Charan Singh. He was the leader of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a spiritual/religious organization headquartered in Beas, India.
The only time I saw Charan Singh in person was during two weeks in 1977.
I'd just begun a new job in state government in Salem, Oregon. I had a five year old daughter who was going to get her first bicycle from "Santa." My wife dearly wanted me to be home for Christmas.
I did too. However, I was even more desperate to see the guru in person after being initiated by him by proxy (via an American representative of the guru, Roland deVries) in 1971.
The Radha Soami Satsang Beas books talked about the importance of having the darshan (sight) of the physical guru. If a disciple had seen the guru in person, he or she could visualize the face of the guru during meditation -- which was supposed to be a concentration aid.
Most importantly, I was eager to see if, when I saw Charan Singh in person, I'd feel like he was the God in Human Form that the Radha Soami Satsang Beas teachings claimed him to be.
So for two weeks in late December I visited the Dera, as the RSSB headquarters was called.
Every evening, with maybe a few exceptions, there would be an intimate question and answer session with the guru and visiting Western initiates. Each of us also had two short personal interviews with Charan Singh. And we would see him from afar as we did "mitti" seva (service), which consisted of long lines of people filling ravines with sand one basketful at a time.
(The baskets were carried on top of the head, and they weren't exactly leakproof. The big "miracle" of my visit for me was that even though I wore contact lenses, I never got sand in my eyes.)
I was much impressed by Charan Singh.
I didn't have any grand mystical experiences during my trip to India. I just came away impressed with the guru's undeniable warmth, dedication, love, and sense of humor. Looking back, I must have seen him as a sort of father figure, since I grew up without a father following my parents' divorce when I was too young to remember him (except for one hour I spent with my father when I was in my thirties).
My trip back to the United States began with a flight out of the Amritsar airport. I remember sitting in a window seat, looking at the Himalaya mountains off in the distance. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with a feeling of love and devotion for my guru, Charan Singh.
"I only want your thoughts to be in my mind," I said to myself. Or words to that effect.
The underlying meaning was that I wanted to repeat the mantra ("five holy names") given to RSSB disciples at the time of initiation so assiduously, I'd feel like whatever entered my mind wouldn't be coming from my personal ego, but from the guru -- since it was believed that the guru placed his "radiant form" within each initiate's consciousness, and this spiritual entity could guide the initiate.
Yes, I realize this sounds weird.
But back then I didn't question the truth of the RSSB teachings. I was sure that I'd embarked on what amounted to a mystical meditation experiment that would end with me ascending to higher spiritual regions of reality under the guidance of the inner guru.
So what do I believe today? Well, something similar, actually. Just without any religious connotations.
As I've written about frequently on this blog, I don't believe in free will. (Put "free will" into the Google search box in the left sidebar to find the posts I've written on this subject.)
Modern science, including neuroscience, argues that every living being is part of a vast web of interconnections that span the vastness of time and space. For example, every entity alive today is related to every other living entity via a Last Universal Common Ancestor that existed billions of years ago.
And our thoughts, intentions, feelings, and what-not are strongly influenced by all of the interactions we've had with parents, friends, siblings, teachers, work associates, and all the other people who have been part of our life. Not to mention the cultural influences we've absorbed through books, music, arts, and so many other ways.
From this perspective, what we do, think, and feel isn't our freely-selected choice. "It takes a village," as the proverb goes.
Of course, in my everyday life I feel like my thoughts, actions, and emotions are mine, even though I understand that this is an illusion. In the same way, after I had my "I only want your thoughts in my mind" revelation on the flight out of Amritsar, I still felt like I was the one in control of my life, even though I believed that the guru was guiding my steps.
My main point here, I guess, is that becoming an atheist doesn't require leaving behind the good feelings that came with being religious. Those feelings just need to be reinterpreted in a secular sense. For example, I still feel awe and wonder at the grandeur of the cosmos.
I just don't consider that God or any other supernatural being is part of it.
These are some great criticisms of how the Indian spiritual organization Radha Soami Satsang Beas operates, and the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by the RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh, and his relatives.
The RSSB guru travels in private airplanes and in high end cars with high level security, his son is the CEO of a multimillion dollar company, his wife has million dollar stocks to her name, his relatives are rich billionaires.
It's totally fine if you're a businessman and doing all this with your "earned" money but it doesn't look so good when you are operating a spiritual organization that preaches that you should not fixate on acquiring materialistic things in life and that main focus of life should be meditating and realizing god.
All the donations that are being made by the people thinking it's going to be used by their master for some greater good is sadly just used for land hoarding all across India in almost every single city to build satsang centres on vast acres of expensive land. For what ? To open them up for 2 hours once a week on Sunday to repeat the same satsang over and over again.
It's so sad to see people instead of helping each other are investing so much of their time and resources into organizations and "babas" like this especially in a country like India where so many die due to hunger and poverty everyday.
They claim that everyone is equal in eye of babaji yet they have different boarding houses for foreigners, NRI [non-resident Indians] and just common local people. They even have a different seating plan based on your level of income and your country of origin. If you are rich and famous or from another country you sit in the front. They even discriminate on basis of colour if you're white you sit in the front and if you're brown you sit behind the white people.
There are so many more things that just don't seem so spiritual about this spiritual organization.
No one has any luck even after years of meditation. Those who claim that they do, the ones I have met so far are my grandparents and it turns out their electrolytes were out of balance and they were confused and hallucinating.
Sadly, few people like this make other believe that this stuff is true. You know another persons hallucinations about god turns into another persons religion kind of thing.
I no longer believe in God. Meaning, a God who is this or that, a God who can be described, who can be known, who can be experienced.
But I'm very much open to the notion that One is at the heart of reality. Heck, I wrote a book called "Return to the One" about the teachings of Plotinus, a Neoplatonist Greek philosopher.
After all, something has to have always existed, or existence wouldn't exist. So why not call this the "One"? Just don't ascribe any attributes to the One, because the One couldn't have any attributes, being, obviously, One.
Interestingly, Osho Robbins asked a question of Gurinder Singh, the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (the spiritual organization I belonged to for about 35 years), that shows the guru looks upon God in much the same way as Plotinus did.
Which isn't how most RSSB disciples do.
They still think of God as some sort of person, or at least as a being that can be known. Likewise, they consider that heaven, or Sach Khand as RSSB terms it, is some sort of place rather than a quality of being or an essence of existence.
Here's what Osho Robbins sent me as a guest blog post. I'm pleased to share it. "BabaJi" is an Indian term of respect for the guru, Gurinder Singh.
I asked BabaJi a question at the last Sunday gathering. I asked him to explain about SARGUN and NIRGUN.
His first response was “Are you trying to test me?”
I said “No,”, because I wasn’t – I just wanted him to comment on the subject.
The response he gave was pretty impressive but I somehow think hardly anyone in the congregation understood him.
What he said was that SARGUN is God with attributes – the path we all follow and NIRGUN is the goal – the God without any attributes – the ONE. Sargun is the MEANS and Nirgun is the END or GOAL.
So the Goal is to get to the ONE – where these is no duality.
This is in line with the notion that the Guru cannot come at the time of death because there is only ONE, and there is no place to take the soul.
The idea of the guru coming at death and taking the soul to Sach Khand is as naïve as the notion of Father Christmas.
Sach Khand is not a place – so why is everyone keen to go there? What do they think is awaiting them in Sach Khand?
The true goal of Sant Mat is to DIE. Meaning the EGO (the ‘I’) dies, which means there is no longer a YOU who wants to go to Sach Khand.
That is the real meaning of “die while living”. Eliminate the ego WHILE you are alive – realize there is no YOU – no separate self. Just a deluded little disciple who thinks he is privileged and will go to Sach Khand.
For me, one of the most enjoyable things about giving up on the ridiculousness of religion is no longer having to comply with rigid rules, dogmas, commandments, rituals, and such.
Every religion has its own peculiar absurdities. Of course, what is absurd to an outsider will make sense to an insider. At least if the insider doesn't think about what's being required too much.
Here's an example: the mystical meditation path I followed for about thirty years demanded that followers be vegetarians. This wasn't a problem for me, since I'd stopped eating meat before I learned about Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an Indian spiritual organization led by a guru who was considered to be God in human form.
At some point in the 1990s, I believe it was, the guru decided to raise the bar on vegetarianism. Now animal rennet, a frequent ingredient in cheese, was a no-no. So RSSB followers were supposed to make sure that cheese they ate didn't contain animal-derived rennet.
Now, even though I was a strong believer in not killing animals for food, it was a stretch for me to accept that eating a minuscule bit of forbidden rennet in a pizza, say, was going to be a big drag on my spiritual evolution.
But since at that time I was a devoted devotee of the guru, I did my best to eliminate cheese with animal rennet from my diet. RSSB followers put a lot of work into compiling lists of "good" and "bad" cheese brands. Eating out at a restaurant, though, often required some decidedly awkward encounters with serving staff.
"Does the cheese on this veggie pizza have animal rennet in it?" us rigidly obedient RSSB'ers would ask a hapless waiter. Not surprisingly he'd say, "I have no idea." "Please check," we'd say.
The poor guy would be forced to disappear into a backroom and try to read the label on a cheese container. Or at least he'd pretend to do this before returning to our table with some sort of answer. Which often was "I couldn't tell for sure."
We felt that we were acting in accord with God's will, since the guru's edict against eating animal rennet supposedly had a divine foundation, given his status as God in Human Form (akin to a living Jesus). I'm not sure what the waiters and waitresses who had to deal with our no animal rennet! demands thought about us.
"Crazy religious fanatics" would have been a reasonable assessment, one which I now agree with.
Today I was browsing the online New York Times opinion page and came across a piece by Stephen Asma with a great title: "Was Bo Diddley a Buddha?"
If you don't know who Bo Diddley is, this probably means you're a lot younger than I am. Here's a video of him from 1965, when I was a junior or senior in high school.
Asma relates how he used to play guitar with Bo Diddley, and what this taught him about improvisation. Asma now is a philosophy professor, so his piece has some depth to it. It's nicely written, so I invite you to read the whole thing. Here's some excerpts:
Before my first gig with Bo, I spent a full week of intense preparation, learning and rehearsing his songs. On the opening night, he arrived to the venue five minutes before showtime. As he walked onstage in front of 500 shouting fans, I tried to tell him all the songs I’d prepared.
He just looked at me blankly through his Coke-bottle glasses, plugged into his amp and launched into a loud, rhythmic riff on his trademark rectangular guitar. He never bothered to tell me what song we were playing, what chord changes were coming, what key we were in, or anything. But, as every blues and jazz musician knows, that’s how it goes.
After the first tune, he realized that I could follow him, and he cryptically shouted, “This monkey is tied, now let’s skin it!”
Bo and the other greats I played with often worked this way, and it was a hair-raising on-the-job education. These musicians never told me what was coming next, partly because they didn’t know themselves. They were masters of the art of improvisation.
...Improvising, in music, is the act of composing and performing simultaneously, and it is difficult to master. But it is also universal, and despite the powerful human impulse to plan and program, integral to nearly every aspect of our lives. No matter who you are — a welder, philosopher, a guitarist or a president — you are in some sense simultaneously making the map of your life and following it. It is not an exaggeration to say life itself is one long improvisation.
...In music, at least, improvisation sometimes gets a bad rap, usually from the precincts of classical or other formal Western styles that rely on notation. It is sometimes looked down upon with a “my kid could do that” kind of dismissive attitude. But the ability to improvise is not just “winging it.” It is built on foundations of study and practice that prepare the improviser for the moment of action.
“Wu-Wei” is a Chinese word that is often translated as “non-action” but more accurately means “natural action,” or action in accordance with nature. The idea, dominant in Taoism and Zen, is that one should try to find the natural way of doing something and then simulate, or align oneself to it, as opposed to forcing it.
For example, the butcher should carve the animal at its joints, not in arbitrary locations. A carpenter should work with the grain of wood, rather than against it. A martial arts master should find the most economic use of his energy, and turn his opponent’s own force to his advantage, and so on.
Finding this natural way is not effortless, but requires great practice. Once it has been mastered, however, it is possible to find a unique presence of mind in these activities. The mundane actions are turned into artistic and even spiritual expressions. Playing a musical instrument, boxing in a competition, and even folding your laundry can be Zen-like improvisations.
Zen Buddhism and Taoism focus more on the method of your life rather than the content of your life. It’s not so much who you are, or even what you do in life. Rather, it’s how you do it. Since, in these practices, the present moment is ultimate reality (albeit usually obscured and hidden in regular consciousness), all one needs to do is shut off the babble of discursive thought and sink into one’s present activity.
According to this view, the meaning of life is not found in rules, formulas, commandments, categorical imperatives and cultural norms.
For sure.
Obsessing over eating a few specks of animal rennet that are part of the cheese in a vegetarian pizza is rigid religiosity. Laughing about whether the cheese has rennet -- who gives a shit! -- while taking a big bite would have been flexible improvisation.
But I didn't know that at the time.
So, accept my belated apology, all you waiters and waitresses who had to check cheese ingredients because my friends and I were in the grip of playing life as if every note on the guru's music sheet had to be followed exactly.
Which, as Bo Diddley and Stephen Asma knew, goes against the grain of an improvisational understanding of life.
Here's a Radha Soami Satsang Beas related newspaper story that came to my attention via someone's Twitter feed that I follow: "Opponents to religious group Radha Soami Satsang Beas' worship centre in Green Wedge at Carrum Downs score win at VCAT."
(VCAT stands for Victorian Civil & Administrative Tribunal)
A religious group’s plan for a large worship centre in Carrum Downs has been scuttled after opponents had a stunning win at VCAT.
In a decision handed down yesterday, VCAT member Michael Deidun overturned Frankston Council’s approval of a permit for the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) group’s new Australian headquarters in green wedge land.
Defenders of the South East Green Wedge secretary Barry Ross, who appealed council’s decision at VCAT, said he was rapt with the result.
Interestingly, the story says that the ruling hinged on whether RSSB actually is a religious organization. The guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas is considered to be God in Human Form by devotees, yet RSSB also claims that it is more of a spiritual science than a religion.
So this seems to put RSSB in a tough spot, legally. Here's another excerpt from the story.
In his written decision, Mr Deidun said RSSB was “not a religion, nor is it aligned with one particular religion”.
He added: “A clear indication ... that RSSB is not a religion is the absence of any unique sacred texts or set of values and belief systems regarding the person and divinity of God and man’s relationship to God.
“RSSB Australia is not a religion and therefore does not conduct religious activities.
“As such it cannot be regarded as proposing a place of worship for the site.”
Mr Deidun said based on his finding that RSSB was not a religion, its proposal was actually for a “place of assembly, particularly a place where philosophical or spiritual meetings and instruction can take place”.
Having been a member for many years of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a mystical/meditation-based spiritual organization headquartered in India, I'm still somewhat interested in going-on regarding the group's current guru, Gurinder Singh.
Punjab News Express/Jagmohan Singh AMRITSAR: Radha Soami Sect Chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon today who had flown to Singapore following the advice of Fortis Hospital while cancelling his all schedules last week on Feb 10 arrived at the sect head quarter Beas.
Confirming his arrival today dera official said, he arrived last evening after being declared fit and fine by the team of doctors at Singapore.
During his weeklong stay in Singapore Dhillon underwent complete body scan and all related medical tests by the team of doctors.
Today Dhillon appeared before his devotees, looking fresh. He also held meeting with the dera officials with regard to dera functioning and other arrangements. Since this time, two days after on Sunday a heavy crowd of Radha Soami followers expected to be thronged at Beas. Dera volunteers have been asked to take all possible measure for regular and uninterrupted of vehicular traffic flow. This time dera officials expected the gathering above two lacs devotees, since followers are curious to have the glimpse of sect chief after his return from Singapore.
On Sunday there is religious congregation at Beas headquarter nearly forty five kilometres from the city of Golden Temple Amritsar.
Dhillon had flown to Singapore on Feb 10, after the team of Fortis Escort hospital referred him to move immediately to Singapore for complete medical check up. Dhillon was suffering some gastritis problem but can’t take any medicine without consulting the doctors at Singapore where he was already getting treatment.
It may be added here two years ago Dhillon was diagnosed Throat Cancer, got regular treatment from one of the famous hospital in Singapore. During treatment he was administrated chemotherapy causing hair shedding besides impact on voice box but after few months everything was normalised. He also underwent time to time PET (positron emission tomography) scan test which had indicated that all infected cancer cells were cleared in the body.
Senior BJP leader and former Deputy Prime Minister L.K Advani, Congress vice President Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi are also follower of Radha Soami visit at Beas headquarter time to time besides meeting with him at Delhi when Dhillon’s schedule is fixed for Delhi.
Dhillon has been given Z-Plus Security Cover and his security was enhanced significantly when ADGP Security of Punjab Government visited the Dera Radha Soami Beas town to review the security arrangements.
Dera Radha Soami also known as Dera Baba Jaimal Singh at Beas town nearly 45 kilometers away from the Amritsar city being headed by the sect chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon having large number of followers across the nation.
Earlier in July 2010, an attempt to kill the Dhillon was foiled well in time by the police in Vienna, Austria with the arrest of four persons carrying explosives with them; thereafter his security here in India was enhanced significantly.
Basically, this is an account of how an Indian man has been dealing with health problems, including a bout with throat cancer. However, Gurinder Singh is regarded as God in Human Form by his devotees, so I have little doubt that there's been much speculation about what these illnesses mean in the great cosmic scheme of things.
My view is, nothing more than what they are: fairly common health problems.
But likely some RSSB devotees consider that Gurinder Singh's ailments are a sign of the guru taking on the karma of his disciples, much as Jesus supposedly did when he "died for our sins."
I also find it interesting that God in Human Form needs so much security. From one point of view this makes good sense, because the Punjab is home to serious political conflicts, some violent, that are rooted in religious beliefs. Yet if someone possesses divine powers, would they need armed guards to protect them?
(I have no answer to this question, since I no longer believe in divine powers.)
I was at the national satsang [gathering of disciples] in the UK last weekend. Gurinder has changed from the old days. His teachings are going through a noticeable change - and so is he himself.
What I noticed is that
(1) He talks a lot about The ONE
(2) He laughs and jokes a lot
(3) He tells people not to be so serious
(4) He tells them that the master will not come at the time of death - that they have misunderstood the teachings. Just as it does not take four lifetimes.
(5) He says there are no regions - that Sach Khand does not exist - neither does Sat Purush. He says they are levels of consciousness
He says the purpose is to REALIZE that there is only the ONE - and that we are caught in maya - duality.
Having the darshan of the physical master is not even mentioned anymore. He says seva will not help you make any progress - it simply makes you humble if done correctly. There is no spiritual merit.
You will NOT be able to succeed through meditation. Meditation is just to make you give up. You can never get there through your efforts.
Now these kind of teachings have never been given before in rssb.