Continued from above.......

 

Carlos Palacios 3 years ago

Wow!  I'm lucky to have bumped into you Michael.  I mean seriously...Surya would tell me about these other yogi communities and about how you got him out of one and not just him but other people as well.  Some of these people had a hard time leaving those kind of communities because they had been greatly brainwashed.

 

I once told Surya: "So, Michael is like rehab for you".

 

After reading your post I realized that you were lucky you didn't get shot.  These people seem very fanatical.  In their eyes, you are a rogue yogi who knows how to spell!

 

Carlos

           

AspiringSiddha 3 years ago

You’re clarifying everything about the true vedic mysticism, the original mysticism, being patanjali yoga.

 

Michael Wrote:

So what are the introspective habits of the sampradaya?

 

They have two procedures:

 

·        Chanting gayatri mantra in silence thrice per day with emphasis substituting Savitur with either Lord Krishna or Lord Chaitanya

 

·        Reading and mentally absorbing the explanation of the Srimad Bhagavatam, the Srimad Bhagavad Gita and the Srimad Chaitanya Charitamrita.

 

I tried to follow these procedures. Under pressure of my mystic ability, Kirtanananda awarded me brahmin initiation after just 9 months after I took formal harinama initiation from him. With that I got the gayatri mantras and access to the pujari room.

 

He explained the way to chant gayatri mantra and the meaning of the mantra in the sampradaya. Using this I discovered that it was lacking the mystic content which the ancient yogis used because of their practice of ashtanga yoga. But I could do nothing about it because Bhaktivedanta Swami already established the standard for the society.

 

AspiringSiddha Query:

So what do we do with all of this info? Keep our beaks shut?

           

MiBeloved 3 years ago

Carlos,

 

That is funny but not so funny.

 

Once in a deep spiritual discussion in Detroit Hare Krishna temple, Kirtanananda was asked to identify who I was because I had known about the lineage before joining the society, and had known the history of the Mahabharata and some other things which people using Western bodies were usually unfamiliar with.

 

Kirtanananda told the group of inside devotees that I was a combination between a Mayavadi and a Voodoo.

 

Mayavadi is the term used in India to categorize the followers of the Advaita Vedanta (Adi Shankara's Philosophy). This sect is regarded as the enemies of the lineage and is hated to the max by this lineage.

 

Voodoo, of course, is the ritual cults of Haiti which were transported from Africa across the Atlantic during the slave trade. My body was from Guyana which was British Guiana, a former colony which had slaves and where voodoo is known as obeah. This was also subtle racism because I am using a black body. Most of Prabhupada’s disciples in the West were using white bodies.

 

So that was how Kirtanananda influenced people to discredit me when I first got to the lineage. Of interest however is the fact that about 3 months after he said this, he awarded me brahman initiation which afforded the privilege for me to be involved in Deity Worship.

 

Anyone who did yoga was regarded in those days as a Mayavadi. Recently the lineage seems to have slackened that opinion from itself but it still hangs on and perhaps always will.

 

Once when I was meditating in a new temple which Kirtanananda built at New Vrindvana, I was sitting on the floor during the mandatory chanting session at about 4 am. Kirtanananda told me to get up and walk and chant like he was doing. Anyone who meditated was regarded as a Mayavadi and was criticized severely or ostracized.

 

Once years later when I visited the farm in Florida, a senior man who is an artist, came up to me in the temple room and gave me a lecture about not meditating since it was what the Mayavadis do. I was not even meditating but the guy knew me from the early days when I was at New Vrindavana and he wanted to remind me of the rules.

           

=======================

 

AspiringSiddha Query:

So what do we do with all of this info? Keep our beaks shut?

 

MiBeloved’s Response:

Yes, there is no use in spreading it any further. It is like medicine. You take it and it cures you. But it is only one dose and it cannot work if you run around and share it with others.

 

But it also gives insight into what may happen if you join a lineage or ashram. Even though these are advertised as heaven your experience there might be similar to hell.

           

AspiringSiddha 3 years ago

MiBeloved Wrote:

But it also gives insight into what may happen if you join a lineage or ashram. Even though these are advertised as heaven your experience there might be similar to hell.

 

AspiringSiddha Reply:

When i did join Los Angeles temple of 2009. I expected to see yogis. I wondered where are the yogis? I later understood the mystic yoga process is banned all in ISKCON. The authorities threw away my yoga books with a smile. I did have great experiences there though.

 

What can one do to not get harassed? or go? or to be not seen/noticed?

           

Alfredo 3 years ago

Carlos Wrote: [After reading your post I realized that you were lucky you didn't get shot.]

 

Alfredo’s Comment:

You got that right as Swami Kirtanananda's indictment included conspiracy to murder 2 of his opponents in the Hare Krishna movement. He was convicted later on 9 of the 11 charges and the murder charge was dropped, but still.

 

===========================

 

AspiringSiddha Query:

So what do we do with all of this info? Keep our beaks shut?

 

Alfredo’s Comment:

Once known, there is little use for this information.

 

Now, I have a similar story to tell, but much less drastic and without obeying the desire to fulfill a known purpose as Michael did. Still, there is a teaching there, so here it is:

 

I am not one to tow the line of an ashram easily, as I grew up in Cuba and at 22 was thrown in jail and beaten severely for opposing Castro. It was a shock to find out what my countrymen could do to me, so I decided to leave. This I did and arrived here with the Mariel boat-lift in 1980 and have never returned. But from my upbringing, I was left with deep suspicion about any attempts at social organization, which I had endured with horror in Cuba, such as mass-movements, community organizing, political and religious movements, sects, and the like.

 

Still, and because of yoga, I gravitated here in the US towards an ashram, and although I did not live inside, was for years closely involved and witnessed many interesting things.

 

The head Guru was supposed to be infallible, perfect, and was worshiped as such.

 

Of course, he did not say he was, they rarely do, but his proxies did. Some gurus promote this, others turn a blind eye to it. This is explained well in Michael's book "Spiritual Master".

 

The Guru ordained several swamis. Since he was infallible, the proxies said, the swamis were also pure and infallible.

 

But they weren't.

 

The first one was soon kicked out for embezzlement.

 

Another one who became my friend had a penchant for sex when he traveled to Brazil to spread the message. He is now married.

 

I found out the Guru was a unique being. He had been born in a wealthy family of Brahmins and yogis, and was a long-life celibate and vegetarian who had attained high levels of Samadhi.

 

I also found out the Guru had once spent several years in silence in a room conducting strenuous austerities.

 

In that lineage some of the early disciples would practice pranayama for 10 straight hours and do over 1,400 cycles.

 

But now, we Western disciples were given a whitewashed technique and told that this was enough for self-realization, whatever that meant.

 

The word "kundalini" was banned from the ashram and became anathema.

 

In the meantime, mass-recruiting here and in South America was taking place with the same promise (I helped to translate for the Swamis in South America) for a $150 initiation fee, and it became very profitable.

 

So...draw your own conclusion.

           

MiBeloved 3 years ago

Aspiring Siddha,

 

What can one do to not get harassed? or go? or to be not seen/noticed?

 

MiBeloved’s Response:

 

With spiritual groups, you have to first understand what they are about and then you have to get some idea of what they offer.  If you understand what they offer, then if you want to have any of it, then you have to find out the price.

 

Once you find out the price, then you have to decide if it is too expensive for your budget.

 

How does the group want to be paid?

 

Is it money?

 

Is it your time?

 

Do they want to be paid in your confidence?

 

Do they want you to abandon certain aspects which you usually did before meeting the group?

 

This is how you have to see it.

 

In the book Spiritual Master, I covered some of these aspects.

 

So what does ISKCON have that you need and I mean what they really have. Years ago around 1973 before I lived in their ashram, I read one of Srila Prabhupada’s books called Easy Journey to Other planets. After reading that book, I felt that these people understand something about transiting with the subtle body to other dimensions but actually the book was misleading.

 

It had knowledge but the person who wrote the book, the Acharya himself, His Divine Grace, was not a practicing yogi in this life. What he described in the book was all theoretical, not based on the actual practice of mystic yoga of yogis from centuries before which were described in the Srimad Bhagavatam. He was selling their story as if it is his own.

 

Later when I joined his society, the first thing they said was: “Do not practice those mystic disciplines here. Our teacher banned it. If you want to stay with us, you must cease this.”

 

Their idea is that even though ancient Vaishnavas did this, they do not do it because by chanting the mahamantra, they will be able to do this. But that is untrue in at least 99% of the cases.

 

So if that happens to you, then you have to ask yourself, “What else does these people have which I want?”

 

Once you figure that out, then you have to decide if you want to pay the price for it. They might tell you that to stay with them you have to go on Sankirtan, which means you have to go out and proselyte people and collect donations in one way or the other. So you have to make up your mind about this.

 

You can always buy their books online or through a book store and read the books but that map knowledge is all you will get because since they are not practicing yogis currently, they do not have any practical knowledge about the real mystic yoga process.

 

Imagine this: We are both in the center of Africa somewhere. You want to go to New York. I am a vendor. I sell maps. I find out about your desire and I propose that I will sell you a map.

 

You get this idea that I know about New York. Actually I never went there, never stepped in an aircraft or boat. But I am explaining it to you based on my study of a reliable map, and based on the fact that my father told me that our family was from New York originally and that I am also from New York and you and everyone else is in Africa. The map is for real because long ago a man who went to New York made that map. He was my great great grandfather.

 

I have no memory of coming from there but I believe my father who said that I was from there originally and that if I just memorize the words of the places on the map and the name of the mayor of the City of New York, that alone will cause me to go there in the near future.

 

So finally when you figure out that I never went there you ask me how to make a ship or aircraft to go there but I tell you that is not necessary that if you just keep looking at the map and memorize the drawing and the names of the street, that itself will take you there. In fact I tell you that if you even attempt to make a ship or plane, I will disassociate from you and tell everyone that you are an illusionist and that you are against the Mayor of New York.

 

So that is what has happened at the organization called ISKCON.

 

See if you can put it all together to understand what it is about.