Below is another in a series of guest blog posts from Anon, an ex-RSSB initiate. RSSB stands for Radha Soami Satsang Beas, an India-based religious organization headed up by a guru that I belonged to for 35 years, which explains my interest in sharing criticisms of the faith that I also found lacking.
RSSB LIFESTYLE RULES
SUMMARY OF RSSB RULES
RSSB lifestyle rules are
- lacto vegetarianism (no meat fish eggs)
- teetotalism (no alcohol or drugs)
- meditate (2.5 hours daily at the cost of sleep or socialising)
- attend seva (voluntary service)
- attend satsang (sermons)
- celibacy (if unmarried and even encouraged within marriage)
- live a good clean high values moral life (in reality this is RSSB-speak for “don’t have sex”)
WHY? It’s framed as the way to limit your karmas, which is the way to achieve salvation and escape reincarnation. These are also the Guru’s rules and failure to achieve the Guru’s rules in your lifetime means he won’t collect you at the time of death – you will be left to the messengers of death, tortured, taken to hell, reincarnate into a lower form, or at best reincarnate into a human form where you will need to continue your RSSB journey over a maximum allotment of 4 human lives. That’s the “old school” spiritual view of RSSB.
The new school view is more of a “clean living” “holistic yoga” “spiritual path” to “become a better person”.
There’s an ongoing debate between the grandiose traditional messiah jesus claims and the modern watered down instagram caption claims. That’s a separate story.
LIFESTYLE RULES AS LAWS
Their lifestyle rules are also not framed as “nice to achieve” or “do your best”. There is no liberal RSSB or casual RSSB. There is no conservative or fundamental branch. You don’t get to choose how much or how little you do. It is literally ALL or NOTHING. Even outside RSSB, you are constantly thinking of lifestyle rules – it is in your mind even when you’re not there.
Their spiritual lifestyle rules are framed as LAWS. (Even at the cost of being malnourished, sleep deprived, socially isolated). You must achieve 100% total compliance with RSSB lifestyle rules all the time. If you do not, you are a spiritual failure, moral failure, bad human being, even a criminal. Other RSSB people will make sure that you do.
Nobody tells you this when you join voluntarily. At first these are just “lifestyle rules/factors” but once you’re in it becomes LAWS requiring 100% total compliance always.
RSSB POLICING CULTURE
Even if you are happy with bending a few rules or following a liberal/relaxed path, RSSB has a strong community surveillance culture and sense of enforcement/policing, so others will ensure you follow these – yes even total strangers and community members you hardly barely know. If you do not do it ALL, others will make sure you do. They also frequently weaponise guilt and shame to try to enforce people to do more. It is ALL or NOTHING.
Again, nobody tells you this when you join voluntarily. At first this is just a “community of followers” but once you’re in it becomes COMMUNITY POLICING AND SURVEILLANCE.
RSSB NO EXIT CULTURE
But as we’ve seen – there is no such thing as nothing. Once you are in – you are IN. You can never leave. I don’t know why. I can only guess. But based on my lived experience:
1) Some take it as a personal seva to ensure nobody leaves and want to save your soul – RSSB teaching says once initiated you have 4 human lifetimes to complete your RSSB lifepath and failure to do so means you’ve lost your chance at salvation and the Guru won’t save you. They also say “who knows if you are on lifetime 1 or 4” which encourages people not to leave.
2) Some are fearful of a loss of control over a follower – people at RSSB do tend to “latch onto others” and have these weird codependent unboundaried relationships/dealings.
3) Some may be fearful as loss of reputation /status if you’ve left and they were aligned with you – particularly if your family is in RSSB and you don’t want to do this.
4) Some see doubt, questioning, loss of faith, wanting to leave as a direct personal attack on their faith – they will attack you and pressure, bully, coerce, shout you back (as if this works on someone who is already out?). These same people will also say “RSSB is a choice nobody forced you” and you are gaslit into thinking it is voluntary.
5) Some also genuinely think it is an infectious disease to be around a non-RSSB person, as if they may catch it from you, or perhaps you may be a bad influence on them and lead them astray.
6) Some don’t even believe it themselves – they need a verification check. They will check to see how you are doing having left and simply cannot understand you are thriving without RSSB – because they’ve been taught it’s the true path and the guru revokes his help if you quit.
Again, nobody tells you this when you join voluntarily. At first it is just “we don’t force anyone” but the reality is THEY DONT LET YOU LEAVE EASILY.
RSSB REJECTION
Meanwhile – nobody ever fully told you the reality of just what you were getting into, and how impossible and sanity-breaking it would be to leave. And they tend not to like people who leave or let them leave. Just look at the people in the comments who sometimes “lovingly” preach RSSB spiritual topics at me, or forcefully attack verbally. This does happen in person too. They don’t accept nothing. This is normal.
If you do try to leave – you will be met with attempts at trying to pull you back. I personally had tried to leave 4 times and was pulled back each time – they do this by being soft and kind and sometimes offering you more than what you had before (e.g. a more prestigious seva, easier rules quietly hush hush, access to leaders, becoming a VIP yourself – which leads to guru access ultimately – and makes it golden handcuffs for you).
I was able to leave RSSB for good finally on my 5th attempt. They do say RSSB is hard, but at the same time, leaving RSSB is even harder. I did still have 2 attempts after I had finally left – but I did not return.
If you do opt for nothing – you are met with exile, shunning, social degradation – maybe even verbal threats or attacks – potentially attempts to control life decisions. You may have to try to leave a number of times and have repeated attempts later during the course of your life to come back.
Many people don’t leave because they fear the loss of community, social degradation, shunning, criticism, exile – or even the stress of having to enforce boundaries and deal with the shouting and verbal abuse (imagine the commenters IN PERSON!)
Again, nobody tells you this when you join voluntarily. At first it’s all love when you join RSSB, but if you want to leave it’s nothing but hate.
RSSB CLAIM: “NOBODY FORCED YOU” v COERCIVE CONTROL
I don’t want to diagnose – but this is sort of controlling and comes across as coercive control. While they don’t force people and say it’s voluntary, I didn’t know I’d be dealing with any of this – and I didn’t agree to all of that. While joining RSSB was voluntary, the experience I had wasn’t voluntary – and this wasn’t just “I had a bad time” or “I didn’t like it” – my experience of true RSSB was just not really what they market RSSB as – and it was all filled with pressure and control.
I didn’t find out what it was really all about until I was in it and experiencing it myself – and nobody tells you the truth about it (except for people on this blog – and they actively discourage people from reading sources which aren’t RSSB – see their public Social Media Policy on their website banning seeking RSSB information from sources outside RSSB).
IN MY LIVED EXPERIENCE AS SOMEONE WHO IS EX RSSB
RSSB comes across as a cult really, at worst. Or at best, a high control spiritual abuse path. It may not be forced and while they say “nobody forced you” there is a lot of coercive control. Nobody openly tells you what it is really like (bait and switch) and they deliberately gloss over the reality and shower you with warmth (lovebomb). In reality the “lifestyle factors and rules” are “LAWS” requiring 100% total compliance at all times and you’re constantly pressured to do more and more (control tactics).
Failure to achieve this results in community policing/surveillance to enforce total compliance (spiritual abuse). Exit attempts, questioning, doubting and skepticism result in being pressured to do more and to comply (conditional acceptance) often being pressured, coerced, influenced, guilted, shamed, bullied or even shouted at (emotional and verbal abuse – just because it is not physical doesn’t mean it isn’t abuse).
RSSB says followers are free to live their lives as they want but only as long as you do what they want (gaslighting) and in reality you are not allowed to leave freely (hoovering). If you leave RSSB you face exile, shunning, rejection and no acceptance from RSSB followers (isolation/degradation). RSSB states their path is voluntary however it is laced with coercive control, and isn’t truly free (gaslighting). RSSB indirectly primes you for this as a core tenet of their path is “you have no real free will” since they believe in predestination and destiny and karma – and their specific belief means there is no free will (spiritual abuse).
If I knew all this at the start I would have never gone, ever.
Good luck out there.
Anon
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The more I read Anon, the more ridiculous it becomes. There is so much gross exaggeration that it makes one wonder why Brian (who still allows Beas to publish the book, Life is Fair) would air such dribble. Yes, there is much to criticize in the RS guru game, but it doesn’t help when Anon uses hyperbolic statements that don’t hold up to closer inspection. All one has to do is put their essays through a chatbot to see why it doesn’t past the muster. Here is how an AI underlines ANON’s confusions.
“Yes. The writer may be describing genuinely unpleasant personal experiences, and some underlying RSSB teachings are recognizable, but the essay repeatedly moves from “this happened to me” to “this is what RSSB is and what RSSB people do.” That shift is where much of the exaggeration occurs.
Here are the 10 statements I would flag most strongly, ranked roughly by how rhetorically excessive or misleading they are.
“Once you are in – you are IN. You can never leave.”
This is probably the clearest overstatement. An initiate can simply stop meditating, attending satsang, doing seva, associating with satsangis, or believing in the guru. There is no institutional mechanism physically preventing departure. A person may experience family or social pressure when leaving, which can be very real, but that is substantially different from “you can never leave.” The author later says, “I was able to leave RSSB for good,” which directly undercuts the absolute claim.
“You must achieve 100% total compliance with RSSB lifestyle rules all the time.”
This badly blurs ideals, initiation vows, recommendations, and actual enforcement. RSSB certainly expects initiates to follow vegetarianism, abstain from alcohol/recreational drugs, and practice meditation. But describing the system as demanding demonstrable “100% total compliance all the time” implies an enforcement apparatus that RSSB simply does not possess. Nobody is measuring whether an initiate meditated exactly 150 minutes Tuesday morning.
“If you do not, you are a spiritual failure, moral failure, bad human being, even a criminal.”
“Criminal” is particularly inflammatory. Violating a religious discipline isn’t equivalent to criminality, and the writer supplies no evidence that RSSB officially characterizes initiates who fall short in meditation or other practices as criminals. Even “bad human being” requires evidence distinguishing the author’s experience of judgment from official teaching.
“RSSB has a strong community surveillance culture and sense of enforcement/policing… If you do not do it ALL, others will make sure you do.”
This converts anecdotal social pressure into something resembling organized surveillance. How exactly could ordinary RSSB members “make sure” another adult meditates 2½ hours privately, remains celibate, or doesn’t drink alcohol? Some satsang communities may be intrusive or judgmental, but “community surveillance” and “policing” imply systematic monitoring and enforcement for which the essay provides no evidence.
“At first it’s all love when you join RSSB, but if you want to leave it’s nothing but hate.”
The phrase “nothing but hate” is an almost textbook absolute generalization. Even accepting every negative experience Anon reports, it cannot establish that millions of individual followers respond to departing initiates with hatred. Parents, spouses, friends and fellow initiates presumably display an enormous range of responses—indifference, sadness, concern, disagreement, acceptance, relief, persuasion and, undoubtedly in some cases, anger.
“If you do opt for nothing – you are met with exile, shunning, social degradation – maybe even verbal threats or attacks.”
Again, the writer takes possibilities and presents them as the characteristic RSSB exit experience. RSSB does not appear to have a formal excommunication or shunning mechanism comparable to religious organizations that institutionally mandate avoidance of apostates. If the author personally experienced shunning, that is important testimony. But “I was shunned by particular satsangis” is a defensible autobiographical claim; “you are met with exile” is a sweeping sociological claim requiring evidence.
“Some also genuinely think it is an infectious disease to be around a non-RSSB person, as if they may catch it from you.”
Unless someone literally told the author that apostasy is an “infectious disease,” this is loaded metaphor presented as psychological description. RSSB teachings may warn about worldly influences or association affecting spiritual practice—a common idea in many religions—but converting that into followers believing unbelief is an “infectious disease” makes the belief sound considerably more bizarre than it actually is.
“They deliberately gloss over the reality and shower you with warmth (lovebomb).”
“Love bombing” is a specialized and highly charged description associated with manipulative recruitment. Ordinary friendliness toward newcomers doesn’t establish love bombing. To substantiate this, the writer would need evidence that warmth is strategically deployed to create emotional dependency and facilitate recruitment or control. Without that evidence, the parenthetical label transforms an interpretation into an apparent fact.
“Failure to achieve this results in community policing/surveillance… (spiritual abuse)… guilted, shamed, bullied or even shouted at (emotional and verbal abuse).”
Notice the rhetorical technique here. Almost every negative interaction is assigned a clinical or quasi-clinical label: policing, surveillance, spiritual abuse, conditional acceptance, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, coercion. Some individual incidents could absolutely deserve those descriptions. But the label isn’t evidence. The author would need specific incidents, frequency, perpetrators, institutional authorization and evidence that these practices are representative before applying them to RSSB as a whole.
“RSSB comes across as a cult really, at worst. Or at best, a high control spiritual abuse path.”
This is the culmination of the essay’s rhetorical escalation. The alternatives have been artificially narrowed to “cult” or “high-control spiritual abuse.” There are numerous other possible descriptions: demanding religion, guru-centered movement, ascetic mystical tradition, high-commitment religious organization, conservative spiritual community, or—in an individual’s experience—an unhealthy religious environment. Whether RSSB deserves the stronger classifications requires criteria and comparative evidence, not simply accumulating emotionally powerful terminology.
The deeper problem with the essay
There is a legitimate critical essay buried inside this one. Anon could make a serious argument about religious guilt, demanding initiation vows, fear surrounding karma and rebirth, guru authority, social conformity, family pressure, and the psychological difficulty some people experience when abandoning a lifelong worldview. Those are all fair subjects for criticism.
But the essay weakens itself through a recurring logical progression:
My experience → some RSSB members behaved this way → RSSB members behave this way → RSSB itself requires this behavior → therefore RSSB is coercive control/spiritual abuse.
Those propositions aren’t equivalent.
The writer also repeatedly uses universal quantifiers—“nobody,” “always,” “all,” “nothing,” “you must,” “you can never,” “they don’t let you,” “100%,” “constantly”—where much narrower language would probably be defensible.
There is another interesting internal contradiction. The author repeatedly emphasizes that RSSB is “ALL OR NOTHING”, yet later says that during attempts to retain them they were allegedly offered “easier rules quietly hush hush.” If exceptions and relaxed enforcement actually occur, that itself undermines the earlier proposition that RSSB invariably demands “100% total compliance.”
Most importantly, personal testimony should be respected as personal testimony without automatically treating it as sociological evidence. “I felt controlled,” “people shouted at me,” “I experienced pressure when I tried to leave,” and “my RSSB community shunned me” could all be completely true. But they do not establish that RSSB prevents people from leaving, that RSSB requires community surveillance, or that RSSB followers invariably shun former members.
So I wouldn’t dismiss Anon’s account. I would distinguish between credible testimony about Anon’s experience and extraordinarily broad claims about an entire religious movement. Ironically, stripping away the hyperbole would make the criticism considerably stronger.”
But ALL-OR-NOTHING is literally the tagline from the older satsangs. Nowadays to keep up to mass appeal, they’ve changed the teachings. Before in satsangs they said that not a second should be of worldy thought, every thought must be of the master. They even forbade you from keeping the company of manmukhs, you shouldn’t even meet with non-veg people etc etc.
So again, Anon does not exaggerate.
Every RSSB Master has taught that the vows are not always easy, and that falls do happen. This is never an issue but actually is the path: “A child will fall when they learn to walk and when they learn to run. It’s normal.”
Never has any RSSB saint forbade anyone’s company. Any Satsangi can go anywhere and have anyone’s company, and become a better person for it, and be helpful to anyone, living within the four vows. We should seek good company to encourage us. To help us become stronger in the path. But as Maharaji said, we take Sant Mat with us and can become a good influence, more helpful company anywhere with anyone, when we are grounded in Shabd.
Hazur Charan Singh used to say if you sit with alcoholics, you will become an alcoholic. If you sit with god loving people who follow the RS path then you will remain righteous. A stone left in the sun is not protected but a stone under water is. We should attend satsang regularly and seek out the company of the gurus followers.
This is from the Punjabi satsangs and I’m sure the recordings are still around, it was a very common saying.
It isn’t forbidden but there is social pressure to prioritize satsangi company rather than non-satsangi company for our own spiritual welfare.
I personally don’t believe this, I am just sharing what I remember hearing during satsang
“A child will fall when they learn to walk and when they learn to run. It’s normal.”
Maharaj Charan Singh Ji
BINGO! I got 8 from “dontexaggerate’s” comment. What did you guys get?
Imagine having to listen to the first comment in person, and also listening to all of Spence Tepper’s comments in person.
I think Anon made some valid points😁
Tej, when you see us all as the same, struggling souls, including yourself, then blame will evaporate all on its own and forgiveness itself will not even be necessary. As Baba Ji said years ago to a satsangi in tears begging for forgiveness for having committed sin that hurt others, “Have you learned?…Yes? …If you have learned, then there is no need even for forgiveness. It never happened.”
So the people on Epstein’s island can potentially learn and don’t need to be forgiven? People who committed mass murder? People who embezzle money from pharmaceutical companies?
Hi Jessie:
This is a great question, if rhetorical. Two answers.
The first answer is as I wrote. It’s not about Epstein or anyone else. It’s not even about the Master. It’s not about any criminal you may point to. It’s about the finger that is wasting time pointing, and the mind feeding a grudge attending to people at their worst. It’s not a good use of time. And having those characters in your personal mind space is just drinking poison.
It’s about us. It’s about how we ourselves work free of what binds us psychologically without wasting time displacing our own guilt and shame by blaming others we will never actually know or speak with.
For those who have personally violated your space, who put your safety at risk, do what you must to protect yourself. But don’t operate under any illusion that you are different from them. Make their behavior a cautionary tale to watch your own, even as you act to protect yourself from their influence, even when that requires legal action.
There is never any excuse to blame anyone. It is just a pure waste of time.
But we all must be personally responsible, and by letting go of grudges, we can do that.
Epstein had serious issues with young women. It wasn’t love. It was hate.
We should learn from that.
When Musk chose to end the lives of 700,000 children and as many adults, that wasn’t love. It was hate.
Don’t support it of course. But leave it behind. Nothing you or I can do about that.
When you examine your own behavior find where you have supported hate, and withdraw your support. Vote with your own behavior.
Unfortunately a grudge, however well justified, only binds you and has no effect on that evil you are focused on.
Second answer. You asked “So the people on Epstein’s island can potentially learn?”
It’s inevitable. If you and I can learn, so can he. Do we learn from punishment? Some believe so, but I don’t agree.
Punishment gets our attention. But so does paying attention.
Learning comes from becoming aware, and in the influence of that information, we become reconditioned, we change.
Gravity takes hold at some point. But again, it’s not about Epstein. The real question is can you and I learn? Can we learn and grow beyond these bonds we are held by?
You don’t want to be judged, Jessie, no one does, because we are all wanting in one way or another. If you can forgive yourself, that is the foundation. But if you can’t then of course, you won’t be able to forgive anyone else. But progress begins when we leave everyone else behind.
The victim must at some point face this basic fact: The perpetrator can do nothing to help you. That must come from within you.
Forgiveness is not freedom from consequence. It is detaching yourself from them and attaching yourself to something greater within you.
Blame is not permitted in Sant Mat.
RSSB is not Scientology. I just told the Sangat that I have never been able to do the 2 and one half hour meditation. That Basically I was a total failure of a Satsangi. That felt good to verbalize in the Dutch Satsangi center. Drove 40 minutes to deliver my confessions and was not even offered a cup of coffee.
Good news, I fell back to my Christian roots, Jesus forgives my sins of failure. The Catholic Church offers coffee all the time.
Must say, I am blessed to be raised in a wealthy western society.
No hard feelings toward RSSB thanks to over 20 years of psychoanalysis with a psychiatrist.
Why did you went to confess?
Did your psychiatrist advised you?
Enjoy your stay in the church as long as it takes as there are hardly any church open and to confess proudly that you have taken up catholicism. Will not bring a lot of applause these days in the Netherlands.
The lately closed the trappist monastery in Zunderd … just think what that means … it was not just “any” monastery
Anyway Martin…enjoy your coffee where ever you can get it
20 years anysis must have cost you or the community between 330.000 and 540.000 euro
That are a lot of cups of coffee
The psychiatrist was great. We talked about RSSB very, very little. Charon Singh, when asked by me, said he was not worthy to be the dust at Jesus feet. I read where atomic and subatomic physicists will go to church each week just to connect to world they live in. The Catholic Church I attend is a 10 minute walk from my house. The do a 90 minute Latin High Mass. Beautifully choreographed over 2,000 years into spiritual set piece to settle into once a week.
Plus coffee! Gurinda forbad coffee or tea after Satsang decades ago.
The psychiatrist was great. We talked about RSSB very, very little. Charon Singh, when asked by me, said he was not worthy to be the dust at Jesus feet. I read where atomic and subatomic physicists will go to church each week just to connect to the world they live in. The Catholic Church I attend is a 10 minute walk from my house. They do a 90 minute Latin High Mass. Beautifully choreographed over 2,000 years into a spiritual set piece to settle the mind into once a week.
Plus coffee! Gurinda forbad coffee or tea after Satsang decades ago.
Your words made me sit down and reflect on my experience with the church the clergy and the believers of sorts.
These days i do slip now and than into a church and enjoy the cool an calm atmosphere
If necessary I know how the behave during a ceremony but to my surprise what was once appreciated as meaningful religious opera does appear to me as an over the top modern musical …what I still like is Gregory’s singing.
Anyway, religion has lost its meaning value and appeal for me.
Reading the biography of Karen Armstrong made me understand many things of Christianity, its organization…and …the psychological, social and cultural aspects of catholic church
Martin
There was no reason to offer you sympathy or forgiveness.
Everyonre struggles. The first year students struggle with the basics.
But even the advanced students struggle. Swami Ji wrote of the inner stages, including the great voids to be crossed, because everyone struggles at every stage. It’s a huge school and the graduate students are working the problem at their stage just as the beginning. It is entirely noble to struggle. Even giving up has no shame. It’s just a stop. Every day everyone is trying to take their next step in whatever way they understand.
Very normal. You will struggle with onr thing or another, no escape there. You can struggle in your psychiatrist’s office too. It’s all doing the work. You can struggle with your friends or with your boss.
But the meditation is the easiest and most effective way. To conquer ourselves is noble, but can be every messy. Meditation is the direct route, the compassionate route.
It can just take a couple of lifetimes to get there to the meditation. But at least you know about it. It’s all part of the process. Everyone on the path is moving forward. And there are struggles along the way. And falls. And we get back up.
All normal. Nothing to confess.
Even those who are working within are dealing with setbacks.
First and foremost, Anon has not distinguished the four vows, the only rules which are required for initiation, from the other attributed rules he lists. This draws into question the veracity of his comments and status as an initiate.
We have discussed before that family members, colleagues, employers, friends and acquaintances in every culture can apply pressure to force you to do anything they want, which they may believe or tell themselves is for your own good.
In exact opposite to what Anon writes, the path of Sant Mat sets you free of these influences through the practice of meditation. Meditation establishes an internal focus and platform for your identity, not the outward attachments to people, places and things.
In this way we become better family members, better employees, better friends, better organization members for one simple reason: We have a stronger identity within, than the identify dependent upon these other people, and therefore we can listen objectively, compassionately, set better boundaries, and be more genuinely helpful without our own ulterior motives.
Real compassion, understanding and selfless service only begins when one is detached from the things Anon complains about.
To get there, we do our practice diligently.
All the influences Anon complains about are inherant in people who need other people to behave in this way or that. That can be found everywhere, and we ourselves are guilty of it to the extent we do not understand ourselves, both our faults and strengths.
Meditation, particularly spiritual meditation, is designed to help us overcome those influences.
Again, Anon makes a boogeyman out of their own inability to set good limits. Self reliance can solve that problem, if you are in touch with your true self.
And if not, the whole world is your cult.
The answer? Go within. Get your own home in order, with the help of a good friend.
People may say it’s not a requirement to attend satsang, but I heard a country representative say a few years ago ‘we should attend satsang, at least once a week ‘.
It is heavily encouraged.
sm68
Encouraging you to eat healthy, to exercise, to avoid harmful foods, to avoid toxic people, all of these things are what people do to encourage each other, and actually, to encourage themselves to act with a little discipline.
What would you expect? No encouragement?
But there is no blame or shame if you don’t. That is the significant issue. What Anon is speaking about is inhaling the emotions and reactions of other people. The path is specifically designed to insulate us from all that.
Because everyone is moving on the path. It’s a path, we haven’t arrived yet, we carry our issues with us. So to attend Satsang and receive the grace, the light, the love of Master is to go to a place that also has other people, each in their own way dealing with their own issues.
If you attend to those issues, aren’t you also being drawn to those things that you yourself have a vulnurability to? And may share some guilt for as well?
So, that’s OK, if that is like a coach, placing a tiny amount of resistance so you can work against that. That isn’t by rejecting the gymnasium. It’s by learning to lift weights appropriate to your condition. And that is setting good, healthy boundaries.
When my son was little there were times I wanted him to try this food, or do this activity, and at some point he would just go quiet. He was taking all that onto himself. When I saw it I felt very ashamed. But I also knew my intentions were good, and I needed to teach him how to say “no thank you,” without having to make any explanations.
So, I came up with this phrase, which I give to you and all the world, here today.
“Thank you, but it’s not my cup of tea.”
I delighted in this six year old boy when he would say quietly, “Thank you daddy, but it’s not my cup of tea.”
That’s all he needed to say, and now, at the age of 31, it comes to him easily. Setting limits comes easily. Still, there are things in the life of a young man on the austism spectrum, there are still communication challenges, still taking on other’s baggage unnecessarily. We talk about it and it comes to the same thing, it’s only presented for him to set the boundary: “No thanks. It’s not my cup of tea.”
A good coach, a good therapist can help you, too. There are all kinds of reasons we don’t set good boundaries. The most significant is that we are entirely unaware when a “cross me not” line has been crossed. We become aware after the fact, and then resent it. We resent that we must speak up when we prefer blissful non-existence.
But we are here, we have a role to play, and a persona and ego that is absolutely necessary to function. We can keep all that at a functional level recognizing that we have our own “cross me not” lines. And once you respect this simple fact, that you have them, and that even you can’t negotiate with them, they are part of you, then you get very comfortable establishing them. No, you are not unlimited. No you cannot please everyone, nor should you. But you can love everyone, and yourself first and foremost.
Because no one knows your lines. You need to set them up in the gentlest way possible, and especially when other people are involved.
So, there. I’ve given you advice. Don’t take it personally. Take what fits, leave the rest.
You become whole, not by pleasing me, not by rejecting me. I have nothing to do with your happiness. It’s in you. You become whole by living securely in the knowledge that you can and do set good limits, good boundaries that give you the freedom to explore yourself within and within the worlds, inside and outside.
Anon will take many years to learn this. And in the meantime they may inadevertently cross many lines of other innocent people. That’s how it works when we aren’t in touch with our true selves.
And that’s where meditation can help. It’s a part of life, but you still must do your part.
“Go within”…. BINGO!
When we see people hold tightly to a grudge, double down on a grudge, over a period of time some strange things happen. First, instead of getting over the grudge it becomes more exaggerated, until the target of blame becomes worse and worse, bigger and bigger, acquiring even darker negative qualities. And we see the need to constantly refer to that target of blame for more and more of our own issues.
This boogeyman replaces all shred of introspection and personal responsibility. In time our ability to see things as they are is corrupted, and we no longer attend to and amend our own errors of judgment.
And among a group, this target becomes a catharsis for things we should never abandon: Our own personal responsibility to see ourselves and others as we really are; our capacity to forgive ourselves and others becomes impossible when our identity now relies upon this enemy we ourselves have largely invented.
Our character, our ethic, our judgement are lost in this form of mental illness, which is the source of bigotry the world over, over time.
And this is why blame or any kind is not permitted in Sant Mat.
Within, in the Word of God that made and sustainable all things, there is zero blame. All life, what you might call good, or bad, both and all shades in between, are sacred expressions of life, as seen from within.
Anon and Brian and everyone are sacred expressions each in their own way. But this is seen from an entirely different place, beyond, when all the qualities, even Vivek, are obsolete. Let’s meet there.
I’ll bet if EVERY initiated Ex , as well as present “so called” Satsangi confessed, they would confess they have NEVER kept all of the Vows they promised to keep for life,…..at least those promised during Charan Singh’s Regime. I don’t know if Gurinder’s regime loosened up on any, especially rennet in cheese, egg whites in cakes, bakeries, etc. alcohol in medicines like cough syrup, etc. Living out side of the , in the real world, other than becoming a hermit or recluse, is impossible to live such a restricted isolated life for any length of time.
I believe the main reason older people get initiated, as I did at age 45, was to TEST the validities , to see the Light, Sun, Moon and Star , doing meditation of Surat Shabd Yoga. But achieving any , or all of those signs, including hearing the Bell 24/7, doesn’t promise Salvation in some , or any, Heaven, as the Christian Bible promises to the Marked Elect, who invite Christ in to their hearts, and for Him to take over their lives, as I did at age 35, 10 years before being initiated in to Sant Mat. It was CHRIST , not Charan Singh, Who delivered me from Alcohol, tobbacco , and cleansed me instantly , of my sins, and filled me with His Holy Spirit. Christ has never deserted me, to this day, and the Bible is loaded with reinforcement , to Christians who really take the promises for real, such as Jesus Christ being “ The Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever” standing on the right hand of our Father, as our Mediator, forever, making intercession for we who believe in Him!
I mentioned here, before, how Physicists say there is no Time or Space out side of the material physical realms. So to we who believe that Christ was crucified for the Marked Elect, ONCE, in our place, in the physical realms, then, was resurrected back to the Spiritual Heaven where his, OUR Father resides, in Timeless, Spaceless Heaven,…..then, Christ finished His Work , that never needs to be done again, and He told us, Believers that He is the Way, Truth. And Life, and that NO ONE could EVER come to The Father. except through Him!
So, to any still here who have missed the last opportunity of Salvation, than you still have time while still here in the physical.
Invite Christ in to your hearts and lives, and secure your Reservation in Heaven with Him! Don’t wait. Do it now!
The Bible records, TODAY, IS THE DAY, OF SALVATION, , to those who will believe.
@ mr. Sutherland
By now my point of view is that nobody needs to believe in anything religious.
Those that do not have to deal with spontaneous and natural accuring inner experiences, like mrs Yolanda Duran Serrano, are all “born” into an “socio cultural” religion.
Whatever value an meaning they attribute is aq matter of conditioning.
As long as it comforts them and not otherwise harmful it is psychological Allright…it does not matter whether true or not.
Matters of believe, related to society and culture are difficult to part of as they bind a person to his culture like an umbilical cord to the mother.
This is not a matter of un- belief … it is a matter of ….FREE FROM belief
You see Mr. Sutherland I was born and raised in a time that counseling started to make its advent in society … if one was not mentally ill the church was the place to go .. and I did.
I was surrounded by people that advertised their faith on God and Jesus .
So I did what they did to make ” Jesus come into their lives ” …without success.
When complaining to “experts” the priest they without exception with that typical smile on their face gave to understand that something was wrong with me.
It took quite some time before in inner voice made it clear to me ..enough is enough .. let us bring it to an end … I went to church and told God look people all know how to contact you, I have flowed their advice, …now having come to your house, I will wait here 5 minutes and if you do not react in any capacity it will be the last time.
That very moment the “church” the house of God turned into a building of bricks and mortar.
It took quite some time to let go mentally from all the fears associated with religion but it happened.
It has been one of the best things I did in life in order to restore natural freedom…humans birthright.
I am not suggesting that anything is wrong with religion etc let alone telling people to do what I did.
” the way things are going , they’re gonna crucify ME ! ” John Lennon
Um,…True Belief , backed up by real experiences, not by traditional up bringing, is what separates the wheat from the chaff, as mentioned in the Bible.
If I recall, years ago, while commenting on a different forum, under another ID, I seem to remember when your Wife passed away, as mine recently did. I truly hope to meet my Wife again in Heaven, do you? If you don’t, it becomes very sad to live alone, with out any hope of every reconnecting with the souls of those who you once loved, but have now passed away, to some where you don’t have access to, …….until you also transition from your temporary physical container, on loan from The Lord, to your Eternal Spiritual Container, reserved for you to reunite once more with those who love you.
@ mr. Sutherland
One year after she passed away, out of curiosity I went to a rematorium were they organize yearly an in memoriam event in November.
Very well organized and many that took part.
Sitting in von ersation room gazing around a hostess came so sit next to me and started to talk who I lost …after aa while, looking me on the eyes she asked me ” do you miss her”?.
After a moment of silence and researching her eyes, I said ..”no … I don’t “.
After some silence studying once eyes she asked me whether it made me sad and again I answered ” no I do not”
than she stared long into my eyes to find if there was truth in my words … both of us realizing that our conversation was not that normal to be found. Satisfied with what she observed finally stated … than you must think it is a cruel experience … I smiled and said ..
Yes .. cruel …is a good word, I did not use it before.
You see when she passed away the flings I had for her remained where they always had never … they were not cremated with her body.
Love has many forms and if somebody feels I have none of it I can understand and feel not offended.
No, I have never had a longing for anybody to see again, in this life or a possible hereafter,.. once the cord is broken it is broken.
The CHURCH is the Bide of Christ, who are His people, not brick and mortar buildings. . Charan Singh said the same. Make your own body your Dera.
Mr. Sutherland
It is quite simple .. although it took me many years to understand digest a simple truth:
I … for reasons I do not know and need not to know, have never been able to realize, experience anything feligioud people I met in this world talked about
I have come to see it for what it is .. a simple fact of life.
Nobody and nothing to blame.
The born blind must live the life of the blind
Um, I can’t change how you feel. But I feel completely feel different. Ironically, not planned by me, my Wife’s Ashes and URN were interred in our Cemetery plot on the actual date of our original Marriage Anniversary. We had a wonderful , life fulfilling marriage, and were allowed to travel the world together, on 27 different cruises, and visiting 75 different countries, the 7 years before she started getting sick. But the cancer diagnoses on my daughter’s birthday, June 12th, shocked us all, and she passed away less than a month later, on July 11th! We were unprepared for such a shock, as most people would not have been.
Hi Jim!
July 11th was just yesterday. Just a few hours ago. Just a few seconds ago. I’m so sorry for your loss. Faith in Christ is a very solid foundation. If you find Christ to be your true Master, your solace, go with that. You cannot go wrong. He plans the timeline, the events. Even the Bible is just a placeholder to bring us to that moment within whenever He wants us to be there.
You have been shocked, but clearly not shaken. And that’s a good thing.
Who else will lead you through grief, but the One whom you can rely upon within at any hour of the day or night?
It doesn’t matter who that is for me, or anyone else. All that matters is whom that is for you, and your work and loyalty in spending time with them. And that of course leads right back to your dear wife, who may have left, but never died, Jim. She will be there for you as long as you need her to, until you can both leave together.
Mr. Sutherland
Why would you even feel the need to change my feelings … I am not complaining about my fate nor jealous towards others.
@ mr Sutherland
Sometimes, these days only now and then it so happens that in a conversation I have to explain something in this way:
When humans die they have to present themselves before a court and the magistrate will say:
We gave you everything humans like, good health goof fortune etc etc now tell us what you have done with it.
To another we will say:
We gave you e ery misery we could think of poverty illness etc etc now tell us what ha e you done with it.
Why?
Well it is a means of explaining that every humanbeong can live an successful life.
Place Santa in your hearts 🥰
This is not what RSSB is asking to follow; it’s about what their Gurus are teaching and what they are doing:
1. Big scams
2. Real estate scams
3. Money laundering
4. Government land grabbing
5. Avoiding court
6. Changing statements
7. Changing previous Gurus’ book writings
8. Using people’s money to settle sons abroad
9. In the name of Charity, making own houses on charity lands
10. More organised than a religion and criticising religion for being organised
11. Involvement with Drug Mafia
12. Involvement with Political parties behind the door
13. Using celebrities to promote ideology
14. Beating people in the name of taking pictures while doing photo sessions himself
15. Bringing family members as a new Baba while ignoring long-term, hard-working so-called sevadars (keeping business in the family)
16. Claiming to be Santmat while not following the simple lifestyle of those saints
There are lots of points which can prove this organisation is a big CULT, so getting out from it will be good luck… Get a normal life instead of wasting it with this CULT.
Not a good news for GSD
Recent development on 31st August
Delhi HC orders forensic audit of Fortis, IHH and RHT transactions in $4.6-billion Daiichi-Singh case
Does the new audit put Gurinder personally at risk?
Potentially, yes—but indirectly at this stage.
The auditor is supposed to establish:
where the ₹4,666 crore transferred to RHT went;
who ultimately benefited from subsequent transactions;
the relationship between RHT and the Singh brothers;
whether transactions contributed to reducing assets available to satisfy Daiichi’s award;
the role of the various individuals/entities involved.
I just Pray GSD stay alive until getting the judgement of this case and see Jail with his sons ( Possibility is rare though due to his political connections)
https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/delhi-hc-orders-forensic-audit-of-fortis-ihh-and-rht-transactions-in-daiichi-singh-case/amp_articleshow/133643629.cms?utm_source=chatgpt.com