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: my bottom line
I’ve written many emails here which Brian has amazingly honoured, read, and posted. I am so grateful for this. It was Brian’s idea to make these blog posts. I’m also stunned and humbled Brian put together an archive of these. I never thought anyone would pay much attention. A lot of people read these and commented and allegedly shared these. Many even came forward with their own experiences.
I just had some thoughts I put down and wanted to get them out there. I wanted people to read them, see if I was the only one thinking and realising this, maybe let people know they weren’t alone if they did, and shine a different perspective on a path which never allowed anything different to be said, ever – even if it felt glaringly obvious at times.
People have said I’ve analysed and dissected things, and very well – even if they disagree – which means a lot. I like it when people disagree – because RSSB forbids this – and I do not want to be like RSSB anymore.
I am just glad you read this at all. A lifetime of obedience, subservience and devotion was suffocating – and I am grateful to be heard.
(There are a few people who have come forward and shared deeply personal and painful experiences – I have responded to them – because I felt it was the right thing to do).
(I also want to shout out the commenter whoever came up with creative one-liners like “Epstein baba of beas” along with ones like “fraud fake baba” and “clown gurinder and his donkey jasdeep”. This lives in my head forever and made me laugh!)
This is more of a personal one though.
There are many people who live and breathe RSSB, really love RSSB, or who kinda like it in some ways, or are lukewarm and don’t mind it theoretically.
I am not one of those people.
RSSB ruined my life. It was a total time-waste and was torture at times, looking back.
It ultimately ruined me in many ways. I spent a lot of time undoing the damage as a result of life in RSSB. In some ways I still am undoing the damage. I didn’t even realise how deep the damage went, until I left – fully.
I will not return nor will I change my mind about this or say anything different. I will not apologise for it – that is all a consequence of the experience I had.
My bottom line is this. I don’t think it needs to be this hard, complicated or a struggle. I don’t see that as an invitation to try harder.
I also believe I have the right to talk to God directly – in prayer. I can connect to my maker who made me and everything and everyone else. RSSB discourages this, doesn’t mention prayer, and states the guru is the only way to God. I will never allow anyone to come inbetween me and God ever again. You are in the way.
My bottom line is this. It felt like a damn unpaid internship and I was done.
I can’t love the master – because I am not capable of loving someone I barely know and spoke to maybe a few times. That isn’t the personal relationship they speak of and visualising him when you sit down and meditate isn’t one either.
I can’t dedicate my life to something that is so difficult it becomes all-consuming and sucks out all the enjoyment of my life.
I can’t sacrifice today for tomorrow – it isn’t guaranteed.
If it feels heavy, honestly, get out. It shouldn’t need to be, and life is hard enough, and you’re good enough as you are.
Anon
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@ Anon
What you wrote after “My bottom line is …” is the one thing that matters.
You can’t love, dedicate, sacrifice.
Now the question arises:
“Were you ever able to so to anything”?
“What outside yourself is needed to do so”?
“If it could be found would you?
You are not alone. People might digest and express them differently but there are many like you.
The real problem is that nobody will find rest as long as they search for understanding, solution, peace etc etc ….OUTSIDE …themselves.
Behavior lal wrote a book by the title:
“The way out, is on”
THAT … Is not only a spiritual truth … but also …. a PSYCHOLOGICAL.
And … yes… it is complicated, frustrating and God knows what …. and … there is no solution to it but to live with it in the here and now and not search .
Here’s a short YouTube reel on prayer, from Osho’s perspective;
https://youtube.com/shorts/-qzCS2vboRU?si=MRM1hNdkPz_Ou9l_
Enjoy☺️🙏✨
Praying for what?!
To be …
SEEN ???
HEARD????
In order to ….???
If one delfs into the narrative one could simple conclude that … God is not there for anybody and anybidies needs .
In fact all religions state the same that they are there for the worship of God and in doing so they will be happy in this life and the there after.
YET…
Most if not all do want something from God.
They want to be loved by God.
So true 😂. You have to admire his bravery that donkey Dhillon doesn’t have.
@Anon
One of the, by now famous, people that could not love, dedicate and sacrifice, her self is,
Mrs. Karen Armstrong.
Beside many books on religion she wrote two biographical books:
” Through the narrow gate” 1981
“The spiral staircase” 2003
In the first books she writes about her “calling” to dedicate her life to God, her live on the nunnery, her inner struggles and her leaving the nunnery.
In the second book, she takes the reader through her experiences trying to find purpose and meaning in life.
As by product, so to say, she also shets some light on the monastic live, how the different nuns dealt with it how some were forced to leave and how others found peace. She tells also about the changes in the nunneries.
Anon, I appreciate all of your posts. I think you articulate what some ? many?? are experiencing but don’t express outwardly.
I was initiated by a representative of MCS in 1973 and got to spend 3 months at the Dera in 1976. Have not been back since, not that I didn’t want to go but I was teaching and generally too exhausted to go during the two weeks of Christmas vacation or the week of Easter break that we would have off. Although there were people there during my 3-month stay that had just come for a week and left very happy. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and had it not been for that experience I probably would have drifted away and on to other things, drugs, alcohol, who knows?
I still attempt to meditate and think that it’s the only way to verify that there is another realm of existence accessible through the inner workings of the human body. I have no idea what any of these other people who post on here have gone through other than what they put down on paper but I don’t necessarily believe any of it unless I can verify it, and how can you verify something that is not your own personal experience? Kudos to them if they’re having all these inner experiences, only they would know. There was an old TV ad back in the day for hair coloring for women, “Only her hairdresser knows for sure”. In terms of inner experiences not even your hairdresser would know, it’s just “you” and “you” is hard to fool.
I don’t go to any of the rssb functions anymore and have been pretty much turned off by all of the things mentioned here again and again that would make a person tend to shy away. I don’t know if it is a cult or a religion or a pseudo religion or call it what you will but all you have to judge is your own personal experience. I do know that you can walk away from all of the outer trappings and just try to do the meditation, or any type of meditation, or prayer, although I was never very big on that, to see if there is anything within. I have no experience of anything within or hearing any sound or having any type of confirmation of the signposts along the way that MCS mentioned that you will see in his analogy of traveling from the Dera to Delhi. My little toe has never even gone numb to indicate withdrawal of the soul currents if there is a soul. Haven’t verified that yet.
I started off doing TM when I was in college and even met the Maharishi at a training course. Also tried the SRF correspondence course and the Temple of Kriya Yoga in Chicago all back before I was initiated into Sant Mat. Never had any indication of anything going on inside. So kudos to all of these folks who claim to have inner experiences, maybe it’s true, maybe they’re just trying to impress us, but it hasn’t happened to me. You close your eyes and you have to deal with what’s inside is the bottom line. I guess I’ll know when I die, which is coming up in the not too distant future relatively speaking. I don’t regret the 53 years I’ve spent attempting to verify all of the claims of rssb. Sometimes I regret getting involved when I think about reading The Path of the Masters and now viewing it as sort of a bait and switch situation. It seemed completely logical and a good idea at the time as they say but looking back…..What I don’t like is the direction things have taken since MCS left. But that’s just me, lots of other folks are quite into it and good for them. Not my cup of tea lately.
If you want to call it science of the soul then lay out some scientific techniques for verifying, trust but verify as they say, but I guess the only verification is what you yourself can experience through your own efforts. Unless you have some results yourself it’s just second-hand information and stories from books and other people.
Back when I started some of the more “famous” Representatives from different countries would travel around and give fascinating satsangs with lots of personal stories and experiences which made everything you read and heard about seem quite possible. Those days are gone and so is the old Dera of the 70’s when I was there. Time marches on and there is no escape except possibly through an inner portal. Still hunting for that.
I definitely enjoy all of your posts and enjoy reading the comments about them.
And no, this is not my real name, if anyone enjoys fantasy look him up. One of my fictional heroes who was able to travel to other realms of existence by concentrating within.
You are right!
Many go through or have gone through the same ….
But …
Not all do so in the same way.
The more one projects on everything outside the stronger, the more, the longer the …chains of attachment … the harder to cut through.
Attachment is over come where it was born
INSIDE
As I’ve always said on this blog my problem is not with the followers of rssb, it’s with the head of rssb. And not both heads, just that donkey Dhillon. The followers are good seeking good-hearted vegetarians who just want to believe what rssb says is true. They aren’t expecting a free meal like I was from just being the master. Simran is prayer.
The fact that he walks around like Edward G Robertson and instead of being a tough guy like he thinks he is he was the one weak link, so weak that he had to shore it up with appointing another key figure before even died. Because his death is meaningless just like his life was.
When it all comes out in the mix you might say Gurinder Singh is a brilliant actor and I’m a brilliant musician . Jasdeep might be the only brilliant saint. Who knows…. He’s certainly dead while living! B o r I n g
If there is anything that is worth to find out than it is ….MOTIVATION
WHAT was the motivation to ask for initiation, and to mentor react later, be it positive or negative.
Humans … ATTRIBUTE …meaning and value.
There it all starts…
There it all ends .
Focusing on the organisation, the narrative and all people involved in the narrative, is a waste of time.
We did not start out to “play with people” … we all came for our PERSONAL reasons.
THERE…And nowhere else are the answers to be found ….IF ….any are to be found
No grudge will do.
If anything
It harms the one that has it.
How do I know?
By personal experience!
Our parents lost a long lasting legal case before the courts about the right to rent the building where they ran their business.
When the economic a and local political motivated verdict was received … our father never spoke about it again, knowing he had done all … HE …could do….but … our mother went on and on to complain about the injustice done to our family … and in doing so SHE made her own life and those around her more miserable than was needed
If you’re still looking for some cosmic answer or God on the internet. Or some experience that you think is spiritual from electricity then study Ben Franklin don’t study Sant Mat. I promise you the one time that you won’t have any inner experiences is when you close your eyes expecting them. Or the many times , depending on who you are. Darkness is the most common inner experience but the great one of Death everyone gets eventually so I don’t mourn much. That’s like feeling sorry for yourself.
God will never ban you from his blog. The Big blog in the sky.
Commercial electricity billing officially began in January 1883, shortly after Thomas Edison launched the world’s first commercial central power plant.
• The Launch (September 1882): Edison’s Pearl Street Station in lower Manhattan opened on September 4, 1882, providing direct-current (DC) electricity to an initial group of around 59 to 85 customers.
You’ve got to be out of your mind if you think I’m going to wait for oil to rise through water.
Though I don’t share Anon’s present appraisal of RSSB, I’d be a hypocrite if I said I never felt as he did. Long ago, I was very bitter about my involvement in a (not RSSB) Sant Mat group.
I felt I’d been lied to. Not lied to about the general theology of Sant Mat, but lied to by the guru as to his claims of spiritual authority. You see, for years I’d venerated this person above everyone in the world. Coming to grips with the fact that he was an inveterate liar, well, it stung like a bitch.
That sting was multifaceted. Part of my resentment was at the guru, but part of it was also directed at the guru’s followers. My former close friends, indeed, my brothers and sisters in that path. My guru had let me down, and I felt they’d let me down as well. Losing the guru wasn’t just a loss of my spiritual belief system. It was a loss of my deep social ties.
And though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was also very angry at myself. Yes, part of me could claim I was the victim of a con. But I couldn’t escape the fact that I’d chosen this con of my free will. And quite frankly, I’d been in love with this religion. I spent years absolutely convinced I was on the Highest Path to God.
When I left the path, it was like multiple and very integral parts of my life had been ripped away. My natural reaction was to seek a way to compensate for this loss.
For years, my way of compensation was to critique this religion. This gave me a certain emotional payoff. I also taught me much about human psychology and how to debate with religious apologists. But eventually, critiquing religion got to be a hollow, even toxic, exercise.
But again, I understand why people do it.
Some time ago I was on an ex-Hare Krishna group. I shared with them some of my encounters with the Krishnas going back to when I was 14, and was cornered by one of them in an airport. I was never deeply involved with the Hare Krishna (ISKCON) movement, but many in this group had been. Some of them had spent decades living in HK temples as unpaid servants. When their bubble of belief popped, these guys were truly bitter. And who can blame them? They found themselves in their 40s with no skills and no money, having given their all to the movement but left with nothing.
They had just cause for feeling bitter, but I tried to share with them what I had found for myself: That taking full responsibility for my choice in joining my religion — with all its faults, including its fake guru — had been what had given me
TRUE CLOSURE.
I tried to explain to them how critiquing is only of limited benefit for the bitter exer. And that there must come a time to face WHY I had chosen my particular religious group. And that critiquing my motivations pays off much more richly than hammering away at a religion’s faults.
They didn’t buy it, and no doubt neither will you. Not now anyway. But someday you might get what I’m talking about.
Thumbs up sant 64 .!
Maybe you are Malvinder Singh or Shivinder Singh. I forget which one was promised the guruship. Now some distant cousin copped it . Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh could still be in Gurinder’s last will and testament too. I ain’t greedy. I don’t need to pray because I’ve already been blessed with low social standing, poverty and disease. The three things a real satsangi wishes for.
It sounds like Anon is trying to move on, but feels some importance to chronicling his views on RSSB and in general Sant Mat, and possibly all devotional religious practice.
Not once did we read Anon saying “This is my opinion. It is laced with the emotions and reactions that I have felt after all I’ve been through. Take it for what it is. It’s me. And me is much happier today…” etc.
That would suggest some real progress.
But whenever we must pass judgement on a person we know little personally, or a whole group of people, or a whole system of belief, then that isn’t scholarly at all. It’s the basis of prejudice and bigotry. And we see the grudge, the unresolved emotions in these forms of blame.
And Brian and many of those here are living proof that such grudges last for decades. They persist as prejudice, as altered thinking, long past the emotions have gone.
Anon says that in Sant Mat one is not allowed to pray directly to God. Where in Sant Mat does this occur?
God is within you. Some realize that their Master is the Lord for them. He is the answer to a lifetime of prayer to God directly.
But in all instances, whether we see or do not see, any appeal to the Lord within is heard.
Baba Ji frequently says that the need for prayer is in question because the Lord already sees us. He has said “The same lord that has the power to grant your request, certainly has the power to know your heart.”
He encourages us to grow closer to the Lord within, and not to our complaint.
And that is the real answer for Anon to move on, rather than dig himself deeper in his grudge.
Anyone can say “I’m glad you understand what I also went through.”
But that should not be encouragement to make your home there.
You want to leave RSSB. Then you must leave it first and foremost within yourself.
And never look back.
I don’t say you may not rediscover it. But if you should one day, it will not be anything like what you have written or what you claim it to be.
People are another thing. You will discover that people want from you many things that are not reasonable. It is a common condition, because people don’t know you. They know what they think they want.
You will still need to learn to set healthy boundaries. When you don’t the whole world is wrong, and not your friend. What a surprise!
And if you succeed, you will learn the lesson that many who remain lost to themselves do not: Setting healthy boundaries, and mining the power of love within you is a full time job. Zero space for blame, or shame.
If you want to speak to God, make that your sincere objective and pursue it fully, not half-assed, while the other half complains.
No blame permitted in Sant Mat. Not of others, not of yourself. Just pure focus on the power of love within yourself. Find that, go there.
Don’t apologize for being who you are, and don’t ask for one from those you never set boundaries with.
Don’t blame, don’t apologize, don’t shame, don’t be ashamed, focus on the love within you, and build the atmosphere of that love in and around you.
A song
For Brian
And Anon
You said you were hurt
You said they done it to ya
But now I’m alert
And not so certain
‘Cause you went for fame
It was never you was it?
You never pulled back the curtain.
And now you’re back in the game.
Back in the blame game.
Back in the shame game.
It’ s all the same game.
I begged you to get out.
I said, “just walk away”
But you ran right back into the flames.
Back into the game.
Back into the blame game
Back into the shame game.
But it’s really the same game, right?
It’s really the same game.
And the curtain remains.
The curtain you never pulled back remains.