RSSB ABCD: American Born Confused Desi

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.

What follows is an interesting perspective regarding how a culture, in the case Indian, can be viewed quite differently by an older and younger generation — which affects the ability of a religion founded in that culture to continue to appeal to people. Gill refers to Jasdeep Singh Gill, the RSSB guru designate who will eventually succeed the current guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon.

RSSB ABCD 

“AD” commented:

“ABCD: American Born Confused Desi. Desi refers to someone from home country (india). Second generation of immigrants get confused due pressures of old culture and customs, new ideas and values of western society. I think this is what’s happening with RSSB as the world is getting smaller due to globalization. Will be interesting to see how Dr. Gill deals with this.”

This is one of the most insightful comments I’ve seen on here. I was going to comment but it ended up being a post. I agree with what was said, but it goes further. While the commenter refers to Americans I’m using it more broadly to speak of anyone in the Western world (like the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Europe, Aus, NZ).

Here’s a question:

Are Western-born “confused’ if they consciously want to leave RSSB? 

Are they “confused” if they want to adopt Western culture? 

Are they “confused” if they reject Eastern culture (their parents or grandparents culture)?

Are they “confused” if they want to leave an Eastern centuries old spiritual path about guru worship?

It sounds very clear, not confused at all.

THE “ABCD” ASSUMPTION

I think the core issue RSSB has is this – expecting someone born and raised in the West is somehow “Indian” or “Desi”. They are not. I think the “confusion” comes from assuming western born and raised humans come pre-packaged with the same eastern programming by default – and RSSB has this problem. I have written a post on how Indian culture, eastern values, heritage, spirituality were enmeshed at RSSB.

By contrast, white westerners were not shamed to the same degree of “western shaming” but it seemed nobody expected them to fully install in the first place. Somehow their inherent western-ness prevented the RSSB package being downloaded fully. It was fully understood and accepted when they left. I’ve never heard anyone blame Brian for being American or Western as the reason for not sticking to RSSB. They were always only ever seen as surprising anomalies.

As a direct contrast- look at the Indian born next generation. Many are rejecting RSSB, but they are not being called “confused” or otherwise shamed, policed or blamed in the same way as ABCDs. It is not possible to shame them in this way with “confusion” or “being too western” – although they do have shaming but it hasn’t different labels like “disrespect”, “going against family”, or “being modern”.

I feel the term “ABCD” is a shame label in itself. A better term could be “dual-culture” to reflect their Western and Eastern heritage, but that isn’t used at all. It does come across as honor shaming culture. I wrote a post on RSSB and honor culture previously.

RSSB CONFUSION – WESTERN RELEVANCE

There are honestly a number of issues which make RSSB’s relevance smaller than they think it is in the West. Here are some examples why…

HONOR DELUSION: Western authorities actively say that Western born citizens being blamed for “being too western” is honor abuse. Not being allowed to leave your family religion or their cultural rules is also considered honor abuse. Western born generations are largely not going to inherit guru discipleship from their parents. Expecting and enforcing this is considered honour abuse in the West. RSSB simply doesn’t see itself as being psrt of the honor culture issue, which is the problem.

GURU MANDATE/HONOR ISSUE: An older grey haired bearded turbaned robed eastern male patriarch religious leader telling you that you MUST live by certain spiritual rules-  tracks as honor culture. RSSB simply doesn’t see guru worship as an honor based issue, which is the problem. It doesn’t matter whether he has amazing CV credentials or cool karaoke skills.

INCOMPATIBILITY: Western cultures are also increasingly pushing back and many openly highlighting that certain cultures were simply incompatible with Western culture – values like freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, democracy, and so on. In RSSB, you can’t say anything against it, think anything against it, go against/leave it, express you want to leave, or contradict the guru. It’s largely incompatible with Western culture.

THE VISUAL: Western nations value and expect a certain degree of integration into their society. Blind faith and devotion to an indian turbaned self appointed living “god in human form” guru called “The Master” that people flock to crying isn’t a sign of integration. Many in the West just won’t associate with this.

MISTRUST: Western nations by default are to a certain degree mistrustful of spiritual leaders who act as unquestionable authority figures issuing spiritual decrees and requirements. Especially ones requiring total obedience, unquestioning devotion, subservience, unpaid labour and recognition they are god in human form (and donations).

SEPARATION OF FAITH: Western nations have also wired into their framework at a conscious level the requirement to “separate the church from the state”. They did this with their own home religion (Christianity) centuries ago. This baseline extends to all faiths- not just Christianity.

CHRISTIAN LAW: The baseline religion in the West is also Christianity – which by comparison – has no rules other than Jesus’s single final statement as the ultimate law to “love one another”. That’s starkly different from RSSB.

NON RSSB BASELINE: RSSB is a minority here. People in the West will have grown up and been around many non-RSSB people and seen their lives unburdened by guru discipleship – and been just fine (I’d say – better). It’s hard to believe its a superior better one true path.

AUTHORITY LIMIT: It is bold and entitled to expect an eastern religious leader to have any more reach or influence than the western countries own religious leaders. (I wrote a post on godman culture not tracking in the West).

SCANDAL: A spiritual leader with a history of publicly documented and reported financial/legal scandals has even less reach. Western regions actively reject and sanction their own religious/spiritual leaders for this with active consequences and no “spirituality” blanket protects them. See Roman Catholic church abuse scandals.

GIHF FREE: It’s ridiculous to expect “god in human form” status in countries where spiritual leaders are just ordinary human priests and nothing more – and any engagement with them is optional, not a mandatory life requirement.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I genuinely think the Western centres expansion planned to make a million global Deras outside India. But it hasn’t happened. RSSB seems to think the Indian born migrants were the standard issue disciples in the West. In reality they were the last of their generation, with future generations being Western by default. Future generations born and raised with Western values and minds and culture by default are not going to “surrender” to an Indian guru from Punjab as God in human form – even if dragged from day 1. RSSB then acts surprised and confused – calling them a confused generation. It’s ironic, isn’t it?

To answer the original commenters question – how does the guru/RSSB handle this? It’s simple. Since the topic started with America, I’m going to quote an American TV show:

“Welcome to the real world. It sucks. You’re gonna love it.”

Anon