Posted inComments Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Great comment about RSSB truth-telling

Here's a comment by "j" on a recent blog post about Gurinder Singh Dhillon's involvement in a financial fraud investigation that I heartily agree with.  Truth needs to be spoken. Journalists, in India and elsewhere, do a good job of revealing truth, by and large. Yes, sometimes they make mistakes, as do we all. But the stories in the Indian financial press about the RSSB guru's alleged role in financial fraud have been almost entirely accurate, and I've been pleased to share them on this blog. I'll continue to do so.  Sure, I know that some devotees of Radha Soami…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB guru is being shielded by Indian agencies, says Malvinder’s attorney

This accusation has been made before by attorneys for Malvinder Singh, and it was made again last Tuesday, November 26. Here's a LiveMint story about the latest turn of events in the ongoing saga of how a guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, appears to be deeply involved in financial fraud. I'll comment on this development following the story. NEW DELHI : Delhi High court on Tuesday heard arguments on Enforcement Directorate’s plea for custodial interrogation of former promoter of Fortis Healthcare Malvinder Singh and former Managing Director of Religare Enterprises Sunil Godhwani in a money-laundering case related to alleged misappropriation of…
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Posted inMeaning of life Personal/Stories

Lessons about thankfulness from our dog

Our oldest dog, ZuZu, died last month. I'm still grieving. So when I looked through my previous Thanksgiving Day blog posts (a holiday here in the United States), it seemed fitting to share a 2013 post, "Our 14 year old dog teaches me about thankfulness." That dog was Serena, shown above in her younger days on a bank of the Metolius River in central Oregon. Here's most of what I said in the blog post I wrote about her when Serena's health was fading. She doesn't look like she did in her younger days. But heck, who does? Surely not me. Being…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Shabnam Dhillon, wife of RSSB guru, has died

I just received this message from someone. Babaji refers to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. It's a sad day for the Dhillon family and the millions of RSSB devotees. I'm no longer one of them, but I share in the sadness of Shabnam Dhillon's death.  UPDATE: Below is a message from Radha Soami Satsang Beas about Shabnam Dhillon's death. And there's a hindustan times story about her passing. Second update: There's a Business Today story about Shabnam Dhillon's death. Shabnam Dhillon, wife of Radha Soami Satsang Beas head Gurinder Singh Dhillion, has passed away in London.…
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Posted inHappiness

Why you should be happy today, right now, no matter what

Here's a guest post from myself. It comes from one of my other blogs, HinesSight, where I called it My iron-clad argument to be happy right now, no matter what. Not surprisingly, what I wrote makes a lot of sense to me. After all, one of the greatest gifts we can offer to others is our own happiness. Why? Because it's much more pleasant to be around a happy person rather than someone who isn't happy. Also, life is much bigger than we are, as is the world we live in. We can hope for certain things from life, from…
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Posted inOpen Threads

Open Thread 26 (free speech for comments)

Here's a new Open Thread. I appreciate that off-topic comments have been going in a previous Open Thread. As noted before, it's good to have comments in a regular blog post related to its subject, and it's also good to have a place where almost anything goes in regard to sharing ideas, feelings, experiences, and such. That place is an Open Thread. Leave a comment on this post about anything you want to talk about. Remember that I'm moderating comments, so it could take a while for your comment to be published. Almost every comment submitted to an Open Thread…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB guru and his family ordered to submit financial information

Thanks to commenters on this blog who shared links to these stories, here's additional reporting in the Indian financial press about the financial fraud saga involving the Singh brothers and their cousin, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB). Neither story appears to be good news for Dhillon and his family. They've been ordered to submit income tax returns, bank statements, and balance sheets related to financial transactions that, according to the High Court of Delhi, concern money owed to Malvinder Singh and public companies once controlled by him. This seems to show that authorities view…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Court seeks update on criminal complaint against RSSB guru and others

Below are two stories in the Indian financial press relating to the criminal complaint filed in February 2019 by Malvinder Singh against his cousin, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. (A Bloomberg story said that an investigation had been opened.) Malvinder's lawyer requested that the Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing provide a report on what actions have been taken on the complaint. A court has ordered that this happen by December 12. I've been wondering about the status of the complaint, since the High Court of Delhi has ordered Dhillon and his family to repay money…
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Posted inIndia Politics

Nationalism is bad. Religious nationalism is worse.

I live in the United States. Misguided religious people call it a Christian nation. They're wrong. Likewise, misguided religious people in India call it a Hindu nation. They're also wrong. I got to thinking about religious nationalism after reading the first part of Arjun Sethi's testimony regarding Jammu, Kashmir, and minority rights in India. Maybe Sethi is exaggerating how bad things are getting in India, but even if what he says is only partly true, that's still really disturbing. Here's an excerpt from what Sethi wrote. In 1947, India created a constitutional republic based on the principles of secularism and…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB guru’a wife deeply involved in real estate deal

This is a follow-up to yesterday's blog post, "Here's an example of Dhillon family connections to shell companies." Someone just sent me a PDF file of an analyst's 2014 report on a company owned by Shabnam Dhillon, the wife of the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. Download SGGD-Projects-Development-PPMLD_335Cr-Rationale-9May2014 The company, SGGD Projects Development Pvt Ltd, is one of the 56 entities, many or most controlled by the Dhillon family, that the High Court of Delhi has ordered money to be recovered from. A screenshot of part of the report shows how deeply Shabnam Dhillon, and the Dhillon family in…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Here’s an example of Dhillon family connections to shell companies

Recently I received a message from someone who replicated part of the research that journalists with the Indian financial press have been doing in connection with the financial scandal involving the Singh brothers, their guru cousin (Gurinder Singh Dhillon), and close associates of the Dhillon family. I'm sharing what this person learned by delving into public business records for several reasons. One, it's interesting. Two, it shows what lies beneath the many stories published by the Indian financial press, which some defenders of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru wrongly call "fake news." Three, it points to the fact that…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Story about Gurinder Singh Dhillon and RSSB casts light on legal problems

Check out an excellent lengthy story about a guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) organization that he leads, and the financial scandal the Dhillon family and his close associates are connected to.Download Gurinder Singh Dhillon — the music & film-loving Radha Soami head at heart of Fortis crisis The reporter who wrote ThePrint story, Nandita Singh, emailed me with questions, which I responded to in writing. Unfortunately, I didn't proofread my reply closely enough and left out a word, "no," in the quote included in the final paragraph of the story, where I meant to say…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB guru and his family told to provide evidence of no liabilities to Singh brothers

In addition to stories I shared in two other blog posts about today's developments in the High Court of Delhi case involving the Singh brothers and their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, below is another story from The Indian Express. The court is turning up the heat on the Dhillon family and others who, according to the Singh brothers, owe money to them that would enable Malvinder and Shivinder to pay a $500 million settlement to Daiichi Sankyo, a Japanese firm that got the settlement after it bought a pharmaceutical firm owned by the…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

High Court delays hearing involving RSSB guru and others to February 5

Here's another story relating to the involvement of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, in irregular financial transactions.  Today's Economic Times story casts more light on the affidavit submitted by Dhillon in response to a High Court of Delhi order. Yesterday I shared another story on the same subject. As you can read below, Dhillon admits that his sons participated in suspicious "round trip" transfers of money between RHC Holding and shell companies controlled wholly or in part by the Dhillon family, where money would be paid and repaid so rapidly, it didn't show up on…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Malvinder Singh arrested by Enforcement Directorate, leaving questions unanswered

Well, the Bollywood'ish financial fraud drama involving the Singh brothers and their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, has taken another turn -- with more curves in the legal road seemingly lying ahead. A story in The Economic Times (below) says that India's Enforcement Directorate has just arrested Malvinder Singh and Sunil Godhwani, who previously was the guru's right hand man and personal financial adviser.  Previously Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, along with Godhwani, had been arrested by the Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) of the Delhi police. So now they've been re-arrested by an organization that…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB guru admits to financial deals with Singh brothers

A commenter on this blog recently shared a link to this story in The Indian Express. It's a prelude to the November 14 hearing before  the High Court of Delhi, where parties who allegedly owe money to the Singh brothers (Malvinder and Shivinder) have been ordered to appear as part of the $500 million settlement award to Daiichi.Download Financial deals with Ranbaxy brothers admits Beas sect head | Business News The Indian Express l found it sort of curious that Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru, filed an affidavit admitting to being part of an illegal financial transaction just two…
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Posted inBuddhism

Claims to absolute truth lead to abuses of power

Sam Harris conducted an interesting interview with Buddhist heretic Stephen Batchelor (I consider that word to be a compliment) and shared it on his Waking Up iPhone app. Here's my transcription of a part of the interview where Batchelor talks about abuses of power in religious or spiritual organizations. I think he's correct that hierarchical institutions make it easier for wrongdoing to take place by those at the top. And I also agree that claims to knowledge of ultimate truth by a religious leader also lead to abuses of power. This is what Batchelor said. There may be a few…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Good overview of Singh brothers/RSSB guru financial mess

This LiiStudio story is about a month old, but I'm sharing it because it provides good background material on the fascinating drama surrounding the Singh brothers and their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. There are numerous strands in the tangled web of this tale of fraud, loans gone bad, and deceit. Hopefully some of the strands will be made more clear in the upcoming November 14 hearing of the High Court of Delhi involving those responsible for payment of a $500 million award to a Japanese company that bought the Singh brothers' pharmaceutical firm.…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

How will the High Court of Delhi treat the RSSB guru?

What do you think will happen to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, when the High Court of Delhi has a hearing on November 14 involving those ordered to repay money owed to the Singh brothers and companies they once controlled, so a $500 million award can be made in connection with the sale of a pharmaceutical firm to a Japanese company?  Dhillon and his family are part of those who have been ordered by the court to prepare documents showing their assets, though the Dhillon family has been excused from attending the hearing in person.…
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Posted inScience

Inference to the best explanation is a wise approach

In the course of reading books about modern science, I frequently come across an appealing phrase: inference to the best explanation. I like the sound of it. It makes sense to me. It's a foundation of both the scientific method and how we deal with issues in everyday life. Defining this approach in any detail can lead into some tricky philosophical territory that I'm not much interested in. This article summary from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is good enough for blog post purposes. Inference to the best explanation is the procedure of choosing the hypothesis or theory that best…
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