RSSB You Tube channel has exactly zero content from Gurinder Singh

I usually don't publicize social media of religious organizations, but since I used to be a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas before I saw the clear light of atheism, and quite a few visitors to this blog either have been or still are associated with RSSB, here's a link to the organization's recently unveiled Official You Tube Channel. You Tube says the RSSB channel has 882 videos. Clicking on the "Videos" tab, I was curious to see how many videos were from the last four gurus of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. It wasn't possible to tell exactly, since the…

Shabnam Dhillon, RSSB guru’s wife, implicated in financial fraud

Well, today there was another story in the Indian financial press about the Singh brothers' fall from riches and how their involvement with Gurinder Singh Dhillon, guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, has contributed a lot to the legal trouble they're in.Download Malvinder and Shivinder Singh and the ‘missing’ funds of a billion-dollar empire | Business News The Indian Express story contains intriguing details about the involvement of the guru's wife, Shabnam Dhillon, in financial dealings that a criminal complaint filed by Malvinder Singh says were fraudulent. Here's an image from the story that shows her connection to several shell companies…

Summary of Singh brothers saga features misdeeds by Gurinder Singh Dhillon

Today someone sent me a link to a The Week story about the saga of the Singh brothers' financial downfall that contains several mentions of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas who has been accused of criminal wrongdoing in this unholy mess.Download Malvinder Shivinder Singh: The boom-to-doom saga of the brothers You can read the entire story below. I've added some comments of my own after several sections in red italics.  One thing I learned from the story is that seemingly Malvinder and Shivinder Singh aren't nephews of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, because the story says that…

Sam Harris shows my meditation is on the right spiritual track

There's many forms of meditation. They all have strengths and weaknesses, pluses and minuses. But only a few forms of meditation lead to an increased knowledge of reality, since most are based on unfounded religious dogma. I'm confident that the meditation I've been practicing for about fifteen years -- after I wisely gave up a religiously-based form of meditation -- has me on the right spiritual track. I explained why in "Real spirituality is realizing you aren't a soul, or self." Here's how that 2014 post starts out. Just as predicted, I'm really enjoying reading Sam Harris' new book, "Waking…

Singh brothers stay out of jail. Malvinder’s attorney says RSSB guru duped them.

Here's the latest news in the saga of the Singh brothers and the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. First, a Business Today story, "Singh brothers get a breather from top court." Here's how it starts out. The Supreme Court (SC) has reserved its order on a contempt plea filed by Japanese pharma company Daiichi Sankyo against the Singh brothers over non-payment of Rs 3,500 crore arbitration award. However, the apex court said it was deciding the issue of 'contempt of court' only. During the hearing, Daiichi told the SC that former Ranbaxy promoter Malvinder Singh had given…

Shivinder Singh lied about becoming a full-time RSSB sevadar

Here's another twist in the oh-so-fascinating big-money drama involving the Singh brothers (Malvinder and Shivinder), the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, and a host of supporting characters. A Business Today story says, "Singh brothers case: Shivinder drew Rs. 9 crore salary during 'retirement'; misled SC about 'Sanyaas.'" (9 crore is about $1,300,000; SC refers to the Supreme Court of India)Download Singh brothers case: Shivinder drew Rs 9 crore salary during 'retirement'; misled SC about 'Sanyaas' Here's how the story starts out: Singh brothers Malvinder and Shivinder are on the verge of being thrown behind bars on April 11 when…

New Delhi police investigating criminal complaint against RSSB guru

Here's a Bloomberg story from February that escaped my notice until a Google search brought it to my attention yesterday. Someone mentioned the story in a March comment, but I didn't read it in full until now.Download Indian Tycoon Accuses Brother and Spiritual Guru of Fraud - Bloomberg Those of us who've been associated with Radha Soami Satsang Beas for many years (35, for me) are marveling at the fact that the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, is the subject of a criminal complaint being investigated by the New Delhi police. This is a fact that I don't recall…

Critical thinking welcome here. Preachiness, not so much.

On this blog I've gone back and forth with moderating comments. After deciding a few weeks ago to return to approving comments before they're published on this blog, I'm feeling good about doing this. I'd rather have just a few -- or even just one -- thoughtful comments on a post than a bunch of irrelevant comments, especially if they're of the "Praise God!" or "Praise Guru!" variety. But for many years my boundless Buddha-like compassion for religiously-minded beings has led me to offer an "open thread" option to those who want to express themselves in a fashion that isn't…

Open Thread 19 (free speech for comments)

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 will be approved. Personal attacks devoid of substantive content are an exception. Though I haven't been doing too well on this, I'll try to remember to always have an Open Thread showing in the Recent Posts section in the right sidebar. If one isn't showing, I've added an Open Threads category in, naturally, the Categories section. You can always find an Open…

Queen’s Live Aid performance shows power of Freddy Mercury being himself

Last night my wife and I finished watching Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie. It ends with a re-creation of Queen's famous performance at the 1985 Live Aid event at Wembley Stadium in London. A New York Times story about the performance says, "Freddie Mercury’s set in July 1985 is often called one of the greatest live performances of all time." For sure. You can view it via the video below, which has gotten over 211 million views. Mercury performs for about 21 minutes. I found watching him to be both highly entertaining and deeply inspiring. Mercury was a gay man at…

More focus on RSSB guru in Singh brothers financial scandal

Following up on yesterday's post, "Bad karma: Singh brothers may go to jail if RSSB guru doesn't pay up," here's two additional mentions of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, in the Indian financial press. Someone sent me this image of a Hindustan Times story with the mention of the guru outlined in orange: "Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing one of the brothers, said 'some babaji' has siphoned off the money of the two brothers and they have been duped." Babaji clearly refers to Gurinder Singh Dhillon. Kind of strange that the attorney wasn't willing to say…

Bad karma: Singh brothers may go to jail if RSSB guru doesn’t pay up

I'd love to be able to listen in on what Malvinder and Shivinder Singh are saying right now about their uncle, Gurinder Singh Dhillon -- the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.  According to the India Supreme Court, it seems that the only way the Singh brothers are going to stay out of jail is if Dhillon repays a massive amount of money that was loaned to him by Malvinder and Shivinder, seemingly in a fraudulent manner involving the siphoning of funds from companies controlled by the Singh brothers and the guru's right hand man, Sunil Godhwani. So says a…

Here’s the problem with living: we’re going to die

This isn't exactly breaking news, but I'll say it anyway. Each of us is going to die.  Those seven words are undeniably scary. Life isn't always pleasant. Yet the gulf between having a difficult life and no life at all is more than immense. It's immeasurable. There's no way to compare being alive and being dead, or existence and non-existence. The worst day anyone can have is on a different dimension than not existing at all. Understand: I'm not saying that life is always worth living. Suicide and death with dignity testify to the fact that sometimes people prefer to…

I’m an atheist with more faith than any religious believer

A week ago I came up with the title to this blog post. The next day I wrote a comment in reply to someone who goes by "In Search Of" that ended up being a good start to explaining why I consider that atheist me has more faith than religious believers. Here it is. Following my comment you'll find excerpts from one of my first Church of the Churchless blog posts from way back in 2004, "Just have faith." I'm pleased that while I've become more of an atheist over the past fifteen years, my basic faith in reality hasn't…

Gurinder Singh Dhillon isn’t adhering to the message of “Honest Living”

Below is a recent comment written by Radh(er Not) Soami that struck me as well worth sharing as a blog post. The comment points to something important that I feel has been overlooked by defenders of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru who are fond of saying, "Innocent until proven guilty!" (If you're not familiar with what the guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon (GSD), has been accused of, it is a conspiracy to commit massive financial fraud and death threats. A criminal complaint filed against the guru is discussed in "Legal filing against Gurinder Singh Dhillon is fascinating reading.") The important…

India’s business reputation is at stake in Singh brothers/RSSB financial saga

It's a tale that deserves to be made into a Bollywood movie. But the plot line has some serious consequences for how India is viewed by investors and businesspeople worldwide. Here's how a potential investor in an India enterprise might view the tangled web of illegal financial dealings involving Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, a.k.a. the Singh brothers, and their uncle (or maybe cousin) -- Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB). Hey, I like your business plan. But I've been reading about how an Indian guru installed his right hand man as CEO of a company…

Family of RSSB guru at risk of charges of criminal conspiracy

Here's a follow-up to yesterday's post, "RSSB insider Sunil Godhwani charged with criminal conspiracy." In that post I noted that a document I got of the complaint filed by attorneys representing Religare, the company from which funds were fraudulently siphoned, was difficult to read due to the formatting. But someone sent me the document in Word format, from which I was able to first produce paragraph breaks that made the document much easier to read, and then export the file in a PDF format. Here it is: Download Religare Complaint PDF It's more than 20 pages long, yet well worth…

RSSB insider Sunil Godhwani charged with criminal conspiracy

The wheels of justice in India keep inching closer to the guru who heads up Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. A story in The Economic Times reports, "Delhi Police books Singh brothers & others on charges of cheating and criminal conspiracy." (Scroll down for another blog post I just wrote relating to the RSSB guru, "Sheetal Talwar talks about death threat made from RSSB satsang office.") One of the "others" charged with criminal conspiracy is Sunil Godhwani, who has been described as Gurinder Singh Dhillon's right-hand man.  Someone in the know about RSSB goings-on had this to say…

Sheetal Talwar talks about death threat made from RSSB satsang office

I've got a couple of stories from the India press regarding the RSSB/Singh Brothers saga to share today. Scroll up for the story regarding a criminal complaint (once it's written). The one I'm sharing in this post relates to another criminal complaint alleging a death threat made against filmmaker Sheetal Talwar after he tried to recover a $1.25 million loan he made to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB). See yesterday's post, "RSSB guru made death threats, says India filmmaker." Now, it was associates of the guru who made the death threats, not the guru…

I’m back to moderating comments

Unfortunately, a few commenters who've been abusing this blog's free speech preference have forced me to start moderating comments for a while. What this means is that I'll approve comments for publication as soon as I'm able to do this. May take a few hours, so be patient. Here's how I put it in a recent comment of my own: Daljit, great point. No, RSSB doesn't have any web sites or blogs where people can freely comment. But I'm pleased to allow this, because unlike RSSB, I believe in free speech and open discussion of ideas -- even, or especially,…