Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Here's a clear and compelling video that's based on a Business Today (India) story, "The Baba, Singh Brothers, and the Squandered Rs 225,00,00,00,000," which is $3.2 billion in U.S. dollars. I've read numerous complicated stories about the problematic financial dealings of the RSSB guru, Baba Gurinder Singh Dhillon, his family, and the Singh brothers. But this video keeps things clear and simple in just a bit over 6 minutes. This is the You Tube description: "An influential 'Baba' and his family with a weakness for materialism; two young businessmen loaded with nearly Rs 10,000 crore from an asset sale; and…

Going through some fairly old email messages, I came across an July 23, 2018 ET Prime story that someone sent to me, "How the Singh brothers became victims of a realty play." It takes a subscription to read the full story, so my correspondent sent a file that I converted to PDF. Here it is:Download Singh brothers story Like other stories about the Singh brothers and their relationship with the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the details are astoundingly complex.  Here's some easy to understand excerpts from the beginning of the story. ET Prime pieced together…

Someone sent me this video, along with a description: "An illegal encroachment by Radha Soami Satsang Beas in Fatehpur Beri in Delhi that is being demolished by the Forest Department today. News reporting is by Punjab Kesari. They are breaking the shed, the building and the road. RSSB had been given several notices to vacate. Several acres of the forest land had been illegally purchased and the reporter is saying that it would be interesting to see how the government justifies this." Some commenters on this blog like to claim that Radha Soami Satsang Beas never does anything wrong, since…

Here's a good overview of why it makes sense to raise questions about the financial affairs involving the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon.  It was written by Spence Tepper, who left the following comment on a recent blog post. I like the logical, reasonable way Tepper laid out the reasons concerns have been raised about those financial affairs in the Indian business press.  As he says, other people might draw different conclusions from the facts known to date. That's fine. And as more facts come out, other conclusions can be reached.  Here's links to some of…

UPDATE ON SEPT. 25: Juan just left this comment, indicating that the September 17 meeting of Indian secretaries was indeed scheduled, then cancelled. I've also heard that Gurinder Singh Dhillon's scheduled initiation ceremony in New Delhi, which was last weekend, I believe, was cancelled. So it still seems to me that something is up. We just don't know what. UPDATE ON SEPT. 11: I've heard from someone with close ties to RSSB that actually there isn't a meeting of Indian secretaries happening on September 17. If Juan reads this, I'm curious to know how he learned of the meeting, and whether…

I'd like to get back to writing about other subjects on this blog, but news about the Singh brothers, RSSB, and Gurinder Singh Dhillon (RSSB guru) keeps coming in from links people send to me.  And it's a fascinating story -- this tale of how a supposedly spiritual sect, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, has gotten deeply entangled in some highly suspicious financial dealings. Today the DNA India site reports, "SFIO may expand Singh brothers' probe to Ranbaxy sale." Excerpts: Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) is looking for a deeper investigation of all associated firms related to brothers Malvinder and Shivinder…

Well, this is a bit of progress. The guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, says that he will answer questions about the seemingly shady financial dealings he, his family, and possibly RSSB itself (a charitable organization) have been involved in. Today someone sent me a link to a story in The Indian Express, "Upcoming payouts a possible trigger for Singh brothers feud." Excerpt: According to a source privy to the development, some senior members of the sect recently asked Dhillon about his reaction to various news reports regarding the Singh brothers. The source said that Dhillon told…

Last night I spent a pleasant half hour on the phone talking with Ekta Batra, a reporter with India's CNBC TV 18. She asked if I'd be OK with getting up at 5 am, my time, to be part of a live 20-minute program about Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) and a recent lawsuit filed by Shivinder Singh (cousin of the RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh) against his brother, Malvinder Singh and an RSSB insider, Sunil Godhwani, who used to run a company founded by the Singh brothers. No, I said, 5 am is way too early for me. So we…

Breaking news from the world of Indian financial misdeeds. The Indian Standard reports, "Shivinder Mohan Singh drags elder brother Malvinder Singh to NCLT." Former Ranbaxy promoter and founder of Fortis Healthcare, Shivinder Singh, said that he has filed a case against his brother Malvinder and former head of Religare Sunil Godhwani in the NCLT court for oppression and mismanagement of RHC Holding, Religare and Fortis. Shivinder Singh said in a press release issued on Tuesday that the action was long overdue but got delayed in the hope that "better sense shall eventually prevail and another ugly chapter of family feud…

I've grown accustomed to lawyers saying strange things, especially in this age of Trump, but this message from Gurinder Singh Dhillon's lawyer is especially weird. Dhillon is the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a spiritual organization headquartered in India. Recently several Indian business publications have published detailed stories about how the guru and his family, plus RSSB followers, are deeply implicated in shady financial dealings involving the Singh brothers, Malvinder and Shivinder, who are the guru's nephews cousins. [Someone emailed me with a genealogy analysis that seems to show they're the guru's first-cousins once removed.] (See here and…

Following in the journalistic footsteps of a Bloomberg story about the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) guru's connections with the financial problems of Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, now Business Today India has released "The Baba, Singh Brothers, and the Squandered Rs $225,00,00,00,000." Download The Baba Singh Brothers and the Squandered Rs 225 00 00 00 000 "Baba" is a term of respect that's often used with spiritual leaders. According to a couple of currency converters I found online, Rs (rupees) $225,00,00,00,000 equals about $3.2 billion in U.S. dollars. So we're talking some real money that was squandered.   Gurinder Singh…

After someone told me about a book, "Memoirs of a Seeker," that described a woman's relationship with a guru, I purchased the Kindle version. Because I'd been told that the guru was Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the leader of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based religious organization that I was a member of for 35 years, I was perplexed that Sheena, the author, apparently never mentioned the guru's name, from what I could tell from a quick browsing of the book. But the person who recommended the book knows Sheena (not her real name), and separately another person emailed me…

Thank you, universe! You work in mysterious (and also non-mysterious) ways.  After I was quoted in a Bloomberg story that described the shadowy connections between Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru, and the Singh brothers, Shivinder and Malvinder, the number of people visiting this blog has gone up a lot the past three days. This blog has gotten about 13,000 page views in that time, whereas usually it would get about 3,000. Good karma! (if I believed in karma) Here's a link to the post I wrote about the story, "Bloomberg story shows Gurinder Singh Dhillon's shady…

Today Bloomberg, a business publication, published a tell-all story about Gurinder Singh Dhillon's hugely complicated, and ethically dubious, financial dealings with Shivinder and Malvinder Singh, nephews of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru. The Billionaires and The Guru: How a Family Burned Through $2 Billion - Bloomberg Ari Altstedter wrote the story, "The Billionaires and the Guru: How a Family Burned Through $2 billion." I spoke with Altstedter by phone about the 35 years I spent as a RSSB devotee, and was quoted in the piece. Still, Dhillon hails from a family of major landowners in Punjab, and was himself…

It's decidedly weird that... (1) Many commenters on this blog are devotees of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based religious organization headed by a guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon; and (2) these same commenters refuse to believe that Gurinder Singh has completely changed the traditional RSSB teachings that they defend so strongly. Hopefully the following will change some minds. Today this message was emailed to me by Osho Robbins, who has previously shared his take on what can be called Sant Mat v. 2.0 and v. 3.0, to distinguish the new RSSB teachings being promulgated by Gurinder Singh from the…

Well, Gurinder Singh Dhillon and I have something in common: we both enjoy looking at naked women. But the difference between us is that Gurinder Singh is the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru, so supposedly is "God in human form," and I'm just ordinary me. Here's an email message I received from a woman who found Gurinder Singh's behavior at "satsang" (a spiritual meeting) in India to be appalling. Again, it isn't unusual to hear men talk in this fashion. However, one expects something different from a guru who is purported to have elevated his consciousness to an enlightened level.…

It looks like the financial misdeeds of Shivinder and Malvinder Singh, nephews of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, are catching up to them. This morning someone emailed me a link to this India Business Today story, "Delhi High Court summons Singh brothers for first time in Daiichi case."  Here's some excerpts: According to The Business Standard, the high court asked the Singh brothers to personally appear in the court on August 10 to explain the reasons for discrepancies in their statements over their holdings in FHL. The court wants to understand that whether the Singh brothers…

There's a well-known Carl Sagan saying, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." So if someone makes a claim about having experienced a supernatural realm of reality, that extraordinary claim obviously requires extraordinary evidence in order for it to be believable. And a related requirement is that other explanations for the supposed mystical experience should be seriously considered, since most likely an extraordinary claim actually is the result of something quite ordinary.  To give a mundane example, when I was a young child I recall waking up in the middle of the night and seeing an intruder standing at the foot of…