Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Today I was reminded of the death of Shabnam Dhillon, the wife of the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, after someone posted this comment on one of my blog posts. Have tried to post a picture of Shabnam and Gurinder Singh Dhillon - the same picture is with the article below: https://www.bhaskar.com/punjab/jalandhar/news/shabnam-wife-of-former-ranbaxy-promoters-mamie-and-dera-beas-chief-gurinder-singh-dhillons-london-126151220.html A picture speaks a thousand words ... The Happy Couple NOT. The questionable timing of Shabnam's death. Her body was cremated. Will the truth ever come out? Here's the photograph. The timing and circumstances of her death are indeed curious, leading to questions.  Shabnam…

I just got a link to a Newsroom story by Cass Mason about a new Radha Soami Satsang Beas center in New Zealand. Here's a screenshot of how the story starts out, along with a PDF file of the story. Below I'll share critical mentions of RSSB in the story, along with mentions of an interview Mason did with me. Download Sect sets up home at Ihumātao stonefields This is the concluding part of the story. I found the final paragraph amusing, though not surprising. Baruch ter Wal won’t comment on allegations of the RSSB guru's involvement in financial fraud, but…

Recently India's Business Standard published a good overview of Malvinder and Shivinder Singh's financial problems -- a story I've been following here at the Church of the Churchless because the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) is implicated in the fraudulent behavior. And there's nothing I enjoy more than pointing out the pitfall of religious belief and having blind faith in the people who lead them. Well, of course there are other things I enjoy more. Carrot cake, for one. But spiritual hypocrisy deeply irks me, as when Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru, preaches that returning to God…

It's been quite a while since there's been any news about the financial scandal involving brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), and others connected with RSSB such as Sunil Godhwani.  Here's screenshots of a story in The Times of India that was published yesterday. I'll comment on the story below. It's difficult to understand why, exactly, the Singh brothers were jailed. In 2019 I wrote about how the Supreme Court had issued a contempt decree against them, but didn't enforce it. Here's part of what I said in…

Religions evolve in accord with a sort of cultural natural selection. If a religion is obviously false, not being able to back up its claims with demonstrable evidence even though that evidence supposedly is there for all to see, then it won't take long for people to reject the religion and it dies out. So many religions rely on a claim that only after a believer dies are they able to know the truth of the faith that they followed while alive. That's an easy way out of the "where's the evidence?" problem. But what's a religion to do when…

I love to get emails from people who are having doubts about the religious organization I belonged to for 35 years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB). When a message is written in an entertaining fashion, I doubly love that email. Here's what someone who wants to be known as Dibloggenes had to say to me, along with my response. For those who aren't familiar with some terms in the message, Gurinder Singh Dhillon is the current RSSB guru who has been in a lot of controversy. Tara was a frequent commenter on this blog some years back who was a…

Since there's currently some comment discussion about whether the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) is an authoritarian who believes he can do whatever he wants, being considered God in Human Form by devotees, here's links to some blog posts I've written about questionable activities during the reign of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the current RSSB guru. There's more posts, but this is a good sample. (I keep adding to the list as I think of additional blog posts I've written over the years that pertain to this subject.) Malvinder's criminal complaint casts light on RSSB guru's role in financial…

It's amusing to observe how much work some religious believers who comment on my blog posts go to in defending an obvious fact.  A recent example is me stating in several blog posts that the notion of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) guru being God in Human Form, or GIHF, is a central RSSB tenet. How can you have a "Path of the Saints" without a saint? The whole rationale behind the RSSB teachings is that God manifests in the form of a Perfect Living Master (PLM) to guide souls back to Him, because otherwise God remains an unseen,…

Recently I wrote two blog posts about the notion of a guru being God in Human Form. First, I said that this makes no sense. Then I said that Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) does teach that the RSSB guru is God in Human Form.  Since some regular commenters on this blog are familiar with the RSSB teachings, I was surprised with the pushback that second post got. Even though I'd provided quotes from two previous RSSB gurus saying that, indeed, the RSSB guru is God in Human Form, for some reason this obvious fact was being denied by a…

Sort of weirdly, in a recent post, "RSSB does teach that the guru is God in Human Form," atheist me was arguing that the teachings of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), my spiritual home for 35 years, say that the RSBB guru is God's right hand man (no female gurus yet) while some current members of RSSB were arguing the opposite -- that the guru is just a regular human like everybody else. This perplexed me for a while.  Then I came up with a theory. Being an ancient 73 years old, I was initiated into RSSB way back in…

Recently I heard from someone who asked if I had read a book about the death of Dr. Julian Johnson. Johnson wrote "The Path of the Masters," a book about the philosophy of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based spiritual organization headed up by a guru. I told the person that I wasn't familiar with the book about Johnson's death and asked if the person could summarize it. With their permission, here's what I received. I did some minor editing and added a few links. Dear Brian, The extremely short version is that the Dera tried to cover up…

Since I was a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based religious organization, for about 35 years, wrote several books for RSSB, and did a lot of speaking on behalf of RSSB, obviously I'm very familiar with the RSSB teachings. So when I saw this comment appear on a recent post about the idea of a guru being more than human, it struck me as astoundingly wrong. (GIHF refers to God in Human Form.) Clearly Karim Rahmaan knows very little about the RSSB teachings. So I'm pleased to correct him. I can easily do this because because in…

Sometimes the obvious escapes us because our mind has been distracted with other stuff. This just happened to me. I was idly thinking about what I should write about in tonight's churchless blog post, remembering that my previous post was about how to prove that a guru is a fraud. What suddenly struck me was the simple reason why this is so difficult: believers in a guru typically consider that he or she is qualitatively different from other humans.  Meaning, the guru isn't just someone with some special talents, abilities, and traits. That's true of lots of people. Sports stars.…

A few days ago I got a message from someone who said this in her email regarding Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the India-based religious organization headed up by a guru that I belonged to for 35 years. I am not a member, my close friend has been a member for 5 years and I started to research it as I wanted to know more. That’s how I found your blog. Some of the things I’ve read are alarming and I found even the information on the RSSB official website disturbing.   My friend is very set on the organisation,…

Today someone left this comment about the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. (Quite a few people who visit this blog have an interest in him, being either currently associated with RSSB or having done so in the past, as I was for 35 years.) Well, it appears RSSB has finally updated their website. All satsangs in India and abroad have been cancelled, including the dera effective immediately until end of November. The update says GSD has been told to rest for his health. Sounds serious if he's cancelled the next 6 months of satsangs and initiations.…