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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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB guru and his family make up reasons to avoid court appearance

Wow. Big news regarding the Singh brothers/Dhillon family financial scandal drama. After being ordered by the High Court of Delhi to appear before it on November 14, along with other parties involved in what appears to be fraudulent transfers of funds that now prevent the Singh brothers from having enough money to pay an award related to their sale of a pharmaceutical firm, the family of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, has made up some marvelously unbelievable excuses for not being able to make the court hearing. This is more evidence that Dhillon and his family…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Stephen Batchelor on enlightenment and listening

Following up on my previous post about a charming little book by Stephen Batchelor and his wife Martine, which consists of talks they gave at a 2016 retreat in England based on the Korean Buddhist tradition (Son), here's some passages from What is this? that I resonated with in my pre-meditation reading this morning.  I liked this take on enlightenment, which is very much in line with Zen teachings. Son, which means "meditation," is the Korean equivalent of the Japanese "Chan" and Japanese "Zen." So once we let go of the idea that to be enlightened means to understand the nature…
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Posted inBuddhism Karma

Life is a matter of material chance, not divine dispensation

The truth can be disturbing. Yet truth is immensely valuable. These two truths about truth present a dilemma to religious believers. They don't want to be disturbed, so they choose to accept falsehoods about reality. By contrast, people like me who don't believe in religious fantasies are able to accept both truths about truth. We embrace disturbing facts such as the non-existence of God, no life after death, and the contingency of life on Earth. That last fact is discussed by Buddhist skeptic Stephen Batchelor in an appealing little book that consists of talks he and his wife, Martine, gave at…
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Posted inIndia Religions

Religious delusion is alive and well in India, as elsewhere

Here's a great example of how closed-minded religious believers are able to deny reality, an Economic Times story about how a spiritual leader is still trusted by his followers even after being convicted of rape and murder.  This is how the story starts out. SIRSA: Nothing has changed over the last two years for Baljeet Insaan. Her devotion to “pita ji” remains intact. She says prison bars cannot contain his healing effect. After all, she says, he cured her of cancer 20 years ago. There are many like Baljeet who swear by Dera Sacha Sauda sect chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

An Economic Times story discusses the failed family settlement with the RSSB guru

Yesterday India's The Economic Times ran a story that restated facts that were already known about the attempt to reach a family settlement agreement between the Singh brothers (Malvinder and Shivinder) and their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.Download Shivinder singh : Singh bros' settlement sought to absolve Dera Chief of liabilities It's a good summary of what went on.  I suppose the story was published to provide some background prior to November 14, when reportedly the Singh brothers, Dhillon, and others involved in this complicated financial fraud saga will appear before the High Court…
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