Church of the Churchless

Ah, it's so refreshing to see the following comment from someone who appears to be an initiate of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, yet is bothered by mindless defenses of the RSSB guru (Gurinder Singh Dhillon), who is linked to investigations of massive financial fraud. The comment was posted by "In Search Of" today. I like the pen name. We're all in search of something. Hopefully that includes the truth, and willingness to listen to a variety of opinions. Plus, embracing new facts about reality as we learn them, then adjusting our view of the world accordingly. The only thing I'll…

I'm grateful to commenters on my blog posts for reinforcing my conviction that religiously-minded people often are incapable of recognizing reality. Not always. Often.  Case in point: some regular commenters, who I assume read my posts before they comment on them, keep on ignoring facts about the scandalous drama concerning financial dealings involving a Bollywood-like cast of characters. Here's an overview of the drama. -- The once-billionaire Singh brothers, Malvinder and Shivinder, whose business empire has been reduced to almost nothing following a string of poor decisions and fraudulent loans. -- The Singh brothers are relatives of the guru of…

Last year I shared 27,000 words worth of comments left on this blog by "Tara," someone who had an up close and personal view of both Gurinder Singh Dhillon (photo below) and the RSSB organization prior to them becoming disillusioned by what they saw, which led to this person leaving the RSSB fold. As noted in the post, "Devastating criticism of Gurinder Singh Dhillon by a RSSB insider," the comments were written between 2010 and 2014. That was five to nine years ago, before the RSSB guru's massive questionable loans and alleged criminality came to light in the Indian financial…

Another story in the Indian financial press points to the siphoning of funds from companies affiliated with the Singh brothers into the pockets of Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family as being key to Malvinder and Shivinder's ability to comply with legal rulings. This shows that defenders of the guru, some of whom leave comments on my blog posts wrongly claiming that this is just a "family affair" that doesn't harm anyone else, need to recognize how serious the financial wrongdoing involving the RSSB guru is. Here's some excerpts from "Time may be running out for Singh brothers to pay…

The money Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, is expected to pay back so an arbitration award can be made in accord with an India Supreme Court ruling keeps getting larger. A few days ago I reported that the guru owed $870 million. Now the amount has risen to $906 million, according to a Times of India story, "Will recover dues from Radha Soami head, others Malvinder tells SC." The story provides further evidence that defenders of the guru are wrongly claiming that this is just a family affair. (Malvinder Singh is the guru's cousin; some…

When someone leaves a thoughtful, lengthy, well-researched comment on this blog, I'm motivated to share it in a blog post so more people see it. In this case, I also found the commenter's assumed name to be wonderfully creative: Radh(er Not) Soami -- a play on words, since Radha Soami is both a greeting used by members of Radha Soami Satsang Beas and shorthand for the group's philosophy. Hence, "rather not" becomes Radh(er Not). Here's this person's comment. I added some explanatory links, a few photos, and corrected some typos. "Shivi" stands for Shivinder Singh. "Malav" stands for Malvinder Singh.…

When I read the first sentence of a comment by "Hidden Agenda" on a recent blog post of mine, "Malvinder: RSSB guru's loans of over $870 million are due," I strongly suspected I was going to find what this person wrote was interesting. Let's piece the whole story together using common sense.  Below is the comment, with a few typos corrected. I consider that everything Hidden Agenda says does indeed make common sense. This person fits together bits of pieces of the Dhillon family/Singh brothers financial saga in a fashion that makes for a coherent tale. Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the…

I just made this update to the blog post I wrote yesterday, "RSSB guru had better have a big bank balance." NEXT DAY UPDATE: A Live Mint story about the Supreme Court hearing reports that Malvinder Singh says the RSSB guru has loans of over ₹6,000 crore, $870 million, that are due. So the graphic above appears to be correct. Excerpt: Malvinder Singh, in his 30-page affidavit, claimed that Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the spiritual head of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, his family members and companies controlled by him used funds from the Ranbaxy sale to buy real estate, and loans…

I'm sure defenders of the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas will have a different take on today's news from the Indian financial press, but the way it looks to me, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, his family, and associates are going to have to account for the hundreds of millions of dollars they've gotten from fraudulent loans.  Well, more than account. Because it sure seems like there's going to be a lot of pressure on the Dhillons, et.al., to pay back the approximate US $800 million they've gotten from highly suspicious loans. No, that isn't a typo. The amount reported by…

Well, the financial irregularities surrounding the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, (a criminal complaint has been filed against him) appear to be reaching the Supreme Court of India. The court has asked Malivinder and Shivinder Singh, cousins of the guru who are enmeshed in his massive monetary dealings, to appear on March 14 to answer questions about what happened to 4,000 crore rupees Fortis Healthcare got from Malaysia's IHH Healthcare. Rs 4000 crore is about $574 million. India's Business Today has a story about the Supreme Court hearing, "SC take note! Singh brothers can pay off $500…

Well, there's been an interesting exchange of opinions following recent posts I've written about the financial fraud involving Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, his family members, and close associates. In general, RSSB devotees have been guilty of ignoring facts -- which, of course, was one of the points I made in my most recent post on this subject, "Why Gurinder Singh Dhillon is a lot like Donald Trump."  Spence Tepper, a hospital consultant, has delved deeply into the details of the financial fraud uncovered by SEBI, the Securities and Exchange Board of India. He's been…

Here in the United States we get "treated" almost every day to new revelations about wrongdoing committed by President Trump and his cronies. I put that word in quotes because it certainly isn't a treat to learn how badly the leader of our country has been behaving. Somewhat similarly, the Indian financial press has been regularly reporting on the financial follies of the guru who heads up Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. Being familiar with the legal dramas surrounding both men -- Trump and Dhillon -- I see these commonalities. (1) True believers refuse to recognize facts. Trump's…

Yesterday I got the following email message from someone who has become disillusioned with the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. The RSSB guru is mired in financial wrongdoing that's been extensively reported on by the Indian financial press.  UPDATE: Originally this post was titled "A Gurinder Singh Dhillon initiate talks about their disillusionment." Obviously since this person was initiated in 1974, it was by  Charan Singh, the RSSB guru at the time. My mind failed to register that when I wrote the post, probably because this person speaks about her disillusionment with Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the…

Here at the Church of the Churchless we look forward to getting back to our usual faithless programming after the Indian financial press stops writing new stories about the alleged financial wrongdoing of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. But here's a fresh episode in the Dhillon drama that we've been reporting on, a LiveMint story: "Gurinder Singh Dhillon used funds from Ranbaxy sale to buy real estate."Download 'Gurinder Singh Dhillon used funds from Ranbaxy stake sale to buy real estate' Now, defenders of the guru probably will think, what's the big deal with Dhillon buying some…

David Lane is a professor of philosophy and sociology whose Neural Surfer web site has an appealing tag line: "Where the Skeptical meets the Mystical."  That's a great summary of how Lane views spirituality. Like me, he's an initiate of Charan Singh, who was the guru of the India-headquartered Radha Soami Satsang Beas organization prior to Gurinder Singh Dhillon -- who has served as the RSSB guru since Charan Singh's death. Lane has an academic interest in the history of RSSB and related Radha Soami sects that far exceeds mine. But we share an interest in the nature of reality,…

Here's the best summary I've seen yet of the financial fraud that the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, (allegedly) has committed while purporting to serve as the "spiritual" leader of a sect with millions of followers worldwide. (The image below came from a story in an Indian publication that I shared in a previous post.) And the summary you can read below was written by a frequenter commenter on this blog, Spence Tepper. Tepper has been a hospital consultant for 30 years, so he knows how bad it is for the guru and his family to…