Listening to the author of “Cartwheels in a Sari”, Jayanti Tamm on NPR this morning. I’m gonna grab a copy for myself, and if you were raised in 3HO or any other high demand religious group, where your spiritual teacher claimed to have a direct connection with God, maybe it’s worth a read. The parallels …
Yogi Bhajan on Wiki
Yogi Bhajan’s page on Wikipedia has some GEMS. For example, he was “the son of a graceful mother”. Who knew? An excerpt on his attitude toward homosexuality reads: “…Yogi Bhajan at first was shocked by the phenomenon. Through the 1970s and early 1980s, Yogi Bhajan taught that the condition could be cured through intensive yoga …
So, because of the nature of my gmail name, I get targeted banner ads that Google thinks are customized to my profile. I don’t know why, I don’t have anything set. I guess it’s just the nature of my goofy email address: sat gur schnrub I’ve gotten yoga ads, spirituality ads, kirtan and other devotional …
Kinda like Harry Potter, but not…
I remember my first day at GNFC very well. We arrived at lunchtime, after a grueling train, bus and taxi ride up to Mussoorie. They were serving Rajmah Dal, chapatis and rice in the upstairs, well-lit senior dining hall. The food was good – I made burritos out of the beans and chapatis and thought, …
Don’t Nettle
This morning I was chatting with someone about nostalgia. It’s so hard not to get a bit nostalgic about India when confronted with cute kid pictures, mostly of us posturing or posing and having fun, or like the silly one above. But still, the letters of the not fun times come in to me steadily …
Dirty Socks
What kind of sadistic (and moronic) fuck would punish kids by making them stuff filthy socks in their mouths and then TAKE A PICTURE OF IT? Nanak Dev Singh, that’s who! After seeing this photo I am of course reminded of my own filthy condition as a kid at GNFC, and how humiliating it often …
On Tolerance
For anybody that’s been able to catch the recent flick “Milk”, there’s probably no doubt that questions of the tolerance within your own family, friends, religion or culture would arise. Growing up in the ashram, I had to listen to a lot of homophobic, ignorant and intolerant remarks about homosexuality. To be fair, I had …
“Hinglish” ???
There’s Spanglish, there’s Engrish, but what’s the word for mixing English and Hindi? Have there been any coined terms? As a native English speaker, who eventually learned broken Hindi and Punjabi, I am curious to know. The little I know of Hindi and Punjabi is in spite of the learning of languages having been severely …
Amritsar 1983
Images of India float around the web. They bring up a lot of conflicting feelings. There we are smiling for the camera. Smiling for our parents back home, not yet knowing how disassociated we would become from them. It’s taken a long to time to have a parent/child relationship again – but now we’re adults, …
Agoraphobia
Black Friday. In the wee hours of the morning after Thanksgiving day, throngs, hoards and mobs of people storm the doors of big box stores all over America. Today at a Walmart in Long Island, these “shoppers” trampled a worker TO DEATH. Read the article here and be prepared to be utterly disgusted with humanity. …
Janja Lalich on Jonestown
Janja Lalich, PhD, author of “Cults in our Midst”, gave the keynote speech a the International Cultic Studies Association and forwarded a copy which is now online. In the beginning of her speech she talks mostly about Jonestown, and the question cult leaders pose to their followers: “Would you die for me?” When I watch …
On Lifestyle and Autonomy
Many Kundalini Yoga students came across Yogi Bhajan during the last years of his life when he was very infirm and didn’t speak in public as much. Most of his teaching was remote, via pre-recorded, and pretty old, videotape. For the Kundalini Yoga students who never had the pleasure to meet Yogi Bhajan, I can …
Letter to Siri Akal
The following is an excerpt from an email I sent to Siri Akal, who was headmaster of GRD Academy, the first of a series of 3HO led boarding schools in India, est. 1989. It’s been a few months now, and he has yet to reply. I figured, since he probably doesn’t care, why not just …
Halloween, 1984
It’s hard to realize or even be aware of congruent events in one’s life until hindsight makes them clear. One of the things that I can recall about being a child in 3HO was this feeling of foggy confusion around what grown-ups were doing and discussing, and around big international events that seemed to be …
GNFC circa 1983
Posing for group photos was agonizing! It always took the photographer forever to set up, and right when he’d get ready he’d say “Ready… Steady… …no hold on…” It was hot, we had be dressed in “bana”, but usually by the time a couple of frames were shot half of us were too loopy to …
The “guides”
Nanak Dev Singh wasn’t the only adult in India to inflict abuses on us children. The list of “guides” is long and exhausting, each person accountable for some loathsome memory of mine, be it neglect, indifference, public humiliation, emotional abuse or coercive tactics. I’ve spent many sessions with my family recounting the rediculous and immature …
on forgiveness…
Forgiveness, I am told, is an important part in healing, letting go and moving on. But I don’t think it’s fair to be “expected” to forgive when the individual perpetrators have not been available to take responsibility for their actions upon children. None of us know what currently goes on in the minds of the …
It takes a village…
It is very common within cults (of all types) to raise children communally. The leader takes a basic notion “It takes a village” and twists it into dictatorial orders that go against what most see to be important in basic child-rearing and child development. A healthy bond between parent and child is crucial in developing …
SGA Stories: From “S”
I grew up in 3H0 and went through all of it from the time I was seven years old. The more I read accounts from others, the more I realize that my inability to cope in alot of areas in my life now ( I’m now 32) are not unique to me alone. You’d think …
Nanak Dev Singh
The winter of 1984 was particularly hard. Most children spent the winter break at Rishikesh in a dorm-style bungalow. The American Sikh converts who were appointed to live with us in India were referred to as “Singh-Sahib” (for the men) or “Bhenji”(for the ladies). These were “the guides”. The guides had little to no experience …