I’m coming up on the 13 year mark of blogging about growing up in Yogi Bhajan’s 3HO Kundalini Yoga cult. I left the cult in 1994 (got kicked out actually). I could have fully walked away and just never looked back. Sometimes I question why I didn’t do just that. But, I didn’t. I spoke …
SGA Stories: Early 2000’s
Editor’s note: The writer of this post wishes to remain anonymous. “I attended MPA in the early 2000’s, and I would describe Miri Piri Academy as something between a prison and a zoo. I can only attest to my own experiences at this institution, however it is my understanding that conditions were even worse in …
SGA Stories: “Mahakal Singh”
A short bio from Mahakal (who changed his name but preferred to use his previous Sikh name): My sisters and I grew up in Ashrams in London, D.C., Espanola, and LA. They were sent to GNFC in ’81 and I went over in ’83. We were in Mussorie until ’87. I am pretty sure one …
SGA Stores: An Open Letter
Dear Community, Like many of you, I’ve been really shocked at all the truth that has come out recently in our community. I’ve started to realize that although our community has some really wonderful people in it, I feel like it has big and widespread flaws that began with YB but definitely haven’t stopped with …
Trying to understand Trauma-Bonds
The 3HO kids–the SGA’s–are a cohort. I am a member of this cohort. This cohort is living with multiple dimensions of traumatic, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). So it’s no surprise that we trigger each other whether in person or online. It’s no surprise that things–such as chat groups and zoom meetings and other attempts to …
The Land of Entrapment
There’s a time in every young adult’s life that they realize their parents are imperfect and fallible. This post is about that – and about my time living in the Española 3HO ashram when I was in my late-teens. It was the early nineties. I had just completed one year at New Mexico Military Institute, …
What is our value?
Okay, so I’m sure many people know by now the SSS Collaborative Response Team is offering mental health services as part of their response process. To do this they contracted an outside provider called Concern Health. If you want 3HO to pay for your mental health care–which is likely totally related to your relationship to …
Feelings: Speaking Up & Being Heard
I feel like I am sitting back and witnessing a weird, ironic train-wreck in the cult I was raised in, but one that I feel useless to do anything about. As a kid, I got so used to not being heard. From a very early age. I spoke up about being hungry and bored at …
“3H-NO”
This new blog Unhealthy, Unhappy, Unholy is a first person account of life at Miri Piri Academy.
Yogi Bhajan Left Generations of Victims…
Yes. Generations. Multiple second generation adults speak up in THIS ARTICLE of for Los Angeles Magazine by Stacy Stukin, and a lawsuit has been filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. View this post on Instagram When Yogi Bhajan died in 2004, he left behind a sprawling empire under the banner of the 3HO Foundation, which …
To Khalsa Council
On Saturday 4/25 Khalsa Council asked 3HO second generation-ers to come forward to the council and tell them about our experiences. They held a zoom meeting that went on for about 9 hours, no breaks. I sat in for about a third of it. Bearing witness–to even a short segment–has put me in Fight or …
An update…
Okay, so I decided to go ahead talk to both Olive Branch and to SatNam at the office of legal counsel after all. Why though, after such a vehement position? I had to give a lot of thought to this. It’s not healing to revisit our abuses, and it’s important to do so in a …
Correspondence with An-Olive-Branch.org (a long read)
The Siri Singh Sahib Corporation Collaborative Response Team has decided to team up with a religious non-profit organization called An Olive Branch to conduct an independent investigation into the recent allegations of sexual misconduct by its leader Yogi Bhajan. Below is my letter from March 11 2020 to An Olive Branch regarding the issues that …
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It is not our responsibility to make them see. IT IS THEIR FAILURE TO LOOK.
This post is for my fellow SGA’s. To the 1st generation: I see you, but I’m not here to talk to you right now. SGA’s: if you are having conflicting emotions, it’s okay. It’s okay to want to take some aspects of your upbringing, leave others behind, and make the most of who you see …
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To the New Wave of Kundalini Yoga Gurus
Um, your boy is a dud. And all you’re doing is trying to capitalize on this dude’s name and image. And you have no idea what you’re saying. The below excerpt is from a draft in 2018. I decided to go ahead and publish it because I think it’s funny. It’s now 2020 and stupid …
The Stubborn Persistence of Invalidation and Why it’s So Toxic
“It wasn’t like that for me”“You must be remembering it wrong”“It wasn’t the same for everyone”“I don’t see myself as a victim”“You’re allowing yourself to be a victim”“I’ve moved on. You should too” These are some of the invalidating things that fellow indiakids have said to me regarding our upbringing. Just like the normalizing stuff, …
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Good Food and Giving Thanks For It
Thanksgiving for us meant ‘home again’. My parents started flying me and my sisters back for the full winter break starting in 5th grade. We usually got home right in time for Thanksgiving and the home cooked feast that came with it. Food was a really big deal for me, beginning in early childhood. Good …
Halloween, 1984 – an update
It’s been ten years since I wrote about what it was like to be in India on the day Indira Gandhi was assassinated. What took place on Halloween 34 years ago still remains a Specter that haunts. It’s the specter of memory. Let’s neutralize this ghost with knowledge. Read this book: Amritsar: Indira Gandhi’s Last Battle …
What ‘Normalizing’ Looks Like
Are these phrases familiar to you? “I’m still glad for the experience”“I wouldn’t trade it for anything”“I’d rather have been in India than in the U.S.”“My parents were worse, so I was better off away from them”“I’m okay now, so it must have been okay”“It wasn’t all bad” If stuff like this sounds familiar it’s …
That one thing that makes me think MPA is worse:
It’s the Yoga. I grew up in 3HO in the 80’s and I attended GNFC for six years and GRD Academy for two years. While at GNFC, we did absolutely no yoga. The only time we had to do yoga was in the winter months when school was not in session. At GNFC, while we …
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