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 …
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 …
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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Miri Piri Academy… Meet your new boss. Same as the old boss.
There are a lot of reasons why I believe things have not changed for the 3HO children at boarding school at Miri Piri Academy in Amritsar, India. There’s one reason why I believe it’s worse: Mandatory Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training in order to graduate. I’ll talk more on that later. Those 3HO kids over there, …
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Um, what?
How insulting is this: Hey. Assholes. RIGHT NOW there are 3HO Sikh Dharma children who are thousands of miles apart from their parents–children who have been separated because Yogi Bhajan told their parents to do it. Told their parents that their “children don’t love them”. Told their parents that “distance therapy” is a thing. And …
Separating children from parents is wrong. Very wrong.
What’s happening now–Children being torn from their parents at the US border–might feel all-too personal. It can trigger a lot of unhappy memories. I have a clear memory of how I felt in my body and in my mind when I was really young and separated from my parents. I remember not feeling, and just …
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Amritsar c. 1983
Yogi Bhajan, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Nanak Dev Singh, a 3HO child who looks to be no older than ten years, another 3HO child probably a teen, and a 3HO woman. I can’t even begin to make sense of this scene. Can you? Do you have first-hand knowledge of it? Do you know?
There’s no deadline for grief
…Meaning, it might take a while. After years of keeping this blog, I have had the opportunity to speak with a number of ex-classmates, talk to people, and have real conversations about growing up in 3HO Sikh Dharma. When I do take time out of ordinary life to reconnect or have a conversation, what usually …