Video and the Cult Leader

There are thousands of hours of videotape of Yogi Bhajan's lectures. Every single lecture I ever had to sit in, there was a video camera on record. When I saw the PBS documentary called Jonestown, the reels and reels of raw footage of Jim Jones reminded me of Yogi Bhajan's own narcissism, and I hoped that one day someone will think about revisiting these lectures as a way to understand Yogiji's true motives - to garner disciples, control them, and live in luxury off of their hard earned money.

Today, some of his videos are starting to emerge on Youtube. This one, called Humbleness and Jewelry, exemplifies his rambling, nonsensical, yet authoritarian and often angry diatribes:


(I can't help but mention that the title should be humility and jewelry, as humbleness is not a word).

Here are some more videos relating to 3HO:
For the new recruit, there are lessons on turban tying.

If you're still out there trying to find that special someone, there's plenty of online "matrimonials" sites to sift through (No Dating!).

And once you've snuggled in for the long haul, you've got six videos worth of relationship advice right here.

Here's a funny, satirical video called Mind Control Cults:

Pilgrimage to Hemkund, elev. FIFTEEN THOUSAND FEET

View GNFC to hemkund in a larger map

My first trip was in 1985 when I was 11. The trip from Mussoorie consisted of two full days on a bus, mostly along a mountain precipice that may or may not have had several land-slides blocking the way, followed by two full days of steep uphill hiking, the second day passing the timberline to a mountain lake with a tin-roofed gurdwara at the top. Sikh Pilgrims are supposed to bathe in the lake, but the window of opportunity is tiny, as mountain fog rolls in by about 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon. Also up there is the famous Valley of the Flowers, which is a shorter hike from Gobind Dham.

The altitude really had me on that first '85 trip. Nanak Dev Singh was on that trip to regulate our lazy asses, and I remember I had made it almost to the top when, at every switchback, I absolutely had to rest. I was so fatiqued that his harangues didn't even bother me - I seem to remember being poked by his walking stick and it not mattering at all. I remember the bus ride being pretty fun. I had a new silver marker which I made use of by tagging the seats "I wuz here". Nanak Dev caught me and didn't let me leave the bus for lunch (Maggie Noodles) until I cleaned it off. I used the chinese white from my watercolor set and took care of it and he bought it. I was surprised that I got one over on him!

The next few pilgrimages were a heck of a lot more fun, but never spiritual - as are most of my memories. The food at Gobind Ghat and Gobind Dham ruled and my stamina was far better. One summer though, was really popular for sikh tourists, and unfortunately that meant the facilities (meaning the bushes lining the trails) were f-ing disgusting. This was not American hiking - anyone goes, regardless of age or physical fitness level. There are orderlies and porters, donkeys and mules for any and every kind of transportation, for ones own belongings, supplies going back and forth between villages, and even people. Once I saw a woman, who must've weighed at least 300 lbs, being carried on a palanquin... a palanquin!!

at GNFC: the teachers

In my years at GNFC school, I and my classmates were routinely harangued by our teachers. They did not understand that we children had just been dropped into a foreign culture, a society with very different rules, behaviors, conventions, languages, and politics. For instance, as American we were accustomed to raise our hand if we wanted to ask teacher a question. But we didn't ever have to ask permission to enter a classroom.

I remember 3rd grade as just a series of mimicking the Indian kids, so as to avoid a teacher freak-out or a beating. In India a student was expected to stand at the entry of a classroom, hold out a straight arm, palm down, and say: "Ma'am may I come in?". At the start of class when the teacher walks in the whole class stands up and sings "Good Morning Ma'am, and Thank You Ma'am". I clearly remember NEVER being taught this, or prepped for it, yet assimilating to it immediately. Our meal prayer was "For what... we are... about to receive... Oh Lord... make us... tobetrulythankful" - for a long time I had no idea what I was saying, but I mumbled it anyway. At the end of every meal we had to stand up and say "We Thank Thee Oh Lord for Food and Thy Fellowship". Japji Sahib was recited every day, before breakfast, in a droning monotonous chant, to the point where I think I remember the way it was chanted more than the hymn itself.

It didn't matter how much of these cultural norms we did assimilate to. According to the teachers, us Americans, remained "hooligans". The fact that we had not been trained like monkeys to anticipate and cower, was mortifying to them. They were conditioned, and perhaps took for granted, that children feared and respected them. They weren't prepared for children who weren't raised with that concept. But it was we who were on the receiving end of their sticks. A common mantra of theirs was "Who could have possibly raised such a rude child", or some kind of insult to our parents, which made us feel even worse because we missed them so much.

Ironically, but not to credit their intolerance, they may just have had a point. We kinda did have irresponsible parents. They didn't raise us responsibly - they let a stranger dictate to them, step by step, what to do with their own lives and with our lives. They listened when Yogi Bhajan ordered them to swap us around, and they obeyed when he told them to send us half way around the world. They obeyed him when he ordered us to stay there, even when we wanted to come home.

If we were hooligans, it was because we were left to our own devices.

Cartwheels in a Sari

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 are astouding!

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 and self-analysis. By the late 1980s, however, Yogi Bhajan resigned himself to the conclusion that "sometimes God goofs" and puts men into women's bodies and vice versa."
--Yogi Bhajan, Comparative, Comprehensive Communication, Eugene, OR, 3HO Transcripts, 1980, pp. 102-3, 221

So, according to him a gay person is one of nature's mistakes? If the 3HO today, or anybody following his teachings whatsoever make any claims to being tolerant, then they had better denounce this statement openly and publicly. Go ahead, use my comments section to do it.

Next, here's my reasoning for why I consider 3HO to have characteristics of "doomsday" cults:

^ quote: "So normally on this Earth, 90% of people will be crazy. I am not making a prediction. It is a truth that will be seen by any of you living to that age. Everybody will be funny, you know. You will never be in a position to determine why somebody is angry, why somebody doesn't want to see you, why somebody doesn't want to love you, why somebody has come and given you two or three slaps and kicked you out of the house... nothing you will be in a position to imagine. Unpredictable actions of the human being will be the common trend in social living. This will be the new human race."
--Yogi Bhajan lecture April 12, 1973, published as "The Blue Gap" in Beads of Truth, Issue 22, March 1974, p. 25

You know, I don't even have to give a footnote on why that statement is so absurd! But really, I have memories of Yogi Bhajan preparing us for the "apocolyptical" aquarian age, including rifle and handgun target practice, "survival" camps, KWTC (Khalsa Women's Training Camp), having ashrams arm themselves, and finally, military school for some of the 2nd generation. Around the time when I was in the military school, all he lectured about was the "Aquarian Age" and how we'd better prepare for it. To prepare for it usually required ridiculous dieting and long meditation sessions that involved pointing fingers in some direction "to align" our auras. Of course, if you did prepare yourself (the way he instructs) for the upcoming change in ages, you would be one of the rare people to have the pleasure of living in a blissful utopia.

Why would a "spiritual teacher" make predictions of a doomsday nature? Well, first it's because he's not really a spiritual teacher, he was the leader of a de-facto cult, and it's in order to keep disciples feeling dependent on them for their very survival. As long as they are in a state of dependency, members don't question his decisions, they assume they are for the benefit of themselves, and the group as a unit.

I will provide reading material later, or until then, go to:
www.factnet.org
www.icsahome.com

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 music ads, and now I'm getting MIRI PIRI ACADEMY ads!

Anyway... needless to say it is all very annoyingly IRONIC.

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, if this is school life, it aint so bad. Then we got our school numbers and house assignments - this was all very foreign for me, as I was only familiar with US public schools. There were Nalwa House (gold), Ranjit House (sky blue) and Attari House (maroon). The next year, Ajit House was formed, and was navy blue. I remember being psyched because someone told me I was in Attari - who wouldn't want to be in the house named after the videogame! 

In actuality the houses refer to Sikh heroes/martys: Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Hari Singh Nalwa, Shaam Singh Attari and Sahibzada Ajit Singh... snooooze...  and, well, I did not end up in Attari house. But whatever house you did wind up in, the kids in other houses always seemed to have more fun, be more together, get more food, less beatings, etc.

Here's how I remember it breaking down: Ranjit house had all the goody-two-shoes, clean kids. Attari House had all the aggro athletes, but not as many smart kids. Nalwa had the brainy kids, but not much athletic clout. And Ajit house usually came 4th in everything, but somehow turned losing into solidarity for one another.


Attari House at PT competition.
For this most ridiculous "sport", we had to get up early and practice every single day: Dung, tak-tak, Dung, tak-tak, Dung, tak-tak...

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 enough to be reminded of the fuck-upness of it.

What also is being revealed slowly is a current between 2nd generationers' patterns of recurring dreams having to do with India. I myself have a recurring dream. Often times in the dream there are a classmates who possess more enthusiasm for the program in India, and currently remain in the community. In my dream their persona and behavior is overbearing, and I am feeling marginalized and stressed out by it. I think they represent the overly fanatic dogmatic side of 3HO, and the message that one was a failure by not "getting with the program".

Some of the ones in my dreams are in reality to this day saying "Speak for yourself, but I was never abused". Lucky them to feel that way, but they are wrong and they are actually just attempting to invalidate others' experience by negating or denying their own. There were some that were given the opportunity to be henchmen or a cronies, and have since developed habits that embrace and even perpetuate authoritarianism and militancy.

If even one kid gets hit or assaulted by an adult - it's an abusive environment! Bottom line. Is the dirty sock picture not proof enough?

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, that's who!

So, of course I'm reminded of my own filthy condition as a kid at GNFC. We were not given laundry service regularly - sometime it would be months before the Dhobi Wala showed up. And when Dhobi did happen, our clothes were often lost or destroyed. Most of the time we had to wash our own clothes by hand with cold water. We usually sent off our uniforms, but our socks, underwear, and private clothes were too important to risk getting lost. For that, we were expected to purchase our own detergent, buckets, scrub brushes, etc. and do our wash on our own personal time. This was as young as eight and nine years old!

Hey, we may have had grime build-up, but as far as I'm concerned, that's not a crime. Abusing and neglecting children is.

Thank you to the person who posted this snapshot, and I apologize if it has been used outside of its intended context. Email me if you have a comment: satgurschnrub at gmail dot com.

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 to listen to a lot of ignorant comments about people living in mainstream society - people who drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and do recreational drugs, people who listen to heavy metal, rap or techno. And, it was mostly from my own family that I heard the homophobic sentiments and ignorant name calling.

3HO describes itself as a "tolerant" community. I'm not really sure what exactly they mean by this, because there is little diversity within 3HO. In the 70's it grew out of the conversion of white, christian-born hippies of the 60's, and has since spread through different regions of the world, mostly within christian cultures. They preached tolerance for other religious beliefs, while maintaining rigid superiority for their own faith, and a VERY rigid attitude towards lifestyle. Lifestyle choices were not among the list of things to be tolerant of.

Once a person joins, and becomes assimilated with 3HO, any chance for real development and growth ceases, and the individual is left to grapple with (or ignore) his or her hang-ups, phobias, neurosis, and even mental disorders. If one was homophobic before entering the group, chances of changing his attitude mid-way through life among the group are unlikely, and lingering sentiments remain and continue to be perpetuated.

While I don't think it's fair to label every member of 3HO a homophobe, I do think there is a shared responsibility. As an adolescent, 3HO really hit me hard was when one of my own generation acknowledged that he was gay. He was cast out by his mother and step-father and left to support himself in his late teens. Never having been given a foundation in the first place to live in mainstream society, in addition to being told he had no place among his family because of his sexual orientation, he floundered and suffered with addiction for quite some time. The community was not there for him. Even with empathy, if he didn't feel he had a place among the elder generation, how could he have confided in his own?

This is when the question started coming up among 2nd generationers: Where exactly does 3HO stand on the issue of homosexuality? When a 2nd generation member asked Bibiji (Yogi Bhajan's wife and current authority figure on policy) about the official policy towards gays in the community and whether gay marriage could be administered in the sikh temple, the answer was: "We welcome people of all lifestyles, but we will not perform a same-sex marriage in our Gurdwara". That's the litmus test on tolerance.

Since a member of 3HO's lifestyle is dictated to them by Yogi Bhajan, who has lectured on pretty much everything from brushing your teeth, to sex, food, thoughts, etc, they began to truly believe that homosexuality is wrong for some but okay for others. Among the sex talks he does go into why gay sex for men isn't yogic, but why gay sex for women is sublime by citing some hokus pokus mystical yogic gobbledy-gook. Unwilling to look further, the community does not see that it has nothing to do with being gay, nor are they able to identify that these are his fetishistic issues.

By blindsiding otherwise tolerant individuals with myths, he's done actual harm by generating an entire community which has been okay with institutionalizing homophobia. The blame lies in him and his "policy team", aka Khalsa Council - for even one second generation child, teen or adult who has been disenfranchised for who they are, and had to suffer for it. It's the kind of pain that no one ever deserves, yet perpetuates among so many cultures, and needs to change especially among any "new religious movement" that preaches tolerance.

But it's a cult, so how can one expect anything other than absurdity? True, they don't even come close to right wing christian groups or the mormons who have done immense damage, but I do think that individual damages do need to be accounted for.

"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 hindered by the moronic teaching style of a very belligerent and unprepared faculty. Our Hindi/Punjabi classes consisted of this: Teachers would help the whole class memorize the alphabets and vowels. We became able at constructing phonetic words into Hindi/Punjabi text. Once we were marginal at reading and writing phonetically, the teachers considered their mission accomplished and phoned it in from there on out. We were expected to fully understand structure, grammar and full bodies of text in both languages. And in the exams we were expected to read and comprehend the questions, answer them correctly, in paragraph form, in Hindi/Punjabi, with marks deducted for incorrect spelling and grammar and even content. I'm not sure I can even get across how preposterous it was.

So the majority of us cheated. The honor-roll kids "mugged up", meaning they memorized every question and answer verbatim so that they could at least pass. But not one American kid had their sights set on getting high marks in Hindi/Punjabi. I had a classmate who refused to participate in this kind of stupidity, so in the exams she signed her name to a blank page, slammed it on the teacher's desk, and stormed out. She didn't care if she failed - the teachers failed us, and she wanted to make that point. Sometimes I wrote my answers in English using the Hindi/Punjabi alphabet to prove another point all-together.

Most of the Hindi/Punjabi teachers were a-holes about it and had no problem failing us. Still, certain Hindi words found their places in our own vernacular. "Don't be a cunjoossie" was popular and the word cunjoossie, which means stingy, turned into an english adjective: "cunjoossed" - as in "You're so cunjoossed". "Chappal", the Hindi word for sandal/flip-flop/thong, was a word that was impossible to resist using daily. "WHERE ARE MY CHAPPALS?" -- "HAS ANYONE SEEN MY CHAPPALS?" ... every morning.

In town, I read all the Hindi signage and billboards I could. If I wasn't gonna get it in class, I may as well try on the streets. The joke was on me when a word I just expended a lot of effort to spell out turned out to be English! Like "Tarzan" or "Telephone" in the case of Bidi's (those cheap cigarettes wrapped in leaves).

One of my favorite words is "chumchi", still used to this day, for lack of any good English counterpart. A chumchi is like what Smithers is to Mr. Burns: A die-hard ass-kisser who thinks they have more to gain by sucking up to one powerful person, even if it's at the expense of friendship with anyone. At boarding school, there were plenty of chumchis.

Amritsar 1983

Found this floating around. These images 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! so we settle for being family.

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. At least that's how I feel.

It brings to mind the scenario at the GNFC Shangrila Cafe (pronounced "caff"). The caff opened a couple times a week and was the only place to spend our GNFC issued pocket money. The currency was bright pink chits that translated one to one, and we got like ten rupees every couple of weeks. So, being useless anywhere else in Mussoorie, every fuschia-fisted student eagerly awaited the caff's occasional opening. It was situated on the rear slope of the dining hall, had a large terrace and a tiny, ten foot by eight foot room with the store counter that was manned by just one person, usually one of the food servers.

If the worker showed up on time and you got in and out before the throngs showed up you were not only smart, you were lucky. If you could break-in during off hours you were even more cunning and deserving of the treats inside. But, usually they opened about an hour late, and the waiting crowd would just grow and grow. Then when it finally opened it was a football riot. Little girls trampled, pushed, shoved, shouted, sweated, cried, and sweared just to spend their meager pocket money on a soda or some chips. "Sir! Sir! Sir! Sir!"

Memories of the caff are some of most frightening and dreadful ones while at Shangrila. Here we were - malnourished and underfed - being reduced to a greedy mob of rats willing to hurt one another for the chance at some shitty junk food. It was useless, but it didn't matter - once you were half-way up to the front, there was no going back, especially because you were stuck. You just had to ride the waves of the pulsing mob.

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 video footage of Jim Jones, I am reminded of the behavior of Yogi Bhajan. An immediate and strong reaction is triggered. How did 900 of Jones' followers die, when none of Yogi Bhajan's have? Could it just have been the luck of the draw? Or is it possible that two such similarly charismatic characters differed so greatly - that one wanted death to all, and one wanted to spare it? Is there any tangible evidence that Yogi Bhajan was as coercive as Jim Jones was - evidence that reflects my own exclusive and specific reaction to Jones?

Yes. The tangible evidence is that Yogi Bhajan went everywhere with a bodyguard who was ready and willing to kill or be killed in order to save his life. I was told as a child that Yogi Bhajan had had several attempts made on his life, and so from there on out he needed protection - for the good of the dharma. I was told that the people who threatened him were "crazy and obsessed", or "couldn't move on".

Bottom line is, I don't know if there is any actual proof that attempts were made to hurt or kill him. But I do know that many people, some second generationers, were expected to guard him with their lives, and perhaps die for him.

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 only imagine they have canonized him, but I do find it difficult to see how anyone could sit through his cryptic and nonsensical lectures, where most of the time there was nary a complete sentence uttered.

Not long ago, but before he died in 2004, I was in Española, attending a friend's wedding. My mother wanted me to say hello to him so I reluctantly went up to him. He said "I know you". Well, that was sort of the way it always was - people would tell me how much he cared about each and every child in 3HO, but half the time, we were treated as total strangers, and I'm not even sure him or his wife, or his staff, knew our names! But he also said it as if he was still exerting some form of control, as if he was saying that although I've removed the turban, my "disguise" hadn't really worked (he often called normal attire and cut hair a disguise).

That's when I witnessed someone approach him and literally BOW to him and kiss his feet. We were always instructed as kids to touch his feet when he passed - but never to "worship" - well what I saw that day was pure worship, and he did not refuse. For the majority of my life, he was more royalty than what he claimed to be as "one of us". He wore a white robe, often of ostentatious fabrics like damask silk or ornately quilted silks and he wore huge jewels. Sometimes he even wore fur, which was puzzling to me as a kid who was being raised, under his edict, to be a vegetarian. When I asked my mom why he wore fur, she told me he had blessed the animal who sacrificed its life and granted its soul liberation.

although the educated side of me knows how the system for recruiting new members into a cult works, it's still beyond me how anyone could fall for it - when the hypocrisy is right in front of our faces. The less rational side (or maybe the more rational side) remains baffled, probably because I've developed a high level of skepticism.

Bottom line, is Kundalini Yoga (the 3HO stuff) is just this: heavy breathing, calisthenics and modified asanas and chanting. There's nothing to disprove that breath and movement make one feel better, so I think new recruits are willing to take the chanting as sort of a package deal. But what they may not see is that it's the package deal that's the biggest hoax on the practitioner. It's reeling them in, forcing edicts and dogmas as lifestyle.

Lifestyle is what you make of your own life. How can a set of prescribed dogmas be likened at all as lifestyle! Autonomy cannot be underscored more here!

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 publish it for everyone to see? He is now headmaster of Chapel Hill Chauncey Hall Boarding School

..."You may feel like it's ancient history, as you've moved on and are now headmaster at another boarding school (big surprise!), but you need to know what it was like for us as children. First off, all children in 3HO were considered public property, therefore any adult stranger felt they had the right to discipline any child, for any reason. I know that this was a system set in place by Yogi Bhajan - and I do know the coercive tactics that were used by him and his inner circle. That being said, EVERY adult who was put in charge of children had a responsibility to protect those children and to comfort them and show them love and affection - all qualities that were severely lacking while at both GNFC and GRD. Us children were placed thousands of miles away from their parents, in a foreign and institutionally abusive environment. The American "guides" should have been there to protect us - yet is was the American "guides" that I loathed and feared the most. If it wasn't physical assault or battery upon one of us, it was the condoning of corporal punishment and public humiliation, and on top of that almost daily emotional abuse. When I was a teenager, at GRD, had a little more autonomy and was therefore less susceptible to your methods, I'd observe YOU ridiculing and harassing 7 and 8 years-olds, publicly humiliating them and tormenting them. These were little children!!

"I have clear memories of many a "lecture" from either yourself or Hari Kaur. As an adult, I now know those lectures were pointless exercises in emotional abuse upon a child. There was no productive purpose. But what it felt like as a child was someone "reaming" me emotionally, telling me I was no good, that I was ugly, that I was fat, and that I was a slut.

"I think that by far the worst treatment by yourself and Hari Kaur was in your attitude towards the girls - The whole school was told, by you during breakfast, that NONE of us deserved to have food because we were all "too fat", meanwhile the boys were given more food. We were told by both of you that we were "ungraceful" sluts if we were seen even so much as holding hands with a boy. The ones of us who showed the highest in scholastic achievement were told we weren't "smart enough", and were often ridiculed in class if our answers were wrong, meanwhile half a dozen boys were being allowed to skip a grade (not that it was a great service to any of them today). If there is any one common memory of all the 2nd generation women raised in 3HO, it's that we were systematically and repeatedly told that "if we didn't behave like shaktis" we would wind up as prostitutes, drug addicts, the list goes on. The emotional impact that these kinds of messages send to young girls is devastating to say the least, and 3HO should consider itself very lucky that the majority of us as grown women are strong, independent, self sufficient feminists - IN SPITE of this treatment. However the hurdles that many of us have had to overcome as a clear result of institutionalized and repeated neglect, abuse, trauma and chaos are not to be overlooked or diminished.

"I hope this letter helps to send the message that all is not well, and shan't be until the adults responsible take some accountability for their very poor behavior while in India."

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 relevant to our "way of life".

The biggest and scariest event while in India was the assassination of the Prime Minister Indira Ghandi by her Sikh bodyguards. This took place on October 31, 1984, and from our perspective (the 3HO kids at GNFC) it seemed like the beginning of World War Three. Much confusion and fear revolved around this incident for us as kids, and most, if not all, of the facts were concealed from us. When we wanted to know why "our people" would do that, I remember being told that they weren't really Sikhs, they were just dressed up like Sikhs.

One of the facts that strikes me as particularly scary is that in 1982 and 83 (the same time those photos below were taken) we were housed literally in the very same hostel, Nanak Nivas, as some seriously controversial and leading figures in the Khalistan Separatist Movement - the very same folks who plotted her assassination. One such character was Jarnail Singh Bindranwale, who resided there from 1982 until December 1983 when he and his "army" then took residence in the Golden Temple/Akal Takht, ultimately leading to Operation Blue Star, a move by Indira Ghandi that quickened the spiral of upheaval in Punjab. After her assassination, we were not permitted to travel to Punjab until 1990.

If it hadn't been my very first visit to India, and if I hadn't been so young, it's possible I'd be aware that being in Amritsar full of armed guards wasn't the normal way of life. But because the adults had been told they were in good company, I think I and the others disassociated from the possibilities of real violence and came to accept that India was simply a volatile place, and that's the way it was going to be, "It's better than America". (as a footnote, the armed militia and policemen were little threat compared to the onslaughts and harangues of Nanak Dev and his goons).

Our coping mechanisms during that time shaped many behaviors and coping mechanisms in the coming years. We knew how to survive, but we disassociated from trying to know what was going on on the political front. I've had to search my own memories and juxtapose them with the events of the time - but all I remember is confusion. I try not to become totally angry all over again at how our parents could have not only placed their children in the care of such a diabolical, manipulative, troll, but then willingly and knowingly plunked us down into a war zone and kept us there for a decade longer!

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 put on "the show". The top one was taken with Nanak Dev, and the blue outfits were part of showing off our gatka skills in pretty much every Punjabi town we showed up in. That's him on the far right. I have some good shots of me as little little kid, where all us little kids had to form a chain circle to stop the massive crowd from encroaching into the performance area. You don't know what a crowd is until you've been to India, much less a parade, or jalous in India.

The good thing is that I think maybe there's as few as four or five people out of both crowds are still involved in 3HO. Four or five too many, but looks like natural selection will take care of that.

The "guides"

Nanak Dev 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 behavior of the "Singh Sahibs" and "Bhenjis" in India, and at summer survival camps. While my own parents lamented poor behavior and treatment, they have never actually confronted any of these "guides", or taken personal responsibility for their roles. What they have been good at however, is creating drama: sometimes they cry, sometimes they say "I'm sorry you think I was such a bad parent", sometimes they get overly angry at us - but in the end, it's usually me feeling bad for them.

There was a narrow time in my pre-teens that I felt that my own family loved me for who I genuinely was: a creative, fun and easygoing kid. I was encouraged artistically, I was given affection and care. I was fed amazing food and watched cool old movies and listened to good rock n' roll (with them!). To sum it up, all of my positive memories involved NO religion - I was genuinely a secular kid - as most kids are. I wasn't interested in the supernatural, the metaphysical or the mystical, or being a "shakti" or any of that.

Later, I can now recount, Yogi Bhajan clearly felt his grasp on us, the "future of the Khalsa", slipping. He tightened his control, he used more coercive tactics and abusive language. With me, he first tried to reign me in as an "insider", someone who maybe would feel special with extra attention, and would stick around to do his bidding. When that didn't work (thank god!) he verbally assaulted and abused me and then cast me out. He made the community see me as someone who was "troubled". Even though I had won, I felt like a castaway and that I had lost everything. And he made my whole family ostracize me - those who I had loved so dearly and looked up to so much, now proved themselves at that time to be trite individuals - they may have loved me and nourished me for a brief period, but it was only because they had hopes of me carrying out their religious agenda. Then it turned into resentment towards me when I openly and publicly disagreed with Yogi Bhajan.

Now I know that it wasn't just me as a kid who was genuinely secular. I am still that person today, and I'm often surprised at how, in spite of numerous attempts to reign me in with emotional abuses and threats of falling apart and failing, that my own will power and tenacity had kept me autonomous. Honestly though? Will power and tenacity are exhausting - and I'm ready to live a life in which the anxiety and self doubt don't creep up anymore, a life where I'm genuinely confident in my self, my actions and my behavior.

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 adults who treated us poorly, neglected us, or abused us. How can I possibly begin to presume that they feel any sense of personal responsibility?

I do know that Nanak Dev does not. He's off in Germany attempting to lead his own little "gatka" cult. In this way, I presume his Euro followers are not aware that he used to beat up on kids and that if they found out they would not follow him or take his classes. Since Yogi Bhajan's death many members of 3HO (the ones who considered themselves part of his elite inner circle) are going off to new "frontiers" and gathering new followers. Maybe, just maybe, Americans are starting to wise up to all this cult shit, seeing that many yoga teachers are nothing but a bunch of hypocritical phonies who just want to fuck their students and preach about a "lifestyle" they know nothing about. Alot of people take yoga not to be inundated with religious dogma, yet find themselves in that inevitable situation.

I know I have experienced that even outside of the 3HO community. Almost every yoga class I've been to has some form of preachy-culty-dogma attached.

...Oh wait I was supposed to be talking about forgiveness. The whole roundabout discussion is just a window into the human condition: people will continue to exploit people and children. It does not make me any "better" a person to forgive abhorrent behavior. Forgiveness is only possible when it's a two-way street, so in no way do I feel that I owe it to myself to forgive some bastard for being abusive. I feel there are better ways to move on.