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

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, 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 Niwas, 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 took residence in the Akal Takht, ultimately leading to Operation Blue Star, a move by Indira Ghandi that quickened the spiral of violence and 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 Singh (pictured on the far right in full regalia), 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 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 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 Singh 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.

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 basic human traits like trust and hope. This being ruptured in a cult environment weakens both parent and child, making both more dependent on the leader - sort of like a perpetual state of childhood.

An ex-3HO adult mentioned that they were led to understand that communal child-rearing was the norm in Indian Culture, and therefore the reason for it within 3HO. But one of the biggest eye-openers for me having been sent to India at such a young age, away from the romantic notions of my parents, was that I was able to see Indian and Sikh culture for what is really was. And today as an adult, I am able to differentiate between the two - that 3HO, in no way resembles Indian culture or traditional Sikh culture.

In reality, it is not the Indian culture to simply refer to any adult in one's community as "auntie" or "uncle" (as this adult mentioned in a message to me). Indian culture highly emphasizes the nuclear and extended family as a unit, but total strangers are not treated as family willy-nilly. At GNFC the Indian students did not refer to their teachers and matrons as "auntie" or "uncle", they were "Ma'am" and "Sir". While Hierarchy is emphasized with age and class, there simply is no umbrella term for just any adult. Roles are far more clear than what the 3HO adults may have been led to believe. Yogi Bhajan used misunderstood notions of an exotic and far off land and twisted them to his benefit.

Letter from another second generation adult raised in 3HO

This email came to me today (although the author did not feel the need for anonymity, I've taken the liberty of removing a name).

"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 that not being alone would be some sort of comfort, but for me it's not. It's just a reminder that there were alot of us being abused and year after year nothing was ever done. No one ever stood up for us to get it stopped, not our parents or anyone. They all either just ignored it or didn't believe us when we tried to tell them what was really going on.

"I could probably spend days recounting my experiences, but for now I'll just say that the abuses were brutal and personal and extremely damaging.

"I was younger during Nanak Dev's reign of terror, so I luckily didn't encounter him much, but I got it from other adults both Indian and American and from other kids.

"And I got it from Yogi Bhajan back in the US after I left India as well. He managed to make me out to be some sort of criminal thereby isolating me completely from my friends and peers and from my parents. It's been so many years now and I've done lots of searching for some way to be OK now, and it all just lingers on and on, making it nearly impossible for me to be happy or trusting or open at all.

"I've done alot of really great things over the years that I'm really proud of, but it feels empty as if I'm waiting for some sort of validation from someone or somewhere that I know doesn't exist, yet I keep waiting for it. There aren't alot of us who truly talk about this stuff or who openly admit that it's affected us as much as it has. For some reason, we still cling to the notion that 'what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger' bullshit attitude. Well, I for one, am not stronger. I'm just really good at faking it most of the time. It makes me unbearbly sad when I think about it all. And, I don't want to be sad anymore and I don't want anyone else who was there to be sad anymore either.

"We were dealt a very unjust hand in our young lives and there are very real people who are to blame who must know how badly they affected us. At least I hope they know. Maybe it's time we tell them? Maybe it's time we get apologies, not excuses.

"I don't know, all I do know is that I struggle everyday to just be OK. To get up and go to work, to know that I am worth every effort and that I deserve to be happy. I just want anyone else who experienced 3H0 the way I did that you too deserve every happiness. And talking about it does actually help a bit and there are people who will listen.

"So, I hope you take good care Kelly. Thank you so much for letting me add my bit.

--S."

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 working with children and volunteered to travel to India on this program on very meager pay. The guide who was the most abusive was Nanak Dev Singh. He was meant to be the authority over everyone. He had executive order above all others, and well, if they didn’t agree with him, he would bully them into acquiescence.

Our daily routine began with waking up at 3:30 AM to take a freezing cold shower followed by Morning Prayer. At Prayer Nanak Dev Singh would whack us with a stick if our spines weren’t straight, or if we feel asleep. He loomed over us during meals, teasing children and haranguing. Then he led the children in some sort of Sikh martial art or athletic activity. He verbally abused and taunted all the children and he physically abused several children both boys and girls. He physically assaulted a girl behind closed doors and poundend on her chest and back causing serious bruising and welts. This incident was just total confusion from my perspective, but I remember bigger kids guarding the door where he had enclosed her to assault her. Looking back, his assault was pre-meditated, to the point where he had the wherewithal to lock her in a room and have the door guarded.

When a child didn’t respond to his harangues, he humiliated her (or him) in front of everyone and made her carry around a twenty-pound stone called an EGO ROCK so everyone would know she was punished. After he assaulted my friend, he made her carry around one of these stones for about one month. This practice even became a trend among the rest of the singh-sahibs and bhenjis. It got so bad, a seven year old was made to carry around the ego-rock. She dropped it and it broke her toe.

Although abuse was institutional, Nanak Dev Singh is personally responsible a majority of it, including most of the harshest assaults. It is my belief that he is culpable for most or all of diagnosed and undiagnosed cases of Post Traumatic Stress.

Nanak Dev Singh currently lives overseas, and most people want nothing to do with him. But I say, don't let him duck away so easily - email him - his email is: nkhalsa2@arcor.de and website.

I remember wanting nothing more than to coast under his radar, avoiding his randomly selected harangues and blow-outs. One time he did sneak up behind me, grabbed me by the throat and said "relax or I'll snap your neck". But my memory of the particular abuse incidents is mostly that of feeling major confusion – never knowing the details, never knowing what would come next, and experiencing crippling fear around him. My only guess how he got away with his tyranny is that is was sanctioned by Yogi Bhajan.

GNFC

Being at a boarding school at such a young age was not easy, although it was at times fun. It did get more nerve-wracking the older I got, and the more independent I became, which I think was a sign that I was healthier than I thought, and ready to live my own life.

Every day for the first years we were there, we were hit with a switch by our dorm matrons. Every day we received knuckle whacks by our teachers. Every day someone in the dining hall would get whacked on the top of the head with a serving spoon. Everyday we got dragged around by our earlobes.

One year the debate team even had to take on the adage “Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child”. Pity the children who had to come up with the pros of getting beaten. But in this institution, corporal punishment by seniors on to juniors was encouraged. I think it must have been about instilling a sense of false empowerment, thus encouraging the vicious cycle of abuses.

I was not athletic, not particularly popular, but not particularly unpopular. I spent my days avoiding the bullies, teachers and especially the American “guides”, who always seemed to find me and proceed to psycho-analyze some flaw of mine. The older I got, the more I stuck to activities like drawing, reading, playing cards, skateboarding, listening to rock n’ roll on my walkman (when I had batteries), or drinking tea. I did little studying but managed to get good grades. I consider myself one of the more fortunate ones because I could coast pretty well. Not all children could adapt to life without their parents – and these were the ones that I really feel for – somehow these children were the target of multiple daily abuses and punishments, and the more they were punished the harder it became for them to cope. Imagine parents knowingly sending their children into an institutionally abusive environment like this! These must have been some pretty heavy orders.

Parents in 3HO still send their children away to India to a school called Miri Piri Academy.

about

I was born and raised in 3HO Sikh Dharma, a religion that I now know to be a cult. I left at 18 to live my life as I saw fit. After many years of not being able to shake the early childhood and India memories I am here to share my experiences and my current feelings about 3HO and their now deceased leader, Yogi Bhajan.

Growing up in a cult, we were often told that we were special and we were made to feel unique amongst mainstream society. The sad reality, however, was that we were treated carelessly and casually like communal property. In 1982 I was child-swapped to an inexperienced, negligent and abusive couple. In 1983 I was sent away, along with a group of other 3HO children, to boarding school in India. I was eight years old, and I was to live the rest of my childhood in a third world country under the "guidance" of appointed members in 3HO and Indian school matrons. As the years went on more and more groups arrived. 3HO Sikh Dharma continues to send children away to boarding school in India.

In my past experience it has been common for myself and my second generation peers to act flippant or dismissive when dealing with this past. One of the reasons, I believe, is that in dealing with the issue head on, one can become overwhemingly angry, anxious, stressed, depressed or saddened, and in order to simply cope we choose to brush some of the hard truths aside. We may rationalize by saying "everyone goes through traumatic experiences" or "it wasn't ALL that bad, was it?". Another possible reason that ex-3HO peers may have difficulty validating another's experience, and this is due to our being deprived of the natural development of our individual selves, and the encouragement of ashram adults (vis-a-vis the leader, Yogi Bhajan) to tattle and punish one another for speaking out or being different. The fear of reprisal–in whatever form–carried over to adulthood, and diminishes the ability to see each other for the amazing individuals we are, and want to become.

I am hopeful for my future, and in the futures of my second generation peers. A majority of us have gone on to higher education and have developed the necessary critical thinking skills needed for independent thought and informed choices.

About this Blog

I want the curious world to know, from a first-hand account, what life was like for me growing up in this religion, removed from my my nuclear family for more than half of my childhood. Through counseling, therapy and education, I am now able to convey my opinion clearly and confidently, knowing that my feelings are valid, and that there is an audience that wants to know more about our story.

The motivation for this journal is not as a polemic, but is a personal platform where I express some of the feelings that emerge now and again as a result of being raised in the high-demand religious cult called 3HO Sikh Dharma and Kundalini Yoga.

Posts are written in no particular order, and are archived by the written date.