On Vegetarianism

Growing up in 3HO I was raised a vegetarian. We ate dairy and cheese, but no eggs and we avoided any food with other animal by-products like lard or chicken stock. I'd say that our diets were very strict, health food diets, but not vegan. Yogi Bhajan often instructed his students to go on fasts, usually lasting about six weeks (40 days was "the standard" to "break" a "habit"). I remember one fast that he instructed to women who wanted to lose weight: Drink nothing but Skim Milk mixed with Diet Coke, but that's another topic all-together.

One time, as a child, one of us was served meat by accident and we all started to cry. We had no concept of a world that was indifferent to our vegetarianism.

Organizations that promote vegetarianism are well aware that children are easily frightened and even traumatized by the sight of slaughter and they know that children are unable to disseminate the complex information within such imagery. Yet they knowingly present the information bluntly and unapologetically (it's parallel to the anti-abortion fanatics handing out "literature" outside clinics with tragic imagery of extracted fetuses). I don't agree with the tactic used, and it dismays me to see that the cause for humane treatment of animals has grown far too fanatic and dogmatic.

Growing up in 3HO we too were conditioned to signify meat and any and all animal slaughter with mass violence and savagery. We were implanted with far too violent a picture of the nature of food with complicated politics and causes that we were too young to comprehend. As small children who hadn't developed the skills to act or think rationally, morally or critically, our innocence was exploited and we were conditioned to be traumatized.

A child growing into adolescence may continue to carry this brutal imagery and the big-picture consequences with them for a long time. We become more and more weighed down by the burdens of society, experiencing feelings of guilt for anything that could be harmful in any way, and developing an unbalanced barometer for right and wrong. I think THIS is primarily why it took me a long time to decide to be an omnivore (but not strictly speaking). Today I'm happy that I've given the subject a lot of thought and can comfortably make decisions based on my own intellect and needs.

Because I am someone who is skeptical of, and continually disillusioned by the moral high ground, I know that a one-size-fits-all approach is not for me. Nor is it sensitive to the vastness of cultures around the world that all have the same common ground - food for sustenance and survival. I am dismayed by people who were and still are willing to ignore this very basic truth and buy into diet as religion, suspending logic to extract some kind of meaning from anything their leader tells them, meanwhile separating themselves from others based on irrelevant choices.


I recently read an article about a vegan restaurant which espouses the self-help philosophies of Landmark Forum, and encourages, sometimes even requires employees to spend their own money on Landmark Seminars. The Landmark Forum has been designated a cult by most in the cultic studies and psychology fields.

Found an interesting blog post by a Kundalini Yoga practitioner.

3HO - Cult or Spiritual Environment?

I'm frankly a bit relieved by the writer's awareness of this issue, because it's rare that someone deeply engaged in the 3HO or Kundalini Yoga community would ever even use the word "cult" in reference to one's self. If you were born and raised in 3HO, I think it would be good to comment on his post because the more information that people have about 3HO's past practices, the better it is for newer members. The side of the story of the 2nd generation adults who have since left to live their lives in broader society is not heard by incoming yoga practitioners/students, I guarantee. Not that it's a cause of mine, but I do feel that total silence is not the way.

I found this quote on Rick Ross' website and it struck a chord:

"I was researching 3HO for a friend who was asking me about it, and I found this site. I found it interesting, and I'm glad you have it. The group needs to be exposed for what it really is, and not many people have even heard of it. I was born in 3HO, and I spent quite a few years in the ashram in New Mexico. I didn't know I was in a cult. For me it was all so normal. I thought I was a real, genuine Sikh. I loved the Gurus, and I wanted to be holy, even when I was very young. My older brother is the one who had the most difficult time. He went to school in India when he was eight years old. He did not really understand what was happening, and he thought our parents were dead, and that he was an orphan. My parents did not realize how harshly the children were being treated there. He slept in a crowded room with bunk beds and cement floors. He told us there was no bathroom in the dormitory, and the doors were locked at night with a chain. He was beaten quite often, although he was quite a good kid. It occurred to my brother and I later what a strange trick our early years had been. We were born into a world that is not really the 'real world,' and we didn't know it. We were extremely devoted Sikhs, and we learned later that we hadn't even been real Sikhs. When my family left the group, no one knew we were leaving, and we never looked back. We changed our names and started a new life. The people I knew when I was a kid I have never seen since. My brother and I have been really lucky. We've both traveled the world doing humanitarian work, and we've had quite adventurous lives so far. We decided not to become bitter about the past, and we're both quite happy people."

On Given Names

I can't believe I haven't yet written about the broad issue of the given name. It's an issue that I know plagues a number of young adults born and raised in 3HO Sikh Dharma. Sikh Dharma/3HO converts are given a "spiritual" name, with roots in sanskrit and gurmukhi. My given name was three syllables, plus my middle name kaur and my last name khalsa. Alot of names start with a Sat, Siri or Gur (or both, or even all three!)

Needless to say, once away from 3HO, introductions were not much fun. With names like Satgurschnrub Kaur Khalsa, and so on, one can relate!

I've come to have the opinion that Right-off-the-bat inquiries into the origins of my name are actually nosey and borderline rude, as opposed to when I was younger and really did think someone was truly interested in ME. Lesson? Don't ask someone about their life story when just having been introduced to them seconds ago. For years, in my attempt at evading the saga that was my (our) upbringing, I'd get uncomfortable and squirmy and wound up just wanting who ever it was I was speaking with to go away, leave me alone. Sometimes I used the old "hippie parents" routine, but the dilemma was that I felt compromised, because, well, I know that most hippies still managed to keep their own identities. I'm letting my parents (and their leader) off too easily by dismissing their choices as typical hippie behavior.

But be frank and use the word CULT and your new acquaintance gets a little uncomfortable. Or maybe just a little too intrigued for a first encounter. Either way, it's no solution.

I find myself particularly in a jam when I meet someone from India. They understand my name, easily identify it as Indian and usually translate it for me from whatever language they most easily identify with. They then want to know, and often act as if they are entitled to an explanation. They want to know how a white person with no apparent signs of religious conversion wound up with an Indian name! Desperate to not be pegged as the girl who just discovered yoga and how good her ass looks in yoga pants, yet only managed to expand her knowledge of Hindu culture enough to start going by saraswati, I say "I was born with this name". And then usually that just leads to more questions...

No... Way... Out...
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Cut to now. I often shorten my name on first encounters, and it suits me, and the situation almost every time.