That one thing that makes me think MPA is worse:

It's the Yoga.

3HO Youth doing yoga at Miri Piri Academy, Amritsar India

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 may not have been fully assimilated with Indian and Thai born students (in that our specially designed 'bana' uniforms made us stand out) our day to day schedule conformed with the school's schedule. Mornings consisted of prayer recital in the dorms for young children and gurudwara for the older children, followed by breakfast, prep (study hall) and assembly. Then we had classes until 4:00pm. Tea time followed school, and after that we had an hour or two of free time, or sports time. Then, gurudwara again (for the big kids), followed by dinner, and more study hall. Lights out was at 10:00pm. There was simply no room for yoga, gatka or much of anything else outside the bounds of a traditional/colonial style boarding school routine. It might have been grueling and filled with drudgery, but at least we didn't have to wake up at 3:30 in the morning.

The 3:30AM sadhanas were part of our winter break, especially during those years we didn't get to go back to the US. It sucked. Some of the guides made us take freezing cold showers before meditation and yoga... all taking place before the sun came up. I won't go into the belief system that led to us being sleep deprived all the time. Let's just say that... yeah. This is cult studies 101. It's easier to control people when they don't get enough sleep.

Okay, so then there was GRD Academy, as sort of intermittent in-between school that only lasted a few years. Here they made feeble attempts at a GNFC-style structure, but since Yogi Bhajan put himself at the center, he was able to mix his own stuff into it. For example, at GRD we had to wake up around 4:30am for sadhana. And our after-school stuff was largely militant–things like gatka, martial arts and calisthenics. And evenings were reserved for 3ho-style, new-age chanting and meditation. The traditional Sikh gurudwara was just on Sundays, at a local temple in Dehra Dun.

Still. At GRD, if you weren't into the devotional stuff you could, with a little effort, avoid it and plop yourself down in the back, put your head down and tune it out. I'm not saying the yoga and meditation wasn't shoved down our throats. It was. But it was just a little bit easier to ignore.

Fast forward to now. I fear that for students of the 3HO run boarding school in India, Miri Piri Academy, this is no longer the case. At MPA it is a graduation requirement to enroll in Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training. This fact alone makes MPA a de facto cult school. End of story.

Kundalini Yoga is not academic. Kundalini Yoga is not extra-curricular. Kundalini Yoga has zero connection to scholarly, historic or traditional philosophies and practices, Indian or otherwise. I've said this before and I'll say it again: Kundalini Yoga is nothing more than a hodge-podge of calisthenics-like movements, mudras and mantras–all completely invented by one person who was never a Yogi to begin with.*

But what horrifies me more than this, the banal scam of Kundalini Yoga, is that the 2nd and 3rd generation of 3HO children–children who did not choose this for themselves–are being told... get this... that Kundalini Yoga "will unblock and heal"... wait for it...


... their trauma.


TRAUMA THAT WAS INFLICTED ON TO THEM. WHILE IN THE CARE AND GUARDIANSHIP OF MEMBERS OF 3HO SIKH DHARMA KUNDALINI YOGA.

My head just exploded.

Seriously. There's some very real trauma that is being dismissed and ignored here. And that which is being ignored now will only emerge later on. That which continues to be actively repressed, will likely have a resurgence in another, more destructive form, either inwardly or outwardly.

The risk right now for MPA kids is high. That pesky graduation requirement only seems benign. But is very much malignant. What it actually means is that MPA kids are being corralled as future recruiters for 3HO. And they are being deprived of a real education. Their opportunities in the world are narrower, and they are being cornered into believing that a career as a Kundalini Yoga™ brand instructor/teacher/performer may be one of their only viable occupations. I've observed a host of MPA alumni acting on it too, either working within 3HO itself, or by inserting themselves into the 'wellness' industry. I've observed the towing of a familiar line: that their upbringing with "the technology and tools" gives a semblance of authenticity and 'cred'.

Except... Kundalini Yoga is bullshit. No amount of anything that anyone does in relationship to it will ever be authentic.

Most importantly, Kundalini Yoga is not–nor will it ever be–considered an effective or acceptable treatment for trauma. The only accepted treatment for trauma or a traumatic upbringing (such as ours) is Counseling–under a qualified and licensed Therapist who adheres to mainstream, evidence-based practices, standards and guidelines.

It's hard, but not that hard to reckon with the full scope of our upbringing. Looking at it really broadly and critically helps to really see it for what it was, and allows us to unpack it fully so that we can understand it fully. It's not easy, but it's not impossible either. I know because I've been there. I thought I could take some of it, and leave the rest behind. I even taught a few Kundalini Yoga classes here and there. Then, I looked at it critically, and knew that it's just not copacetic with what it means to live a truly free life.

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 follows is a familiar pattern and string of emotions. First, I experience a little bit of euphoria because I was able to reconnect with an old friend. But after that feeling wears off, I feel exhaustion, thirst and brain-fog. My emotional state is sapped, my thoughts become sort of non-verbal and I don't possess enough brain-power to process my feelings. Then I go through a night (or two) of restless sleep and hypnagogic states of nervous internal dialogue. Still, I go about my day, telling myself This Too Shall Pass.

During this fog-brain state, I will experience a nervous energy and a feeling of true dread. There's a heavy pit in my stomach and a churning pulse in my abdomen, neck and face. My vision starts to feel a little off, glassy sort of. What I am experiencing is a sludgy kind of anxiety, and I have come to recognize as a sign to get myself some self-care.

Even if I get care, sometimes I'll ride the anxiety for a while, trying to process my feelings and sort them out in a coherent way. I might scour the internet for any sign that our story – the un-varnished one, that is – might be getting told by more people. That bit-by-bit we will come forward and speak our truth, discuss our experience, and process it like the fully-aware people that we are (right?).

It's happening now, and I'm hoping more will follow. Sonofasikh is a blog written by one of my schoolmates as he processes his childhood by revisiting the place where it all went down. It's funny, charming and nostalgic. And it is especially poignant. My goodness. His account of being tortured by Nanak Dev Singh–this singular moment among far too many–was nevertheless astonishing and horrifying. And it was heartbreaking. But it was revelatory too, because I found myself able to live inside his experience and fully be a part of it and empathize with it in a way I hadn't done before. I must admit, I had become so familiar with my own family experiences of assault and battery that, well, they just take up more room in my consciousness. This shook me out of that myopia, and for that I am grateful.

But it also made me feel so much sorrow and so much loss.

***

Our experiences as 3HO children were both collective and individual at the same time. We each experienced and remember slightly varying versions of the same kinds of abuse. At the time, our only way of commingling those disparate forms of antagonism was to form a sibling-like bond, and forge ahead as best we could. But we had so little space to experience the full range of emotions that are so crucial in childhood development. Empathy was often sacrificed in our day-to-day coping. So much so, that it became nearly amputated from our lives. And our parents were cut off from it in their own cultic environment too.

Empathy. It's not the same thing as compassion, love, forgiveness or acceptance (all important faculties). Empathy is the ability to validate another person's feelings by acknowledging their experiences, even when you might have a different point of view. People like us–the indiakids–may not be aware that we might lack empathy. It was actively revoked from us, and we were not shown how to demonstrate it to one another. If we have developed it, we have had to take whatever kernel exists inside ourselves and grow it on our own... and probably as adults, and probably in a very flawed and messy way.

I don't really have a way to end this post... I guess I'm still processing.

💗

Can someone regret something even if they've never apologized for their role?

Last week, Dr. Dre issued a public apology to the women he beat up back in the N.W.A. times. While it reeks of PR, it's still a step in the right direction. Perhaps now he can put his money where his mouth is and donate to causes that prevent domestic violence, and to those that help victims of domestic abuse.

And here we are. Looking at domestic violence and physical abuse through the lens of Popular Culture, as if it happens elsewhere. No. Abuse in 3HO Sikh Dharma was (and likely is) right in our own homes, schools and institutions.

Yet, to date, not one adult Guide who was in India while we were in school there has ever come out publicly or apologized publicly. Yes, Nanak Dev is deceased, so it's too late to hear those words from the person who was most abusive. But there were plenty others that were both abusive themselves and/or complicit in not doing anything while kids were being beaten.

I find this to be shameful.

If rappers can do it, why can't they? Maybe it has to do with real regret, as opposed to lip-service regret. Maybe none of them really regret their behavior? Maybe they don't think it was wrong? Maybe they are too fragile? Maybe they struggled to get back on their feet after India that they just needed to re-establish themselves, forgetting about all the young adults that had their own futures ahead of them? Maybe it didn't occur to them that the kids they beat and the kids they watched being beaten will take those involuntary scars with them for a lifetime.

Like Dee Barnes said "I have a souvenir I never wanted".

No one wants those kinds of souvenirs. The people who inflict harm on others are culpable until their victims get justice. Bottom line. There is no other way to have a civilized society.

If our childhood Guides think it's okay to simply go on, holding their heads high against the reality of what they have done, they are wrong. One man has chosen to take it to his grave. Will the rest of them follow suit, or will they do the right thing?

As If I Needed A Reason...

A child separated from his or her parents experiences profound emotional trauma and damage to his or her true sense of security.  This is the fundamental reason not to send children to boarding school.

But in addition to that, there are other reasons NOT to send a child to boarding school in India through the 3HO sponsored schooling system. Here are some.

• Health risks like Hepatitis, Malaria, and Giardia
• Physical abuse
• Corporal punishment
• Sexual abuse

and now,

• Death.

To date there have been two extremely unfortunate and tragic ends to young lives at Miri Piri Academy.*

It might not occur to someone reading the Miri Piri Academy brochures, where it's advertised as an enriching and valuable experience.

Take a look at Why Boarding School at the MPA website and you will understand what I mean.

It contains testimonials by proud, flag-waving alumni, as it (hastily and poorly) outlines some of the so-called benefits of overseas boarding school.  Education however, is not referred to, and therefore I assume is not a priority.

I'm not surprised considering the principal of MPA is a former Indiakid, has no formal higher education, and no education in learning and child development.  He was ordered to return to India immediately after completing his own schooling, and he has been there ever since.  Does that sound like someone who is qualified to look after your children?

In addition to the bizarre recruitment, I'm more sickened that there are 2nd generation 3HO adults actually choosing MPA for their children.

Have we not learned ANYTHING?

* In 2010, 27 year old Chilean national Oscar Gálvez Escudero aka Satya Amrit Singh was found unresponsive in his dorm bathroom. His body was repatriated to his parents in Chile with his internal organs removed. Horrific.

Full Story Here: https://youtu.be/HNQaJhY_QK4

And, I do not have the name of the second person who died at MPA, but I remember seeing the news a while back that a student had drowned while swimming in the Ganges at Rishikesh.

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.

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?

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.