stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

... TO A NUNNERY 325
“What happens when they say they will commit suicide
unless you sleep with them?” he asks. “What am I supposed
to do? Sometimes having an affair is the only way to save
someone’s life” (Carlson, 2002a).
Again, “there but for the grace of God....”
* * *
My own wholly non-humorous experiences with Self-Realization
Fellowship included nine months spent as a resident volunteer at
the men-only Hidden Valley ashram/hermitage outside Escondido,
California. That occurred from October of 1998 to July of 1999, after
I had been a loyal member of SRF for over a decade. While the
emphasis there was never on “crazy wisdom”—indeed, the environment
was fairly bereft of any kind of wisdom—that still left
plenty to be concerned about.
• Before being officially accepted to live at Hidden Valley
(HV) as a resident volunteer, the applicant is required to
sign a pledge affirming that he will regard his supervisors
at the ashram as vehicles of God and Guru, and obey their
instructions accordingly. That boils down to being an interesting
way for the monks in supervisory positions there to
allow themselves to feel that their actions are divinely inspired.
Further, anyone who disputes their instructions is
being a “bad disciple,” whose insubordination they will undoubtedly
publicly quietly tolerate, but privately discuss
and disdain.
One is also required to disclose his sexual orientation,
and whether or not he has ever had any homosexual experiences.
For the record, I myself am “straight as an arrow,”
nearly to the point of being a hetero sapien, and consequently
have not had any such experiences. The point here
is not that I was uncomfortable answering that question—I
was not. Rather, it is simply a sad day when our world’s
“don’t ask, don’t tell” militaries are more progressive in
their thinking than are the same world’s “God-centered”
ashrams
• The late Tara Mata (i.e., Ms. Laurie Pratt, editor of Yogananda’s
Autobiography, and former senior vice president of