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stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

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CHAPTER XII<br />

THAI SURPRISE<br />

Confucius say, “Man who go through airport turnstile sideways<br />

going to Bangkok.”<br />

APPROXIMATELY 95% OF THE SIXTY-FIVE MILLION CITIZENS of Thailand<br />

(capital, Bangkok) are Buddhists.<br />

More than 350,000 monks and novices live in Thailand’s<br />

35,000 temples—ten monks for every temple, on average. Tenets<br />

enjoindered on those devout monks include strict injunctions never<br />

to touch intoxicants or women.<br />

Clearly, such restrictions would not constitute an easy or exciting<br />

life.<br />

As if to break such monotony, <strong>the</strong>n, we have <strong>the</strong> renunciant<br />

monk who proudly exhibited over sixty vintage cars—many of<br />

<strong>the</strong>m Mercedes-Benzes. Some of those were donated, o<strong>the</strong>rs were<br />

purchased with money from his temple treasury, with <strong>the</strong> claimed<br />

investment intention (though questionable business acumen) of<br />

opening a museum to benefit that church.<br />

There was also <strong>the</strong> monk “caught on camera wearing a wig<br />

and enjoying a nightlife of loud karaoke singing, boozing and o<strong>the</strong>r<br />

taboo acts” (Ehrlich, 2000).<br />

There was, fur<strong>the</strong>r, <strong>the</strong> highly respected former Buddhist<br />

monk, accused of possible embezzlement of funds, who stepped<br />

83

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