From: "Elise Woods" <ewoods@biztechsource.com>
Subject: A different perspective on Janneke's India experience
Date: 15 Jun 2005
Dear Jean,
I have been a subscriber to your newsletter for quite a few years now. I feel compelled to write in response to what you have posted from Janneke about her experiences with Bhagavan, his ashram and his followers. My opinion is that Janneke is experiencing what I would call being "processed" by India and the ashram energy.
I have first-hand experience of this phenomenon from a trip to India and Babaji's ashrams in 1992. I was there for about a month - long enough to get the complete "treatment", so to speak. From the moment I set foot on the ground in New Delhi, until about 6 months after I got home again, I was in a mind-bending, physically challenging, emotionally crazed warp where every day I had to choose whether to surrender to the opportunities to change that were placed in front of me or to resist them. I have to say that resistance was futile. While I was at the ashrams, it felt as though all of my unconscious thoughts had taken over my conscious mind. It was an experience of being crazy (unconscious thoughts are crazy) and being conscious of being crazy at the same time.
While I was at the ashrams, the only place I felt "safe" was in the dhuni where they kept a fire burning all the time. But the reason I didn't feel safe the rest of the time was not because of anything or anyone at the ashram. It was caused by my unconscious thoughts, magnified 1,000 or more times. I believe that is the real purpose of a trip to India. It took me at least 5 years to integrate that experience.
While in front of the fire at the ashram, I had a mantra that resounded in my head: " I give everything I don't need right now, in this moment, to the fire." I found that there was nothing that I needed to hold onto. When I let go, then a new kind of sanity came over me, one which I had never experienced before.
I saw the same kind of scenes that Janneke describes, with a lot of rules and men seemingly controlling everything. But, then, was that what was actually happening, or was it my unconscious mind taking over? If I resisted what they were doing, then I just got more crazy. I had to let go, and mostly I did. My unconscious certainly had images of male domination, since I grew up with a very domineering father who was abusive as well. So, was I seeing things at the ashram in present time, or was I simply re-living the unconscious memories? I would say it was the latter.
My interpretation of Janneke's letters is that she was and is resisting the "real" experience of the ashram and Bhagavan and Amma. All of our experiences are overlaid with our unconscious thoughts until we clear them. Now is the only time there is to do so.
Also, I did not come out of this a devotee of Babaji. I did gain a great deal of insight into myself, which is the best result.
Thanks for all you do,
Elise Berkeley
Springs, WV USA
Date: 15 Jun 2005
From: Christian Opitz <christian_mukti@yahoo.de>
Subject: Countering the critique of Bhagavan
Dear Jean,
My name is Christian Opitz, I am a neuroscientist and psychotherapist and for the past 15 years I have researched consciousness from a scientific perspective. One of my areas of research is the discernment between genuine enlightenment and pathological experiences that can disguise as mystical states. I have also worked as a therapist in addiction recovery, including working with many people in their recovery after leaving cults. I know how destructive cults are and am therefore very sympathetic to anyone who is afraid of them.
I have followed the criticism of Bhagavan and the Golden Age Foundation posted on your website and I would like to offer my perspective from my professional and personal experience. I first came across this movement in August 2004. Although I had some good initial experiences with diksha, I was also very skeptical, due to some aspects of the movement that I perceived as immature. I voiced my criticism very clearly, first to Freddy Nielsen, the most experienced Western diksha giver, then to Kiara and his wife Grace, then to my guide during the 21 day process in India and finally to Bhagavan himself in a personal meeting. Each one of these people completely validated my perceptions, no one so much as hinted that I was wrong. Bhagavan himself was completely open to hear what I told him and some of the things I criticized where changed immediately. This is not what happens in a cult. A cult always has a clear reward and punishment system based on your level of agreement with the guru or the teaching. Anything less than perfect agreement is seen as hostility or lower consciousness in a cult. In my own 21 day process and in that of many of my friends (about half of them are psychotherapist with a great deal of experience), I found that I the guides treated me an others always with deep respect, no matter what the state of mind was. I was never once told that my doubts where bad or wrong, anything I went through, including rage at Bhagavan, was fully and lovingly supported. Go ask any ex - cult member what happens if you doubt the guru or are angry at him - it is very different in a cult from what I experienced in the Golden Age Movement.
As far as the idea goes that diksha is only some form of hypnosis with no real effect, I can assure you that my scientific research shows that diksha is absolutely real. In a hypnotic fake mystical experience, there is a chaotic pattern induced in the temporal lobe that leads to disorientation that is often misinterpreted as expanded consciousness. In the brain's attempt to recover orientation, hallucinations are produces that are often misinterpreted as mystical visions. This is resembling temporal lobe epilepsy and can cause great psychological damage to a person over time. The diksha produces no detectable effect in the temporal lobe, but rather a marked decrease of activity in the parietal lobes. This effect has been documented by leading researchers , such as Dr. Andrew Newberg, as the neurological pattern of genuine expanded states of consciousness. Diksha also increases activity in the septum pellucidum and the left temporal lobe. Both of these effects are well known in neuroscience to be associated with greater happiness and found in long term - meditators. These are effects that are impossible to attain through hypnosis or suggestive induction of any kind.
I personally experienced a healing from a birth defect in my physical heart after a diksha I received from Freddy Nielsen. I was clearly not in a suggestive state when that happened, apart from the fact that healing genetic defects is far beyond the scope of placebo effects. In one of my recent diksha seminars, a participant went from chain smoker (40 - 50 cigarettes a day) to no desire for cigarettes at all in two days. He never believed that this could happen and entered the workshop with severe doubts about the effectiveness of diksha. The absence of desire for cigarettes has been his stable experience for the last two months. Anybody with experience in addiction recovery knows that such a thing can never be accomplished by some mere placebo, other than aversion suggestion in deep trance, something I certainly stay away from. My research shows that the neurological effects of diksha happen, regardless of doubts. I encourage people who receive diksha to feel their doubts all the way, because diksha seems to work best when we are honest with what we feel. Anyone with five working brain cells will doubt the claims made about diksha, they are just too incredible. I doubted everything during my process of eight months and it worked wonders. The effects of diksha that can be scientifically observed match the most advanced models of physics such as Global Scaling, replica waves, Peter Plichta's prime number cross, Heim's unified field theory and others. To anyone suggesting that diksha is just hypnosis with no real effect, I ask you, what is your scientific background and experience to back up such a claim?
Yet the Golden Age Movements has its flaws and I have yet to meet a diksha giver in the West who is in denial about it. But flaws in a movement do not constitute a cult, that is only the case when flaws are being lived out in a way that damages people emotionally and spiritually. I have not seen that and after having helped many clients to recover from cult- experiences, I am certainly very sensitive in that area. In a cult, there is always a paradigmatic and methodological franchise system, where all the representatives of the cult teach the same thing in their courses, speak a similar language and only present what the specific teaching of the cult is. I have been to events by various diksha givers and they all are completely different. Some include modalities from psychotherapy, some include whatever they learned in the spiritual traditions. I myself offer diksha along with nature awareness practices from the Native American tradition and forms of emotional processing that I prefer over the emotional processing formats that the Golden Age Foundation is using. If I was a brainwashed cult apologetic, I would certainly not say publicly that I prefer another modality over what the Golden Age Foundation offers for emotional healing. No one told me what I can or cannot do or say in a diksha event. It is not a franchise system, no one exercises any control over me or any diksha giver I personally know. That is not perfect either, because we are of course free to let all our own shortcomings fully manifest in our events. But it is decidedly anti-cultish. I do not hold the view that diksha is the only way or the only truly helpful tool for people's transformation and I do not know any diksha giver who believes that. I am a student of many things other than Bhagavan's teaching, including the way of the Native American scouts and shamans, chigong and various forms of depth psychology. I have received nothing but support from the guides of the Golden Age Movement and Bhagavan for my exploration of creating synergies between diksha and other modalities. Some of my friends with more that 20 years of experience as psychotherapists use diksha in synergy with their therapeutic work and are very impressed with the results. A cult is not a place for such open exploration, as all cults are fear based and therefore eager to avoid the cognitive dissonance between the self - declared superiority of the cult - teaching and the reality that many things are helpful to people's transformation. I have not seen an ounce of fear or insecurities in the leaders of the Golden Age Movement when it comes to people following their own ideas or inner guidance, even if it means disagreement with some of Bhagavan's teachings.
I am truly sorry for anyone who had a bad experience with the Golden Age Movement or for whom diksha did not work when they entered the process with high hopes. This is painful to deal with. In cults, people for whom the teachings do not work are always blamed in some way for being in resistance, not surrendering enough etc. This is a mistake we have to avoid at all costs, because it is unfair and not in the spirit of oneness. The truth is, diksha works very well for many people and not for some and nobody really knows why. It is quite simply probably not the right tool for everyone and there should never be any blame towards anyone who does not get great results out of diksha. If that has happened to anyone, I offer my sincere apology.
The blame game can also be directed the other way, from the person who did not have the experience they hoped for to the Golden Age Movement. This can be just as deeply an expression of unhealed emotional wounding as the the most cultish codependence to a guru or a group. The Golden Age Movement is only trying to liberate people from suffering, and by and large with great results. It is not perfect, there are growing pains and learning by trial and error along the way, as is to expected in an endeavor of this size and magnitude. But to call a group of people with the best of intentions a cult for not delivering the fruits of one's own expectations is an immature way of projecting one's responsibility for life onto others, exactly the same principle at work in the formation of cultish codependence. To declare one's own opinion about a movement as the infallible truth, despite what thousands of other people experience to the contrary, is exactly the pattern found in cult leaders, who have no openness to look beyond their own way of thinking. To diminish the opinion of everyone who has a profoundly positive experience with the Golden Age Movement to a mere hypnotic effect just because oneself did not have a good experience is exactly the denial pattern in the face of cognitive dissonance that can be observed in cult leaders and followers.
If you are truly open and do not want to make your own opinions an infallible reality, as cults do, I ask you to consider this perspective.
My best wishes to everyone,
Christian Opitz
---
AND MY REPLY WAS:
Dear Christian Opitz
Thanks for taking the time to counter in such details the critique levied against Sri Kalki. I will simply say, briefly, that the most important bone of contention is not so much about the effects people may derive from being exposed to Bhagavan method for "spiritual enlightenment" called "diksha" but about the exorbitant prices charged to provide this technique and meet the guru himself and his wife, as well as the allegations that part of the very large sums of money thus obtained are used for the personal enrichment of the leaders of this movement - or cult depending on how one sees this kind of thing. You did not address these concerns in your letter above, nor did anyone from the movement care to refute and disprove the serious allegations make by Janneke Monshouwer. But since I'm for allowing everyone to use their own discernment and make up their own mind with as much of the facts that can be gathered, I'm including your letter in my next compilation along with the other feedbacks received and this reply to you. But let me also point out to you that being curious to find out who you are, I googled your name ...
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Christian+Opitz+and+Bhagavan&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
I could thus find out that you seem to have a vested interest in defending this group or at least that you are deeply involved in it, being the one who introduced the notion that diksha produces a so-called "neuro-biological effect".
Supporting the Diksha Process with Herbs from the Amazon
http://www.nlpboston.homestead.com/
(...) In late March, since this article was written, Christian, noted neuro-scientist who was asked by Bhagavan to head up scientific studies on the neuro-biological effect of diksha at Oneness University, had a personal meeting with Bhagavan, who has since blessed the Amazon Herb Co. for its high service to the planet, and for the supportive effect its herbs have on the body-mind and brain of those seeking awakening through diksha. The above products will help to prepare you for and support the diksha process.
Enlightenment and the Brain by Christian Opitz
http://www.ajna.com/articles/spirituality_and_science/enlightenment_and_the_brain.php
A Scientific Commentary of the Teachings of Sri Kalki
The state of enlightenment has been associated with a change of brain function in various spiritual traditions. Bhagavan, the founder of the Golden Age Foundation and the Oneness University has now expanded this traditional knowledge about the role of the brain in spiritual transformation. The deeksha or energy transmission that lies at the heart of the practical side of his teaching is designed to bring about a permanent change in actual neurological patterns. His statements about the changes induced in the brain through deeksha can be confirmed with the most advanced findings in physics and neuroscience. (...) It is my contention, from scientific investiagtion, personal experience and anecdotal evidence, that the work of Sri Bhagavan is the first spititual system to deliver such results, possibly on a global scale.
I could not ascertain the validity of your claims that you are indeed a "neuroscientist and psychotherapist" nor that you have a scientifically established expertize in "the discernment between genuine enlightenment and pathological experiences that can disguise as mystical states" as you claim, but let's say that for now I'll take your word for it...
I do not deny that certain people can have a powerful spiritual experience through receiving "diksha" and that this experience could be instrumental in helping these people towards a greater sense of spiritual fulfillment but, in my humble opinion, this has nothing to do with true spiritual enlightenment that is the result of a life long process, normally preceded by many physical lifetimes and heavenly sojourns dedicated towards reconnecting with our common One Source, and certainly not anything that can be paid for and received over a 21 day course.
You are certainly entitled to your opinions about Kalki and his technique just as are all those who beg to differ about the grandiose claims of this movement and who are not happy with the ways financial matters are handled within this movement.
Best regards
Jean
ABOUT WHICH JANNEKE HAD THIS TO SAY:
Dear Christian,
You wrote a long letter to Jean Hudon, I want to give you a response on this.
I cannot follow your explanations about deeksha with my brains, however I FEEL that something is very wrong here. My question is: when you are talking about the fact that deeksha is brain surgery which opens communication between left and right brain parts - and balancing male and female in the brains – why the whole organisation is only male-dominated energy ?
And further, you write this in reaction on my letters to Jean :
“I am truly sorry for anyone who had a bad experience with the Golden Age Movement or for whom diksha did not work when they entered the process with high hopes. This is painful to deal with. In cults, people for whom the teachings do not work are always blamed in some way for being in resistance, not surrendering enough etc. This is a mistake we have to avoid at all costs, because it is unfair and not in the spirit of oneness. The truth is, diksha works very well for many people and not for some and nobody really knows why. It is quite simply probably not the right tool for everyone and there should never be any blame towards anyone who does not get great results out of diksha. If that has happened to anyone, I offer my sincere apology. The blame game can also be directed the other way, from the person who did not have the experience they hoped for to the Golden Age Movement. This can be just as deeply an expression of unhealed emotional wounding as the the most cultish codependence to a guru or a group. The Golden Age Movement is only trying to liberate people from suffering, and by and large with great results.”
My letter is very clear: I am not complaining about the quality of the deeksha.s or about missing experiences I hoped for. No not at all. I was complaining about the money issue and the manipulating male-dominated character of the whole movement. This is exactly the point where I became very alert. Male and Female energy are not balanced there. There is such a deep manipulation, betrayal and seduction in this movement that numbers of people fall for this and are trapped. I repeat: I see deeksha’s as drugs. And the so called states of enlightenment- for me these are out of body experiences. In my opinion: Bhagavan and Amma, and their disciples and coordinators take away all energy and money from the devotees. It is really dangerous, people become so much involved that they don’t are themselves anymore. Their selves have to die. So: For me this is NO Golden Age Movement or Oneness Movement at all.
My dear wish is that you and all people involved in this cult, sect find them selves back– listen to their inner voice, become balanced, free them selves from the dominance of Bhagavan and Amma, and find their own power.
Janneke Monshouwer
SINCE I HAD REQUESTED PERMISSION TO JANNEKE TO INCLUDE HER LETTER ABOVE, SHE REPLIED THIS:
Dear Jean,
If you want to include my letter to Christian Opitz in your coming separate series – please do so. But feel free.
I hope your garden is blooming and flowering, like mine. And I see many apples in the apple tree I planted last year. So wonderful.
Many thanks and many greetings from
Janneke
PS I have to add this: After my last answer to Christian Opitz, I received a very long mail from him. His main points are, I quote
Christian Opitz:
1. there is no objective definition of what balanced male-female energies are or how a spiritual organization should be run.
2. what concerns me about your statements is that you turn your subjective impressions into statements of fact as if anyone who does not agree with you is by definition deluded or lost in a cultish dependence.
3. you even state that you want everyone in the organisation to wake up from their delusion. That is a huge statement that sounds like an enormous projection on your part
4. The movement did make some decisions in the past two years that cost them lots of money and in March, they where still six million dollars in dept. One can argue why Western course participants should pay for that. As I said, I don't agree with some of their policies in that regard. But it is one thing to have questionable money policies and quite another to have them as part of a personal enrichment scheme.
5. You said you where not even interested in enlightenment. If that is true, than much of the course could of course not meet your needs, because the course is only in part about emotional healing and very much about transcendence.
Because I don’t want to become silt up in endless discussions I answered Christian Opitz on 16 Jun 2005
Dear Christian
I told you earlier, for me these are not the important issues. For me is the issue that in my opinion this whole organisation is fake.
Best wishes to you.
Janneke
BUT NOW I feel it is relevant to reflect on Christian’s points I mentioned. I’ll send a CC to Christian. I’ll do this here as short as possible
1. For me: balanced male and female energy is (in short): Love, openness, honesty, responsibility, spiritual maturity. In my opinion a situation/organization with balanced male and female energy should be– the (top) management is open and friendly. When people need to speak to the leader: that’s possible without paying money. Finances are transparent and honest, also giving receipts for payments. People support each other- also to become fully self supporting and independent, no devotees at all. They say so that they love people, but I did not see any love from Bhagavan and Amma.
2. Yes I am really convinced that people become deluded here. A short time I was it myself partly. And I really believe that people become initiated in cultish dependency because of the fact they need to attune to Amma & Bgahavan for giving deeksha’s. Also the people who deny to tune to Amma & Bhagavan when they give deeksha’s, are connected. What I also see is: people who become more involved– also after deepening courses, don’t speak for themselves anymore, it’s all involved with Amma & Bhagavan. I quote from the book “Miracles of Kalki” (page 12): A person gets acquainted with Sri Kalki and Sri Amma through their picture or the Srimurthi and by chanting the all powerful Moola Mantra. Invoking this mantra has often led to Kalki and Amma manifesting and leaving Their imprint on the person’s life. The next step is participating in the darshans at the ashram....” .....“The second step in the movement is the ‘Mukti Deeksha’, where the process of enlightenment and liberation is initiated by Amma and Bhagavan personally.” (In my case this was not personally, we had to pay high amounts for a personal meetings of 1 minute)
3. Yes I really hope for an awakening out of this delusion for everyone involved. For me personally and also for me as a journalist/film maker it is my responsibility to inform my fellow students and all other people, and to use these words. From other people I hear how difficult it can be and how much time it can cost to recover from experiences as this. And when Christian Opitz suggests that all this is an enormous projection on my behalf- I don’t think so. My opinion is that Christian Opitz has much to loose because on the moment this deeksha-work means his life and income. Even the name of his mail address is: christian-mukti@yahoo.de. This is the same with most people involved: with giving deeksha’s they earn their living with this. Many people want to earn all the money back they paid for the 21-day course (5.500 US$ + visits to Amma & Bhagavan + travel costs and ticket), also to go to deepening courses (1.070 US$ + travel costs and ticket). Someone phoned me: Oh Janneke I read on Internet: in USA someone who is very proud, to declare that he/she earned all that money for the 21-day course back in ONE DAY. I had no time to look at internet. But for me giving deeksha was not supposed to become a living/income for me. I love my own profession and I am very busy with this: making documentary films and inspiring the world to build human/child- and nature friendly buildings, to help to recreate a paradise on Earth.
4. For me: the difference in their questionable money politics or personal enrichment is for me not an issue. For me it is the issue that naïve students people are mistreated by them by paying far too much money for a 21-day course. I still say: I don’t trust them. Because of the fact that they own huge investment buildings in Chennai.
5. In my view: enlightenment is only possible after cleaning oneself from trauma’s, negative thoughts, blocks and old patterns. Every time someone cleans oneself from a trauma- for that part the person receives a peace of enlightenment. That is the reason why I was interested in first cleaning myself. For me: I hoped that the deeksha’s would work as a catalyser for the benefit of the process. But in the Golden City I saw something different.
---
AND FINALLY CHRISTIAN SENT THIS ADDITIONAL LETTER ABOUT WHICH I DID NOT WANT TO ADD ANY ADDITIONAL COMMENT AS I DON'T WANT TO KEEP THIS GOING ANY FURTHER. PLEASE USE YOUR OWN BEST DISCERNMENT TO ASSESS THE VALIDITY OF HIS MANY CLAIMS
Date: 16 Jun 2005
From: Christian Opitz <christian_mukti@yahoo.de>
Subject: Ant: Re Critique of Bhagavan
Dear Jean,
Thank you for your openness in discussing these matters.
I have answered to the charges of the Golden Age Foundation being a cult and to the idea that diksha effects are hypnotic trance phenomena, because these statements have been part of the criticism posted on your website and this is my area of expertise. I have absolutely no reason to defend this movement other than that I am a seeker of truth.
As far as the money goes: Yes, the prices are high and I personally think the Golden Age Foundation would do itself a favor if they would lower them. However I stayed long enough on the campus where Bhagavan lives and I can certainly say that his lifestyle and that of the head dasas is extremely simple. In cults that are interested in enriching the guru, this is always very visible and the lavish lifestyle of a guru is used psychologically to assert his/her superior position. Bhagavan lives a sparse life that I would not want to trade with mine, and I am certainly not into luxury myself. He lives in a room that is designed like all the guest rooms on that campus, in a house that he shares with four dasas. Amma lives in an ashram that resembles the poverty of that region. The head dasas live like all the other dasas, a lifestyle of extreme simplicity. Kiara told you that also, so the allegation that no one answered the criticism about the money issue is questionable. And yet even after having seen all this, I agree that it is not good policy to have the prices they have, because it can so easily lead to wrong impressions and stress in people and I will reflect that to them. I am not at all saying they do not make mistakes, but I have so far only seen very pure intentions at the base of everything.
The Golden Age Foundation does have an issue in my opinion with naive optimism, and that has prompted them to start too many costly projects at once. To my knowledge, they where six million dollars in debt in March. So one can agree or disagree whether it is good policy to let us Westeners pay for the Temple. But I knew that before I went to the 21day course and once I saw the Temple, I was very happy to have contributed to it. That is my subjective impression and someone else can have another subjective impression, neither are right or wrong. But when one is turning that subjective impression into statements of fact that this all about enriching Bhagavan personally, that he is an imposter and the whole thing is a cult etc., I would say you are in a position where you should back up such allegations with some facts. Especially when you take the liberty to insult anyone, in this case Kiara, as being deluded, for not agreeing with your opinion. My question is, what are the facts to support Bhagavan's personal enrichment scheme? Have you seen how he lives? It is one thing to have problematic money policies, it is quite another that these policies are based in manipulative intentions of personal enrichment.
As far as teachings about enlightenment go, there is the acknowledgement of an ongoing deepening in Bhagavan's teaching. I do not know where you got the idea that he says it is just some dikshas and you're done. There is indeed a considerable number of people who live in a permanent state of oneness through diksha, but for them also there is deepening of emotional healing, deeper states of oneness and God - realization. The idea of lifelong maturing is not at all at odds with the diksha, which is simply designed to put that lifelong process on a neurobiological foundation where the brain cooperates with it, rather than being a hindrance.
If someone says they are not at all interested in enlightenment, then I would say the 21day course was the wrong choice for them to begin with. This course is for enlightenment and to become part of sharing enlightenment with humanity. Emotional healing is a part of the course, but only a part, the main focus is about awakening to something that transcends all individuality. If I come only for the emotional healing aspect, of course the program will not meet my needs. I also was promised a double room accommodation and then slept in a dorm with 10 people. So what? I did not go there for a spa experience. Yes, the coordination was chaotic. Well, it is India for Pete's sake. When I go to Indian, I don't expect comfort, great organisation, customer service, clean air or sane driving habits. You indicated that enlightenment takes so much dedication. What about the willingness to put aside one's comfort zone for three weeks along with one's preconceived ideas about how things should be done in an organization? Has it not traditionally been a necessity of the aspirant to deal with all kinds of difficulties, confrontation with one's fixed ideas and to be willing to open up to a perspective where all our opinions are revealed just mind modifications? But this will only be possible if I want to get enlightened more than wanting to be right about my perceptions.
About the accusation that Bhagavan wants to be worshipped as a God, avatar etc.: Yes, that is what people in India do. We where told in my course clearly by Anandagiri, the male head dasa to not participate in any rituals or gestures that we did not feel comfortable with. I sometimes left the room when I did not like what was going on and my course leader encouraged that fully. We where also told clearly that we design our relationship with Amma and Bhagavan ourselves, if we want to have one. To me, they are my friends. I have no idea what an avatar really is other than knowing some concepts about it. I do not care what or who Bhagavan is, he is helpful for me in realizing my own divinity. And there are people who received great transformation through diksha who do not relate to Amma or Bhagavan at all, which is perfectly fine. One Indian man living in Golden City whom I met relates to Christ as his personal doorway to God. It is everyone's free choice. Bhagavan does not try to change us Westeners in our preference for independent thinking and choosing, but he also does not try to change the Indian culture where people are so easily given to idoltary.
I went to the 21 day course completely open to the possibility of being greatly disappointed and finding out that this is indeed a destructive cult. I have seen it often enough, so I kept my eyes much more open to evidence for this possibility that most people. Once again, I do not deny some clear immaturities, questionable policies and a need to stay open to learn more on part of the Golden Age Movement. I have to the best of my ability of using critical discernment and professional training, not found the typical designs that go into the making of a cult, including the dealings with money. I have found deep peace through diksha inside myself in the face of all my imperfections and in that state I can let others be imperfect also.
The feedback I have given you may sound very critical and if it was at times too harsh, I apologize. I feel that your sincerely trying to do your best to serve the truth. In my opinion, that is exactly what Bhagavan, Amma and the dasas are doing and so there is, in my opinion more that unites us all than what divides us.
Best wishes,
Christian
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