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SRF Walrus > I need advice > Getting Past the Noise
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soulcircle Registered User (5/27/03 10:53 am) Reply	Getting Past the Noise Guests and All, From a devotee who can directly take some of the boards" concerns to a monk when possible: From a devotee, a process excellence leader: In other words a Richmond devotee who works as needed by industry when they have management problems not unlike SRF's, and they want to address the problems via this devotees' training and experience: From him I have received this response when I asked him to familiarize himself with the SRF Walrus board, and asked him t get back to me [ I asked him to read the "Finished Letter to Vishwananda," "Specific Stories." and a couple other things]: *Quote:* Thanks for the link... Unfortunately any real issues seem masked by emotion and/or rhetoric, etc. Very little in the way of facts and data to zero in on here. It would be very helpful to me if you could explain to me as best you can, what the defined performance/expectation factors are, the data supporting the evaluation identifying whether or not SRF is meeting them, what is in place (other than an "open microphone" - aka the website) at SRF to receive feedback and how that feedback is being used to make improvements. Once I have this information, we can get past the "noise" and make progress on the real issues. I will reply to him with your suggestions, I will ask him what he did read, I will ask him is he wants documents [i guess obtained like Michael Moore, or more interestinf like Greg Palast, author of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," www.gregpalast.com ] ....documents from SRF showing the money spent on the software fiasco, and communications from peple advising against their ongoing spending on ducuments, documents showing the extent of their legal expenses. Are our real issues "masked?" So here's a start, soulcircle
KS Registered User (5/27/03 8:06 pm) Reply	Re: Getting Past the Noise First of all this website is not intended for people with no up close experience of SRF. I believe there are several good posts here somewhere about the fact that thousands of messages are not a case for anything concerning SRF one way or another. If you believe that SRF is the one true and beautiful representative of Yogananda’s then this is not the board for you. This board is rather a modern group therapy session. We have seen some bad things, been lied to and cheated, and we want to talk it out. It is actually a rather healthy discussion considering what some of the people have been through. Your friend says the real issues are masked? He read all 8000 messages? There are plenty of examples of SRF’s poor behavior on the board. The issue is that SRF claims to be one thing and in fact a very disappointing something else. The issue is that simple. The performance/expectation factors? What did you tell him? This board is not that complicated and most here gave up giving SRF feedback long ago. SRF has never accepted feedback and looks at any criticism as an attack. Thousands of letters have been written and phone calls made and SRF does not hear any of it. There are even instances documented here of SRF building black lists of people who have been critical of SRF. From your friends question he has not read many stories here on the Walrus. He apparently thinks we are trying to provide SRF with the means of improving itself. In fact we are just trying to talk out issues and help each other recover from our exposure to SRF. For your own sake I would not waste any time trying to use the Walrus to influence your SRF friends. It doesn’t work. Just quietly urge them to keep their distance. That is about the best we can do for our friends in SRF. Edited by: KS at: 5/27/03 8:09:44 pm
chuckle chela Registered User (5/27/03 11:03 pm) Reply	Re: Getting Past the Noise Soulcircle--your efforts are laudable, but they are not going to be productive. Your friend's reply has spelled it out for you. There is no way someone can "audit" the situation at Mother Center and in SRF in a business-like or scientific manner just by reading the Walrus board, even if one were to read all of the posts. SRF would have to supply its performance/expectation factors; we devotees would have to supply our own. SRF would probably not recognize ours as having any validity. And, indeed, part of the problem is that the expectations have not been spelled out clearly enough for either side! The only way one could collect valid and reliable data would be to spend weeks and months on scene, examining the culture, talking to management, talking to monastics/members/employees, talking to those who feel grieved, establishing a working model, collecting various kinds of data to see how performance met expectations, and so on. As your friend will tell you, this is a very involved process. Regarding feedback, as so many others like KS have said, SRF just isn't that much interested in feedback. Sure, they say they are, but those who've tried to give it have all too often found out it's either ignored or the messenger is reprimanded, scorned or scoffed at, blacklisted, or otherwise disciplined. You might suggest to your friend that he approach Mother Center and ask to do the kind of audit he's suggesting. It would be interesting to see what kind of reception he gets. But, alas, I don't think he can come up with an impartial overview of the problems at MC or in SRF by reading the Walrus. I'd like to be wrong, though. Let me give one small example to spell this out. I posted the data showing that the subscriptions to the SR magazine were way down over the last ten or so years. At the time of making my original post, I asked anyone who was working or had worked in publications if they knew about this data and what it meant. No one answered that request. Yes, the subscriptions are down very significantly, but we really don't know why or what those numbers are telling us. We can make some very good, educated guesses, but we can't (at least, I can't) authoritatively say why the numbers are down. Many of us are inclined to speculate that the significant decrease in subscriptions reflects or is correlated with a decline in membership and/or an interest in SRF and its teachings. While that may be a good guess, we can't be certain unless we have some more information. While I can't think of any other one factor to explain the data, it may be that they can be explained by a combination of several factors (what I do know, though, is that if I was Bro. Chidananda, I'd really be wondering about those numbers). In the same way, there's no way your friend can get much substantive data from the Walrus. The only real hard data--and it's killer--that I know is that some 40 monastics have left the order in the past couple or so years. That alone tells me something ain't right. As well, a certain number (which I don't know) of members have left, been terminated, or are upset, stressed out. Finally, there's the financial data. It's been claimed here on the Walrus that the PeopleSoft debacle cost several million dollars (all wasted). But we can't really back up that claim (although I suspect it's probably fairly accurate). All the rest of the data are more subjective and qualitative: how people are feeling about how MC operates, about what's happened with them, how some of the nuns walk around looking like they're attending funerals (so sad!), and so on. As KS and True Enuf have said, part of the challenge/difficulty for people like your friend and people like Ellyn is that unless you're close to Mother Center or know people who are, all of this Walrus stuff looks like a bunch of hooey. For most SRF members, everything is great--and that's not surprising. Much of SRF is great: the teachings work for so many, there are wonderful friendships, supportive communities, inspiring services, Convocations, and so on. It's very difficult for these people to relate to those who've had serious problems. As Ellyn so correctly said, every organization is going to have problems. And so when she sees people complaining, she's inclined to think we're just whiners. That's understandable. What makes SRF's situation somewhat unique is that the leaders tend to deny that there are problems, they tend to think they have all the correct answers (and that we don't or couldn't), and, at times, some of them are inclined to deal somewhat harshly with those who disagree with them. I said this was somewhat unique. Actually, most cults have these problems, so in that sense SRF isn't unique at all. I must say, though, that it pains me terribly to think of SRF as a cult. But . . . well, I'll just say it has some cultlike features.
soulcircle Registered User (5/28/03 2:09 am) Reply	KS and chuckle chela Thank You Thank You Thank You Thank You Remarkably well considered and expressive, both of you, KS and chuckle chela, your feelings and advise are being taken to heart. I am really appreciative of you both and owe you one. Gosh......... Truly beneficial in more ways than there are words for.
crogman1 Registered User (5/29/03 6:56 am) Reply	Re: Getting Past the Noise Getting past the noise? I think this board is all about noise. The goal that is SRF needs to be exposed for the lie that it is. I would have to agree that most of the posts are debates and discussions about various interpretations of what is and has happened. So what? There are plenty of specifics as well. $12 million spent on a failed accounting project (not $2 million); monastics leaving in droves; senior nuns who don’t even meditate anymore; stories of unfeeling and extreme control behavior; tales of employees going 10 years or more without raises; employees being cheated out of overtime; employees terminated for complaining about the state of affairs; black lists of members who question things; cult rules and behavior is documented all over this board; racist behavior by senior monks; lies about where the president lives and what she is like; the creation of the elite monastic community to perpetuate the control of the senior old ladies; on and on and on. On two occasions that I myself know of SRF brought in professional outside people to help them work through the discontent and crippling problems the organization now has. In both cases serious research was done with discussions with a large part of the community. As a result these outside people concluded the problem was the environment and the leadership. Both are seriously flawed. Both groups were terminated. They didn’t follow the script. The Bad Ladies can’t believe someone would point the finger at them. The Bad Ladies live in a closed society where they are used to having absolute power. They are representatives of God. 50 years of that and Maya has really done a number on their mental health. Soulcircle, I don’t think we need your friends help. The analysis he speaks of has been attempted. He is correct that if we want to help the _work_ change and become better we must first understand the problem, analyze the results, and develop a correction plan. That is good Western thinking! However, we have done that and are past that stage. SRF needs to go away. It serves no useful purpose. It does not serve Master, it hurts his work. He will find much of that analysis and careful thought in messages posted here. He will also find careless messages and debates on all sides of the issue but the SRF Walrus is the only place where that kind of discussion can take place right now.
dawnrays Registered User (5/29/03 12:15 pm) Reply	Re: Getting Past the Noise I agree with you (KS) about the group therapy session. However I believe that alot of (and if I'm not mistaken) the motivation for S.C.'s post is the last little group therapy session we all had going back and forth with ATLF. This was (and I can really only speak for myself but I suspect) a very stressful thing for all. You know that some people, and I will call them bliss bunnies (for lack of a better description) are nearly impossible to deal with. It is impossible to have civil and rational discussion let alone try to work on solutions (for ourselves, for those of us who are no longer engaged in srf) if we are always on the defensive. What would MC's reaction be I wonder if we all marched up there and spoke our mind during some meeting, gathering or satsanga? I have actually heard of people being carried out bodily from MC for doing just that. There is one devotee at the S.D. Temple who has survived all the ministers and four or five turnovers of devotees. He has so much information, so much to say and is intelligent and articulate. Do you think anybody listens to him? It angers me very much but he is simply marginalized. My point is, would it hurt for us to perhaps supply a little more information? If that were a requirement, it might screen out a completely anonymous poster who simply is there from the get-go to disrupt any and all discourse. dawnrays Edited by: dawnrays at: 5/29/03 9:03:10 pm
crogman1 Registered User (5/29/03 7:13 pm) Reply	Re: Getting Past the Noise There is a whole section of this board with specific stories. The Walrusites have copied a lot there. None in a while but there are a lot of specifics there. They missed quite a few as well. Scan the titles of the message threads for clues about which start out with specific complaints. In the Specific Stories section there are messages about the troubled lifestyle of the nuns, stories about how SRF tried to control things (fix things), discussions about how confidential information about members is mishandled, inside stories about life at the printing facility, messages about specific ways SRF is wasting money, stories about how secretive SRF is internally, stories about how they are afraid of members and fire employees, specific stories about SRF black lists, a specific story about Ananda Mata's attitude toward employees, stories about some of the monastics who left and why, stories about how SRF mistreats monastics who leave and bribe them not to talk about life inside, stories about the weird power plays by departments like Public Affairs and Accounting, specific stories about Daya Mata, on and on. The following message is just a list of specifics! pub78.ezboard.com/fsrfwal...ID=4.topic Who is waiting to hear specifics? After only looking a few minutes I also found this one. pub78.ezboard.com/fsrfwal...ID=4.topic Edited by: crogman1 at: 5/29/03 7:30:59 pm
soulcircle Registered User (6/2/03 1:09 pm) Reply	crogman1 Guests,one and all, and crogman1, and all who are replying, For the two posts that you have provided links to grogman1 Thank you from the bottom of my heart. For srf walrus and s, who wrote them, thank you from the bottom of my heart. To my heart, who [why say "which" and be grammaticaaly correct, my heart is a living person] guided me to take the time to reread the two posts by srf walrus and s, thank you! High five crogman1......I will always need friends like you
soulcircle Registered User (6/2/03 1:19 pm) Reply	not actions or words of a friend Hi Guests and All, After a nice phone call with a delightful new friend met here on walrus, I would share what I was reminded of by this new wonderful friend. It had to do with the choice of two words early in the quote in the first post of this thread: *Quote:* Thanks for the link... Unfortunately any real issues seem masked by emotion and/or rhetoric, etc. Very little in the way of facts and data to zero in on here. Emotion Rhetoric After the utter negation of this board by the feeling behind these two words alone, there was no need to carry that communication any furthe, and there was harm in posting abuse such as that on this board. From every cell in me, from my love for the time the guests spend listening and reading, from my love for all that you all share, and letme share.......... may I say for all time This board is way cool !!!!!!!! Hi I am Dave I am a bliss lamb, baa baa baholic I am an srf a holic boardcircle

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