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maggie mcclintock
Registered User
(9/14/05 6:28 am)
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emotional abuse and karmic training Revisited
I could not post a reply to this so I made a new thread after someone told me how to make a new topic:

[quote]Original message from USERNAME 12/22/01. I think it deserves its own thread.
(original: pub78.ezboard.com/fsrfwal...1&stop=35)

Quote:
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Username: Can we discuss the difference between emotional abuse and karmic training? When I read the comments, my mind feels muddled. This usual means that something is ringing true but that I don't really have a handle on it.
Is emotional abuse karmic training when it is done by someone enlightened who somehow knows your past and future?
Is emotional abuse a criminial act?
Is emotional abuse something that SRF could be charged with court-ordered compensation for? If the same actions occurred within a corporation to employees, what labor laws apply?
Did we all start to copy these abusive styles?
Look at our life and our own interactions with others, are they abusive? Or do we try to never hurt others?
Do we attack or interact with others like in a group encounter session - rudely pointing out their flaws?
How did being around this atmosphere for so many years affect your personality?[/quote]

I believe that emotional abuse is due to our karma in that it is due to our karma that we are being abused in any way. Coming from a guru, it is still due to our karma, but I don't believe it is right. It would be our karma to starve if we had no food, but that doesn't mean that we should accept starvation or that we should not help someone who is starved.
So I could not accept emotional abuse from anyone, not even a guru or an organization.

I believe that we should never try to hurt others in any way, to do otherwise is to teach others to be abusive. You can look at any disfunctional family to see that that is the case, and so being, Yogananda was abusive and so is SRF. I really don't believe that a enlightened being would be abusive to his disciples in anyway. Sorry if other disagree with me, but that is how I feel. I also don't care if they claim that they are just helping you. NOT.

I was never emotionally abused in SRF. I don't know of any who were until I read about the monastics here on Walrus, which information has greatly disturbed me. I have always been treated with kindness by the other devotees and brothers when I was acknowledge by them at all.

Edited by: maggie mcclintock at: 9/14/05 6:29 am
gassho
Registered User
(9/15/05 12:14 pm)
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Re: emotional abuse and karmic training Revisited
Hello Maggie,

I've always found people trying to justify "karmic training" are really just trying to justify behavior they normally wouldn't condone.

SRF monastic and non-monastic training has a long history of extreme discipline. From what I can tell, it seems to come from Sri Yukteswar. He was basically a my-way-or the-high-way kind of guy. The AY has several comments on his training style. Yogananda had this to say about his guru's training:
Quote:
Discipline had not been unknown to me: at home Father was strict, Ananta often severe. But Sri Yukteswar's training cannot be described as other than drastic. A perfectionist, my guru was hypercritical of his disciples, whether in matters of moment or in the subtle nuances of behavior.


This training continued on through Yogananda for certain disciples. For example Daya Mata talks of such training. But he wasn't that way with everyone. If you have ever listened to any of Yogananda's CDs you know how fiery he can get. Imagine that intensity directed at you. Such training continues today in various forms.

Drastic discipline like Sri Yukteswar's has one purpose: to break the ego's will. It sounds like trying to break a horse to me. And maybe that is the appropriate strategy in some cases. For example, I have heard of young men with disciplinary problems going into the military and turning their lives around. I can't cite any specific example though.

Speaking of emotional abuse, here is an extended quote from www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/counseling/documents/emotion.htm

Quote:
Abuse is any behavior that is designed to control and subjugate another human being through the use of fear, humiliation, and verbal or physical assaults. Emotional abuse is any kind of abuse that is emotional rather than physical in nature. It can include anything from verbal abuse and constant criticism to more subtle tactics, such as intimidation, manipulation, and refusal to ever be pleased.

Emotional abuse is like brain washing in that it systematically wears away at the victim's self-confidence, sense of self-worth, trust in their own perceptions, and self-concept. Whether it is done by constant berating and belittling, by intimidation, or under the guise of "guidance," "teaching", or "advice," the results are similar. Eventually, the recipient of the abuse loses all sense of self and remnants of personal value. Emotional abuse cuts to the very core of a person, creating scars that may be far deeper and more lasting that physical ones.


If read from a different perpspective, it sounds a lot like "spiritual training". ;-)

gassho

Edited by: gassho at: 9/15/05 12:18 pm
maggie mcclintock
Registered User
(9/15/05 2:55 pm)
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Re: emotional abuse and karmic training Revisited
I have to agree with the quote you gave. It destroys the person not the ego. I personally don't think that the ego can be destroyed, except to say that a person who is desiring to be one with all may learn to become more selfless and therefore more interested in other people than himself, and perhaps that is the healthy way to destroy the ego, but certainly not by the way it is done by gurus, etc. I have seen people respond better to love than to abuse, and I have seen how this love changes them for the better. Those who accept abuse, I have noticed, will more than gladly dish out abuse to others. There seems to be no striving to learn to have compassion for others in this abusive system. You either do as said or have to leave. I don't call that growth, because many of those who leave are very loving people, and it is sad that when they do leave many lose all faith in religion. What the monks and nuns went through in SRF is an example of how damaging this abusive system of theirs is, and then for them to turn around and desire better monks and nuns is beyond me. They had the best, and they tossed them aside, but not before doing so much damage that many ended up in therapy. My only wish is that these wonderful people have found healing.

Thank you for the link. I will check it out.

Used Yogi
Registered User
(9/17/05 8:53 pm)
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Re: emotional abuse and karmic training Revisited
Brahmachari Keith was one of the lucky ones. He was a popular minister like Mitrananda. Finally SRF exiled him to Hidden Valley. Then he left. Now he is teaching yoga in Encinitas, and more power to him!

I hope monastics who leave SRF come to realize that it isn't them, but they just had the bad luck to fall for an abusive, sick organization that is out of touch with reality. Then I hope they try to get back their self-esteem that SRF is so good at destroying in the name of "karmic training" and "destroying the ego." Yogananda tells people in the Lessons to develop their will power and be able to think for themselves, but you'd never know it by the environment within SRF. How can monastics who are subjected to that abusive environment counsel lay members on life, especially something real-world like child rearing?

The Board of Directors wields absolute power. And like Lord Acton said, "All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."


Used Yogi

maggie mcclintock
Registered User
(9/18/05 6:09 am)
Reply
Re: emotional abuse and karmic training Revisited
[quote]Yogananda tells people in the Lessons to develop their will power and be able to think for themselves, but you'd never know it by the environment within SRF.[/quote]

That is a very good point Used Yogi. I have been gone so long that I have forgotten it. I wonder if Yogananda allowed monks and nuns to think for themselves or if it was just for laymembers? I say this because so many monasteries don't allow individual thinking, but instead you have to do as told, always.

feelbetrayed
Registered User
(9/18/05 7:02 pm)
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Re: emotional abuse and karmic training Revisited
Quoted from Used Yogi:
Quote:
The Board of Directors wields absolute power. And like Lord Acton said, "All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."


It's not as if it acted like a corporate board, staffed with some outside directors to foster vigorous debate between dissenting viewpoints, and board governance over the chairperson's behavior. What effective board of directors would permit Faye to grip onto the chair for life, far beyond the years she's vital? None!

The SRF BOD is a straw-man just for appearances, so SRF can appear well-governed & eligible for tax-exempt status, donoations and estate bequeathments under government regulations.

It's all Faye.

The BOD is ineffectual, just doing whatever Faye Wright & her toadies say.

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