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syda 2

AN OPEN LETTER ABOUT SIDDHA YOGA 
 
This letter is from a group of people who have left Siddha Yoga and who
were, at one time, 
very deeply involved with its activities.  For most of us, it was Lis
Harris' November, 1994 
article in The New Yorker that helped us to acknowledge that SYDA and its
leaders are quite 
different from what they claim to be and what they appear to be.  Many of
us had known the 
facts in Harris' article to be true for years, and had ignored or denied
them.  We had invested 
our faith and trust, our idealism, and our time, energy and money, in
Siddha Yoga.  We had 
devoted ourselves and made Siddha Yoga our life.  For this reason, facing
the facts about 
SYDA has been and continues to be a painful process.  We break our silence
now because we 
believe that Siddha Yoga is deceiving its participants and we hope, in this
letter, to explain 
how this is so. 
 
We came to Siddha Yoga because we wished to enrich our spiritual lives.  At
first, some of us 
had extraordinary meditation experiences; others felt they had found at
long last a 
community of understanding seekers.  As we got more involved, we came to
believe that 
Gurumayi and Muktananda had valid claims to "full enlightenment," 
"perfection," and 
"sainthood".  In fact, we believed them to be living deities.  With the
awakening of the 
kundalini through shaktipat, we felt that we had reached the final stage of
human evolution 
before divine perfection.  All we had to do is love, believe in, and
worship the guru, no matter 
what, and enlightenment would be ours. 
 
Our faith in these concepts led us to make Siddha Yoga the most important
part of our lives.  
Yet, as we drew closer to the guru, we discovered that both Muktananda and
Gurumayi had 
private personalities that were in sharp contrast to their public personas.
 We soon learned 
that our status as "disciples," our being "close to the Guru," depended on
how well we could 
learn to keep the secrets we came to know, and how skillful we could be at
whitewashing and 
damage control.  At great cost to our own integrity, we learned to ignore
or derail the 
natural flow of our thoughts and feelings -- so that we could reconcile to
ourselves and others 
the discrepancies between the gurus' claims to perfection and their actual
behavior.  Time and 
again we were told -- whether by swamis, hand picked lay teachers, or Ram
Butler's 
Correspondence Course -- that "surrender" was the path of a true disciple;
that "gossip" would 
only lead us to destruction.  This meant subordinating our thoughts,
feelings and subjective 
experience in favor of a supposedly greater truth and higher
purpose,represented by the guru.  
We know now that we were selling ourselves short. 
 
We are no longer willing to give others control of our reality.  We were
frightened at first 
when we began to question and doubt; we feared we would lose everything if
we didn't keep 
suppressing our thoughts and feelings, if we didn't blindly obey.  But we
have found exactly 
the opposite to be true:  by finally telling the truth to ourselves and to
others, we are 
regaining the precious freedom we had lost.   
 
We are aware that most people who are inspired by the outer beauty of
Siddha Yoga and its 
practices and teachings will find it hard to believe what we have
witnessed.  It is not our 
intention here to attempt to explain the apparent benevolence at the
surface layer of Siddha 
Yoga.  The authors of this letter have spent a great deal of time beneath
the public facade, 
and we have seen a more complete picture of the secret Siddha Yoga and the
double life of its 
leaders than most people ever see.  We believe the corruption at SYDA
should be 
exposed, even though a former SYDA trustee once stated in a staff meeting,
in ominous 
tones,  that critics of Siddha Yoga who make public allegations of
misconduct will be 
prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  Clearly, it is worth a great
deal of money to SYDA to 
try to hide the facts. 
 
What we present here is what we know to be true.  It is our hope that those
who read this 
will be open to hearing the truth, and to making an informed choice about
their 
participation.  These are some of the secrets that we can no longer, in
good conscience, keep 
in silence:       
 
-    Through the years, there has been extensive sexual abuse and
exploitation of young 
women, often minors, perpetrated by Muktananda, and later by George Afif. 
Hundreds of  
women were seduced, sexually harassed and abused in the ashram by these
men.  Many of the  
women involved look back on the experience as a traumatic violation.  Some
women sought 
help from swamis, staff or from Gurumayi herself.  They were told that they
had brought 
their mistreatment upon themselves and to be silent and tell no one.  Thus,
when ashram  
staff and swamis are not officially denying that such things ever happened,
they switch  
stories and claim that Muktananda's sexual activities had a divine purpose.
 With Afif,  
they simply blame his victims.  We emphatically reject this denial.  And we
reject the  
justification, on the basis of tantric scripture or on any other basis, of
this 
grotesque abuse of power which exploits and degrades women. 
 
-     Muktananda's mastery of the abuse of power is an enduring legacy. 
For years after his 
death, it was not just Gurumayi but also George Afif -- a man who in 1983
pleaded no 
contest to a misdemeanor charge of statutory rape -- who ran SYDA.  We even
witnessed 
Gurumayi taking orders from him.  Afif's compulsive lust for young girls
and women, his taste 
for the world's most expensive clothes and objects, and his cruelty to
those who cross him, is 
well known to many.  What is his power over Gurumayi that his notorious
behavior in the 
ashram was condoned and unchecked for so many years?  Afif himself was
recently heard to 
say that he expects to return to Gurumayi's side eventually.  The party
line at SYDA is that 
such a reunion is out of the question.  But the history between Afif and
Gurumayi is not 
being acknowledged openly or honestly.  When that is the case, history has
a way of 
repeating itself.   
 
-     At Afif's and Gurumayi's command, staff members - or the local
devotees they organize - 
have travelled all over the world since the late '80s to follow her
brother, Nityananda, and to 
physically attack, harass and threaten him at every opportunity.  The
swamis and staff who 
routinely deny this are simply lying.   A devotee therapist in one city was
persuaded by SYDA 
leaders, with Gurumayi's blessings, to hire a professional thug to harass
and threaten 
Nityananda when he came to their city for a public speaking engagement. 
Devotees who 
display their loyalty by joining in these attacks elicit praise, gratitude
and special attention 
from Gurumayi.  It is notable that these attacks have ceased, at least in
the U.S., since they 
were exposed in the New Yorker article.  
 
-     Many courses and many of the public talks given in the ashram were
dictated mostly by 
George Afif, but also by Gurumayi, into earphones worn by the speakers. 
These include the 
Fire Courses, No Ego Courses, Month Long Courses, and numerous Intensives. 
Many of 
these courses included verbally abusive assaults on participants, which
sometimes included 
the public disclosure of confidential information they had written in
personal letters to 
Gurumayi.  Afif had access to this information because he routinely read
personal mail 
addressed to Gurumayi.    
 
-     There are hidden video cameras in various places around the ashram. 
Many guest rooms 
and public areas are bugged, with hidden microphones picking up the
conversation while 
Gurumayi and her assistants listen in.  These areas include the Amrit, the
Global 
Communications Office, the Meditation Hall, the Programming Office, public
in-house 
telephone areas, and reception desks.   In addition tothis surveillance by
microphones and 
cameras, the ashram staff know they can gain favor with Gurumayi by
reporting any and all 
gossip to her at once, whether about visitors or about each other.  
 
-    Ashram policies and attitudes discriminate against homosexuals.  At
Gurumayi's 
insistence, same sex couples who are known to be lovers are not allowed to
be housed 
together in ashram rooms, although every effort is made to conceal this
policy from those it 
affects.  While Gurumayi surrounds herself with many gay and lesbian staff
members, she 
encourages them in various ways to conceal and disavow their orientation. 
Gurumayi also 
insisted, starting in 1991,  that every gay and lesbian Hatha Yoga teacher
in SYDA Ashrams 
and Centers be fired by the local managers and steering committees.  They
were instructed  
tomake up some excuse but by no means to reveal that the teachers were
being fired because 
of their sexual orientation.  Gays and lesbians are routinely excluded from
many positions 
and activities in Siddha Yoga institutions, unless they happen to be
wealthy and influential.  
 
(continued - see "About SYDA Yoga, Part 2") 
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