He blesses, He curses, He threatens

The man who promised to love and take care of me unconditionally, for ever and ever, lifetimes even, cursed and threatened me when I decided to leave the organization.
I used humor to make it more bearable. I joked I was so special I was the only one ever to be threatened by him. To my relief, and sorrow, I later found out he had cursed and threatened others who decided to leave too. Perhaps the funniest one being he warned someone he’d take away all the merits of his seva if he left. There you go. Backstage scenes.

He cursed me warning me I would be utterly miserable in the world and would not be able to do anything in life. Everything I ever had was due to him. Without him I was nothing. He warned me of never speaking ill of him, otherwise, whatever I’d say would come back ten fold to me.

Of course, he did not say it with the big “Guru of Joy” smile he poses in his photographs. He shouted it erect, Zeus-like, with a big frown and evil look in his eyes, waving his long arm at me, pointing with his accusatory finger. I was so disenchanted by then, I calmly asked him, “Are you warning me or are you cursing me?”
For a long time I was embarrassed to speak out everything he told me during that dreadful conversation, in which he falsely accused me, lied about me, cursed me, destroyed my morale and self-esteem as much as possible. For a long time I was paralyzed by his words, taking them as mine, believing in them. For a long time I walked around in fear and shame.

It took me a long time to slowly share and seek for help and understand those were lies and manipulation. It took me a long time to remove Sri Sri from the seat I had placed him in. It took me a long time to realize he is just a brilliant but ordinary man, guided by insatiable ambitions of fame, wealth, power, a sociopath.

Sri Sri Ravishankar abused me, lied to me, lied about me and others, manipulated me and others, used me and others, threatened me and others, etc. These are facts I just wrote, thought and spoke, and nothing has happened to me. Nothing will happen to me. He used to say Maharishi used fear instead of love to hold his devotees. I am afraid Ravi has very little self-reflection.

It is interesting. If someone steals, we call that a “thief” and we report it to the police. There is nothing wrong with that. But if someone reports something wrong the Guru did, the one reporting is the criminal, the ignorant, low prana, will be stroke by thunder. The Guru abuses you for your evolution, because he loves you, because he cares, because he is moving you to the next level, because he is removing your karma, because he sees the big picture, because he is the big mind. I need to be forgiving, I need to see the big picture, I need to see beyond, I need to be grateful, I need to drop it, “accept people as they are, not see intentions behind people’s mistakes.”

Like a swami dared say to me once, “The fact you don’t want to accept anymore abuses is an indication of your lack of faith.”

First, he recognized there are abuses in the AoL. Second, he exposed one of the many mechanisms of manipulation of the AoL.