Life after leaving AoL

BY HUMBLE WITNESS

During my recent Spring-cleaning effort, I was astonished at the volume of AoL materials I had amassed over the years. Boxes of unused flyers and promotional materials, file after file of course documentation and accounting paperwork, piles of course registration forms, shelves of books with rs’s face prominently displayed on the cover (with his characteristic “I am enlightened” expression), boxes of tapes and CDs of “knowledge” or satsang music, name tags, note cards, and other assorted course supplies had lined my storage unit and invaded my office and living spaces for years. As I sorted through it all, and took a good look at each piece of evidence of my long-term and deep involvement with AoL, I was reminded of the countless hours and dollars I had wasted on a facade. But instead of feeling the usual resentment toward AoL and rs for taking advantage of mine (and others’) good intentions, I was overcome with a sense of liberation as I hauled all that stuff to the dumpster. When I reflect on the events that have brought me to this point, a place I would have never imagined coming to even a year ago, I am left wondering why I didn’t wipe AoL out of my life even sooner.

It has taken quite a while for me to wean myself away from AoL, and at times I needed support from others to get through it. It took at least two years of reluctant involvement with the org and suppressing that feeling of “something’s not quite right” for me to finally take the plunge and announce that I was leaving. What really helped me in that transition phase was the support and encouragement I got from loved ones (who saw right through the cult from the very first day), and the space provided by the Guruphiliac blog to share my experiences. It took two months after that initial decision to leave AoL for me to stop doing the kriya altogether. It had been such a deeply ingrained habit--I rarely missed a day in 6 years. At first, I was afraid that I would lose my “centeredness” and “glow” after sadhana. All it took was a little research into the effects of hyperventilation on the body for me to realize that sk is harmful, and to drop it completely. And believe it or not, I am still very centered, and I have since been complemented on my “glow”, so I gather that there was never any connection. It took me another month or so to start eating meat again, and another several months to take a sip of champagne at a wedding—my first sip of alcohol after many many years. And no, I have not gotten depressed, drained of energy, eaten by doubts, or turned into a pumpkin due to “low prana”. Quite the opposite, actually, I have never felt more healthy and alive.

I realize that during the past several months, I have been in the process of re-building myself. Through the years I had been involved with AoL, I gradually allowed the aol dogma and the herd mentality to overwrite my own independent thinking. I became one of those puppet aol teachers who wore light-colored clothes and a plastic smile while parroting the dogma. But on the inside, I would be suppressing my own preferences, desires, and “negative” emotions such as fear and anger. Anytime I needed to make a big life decision, I was encouraged by “senior” teachers to seek guidance from “Guruji” in the form of a private conversation (if I was lucky), or an e-mail (I was told he reads them all), or a prayer (because apparently he answers them all). I did what “Guruji” and the teachers and the group expected of me, and in that process, I forgot who I was. To this day, I still cannot recall the old me who got lost, and I find myself left having to fill in the blanks to re-build my own personality.

Just a year ago, I would have told you that I hate onions and garlic (because they have “low prana”), that coffee is bad for you, that I don’t like to wear black, and the best thing to do in the morning is to wake up really early to do an hour of sadhana. For that reason, I would have advised you to do an AoL course whether you were suffering from marital difficulties or constipation, and I might have even paid your way if I thought you really “needed” it. Now, I have discovered that I love the taste of onion and garlic, I look great in black (and actually prefer it), and I still like to wake early--not to do any sort of practice, but rather to sip on a nice cup of coffee and get my day started right away so I can be productive. And certainly, I would advise anyone against doing an AoL course lest you get sucked into a cult that can cause plenty of physical and mental damage.

It has been so very liberating to be free of aol, and I have not since felt compelled to pursue any form of replacement spiritual practice (even though I had been meditating in some form or other since I was a teenager). Now, I live by the “golden rule” that we all learned in the first grade (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”), and so far, it has guided me quite well.