Self Realization Meditation Healing Centre Awareness

The following stories have been sent in by former members.

I first became involved with the SRMHC 12 years ago

Joining The Family

My involvement with SRMHC began several years ago.

My connection with the centres has been over a period of 8 years.

My involvement with SRMHC began through Yoga classes at the Christchurch Centre, New Zealand.

It feels important in my first steps towards healing...

If my high school had had a yearbook...

I first became involved with the SRMHC 12 years ago – when I went for counselling with a healer from Leigh Centre. Then I did the first NZ Meditation course in February 1994.

In a few days time, it will be 6 years, to the day, since I left the “family” at the Christchurch Centre – and it was a couple of years after that when I finally cut my ties. So my involvement with the SRMHC spanned more than a decade.

It was hard to walk away from something that had been such a large part of my life for such a long time – and that I was so deeply involved with. However, I did – and it was very liberating.

In terms of my own journey, I regret nothing. I do not regret meeting so many wonderful people, that I spent time in paradise at Leigh Centre, that I learned so much about myself, others, healing and the energetic side of life – and that I had opportunities to learn an enormous amount very quickly. I certainly don’t regret the decision I made to leave at all either.

The day I left the Christchurch Centre, I began to truly see Life – I had to walk through a “fiery gate” * – through deep betrayal and back into a new reality. My life was changed forever and I’ll never be the same.

What I do regret however, is that I had been unable to see, at the time of my deep involvement, that there were some things that were very “out of kilter” in the way the Centres were run. I was told one thing – and the reality was another. Basically, I was duped, and I joined the “family” out of false pretences. I realised this almost as soon as I arrived in Christchurch, (from Auckland) – and discovered that it was not in the slightest like life at the beautiful Leigh Centre that I was besotted with. I quickly found out that what was expected of me was very different to what I’d anticipated and been promised.

I could have left straight away – I had doubts from the very beginning. However, by the time I had arrived in Christchurch I had already done everything that is involved with moving from one end of the country to the other – given away furniture and possessions, paid to have everything else freighted down- country, said difficult goodbyes to loved ones, shifted my cat. Basically, I felt my bridges were pretty much burned.

In retrospect, that would have been a good time to leave – before the brainwashing really kicked in. However, I thought at the time that I may as well stay and give it a go since I was there.

And so began a very intense and bizarre part of my life. Mind control techniques are very subtle – and this is what I began to encounter. I can see now that living in one of the SRMHC’s, I was living in a situation that I can clearly describe as “cultish”. My behaviour and thinking was controlled in many ways – some more subtle than others.

Here are just a few examples:

1. I had no friends or family in Christchurch – and I was not given the time or space to develop friendships. So I became increasingly isolated during the 3 ½ years I lived at Christchurch SRMHC.

2. As the years went on, it became increasingly difficult for me to contact friends and family in Auckland – as all phone bills were checked carefully and I would be questioned about calls I had made. I had          no-one outside the Centres who I could “bounce ideas off”.

3. In fact, increasingly, all my personal freedoms were taken away. I had no bank accounts, no money of my own and therefore no financial means to make the choice to leave easily. My time was not my         own – every moment was accounted for, from waking for mediation at 6.00 am until crashing, exhausted, into bed after meditation at night.

4. So I became more and more dependant on the SRMHC’s for everything – certainly for my physical needs (housing and food) – also for friendship, family and love. My emotions were consistently being         manipulated as “my ego was disciplined”.

However, there were many good things – wonderful things, too, which kept me there and made my decision to leave very difficult.

Leaving…..This was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make in my life – because I had to step outside the mind – control in order to do it. So many pros and cons – leaving would mean that I would get to see my family and friends, have my freedom again. However, the SRMHC had me firmly in their clutches. They told me that if I left I’d carry the weight of very heavy karma – and that they feared for my soul if I was to go. I had signed all my money and possessions over to the SRMHC when I joined – and had no cash – so I didn’t know how I’d be able to leave, where I’d go, what I’d do. (I felt that all my eggs were in one basket). I knew someone would have to help bail me out.

However, the situation became intolerable to me – I was exhausted and had a chronic eye infection that wouldn’t heal. I knew I had to do something.

Finally, my real intuition came through – and I knew I had to leave. I also knew that there was lots I couldn’t figure out and lots I didn’t understand and that I may be pressured to stay. So I decided I was going to leave – and that I was going to go through with it no matter what - and that I would sort my head out later – once I was back “in the world”.

So I left.

The transition back has taken time. I have never regretted my decision to leave for a single moment. Also, I found out how strong and resilient human beings are. I was especially helped by 2 wonderfully intuitive people. They helped me to find my way ‘through the maze’ and to trust my own intuition again. I was able to talk freely and openly and my perspective was validated. I researched information on mind-control and cults which helped me find understanding.

From a financial perspective, it took a while to rebuild my foundations. When I left the SRMHC I was given a plane ticket to Auckland and a small sum of money. I had to start over from scratch – buying all the necessities (even a bed and bedding, etc).

Really, I’ve realised the SRMHC only support their ‘family’/staff to the extent that they “tow the line” – there is no financial security should you decide to walk away. As soon as you disagree with them, they drop all the help and support. Is this really “unconditional love”?

Now, 6 years on, my life is working well and I’m very happy. In spite of the dire things the SRMHC had warned me would happen, my life has flowed beautifully and many opportunities have opened up. My health is great – and my eyes have been clear and healthy consistently now for the past 5 years. I’m surrounded by loving family and friends, living in a beautiful house overlooking the water and have an interesting and fulfilling career.

I have not cast aside the spiritual aspect of life. I believe that many of the spiritual ideas espoused by the SRMHC hold universal truths – but the SRMHC do not have a monopoly on the truth. The great truths can be found in many places.

I no longer use the meditation techniques the SRMHC taught me as I’ve discovered they leave me too ungrounded. However, I do like to be quiet and find the stillness – by listening to the wind, walking on the beach, looking at the sky. All of life has messages for us.

In the end, I’ve realised that there are so many paradoxes and shades of grey in life. Our journeys encompass so much. I’ve learned so much from all these experiences – but I did have to walk through the “fiery gate”. *

I wish you well in your own journey through understanding the SRMHC’s.

– May you find your own truth.

Donna Salmon.

* From the book: After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, by Jack Kornfield.

“Betrayal is a fiery gate to pass through, a painful destroyer of illusion and innocence. It functions as an uninvited initiation into the complex truth of humanity, of the shadows cast by the light…Betrayal itself becomes our teacher. We must bow to betrayal, because it brings us back to the truth.”

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Joining the Family

I am so happy that this website exists. Until recently, I have carried my centre experience alone (I have had no contact with other family or ex-family members). Now I know there are many people who share very similar experiences to me. There is a relief and freedom in knowing I am not isolated and that others understand the pain I have experienced.

I was involved with the Christchurch centre from 1996. I attended numerous courses, received and gave healings, gave service and was a regular at meditation at the Christchurch centre. In 2000 I visited the Queen Camel centre five times for various events and to give service. Finally I joined the family in 2001 in Christchurch, and was sent to the Leigh centre. I lasted one month. The first two weeks at Leigh I saw behind the public face of the centres, and saw a complete mess. It was a shock to see the way the family broke so many of the rules it imposed on others. There were financial and emotional problems that I was expected to fix. Daniel Francis was busy running a damage control campaign as issues kept arising about the centre being a cult and people doubting the centres intentions. It was all very unsettling. During the next two weeks, I realised the centre was grating against my belief system. Things were being said and done that did not feel right, and I was being asked to live a lie. I was operating on faith alone, hoping what I was experiencing was not the reality of life in a centre, and desperately trying hard to believe in the centre. At the end of the month, things were so bad I asked to speak to Rena Denton, in the hope she would listen and sort things out. She did not listen and told me to put music on and dance around the room! I knew at that point I had to get out. I was very scared, as I had just invested my whole being and life in the centre. It seemed far too big an investment to turn around and walk away from. Luckily I had kept in touch with my sister (I was told not to have contact with family and friends), who helped me to take the plunge and get out.

The aftermath was devastating (but staying would have been far worse). I had no job, no money, and no home. My spirit and soul had been interfered and tampered with…I felt abused. There was no one to talk to who understood. I was lucky to have a few good friends who really tried to listen and help, but they lived in other parts of New Zealand. I felt so lonely and broken. I felt like I was deep underneath a huge dark mountain with no way out…no ropes, no food, no companions, no light. I felt suicidal. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I tried to exercise, sleep and relax to recover, but in the end, I asked for medication and was prescribed anti-depressants. Eventually I found a good spiritual counsellor who helped me work through all the darkness, I found a job I liked, and I was fortunate enough to find my lovely husband. I was lucky. It took me three years to recover from one month as a family member.

Until now, I thought my experiences were isolated. I thought my experiences were due to a time and place thing…that things were just particularly bad with the Leigh centre when I was sent there. (Now I realise that it would have been the same at any of the centres at any time). Everybody I knew who had joined the family seemed happy with their decision, and so I thought the problem must lie with me. I must have been lacking in faith. I must have been weak. Well now I realise it is quite the opposite. I had so much faith, that the centre could not undermine my beliefs in honesty, integrity, compassion and love. I was strong enough to leave before they corrupted and brainwashed me.

Now, four years later, I am overwhelmed to know that I am not alone! Others have had terrible and bitter experiences with the centres. Others have suffered very badly and been treated far, far worse than me for much longer periods of time. While I am very, very sorry that anybody had been hurt by these fakes, I feel jubilant and vindicated at the same time. I was right! My feelings were right! My intuition was right! Knowing that I am not alone, helps me complete the full circle of healing.

So to people reading this, please know you are not alone. Please keep away from the centres because they will hurt you. The centres are not places of love and light. In fact they are places full of deceit, dishonesty and disrespect.

This is an abridged version of a very long account of my entry into family life. I will add the longer version as I get time.

Thank you for reading this…

Marion Thompson

29^th December 2004

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My involvement with SRMHC began several years ago. I had been suffering with a chronic health condition and a friend suggested that I try healing and yoga. At the time, I was greatly interested in developing a regular meditation practice and had been a student of Buddhism off and on over the years. With my illness, I had to let much of my former life go and was experiencing a profound sense of loss. I was really ready for something different; I was looking for ‘my Path’. The Centre was really there for me at a time when I was very low and vulnerable and offered a level of support and seeming integrity I had yet to experience in my life.

When I took the meditation course, I felt truly blessed to have found my Guru and a practice that reached into every level of my life. It was all very euphoric. I did find Mataji and her teachings very difficult to relate to from the start. It was challenging for me, as an intellectual person, to really connect to Mataji’s writings and talks, especially having experienced such articulate teaching in the Buddhist world. I was counseled again and again that I lacked faith and wasn’t in touch enough with ‘the love’. Being very emotionally high on it all, and certainly less spiritually mature and confident, I began to put any awkward feelings all down to ‘my ego’ and accepted her way as simple and folksy; an antidote to my big bad ego and intellect. You don’t, after all, have to have a PHD to be wise. Of course, this was reinforced by the Centre and I was encouraged to have more healing, meditate more, do more courses etc. etc.

At about year two, internal conflict started to rage higher and higher in my mind and my health problems were worsening. More courses, more healing, more meditation, retreat after retreat. Now I was a healer and counselor in my own right. Why was I becoming more ill, more pain, more debilitation in my energy? Hearing that ‘it’s just a clearing’ became a facile cliché; a huge oversimplification and I vowed never to use that one on my clients.

I was discouraged by my healers from seeking other relevant therapy and at one point, felt pressed to go against my Dr’s advice. That was pretty much the limit for me. I felt I was being manipulated time after time and sometimes felt abused in some subtle way. I stood by and watched others go through the same hoops; I watched while good people’s confidence was undermined, often treated and spoken to harshly simply for being themselves. It was rare to get a chance to talk it through with others, our interactions were so controlled; I felt so isolated and it seemed we never got the opportunity to communicate enough to form proper relationships with other devotees.

Why was I such a sucker to keep allowing it? Well, by this time, I’d invested my whole life into the training, all my savings, my partner was now a meditator. It was kind of a snowball and of course, there was the “you only get one Guru in this lifetime” hook. How could I pass that up? Am I a disloyal person? Certainly not. A spiritual flake? No way. So, a combination of pride, fear, vulnerability, and a true desire to know God and be helpful to humanity kept me going.

My meditation practice began to break down and I would suffer intense pain and anxiety during sitting. I would force myself to sit for a couple of hours to ‘break through’ and experience the peace, which I could for a few moments and then the anxiety would be back. My sleep began to be disrupted and I would awaken in the night with my heart and mind racing. I found I was walking in a perpetual fog and that my vision was impaired. I complained to my partner that I didn’t feel like I was ‘on the planet’ anymore and felt I should seek psychiatric help and perhaps medication. It was very frightening. I thought I was losing my mind, and the truth is, I was.

I was no longer receiving healing at the Centre and of course, the little voice… “you’re harming yourself by not having weekly healing…you know better.” Well actually, I didn’t feel a stitch different physically and found myself returning to a sense of self-empowerment and mental/emotional clarity. I dropped my meditation down to only the mornings and realized that I could now have time with my partner or to read or engage socially with others.

Throughout this entire experience, I have maintained my connection to Buddhist and progressive Christian thought and read whatever I could about other meditation practices. I’ve now an understanding about how this practice can be aggressive, ambitious and limiting and actually serves to disconnect me from my true self, rather that to deepen it. That can have very serious physical and emotional consequences.

Getting the heads up from some caring and brave others who have left the Centres was all that I needed to send me packing once and for all. Just a few honest and sober stories shared and all of my feelings and observations over the years are validated. How powerful it is to limit the communication of a group! Now I see that healthy honest relationships based on open communication is the single most important aspect to look for when seeking a community of spiritual practice and not some ‘pie in the sky’ enlightenment in this lifetime story; of course it’s possible, but to use a Buddhist saying: ‘enlightenment is ordinary’.

I still fully believe in the importance of making time for God through meditation in my life and will continue to seek out a practice and a sangha that shows its humanity in a full, honest and healthy way. I don’t know what that will look like and I’ve no anxiousness or agenda around it. I have no desire to blame as blame only enforces my sense of victimization and ties me to the past. By seeing Mataji and her followers as simply fallible human beings I can open my heart to compassion and forgiveness and true healing. I was shown true caring many times at the Centre and there has been much value in the teachings and experience for me. I don’t believe they are bad people; just good people caught in a bad system. That does not mean that I will be dishonest to anyone if they want to hear about my experience.

I have profound feeling of joy and groundedness in my newfound wisdom and have no regrets. My physical symptoms have abated significantly and I no longer feel I’m going crazy! I gave myself willingly and fully to what was in front of me and what was right at the time. I feel I have fulfilled a major karma in all of this by cutting through a huge delusion, and now know I will make every effort to never doubt myself again or be silenced by anyone’s spiritual jingoism.

I have made a list in point form of what have been my major criticisms of the SRMHC experience over the years. I’d like to hear what other’s are.

My connection with the centres has been over a period of 8 years. I have done the meditation, counselling, healing and various other courses and events offered by the centres both in the

and NZ. I have spent time living and giving service in both countries, anywhere from a couple of days to 3 months.

Firstly I want to say that there is much love and goodness in all the people I have had contact with in the period I was involved. That each and every one, I believe were like me, trying to do their best for themselves and for others. Indeed each soul seemed to have that burning desire to find purpose, direction and connection with their true spiritual selves. I feel blessed to have meet so many wonderful, loving souls.

Like many, when I found the srmhc centre and the teaching, I felt at last I had come to a place unconditional love and tolerance. Much of it made a lot of sense and appealed to my anti-dogma, anti- fundamental approach to spirituality. Coming from a traditional Anglican upbringing , it appealed to my rebellion of the church, but also the desire to find that spiritual connection.

I always had doubt with seeing Rena Denton as my guru. I was told because I had done the meditation course she was now, and forever will be my guru, even if I decided to later go to another teacher such as Jesus. That any spiritual connection was made through Rena.

But none the less I bowed and paid my respects because this was another soul and I would bow to anyone to acknowledge the divine within. I also bowed to the teacher (Rena) and indeed the many teachers I have learned from over the years both at the centres and elsewhere. But this attitude always kept me on the outskirts of commitment to the centres which was a real dilemma at times. I see it now for what it was, that my true self, my higher self, was telling me loud and clear that it wasn’t for me but to take what I found useful and leave. But I was being told by the teachings and centres that it was just my lack of faith and acknowledgment of my guru, I was in a situation that I could never win!

I have seen the inconsistencies the problems the centre have had over the years. I feel many religious groups are going to have these because they always rely on human interpretation of Gods will. The Dali Lama says yes, if you need a guru to follow then give them about ten years and by then you will have a better idea. What are their fruits?

I consider myself lucky that I have been able to gain the benefits of the centres work without having to be drawn into the closer circles where a lot of the problems arise. Once you start looking and getting close to what goes on you get to see that the problems of the outside world are just as evident within the centres and possibly worse because their is so much personal and group suppression.

I could never get over the fact that Rena supported the war in

Iraq

. How could a true spiritual person ever do this? Even to call it a clearing or from tough action comes good does not justify it. What master would ever condone such a thing. It goes against all that is taught from Jesus to Gandhi.

I knew life at the centres wasn’t the REAL world and wasn’t for me full time. But I did grow and I did learn a lot about finding my way to God, the divine within, and for that I thank the centres for giving me a discipline to practise to help make that connection. I have become a much wiser, intuitive, loving and happier soul for it. But it is time to move on.

So many times I was told that I had to set an example, not to question. I feel to add my name here as honesty and openness is the way forward.

My involvement with SRMHC began through Yoga classes at the Christchurch Centre,

New Zealand

. I became interested in the PC training and saw this as a way to further my spiritual growth. This led on to taking the Meditation course and then the Healing Course – and the beginning of the belief of being led by Mataji back home to myself and the Infinite. My early background quite set me up for this scenario – life time involvement in the church – marriage to a clergy man – subsequent divorce and the loss of the church family which created a bigger gap than I was prepared to admit to myself at the time. Then came a wonderful marriage with much happiness and peace. I began working very long hours in a job I had once loved but which had become unfulfilling. My husband and I had worked ourselves into a distance from each other which was causing me a lot of pain – huge fear of abandonment – so when I was increasingly courted by the leader of our local centre I took the bait – believing myself to be special, and following a true path towards God.

I gave up my job and worked long hours giving service at the centre, saturating myself in the place – Then came the decision for us –to take a job living overseas, or become part of the Centre? I believe I chose the centre to stay closer to my children –

We sold our house – which was used to purchase another house next door to the centre. Eventually we moved into the main house and set about learning to live there with Mananda (the Christchurch centre teacher) – The first year was one of complete indoctrination – called training – I lost myself – fought hard but gave in and was praised for it – I remember a phone call to Mataji in which I was filled with fear about losing that whole sense of myself to nothingness. She was full of praise for how wonderfully I had not given in to my ego. Even then, I remember thinking that she was wrong!!

We signed over everything that we owned, home, possessions, money and ourselves into the family, believing that the sense of family and belonging would now be apparent. Wrong!!! Very quickly I realised we were even further away than when we had started. Within the “Centre Family”, the real sense of family is incredibly lacking. My experience of other family members is that they were all desperately lonely and estranged from each other and their own families outside. There is so much secrecy surrounding the “family” which serves to hide much of the dysfunction from view.

Over the next few years I tried my hardest. I so wanted to really know and experience all that we had been promised. I was being groomed to be a meditation teacher but my biggest struggle was with the teaching about the Guru. Eventually I was able to teach the words passably without believing them for myself.

I watched my husband query and question at every turn and became caught in a perpetual battle of “piggy in the middle”. For a period of time I gave in completely and chose the centre over him, siding with Mananda and winning great approval for being so much more spiritually advanced. Mataji talked with me a great deal about Philip during this time and I came to realise how it is that couples are parted from each other in the centres.

The biggest problem for me during this period was that Mananda appeared unable to ever think for herself. I knew her as a very intelligent woman, and yet she constantly sought advice from Mataji for the smallest things. This and the increasingly ‘wonky’ advice handed out by Mataji kept me querying, thank goodness. In hindsight I realise that I was being taught to use my intuition and that was indeed what was happening!! I was always questioning, and learnt eventually how to keep up the pretence that I was “spiritually advancing’, even though I was filled with doubts at every turn. By choosing to put my marriage relationship first again, I became more settled in myself, but this alienated me further from the centre’s hold.

We also had some training at the Mother Centre in the

. For both of us this was when we truly began to see how completely dysfunctional the whole place really is. This was reinforced by Mananda’s belief that to speak with Mataji would bring profound blessing. I heard astonishingly disappointing talks by Mataji; they just never seemed to make any sense! And many times it was impossible to see any sense at all in any of the training. The feeling of it all being a sham was never clearer than when at the Mother Centre, and the deep disappointment that accompanied audiences with Mataji.

There were times of growth for sure, but the really bad times far out numbered the good and a true indicator of that for us was the difficulty we both felt about returning to the Centre after we had been away on holiday. It was then that we discussed the problems and really saw what was happening to us. We also faced the fact that neither of us felt much devotion to the ‘Guru’, just a whole lot of doubts and lots of ridiculousness!! How truly awful that was!

My sense of loyalty was always towards Mananda. I had enormous respect for her gift of teaching, her inner discipline, and for her as a person, but the more I got to know her the more I became aware of the weird split personality act that is the hallmark of all the Centre family members. I discovered that I could do it too – the same double faced act that was required to win devotees for the Guru and to win praise from the family.

The beginning of the end came about for me when I wrote a letter to Mananda asking her to seriously look at her inability to really be herself and how intensely difficult I found that. Mananda sent that letter straight to Mataji without speaking with me about it and what followed was a completely “cuckoo” period for us all. Mananda was obviously told to stop having any sort of relationship with us and she began to meditate for long periods of time. Her behaviour and demeanour became quite ‘off the planet’ really and the whole centre thing began to feel out of control and it was scary being about the place. It was during this time that we set about finding our way out of the maze.

An astonishing event then occurred with Mananda entering into a relationship practically overnight with an odd-job man who came to the centre looking for work. We realised at the time that she was incapable of making good decisions because of her odd behaviour over recent weeks, but the speed with which this man became a part of centre life was so astonishing that we oscillated between complete disbelief and absolute mirth!!! What really helped us with our decision to leave the centre for good at the time was the way Mataji handled the whole scenario!!! What a complete botch up!!! We would have to have been completely lacking in intelligence not to have seen how utterly weird the whole scene was!!! We became really grateful to them all, as we were able to leave quickly and quietly while all the heat was focussed on Neil and Mananda’s relationship and the ease with which he was helping himself to the Centre funds!!

Afterwards we realised that many centre members would think we had left because of Neil’s arrival. We had already begun the purchase of a house for us to escape to (thanks to our family), during the weeks before Neil arrived.

Leaving the centre means leaving behind your possessions and money as these things have been signed over on arrival. Although Mataji told us to write a list of what we needed, when we did that we were then told we couldn’t have them! We were given $300 each and the contents of our bedroom along with a few other things. In effect we needed to begin again from scratch; we are so blessed to have a loving and supportive family who have given to us richly all we need.

It took many weeks after leaving to be able to face up to the truth of what had happened to us. After much soul searching, excellent counselling, and loads of family loving and support it is now very clear to me that the centre is a cult. It is set up to recruit devotees for the “Guru”. I was taught that each course is merely a fishing ground for devotees, from the Hatha Yoga classes to the meditation courses where the real mind control begins. I have seen and experienced much that has clearly shown the centres to be exceedingly dangerous in their subtleties. There are many wonderful people involved who have no idea what they are being groomed for, or what they are really taking part in, and many people who feel they cannot escape. The secrecy that surrounds the ‘family’ speaks volumes about the mind control in place. The teachings are that you will accrue bad karma for speaking about any of the secrets.

It is amazing to have this web site to help with the exposure of this dangerous cult. There are many now leaving and it’s wonderful to be able to support each other on the journey out, learning to replace fear with truth and self trust again.

To be living in constant peace and to be able to trust my own thinking is a source of absolute joy. To have a family who are real, forgiving, and honest is the means of much healing and true health. I am forever grateful to them.

It feels important in my first steps towards healing from my connection with the centre, to share thoughts and feelings with others.

I have found that there is another side (double meaning) to almost every practice or teaching. We were taught to look in a particular way, but this new found freedom to think for myself means that I can now pursue both sides of the coin.

One of the things I found hard to understand is why so many of the ‘devotees’ and family members were sick so often. Now I know the answer. Each former member I have spoken with has told the same story about poor health and illness being a constant part of their life until freedom of thought and personal truth is found again, and then the illnesses magically disappear! Our bodies just cannot contain all the questions, doubts and personal dishonesty (self deception) without breaking down on some level.

After each Meditation or Healing course the teachers all go down in a heap of illness, headaches, colds, flu – if asked they say it’s because of the depth of the teaching work. Experience has proven to me that it is more about the lack of depth of some of the teachings and the teacher having to keep up the act or pretence for that length of time.

My biggest doubts have always been about Mataji as Guru. I tried so hard to hear something deep and meaningful in the talks, tapes and books. So many times I blamed myself for not having found even a shred of “something” in her writings. When I gave a video of Mataji’s talks as a gift to a friend, it was excruciatingly embarrassing for me to listen to my friend’s questions about the talks – knowing that she was echoing thoughts that I didn’t want to admit to myself at all, let alone be forced to defend. Of course I just believed that I hadn’t progressed very far spiritually – that was the answer I was given when I asked why I couldn’t find the depth at all.

I am so glad to have these pages to voice and name my inner truth and to compare stories with others. As I am able I will share more.

If my high school had had a yearbook, I’m sure I would have been in it under “most likely to join a cult”. I was so obviously searching for answers and a meaning to life and after being bought up in the Christian church found myself turning to Eastern religions for these answers. Then when I was in a very transitional time in my life (new relationship, moving country, new job…well new everything), found myself being drawn into the arms of the centre. I was a perfect ‘cult’ recruit. There I was longing, looking, searching, wanting, and there was the centre offering it all…well literally, even self realization in this life time they said.

Part of my recovery from my years at the centre has been to read and learn as much as I can about groups such as the centre, to help me understand my experience there more. One thing that I have found quite shocking is the large number of similar groups I found operating all over the world. The centre really isn’t at all unique. These groups seem to be different in size, location and teachings however, they also have similarities. The main similarity is their use of mind control. I have learnt that mind control methods also vary greatly, however, there do tend to be three overlapping stages: deception, dependency and dread.

It was a painful day when I began to see my time at the centre falling into these three stages, as it was then that I had to face the fact that I had fallen prey to a cult who had used mind control tactics on me. If what they were teaching me was whole and true what was the need for the mind control?

When I first went to the centre I felt I had come home. I began to have all my questions answered and was given a whole new way to understand life. I was told that I would now advance spiritually, and by the end of my first course at the centre, I found myself prescribing to the centre’s way of thinking, feeling and acting. It was a very euphoric time I remember. I felt saved, blessed, loved unconditionally. What I have since come to realise was that those I came to love so dearly were in fact manipulating me, and, albeit it in a highly subtle way, were controlling my mind. This was the stage of ‘deception’, during which I totally committed myself to the centre.

Not long after this, in fact it was surprisingly quick if I think back on it, I began to feel totally ‘dependent’ on the centre. It was like a fix that I needed. I found myself signed up for nearly every course there was going, only reading books written by Mataji or Paramahansaji and attempting to live by the teachings come what may. It seemed however, the more I tried to live by the teachings, the more I failed. I became riddled with guilt about anything I did that was against the teachings, or if I had a ‘bad’ Meditation or indeed missed a Meditation. I became very desperate as it seemed that I would never be able to live by the centre’s ways. My relationship was suffering and I was no longer able to get satisfaction from my job.

I now can see that this was when I had reached a stage of ‘dread’. The only place I felt I could go for comfort and support with these issues was to Mataji and my other teachers at the centre, but I was told that I needed to try harder, have more faith, Meditate longer and do even more courses. I found myself experiencing many fears. I began to have grave doubts that I would ever be able to achieve true spiritual progress in the ‘real’ world.

I became so unhappy and found it difficult to talk to my teachers as I didn’t want to seem to be ‘failing’, so I began to talk to other members of the centre (something that was of course not encouraged at all). I was amazed to find they too were having similar feelings of failure, fear and guilt. This was when a little seed of doubt began to grow for me. It took so much courage for me to recognize it and act upon it as the fear kept me stuck. But I have found that talking openly with former centre members has helped drop the veil of secrecy that the centre had been shrouded in and helped me to see it for what it is.

This journey of re-awakening and self discovery is a continual journey. There are so many mixed feelings and emotions, so much pain and hurt to deal with. One of the greatest for me has been betrayal by Mataji, my other teachers and the centre in general. But my journey forward is one of freedom and filled with so much new found joy and an inner peace and love for life. I feel that I am living my truth now and that is uplifting.

This web site is a wonderful start for us to empower ourselves and support each other and I am sure it will be a tool to help us all move forward. I hope that in sharing my story with you it will give you the courage to share yours with others.