Scott, founder of Skeptic Meditations, speaks from experience of living in and leaving Self-Realization Monastic Order, a Hindu-inspired meditation group headquartered in Los Angeles and founded by famous Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda.
Below is an index to a series of four interviews originally published in Canadian Atheist, republished on SkepticMeditations.com with permission. The interviewer is Scott Douglas Jacobsen of Conatus News and Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing.
Inger Klekacz, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Interview 1: Reliance on External Authority
What happens to residents entering and leaving Self-Realization ashrams and what keeps members stuck inside the group.
Interview 2: Trapped in Post-Christian Spirituality and Meditation Beliefs
Post-Christian spirituality and secularization of meditation beliefs fosters mixed up beliefs. For example, belief that enlightenment or divine awareness is the same thing as thinking “right” thoughts, stilled thoughts, or no thoughts.
Interview 3: Needs Fulfilled from Cults, and Benefits for Leaders and Followers
Some benefits for ashram residents and their guru-leaders. Benefits are outweighed by abuses and slavish obedience to group doctrines.
Interview 4: Existential Risks and Trauma of Leaving an Ashram
The existential risks of leaving a cult, views of the world only knowing the cult, leaving psychologically and physically from the cult, places for transition, and some who never get over their trauma.
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