Nitai Joseph, talks about being a former Hare Krishna Monk, what the general beliefs are, going to California to learn from a seemingly cooler guru, devoting his life to the group, the labor exploitation he experienced, and the dangers of the guru structure.
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Trust Me, trust Me. I'm like a swat person. I've never lied to you.
I never Do you think that one person has all the answers? Don't Welcome to Trust Me the podcast about cults, extreme belief and the abuse of power from two politicians who've actually experienced it.
I am Lo La Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth.
Vote for us. This week our guest and next week our guest is Natai Joseph. He is a former Harry Krishna monk who now has a Masters of Psychology and course of Control and has a lot of interesting things to say about a lot of topics. So in part one of our interview this week, he's going to tell us about growing up in a moderate Harry Krishna group, what the general Harry Krishna beliefs are, and getting drawn in by a kind of a cooler guru who's seen more with it and brought him to northern California.
We'll get it into what it was like once he devoted his life to the group, the labor exploitation he experienced, and how the guru's structure is inherently dangerous, and what he learned.
And next week we will discuss an interesting perspective on meditation. Yeah, culturally kind of. There's a bit of a culty devotion to the idea of meditation right now, and there just is some alternative perspective on some evidence that points to it not being right for everyone.
It's not the cure all, be all. It's just one sign point and home one what sign.
Sign point in home?
Cool?
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, But that's next week. And this week we will focus on his personal story. But before we get into it, shall we discuss our cultyes thing together.
Yeah, let's do it. I think we have the same one. So let's introduce it.
Let's introduce it. So I'm sure that most of you saw this week, this past couple of weeks, really that Clarence Thomas, one of our Supreme Court justices here in the United States, his wife, Ginny Thomas. Some stuff has come out about her. Not only is she a major Trump supporter who has been trying to overturn the election of Joe Biden. But she also, fascinatingly was in a cult herself, probably like early eighties. There's this video that Steve Hassen, friend of the show, posted of her talking about her time in Life Spring and how harmful it was and how cult like it was. Some of the things that they talked about doing were similar to like scientology and Nexiom, where they would gather people in a group and make them share deep things about their trauma and their histories and their lives, but also just like fully ridicule their bodies and like humiliate them on purpose, and it had complete control over their lives. Was there anything else that you saw about it that you thought was interesting?
Just the fact that she said that it controlled every aspect of her life was very interesting to me because I'd never thought of that group as being not all controlling, but of course it probably is.
I don't think i'd heard of this group really. I mean, it sounded like vaguely familiar, but I don't know what it was.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought it was just the kind of Nexiam type. Here's how you be a fucking winner, like a landmark almost executive. Yeah, Yeah, that was.
Big in eighties and nineties, I feel like, but no, I didn't know anything about it. Well, what's so interesting about that is not just that obviously she was in Coulton now is a full on Trump fanatic, but she like joined the Cult Awareness Network after and became an anti cult activist for years until cut to the past few years. She started clearly going down the QAnon rabbit hole.
Huh.
And we say that because of texts that came out between her and Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff, fully parroting QAnon talking points and phrasings and conspiracy theories. And this is the wife of one of our Supreme Court justices who is making crucial decisions for the future of the country. You might say, well, that doesn't affect him. But interestingly, this year in January, this is a quote from some article I had copied. I can't remember which one it was from, But he was the only justice who noted a dissent when the court allowed the release of records from the Trump White House related to the January sixth attack. So this fool, whatever his personal opinions on it, he's very deeply in the trenches of this like kind of leaf system via his wife, and that is a very very dangerous thing.
WHOA. I just want to.
Quote some of the texts because they're terrifying to me. So it's like it's all these cute on talking points Biden crime family and ballot fraud co conspirators are. I feel like it was a like an email chain, but like on text like this, like phrasing was going around the like you know, right wing conspiracy community are being arrested and detained for ballot fraud right now in overcoming days and will be living in barges off getm to Face Military Tribunals, first edition. Okay, So fucking the wife of Supreme Court justice is sharing this with the fucking chief of staff of the White House, and he is responding and he is fully on board. He is fully a part of this. She added, I hope this is true. Oh you hope this is true military tribunals because people want to they want to believe the evidence, which is that they're the election was like correct. And then she said, and this part is so interesting to me because they're texting back and forth. They're using this like very almost like a formal sounding like royal military language. It sounds like they think they're in fucking game of Thrones or something. She says, do not concede. It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back. He called the election a fight of good versus evil, and added evil always looks like the victor until the king of King's triumphs do not grow weary and well doing the fight continues. Are you just fucking LARPing?
It sounds more like Christianity, like extreme to me, you know, like, uh, are you LARPing? Is the funniest question. But you know when people start speaking like yee and thee and you know, and like true just very formal and old and terrifying.
Yeah, you guys, like what is happening?
What is happening?
I was just saying this to you before we started recording, but like it's I'm having a really hard time with my like climate existential anxiety. You know, we've sort of talked about how people who have this armageddon type of mentality are not going to be the people we can rely on to take any action to prevent the Earth from literally being destroyed by climate change. Yeah, because they think that this is all part of the plant they think destruction is a good thing because it means Jesus is coming back.
Right.
It's a very very bad cycle that I used to get in my fight with my dad about a lot really, because he would say stuff like that, Yeah, I big climate change and Megan, Jesus is gonna come back to the Earth.
I'd be like, what, dude.
Like, other people don't believe that, so maybe we should just be polite to them, you know, and not ruin the earth, you know, just to be neighborly. Right.
Yeah, it scares me so much. The idea of Trump being president again scares me so so, so, so so so much, especially considering how how much he's been patting Putin's back for the mass murder and war crimes that are occurring right now.
Yeah. I mean, I'm not too hype on our current government either, but it's all just falling apart.
I'm just gonna say this because I feel like this point comes up a lot, like whatever you think about the current administration and how they're not ideal and they're not perfect, Like, if only for the sake of the planet, at least, having an administration that believes in climate change and wants to do something about it. If that is it's the only reason that you vote, please like, let that be the thing. Absolutely not saying they're perfect, of course they're fucking not. But you know we need to have a planet for any of those other issues to even matter. Side note, I forgot to shout out last week and I'm so mad at myself. I'm still crap bunding my film. Yes, I know this is we're taking up too much time in this intro is too long, but you guys, I'll make it quick bit dot l y slash pruning film. If you donate. I'm not sure if it lets you include a note, but I will thank you if you donate, and then you can respond. I will shout you out on the podcast any amount. Just if you donate, I can give you a little shout out on here. Yeah, whatever message you want, as long as it's not offensive or fucked up. I just am trying to get this thing done. We're almost fifty percent there, and that's the intermash meal. Sorry, let's let's let's talk to and die.
Let's do it.
Welcome the TI Joseph. I'm so happy to have you on today.
Thank you, thank you.
Nice to see you again, So you have so much to talk about. We had a hard time even picking the specific subjects because there's so many ways we could go with it. But today first, can you just start us off with your own experience as a Hari Krishna monk, and can you just tell us like how that came to be? You were born into a hary Krishna group originally.
Right, Yeah? And I also just want to say, like, I'm a fan of the podcast. I follow you guys when you first started. You reached out to me and I wasn't feeling up for recording then. And what happened actually was I matched with someone on Tinder. My profile mentioned that I work in this area, and she was like, have you ever heard the Trust Me podcast? No? And I was like, I know, Christine, and so I was like, yeah, I'm familiar. I haven't really listened to it, and that's what got me listening to it, like probably a year ago now. Yay. It consistently followed since.
Oh I'm so happy, thanks for listening and thanks for coming on. I'm that makes me very happy.
Hell me too, and Christine as well as Mom of course, so full circle amazing.
Yeah, tell us things.
Yeah, so you know, Harry Krishnas is kind of a broad term that arose from the general public, not that they don't use it internally, but you know, within the broader umbrella of that, there's multiple groups and sex and the main one is the International Society for Christiana Consciousness. It's called ISKAN is the acronym, it's probably how I'll refer to it moving forward. And so that's used to be the only one in the best.
Was that the famous ones where people would see the people in orange, That was that yuse L.
So, like nineteen sixty five, the founder came to New York City, slowly started building up a following, and that's like what my parents joined. You know, my mom talked out of college in Boston move into the temple when she was nineteen. Oh.
Was this the Beatles stuff too? Was this when all the rock stars were doing well?
Okay, yeah. It's a really interesting kind of cultural phenomenon. You know, there was a lot of middle and upper middle class kids with historically unique degree of stability and comfort and this like countercultural movement of like deeper meaning and so it was really ripe for that kind of classic era of cults. As we often think of it. And you know my mom, my mom ran away from summer camp in upstate New York to go to Woodstock like that. That was a few years before she joined the temple, right, so definitely that influence. George Harrison specifically was the most connected to the Harry Krishna's and he's almost like an unofficial I wouldn't say same, but Harry Christnas have a funny, little interesting love for him because of his connection. He actually donated a big temple in the UK and paid for the printing of an early edition of some of their books. So he was he was kind of into it.
And where was the temple your mom joined?
She joined in Boston from her college, and my father joined in New York City where he was living.
Then got it and so that's how I met.
Yeah, yeah, and well they yeah, they didn't meet for years. They were both married and divorced once within the organ region and later we're there. I mean, arranged marriages were a norm at one point.
Wow.
There was also a small amount of polygamy in the early days. My mom was Actually there wasn't many people who ended up involved in that, but my mom's first marriage, she was a second wife living aw in I think Mississippi. You know, she's nineteen, and like, you know, she would tell me about that when I was growing up, and it's not until you get a bit older that you understand then nineteen as a.
Child, yeah, yeah, no.
And so yeah, there was a brief experiment with polygamy because there's some precedent for that in Hindu Indian culture. But ultimately my parents were married when the temple president in Philadelphia, where they both lived in the eighties called my mom into the office and said, there's two guys there you can pick.
Oh, how generous.
So you know, one was a door to door way protein salesman and one was my dad, who gave lectures and was more philosophical. And so that was my mom's inclination.
Wow, okay, So what was it like growing up in this community? Were you like, did you kind of just live a normal life and then you just went to church or were you living somewhere culty or yeah.
Yeah, Well it varies for me. By the time I was born, like my brother, some of his early years he's four and a half years older than me, were spent in temple communities. When I was born, my parents were running a preaching center in Virginia that they just kind of operated themselves. And then shortly thereafter we moved back to Maryland, which is where my mom was from. So my childhood was ostensibly kind of normal. I went to public school. I went to like a Presbyterian daycare. At one point when I was real young, my friends were mostly not Harry Krishna kids. You know. The backdrop is like my first the middle name, or Harry Chrishna names that no one's ever heard of. Our whole family's vegetarian. There was some like weekly there's a Sunday weekly thing, you know, and we would go to that. But I pretty quickly, once I was old enough to throw a strong enough tantrum, I'd like, didn't want to go to the temple. I found it was dumb, so I'd stay home. I'd just like, you know, argue with my mom until she was so frustrated that she just went on her own. So I don't consider that I was very indoctrinated or I wasn't very even knowledgeable about the tenets as a kid, right, I never went There was a lot of Harry Christian boarding schools historically, a lot of abuse occurred in those I never went to any of that, and so for me, I didn't identify with the religion as a younger kid.
It sounds comparable to just like a lot my friends who grew up kind of Catholic, but it wasn't a big part of their lives. It was just like the religion your parents had.
And I think where the difference is not that this couldn't happen in Catholicism, is that cults have cultic systems have such a pervasive destabilizing effect that there's like other elements of the family structure, of my mom's mental health, et cetera, that do relate to the group and do have an effect on your upbringing, but aren't directly the doctrine or the community, you know what I mean. So, for example, for us, the founder of the Hari Krishnos is famous for saying, and you know there's no record of this, as with so many things, that secular schools were slaughter houses of the soul. That's the point. And so while my mom grew up in a suburban pro education household, that attitude was not her whole perspective, but it was part of her perspective. So when I middle school, started hanging out with older friends smoking some pot and decided I basically didn't want to go to school in eighth grade, there she was like, cool, I have friends with this homeschool system, Like what's homeschool? You know? And so that readiness to you know, go that route as partly the group's influence. Another one is, you know, a mixed regard for mainstream medicine. And so my mom had health issues too. She didn't eschew all medicine shaped cancer, she had MS, but there are multiple points where a less biased attitude towards the mainstream probably would have served her better, you know what I mean?
M hmmm.
Right.
As far as some of the basic car Christiana beliefs, my understanding is its desire leads to suffering the butt are we trying to transcend the body?
Like?
Tell me what most of the groups would have in common?
So I say, desire suffering, Yes, that is the view framed that way. It's it's a lot more buddhist esque. It's kind of like one of the four Noble Truths of Buddhism Ari Krishna, like in a nutshell, it's theistic. For one, there's some notion of a god, of a spiritual life that one can attain after they and the cycle of reincarnation. And so the notion of reincarnation is bound to karma, and karma is like you know, good or bad, there's there's some repercussions, and so the Harry Krishna ideas, because ultimately you want to transcend the world, whether it's good or bad, it's still bondage. That's the notion. They're still bound to the cycle, okay, And so it really starts to suck the color out of life when you adopt a you like that, and it even gets more perverse, and it's like the more you like something, the more it hurts when you're gonna lose it. So even worse right, ultimately you're going to be robbed of all things, So don't attach. And so I really find this aspect of Eastern thought a very almost reactionary protective let's pre by not participating in life.
I feel like that line of thinking is like the primary source of when I become depressed. It's like it's because I'm like, well, things are good now, but they won't be later on, which is like the exact thing I need to not do to feel okay in my life.
You know, so because they won't be later on. Like what is the use of you doing them? Now?
That's the argument, right, Like there's no value in just the impermanent present.
It's so strange because it also is saying that the present is important.
No, Like I mean, this is some of the word jugglery, as Harry Christians would call it. Even that occurs. We can talk about like being in the present moment. But I was listening to a podcast earlier today about mindfulness. The point was being made how mindfulness can mean like an intimate interaction with something, an idea or the present moment, or it can mean like a detail atched a looseness and so you get like the whole spectrum there. So whenever people talk about the moment, I kind of put it in that kind of category where it's like, you don't know what they actually mean, right, And to get the more context.
Well, let's get into some of your stuff. So, Swami Tripuri, is that how you say it? So eighteen years old, you begin hearing this guy's teachings, can you talk about that? What was different about what he was saying?
Well, yeah, my conscious interest in the religion began around kind of fourteen fifteen, when you know, really my brother had become really devout and he preached very you know, strongly to me. And as a fourteen fifteen year old, you don't have the rebuttals and the ideas and these arguments. You know, people don't understand. These arguments that someone is making in favor of their tradition have been honed over literally centuries sometimes, you know, where we're talking about points that are iterated upon and then tweaked to apply to current situation. So like I think people think, who would fall for that? But it's like, no, this is a if you're entering with an open mind into a debate of sorts, someone representing a group, especially a long standing group, is bringing the culmination of decades and centuries of argumentation and like apologetics. It's not all dumb. It's like there's philosophers there to refine this influence, right, And so that's when I basically, at like fourteen fifteen, I came away with this sense like this is what I should do with my life when I have the determination, and the next few years where me like living a more normal life, hanging out with friends, working in restaurants, drinking whatever, but dogged by this sense that like, ultimately I should be doing something else. Slowly, like I said, it kind of sucked the life and the value out of relationship. You know, I started seeing everyone as you know, more superficial and so on, and so it like this gradual trending. And then when I became more devout myself, I'm trying to even remember what if there was a more specificist Actually yeah there was, so I was already kind of getting into it more spiritual. I was like working in vegetarian restaurant, and the kind of people that work there were also like more amenable the spiritual ideas. We'd talk about philosophy a lot. And there was one friend in this group of friends who I hadn't been super close with, but we were planning to go live together on a farm and do woofing, you know, where you like intern on an organic party. Oh and this specific farm was a retreat center also that like hosted a variety of different groups, and so we were planning to go there and two days before that, and one day before his birthday, he commits suicide. Oh, and so that really sped up the disillusionment with life process in a way. Yeah, that I was kind of like I was already at the point where I felt like what I should do with my life is like this Harry Krishna stuff in turning on the farm was kind of like an in between to me to like moving into a Harry Chrishna community. And so when he commits suicide, I was kind of like, I need to stop beating around the bush and just like do this thing. And so that really became the catalyst for That's when I like quit my job, stopped hanging out with friends, stopped smoking, started reading books and chanting and in the Hari Krishna routine. And yeah, that was seventeen eighteen.
Wow, I can imagine what a shift that would be. I feel like anyone would, especially at that age, like that would shift someone into a new phase of life regardless.
You know.
Yeah, And it was complex because again, like I wasn't nearly the closest to him among our mutual friends, but we were about to embark on this trip just the two of us, so there was some connection between us and that timeframe that made the whole situation more personal, you know.
Of course, Yeah, right, I saw you talking about how having a guru is like a key part of the culture. Can you set that up for us, Like, does everyone have a guru? Is that inherent to Harry Krishna?
Yes, I mean there are people who will take other stances, but to argue otherwise is to really start to shift the kind of core accepted tenets and even scriptural proclamation. So the basic premise, and this isn't just exclusive to Harry Christians, is like the scripture is perfect, it comes from outside of human creation, and so it's like authoritative, but conveniently, you know, you me et cetera. We're not qualified to fully understand that scripture, and so the guru an essential component of understanding that. And so they kind of have this three pronged notion of like the Guru, the Sadu, which just means like saint, like more broadly saintly people, and then the scripture and like those are the three things. And so you know, the Hari Krishna version of heaven so to speak, implies or involves an eternal relationship with one's guru. So there's also the stakes are very high, even though there's very obvious nonsensical things like if I'm reincarnated in multiple lives? Is that the same guru in each one?
Or right?
Your isn't he going to heaven when he dies? Like?
Right?
The guru premise is pretty essential. So when I started getting serious, I was going to the localist con temples that were near me in Maryland and participating, but also not fully satisfied. There's a lot of fanaticism and kind of clickishness sometimes. That organization has a huge there's many gurus under one organization, So it's just a very complex entity in terms of authority and history because it was founded by a single guru. And then there's the succession dramas, which were utterly insane. In the Hari Krishna's of the initial eleven successor gurus, one was murdered by his disciples of crazy stuff. Well, yeah, they actually carved up the world when the founder died. They basically carved up the entire planet and assigned these initial gurus as zones. So if you join the Hari Krishnas in Zone A, doesn't matter who you like, you're a disciple of Zone A leader WHOA. And there was a lot of issues with that, a lot, you know, every sort of abuse of power and sex, scandals and money and all that jazz. So when I then, you know, fast forward a couple of decades from the eighties and nineties when that stuff was in its prime, all that messiness. When I then come around and want to get serious, I have some awareness of how murky the finding your guru territory is, and so very quickly, early on, I'm reading these books that are like, not scriptural books, they're like they're like organizational books, like the Guru. There's one called like the Guru Reform Book. I was like, well, shit, if I'm supposed to have a guru and basically most of them say their peers are not legitimate. Oh gosh, it's the whole it's a whole thing to sort through. Even people in the same Iskan organization who are gurus, some of them don't accept each other as legitimate. Meanwhile, everyone's supposed to have disciples. Wow. And so I was grappling with that. Early on. My brother had already left Iskhan and joined a different sect, and so there was some of that influence. And then Tripperri, who ended up becoming my guru. Eventually he was kind of in my Meliu in Maryland, because he had started visiting the East coast giving lectures to a group of people that were friends of my mom's, and he had like a CD ministry, so every month he sent out CDs, and so like my mom's close friend who often was at our house, she'd be listening to his CDs. And so he was kind of around and he was more intellectual, more progressive, more modern than most of his alternatives, including things like a lot of Hari Krishna's are against homosexuality, or gurus will refuse to initiate people, and that stands. He publicly was fine with that and had gay disciples and stuff, and so it had these appearances of a much more modern and intellectual his addition of the bog of a Gita, rather than being passed out aggressively on the streets, it was in Barnes and Nobles, put out by a by a mainstream publisher, right, you know.
Right.
So now, in hindsight, I kind of call it like Hari Krishna two point zero, because it's not that the essence was now healthy and modern, it's that the veneer he was a bit ahead of the curve, right right.
I saw that he owns Swamy dot org which I was just impressed that he was able to get that.
That's wild, that's some forethought.
This was ahead of the curve. And you know, it's funny you bring that up because he changed his legal name to Swami Tripperrari. Someone pointed out to me, like, that's like a doctor changing their first name to doctor. It's like identify so strongly with the role, and it's forcing people who may not even be part of the belief system to refer to him in this.
Like that is so interesting. Oh my gosh. Now I want to name a kid doctor just so that they can become a doctor named doctor doctor.
I don't think they would become a doctor if they were doctor to.
The bullying would.
Yeah, the bullying would really kick them out.
Maybe the kids would be like, you got to listen to the doctor.
Because the doctor. You try that experiment.
I feel like you who am I thinking of? I feel like there are people all the time where their name is like rhythm and then they become a freakin drummer. I don't know it happened.
When I lived in Asheville, North Carolina for two years. Is like a kind of New Age bastion of the East coast in some ways. I once ran into someone who I had just met, like the evening before, and it was me and another Harri Christiana friend and we were like, hold our names again, and this woman responded, She's like, oh, you guys are totally winning the Ashville name game. And I'm like, no, I was given this at birth.
That's funny. Nope, this has been me the whole time. Were you teased for your name growing up?
I just thought of that not a ton for my first name a little bit, but my middle name. I was so embarrassed about that, I just lied. I stole my best friend's middle name and would say it was mine, and sometimes he'd be around, and so that didn't work out.
Well, wait, what's your middle name?
My middle name is Garunga, and so I I used to say it was Andrew, which was my best friend's middle name. But also you get away with it because my last name is Joseph. So there's there was a lot of confusion growing up in terms of last name, first roll call type stuff.
Right, wow, Okay, so you start hearing him on CDs, that's super interesting, Like how did you first meet him?
Yeah? So I think I decided I did, like, you know, I still wanted to get more serious, go even further. I had moved and was living next door to the local temple in the house that was owned by some other members, and then I still was like, I want to even go further. So there was a family who had lived in our area who were always kind of the most you know, straight and narrow church, so to speak. And they were living in North Carolina, and they were the ones who had initially brought him to the East Coast, and so I went to stay with them for like a month, just like get totally out of my context. I stopped communicating with all my friends. And at the end of that month, Tripperari was coming to visit and give a series of lectures as he would do periodically, so I wanted to meet him and be there for those lectures as well. So the first time I met him was actually in Asheville, where I moved years and years later, but we drove there for the night because he was giving a talk at a yoga studio. You know, we interacted some in those few days he was there, but it wasn't necessarily I told him I was going out to California for something else, and he invited me to come visit the monastery, but it was kind of like neither here nor there. I was participating on an online forum that he had back in the day of forums, and what ultimately made me move out there was I had found an online controversy between him and another swami in the mix, and I had previously liked both of them and their lectures, and I was like, well, shit, like where I don't know where to land on this because they dislike each other strongly, And so I posted in this forum about some of this confusion and tension, and you know, he saw I think, you know, it's like, oh shit, better you better act fast or you might lose this person. He had already tried to recruit my brother unsuccessfully, I should mention, and he knew my mom because he had been coming and giving lectures locally, and my mom was a little suspect of him but also liked him. So anyway, he basically said, you know, I could answer your your question and confusion, but really far better to understand it would be like, you know, you come out here and spend time with the monastery.
Of course, right this maybe isn't important, but just out of curiosity. Is he white? I can't tell what ethnicity is.
That's funny, he said, Yeah, he is oftentan, you know. And also I like too, because I mentioned he changed his legal name to his title. I like to call him Tom, which was his birth name, and just kind of nice make him the child that he is once again.
Yeah, right, he is Tom.
So interesting the number of random white guys who become gurus two people like, how does that does? How does that happen?
Yeah? I mean the whole like cultural appropriate, like all that angle was completely absent from awareness. Yeah, and in the days leading up, I mean, among them at least now. The absurdity to me of this dude who was born in New Jersey, you know, wearing Indian loincloth and reciting secret and telling anybody who will listen what the best use of their.
Life is, right children, unreal?
Yeah, oh my gosh.
And he buys his them bullshit hard right.
Yeah, that's actually I'll touch on that. A big question, you know, you hear it all the time, is like are they a con artist or do they believe? And I think, by and large, in my experience and observation, in my own situation and others, it's it's the in between where they believe the cause, they believe the grand narrative, but they also are not oblivious to the fact that they're acting like horrible people, manipulating and cajole. They're not oblivious to the fact that the person they just counseled is more confused and dejected than when they came in the room. You know, it's a it's an ends justifies the means, right, So it's not like you're exonerated or you're just guilty. I think he really believes the stuff. I was his personal servant, as we called it. I saw in all sorts of candidate off off stage moments. I have access to his email and Internet history and everything, And I think a true believer.
I really always want to like nail it down, like do they believe or do they not? But I think, as with all answers to most things in life, like it's somewhere in the middle, you.
Know, yeah, and then there are pure Charlatans out there.
But I think, of course, of course.
Especially if you're leading a group, it is a full time job. You have to have some innate pathological drive to meddle in other people's lives from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, day after day after it's exhausted.
Oh my god, I know I can't, like, who would want that? Seems like so much work. You're so right, Okay, tell us how you went from this to like really fully committing to this guru.
I decided I would move out there temporarily. I wasn't sure if I believed in him. I wasn't sure if he was gonna be my guru. There were some rumors online about maybe an inappropriate relationship he had within a woman in the group. Inappropriate meaning like abusive power, but also by hary Krishna's standards, what inappropriate means is he's about Swami. So like, you know, the traditional standard is like you're not even alone in a room with a woman, and oh shit, you'll see this in like some Buddhist monks, like they travel in two's, so like there's no oh like chance, like and.
Mormon Mormon, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I went out there, and you know it's like then where I'm staying is on a twenty five acre property off grid in the Redwoods on solar power, living in a yurt. So if you wanted, you know, a conducive environment to changing someone's priorities, that was it, you know. And so I was there, And at first I only referred to him as Swamy. So disciples have a different phrase that they kind of tend to call him. But I wasn't sure that I was on board yet, So like I was referring to him as Swammy. But when you're day in, day out in an environment of twelve people and you're the only one even referring to him in the less reverential.
Form, that pressure, yeah.
Was unspoken.
Home.
And so I don't remember when I concluded I was fully on board. I think maybe he actually was in Europe speaking and I like wrote him this long email like you know, whatever pouring. Also, if you do come around, your initial reservation and doubt becomes like this huge source of shame. And so it's like, oh, you know, like I came here with this fault finding, which is a phrase of THEIRS mentality, and you know you were so patient with me and did whatever it may be, and like, you know, now I've come around. And so then I received there's like two initiations typically, and I received the first one, and then he brought me traveling with him and his one other main disciple, who was a woman, and it wouldn't be appropriate for them to travel just the two of them, but I had access to some funds to pay for my own travel, so that was convenience. So I ended up within the first six months I was there. We then went to North Carolina to India for two weeks, which was like a grueling, sleep deprived experience, and then not too long after to the complete isolated, undeveloped jungle of Costa Rica, where we bought one hundred and twenty five raw acres. And so within my first year I spent four or months living in a camping tent with no internet in the jungle of Costa Rica. So I was wrong before when I said, if you want a conducive environment, that one was even more.
What was happening where it was like a compound being built, Like what were you doing?
I mean, partly it's just you know, these people are delusional and want to pursue their whims, and so this property was bought. We were down there. Yeah, there was like roads being put in and buildings being built. We set up a micro hydro power system. It was just like raw from scratch. But that time really did serve as this extreme kind of corrective period for me, specifically because I came in sincere not thinking this is just an oppressive regime, and so I would openly disagree with things, or i'd if I thought something was a bad idea, or if it seemed daunting to me personally, I might like have So so the period in Costa Rico was like a very concerted like we are going to you know kind of beat not physically, but like you know, like beat the autonomy out of you. And and the second in command, the one who was a woman, really filled the function often in the group for many people of like bad cop. And so she'd be the one like like, you know, telling me what was wrong with me because of my childhood and because of all and in all the ways I was deeply intrinsically flawed. And then the guru would be the one who was like a little milder and would offer some some comfort in juxtaposition to that. And so I came back from that trip like I had learned like say yes even if you disagree, for one and I was, you know, roundly rewarded and encouraged for that change and given roles additional roles of leadership. Then and second initiation.
Followed that once you were compliant and agreeable and right, what was like the goal that everyone had in their heads, like building this compound? Like what what's this?
What's the point?
Yeah?
I think a delusional sense of potential influence?
Right for one.
So the I mean the core notion, any sort of evangelical proselytizing faith that that I consider another kind of real core vulnerability to cultic dynamics, because if inherent to your system of your own spiritual evolution is preaching to others, that just kind of corrupts the whole affair, and our considerations start to loom larger and larger. They are like this kid in the community was abused. That's bad, But is that worse than the loss of faith and the fallout that will face publicly if this comes to light? And so I think the the proselytizing is a problem. And I think, you know, in some aspects of Judaism, I think you have some Mellower dynamics, and that may be one of the reasons, because they're not trying to bring people in.
In mass you know, that's really interesting. Yeah, when it becomes about managing other people's perception, and that.
Was always the emphasis in Hari Krishna from that. That's why my spent years in airports selling Harry Krishna books to like Muhammad Ali, Elizabeth Taylor, like all the Harry Christians have these stories of like famous people they encountered, of course when they were harassing everyone.
Wow, so you're in the freaking jungle, Like were you unhappy or did you still have some sense of meaning that was keeping you feeling okay?
Like?
What was it? What was the emotional experience of that period?
The jungle period was super intense because it's the it's the period of like, I still have my own identity and sense of things, and I'm being made as like yan Yilolitch puts it into, like a deployable agent, you know, and so that that tension is real palpable. Later on things eased up and really over time and over feeling responsible for the organization. Then it got to the point, I like to say, where like the truest feelings that I had any contact with were the ones that I had been taught to have for the reason, so like I derived genuine pleasure from serving the cause as far as I could tell. And I think that's what a lot of people WOW don't understand. Is Like I when I had my first girlfriend after the monastery, I was still a believer at the time and she wasn't a member, and I remember her asking me like what I wanted to do, and it was like short circuit, like question doesn't compute. What are you talking about? Like ordinated my desires to those of the.
WOW right and you weren't really aware of it at the time.
I think I was. I mean, that was like auded. That was the goal. You know, we talked about beyond self sacrifice to self forgetfulness is like a.
You know, like yes, right.
Normally in cultic groups that I feel like that's hidden, like they don't want you to know that that's what you're doing.
Yeah, but you guys are just saying it out right, like be dead inside. It's better for us.
I mean, there was notions of divine slavery like like actually, this is important to touch on because I talk about like personal servant, but really and I did a presentation with Christine on human trafficking in cults in relation to cults. Hary Krishnan is when they receive their name. There's an epithet that all people get, which is dos or dossi, which is male and female. I always thought that meant servant. It also means slave likes for dictionary. So even your name is not your name, your name is referring to some form of God or some principle. And so your name is slave to Xyznti.
Is the name of Oh, someone.
They believe is like a form of God from Bengal in the fifteen hundreds. So really my name is like servant slash slave Tu Nittai. My mom's name was like servant slash slave to the literal translation the friend of the cows, which is a name for Krishna. Wow.
Wow.
And so that's how deep rooted. The disinterest in your identity is Lilla.
This is so similar to how I was raised. It is really so weird.
Really, that's so interesting.
I mean, you are taught there is nothing in this life for you. It is a blink of an eye. It's a joke. It's a literal farce to confuse you into caring about it. And if you if you given, then you will be in hell forever. But if you just like, oh, this is stupid, I don't care at all, and can completely turn yourself off to it, then you win.
Interesting sounds, very relatable, and so nothing. Yeah, I call it like absolute relevance. Everything that's not that just has some like limited nothing kind of illusion based sense of relevance, like you're saying, and there's only one thing that truly matters, right, exactly.
Yeah. One of my best friends grew up job as witness and in his particular community, he had to quit sports. They couldn't vote, they couldn't advance their jobs. They literally like could not do anything that brought them pleasure or meaning at all.
Yeah, yep. And sometimes for them it's also like Armageddon's around the corner, so don't invest.
Your time exactly the same exactly.
Yeah. I mean, and even now I wonder how hard you're dealing with this, But it was really hard to like be taught that and then go to school and they're like, and this is math, and I'm like, I don't care about math. What the world's gonna end tomorrow? Like I don't care about any of this, Like the world's ending tomorrow. Jesus is coming back to the earth. I'm very stressed out. I can't concentrate on this right now.
Yeah, I don't relate to that because again I wasn't even like well aware of the tenants at a young age. So like in my mind, school was almost more influential when I was you know, say, seven eight nine. My mind was like, oh, science is how you know what's what?
Right?
This is kind of simple. When I first actually started believing was when I thought someone that I knew. I thought there was going to be an altercation with some friends of mine and some strangers where someone was going to kill someone. And I was like, I'm not going anywhere near that situation, And I started chanting because in hiy Krishna belief, if you remember Krishna at the moment of death, you might win the game even if you weren't great all along. Oh wow, So growing up, your parents will always say, you know, if you ever feel like you're in danger or you know, you chan't. And so while I hadn't been like consciously in gauging with any of that stuff, I found myself in this situation one night where I thought someone was going to like try to kill someone over some pot and I found myself, you know, hanging back and chanting, and none of it escalated like that. It was all, you know, probably dudes posturing, but that stuck with me as almost like a sign or yeah, like something beyond myself was related to that, right, It's funny.
Well, I was just gonna say, is it sad that I just tuck stuff like that. I'm so superstitious from being raised in a cult. I'm like, oh, if I will chant that while I died, just in case.
Like no, I mean, I just just don't survive and then join a monastery right time.
Yeah, I thought you were just supposed to say, in the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave anytime you felt an evil presence around you, which could be anytime.
Yeah. Wow, that's a good one, but not at.
The moment of death. But unless there's evil around you at death, I guess listen, we've got chance, We've got things to repeat.
There's some stuff to say.
Okay, so you're traveling around, you got deeper in with this guy, and you've talked about being labor exploited. Can you just touch on that a little bit?
Yeah, for sure. It was years until I was doing my master's degree and I was in a special session on modern slavery and human trafficking with a guest presenter learning what those contemporary definitions are. And I'm sitting in the back of this class like, holy shit, Like not only did I experience some of this, but like every adult caregiver I knew growing up experienced much more extreme versions of this labor trafficking and exploitation. So to be more specific, you know, I'm gonna be rusty on the specific definitions, but there's basically a pattern of exploitation as a means to it and a financial end. In this case that involves coercion et cetera, et cetera. And so for me, that took the form later on in the group. A lot of cults get involved if they're small and like these fly by night businesses, because they're not looking to put a lot of money up up front. They might not have a lot of money. What they have is slave labor, quite literally. So we started working out on the road selling bed sheets and pillows at state fairs, like if you guys know, like Pomona. I worked Pomona for.
A month and oh wow.
You kept no money you know, you stay in the cheapest hotel you can find. I did San Antonio for three weeks. I got bed bugs staying in a hotel that has since been shut down.
Oh my god.
I represented about that when I did this panel on trafficking. And so there was just a system of a number of us going out and selling these products for some guys that owned a business and keeping none of it eating as austerely as possible. And really what drove it home later was like, Yeah, the hotel I was staying in in San Antonio, for example, Like next to me were people being sexually trafficked and exploited and people who were living there and doing drugs and like that was the environment I was in. And I, on one hand, looked very different than all of that, but that's what was ultimately occurring. And I wonder about nonprofit laws related to volunteer and labor and things like that if that effectively creates a loophole for what would in other settings be like actionable labor exploitation. So there's that, and then also what drove this home was attending a few bits of the Nexium trial, I in person went oh wow, because I was living in New York City, and I'm friends with some of the people involved in that situation, and they invited me to come watch the trial for a few days, and so I was listening to closing arguments and I was like, oh shit, I did that. You know, it was specifically around stuff around racketeering. So I also it took me a long time to learn what racketeering is. You hear it all the time, and it's a pattern of criminality and small crimes that occur within a defined period of time for the benefit of an enterprise as opposed to an individual. And so there's thirty five hearing crimes. And what I like in it too, is like corner cutting. When you think you're above the law, you start cutting corners. And so a racketeering charge, if I remember correctly, only requires two of these, and it's things like trafficking, identity theft. So we would do things like forge flight documents to you had to like leave Costa Rica into Nicaragua and claim that you were flying out to renew your visa, and then you come back in you show this like fake, oh yeah, I have a flight out, but you didn't really stuff like that, you know, the Guru had me log into another their member's email account because there was some stuff going on and he was concerned about it. And I didn't know that was like a form of identity theft later on or illegal construction. So you know, that recast the fact that almost all of us were living in these illegal buildings in the middle of nowhere, like a labor exploited farm worker might be, you know, like living in a shack and misled, and so that was a big kind of piece to put together, you know, years after, Yeah, it was after being involved in cold recovery work, and so I'm pretty passionate. I've been happy to see more people talking about that angle in relation to cults, but I really do want to dive in in the future to understand are there legal loopholes here or is there some system for accountability too.
Did you have a separate job or was your life just like fully devoted to the group.
You know, we considered ourselves monks, which is like the utmost of commitment. And so not only did I not have a separate job, I worked, I kept no money, I didn't work outside, but like like we sold raw milk at one point, which you can charge fifteen dollars a gallon in northern California.
I do love raw milk, you know.
So I was doing various things that brought in money. And yeah, the Guru had set up in the first year this scheme for draining my college fund. And so month after month I'm paying into a system of exploitation what to speak of receiving money and so purely referring to like funds that were in an account of mine that ended up there, setting aside all the labor exploitation and things like that, that was around one hundred and twenty thousand dollars over seven years.
And was it going to like his account who was in charge of taking people some money like that?
Well, this gets back to a little bit like the true believer versus not question. And so it wasn't being stock I was a signer on the bank account even for a while after I left it. It wasn't being like stockpiled somewhere. He wasn't living lavishly. He would live better than the rest of us, you know. So when it's slim pickens through the winter from the garden and we're eating like very austerely, he was still getting stuff from the grocery store. But by and large he's an awful businessman, and so like the money wasn't stacking up anywhere, it was there, right, And actually since I left, And I like to take partial credit for this, me and a good friend of mine, because all their three properties when I left had loans on them. One has since been sold and one has been attempted to be sold for a long time. But I'm like, when I found out it was listed, I was like, literally the only person who this property would appeal to as another cult, Like there's property so fundamentally and relied on free labor that like, there's no viable business there and.
It's not a right.
Where was that one.
That's in Mendocino County?
Oh? Interesting?
That was where I was based most of my almost seven years of devout involvement.
Got it? And you were living in a shack at that time, living in a mostly a yurt, Wow.
Yeah, mostly in a tent in Costa Rica, occasionally an indoor a room in a proper building.
Wow.
In a fair bit of traveling too, especially when I was his servant quote unquote, because I accompany him wherever he was being invited to spew his problem.
When did you start feeling weird about it all?
That's a good question. I probably gradual. There were periods where, you know, once we got coach Rica property, there was a whole winter where there was just two of us on the California property responsible for everything. And that's like a daily routine of ritual worship. That's fifteen cows and they're shitting piss on a very small amount of property, pick it up regularly, that's gardens, et cetera. I was like, wow, depressed at times, not attaching that label to it, but it was just like when I wasn't absolutely having to deliver, I was like wanting to lay down. And plus you just threaded through all this is sleep deprivation all along. I fell asleep at the wheels so many times in those years, ay sit like other people had to grab the wheel, popped a tire on the guard rail, hauling a rail while falling asleep.
My gosh, wow, So what time like, what were your sleep schedules like?
For me? One of the reasons I was worse than others is because like the night was like the only time where you ended up then having some freedom to like think or we did have computers and stuff, so I'd be online or whatever. And then later I got back into like streaming movies and stuff, and so yeah, years of not watching media. I remember I start somehow. I was at a congregation member's house and I saw an episode of twenty four and this of that was like the gripping plot twist. So you watch the next episode, and it got me. I was like this is so and so like I was up for like weeks at night like watching There was like seasons at this point, and I'd like go to the morning rituals at five am and be like preoccupied with like terrorist plots and things like that. So there was these points of not fitting maybe along the way when it really started to accumulate. I mean one of the things was eventually I secretly, like I was in Maryland visiting my mom who was on hospice care, and I like secretly met a woman online and like when had sex lost my virginity was a monk who thought I might be a virgin life. Oh, I see, all right, that's done, Like move back to the monastery, move on. And then later I was like on the road again, et cetera. So at a point I had like an okay cubid profile while I was this prominent monk wow the organization and so what ultimately caused me to leave not the belief but the monastic involvement, was like the realization that I wanted the ability to have a more substantive connection, and because I was living a double life, any connection I did have with anyone was inherently like, this is not going to go anywhere, because I wasn't open to anything going anywhere because I had this whole other persona that was at risk, you know, And I hated that. I hated that like hypocrisy of that feeling because as the leader's servant, people assume you're X y Z of spiritual And so it was actually when I was working Pomona that I knew I couldn't even tell him in person because he works in mind fuckery. And so in the month leading up to my time at Pomona, I started crafting this letter to basically say that I didn't think I should be a monk anymore, and really framing it largely in relation to being freed up to pursue a relationship, but also being freed up to start a business to make money.
For us smart.
So you could still technically be of member, but you just wouldn't be as like high up of a.
Member set people up for marriage, right, so you just wouldn't be a monk.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's like the typical phrase, there's like monks or in sanskrit's like brahmacharis, and then there's householders and so, and like you wear different color clothes. So the monks wear like the ochre, the saffron, and then the householders wear white, and so sometimes it's kind of spoken about, is that way of like changing cloth. Yeah, you could definitely still be a member. But as in Catholicism, where celibacy becomes a spiritual virtue, there is always some inherent less than attitude towards families, marriages, children, all that stuff, because the most spiritual thing is to leave no time for any of that.
Right.
But meanwhile, Swami Chibrari is also vooning some chick, right.
No, so I want to be fair, you know, just like traveling with them for years, et cetera. I never had evidence of that by Harry Christiana's internal standards, that relationship was still inappropriate. But those standards are ridiculous and puritanical too, so like in Costa Rica, I remember us going in like the swimming hole, and you know, she wore her like sports bra or whatever it was, and like Harry, Christians will be like, oh hell no, not a swamy. So their relationship was odd. They did spend a lot of time alone, like they would you know, the car needed to be fixed and her mom lived in the Bay Area, so they'd go and they'd stay in the guests. How there were times in Costa Rica where they were alone on Aaron's overnight. So I don't rule it out, but as part of you know, maintaining my own credibility, I don't speculate on that one either. It's a reasonable assumption. We're talking about.
Okay, what we're talking about, and people were accusing him of it, correct.
Yes, yes, online, yeah, some people.
But you just don't have any direct evidence that that happened.
Yeah, and heard would accuse you of that for you know, sitting alone in.
A room, right right, right, right, right, Okay, gotcha. Nothing is wrong with having sex, might I add, but it's just if you are doing it, if you're presenting yourself one way as and then you're behaving other So.
Much of your authority and regard as coming from this superhuman display of your spirituality.
Right right, So you had this like kind of transitional period where you were like, I'm not a monk, but I am dating and I'm doing a business of my own, but it's for the group still. And then did you have a realization moment?
Yeah, you know, the business was succeeding. It was all viable, My margins were It was like, what's my most marketable skill for my years as a monk, and that was cheesemaking. So I started these home home cheesemaking kits. Wow the box. You know, they had already existed, but I added some tweaks to them, and that was kind of going along. Okay. I relocated to Asheville, North Carolina, to be close to one of our communities and settle in. And for me, it was a given that any relationship I had would be with someone outside of the group because our group was so small that there was very few options anyway, and so for me it was like that was a given. So I was in North Carolina dating, et cetera. And something didn't work. And I remember one one girl that I was spending time with said to me. I was like, you're kind of an asshole, and like really threw me for a loop. And what I realized was the internal thing which I knew, which was like the value of others can only go so far if they don't also know all this stuff that I know. But clearly that was coming across and how I was interacting with her, and that wasn't obvious to me, and so that was that stuck with me. You know, her and I are still friends to this day, but like I was like, oh, I don't like that. That's not even as a devout member. That was not the kind of person that I thought we wanted to be, and so that that was part of it, right, And then it was just you know, there was years of like unprocessed emotions that started coming and then the realization essentially that like the Guru had betrayed me. There there's I refer to it kind of like a contract, and the contract is, as the disciple, I'm going to give everything I can, material, psychological, whatever it may be, because you have some capacity to steer me in my best interest better than I do. And so when I realized, like, oh, that was full of shit. If he had had my best interests at heart, he would have encouraged me to move out of the monastery years earlier, for example, And that was kind of that. That was the first day I ever had a panic attack, which thankfully I don't have tons of. It happened for a long time, but it was that. And then I was seeing a therapist because there was like, something's not working well for me. I was seeing a therapist and he suggested I read sid Artha, which I've never read still, but he was like, your life kind of reminds me of this. I know there's like monks and sex. Maybe I don't know how it all works. But I went to the used book store to get it and instaid. I found the Guru papers, which is like this ominous gray tone, and the Guru papers masks of authoritarian power, and I was like, and I was like, whoa shit, I have to get this, though't I like it was just so I was grappling with these dysfunctions in the group while being committed to it. So I took that bo home and I didn't crack it for a few days. I had some sense that this was going to be and just reading the introduction for me, it was like like the keystone, you know, like in an arch It was like, oh, this was the missing piece. And in the introduction they talk about authoritarian structures and they talk about how the reason their book is about gurus is because, in their opinion, the Eastern Guru disciple model is the most authoritarian relationship that exists absent physical violence.
Wow.
And so I'm reading that and I think, and I was this fucking right hand man. So it was that is sitting on my couch where I realized, like, I'm done with this forever. My life will never be the same. All the people I've cared about and been close to for much of my life, but especially the last tenish years, I will probably not have a relationship with, and that I was going to say something because I had been a prominent enough person in this organization that I wasn't about.
To like share the truth, but.
The truth weighing out and come what may you know? And that was the hardest time of my life, those months that ensued. You know, it was really intent like the things I didn't even know existed, like degrees of grief and despair and like someone cry that long consistently, like without letting up stuff like that. And thankfully I had a little bit of support here and there. But that, you know, like probably around three months later is when I published my kind of by everyone Here's what's what does I understand it?
And what are the bullet points of that?
I mean, you know, a lot of it was focused on the dysfunction and exploitation and deception within Treberrii's groups specifically, but I wasn't about to let everyone else off of either, so I went into kind of my broader views on the intrinsic authoritarian qualities of the belief system. And and it was also just for me to move ahead with a clean conscience, like I just needed to lay it all out there. I had nothing to hide, and you know, it's the best thing I've ever done, probably still to this day.
Okay, y'all, we will continue next week with a very very interesting conversation on meditation and more. Stay tuned, but for now, Megan, So, what do you think would the Harry Krishnas be a group that would appeal to you?
Oh? I think so? Yeah. I think I would have probably gotten way into it. I love meditation. I love being told that something magical will happen to me if I just try hard enough. I love all that stuff. I love chanting. I really love the Krisna Das artist. I don't know if anybody's ever listened to him, but I've gone to many of his concerts and.
We really met me yeah three, And.
I just love it, I really do. But I also understand that it's fully a cult once you get past a certain point with it.
So yeah, I mean it depends on the gurus too, right, I guess. But although yeah, I don't know. Yeah, some of that stuff does seem sort of inherently harmful, but I'm not going to say everyone who is a hardy christianized you know, being abused. Of course.
Yeah, they're definitely a way to do it in a healthy way, I'm sure.
Yeah, probably not my speed of cold time. Probably I'd probably be more of a life spring person myself. As we know, I'm definitely more on the self help, self help, self helf, the self help end of the spectrum, the.
Self elf, the elf help.
Okay, Also, real quick, I didn't mention in the beginning, and this has just occurred to me because I just always think it's interesting how Ginny Thomas went from this one group Live Spring. Steve Hassen then tweeted about how Any talked about it on his podcast. I think too about how the people who deprogrammed her, and deprogramming is a whole other can of worms. We'll talk about that on another episode. But the people who deprogrammed her potentially were kind of extreme Christions themselves and let her down another path. And that is a very common thing, that's cult hopping, and people are always surprised. They're like people were in more than one cult. But I'm like, yeah, when you leave a cult, you're vulnerable. You're looking for a new direction, the direction you just spent so much of your life and there's a.
Whole vacuum in your brain just waiting to be filled exactly.
So whoever you like end up spending time within that period. Like, it's just a very vulnerable time. So it's very common and we should talk about that more on another episode. But I just want to mention that and that's it. Yay, we'll see you next week.
Yeah, we can't wait to see you next week. Remember to follow your gut, watch out for red flags.
And never ever trust trust me.
Bye.