I Escaped a Cult - Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth Review

[Salvijus]

9 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

Cults is one of the reasons why I may never do a formal meditation retreat. Retreats are a distraction from doing the real spiritual work on my own to obtain a sovereign awakening. Glad you’re back.

You're in a corrupt place no matter where you are. Even if you're alone. Because you're yoruself corrupt. 

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Salvijus said:

You're in a corrupt place no matter where you are. Even if you're alone. Because you're yoruself corrupt. 

Everyone is corrupt, the difference lies in where you point, towards the lie or the truth.

[Salvijus]

47 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Everyone is corrupt, the difference lies in where you point, towards the lie or the truth.

Exactly, each one will focus on what they value... 

Edited Wednesday at 11:32 AM by Salvijus

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Salvijus said:

You're in a corrupt place no matter where you are. Even if you're alone. Because you're yoruself corrupt. 

Stop with this false equivocating.

A real cult is a serious, abusive, dangerous situation. It's not just some minor, run-of-the-mill corruption or group-think.

You do not understand what a real cult is.

It's like you're telling someone in a dangerous situation: "Oh well, being alone at home is also dangerous." No. These are not the same thing. A person in an abusive situation does not need relativism, they need decisive action.

Edited Wednesday at 11:44 AM by Leo Gura

[Breakingthewall]

30 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Exactly, each one will focus on what they value... 

Many people don't realize that all their energy revolves around their self-image. I think we've all fallen into that at some point in our lives. When you're a teenager, it's almost impossible to avoid it. The point is to realize it and see the depth of your corruption, commit to the truth, and polish yourself as much as possible, which will never be perfect.

[Breakingthewall]

24 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

real cult is a serious, abusive, dangerous situation. It's not just some minor, run-of-the-mill corruption or group-think.

Maybe not always, Isha is a cult and Sadhguru their divinity, but doesn't seem dangerous or abusive. 

[Leo Gura]

@Consilience Well, I finished watching your whole video.

I did not understand what made this organization a cult. It sounds like you had disagreements with leadership decisions and values and in typical Zen hierarchical fashion they are not a democracy and don't want your feedback.

From the things you spoke, it's hard for me to classify that as a cult. It sounds more like a typical hierarchical organization.

I don't mean to dismiss your claims. But from your video I did not hear serious abuse or mind-control techniques. From what I heard from you in the video, your biggest complaint is that leadership did not listen to your suggestions.

I am left thinking: either you did not communicate the abuse, or MAPLE is not a cult.

Perhaps you wish to communicate more.

I cannot post that video as an example of a cult. It sounds more like a dissatisfied customer.

Edited Wednesday at 04:16 PM by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

Maybe not always, Isha is a cult and Sadhguru their divinity, but doesn't seem dangerous or abusive. 

You guys need to start distinguishing a cult from an organization. Every organization behaves in self-serving, group-thinky ways. That does not make it a cult.

The word cult has become so overused that it has lost all meaning. Which is a case of boy cries wolf.

Do not call something a cult unless it is abusive, exploitative, and uses mind-control techniques to trap people.

Edited Wednesday at 01:15 PM by Leo Gura

[Salvijus]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Stop with this false equivocating.

A real cult is a serious, abusive, dangerous situation. It's not just some minor, run-of-the-mill corruption or group-think.

You do not understand what a real cult is.

It's like you're telling someone in a dangerous situation: "Oh well, being alone at home is also dangerous." No. These are not the same thing. A person in an abusive situation does not need relativism, they need decisive action.

The point was not to level out the different degrees of corruption that is happening in different pockets of people but to change our relationship with corruption itself. From condemnation to forgiveness. From enemies to brotherhood. From ego and division to truth. 

Edited Wednesday at 02:09 PM by Salvijus

[Breakingthewall]

49 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Do not call something a cult unless it is abusive, exploitative, and uses mind-control techniques to trap people.

Well, for me, an association that promotes the acceptance of a Messiah as an absolute ontological truth is mental and spiritual abuse. The definitions of abuse are flexible; everyone draws the red line where they see it.

[Consilience]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Consilience Well, I finished watching your whole video.

I did not understand what made this organization a cult. It sounds like you had disagreements with leadership decisions and values and in typical Zen hierarchical fashion they are not a democracy and don't want your feedback.

From the things you spoke, it's hard for me to classify that as a cult. It sounds more like a typical hierarchical organization.

I don't mean to dismiss your claims. But from your video I did not hear serious abuse or mind-control techniques. From what I heard from you in the video, your biggest complaint is that leadership did not listen to your suggestions.

I am left thinking: either you did not fully communicate the abuse, or MAPLE is not a cult.

Perhaps you wish to communicate more.

Because MAPLE is explicitly self-proclaiming unilateral spiritual authority over humanity it is precisely not a typical Zen monastery hierarchical structure nor a typical organizational hierarchical structure, such as the military. It's emphasis on using one man's ideological framework as the basis for civilizational, spiritual transformation makes it distinctly different. 

Many of the mind control techniques you list in your own cult psychology video I also listed in mine so I'm curious whether you watched the full video or perhaps missed them? Here is a list though: 

Extensive meditation, chanting, sleep deprivation, a constant high stress work load, very limited amount of free time or room for individual contemplation, instances of public humiliation, an environment that swings between love bombing and harsh anger, a total lack of personal space, constant 2-3 hour talks around ideology of head teacher, a constant emphasis on ideology (rather than contemplation) as the path to truth, a putting down of non-Buddhist teachers or spiritual teachers or thinkers that disagree with the ideology, an us vs. them mentality reinforced through mechanisms of fear, a replacing of one's personal identity with a new identity (taking on new name, dress code, etc.), very intimate, vulnerable one-on-one interviews with head teacher, warped expressions of Buddhist teachings centered around the demonization of thoughts, feelings, and the mind which act as mechanisms of the erosion of one's own self-sovereignty, authority, and trust, and of course, the classic "The world is ending!" framework. 

As far as harm, I did name multiple instances of abuse in my video that I personally witnessed. But even to take my own story - notice how little the organization considered the financial and physical vulnerability of giving me less than 24 hours notice to leave as a type 1 diabetic. The emphasis was on the suppression of dissent rather than the well being of a three year community member. 

[Consilience]

@Leo Gura Also thank you for watching and giving your feedback. 

[Leo Gura]

40 minutes ago, Consilience said:

Extensive meditation, chanting, sleep deprivation, a constant high stress work load, very limited amount of free time or room for individual contemplation, instances of public humiliation, an environment that swings between love bombing and harsh anger, a total lack of personal space, constant 2-3 hour talks around ideology of head teacher, a constant emphasis on ideology (rather than contemplation) as the path to truth, a putting down of non-Buddhist teachers or spiritual teachers or thinkers that disagree with the ideology, an us vs. them mentality reinforced through mechanisms of fear, a replacing of one's personal identity with a new identity (taking on new name, dress code, etc.), very intimate, vulnerable one-on-one interviews with head teacher, warped expressions of Buddhist teachings centered around the demonization of thoughts, feelings, and the mind which act as mechanisms of the erosion of one's own self-sovereignty, authority, and trust, and of course, the classic "The world is ending!" framework. 

You didn't communicate any of this in the video. You rambled around in vague generalities.

If you are going to expose a cult you have to dish all the dirt, the worst of the worst.

Yes, I watched the entire thing. I was waiting for an hour to nut and left with blueballs.

Edited Wednesday at 05:38 PM by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

27 minutes ago, Consilience said:

notice how little the organization considered the financial and physical vulnerability of giving me less than 24 hours notice to leave as a type 1 diabetic.

Dude, I'm sorry but this is weak-sauce.

This is not abuse. This is an incovenience.

[Consilience]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Dude, I'm sorry but this is weak-sauce.

This is not abuse. This is an incovenience.

It's also a demonstration of incongruent values, self-deception, and domination on the part of the collective.

You're also not going to be able to understand the exact mechanisms of abuse, even from this one small "inconvenience" of an example, from an internet comment when the context is completely removed and how this example fits into the larger relational web of my place in the community and the history and culture of the community. 

There is:

- The act itself

- what is communicated implicitly to those who have stayed

- what is communicated explicitly about me to those who have stayed 

- the mind/karma that is reinforced with this act

Rather than getting hung up on the smallness of the example, look at the collective mind that gave rise to that decision and the implications of that mind. 

Also you've got to remember - these were my supposedly close, spiritual friends. To have them essentially flip and turn on me over night is more than an inconvenience. But that's all relative to how much value you place on friendship. 
 

13 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You didn't communicate any of this in the video. You rambled around in vague generalities.

If you are going to expose a cult you have to dish all the dirt, the worst of worst.

Yes, I watched the entire thing.

Perhaps I should have given more specific examples in the video. I suppose I could pin a comment giving a list of the specific examples. 

Many of the vague examples I give only those who are connected to the community will know what I'm referring to, so it is a fair point. And was an intentional move on my end that does three things:

1) Speaks directly to the MAPLE community.

2) Protects me.

3) Is hopefully communicated powerfully enough to ward off others from going to MAPLE. 

It's difficult because as of right now I'm the only one who has really come forth who has the authority to speak on MAPLE and therefore it puts me in an incredibly vulnerable position should any legal action be pursued. Unfortunately, airing out all of the dirty laundry entirely alone would be a difficult thing to do that does not feel entirely safe to pursue, at this time. 

[ryoko]

28 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You didn't communicate any of this in the video. You rambled around in vague generalities.

I had also been part of a startup with culty internal workings. Weird, right?

I left it with the first excuse I can get. And never exposed anything. Because telling anything online comes with costs, one you don't wanna have anything to do with that place, and don't wanna be associated with it in any way. Two, people aren't truly free right after escaping, they might still have connections and it might be actually working for others in that "cult". 

And few years later, the users of that group exposed it for over charging, over promising, under delivering. This shit is so crazy. Because the external workings at that time was quite reasonable and not manipulative on the user's end all that much. But internal workings from years before had me intuit it's the worst place to be, despite all the lessons learnt. 

[ryoko]

2 minutes ago, Consilience said:

Perhaps I should have given more specific examples in the video. I suppose I could pin a comment giving a list of the specific examples

Since you've already committed on exposing, it's best to make a new video, with full context. 

[Razard86]

21 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Do not compare us to a cult.

Nothing of the sort goes on here.

Well Leo....I don't know about that point system you got...it doesn't seem to have an arbitration process and as a result can be suspect to abuse. In that sense its kind of culty, also there is way too much group think on these forums, not enough members thinking for themselves and latching on too much to how you express yourself.

I do think you changing your signature from you are Leo to you are God was wise as you realized and pointed out that some people were erroneously creating a parsimonious relationship with you. With all that said, no Actualized.org is not a cult, but it definitely has some culty vibes. I wonder if this is endemic to human social groups.

[Razard86]

2 hours ago, Consilience said:

Because MAPLE is explicitly self-proclaiming unilateral spiritual authority over humanity it is precisely not a typical Zen monastery hierarchical structure nor a typical organizational hierarchical structure, such as the military. It's emphasis on using one man's ideological framework as the basis for civilizational, spiritual transformation makes it distinctly different. 

Many of the mind control techniques you list in your own cult psychology video I also listed in mine so I'm curious whether you watched the full video or perhaps missed them? Here is a list though: 

Extensive meditation, chanting, sleep deprivation, a constant high stress work load, very limited amount of free time or room for individual contemplation, instances of public humiliation, an environment that swings between love bombing and harsh anger, a total lack of personal space, constant 2-3 hour talks around ideology of head teacher, a constant emphasis on ideology (rather than contemplation) as the path to truth, a putting down of non-Buddhist teachers or spiritual teachers or thinkers that disagree with the ideology, an us vs. them mentality reinforced through mechanisms of fear, a replacing of one's personal identity with a new identity (taking on new name, dress code, etc.), very intimate, vulnerable one-on-one interviews with head teacher, warped expressions of Buddhist teachings centered around the demonization of thoughts, feelings, and the mind which act as mechanisms of the erosion of one's own self-sovereignty, authority, and trust, and of course, the classic "The world is ending!" framework. 

As far as harm, I did name multiple instances of abuse in my video that I personally witnessed. But even to take my own story - notice how little the organization considered the financial and physical vulnerability of giving me less than 24 hours notice to leave as a type 1 diabetic. The emphasis was on the suppression of dissent rather than the well being of a three year community member. 

I remember you, it's been awhile since we last heard from you so welcome back!! I'll watch your video after this post. But I remember when you first posted about Maple. What made a clearly intelligent caring person such as yourself want to join Maple? What exactly were you looking for?

[Consilience]

54 minutes ago, Razard86 said:

I remember you, it's been awhile since we last heard from you so welcome back!! I'll watch your video after this post. But I remember when you first posted about Maple. What made a clearly intelligent caring person such as yourself want to join Maple? What exactly were you looking for?

Thank you. 

I was looking for hardcore, full-time spiritual training which MAPLE does indeed offer. I was also looking for work around the intersection of contemplative practices like meditation and existential risk, which MAPLE also did and technically still does offer. It's just that this offering has slowly morphed into typical cult dynamics over the course of my time in the community. It was a very different community when I first began training there. 

Edited Wednesday at 08:37 PM by Consilience