Sikovski pokojni mojster Surat Šabd joge oziroma Sant Mata je bil Sant Thakar Singh; "Sant Thakar Singh died on March 6th, 2005 in Nawan Nagar, India, at the age of 76; however, he had been ill for the entire previous year when he underwent open heart surgery in February of 2004. This was the first time a master of this lineage had undergone an open heart procedure." Umrl leta 2005, 76 let star... Sant = Sveti, Svetnik "...Controversies; Childhood Meditation In the mid-1980s Sant Thakar Singh issued a number of circular letters on family life and child rearing. These circulars are unfortunately quite hard to find as they were never formally collected into a book. They were not popular, and 20 years have passed. However, the substance of the circulars is not in dispute. The Master emphasized that: 1. The formative years from birth to the age of four or five are the most critical in a child's development. The child retains godlike qualities but these are eroded away quickly by the harsh materialism of our contemporary lifestyle and by the age of five or six, the damage has been done. 2. For best results, the child can be initiated at birth and connected to the Sound Current at that moment; in this way it will be connected to God and able to enjoy the blessings of that connection from the very start. 3. The mother should live sequestered while the child is very young (as much as feasible) and should keep the child away from worldly influences and people. Even the influence of the father may not be desirable. The mother may assist the child to meditate by gently plugging its right ear (where the Sound Current is available) or by covering the eyes of the child with a soft cloth so it can enjoy the inner light of God. When the child's eyes are open, as when nursing, she may keep the mantra (simran) and gaze lovingly into the child's eyes. The controversy over these instructions is mainly due to the accusation of blind-folding babies. A former follower of the cult described the practise in a hearing held by a special commission of the German Bundestag (report originally in German language)[43]: Thus, one woman told the hearing about her life with her two-year-old child in one of the group's centres. The two-year-old had to meditate for ten or twelve hours a day with his right ear sealed and his eyes blindfolded, while his father kept a tight grip on him. In those six months he had no toys, was sometimes bathed in cold water only, and allowed to eat only wearing a blindfold. After a few days of this forced meditation, the child abandoned all resistance. To the adults who were following the teaching of Sant Thakar Singh, this was a sign that the child now felt well, his negative mood was broken and his soul was pure. The failure to attend to the child's needs, such as hunger and thirst, together with his experience of being completely ignored, produced in him a state of total apathy. With this behaviour, she said, he was considered in the centre to be a model child. The child's traumatic experiences and their aftermath had necessitated a prolonged period of therapy, which was still continuing, after the mother's withdrawal from the group. A related program was the appearance in the 1980s of meditation children (as they were called). These were boys and girls of nine or ten years of age given into the custody of the Master by their parents to lead a totally spiritual life of meditation in a monastic or cloistered setting. They were taught to read and write and given other basic education, but mainly spent their time in intensive mediation. While this sounds unusual in the West, it is a commonly described practice in the ancient scriptures and the Master spoke of it in those terms, using Rama (of the Ramayana) as an example of the child of a king who was raised in a monastic situation. There were circular letters about this program in the West, but those are not available now or have been lost. These events happened in India, and little information exists about them in the West other than some brief video footage purporting abuse which came from a German documentary attempting to sensationalize the children. [44] These individuals are now mainly grown into adults and are called the "meditation generation" (the Master's term). Many have achieved high spiritual planes, based on informal tally. These individuals can be seen sitting in the front area near the stage (the place of honor) on the Bhandara footage of Sant Thakar Singh's succession. Land purchase In Oregon The second controversial action taken by the Master in the mid-1980s was to buy 330 acres (1.3 km²) of land in Southern Oregon, with the express purpose of setting up a school and communal living situation for full time meditators. In itself this was not controversial, but the Bhagwan Shee Rashneesh had created significant stir in Oregon by purchasing 64,000 acres (260 km²) of land in June, 1981. As the Oregon History Project describes: The Rashneeshees, as they were known, gained control of the Antelope City Council in 1984 and changed the name of Antelope to Rashneesh. In August of 1984, the sect began bussing homeless people from other U.S. cities to Rashneeshpuram, and registering them as Wasco County voters. After a series of bizarre incidents including an alleged attempt to poison residents of The Dalles, the Bhagwan and some of his followers fled to North Carolina. There he was arrested on charges of immigration fraud, and was brought back to Oregon for trial. He was convicted, fined $400,000, and deported from the United States. The faithful accompanied the Bhagwan back to Pune, India, the homeless drifted away, the ranch was sold to new owners, and life eventually returned to normal in Antelope, which got its old name back in 1986.[45] In the same time frame, and against a media backdrop of intense negative publicity about Indian Gurus, Sant Thakar Singh purchased a parcel of land situated against the backdrop of the Umpqua River and BLM forest land about 20 miles west of Sutherlin. This land exists today as a Sant Mat retreat center called Lighthouse Center Oregon. However, the Master's original intention of founding a school where children could be raised in a pure and wholesome environment, free of harmful influences, never came about. The surrounding community never acceded to the request to grant the necessary permits. So the land became a retreat and meditation center as well as an organic farm. Work With The Mentally Ill The third controversy from the 1980s involved accusations of sexual and physical abuse. These stories circulated and had a negative impact on quite a few people. Even the Master's first American Representative, Bernadine Chard, left the mission abruptly in 1985. The reason was unknown, but it was assumed to have something to do with the accusations.[46] One particularly persistent critic, who has made something of a name for himself as an expert on Gurus, maintains a set of video recordings which purport to be interviews of abuse.[47] Sant Thakar Singh did not shy away from helping people who were mentally ill. It was not an unusual occurrence to see people, seemingly ordinary in appearance and demeanor, begin to manifest odd or unusual physical behaviours (jerking or gesticulating strangely, crying out uncontrollably like a beast, etc.) when in the presence of the Master. After he would leave, these symptoms would dissipate and the person would become "normal." These behaviours, referred to in the mission as "manifestations," (i.e., manifestations of entities or entity possession) created strange situations that might easily have been misunderstood both by observers or by the unfortunate sufferers themselves. It is also true that some individuals, seemingly "normal", develop symptoms like those described above at the time of initiation or some months or years thereafter. The Master's actions to deal with it during initiation are discussed in the manual for Initiating Representatives.[48] The Master explains the occurrence of illness as a result of karmic payments which must be made here and now, in order that the soul should enjoy forever and be free.[49] Not everyone is happy with this situation, however, or wants to take the medicine required to be free.[50],[51],[52],[53] Individuals are asked specifically at the time of initiation, as part of the requirements, if they are currently suffering a mental illness or taking drugs related to mental illness (even relatively mild anti-depressants such as Valium or Xanax). Such individuals are not allowed to take initiation. They are asked to return when they are well and drug free.[54]..." http://www.answers.com/topic/sant-thakar-singh
