Lies, Sex & Duct Tape
Sat Nam, dear family. It is sixteen months now, and I think we have had enough. Enough ugliness. Enough lies. Enough baseless blame. The following findings are not mine alone, but are the result of a great collaborative effort spanning the globe. May The Force Be With Us.
This version contains a change in the section "Why the AOB Report was a sham," point #3. The original text is given at the bottom of the page.
L I E SSad to say, but big, significant lies have been and continue to be fed to us from two sources:
1) The Siri Singh Sahib Corporation, including the Kundalini Research Institute and the 3HO Foundation.
2) An Olive Branch, the Buddhist organization based in Pennsylvania.
Lies from the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation -
"An Investigation" Between February 18 and August 13 of last year, the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation (SSSC) Board, sometimes in the guise of a Collaborative Response Team, sent out 16 email communications to our global family. In 13 of those letters, they told us of an investigation into allegations made against our spiritual teacher.
In February, they promised us an investigation. In April, they reported on the progress and timeline of that "investigation." Then in August, they announced the release of the report on the "investigation."
Just a couple of weeks after the report was released, a new edition of The Aquarian Teacher - the teacher training textbook - came out which cited the role of "an independent investigation" in establishing "the heart-breaking abuses" of the Master.
Lies from An Olive Branch -On its website, An Olive Branch (AOB), an organization comprised of three people with Buddhist affiliations, states clearly: "We are not investigators..." The report they issued last year also says "...this report is not a legal investigation;" However, throughout the course of its contract with the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation, they presented their inquiry as though it were gathering facts for a case to be tried in a court of law. Indeed, like a real judge and jury, the AOB imposters also took the trouble of arriving at a verdict regarding the allegations thrown at the Siri Singh Sahib: guilty as charged.
From beginning to end, the AOB report was a big exercise in deception. The very title of the report proclaimed that it was "An Investigation into Allegations of Sexual and Related Misconduct." In its 72 pages, a very lucrative exercise rumored to have netted its authors in excess of $500,000, it proceeded to repeat the word investigation like a mantra, 146 times.
Uncritical claims of an investigation conducted by AOB have been duly parroted in media accounts including: Stacy Stukin, LA Magazine, July 15, 2020; Jennifer Davis-Flynn, Yoga Journal, August 15, 2020; Asia Samachar, August 15 & 20, 2020; Philip Deslippe & Stacy Stukin, Religion News Service, August 18, 2020; Phaedra Haywood, Santa Fe New Mexican, November 16, 2020.
Why the AOB Report was a sham -While masquerading as an investigation and trial of substantiated facts, the AOB culprits - Katheryn Wiedman, Barbara Gray and Leslie Hospodar - fell short on a number of counts.
1. None of the above parties was trained or licensed in the practice of conducting legal investigations. In point of fact, their woeful inquiry was an illegal exercise according to the statutes of the Pennsylvania, New Mexico, California and most of the United States.
2. No healthy organization initiates an investigation into its founder unless allegations are first found to be truly credible. This unsound advice originated in the parasitic external lawyers who have made themselves at home in the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation since lawsuits surrounding the theft of assets by the Unto Infinity Board, which ran from 2010 to 2012.*
3. In the minds of the people in the SSSC set on destroying the reputation of the Master, Katheryn, Barbara and Leslie were perfect for this job because they came loaded with a history and expectations of sordid sexual exploits, based on their experiences in the North American Buddhist community.
4. Any proper investigation requires witnesses to identify themselves so their testimony and credibility may be checked. Instead, people who came forward for this Yogi Bhajan slam fest, were encouraged to do so in perfect anonymity.
5. The AOB Report should have included all relevant testimony, both for and against the Siri Singh Sahib. The authors chose instead to selectively remove testimony that favored him.
6. In the words of the Thompson Report: "Because the AOB Report does not appear to be investigative at all or provide sufficient facts to make any determination, it should not serve to assist anyone in determining whether the alleged behavior by Yogi Bhajan actually occurred."
S E XSex played a part in the storm of controversy that surrounded our family in 2020, but not necessarily in the way its authors have portrayed.
Pamela Dyson -In her steamy "kiss and tell" novel, Premka: White Bird in a Golden Cage the author brazenly implies that she was pregnant with her teacher's child when she miscarried in London on her return from the famous 1970-71 yatra to India. While patently preposterous, her story coincides eerily with a true account she gave in the classic commemorative volume, The Man Called Siri Singh Sahib:
"Then came my moment of questioning. Then came my moment of test and challenge. That moment came just thirty-five days after I had first begun to chant the Nam during the ambrosial hours. The moment came after I had had a small glimpse of who this man was, of the God for whom he was a humble channel. The moment of test came, and I was weak... I decided to leave the discipline which I had been practicing for such a short time. I chose to run away from the teacher with the powerful charisma, the man whose words were so penetrating that I had no defense against them. I felt that if I didn't do it then, I might never get away. So I did it, and I found that in order to do it, I had to involve myself in every type of escapist activity available in the American society (Hollywood, at that), and I managed to act out more negativity in the next month than I had previously experienced in my entire twenty-five years of life."
The period of "escapist activity" Pamela describes above was about 7 months before her miscarriage in London.
Abuses at School in India -Sadly, there have been cases of sexual abuse at school in India. When the Siri Singh Sahib came to know of them, he took immediate action to defuse them.
In the one case, an older boy had preyed on boys younger than himself. When it was found out, he was sent to work at a family business in Bangalore, far from the school. He is grown now and lives in the United States.
In another case, the principal was found to be inappropriately touching female students. When the Siri Singh Sahib found out, the principal was put on the next plane back to America, and processed by our guardian of ethics, deprived of his status as a Kundalini Yoga teacher and Sikh minister. He still lives in the U.S.A.
Abuse Close to Home -In yet another case, a man in an ashram setting was found to have engaged in inappropriately touching a young female member of the community. After that man was confronted, he moved to another city.
Confidant and Preserver of Honor -One student, a child of a first generation 3HO couple, returned from school in India and, while going to college, became pregnant. She phoned the Siri Singh Sahib for guidance and he advised her to quietly come to Los Angeles and he would look after her. An abortion was carried out and the secret remained with them until that student, now fully grown, revealed it last year.
D u c t T a p eUnder the category of "duct tape" we have: 1) people who had been silenced or felt they were not being heard; 2) clumsy solutions; 3) outright dysfunctions.
The Silent Generation -This is a rough term. Really, there are more than one generation and not everybody has been silent. These are Generations X, Y and Z. Many were born into our 3HO family. It is my understanding that there are two grievances in this group. #1 is that their promise has not been fully recognized and engaged in our administration, Khalsa Council and businesses, where the "Youth Group" of KC is in their 30s and 40s, and the leadership positions are held mostly by people in their 70s. #2 is that some members of this group are carrying chronic, unhealed trauma from any number of causes. Some recall vividly experiences of being bullied at school in India. Some still remember feeling cut off and abandoned by their parents. Some have residual sexual trauma. And some just resent being different from the mainstream and all the apparent restrictions that go with the 3HO way of life.
Pam Dyson expertly tapped into the alienation felt by some members of this group. She listened to and affirmed their grievances. Pam encouraged and inspired them and sent them home to raise all hell, which some of them then did.
Those blaming voices were then amplified and given a stamp of legitimacy by the "listening tour" organized by the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation Board.
No Public Accounting -
One criticism that has come up is that in removing sexual offenders from the scene of their offenses, the Siri Singh Sahib seemed to be safeguarding both the victims and their offenders. Clearly, the Master preferred to work privately and not to issue public statements condemning or blacklisting individuals. Just as clearly, some members of our family would have preferred a more open accounting for the actions of the offenders.
An Uncanny Quiet -In her "tell all" novel, Pam Dyson makes a significant omission. Somehow, in her 195-page pout, she does not mention the time from 1996 to 1997 that she spent in Espanola trying to mend her relationship with the man she accused of being a abusive sex offender. As it turned out, the Siri Singh Sahib was perfectly willing to forgive the pathetic student who had betrayed and tried to take him to court ten years earlier, but his staff would not hear of it. After 18 months as "Premka," she went back to being just Pam.
Ignored Voices -While Pam touted her novel and was feted with publicity in this past year, other humbler voices have been largely ignored. One was the voice of Shakti Parwha Kaur who entered into her relationship as a student with a very skeptical mind. Over the years, however, the Siri Singh Sahib gained her respect and, as he put it, made up "for all the spiritual teachers who have betrayed you." When Pam and her sponsor tried to launch their lawsuit, Shakti Parwha, by then the Executive Secretary of the 3HO Foundation, stood loyally by the Master's side. Toward the end of her years of service, she proclaimed more than once that the man she had come to honor was beyond gentlemanly, and a living example of humility and service.
When asked, Nam Kaur who founded the International Kundalini Yoga Teachers Association under the direction of the Siri Singh Sahib, stated clearly: "I’m asked who do I believe? Unequivocally my Teacher. I put my trust in him and was never let down during our 31 year relationship. I met Yogi Bhajan when I was 18 and over the years spent countless hours with him not just in his classes, but in his homes in both Los Angeles and Espanola. I witnessed him counsel hundreds of people re their health, marriages, careers, and spiritual growth. He gave tirelessly of himself to help each and every person find fulfillment and success. The guidance I received from him personally in many private counseling sessions was invaluable. In my heart I know Yogi Bhajan, the Siri Singh Sahib, to be an impeccable example of caliber and service. Every one of my closest friends, who I hold in high esteem and who were in a position to know, also believe wholeheartedly in his utmost integrity."
Harjinder "Ruby" Kaur, who knew the Siri Singh Sahib from her childhood and, as his next door neighbor and cook from 1998 to his passing, regularly interacting with him and his staff, said this: "My eyes of looking from an HR background (based on my work processing complaints of discrimination or harassment at Akal Security), looking from an investigative background, upholding the tenets of harassment, where discrimination of any form is not acceptable, whether racial or sexual or whatever... Those eyes of looking that way, I couldn't leave them at the office. I kept these eyes with me wherever I was, including when I was around him, around his staff, around his visitors, around the Sangat, the people that lived in the area, around anyone and I was fortunate enough to have had quite a bit of access to him and his proximity. And I can honestly say, personally I never saw any inappropriate sexual conduct from him, by him, towards me or anyone else at that time."
Dysfunctional Organization -In my conversations with past and present members of the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation Board, some have spoken plainly about the inability of the board to engage in long-term planning in line with the great mission set for us by the Siri Singh Sahib himself, namely the creation of a healthier, happier, holier world around us. As a result, the organization continually fails to serve at the level for which it was created. Cliques have grown up that manage much of the direction and work of the corporation. Moreover, the board is consumed with short-term agendas, reacting to one perceived emergency or another. This is no way to run a corporation named after the Siri Singh Sahib.
Mommies Dearest -While not wishing to identify anyone directly, this account would not be complete without mentioning the important roles two individuals with large profiles in this organization have played in landing us in this cesspool of ugliness, lies and blame. I will call them "Darthy" and "Dirthy" in homage to the Star Wars character, Darth Vader, for these two have, for good reasons, gone over to the dark side.
These two individuals have a huge footprint in this organization. One writes the textbook by which Kundalini Yoga teachers are trained and the other occupies numberless positions, including the top one. They have a daughter or two each, and both of the mothers are desperate to keep their relationship alive as these daughters have turned forcefully against the legacy of the Siri Singh Sahib. For Darthy and Dirthy, commissioning a Buddhist organization to obliterate the reputation of the Master, and then re-writing The Aquarian Teacher (and a good deal else) was a worthwhile sacrifice to make to keep the daughters reasonably happy and consoled.
No Legacy Story -It has been a question in my mind for many years now: Why has the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation or any of its organizations (3HO, KRI, Sikh Dharma International, etc.) never published or even endorsed a biography of the Master? It is the least students can do to commemorate the legacy of their great teacher. The truth, it appears to me now is that some in the organization who were uniquely positioned to create a commemorative volume, something like The Man Called Siri Singh Sahib (1979), felt conflicted by interests at home.
How can the Kundalini Research Institute which exists to carry forward the legacy of Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, do that work while no longer celebrating that particular link in the Golden Chain, that special yogi, who first openly taught this yoga and brought it to the West? How can new students measure themselves against the great man who challenged his original followers to be 10x greater than himself, when the organization now preaches that he was little more than a depraved sex offender?
What Happens to a Real Investigative Report?Guru Amrit Singh, who quit his seat on the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation Board last year, commissioned an assessment of the AOB Report, its methods and conclusions, from a real licensed investigator and former lawyer, Barbara Thompson, based in An Olive Branch's home state of Pennsylvania. When she finished, Ms. Thompson issued a damning indictment of the AOB Report, detailing the many flaws in its methodology.
When representatives of the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation were presented with the Thompson Report earlier this year, they refused to publicly acknowledge it or any of its contents. Truth is hard to bear?
Just Outcomes?After their endorsement and publication of the destructive and divisive verdict of the An Olive Branch Report, the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation Board set out on a course of "healing and conciliation" together with a systemic discrediting and disowning of the great soul for whom not only the corporation itself was named, but also by whom all of the plaintiffs were named. Having fed our family the poison of slander and blame, and introduced that toxic mix into the thinking and culture of the Master's legacy organizations, the Board then hired some healers to cure us! Om maneh padme hum!!
C O N C L U S I O NThe Master warned us for a long time that a "tidal wave of insanity" was coming. No one imagined that a wave of incoherent madness like this would hit us right in our administration. It has taken many of us some time to find our bearings in this new reality.
If there is something good about the last few months, it is that it has made us talk, often across generations, about the things that are important to us, the things we are passionate about.
This kind of communication has never happened before. It has been missing. Younger people, people in the administration, everyone had been missing it, and we suffered as a result. We suffered dull, unimaginative administration. And the administration - the Khalsa Council, the Sikh Dharma ministry, the Siri Singh Sahib Board - became older, and then older still.
We miss the Siri Singh Sahib. We miss his uncommon touch. We miss him terribly, but there is no replacing him. Photoshopping his face out of our legacy is not going to bring him back either. We need to rise, seriously rise to the occasion.
Those of us who have been wounded along the way need to figure out that healing does not come in blaming others. It comes from a terrible, difficult journey within. That is the only fountain of healing and conciliation.
Those of us who are older need to keep in mind our mortality and our responsibility to mentor and train others to take our place. We will be leaving here any day. Any breath now could be our last.
There is good news in that Siri Vishnu Singh is proposing to the Siri Singh Sahib Board that all our senior office holders - Secretary-General, Khalsa Council Chairperson, President of KRI, Bhai Sahib(a), etc. - have a deputy at least 20 years younger than themselves or no more than 40 years of age. Let us pray the board receives this suggestion positively and initiates more efforts to bring youthful vitality and inspiration as well as a long-term agenda into its daily operations.
We need to grow and change, but dishonoring our teacher is not going to take us to our goal. Let everyone meditate on their role in our present catastrophe and let us all redouble our commitment to the Siri Singh Sahib's mission and unite to turn this mess around.
R E F E R E N C E SBuddhist Project Sunshine - A Report on Sexual Violence in the Shambala Buddhist Community published in 2018 - 52 pages - click here
Communications from the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation, February 18 to October 23, 2020 - dedicated website - click here
Speaking of Yogi Bhajan - Amrit Singh Jathedar, Guru Amrit Singh & Krishna Kaur discuss administration at the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation Board and more - 3 hour video - click here
Speaking of Yogi Bhajan - Harjinder "Ruby" Kaur & Gurutrang Singh speak of their memories of the Siri Singh Sahib - 1 hour, 49 minute video - click here
The Thompson Report - The authoritative report by Barbara Thompson, former attorney and current licensed investigator in the state of Pennsylvania, that debunks the methods of An Olive Branch report - 21 pages - English - Spanish - German
Yogi Bhajan: A Legacy of Unity - 25 minute video - click here
* The previous version stated "The entire inquisition started with the presumption of 'credible allegations of sexual misconduct' by the Siri Singh Sahib. In effect, the verdict was already in. No credible investigation begins with such an assumption."
This version contains a change in the section "Why the AOB Report was a sham," point #3. The original text is given at the bottom of the page.
L I E SSad to say, but big, significant lies have been and continue to be fed to us from two sources:
1) The Siri Singh Sahib Corporation, including the Kundalini Research Institute and the 3HO Foundation.
2) An Olive Branch, the Buddhist organization based in Pennsylvania.
Lies from the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation -
"An Investigation" Between February 18 and August 13 of last year, the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation (SSSC) Board, sometimes in the guise of a Collaborative Response Team, sent out 16 email communications to our global family. In 13 of those letters, they told us of an investigation into allegations made against our spiritual teacher.
In February, they promised us an investigation. In April, they reported on the progress and timeline of that "investigation." Then in August, they announced the release of the report on the "investigation."
Just a couple of weeks after the report was released, a new edition of The Aquarian Teacher - the teacher training textbook - came out which cited the role of "an independent investigation" in establishing "the heart-breaking abuses" of the Master.
Lies from An Olive Branch -On its website, An Olive Branch (AOB), an organization comprised of three people with Buddhist affiliations, states clearly: "We are not investigators..." The report they issued last year also says "...this report is not a legal investigation;" However, throughout the course of its contract with the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation, they presented their inquiry as though it were gathering facts for a case to be tried in a court of law. Indeed, like a real judge and jury, the AOB imposters also took the trouble of arriving at a verdict regarding the allegations thrown at the Siri Singh Sahib: guilty as charged.
From beginning to end, the AOB report was a big exercise in deception. The very title of the report proclaimed that it was "An Investigation into Allegations of Sexual and Related Misconduct." In its 72 pages, a very lucrative exercise rumored to have netted its authors in excess of $500,000, it proceeded to repeat the word investigation like a mantra, 146 times.
Uncritical claims of an investigation conducted by AOB have been duly parroted in media accounts including: Stacy Stukin, LA Magazine, July 15, 2020; Jennifer Davis-Flynn, Yoga Journal, August 15, 2020; Asia Samachar, August 15 & 20, 2020; Philip Deslippe & Stacy Stukin, Religion News Service, August 18, 2020; Phaedra Haywood, Santa Fe New Mexican, November 16, 2020.
Why the AOB Report was a sham -While masquerading as an investigation and trial of substantiated facts, the AOB culprits - Katheryn Wiedman, Barbara Gray and Leslie Hospodar - fell short on a number of counts.
1. None of the above parties was trained or licensed in the practice of conducting legal investigations. In point of fact, their woeful inquiry was an illegal exercise according to the statutes of the Pennsylvania, New Mexico, California and most of the United States.
2. No healthy organization initiates an investigation into its founder unless allegations are first found to be truly credible. This unsound advice originated in the parasitic external lawyers who have made themselves at home in the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation since lawsuits surrounding the theft of assets by the Unto Infinity Board, which ran from 2010 to 2012.*
3. In the minds of the people in the SSSC set on destroying the reputation of the Master, Katheryn, Barbara and Leslie were perfect for this job because they came loaded with a history and expectations of sordid sexual exploits, based on their experiences in the North American Buddhist community.
4. Any proper investigation requires witnesses to identify themselves so their testimony and credibility may be checked. Instead, people who came forward for this Yogi Bhajan slam fest, were encouraged to do so in perfect anonymity.
5. The AOB Report should have included all relevant testimony, both for and against the Siri Singh Sahib. The authors chose instead to selectively remove testimony that favored him.
6. In the words of the Thompson Report: "Because the AOB Report does not appear to be investigative at all or provide sufficient facts to make any determination, it should not serve to assist anyone in determining whether the alleged behavior by Yogi Bhajan actually occurred."
S E XSex played a part in the storm of controversy that surrounded our family in 2020, but not necessarily in the way its authors have portrayed.
Pamela Dyson -In her steamy "kiss and tell" novel, Premka: White Bird in a Golden Cage the author brazenly implies that she was pregnant with her teacher's child when she miscarried in London on her return from the famous 1970-71 yatra to India. While patently preposterous, her story coincides eerily with a true account she gave in the classic commemorative volume, The Man Called Siri Singh Sahib:
"Then came my moment of questioning. Then came my moment of test and challenge. That moment came just thirty-five days after I had first begun to chant the Nam during the ambrosial hours. The moment came after I had had a small glimpse of who this man was, of the God for whom he was a humble channel. The moment of test came, and I was weak... I decided to leave the discipline which I had been practicing for such a short time. I chose to run away from the teacher with the powerful charisma, the man whose words were so penetrating that I had no defense against them. I felt that if I didn't do it then, I might never get away. So I did it, and I found that in order to do it, I had to involve myself in every type of escapist activity available in the American society (Hollywood, at that), and I managed to act out more negativity in the next month than I had previously experienced in my entire twenty-five years of life."
The period of "escapist activity" Pamela describes above was about 7 months before her miscarriage in London.
Abuses at School in India -Sadly, there have been cases of sexual abuse at school in India. When the Siri Singh Sahib came to know of them, he took immediate action to defuse them.
In the one case, an older boy had preyed on boys younger than himself. When it was found out, he was sent to work at a family business in Bangalore, far from the school. He is grown now and lives in the United States.
In another case, the principal was found to be inappropriately touching female students. When the Siri Singh Sahib found out, the principal was put on the next plane back to America, and processed by our guardian of ethics, deprived of his status as a Kundalini Yoga teacher and Sikh minister. He still lives in the U.S.A.
Abuse Close to Home -In yet another case, a man in an ashram setting was found to have engaged in inappropriately touching a young female member of the community. After that man was confronted, he moved to another city.
Confidant and Preserver of Honor -One student, a child of a first generation 3HO couple, returned from school in India and, while going to college, became pregnant. She phoned the Siri Singh Sahib for guidance and he advised her to quietly come to Los Angeles and he would look after her. An abortion was carried out and the secret remained with them until that student, now fully grown, revealed it last year.
D u c t T a p eUnder the category of "duct tape" we have: 1) people who had been silenced or felt they were not being heard; 2) clumsy solutions; 3) outright dysfunctions.
The Silent Generation -This is a rough term. Really, there are more than one generation and not everybody has been silent. These are Generations X, Y and Z. Many were born into our 3HO family. It is my understanding that there are two grievances in this group. #1 is that their promise has not been fully recognized and engaged in our administration, Khalsa Council and businesses, where the "Youth Group" of KC is in their 30s and 40s, and the leadership positions are held mostly by people in their 70s. #2 is that some members of this group are carrying chronic, unhealed trauma from any number of causes. Some recall vividly experiences of being bullied at school in India. Some still remember feeling cut off and abandoned by their parents. Some have residual sexual trauma. And some just resent being different from the mainstream and all the apparent restrictions that go with the 3HO way of life.
Pam Dyson expertly tapped into the alienation felt by some members of this group. She listened to and affirmed their grievances. Pam encouraged and inspired them and sent them home to raise all hell, which some of them then did.
Those blaming voices were then amplified and given a stamp of legitimacy by the "listening tour" organized by the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation Board.
No Public Accounting -
One criticism that has come up is that in removing sexual offenders from the scene of their offenses, the Siri Singh Sahib seemed to be safeguarding both the victims and their offenders. Clearly, the Master preferred to work privately and not to issue public statements condemning or blacklisting individuals. Just as clearly, some members of our family would have preferred a more open accounting for the actions of the offenders.
An Uncanny Quiet -In her "tell all" novel, Pam Dyson makes a significant omission. Somehow, in her 195-page pout, she does not mention the time from 1996 to 1997 that she spent in Espanola trying to mend her relationship with the man she accused of being a abusive sex offender. As it turned out, the Siri Singh Sahib was perfectly willing to forgive the pathetic student who had betrayed and tried to take him to court ten years earlier, but his staff would not hear of it. After 18 months as "Premka," she went back to being just Pam.
Ignored Voices -While Pam touted her novel and was feted with publicity in this past year, other humbler voices have been largely ignored. One was the voice of Shakti Parwha Kaur who entered into her relationship as a student with a very skeptical mind. Over the years, however, the Siri Singh Sahib gained her respect and, as he put it, made up "for all the spiritual teachers who have betrayed you." When Pam and her sponsor tried to launch their lawsuit, Shakti Parwha, by then the Executive Secretary of the 3HO Foundation, stood loyally by the Master's side. Toward the end of her years of service, she proclaimed more than once that the man she had come to honor was beyond gentlemanly, and a living example of humility and service.
When asked, Nam Kaur who founded the International Kundalini Yoga Teachers Association under the direction of the Siri Singh Sahib, stated clearly: "I’m asked who do I believe? Unequivocally my Teacher. I put my trust in him and was never let down during our 31 year relationship. I met Yogi Bhajan when I was 18 and over the years spent countless hours with him not just in his classes, but in his homes in both Los Angeles and Espanola. I witnessed him counsel hundreds of people re their health, marriages, careers, and spiritual growth. He gave tirelessly of himself to help each and every person find fulfillment and success. The guidance I received from him personally in many private counseling sessions was invaluable. In my heart I know Yogi Bhajan, the Siri Singh Sahib, to be an impeccable example of caliber and service. Every one of my closest friends, who I hold in high esteem and who were in a position to know, also believe wholeheartedly in his utmost integrity."
Harjinder "Ruby" Kaur, who knew the Siri Singh Sahib from her childhood and, as his next door neighbor and cook from 1998 to his passing, regularly interacting with him and his staff, said this: "My eyes of looking from an HR background (based on my work processing complaints of discrimination or harassment at Akal Security), looking from an investigative background, upholding the tenets of harassment, where discrimination of any form is not acceptable, whether racial or sexual or whatever... Those eyes of looking that way, I couldn't leave them at the office. I kept these eyes with me wherever I was, including when I was around him, around his staff, around his visitors, around the Sangat, the people that lived in the area, around anyone and I was fortunate enough to have had quite a bit of access to him and his proximity. And I can honestly say, personally I never saw any inappropriate sexual conduct from him, by him, towards me or anyone else at that time."
Dysfunctional Organization -In my conversations with past and present members of the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation Board, some have spoken plainly about the inability of the board to engage in long-term planning in line with the great mission set for us by the Siri Singh Sahib himself, namely the creation of a healthier, happier, holier world around us. As a result, the organization continually fails to serve at the level for which it was created. Cliques have grown up that manage much of the direction and work of the corporation. Moreover, the board is consumed with short-term agendas, reacting to one perceived emergency or another. This is no way to run a corporation named after the Siri Singh Sahib.
Mommies Dearest -While not wishing to identify anyone directly, this account would not be complete without mentioning the important roles two individuals with large profiles in this organization have played in landing us in this cesspool of ugliness, lies and blame. I will call them "Darthy" and "Dirthy" in homage to the Star Wars character, Darth Vader, for these two have, for good reasons, gone over to the dark side.
These two individuals have a huge footprint in this organization. One writes the textbook by which Kundalini Yoga teachers are trained and the other occupies numberless positions, including the top one. They have a daughter or two each, and both of the mothers are desperate to keep their relationship alive as these daughters have turned forcefully against the legacy of the Siri Singh Sahib. For Darthy and Dirthy, commissioning a Buddhist organization to obliterate the reputation of the Master, and then re-writing The Aquarian Teacher (and a good deal else) was a worthwhile sacrifice to make to keep the daughters reasonably happy and consoled.
No Legacy Story -It has been a question in my mind for many years now: Why has the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation or any of its organizations (3HO, KRI, Sikh Dharma International, etc.) never published or even endorsed a biography of the Master? It is the least students can do to commemorate the legacy of their great teacher. The truth, it appears to me now is that some in the organization who were uniquely positioned to create a commemorative volume, something like The Man Called Siri Singh Sahib (1979), felt conflicted by interests at home.
How can the Kundalini Research Institute which exists to carry forward the legacy of Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, do that work while no longer celebrating that particular link in the Golden Chain, that special yogi, who first openly taught this yoga and brought it to the West? How can new students measure themselves against the great man who challenged his original followers to be 10x greater than himself, when the organization now preaches that he was little more than a depraved sex offender?
What Happens to a Real Investigative Report?Guru Amrit Singh, who quit his seat on the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation Board last year, commissioned an assessment of the AOB Report, its methods and conclusions, from a real licensed investigator and former lawyer, Barbara Thompson, based in An Olive Branch's home state of Pennsylvania. When she finished, Ms. Thompson issued a damning indictment of the AOB Report, detailing the many flaws in its methodology.
When representatives of the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation were presented with the Thompson Report earlier this year, they refused to publicly acknowledge it or any of its contents. Truth is hard to bear?
Just Outcomes?After their endorsement and publication of the destructive and divisive verdict of the An Olive Branch Report, the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation Board set out on a course of "healing and conciliation" together with a systemic discrediting and disowning of the great soul for whom not only the corporation itself was named, but also by whom all of the plaintiffs were named. Having fed our family the poison of slander and blame, and introduced that toxic mix into the thinking and culture of the Master's legacy organizations, the Board then hired some healers to cure us! Om maneh padme hum!!
C O N C L U S I O NThe Master warned us for a long time that a "tidal wave of insanity" was coming. No one imagined that a wave of incoherent madness like this would hit us right in our administration. It has taken many of us some time to find our bearings in this new reality.
If there is something good about the last few months, it is that it has made us talk, often across generations, about the things that are important to us, the things we are passionate about.
This kind of communication has never happened before. It has been missing. Younger people, people in the administration, everyone had been missing it, and we suffered as a result. We suffered dull, unimaginative administration. And the administration - the Khalsa Council, the Sikh Dharma ministry, the Siri Singh Sahib Board - became older, and then older still.
We miss the Siri Singh Sahib. We miss his uncommon touch. We miss him terribly, but there is no replacing him. Photoshopping his face out of our legacy is not going to bring him back either. We need to rise, seriously rise to the occasion.
Those of us who have been wounded along the way need to figure out that healing does not come in blaming others. It comes from a terrible, difficult journey within. That is the only fountain of healing and conciliation.
Those of us who are older need to keep in mind our mortality and our responsibility to mentor and train others to take our place. We will be leaving here any day. Any breath now could be our last.
There is good news in that Siri Vishnu Singh is proposing to the Siri Singh Sahib Board that all our senior office holders - Secretary-General, Khalsa Council Chairperson, President of KRI, Bhai Sahib(a), etc. - have a deputy at least 20 years younger than themselves or no more than 40 years of age. Let us pray the board receives this suggestion positively and initiates more efforts to bring youthful vitality and inspiration as well as a long-term agenda into its daily operations.
We need to grow and change, but dishonoring our teacher is not going to take us to our goal. Let everyone meditate on their role in our present catastrophe and let us all redouble our commitment to the Siri Singh Sahib's mission and unite to turn this mess around.
R E F E R E N C E SBuddhist Project Sunshine - A Report on Sexual Violence in the Shambala Buddhist Community published in 2018 - 52 pages - click here
Communications from the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation, February 18 to October 23, 2020 - dedicated website - click here
Speaking of Yogi Bhajan - Amrit Singh Jathedar, Guru Amrit Singh & Krishna Kaur discuss administration at the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation Board and more - 3 hour video - click here
Speaking of Yogi Bhajan - Harjinder "Ruby" Kaur & Gurutrang Singh speak of their memories of the Siri Singh Sahib - 1 hour, 49 minute video - click here
The Thompson Report - The authoritative report by Barbara Thompson, former attorney and current licensed investigator in the state of Pennsylvania, that debunks the methods of An Olive Branch report - 21 pages - English - Spanish - German
Yogi Bhajan: A Legacy of Unity - 25 minute video - click here
* The previous version stated "The entire inquisition started with the presumption of 'credible allegations of sexual misconduct' by the Siri Singh Sahib. In effect, the verdict was already in. No credible investigation begins with such an assumption."