Characteristics of a Spiritual Business
by SP
Dear all,
I am an Indian citizen, having involved in few Humanitarian/spiritual/volunteer based organizations in India, my kind request to fellow brothers and sisters from different part of the world as below.
Keep an eye on organizations or the so called spiritual masters, Guru’s …etc from India, their organizations are basically called NGO, Volunteer based, Humanitarian, Spiritual, Foundations, charity..etc and also has association in Europe, US and most of other countries .
More than 80% of the people in the world are emotionally week, such organizations are targeting these kind of people.
You may take all that good things they show and teach, well that is what we should do, yet without allowing them to take control of you or your life.
Culture and values are good as long as it promotes human values, having freedom to care and serve others without any indentation behind it.
Below are business approach characters of these organizations to evaluate before you decide to involve or spend time, money and energy.
- Is the organization promoted by showing the strength of the organization, we have xx billion members..xxx service..etc – Pure hypocrisy
- Is there a culture which is forcing everyone to follow – Be aware of sugar coated poison
- Is this in the hand of one or two person who rules, say Guru, Master, Yogi, founder, President.- Easy to say it is masters wish to get the job done.
- Are there enough proof declares that good amount of money collected has been spend for service/charity – Please ensure to see a valid third party audited report available.
- Are they collecting money in the name of charity, in that case are they clearly mentioning the projects the money is going to be or spend for- make sure before you pay.
- Are there many products they have so that they can slowly force you to buy or promote- They start with Basic or the first part of it, then the list grows.
- Is there a transparency of money been collected and spend – Hide and seek is general policy of cult organizations
- Does this organization has more assets, like collage, Institutes, Agriculture..etc- These are the holistic ways to spend the collected money to develop the business
- Do they have more focus on celebrities, politicians and business people of the society – To get more Media and marketing support to sell the product rather than serve the product
- Are they boosting the ego of volunteering to get the things done (Divide and rule) – Political approach to get the things done from members
- Are they giving the members enough freedom to express their views – Bureaucracy
- Are they respecting the members/volunteers or forcing to serve the organization by interested people – Making members to work like donkeys in the name of service/humanity.
- Is this organization directly or indirectly involved in politics in the name of conflict resolution….etc – Getting Political power to support
- Does freedom to serve society /humanity exist to members or been asked to do only on behalf of this organization or Guru..etc.- Don’t want others to grow
- Are these organizations focusing on adding more members – Basically called getting more Milking cow to generate regular income by selling their products
- Does this organization in any manner claim that their founder/Guru/Master is rebirth of Jesus, Krishna..etc – an emotional blackmailing
- Is these organization spending more money on Marketing, say Media, Big events..etc – To boost the profile
Master our Mind and learn the organization of our life, let us not give our Mind to Masters to organize their life!
Comments are closed.
Beyond The Art of Living 
Right on… the best dissection of AOL and similar cults…
Best part is, even on the Hindu right wing blogs these new age gurus are being lampooned as being charlatans and not truly representative of the “true” Hindu faith.
I would add that when making sure that the money is going to charity, to never, ever rely on the glossy, beautiful films of supposed projects depicting the poor, and then some ‘volunteers’ serving them, etc. Go in person to these villages. See several in different places. Get a list of these villages that have been “adopted” and find out from the people themselves what has been done.
I recently received the following mail from the vvki
——————————————————————————————————–
Kind Attn : Apex Members, VVK North Apex Body & STC.
Dear Ones,
Please note that Sri. ******************* is no longer in possesion
of his Sudarshan Kriya Tape and Art of Living Course Manual. He is no
longer authorised to teach / conduct the Art of Living Courses.
This step has been taken as Sri. ******************** has been conducting his
own program and not adhering to the guidelines of the Organisation.
Any teacher/s getting associated in promoting his programs would be asked
to return their Art of Living Course manuals and Kriya Tapes back to us.
You are requested to disseminate this information to all concerned.
Jai Gurudev
Board of Trustees
Vyakti Vikas Kendra, India
————————————————————————————————————
Its sad that such a senior teacher is being treated in such a bad manner, no matter even if he is conducting his own program. He ought to be encouraged and sent away with honor and dignity. Such a mail and the tone is uncalled for.
If the trustees and apex body members have lost their manners they can be sent to LKG where they can re learn the same.
I have heard that a similar mail has been sent for a very very senior Swami(not the sad Swami but a quite happy, soft spoken and sincere one) also.
These two people have contributed their entire life to the organization and this is the manner in which they have been treated. As far as I know they were quite sincere.
@Anonymous
that reply feels more like a letter from a laywer then from a spiritual organisation.
I wonder how many lawyers drafted that email. lol!
@stupidseeker
can you give the names of these blogs so everyone can benefit from them?
@belle
the link to one such blog and probably the only one I had in mind when i made that comment is here:
http://www.sandeepweb.com/2010/12/03/deepak-chopra-does-it-again/
To be sure it appears that the guy has an agenda and puts a negative or positive spin on his chosen issues as per his criteria known best to him.
many may not know or may be aware of the Cyclone Thane that hit parts of Tamil Nadu in India – http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2760940.ece before the New Year … I was wondering if there would be any update on a new “relief project” for this area on the AOL website… However, I find that our HHSSRS was in Germany on New Year expanding his business base… perhaps calamities like these are not “big enough” for AOL to indulge into for business expansion or perhaps, there is not as such “good market” for them, as it affected second string cities not affluent cities…
The other day I was watching an youtube video on SSRS lecture in U.Penn business school, where a Q and A session followed… when SSRS was asked – how do you initiate to change the mindset of an individual or a group, whose lives are torn apart by a long lasting war and strife… for which our ‘enlightened’ master replies… I would ask the person to join him to play a game or a sport… it felt like, no one other than a really sick person would come up with an answer like that… and why humans, who understand the deepest and deepest of complicated sciences fail to realize the fraud in SSRS and this pseudo-spiritual business called AOL …
http://www.artofliving.org/cyclone-aila – an organization that claims itself to be one of the largest and most widely distributed NGO could manage to provide relief to 5200 people and clothing to only 2600 people? Wikipedia says “As of 27 May 2009, 330 people have been killed by Aila, and at least 8,208 more are missing, while about 1 million people are homeless. Health officials in Bangladesh confirmed a deadly outbreak of diarrhea on 29 May, with more than 7,000 people being infected and four dying. In Bangladesh, an estimated 20 million people were at risk of post-disaster diseases due to Aila. Damage totaled $552.6 million (2009 USD).”
Wiki also says “AOL Foundation had total revenues of $5.5M (mainly 3.5M from course fees and 1.7M from public support ) and expenditure of $3.6M from July 2006 to June 2007. Net assets at the beginning of July 2007 amounted to $7.7M” …
I am sure there is so much of unaudited revenue and income from other businesses…
while AOL might not have spent any “money” as such to any relief projects during calamities like a hurricane or earthquake… am sure they would have gone about with a begging bowl for donations at the wake of a calamity and gathered a lump sum, while perhaps spending an iota of it for “namesake”…. all you AOLite fools… wake up from your trance