Ahamkara

Among the many lucky things that have happened in my life is that I moved into the Siddha Yoga ashram of Swami Müktananda in Ann Arbor, Michigan in late 1976. I was coming out of a very difficult time that almost ended my existence, and was searching for a spiritual path that would make sense. Siddha Yoga sufficed, at least for the eight years I was involved with the organization, and that was all I needed.

The group was pretty dysfunctional, and the guru turned out to be deeply flawed, but it took some time to realize this, no pun intended. Müktananda had been molesting young girls and women for years, as it turned out, though I didn't find this out until after he died in 1982, and read about it when I departed the scene in 1984. Though I had had enough of the cult by the time I left, I was slow to accept that the guru was not what he appeared to be.

C'est la vie. I gained tremendously from the eight-year experience, and still learn from it. It gave me a grounding in meditation and an approach to existence that is both humble and positive. Probably the most lasting impression has been the emphasis in all Yoga practices on purification of the ego, the Ahamkara. It has made it easier to understand my own behavior, and the behavior of others.

Such as world "leaders." The most notorious these days are Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, compadres in crime, though the stronger and more dangerous is Putin. He also almost certainly has Trump under his control, still exerting the pressure of Kompromat. It is likely that some of the documents Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago ended up in the Kremlin. Putin's flimsy excuses for invading Ukraine - "denazification" and the pretense that Ukraine is part of the great Russian empire - are all ego, all for self-aggrandizement, theft, destruction and mass murder - things that make him feel he has worth. Trump is similar in his sociopathy, and his flimsy life is all about his ego. He has nothing to offer humanity or the natural world. His many years of grifting and abusive behavior are almost up.

The same goes for the "right wing," manifested in such groups as the Ku Klux Klan, the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, the "Republican" party, and many others. There is no real philosophy, no real beliefs. It's all ego. "Racism," "white supremacy" - nothing but crap conjured up from the human ego, the Ahamkara. Men, mostly, trying to inflate their complexes of inferiority by pretending they are better than others, especially those of some designated group of pretend inferiors, like "racial" minorities, religious "others," people from other countries, "liberals" and even the mythical "Antifa," which exists largely in their warped minds.

A perfect example of egos run amok is the January 6 insurrection. Largely ne'er-do-wells, fanatics,  bigots, conspiracy theorists, stupid people, reptilian brainers, Dunning-Krugerites , deficiency needers, noisy people, psychotics, men (and some women) who are challenged in their masculinity in one way or another, gun-nuts, bad cops, bad ex-cops, drug addicts and crackpots, the mob thought they were elevating themselves to the level of Donald Trump when they were actually lowering themselves to his level. They were being used by a deranged criminal sociopath to serve his ego purposes, hopefully to elevate their own egos.

They failed. Trump failed. They were fooled, but they were willing dupes. The old adage "Fool me, curse you; fool me again, curse me" would more accurately be "Fool me, fool me again, fool me again, fool me again, fool me again, curse the ‘libs!’" They learn nothing whatsoever from being fooled.

"Leftists" aren't so great either. By and large I have found self-described "leftists," "progressives," and/or "liberals" to have the same ego-centeredness as the "rightists." The power games, jockeying for position, factionalism and scheming have similarities to what goes on among "rightists." The differences, of course, are that "leftists" tend not to be so violent, antidemocratic, bigoted, ignorant, mentally challenged and gullible.

I haven't been all that great, I admit, which makes it easier to understand the ego-failings of others. I didn't pursue yoga and meditation because I had attained perfection and enlightenment, and just wanted to gild the lily, so to speak. I needed something to change my life, to save my life, really. My own foibles make it much easier to put myself in the place of anyone who behaves out of ego-enhancement.

We might want to look at the "right wing," antidemocratic and fanatical hate cohort in this country as less "ideological," and more in terms of psychology. We have an ill country in many ways. Raging political mobism is but one manifestation, and a dangerous one, but we shouldn't get too hung up on their "beliefs." Their mental well-being is what really drives them, and what we should be concerned about, and what we might want to address.
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Here's a song. Here's another. Brewer and Shipley. Another song from Creedence. George Harrison. Norman Greenbaum. The Rolling Stones. The Grateful Dead. Lyle Lovett. INXS. Iris DeMent. 10,000 Maniacs and David Byrne. The Traveling Wilburys. Van Morrison. The Beatles. Frank Sinatra. Chuck Berry. Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Another song from the Grateful Dead. The Police. U2. The Yardbirds. Another song from the Beatles. The Beatles again. John Prine.

A movie about Swami Muktananda. The quality is poor, but you can get a pretty good idea of what the experience was about. It wasn't nothing. Kündalini energy is real. It is just not a normal Western understanding of how subtle forces manifest. The path is long, and it is easy to get fooled by pretenders to greatness. I have been lucky in not being tempted to be one of those pretenders. Many on this planet have not been so lucky.

Here's another video of Muktananda. It is kind of hard for me to watch. I was a true believer.

Muktananda's successor, Swami Chidvilasananda (nee Malti Shetty), known informally as "Gurumayi," is the unnamed guru mentioned in the book and movie Eat, Pray, Love. Salon delved into her not-so-exalted story. Lis Harris of the New Yorker wrote about Chidvilasananda in 1994. You can read it for free here. The Siddha organization, or cult, has likely been in steep decline for years.

"Mahamandaleshwar Swami Shankarananda" (alternately Russell Kruckman) was one of Muktananda's subgurus, and was the head of the Ann Arbor ashram for the first two years I lived there. After Muktananda died he started his own franchise in Melbourne, Australia, calling his new cult "Shiva Yoga." He followed in Muktananda's footsteps, molesting women in his ashram for years. You can read about it in the comments section to this blog post, including a radio interview with some of his victims on  ABC Australia. Read more about him here.

Have some fun with this recent Jordan Klepper video. Waukesha is the "Republican" stronghold of Wisconsin.

This PBS Frontline documentary covers the lead-up to the January 6 insurrection pretty well. It might induce vomiting. This YouTube video gives a short excerpt.

On the war front, more than 30 local officials in Russia are calling for Vladimir Putin to resign.

In this interview with Dr. Gabor Maté he discusses trauma, illness, and healing in a toxic culture. Donald Trump is a textbook (huge textbook) example of an abuser and/or sociopath who was abused as a child.

R.I.P. Barbara Ehrenreich. She was not a pretender.

R.I.P. Ramsey Lewis. The In Crowd was a formative musical experience for me. Here's the original version of The In Crowd.

Update, September 17: The end may be near for Vladimir Putin. And for Donald J. Trump, antichrist - except there is no Christ to be anti of. Here's a song for both of them (and, or course, individually). Adios, world jerks.

Here's something interesting regarding Trump and Putin.

For a good analysis of the reptilian brain condition, click here. 

The "Republican" party is no longer a legitimate political party.

Who woulda' guessed? The Department of Homeland Security under Trump tried to manufacture a threat from "Antifa" in 2020. One thing we can say for sure is that Trump really, really, really wanted to keep being president. I suspect it had to do more with his legal jeopardy than serving the country - another aspect of his fragile ego. If there is one thing I have learned in life it is that the ego dies a hard death, and the bigger the ego, the harder the death. This calls for a song. We might have to wait a while before this all plays out. Variation on a theme. Another variation.

Here's a variation on the cult theme.