Sorry to re-post, but the last sentence got cut off before.

I married my hippy spiritual girlfriend in 1971 and we blissfully
found our guru the same year. We became the de facto leaders of one of
Chinmoy's branch centers. It was quite early in the history of the
Centre, and there were a lot of kids our age, all bright eyed and
energetic and idealistic.

We bought into the sadhana - very little sleep, morning meditation,
read only the guru's books, selfless service. Then came the running -
training in the middle of the night for marathons and ultra-marathons.
I was the owner of a small business with 8 or 10 employees, and so the
sadhana was all on top of 10 or 12 hour work days. The worst pressure
of it all was having to memorize the guru's hastily composed Bengali
songs. Some of the tunes were delightful, but there was the constant
pressure that every spare waking moment should really be spent
memorizing incomprehensible lyrics to songs with no key or time
signature.

I was becoming increasingly estranged from my wife. She was away on
trips serving the guru, or when she was home we had less and less
interaction. Our sex life (and all other affection) trickled to a
halt, which confused and saddened me. She had been my adventure pal in
college, and now we hardly talked.

At first we disciples were told that Alo Devi was the divine mother
and to worship her. Then after a couple years the guru told a small
group of us that really she had lost her realization and she was a
complete pain in the ass and we should humor her. This created a huge
schism in the community between those who "knew" and those who "didn't
know". Those who didn't know were expected to worship her, in the face
of those who knew - which made the not-knows look like idiots. Those
who knew were being trained in the art of insincerity and deception.
There was a lot of that.

Although the guru gave lip service to friendships, he watched them
closely and was often able to divide people who got too close. He
insisted on the disclosure of any private information shared between
friends. I hope my old friend Savyasachi is OK. I know that his heart
was broken many years ago when the guru forced him to separate from
his wife Lavanya whom he loved dearly. But he was never able to admit
this or speak about it.

The bad paintings (there were a few good ones), the bad poems (also
some good ones), and all the other performances and showings done in
the name of quantity and self-aggrandizement were hard for me to
swallow. I grew up in a family of artists, taught to edit what I did
and bring the best to show. Chinmoy's brazen approach to "art" was
quite an exercise in surrender for me. I remember fidgeting through an
esraj concert at Carnegie Hall, feeling so embarrassed for us all. The
esraj sounded like a sick cat, the tempos of the songs were erratic,
and the disciples were mostly sitting in rapt attention with folded
hands.

This is not to say that I was not a guru Nazi in my own way for quite
a few years. I cracked the whip, gave lectures, hung posters,
delivered ice cold edicts from the master, and tried to keep the
troops marching in the same direction.

I also saw some people treated really badly. I saw Carlos' wife being
praised to the skies in front of the inner circle on the front porch
and then called a "black bitch" one hour later to the same group (and
none of us said a word). I saw heavy women have to show up for public
"weigh-ins", trying to lose weight wearing rubber training suits and
driving around in cars with the heat cranked up in the winter,
terrified of the humiliation. One time, on one day's notice, I wa
asked to fly to New York to build the guru a tennis court. I left my
business for a month which left it in shambles. When I was a few days
from completing the task, it was taken away from me and I was sent
home because he did not like my consciousness. Someone else finished
it. There was no real explanation.

There were good times too. We had hilarious skits. The running was
painful, but built self confidence. I learned about printing, and
public relations, and public speaking. There were some powerful
meditations - both silent and while singing those damn Bengali songs.

Finally after eleven years I ran out of steam. I left the Centre with
a woman I had met there. We were immediately ostracized. After working
very very hard for that community through my 20's, not a single friend
was allowed (or had the courage) to speak with me.

Since that time, many have left the Centre and and a few are among my
closest friends. Our definition of friendship now is so much broader
than even what I could have imagined back then. My life has moved in
many ways since leaving that community: a long time marriage, a
teenage daughter (we're very close), a much larger business venture,
and many years of inner work in a wide range of disciplines.

One of the turning points in my own awakening came about eight years
after I left the Centre, when my first wife (who had also left by
then) confided in me about the sexual relations that she had had with
the guru starting in our second year of discipleship and continuing
until after my departure. Her disclosure explained the strange
separation we had experienced, and also freed me from any lingering
uncertainties about who Chinmoy really was. I had left the Centre with
an ambiguous "maybe he is a great master, but it is time for me to
leave". After her revelations I was able to cut the cords still
connecting me to Chinmoy and finally completely take back my own life.
As angry as I was for this dark betrayal, I was also grateful for this
truth which gave me back my independence.

In hindsight, the Chinmoy experience was focused on the heart chakra
and above. The chakras below were ignored. We developed light and
access and some opening in these upper areas, but the rest of our
beings atrophied. I believe now that life on this earth is about being
present, fully, awake, here, and now in every situation that life
reveals to us, from head to foot. I came out of the Centre quite
educated about some aspects of life, and completely clueless about
others. This is not about street smarts - I am talking about our deep
loving humanness - which was ignored in the Centre.

Chinmoy is a dark master; a kind of sorcerer. He is very skillful and
deceptive. He lives off of the energy of others. He will say that he
feeds his disciples, but I am convinced that he actually feeds from
them - financially, emotionally, sexually, psychicly. From the inside,
his story is convincing. I was convinced for eleven years. But from
the outside, his story does not hold up in the world. A good story has
life no matter where it is told - his only lives inside itself.

Once the cords are fully cut, he has no hold. My first wife (now a
good friend) and I have talked from time to time about what we should
do, if anything, about what we know. We usually take satisfaction
enough in knowing that when he had us, we fed him mightily, and now we
feed him not all.