2019 Yoga/Buddhism Accountability Roundup | Like Waiting for Government Action on Climate Catastrophe

In the aftermath of Julie Salter’s viral testimony that Swami Vishnudevananda (b. Kuttan Nair 1927, d. 1993) sexually used and abused her for three years while she was his personal assistant, the Sivananda Yoga administration has released a number of statements, one of which asks other complainants to email a Montreal PR firm.

Here’s Salter’s testimony:

The International Sivananda Yoga and Vedanta Centres homepages now feature a pop-up statement, dated December 16th, committing to “honesty and transparency” and promising the appointment of an independent investigator within “a few days”.  This hasn’t happened yet.

On December 25th, 3H0 recording artist Snatam Kaur gave a concert of devotional music at the Sivananda Yoga Bahamas ashram with senior Sivananda dignitaries in attendance. She sat in front of a larger-than-life portrait of Nair, and opened by quoting her guru Yogi Bhajan, also accused of sexually abusing his secretaries who worked for years for little or no pay. In a 2017 interview, Kaur lauded Bhajan as  “very devout Sikh”.

 

Here’s the latest communication from the Sivananda administration:

Sivananda students around the world — including the reported 45K graduates from the organization’s signature Teacher Training Course — who are wondering how the accountability process may unfold might benefit from a brief review of institutional abuse crises in the yoga and Buddhism worlds from this past year alone, and how the organizations have responded.

 

Ashtanga Yoga

The publication of my book this past March brought together the testimonies of sixteen women who describe Ashtanga Yoga founder Pattabhi Jois sexually assaulting them under the guise of “yoga adjustments” between 1982 and 2002. Prior to the book, Jois survivors Anneke Lucas, Karen Rain, and Jubilee Cooke had all published their testimonies independently. Rain and Cooke went on to publish what is now the white paper on how yoga institutions should respond to abuse.

The story was covered in a Yoga Journal personal essay, and then mainstream outlets like the New York Daily News. The New York Times touched on the story as part of a longer feature in November.

While some individual Ashtanga leaders have published statements of accountability and allyship with the Jois survivors, no official statement has been made to date by the Jois family or by any entity that would represent Ashtanga Yoga worldwide. Sharath Rangaswamy, Jois’s grandson and inheritor of the family business, issued a rambling personal statement on Instagram that’s now deleted. (Reprinted here. More commentary here.)

No-one in the Ashtanga world has taken steps to commission an independent investigation, or to raise reparations funds for survivors. Meanwhile, senior Ashtanga figures like Eddie Stern continue to obfuscate what they knew and when.

 

Iyengar Yoga

IYNAUS and RIMYI (two influential arms of the Iyengar Yoga global body) gather together considerably more administrative power than anything found in the Ashtanga world. After their botched attempt to internally investigate testimony against Manouso Manos was exposed, they hired an independent investigator who found the testimony credible.

IYNAUS and RIMYI delisted Manos, and barred him from using the name “Iyengar” in association with his continued teaching. He’s doing it anyway in Russia. Recently, he gave a workshop at a secret location in Los Angeles, attended mainly by other Iyengar teachers:

No concrete efforts have yet been made by the organization to raise reparations funds for survivors.

 

Shambhala International

Ten months after an independent investigation found that Shambhala leader Mipham Mukpo had committed sexual misconduct (even though many people refused to participate in the investigation), the Shambhala Interim Board has announced that it supports the return of Mukpo from “retreat” in Nepal to bestow Tantric initiations on devotees this coming summer. The initiated practices involve participants visualizing Mukpo as a divine being.

The announcement also comes after a group of Mukpo’s former aides released a scathing description of his assaultive behaviour over the years.

In Mukpo’s own statement of intentions regarding the upcoming retreat, he makes no mention of the testimony against him, nor of any steps he has taken to mitigate further harm. Survivors and disillusioned members mocked Mukpo’s statement on reddit.

While Shambhala entities continue to fundraise for various projects, no concrete efforts have yet been made by the organization to raise reparations funds for survivors.

 

Bikram Choudhury…

…is making money on the lam in Mexico, even after the airing of the Netflix doc, which added visuals to the far better-researched 30-by-30 podcast of the previous year.

There’s a warrant out for Choudhury for failure to pay the first of what will likely be many judgments against him.

No concrete efforts have yet been made by the organization to raise reparations funds for survivors.

 

Rigpa International

Sogyal Lakar died in exile in August. The year before, an independent investigation found that Lakar had sexually, physically, and psychologically abused many students over decades. The report came one year after eight former devotees described their experiences.

No concrete efforts have yet been made by the organization to raise reparations funds for survivors.

 

Takeaway

Even when organizations do a seemingly good job at investigating and confirming abuse testimony, we’re not seeing mitigation and reparations. For members of the Shambhala, Iyengar, and Rigpa communities, this might feel especially demoralizing — that the organizations to which many have committed the best years of their lives have mounted transparency campaigns that ultimately allow for the return to business-as-usual.

Opinion: It’s really like waiting for world leaders in the Global North to take decisive action on the climate crisis. They have the science, yet they are powerless, feckless, or nihilistic in response to the momentum of the culture. Whatever initiatives are taken are ineffectual or performative.

I don’t have answers here, but the stalemate does make me think of two things: how cultic organizations are designed to self-perpetuate in part by restricting outside input and avoiding outside scrutiny. Secondly, it makes me think of the distinction that activists like Aric McBay make between those who believe that corrupt systems can change, and those who don’t. I’ll end therefore with two grafs from McBay’s Full Spectrum Resistance.

Many of our [organizing] obstacles have been part of the culture(s) of the left. So I should clarify some of the terms I’ve been using, especially liberal and radical. Some people use radical as a synonym for “extreme,” but that’s misleading. The word radical originates in Latin, where it means “of the roots”—as in, from the grassroots, or root problems. Radicals see the dominant culture as having deep-seated problems that require fundamental changes to fix. They want to uproot entrenched power structures like apartheid, or patriarchy, or capitalism. As such, they tend to advocate (or at least support) political action that falls outside of what the political establishment considers acceptable. (Phil Berrigan’s argument that “if voting changed anything it would be illegal” is something radicals understand well.)

Liberals, in contrast, see the problems in society as comparatively superficial. They accept most of the established power structures of society—say, corporations or the parliamentary state—and they seek to work within those structures to make change. Liberals try to use “representative” systems of political power, either by electing someone sympathetic to them or by persuading someone already in power to grant concessions. Radicals may do this, at times, but radicals also like to build up their own community power and create movements that can exert political force more directly.

— Loc. 803.

 

So: here’s to a radical 2020 for our spiritual communities, and life on earth.

What Happens in the Next Generation On From a High-Demand Group?

What Happens in the Next Generation On From a High-Demand Group?

Those who leave or escape from high-demand yoga groups seem to reorganize through two successive demographic splits.

The first split separates out those who must ghost out of the industry altogether to heal themselves and start over. Their drive to escape might be driven by the fact that they were abused too severely by the group to recover. There can be other factors as well, such as whether they have a pathway towards a different social circle and life, or whether they retained interests and skills outside of the group.

The second split occurs between those who stay within the industry, often because they need to.

I’ll use the Anusara example here, but you could substitute in many different organizations. I’ll call the splinter groups Category 1 & 2.

Category 1 is made up of those who figured out that John Friend created something toxic from top to bottom. They emerged with the drive to completely reorient themselves in relationship to their practice and self-understanding. It was a lot of hard work, and very lonely, because the rule book had been torn up. They might go through associations with other groups, and successive disillusionments as they detect similar patterns emerging. It takes them a long time to realize that the wisdom of disappointment has made them into leaders. I’ve seen many Category 1 people also start and follow through with training in a licensed therapeutic skill.

Category 2 consists of those who believed that Friend created something really awesome and it was just a damn shame that he let it get to his head or his ego or something and made “mistakes”.

Category 2 goes on to basically replicate the dynamics they learned in the high-demand group, but with enough savvy to remain just above social reproof. They might apply these strategies to leading a new yoga group, owning a studio, or they’ll skip sideways into an MLM (which gives you a sense of how they were thinking about yoga training to begin with).

The mechanisms are the same: puff yourself up in the name of inspiring others, whether you can follow through or not. For Category 2 people, charisma is not something to interrogate but to domesticate. Weber called it “routinization”. If they remove the rough edges it’ll all work out.

To switch examples for a moment, Category 2 people in the Ashtanga world seem to believe that they can keep all of the elements of Jois’s scheme — the implied consent, the absence of informed consent, the performative stress, the mystifications around the value of the postures and their relationships to spiritual development — and somehow it will all be cleaned up if they manage to not assault anyone. They may even honestly believe they’ve never injured anyone through cranking adjustments. The more savvy ones add stuff like brand-new concerns over cultural appropriation. Or they contort themselves into oblivion pretending that going to Mysore every year is coherent with feminism.

In the worst cases, Category 2 people form their own high-demand groups. The best recent example is Reggie Ray and his alleged coercive control over Dharma Ocean. Ray broke away from Shambhala.

It’s way better to work with (and especially for, if you’re junior) Category 1 people. They tend to be hyper-aware of issues of power and fairness, and if they have blindspots they’re happy to see and acknowledge them, and then take steps to mitigate. You’ll also find that they’re doing a wide range of supportive work within the industry, often for little to no pay. They’re writing, researching, mentoring, creating content that has no concrete market value.

Category 2 people, by contrast, fold all of their labour back into brand-building.

One thing that makes Category 2 people crappy to work with or for is that they view themselves as the ethical exiles of the first group — those who were doing Anusara “right”, those who weren’t so stupid as to have sex with their downline and have weed trafficked in over state lines. They were the ones who were able to see the value in the method and not screw it up with their selfish desires.

This particular grandiosity can make Category 2 people impervious to critique. I’ve noticed their politics can become even more neoliberal and responsibilist, because after all, they were individually able to steer clear of John’s train wreck, and they did that through their own grit and gumption, right?

This also means that many many maintain a long-term subtle contempt for Category 1 people who didn’t “get over it”, or who foster a “victim mentality”. Accordingly, they’ll be more resistant than Category 1 folks to new information about their student’s needs. If they jump on the trauma-sensitive train or start using woke-talk it will be because it’s a good biz plan.

In the cult literature, it’s widely accepted that there are no predictors for who gets recruited and who doesn’t. Similarly, I doubt there would be any predictors around who branches off into Category 1 and Category 2.

But if I were to speculate, I’d imagine that, while there might be psychological factors at play, Category 2 people were protected and supported by types of social privilege that insulated them from full disillusionment when the high-demand group fell apart. They had capital to move on with, for instance. Or perhaps they were always socially separated from those lower down in the group, and so they never had to learn from them about how terribly unequal things were.

Another factor might be that Category 2 people were more active as enablers in the original group (whereas Category 1 people might have done more bystanding), and so are better defended against self-examination. It’s a lot harder to cop to the fact that you enabled than to the fact that you were a bystander.

Bystanding in itself is an “off” feeling, through which it’s easier to access shame and perhaps even guilt. Those feelings are gold for disillusionment.

Somehow, the Category 1 person permitted themselves to be fully and wholly disillusioned, to such an extent that they would never be able again to rebuild in the same way.

Maybe disillusionment is not just something that happens. Maybe it’s also a skill that can be developed.

 

 

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Psst: here’s a plug for my online seminar, coming up in February!

That Time Manouso Manos Started a Yoga Class with a Verbal Attack And Showed How Trauma Bonding Works

Special thanks to Cassie Jackson, who was there that day and helped confirm many details. Her testimony of Manos assaulting her is included in the IYNAUS investigative report on pages 15-17. 

 

 

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In January of 2017 I emailed Manouso Manos to request an interview. At that time, my research for the book that eventually focused on Jois and Ashtanga Yoga was casting a wider net. The working title back then was Shadow Pose: Trauma and Healing in the Cult of Modern Yoga.

I was upfront and honest about the project. I told him I was investigating intergenerational trauma in the yoga world, and would be citing the 1991 report on allegations of sexual assault against him. I wrote that I wanted to ask him if or how he had changed over the years, and how he understood his teaching within the legacy of BKS Iyengar.

This was about ten months before I heard about the sexual assault claim Ann Tapsell West was preparing to file against Manos, which was first dismissed by the IYNAUS Ethics Committee, and then substantiated by an independent investigator.

When I wrote to Manos I did not know that there were or would be contemporary allegations against him. I also didn’t consider or research sexual offender recidivism. In this light, my initial query was naive.

Manos’s curt responses included a threat to take me to court for writing about him from the public record. Then, paradoxically, he invited me me to come to one of his classes for free.

So I made plan to go. I didn’t expect a warm welcome. But I didn’t expect to be ambushed. Continue reading “That Time Manouso Manos Started a Yoga Class with a Verbal Attack And Showed How Trauma Bonding Works”

Update: IYNAUS Apologizes to Manos Victims; Abhijata Iyengar Acknowledges Abuse at Convention

In an email sent out to members last night, the IYNAUS Executive Council for the first time apologized directly to the women who gave their testimonies to the independent investigation into Manouso Manos. The email also details commitments to reform. Its content resonates with several of the guidelines laid out by Karen Rain and Jubilee Cooke in their recent article “How to Respond to Sexual Abuse Within a Yoga or Spiritual Community With Competency and Accountability.”

The apology coincided with a speech given by Abhijata Iyengar at the current convention in Dallas, which continues through Wednesday. By email, IYNAUS President David Carpenter reported that Iyengar

devoted 30 minutes or so to discussing her own experience being molested, stating unequivocally that sexual touch is unacceptable, telling individuals not to fear coming forward with complaints, expressing empathy for victims, and reemphasizing the centrality of physical adjustments in Iyengar Yoga and their benefits.

A transcript of Iyengar’s remarks is forthcoming. Continue reading “Update: IYNAUS Apologizes to Manos Victims; Abhijata Iyengar Acknowledges Abuse at Convention”

After Manouso: Questions for Iyengar Yoga Teachers and Leaders

If you haven’t heard: the professional independent and investigation (trigger warning) into decades of allegations of sexual assault by Manouso Manos under the guise of “yoga adjustments” has found enough credible evidence and corroboration to paint a picture of serial criminality, enabled by the propaganda of his genius and the silencing of his survivors.

The report has forced IYNAUS to oust him, and the Iyengar family to withdraw permission to use their trademark. Neither IYNAUS or the Iyengars have offered any public words of apology, support, or restorative justice to the women who gave their testimony. Neither organization has used the appropriate terminology to describe what the investigation substantiated, relying on euphemisms like “inappropriate sexual touching” instead of assault or digital rape.

Perhaps the careful language is meant to shield both organizations against civil suits. But along with the absent apology, the overall impact is the suggestion that Iyengar Yoga and the legacy of BKS Iyengar are the true victims of Manouso Manos — not women like Ann West, whose 2018 assault complaint against Manos was initially dismissed by the IYNAUS Ethics Committee. Continue reading “After Manouso: Questions for Iyengar Yoga Teachers and Leaders”

Facing Investigation into Allegations of Sexual Assault, Manouso Manos Goes Full DARVO. IYNAUS Is Having None of It.

On March 8th, Manouso Manos posted a letter on his website, announcing his resignation from the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States. In its claims and defensive-aggressive tone, the letter positions Manos as the target of an unfair independent investigation into allegations of sexual assault potentially dating back to 1992. It also pits him against IYNAUS as the legitimate representative of the Iyengar family’s wishes, wisdom, and legacy.

Manos’s statements were elaborated in a 23-page support statement from his lawyers. Together, the documents present an object lesson in what psychologist Jennifer Freyd has defined as DARVO: a strategy used by those accused of crimes to turn back scrutiny and accountability. Continue reading “Facing Investigation into Allegations of Sexual Assault, Manouso Manos Goes Full DARVO. IYNAUS Is Having None of It.”

Manos Disciple Re: Manos Complainant — “She’s the only one who’s going to be hurt.”

Manos Disciple Re Manos Complainant — “She's the only one who's going to be hurt.”

On October 30th, IYNAUS announced the opening of an independent investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct made against Manouso Manos. “The independent investigation will not be limited to Ann West’s complaint. It will include other allegations covering the time period from January 1, 1992 to the present.” West’s complaint was dismissed in September, but many members felt the investigation was compromised by conflicts of interest.

IYNAUS has not suspended Manos pending the outcome of the investigation of multiple allegations, nor for making what was most likely a deceptive statement to the Ethics Committee that initially cleared him. He continues to teach.

One staunch supporter — a seemingly popular middle-aged male yoga teacher  — went to a Manos event over the past weekend, and then took to Facebook to harass and smear the complainants: Continue reading “Manos Disciple Re: Manos Complainant — “She’s the only one who’s going to be hurt.””

Why Manouso Manos Was Suspended: Meeting Notes and Internal Yoga Journal Communications from 1989/90

Why Manouso Manos Was Suspended: Meeting Notes and a Letter from 1989/90

Recently recovered notes from a 1989 faculty meeting of the Iyengar Yoga Institute in San Francisco show that Manouso Manos publicly admitted to sexual misconduct and that fellow faculty members recommended he be suspended. Further minutes from a subsequent meeting show that the recommendation was accepted. And a letter written by Donna Farhi in 1990, addressed to Yoga Journal on behalf of the California Yoga Teacher’s Association, corroborates a 1991 article by Bob Frost in the San Jose Mercury News “West” Magazine. The letter describes more extreme misconduct previously reported.

These three documents contradict recent statements made by Manos’s spokesman to KQED:

A spokesman for Manos said the [San Jose Mercury News] West article was inaccurate, saying Manos wasn’t suspended but voluntarily left (he said he didn’t know the reason for his departure) and didn’t seek reinstatement but was invited to return. He also said Manos denied past and current allegations of sexual misconduct. He didn’t know why Manos hadn’t sought a correction to Frost’s article if he believed there were inaccuracies.

The faculty meeting notes show that a motion was tabled to suspend Manos indefinitely from all teaching responsibilities at the Institute. It passed. It was also recommended that Manos be removed from “Assessments”, “India selection”, and from his advisory role to the 1990 San Diego convention. Manos attended the first part of the faculty meeting and admitted to having a sexual relationship with a student over four and a half years. The notes record that Manos said he was seeking psychiatric help. Continue reading “Why Manouso Manos Was Suspended: Meeting Notes and Internal Yoga Journal Communications from 1989/90”

Notes From the Iyengar Ethics Committee Ruling Dismissing A Recent Allegation Against Manouso Manos

How The Iyengar Ethics Committee Handled the Manos Allegation: Meeting Notes

On September 10th, the all-volunteer IYNAUS Ethics Committee met to consider an allegation of in-class sexual assault brought by Iyengar teacher Ann West against Advanced Senior Iyengar teacher Manouso Manos. They ruled to dismiss the allegation for lack of evidence.

Manos currently holds a seat on the Senior Council of IYNAUS. At least one of the Ethics Committee members is a long term student of Manos, enrolled in his three year Iyengar Yoga Therapeutics course.

The ruling, along with notes from that meeting, show that the committee glossed over past allegations against Manos. They questioned West’s perceptions of the incident, but found Manos’s explanation of his intentions plausible. One member suggested the committee punt the file to the Iyengar family in Pune. Continue reading “Notes From the Iyengar Ethics Committee Ruling Dismissing A Recent Allegation Against Manouso Manos”

Manos Disciple To Manos Accuser: “If You Felt Assaulted, Please Try to Figure Out Why.”

Manos Disciple To Manos Accuser: "If You Felt Assaulted, Please Try to Figure Out Why."

An abuse crisis will often force a high-demand group to show outsiders what they inflict on insiders every day: loaded language, self-sealed reasoning, leader idealization, grandiose claims and image management techniques. If the group must admit abuse, it will show its unique harm calculus, and every emotional bargaining trick in the book.

Nowhere is it all more visible than in the abuse crisis statement. Though offered as evidence for the wholesomeness of the group, it often provides key confirmation to insiders that they are, in fact, embedded or complicit in toxic dynamics.

The abuse crisis statement I’ll examine below was posted on Facebook in response to allegations of in-class sexual grooming and assault brought by Certified Iyengar teacher Ann West against Senior Iyengar Yoga teacher Manouso Manos. The allegations were made public in a September 8th article published by KQED and echo similar allegations made in a 1991 investigative report published in the San Jose Mercury News.

None of the allegations have been proven in court. Manos did not deny the allegations when asked by investigative journalist Bob Frost in 1991, but through a spokesman he is now denying all past and present allegations, according to the KQED report.

The statement below doesn’t come from an official Iyengar Yoga representative, but from a long-time Manos disciple. Continue reading “Manos Disciple To Manos Accuser: “If You Felt Assaulted, Please Try to Figure Out Why.””