SYNTHESIS about MISA ch.16: ASHRAM (part 2)

(continued from part 1)

It is clear that this issue of the MISA ashrams is a thorny one, because at some point a so-called "objective report from the MISA spiritual settlements" appeared in the press. The report is considered "objective" by MISA because it is eminently laudatory of the ashrams. Absolutely nothing of what is stated in the anonymous letter no longer exists, everything is good and beautiful, even absolute. The impression of staging is overwhelming:

A website published an objective report about the MISA spiritual establishments (link)

As if this pitiful circus weren't enough, on the same day an interview given to the same newspaper by the then president of MISA also appeared: The President of MISA gave an interview to a journalist (link):

I will quote just a few edifying sentences from the report:

A house like a wagon, with many rooms and long corridors, with a rural air, but in the heart of Bucharest. 15 people without blood ties, but only of heart, of different professions, coming from all over the country, live here as in a dormitory for non-family members, eat together, take turns cleaning the common spaces and in return give a few hours a day and some money for utilities.

How "15 people"? Where are the hundreds of residents in the ashrams? I quote from MISA's official "response"  o the aforementioned anonymous person:

This scandalous anonymous letter [...] will be debated within the MISA Yoga School establishments, and we announce that each member of the MISA establishments will come before the camera and give a personal, sincere testimony [...] We are already wondering: will Mr. Lawyer Rapcea allow the posting on his website of the hundreds of testimonies of the members of the spiritual community in the MISA establishments? (source)

They took 15 people, obviously selected, then the image thus created was extended to the remaining hundreds of people and... here is the "objective report"! How do I know that the 15 are selected and in fact the ashram itself is selected in advance? From the following ostentatiously omitted sentence, but which reveals the staging:

The next day, the house fell even quieter. Most people had already left for job.

"Most of them have jobs", so it's not true what is said that the residents of ashrams are miserable, that they have nothing to eat... They have their jobs, in fact they also have a place to live, but they came to the ashram only for practice and accelerated spiritual evolution! But then who are the service groups and orders in the camps made up of?

People who have jobs, have homes and, when they also benefit from a vacation after a year of work, instead of relaxing, they come to yoga camps to stress themselves out even more, living in a pile in ashrams, eating and sleeping on the run and taking turns on duty, day and night, until they are ready to fall down, as I have seen them so many times, with my own eyes, in yoga camps?

I quote from the "objective report": We all sat down at the table. Yogis are ovo-lacto-vegetarians. So the table was filled with salads, vegetable pizza, soy salami. One of the yogis consecrated the table, that is, she said a kind of prayer.

And then, the evening exploded into jokes and laughter.

The laughter is not from those in the ashram, it is from those who don't believe anything written in the report! If there is such happiness, why doesn't everyone move to ashrams? To hell with personal housing, with the daily stresses and scandals! Come to the Heaven of the MISA ashrams!

Rapcea fumed and posted a response, but this time it is not an open letter from an anonymous ashram resident, but his own opinion, that he could not take it anymore:

article: The truth speaks through the mouths of children (link), I quote:

"I had various questions like: what if it's not that good, what if it's all a lie, and so on. And I came to the following conclusion: even if it's all a lie, it's the best lie I've ever been told, it's the most coherent. The most... of all. And I came to the conclusion: even if it's false, I still feel best here," explains the psychology student.

The "operation" entitled "a day with a journalist in the ashram": sending the note to Grieg, through all sorts of anonymous hands, with mouths locked by the secrecy of vows on life and their spiritual evolution; sending messages through ultra-protected proxy servers to the Master's secret location, his "YES" answer, with punctual advice on how to direct the play. Then the meeting of the ashram leaders, in the middle of the night, where the relocation of people was decided, in the model ashram that the journalist was supposed to visit: which residents to transplant around her: X, because he is funny and tells jokes; Y, because he was a victim and won at the ECHR; Z, because he was cured of some disease through yoga - and so on. They moved to other locations the sad, the strange, the poor-with-no-teeth-weak-dead ones and others who could have raised questions. They surrounded the journalist in question only with emblematic people for the story, as it was meant to be said - from Above.

I can almost see the preparation meeting of those in question, in which the note from Grieg was read directly to them, with directives. How they were assigned tasks, how to behave, what to say to each other and especially, what topics to avoid discussing in the presence of the journalist. And there were, thank God, so many new things to present, from the daily life of the ashram dweller at MISA: notifications saying "burn one pot, buy three"; the notifications in the refrigerator, on the food bags, so that the ashram colleague does not "accidentally" eat your food; notifications with warnings at the place to light candles for the offerings of light (do not set fire to the ashram!); the appointment book for the "love room"; ashram notifications, notifications of approval of departures from the ashram, notifications of approval for the payment of karma yoga by those who have a job, notifications of drawing lots for services during the camps, notifications for taking out/putting in/double-portion for food, tables with penalties (doubling of service hours) for those who have arrears at karma yoga on the eve of the camps, from the printing house, oaths to keep various secrets. Tables of attendance at various mandatory activities (protest rallies, support meditations). And so on and so forth! So, no kidding, I think that in the first phase they had to raid the notifications!!!

The interview questions were probably also determined in advance and went through the same approval procedure "from Above". With answers. Hence the air of artificiality, of cheap staging that has nothing to do with real journalism. Because no difficult, indiscreet questions, specific to investigative journalism, were asked, such as: 

where is Gregorian Bivolaru currently? Why or from whom is he hiding? What happens to the ashram residents who get old or sick (how, yogis don't get sick!?). Is there any form of social protection (retirement pension, health insurance) for the ashram residents who have spent more than half their lives working in MISA ashrams?

How well can they integrate socially, when they are kicked out of the ashram or choose to leave?  What's the deal with vows and secrets? How much money did MISA collect from donations from those who work abroad in a karma yoga regime (men in construction, and women in the sex business) and where did that money go?!

Is MISA a golden illusion or a way out of the illusion?

This last fragment would have been the perfect conclusion to this synthesis. But things don't stop there! With the raids by the French police on November 28, 2023, a new chapter opened in the ashram issue, which seemed to be permanently buried after the final ruling in the human trafficking trial in Romania. Asked by French journalists about the ashram issue, MISA/ATMAN began to give evasive answers, a sign that an investigation had finally hit  a very sensitive spot. On April 4, the "Response offered by the MISA Press Office to the French daily Le Monde" appeared on the official MISA page (link). I have selected only those fragments regarding the ashrams and the number  of residents:

LeMonde: How many MISA/ATMAN ashrams are there in the world?

MISA: First of all, we would like to point out that these spiritual settlements are improperly called "ashrams", they are more like spiritual communities. (source)

Now they don't even want to admit that they call them by their traditional name - "ashrams", which is strange for an European, who thinks that yoga is something that is practiced in a salon or studio. The people from MISA do this so as not to give the impression that they are a sect. But the memory of the internet has retained the truth for posterity:

An ashram is a place for living a simple life an being able to practice meditation more. Even the yoga practice is a form of meditation. An ashram aims at facilitating a better health condition and a spiritual life for the practitioner. As a matter of fact, any home may be called an ashram. Within MISA, ashrams are a form of living in common, similar to student dormitories. Each dormitory follows certain rules for the life in common to work. The MISA ashrams abide by the following rules... (source)

MISA is a loose network of training centers, yoga schools and ashrams. In addition, there were about 40 ashrams  in Romania, where some 750 people were living and practising yoga. After the 2004 events, the number dramatically decreased due to the social panic instilled by the media. By mid-May 2013, there were 63 ashrams in Bucharest and 28 in other cities where more than one thousand practitioners had chosen to live. The MISA ashrams abide by the following rules... (source)

So when MISA's friends and protectors refer to their homes as "ashrams," it's okay. But when the press asks for information about MISA's ashrams, "Uh, that's a improperly name..."

MISA students also call them ashrams:

"Now, when a trial is taking place in which Gregorian Bivolaru and other MISA members or instructors are accused of human trafficking, the press has launched a furious campaign to expose the "exploitation" of ashramists (yoga practitioners who live together in houses they call "ashrams") by the MISA leadership. Precisely to bring clarification in this regard, MISA Senzational TV presented in the show "With Books on the Table" a series of interviews taken with several yogis who live in an ashram of our school." (source)

Regarding the number of residents in the ashrams, here are MISA's lies to the French press that "harass" them:

"In Romania there are more than 10 so-called "ashrams", to which are added several homes belonging to students, which they have made available to people who, for a shorter or longer period of time, wish to carry out an intensive spiritual practice. MISA did not set out to keep an exact record of all these small spiritual settlements, especially since they are small individual homes, not large residences like Indian ashrams, with several hundred people." (source)

... But previously I showed the exact numbers provided in the past by MISA to the organizations that defend them:

MISA is a loose network of training centers, yoga schools and ashrams. By mid-May 2013, there were 63 ashrams in Bucharest and 28 in other cities where more than one thousand practitioners had chosen to live. (source)

The bullshit about "small individual homes belonging to students who made them available to colleagues for intensive spiritual practice" was later used to cover up the hosting of women invited by Bivolaru for sexual initiation in France. (quote)

The response provided by the MISA Press Office to the French daily Le Monde - April 4, 2024:

LeMonde: How many MISA/ATMAN ashrams are there in the world?

MISA: We have no information about spiritual settlements outside of Romania.(source)

LeMonde: How many members and how many ashrams are there in France?

MISA: As far as we know, the yoga school in France does not have any ashrams. Being a separate school from MISA, we have no information on the number of students. (source)

If the yoga school in France does not own any ashrams, then whose homes are the ones where  ONLY Romanians are hosted? How did the Romanian students find out about the “spiritual retreats” in France, if MISA “does not know” about them? I quote:

The Police Raids Against MISA in France, November 28, 2023. 2. MISA Students Tell Their Stories (Susan Palmer - Februrary, 3 2024):

One location raided was a yoga studio administered by Sorin Turc, a violinist who played with the Monaco orchestra. Three large houses that were used as yoga-meditation retreats where around 90 Romanian yogis were staying on vacation were raided, as well as small 2-room apartment where Gregorian Bivolaru was temporarily residing.

The Nice raids were conducted that same morning. There, the police targeted three buildings in the same yard in Nice’s suburbs, where twelve Romanian yogis who were working on a construction contract were staying.. (source)

One man from the Nice raids told me his story. He was around 6’6” tall and very strong. He explained how he often traveled to France to work on contracts with his team of construction workers, all members of the MISA yoga school in Bucharest: (source)

It is worth noting that the Canadian author broadcasts reports from the raids that targeted the homes of Romanian yogis in France on February 3, 2024. (original article), and in MISA's response to LeMonde it says, I quote:

In February, the newspaper Le Monde sent the MISA Press Office a series of questions for an article that would present readers with details about the case in France involving yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru and other yoga practitioners. The article was published in the online edition for subscribers on March 6, 2024. (source)

So MISA had the information already published by Susan Palmer who, in turn, knew it from MISA students, but MISA tells LeMonde that "we don't have any information about spiritual settlements outside of Romania"...

Irrecoverable pathological liars - MYTHOMANS or, better said, MISOMANS!

Other data about ashrams in France appear "in abundance", full of photographs from inside the "settlements", in interviews given to Willy Fautré.

Spectacular simultaneous SWAT raids on Romanian yoga centers in France: Fact checking (article):

On 28 November 2023, just after 6 a.m., a SWAT team simultaneously descended on eight separate houses and apartments in and around Paris but also in Nice. These searched places were used by practitioners of yoga connected with MISA yoga school in Romania for spiritual retreats. [...] We contacted Ms C.C., a MISA practitioner for 20 years.

She was at the yoga center of Villiers-sur-Marne at the time of the raid. In 2005-2006, she was a journalist at the national daily Romania Liberă. Here is her testimony about the SWAT operation:

C.C.: I have been a lot of times in France for such retreats since 2010 and I like it very much.

C.C. is Crina Calek, former MISA spokesperson (see her at min9:sec32 of this video), and she serenely declares that she has been participating in retreats in France since 2010, and the current MISA spokespersons declare to the French press that they do not know about the ashrams outside the country! Moreover, in the translated version posted on  the official MISA page, there are photos from inside these ashrams (link), which do not appear in Fautre's original article! The liars are exposing themselves again!

Continuing the interview:

W.F.: The head of the Central Office for the repression of violence against people (OCRVP) in charge of the investigation, was quoted by some French newspapers as saying that the yoga practitioners were “housed in difficult conditions, with significant promiscuity, no privacy.” Can you tell me more about your living conditions in Villiers-sur-Marne?

C.C.: If the living conditions were so bad as he was saying, there would not be so many practitioners and I would have never come back so many times to Villiers-sur-Marne.

We thank Ms. Crina for unknowingly exposing the liars she represented for so long and for whom she shamelessly lied so many times! We also thank Mr. Willy for unwittingly contributing to the unmasking of the misomaniacs!

The Movement for Integration as a Sect in Ashrams!

(the end)