Forced Marriage and Leaving the Cult

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References to specific individuals, organizations or groups are presented as commentary, opinion, and personal experience and should not be interpreted as definitive statement of fact guest is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. Hey listeners, before we begin Please know that this episode does contain discussions of child abuse, child sexual abuse rape. Child marriage, neglect, religious trauma. Obviously and family trauma. So please take care while listening consequences childildren suffered because these young parents decided to do this crazy thing is so awful that it's going to take a few generations for us to unfuck it. because they were like, ooh, peace love and Hari Krishna. And now I have adult children that are suffering the consequences It's not fair. It's not okay. It took me half my life to figure out All right, now, what do you want to do with your life? And that was through One failed relationship after the next because I had no idea what relationships were. I had no foundation for that Welcome back to our show. Was I in accult. I'm Lizi Auzzi. And I'm Tyler Mesom. Now first off, before we get started, we just want to let you know that we've been having some issues podcast on Apple Podcasts. You see, some of the episodes have been late, some have failed to show up at all So first off, We apologize. They deleted us. We thought we were gone. It was a horrible two weeks, but they give us our show back. so thank you. But now there's two of us on there for some. There's two I r of the other I don't under I don't know. but thank you for Coming back to the tribe, we have been here busy making episodes and apparently you guys haven't been getting them. goo back, listen, we have a couple really fantastic stories. I don't know if you guys heard the Amish two Parter But fantastic. We spoke to the journalist who covered the sex cult One Taste that ultimately led to the FBI investigation and tak downown of this cult so Please, we work hard on them. go listen to them. We are getting all our technical stuff fixed. I'm trying to figure out how to get the clock on my VCR to work so it doesn't just keep blinking twelve o'clock And then The dis of VCRs How else am I going to watch Beverly Hills Cop? Mash, the first one. Oh my God, I've seen so many. I think I've seen more episodes. No, I know I've seen more episodes of Mash than anything ever. I've seen them all. Let's not get too far distracted. Yeah, we have to get the light heartedness out of the way because this episode guys, wow Velus, Velas, my girl, my lady, my woman, my person. I did a nine hour, I think interview with her. Yeah, you did over the course of three days. Yeah. And then she just dump trucked it onto us and said, here you go, make it good. I'll be getting a Manny petty. Now what exactly happens That's what I did What typically happens when Liz does her interviews and then she gives it to us. And Greta, our assistant editor, she does the first. Shout out to Greta. She's great. And then I took it over and I gotta say, I love editing these episodes and I love finding the structure and the story in them. But this one really, I couldn't wait to get back to it and it took me a great number of days to do it but I couldn't wait to get back and keep crafting the story and keep hearing what's going to happen. It kind of stayed with me. It is a hell of a tale. Yeah and well worth the two parts that you are going to get here. So this woman What she's been through I don't know. It could be the most intense episode I think we may have had on the show. I know that's a Big statement, but What stood out most to me and stayed with me after wasn't just the horror of what happened to her, but Veless herself Velus is a force I'll just say that. and u Now for her story. I've been wanting a Hari Krishna' story for some time on this podcast because outward facing, they appear peaceful, devotional, monk like Chchanting robes, renouncing all material possessions. deellicious vegetarian food, but the cult side of this group is all too often hidden from the public view. Now, if you grew up in America in the seventies, eighties or nineties, as I did, there's a decent chance your first exposure to the Hari Krishnos was a guy at the airport. Wearing a sorry. shhaved head, handing your dad a flower against his will And so their main spiritual practice was chanting this phrase Hari Krishna, hari Krishna, hari Krishna, over and over and over So The Beatles at one point actually raised the awareness of Krishnaas. George Harrison, In fact, all the Beatles at one point got pretty much into aari Krishnaas George Harrison stayed in it a little bit longer believed in Krishna. He practiced Krsna He often had Krishna, I don't want to say groupies hanging around him But there were a lot of people with robes in the studios when he was there In the documentary, get backack. If you've seen it, there are Hari Krishnaas with George in the studio I mean, John brought Yogo, he brought the Krishas. And George, he produced a nineteen sixty nine song called Hari Krishna Mantra which became a surprise hit in Europe Play it, Rob . Aition no. The Hari Krishnias are members of a religious movement officially called The International Society for Krishna Consciousness or IsSChan which was founded in New York City in nineteen sixty six by an Indian spiritual teacher named AC, Bakavedanta, Swami Prahobada Thank you, Tyler for intentionally handanding me this name to sccrew up I'll talk about the Beatles. Yeah, I'll take the Sanskrit Now the movement is rooted in a real branch of Hinduism. and very broadly speaking, Hinduism is not one single centralized religion with one founder or one holy book It's a vast family of traditions, philosophies, rituals, and stories with many gods and goddesses representing different aspects of the divine You may have already guessed from the name the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, of course centers on Krsna Their devotees believe Krishna, who represents divine love, joy, beauty, bliss, and devotion is the supreme form of God. and that through devotion, prayer, chanting disciplined living You can escape Samsara, which is the endless cycle suffering, death and rebirth So during this counterculture movement of the late sixties and seventies, as we all know, thousands of young Americans were searching for meaning outside these traditional religious boxes. So while some people joined communes, some joined political movements, others shavave their heads and started chanting. and airports Now followers typically lived communally and they followed strict rules. no meat, no drugs or alcohol, no gambling, and no sex outside of marriage. But the ls is on our show. so clearly That isn't the whole story Now with today's episode, we are going to do what is kind of unique for Liz and I. It's such an amazing and incredibly well told story that we aren't kind of interrupt it. Nope. Tyler even cut me out of the whole thing. So yeah, All nine hours. If you wantna hear all nine hours, email us It's not gonna to be easyer for us. So we are too practicing spiritual enlightenment over here. Yeah. The vow of silence. Vow of silence. Vow of silence Get your tissues ready guys because It's a teer jerker. It is. It is a Beautiful and sad and heartbreaking and wonderful story. Maybe we should have was I and occult tissues So much merch No time at all Let's get to the story finally, shall we? My name is Velas and I live in Maryland and I' a survivor advocate, writer speaker. mother, partner, world traveler and grew up in the Hari Krishnaas. I was born and raised in the Hi Krishnaas in the schools. in the Hari Krishnnaas, which is also known as ISCon, which is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness Founder's name is Prabuad created this international Society for Christa consciousness so that he could Have this group of people live in what's called the Vedic times, the times that the scriptures were written. And he brought this philosophy To the United States, I want to say nineteen sixty five and went to Hayashbury and was giving a lecture there And my parents went to Hay Asashbury and heard him. They heard about this guru who was spreading peace and love. and they were at the time going to Pasadina City College. and it was a tumultuous time, late nineteen sixties with all of the objections of the war and just there was a lot of social change at the time He had a message and It sounded these kids like a Cool Philosophy This is going to make us all happappy and peaceful and we're all gonna this is the sure way to get to God They're like, all right, yeah, we'll join. So they were among maybe the first fifty people to really join up. And Praad told them if you are going to be together, you have to get married. So they did. And Prahad said, goo open a a temple in L.A. When I say so they did, it's like every single thing he said, they did They opened a temple in LA. and my mother was eighteen and my father would have been twenty These children are starting this organization You have no life experience, no college education, and you're starting what turns out to be like a massive worldwide organization Part of me wants to look at my parents and go, wow, damn, you did that. There was an original group of devotees that were very early disciples of Prababad And those devotees He trained to be like, all right, this is our mission. We got to saturate the world. So Get out there, go open temples, go figure it out And they did sally It's quite amazing, as horrible as it is, but it's just fascinating I was born in nineteen sixty nine, physically at the LA Temple Back in the day when you had a child, the guru named the child. So he named me Velosini, which is sort of a well it is a name for Radha. Radarani is consort of God. My father would have been a temple administrator and my mother would have probably been cooking or running whoever was doing the cooking because you knowre temple and there's even fifty people living there, you're cooking for everybody It's a full commune living. Everybody is doing something for everyone. My mother didn't like me. I was a girl She already had a girl. Now she has two girls liabilities basically in a patriarchal society, we want boys. It's grounded in women are less than. Wen are not as smart, women are not as capable. And of course, it's her fault because it's always the woman's fault, obviously And then I was the second child, there was this little crazy redhead and this bad penny. constantly turning up and she just really didn't like me and always pawn me off and And I was just like, you know, a kid of the temple, whoever was watching was watching or not as it were Also just commune living, right So my mother would have been wearing a sai And my father would be wearing something called a dote, which is the and then a cta which is the shirt like along Tick And they shave their heads and they have this tiny bit of like a tuft of hair back here. And then we cover ourselves with play that marks our body that says our body is a temple of God. And then you'll see they wear neck beads, which are also just a reminder our bodies and our existence is God, like everything is about that And so what Pbopod wanted for the children was that we were going to be the first generation of like these pure Weishnav kids, right And so we needed to go to what's called Guru Kool, which is the guru's indoctrination, the guru's teachings And they opened a boarding school in Dallas, Texas, but normally you get to keep your kids ttill you're five. And then they have to go to the guru' school And I have an older sister and so she was five and they werere gonna drop her off and they just left me there as well And then they went off to do whatever service. So when I was three years old, I was sent to boarding school. The whole temple is basically in Ashram and then there's like little Ashrams in the Ashram. So there was the little kids Ashram and I was there So our day when something like wake up at three thirty in the morning, have a cold shower because warm is indulgent. There's no such thing as any kind of sense gratification. should not be comfortable ever or anything that would be remotely related to sense gratification First morning prayer starts at four thirty and it's basically the deities are dressed in their pajamas and I've woken up, it's called Wake the Deities Everybody shows up in front of the deities to like be like Good morning All of this happens in Sanskrit And then The curtains are closed, the deis are dressed And they're given sweets. This happens over the next two hours, all of this insanity. So the curtains are opened again. they're now dressed in all of their glory and opulence for the day During that time, devotees, including children would chant the Hi Krishna mantra and you chant the Hari Krishna mantra one hundred and eight times sixteen times It takes about two hours. After that, there's a class on the scriptures and class is usually aboutbout an hour and it's either the Baagwad Gita or Baagwa Tan, which is the bigger The morning program lasts from four thirty to about eight thirty. So then there's school, but the school is all. about scriptures. So we learned Sanskrit, We learn to recite the scriptures So they would take the scriptures and then use some math with it or use like English with it or whatever we were supposed to be learning it all had to be about The sccririptures. So that that was let's say we started that at nine and then we had a lunch break And then that ended at four And then we had a little bit of outside playtime you want go play and then you're worried, you're going to do something wrong because you're going to be distracted by the fun of maybe having this playtime and then and then you get in trouble. So every single day there was a consequence. Somebody did something either you were getting beaten for something you did or you were getting beaten for something somebody else did that you should know not to do also. There wasn't A time when somebody wasn't in trouble I think it was harder For me deal with it because I was so little I think as I got older, I think I got stronger that's really fucked up. I grew armor while I was there. I still actively imagine the three and a half year old me sitting in my lap because I don't know that I ever sat in anybody's lap. And I just want to hug her and tell her that it's not her fault. And then when I go there, I say But I don't want to talk to her because I would have to tell her to fuckingbace herself because it's gonna get much worse before it gets better Okay, so last week we heard the riveting advertisement featuring me buying a t shirt from Quince. We need that Ice. We need Collague get in here Destroy it, here you go I fear, Koi I did receive it. I do love it. It fits well, it's nice, cotton and it's It's my turn. It's my turn today because I got some things guys. I'm going on quQintinces. com right now, Quintince . com slash cult. don't forget that slash cult And let's see DidW. I know what I'm gonna to get I've been I've been eying a couple things. I'm sure you have. As one is always when it's me and Quince Um, so Oh, yes. Candle, maybe? Not today I did cand. I'm actually gonna get black slips dress because I'm going out of town with some girlfriends And I just I need a cute little dress. a little back dress. No I'm getting that. It never goes out. It's only sixty nine dollars compared to what it would normally be, which is probably over two hundred I have other ones so I I know they're good. I love their slip dresses We do love quints. I'm going ahead and order that. I also I've been eyeing these right here Leather Now you started. now she's be shopping on this thing forever. Leather picture frames. They're so beautiful So I'm going to order that in a light tpe while she desk on down. talk about how much we love Quince and how much Quince is good for us. I like this skirt. She just keep going There she goes. No seriously We do love quQints. They do have great products. They eliminate the middleman, which is why they can get things so affordable to you. and they're well made. My t shirt double stitch. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quQuince. com Tyl Tyler't know relationship be down your border Until Quince. he's like what You mean, it doesn't just rip after seven washes? Yeah I have people ripping my shirt off me, so I think it's very important to have double stitched So elevate your summer wardrobe. goo to quQinces d. com slash cult for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. How's the shopping going, Liz? There is a fantastic Cotton gaz smocked Maxi skirt that I'm also gonna be getting.' going back in again. These are all gifts, Tyler. These are all gifts. I'm sure they aren't. Quince is now available in Canada. That's QuNcd dot com slash cult for free shipping and three hundred sixty five day returns. Go ahead and press entter Liz get your gifts right here and Bing Quintot com Wait, how did you hear about me?? It's a podcast called Was I in a Cult? Yeah, that's right. Quintince dot com slash cult We're back. How you feeling, Liz? I mean, we've been silent this whole time. Do you want to make any bad jokes that you couldn't during the first part of the story? I usually leave that for you. Thanks, Liz, because I know you're dying to tell a fact. so go back There' fact O. There' one. Velis's parents went to Pasadena City College And they are the lancers. homeome of the mascot Lance O lot. You're kidding, sir. That's all All I need to say But I do think we need to know a little bit more about the Krishnaas because during the seventies and eighties, they heavily proselytized, so they were very present Ultimately, there were only about eight thousand highly committed members worldwide. They had tens of thousands of broader participants. They did, however, open more than one hundred temples worldwide, which were, yes, sites of worship Also kind of spiritual hotels for paying travelers or seekers Now back to your cone of silence One of The Hari Krishna's main things that they're known for is that chanting and dancing on the street corners and airports and whatever So they're out there raising money And this is how they would buy buildings or land or space and build temples U If you go to any one of these Iskan Harkrishna temples, you will find life size statues of the gods. Krsna and Radha, who is his consort, his girlfriend. He had a wife, but now he had tons of girlfriends. There are these statues that are up on altars and they're dressed in clothes, like all kinds of stunning, shiny, beautiful clothes. while the kids are wearing tattered Morn and eating off the floor with worm and roach ridden food. You know, it speaks very loudly to. We don't give a shit about people We just worship these brass statues so that we can ultimately attain this godhead Why So The goal is to get to Godhead, to get to Braman to get to the forever. But you can't do that. through the guru You can't have that unless you C through me. Rub my feet Bring me food, worship me, put me up on a pedestal Make me a golden toilet to shit in because remember, he is just a man, a human He's not some sort of a mythical creature People's willingness to worship O people also Boggles my mind regulations are No meat eating That's also no fish, no eggs No onion, no garlic, nothing that has a lot of heavy smell or bad odor No sex outside of marriage and Sex is only for procreation, and there's a bunch of ritual that has to happen around that which is chanting the Japa, which is one hundred and eight times around the beads And then times sixteen. Well, if you want to have a child, you have to do it times fifty And so it's like an entire day of chanting because apparently trying to have a child is Dirty I don't know Wh Why does religion care so much about What you're doing in bed, I'm pretty sure that I have been more connected to oh God during sex than I did at All ever in my childhood. So a hundred percent renunciation is required. You renounce all of your worldly possessions can't have any personal attachments. We didn't have things, we didn't have toys. Nothing is yours in this lifetime. Otherwise, you will develop attachments and then you'll have to be born again into this hellish existence and do it all over again until you learn how to renounce. You renounce everything. You renounce your family So they were taught not to be attached to us And we were raised to not be attached to them. in fact Like if you were hugging your mother, you would get reprimanded or your mother would. We only heard the word love in the context of Lving God. You serve your guru, you love Krishna and the only way to get to that eternal love is through your guru. Love had nothing to do with people. That was not a thing. It's what they call Maya. That's what Maya is. It's just a material connection and you need to renounce from it. My parents right from the beginning, it's just random happenstance like Two twigs in a river. coming together in this lifetime because reincarnation. So we've all been here a thousand times or All of the times they're function was Surely You get married, you live this life, you procreate, you make new devotees And then you go on and you evolve in your spiritual growth and you leave each other I have an older sister who is eighteen months older than me. We were always in just different asstroms because we were a different age. So I didn't really get to see her. She was more goly, more devotional. She was more she could read by the time she was four, like she was brilliant. And she was treated better. I was just a little devil, you know, Like I was I was normal. but also that is called a littleittle deevil. Like I got beat up so bad one time in the little kids Oh room that I was bleeding. My backside was bleing I would have been like three and a half or four and my sister had come to get me on Sunday and she was like, whyy can't you just behave and And I' like, I don't knownow what I'm doing wrong. And you know what? The more you suffer, better it is because you'll be able to go back to God if you suffer so much. It's so good to suffer. Why does God love it when we suffer? Wh Wh Getting it out. You getting your karma out and it's good Suffering is wonderful. Think about it. ourur parents chose for us to be there and our parents chose to put us in the schools. and they chose. to let us suffer these school teachers They did not give a shit about these children. The conditions So I had a milk crate And my bedroll was in the milk crate and you had a change of clothes. I had the dress I was wearing today and the dress row The food was absolutely disgusting. We had something in Dallas for breakfast that we called Oat water becauseuse it was just like you didn't really get the oatmeal part of it, just the water maybe there was like Three things of out in there and for three hundred kids It was gross and there were worms in the food, like, you know bugs and everything was subpar cheap lowest level, lowest quality like there was no C for these children zero. care On Sundays, they invited outsiders in to come in and have a Sunday feast So all of the kids got to wear their retier dress, whatever that was and put on a smile and eat good food So on this day, you didn't eat the oat water, you didn't eat the disgusting crap that they were feeding and one day faking it for the public lookook at us happy and we were I mean, I can see in the pictures like we're all like such fake smiling. Were there not people out there going like blink twice for help? Like how did they not see the absolute devastation that it was for these children. Well, well, they did. they came in. It was too hard to hide. And my mom just so happened to be there and walked up and said, Oh, We're all fine. This is fine. Everything's good here It's really unforgivable can't ever Allow for that forgiveness Also, I have a whole philosophy about forgiveness. Like, it's bullsh Anybody who can stand by and watch children B tortured and abused and mistreated. They deserve to be in jail There should be a special jail for people that Mystery children just the actual physical abuse and emotional and psychological abuse that was going on was too hard to hide. So the state was like, okay, you got to shut this down and said, you have to get all of these kids out of here Dall is shut down. All of those kids go to LA and the thing that bothers me is Okay, so Um, did you say just relocate that And you're just gonna take you're not gonna to follow up. You're not gonna wonder whatever happened to these kids. You're not gonna say, hey, we just shut down this school, LA. They're all coming your way. Please be on the lookout and make sure they're not doing the same over there U the Dallas school shut down. we went back to LA, and then my parents at that time were in Iran. And so They said, well, just come here to Iran. So we ended up, my sister and I flew to Iran. The GLP one pill you've been waiting for is now on Row. Yep, it's finally here with the same clinically proven ingredient, Now in a pill and now on Row. It's the first FDA approved GLP one pill for weight loss. att the lowest price available. That's one daily GLP one pill for big results. Now on Row Go to Rad. co slash listen to see if you qualify. RX only go to road. co slash safety for serious side effects and box warning associated with GLP ones We arrived in Iran and we lived there. My mother had a job teaching English at a school in Tehran But then she ended up putting me in the first non Hari Kristna school that I ever went to and it was Tehron American School. and these were normal people And I had never really interacted with the outside world before And so that was about two years we were there. Let me clarify what Iran was then. This is before the Revolution. this is before Homini. This is before it became the restrictive regime that it is now. It was very Western. And then actually the United States went in and screwed that up somehow. I don't have the exact History notes on it, but B many took power and immediately demanded that all women wear Burca. My mom was like, all right, you guys have to get out of there And so my mom and I went to India My sister, my dad stayed in Iran So at this point, I'm Eight years old and now Heading to India. We go to this village that's about three hours outside of Calcutta. and it's one of the holy villages in India. And there was a boys's guru Kula Ashram there and my mother was going to be the medical caretaker for the boys She wasn't like a nurse or qualified, but it's like, oh, you can figure it out So she went there to run the dispensary for this boy's school I didn't go to school And in nineteen seventy eight There was a monsoon that caused thirty foot floods. And I had been staying in an Ashram that was like above the mess haall and that was getting flooded. The mess haall was an open air building and it had these like holes. and there were so many snakes in these holes that it looked like the whole building was just like moving. Oh, it was so creepy. I sort of befriended a little mongoose because The mongoose kills the snakes So I would give it this little candy, like this rock sugar stuff because I was like, stay close. Maybe'll you'll kill the The snakes, it was pretty adventurous. And so I was moved to it was like two levels and we were gonna to see thirty feet of floods. And so I got moved to a higher building in the same room with my mother. and we're up here on the third floor of this temple building and looking out and you can see the floods rising and people are sitting on top of their hut. Ruths And she wanted me to jump right in the water from right there from the Brailing Threw me in the water. She's like, this is as good a time as any for you to learn how to swim. so My mother didn't have enough compassion to go Maybe not in this muddy snake infested, dirty cholera ridden water Maybe this isn't a good time. But no Get in the water Yeah, she didn' she did not like me I just always chalked okay, I'm different in so many ways. likeike I have red hair Nobody else in my family had red hair, so I'm weird. And then I would always just look at myself in the mirror. I'm like, why do you not fit? They never fit. and never really fit anywhere Then I thought like when I was in India, I was like, no, I'm weird because I'm white. I wasn't like all of my friends We're called third culture kids I'm sure you've heard that. t before. So It's really hard feel this kind of weird Loneliness You know what I mean? It's not kind of loneliness where you're alone, because I'm not. I have tons of these friends, like normal friends and abnormal friends and everything in between and it's beautiful but I still feel like They' just certain things are so hard to reconcile and by the this went on for quite some time, the flood. We weren't able to get out toown yet It was really, really scary and my mother ended up with Typhoid and Dysentery. I got jaundice and dysentery This went on for quite some time, the flood Toward the end when my mother had gotten really ill and then as soon as she was well enough and the water had receded enough, we got in this little boat made our way to wherever the highest ground was, got a horse buggy kind of thing that took us to the next place that took us to the train that took us to the airplane that took us to where my grandfather lived, which was Hawaii I was now nine years old. So I went to Hawaii with my mother. My mother recovered. She needed care. And I was in literal heaven for the first time in my life How to heaven, there was no morning program There was no chanting. There was a television, there was a bed It was amazing And it was definitely probably frowned upon. Obviously, my mother was like, o, this can't go on We've got to get her back to the schools So I think there was some conflict I believe my grandmother, my mother's mother specifically said to my mother Just don't marry her off when she's thirteen, which is might end up happening Wlayler Okay, C of silence breaking As we previously mentioned, Hari Krsna derives from Hinduism, and it celebrates the god Krsna, who represents divine love, joy, beauty, bliss, and devotion. Liz, you can officially break your cone of silence. You have achieved perfection. Thank you, thank you. I have leveled up. Where's my sash? Many other Hindu gods and goddesses that represent different aspects of the divine. There's Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver. Shiva, the destroyer and transformer. I L loveve Shiva. Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity. Sariswadi, goddess of wisdom, music and learning. Durga, the warrior mother goddess. Kali, goddess of time, fierce transformation, and destructor of ego. And then Ganesha, rememover of obstacles I love Ganesha. He's the one who was beheaded by Shiva, his own dad Great parenting, right? Thanks Dad. And then Shiva was like, oops So he brings him back to life, and then he sort of looks around and he reaches for the closest thing in his purview, which happens to be an elephant And he puts an elephant's head on Ganesha's body and that's why Ganesha has given all this wisdom. Sounds just as logical as Joseph Smith receiving golden plates. so I'll buy it, Liz And speaking of goddesses Let's get back Civil loss that transition. Good way to shut me up So we went to LA. and for some reason didn't workorkout. she was now looking for a guruula to drop me in Believe me She tried Detroit gw coola and then we ended up Going back to India And We reconnected with my dad and my sister. My father takes a job doing research. So he takes this job in New Jersey. We go to New Jersey, the four of us living as this very weird family not in the temple for the first time And I had never in the outside world We had a normal apartment with no furniture because we slept on the floor and we sat on the floor and later on we did end up getting a table, which was interesting. but My sister and I overheard the dentist asking my mother if she could be pregnant and she said yes. So that's when we heard that she was having this baby. so immediately following that, she was like, All right, you guys need to go back to Guruula So I was ten when I first went to that Guruula, it's called Gidanagari. It's in a rural Pennsylvania. It was on a farm they had a creek and you know, I mean so it wasn't a nightmare It certainly wasn't pleasant Again, girls lined up sleeping on the floor, you got your sleeping bag, you got your change of clothes, you do your laundry. The same very austere living conditions But it was not the level of torture that Dallas was. I mean, there's still the the abuse of Neglect by We weren't being tortured No cockroaches, no beatings for no reason whatsoever, just for the sake of it My brother was born, my parents went to Saudi Arabia for a while My sister and I were in the Pennsylvania Ashram. and then After that, my mom had gone to India And my dad became the temple president of the Maryland Temple And The summer, I was thirteen, I went to visit my dad over the summer And there was a festival in West Virginia. And I said, Hey, can I go to the festival? Be Likely I would see some of my friends from school and catch up and While I was there teen year old child. I was wearing a sary. My head was covered I was a good devotee and this random guy was like, Hey, did you see the waterfall? And this Temples on like three thousand acres West Virginia Mountainside I was like, no, I haven't seen the waterfall. He says, it come this way A friend and I were together but she dropped off the trail. I continue and he sees that we're alone, shoves me down and Um violently rapes me And we're in earshot of hundreds of people, but there's very loud music on the loudspeakers and So Nobody could hear or see us Um So He rapes me and leaves me there on the side of the road and goes back to participate in the festival And I had no idea what had just happened to me Um I didn't have words or context. I was not an overly sexualized thirteen year old. I think I would consider my brain about ten at that point because I had no concept and was not interested And no concept of men and what they were capable of and what they wanted. Of course the lectures every day of sex is bad for your mind and it takes your mind off of spiritual growth and So I had no clue, but here I am covered in blood and dirt and semen and when I'm able to it up get my feet under me, I make my way back to where I was staying and threw my clothes away and sat on the floor of the shower for as long as I possibly could and tried to wash away all of the thingsings And then I just found a bunk and went to sleep. And in the morning Somebody came and said, Hey, we're going back to Maryland So I got in the van, went back And u A woman saw me You know, wearing a saorry and's down to your feet, covered most parts of you, but my neck and face are exposed And I have bruises and bite marks all over. So she says, what happened? And I described what happened And she says, we have to tell your father? And I said, no, we do not That is a very bad idea And I really had I told myself that I was not going to share this information And he's the temple president, He's your father, He has to know Immediately, my father Let anngry And he called the Minister of Education who said that I should be made an example of who not to be. I am the poster child of where trying not to raise in our girls And they immediately alerted the West Virginia Temple who immediately put that guy on a flight to India to avoid any cononsequence So here I am. I'm going to pay the consequence. So the consequences of getting raped are first of all, a vow of silence indefinitely which lasted until January. This was the beginning of September So Vow silence and I was in the kitchen cookingking from four AM to eight PM every day for The whole temple I remember I would sneak into cooler in the kitchen, we had a walk in cooler just to talk to someone my sister sayays something I've never not been a chatty Cathy. So I Really really just needed somebody to Told me And tell me that It wasn't my fault And u that I wasn't Dirty And my mother was in India at the time and she flew back in January. And I thought, o, I'm gonna finally get that. Glove. And I started to run up to her when she got to the temple and she put her hand out and she's like You discussed me. And I'm always shocked and also not att the same time So there was never going to be any reprieve And She says Ive found a husband for you and you will be married in one month And so the next week we got on a plane and she trafficked me to India and we Fued to India when to the village in Bndoin And she introduced me to this man who had agreed to marry me And the idea was that We needed to marry me off before other people found out that I was impure and painted the guru or the temple president arranges your marriage. this Dynamic The guru decides for you what Your life is every single bit of it where you should live. Wh you should marry Having children what service you should be doing So they decide You're never going to make the godhead if you don't submit completely. And those who submit, those who really do follow exactly what the guru says They're the glorified ones. They're the good devotees They' are the ones that get the cookies she would have asked the guru My guru was Bavananda, who was a pedophile Boys literally just said his name fucking sue me, I don't care. He's a disgusting despicable horrible human and