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The Kamalla Rose Kaur Column

Lapis, Carnelian and Jade
Kamalla Rose Kaur Sun Feb 17

People, particularly from my own culture, often wonder how I can believe in God after having been bamboozled into a cult for twenty years of my life. But I have been very religious my whole life even though, or maybe because, I was raised by intellectual, agnostic/atheist parents. I feel my life has been a bit over-dramatic so far, but it has been God's Plan for me nonetheless. I have always experienced a sense of destiny down through my life.

For instance, I met my friend GuruBir Singh one beautiful California day at a member's house in Santa Cruz, California sometime in the 1980s. GuruBir Singh and his wife GurSiri Kaur had just moved into the Monterey cult-sangat from the group's Los Angeles headquarters. They had been directors of one of the main Ashrams down there.

I will always remember meeting GuruBir Singh Khalsa for the very first time this life, though I don't remember much about anything else that day other than it was a lovely and magical and languid Santa Cruz afternoon, and the garden was sweet and the food was good.

Everyone at this party was wearing all white and so was I, and so was GuruBir Singh. We both had white turbans. We both had white kurtas (long shirts), white cummerbunds (waist bands), and white "dars" (cotton leggings). We had basically the same face, except he had a beard. We were both clearly redheads and Irish. We could have passed for blood relatives and over the years we have come to consider ourselves real siblings of destiny. We also had the same basic body type, and the same sense of humor - but what we both noticed at the time was "lapis, carnelian and jade".

I can see, in hindsight, that GuruBir Singh and I looked like little male and female cult salt and pepper shakers - but strangely we both had declared our individuality, making ourselves slightly distinct from the rest of the members, in exactly the same way that day! We both were wearing three strands of beads (maalaas) around our necks - one lapis, one carnelian and one jade. We spoke at the time of this sense of "fate" in this synchronistic coincidence.

O my, we were so innocent back then, and into being "woo, woo", but we were right. God had a special plan for GuruBir Singh and me this life.

GuruSiri Kaur and I hit it right off too, and we soon were best friends. GuruSiri Kaur was a street smart, delightfully mouthy, totally attractive and very devoted woman.

Both GuruBir Singh and GuruSiri Kaur were straighter cult-members than I was. I was firmly a "Fringy", not fully cult-approved. But, looking back, there is no doubt about it that all three of us were the best of what cult living was all about. And it wasn't just us either. There were all these really bright people in the cult back then. They were real and sincere and exciting to be around. After all we didn't know we were in a cult. We all thought we had the answer. We were sincere and devotional - arrogant even.

It was GuruBir Singh who, at the end of the 1980s, first read the popular psychology books that applied the dysfunctional family model to businesses and organizations.

"Kamalla, you have got to read this stuff and write about it! They are describing some of the strange things that are happening in our group so clearly," he told me.

I read the books and GuruBir Singh was right! So, of course, I wrote that fateful series of four articles, and they were read by cult members everywhere. I was instantly famous, maybe even infamous, within the group. And I, of course, openly credited my friend GuruBir Singh for giving me such a great idea.

We now fully believe that this is why GuruBir Singh, instead of some other cult member, was attacked and framed for a crime he didn't commit.

Deprogramming

Had we known about the crime and the fraud and the sexua| misconduct going on behind the scenes in our spiritual group, we would have left and taken as many with us as we could.

And, in truth, when we found out that we were in a cult and crime syndicate we did leave and we took as many with us as we could.

For GuruBir Singh and GuruSiri Kaur (and me, as their friend and comrade) this happened it a very startling and dramatic way. This is how GuruBir Singh describes it:

"It was a Friday in downtown Monterey, California. It was before lunch and my wife GurSiri and I were catching up on our work in anticipation of the weekend. I glanced up to see a face flash into and out of the doorway. That was strange, but then four police officers and two district attorney investigators barged into the office blocking any escape path and limiting any personal space. They told GurSiri to 'step away from the computer, NOW!' and then they pushed her to the back of the office by me.

We were both scared to death and totally confused. 'You know why we are here!' barked investigator Stryker. 'You know why we are here and you are not going to get away with it!' investigator Stryker exclaimed as she ordered my arrest and I was hand cuffed and paraded through the building and into a waiting police squad car."

GuruBir Singh was framed and arrested for being the "King Pin" in an international, telemarketing fraud ring. There were supposed to be three busts (which probably would have brought the whole cult down at the beginning of the 1990s as an organized crime ring) - Monterey, Los Angeles and Espanola, but the Rodney King riots broke out in Los Angeles and so only the Monterey bust happened.

One thing I remember from those traumatic times is how the Monterey papers and TV local News were full of the story. GuruBir Singh had been active in fighting for the Sikh's right to wear turbans instead of motorcycle helmets in California so the TV stations had lots of footage of GuruBir Singh, and they used it.

This cult fraud ring had specifically bilked the elderly. Two old people died of heart attacks when they found out they had been swindled. Poignantly, Guru Siri Kaur worked professionally with seniors. She lost her job, of course.

It seemed to me at the time that the whole town of Monterey was in an uproar over the story. The kids couldn't face their schoolmates. Heckling of all the cult families in Monterey was intense, and the shunning of GuruSiri Kaur and GuruBir Singh - and me for standing with them - by cult members was complete.

This is what GuruBir Singh says about being suddenly "deprogrammed" from the cult by the District Attorney of Monterey:

"Of all of the ways to graduate from a cult, getting arrested for a felony should be the lowest on your list. Oh, sure the newspaper and television spots can be exciting, and when your children go swimming at the local pool other kids will say 'Isn't that your Dad on TV?'

It's one thing to actually hear the authorities 'bugging' your phone calls but to walk into an attorney's office, oh yea your attorney's office now that you need one, only to have him spin around his computer monitor and ask you if you know, or are associated with, this man? And it turns out to be the Foreign Secretary and head of all East Coast Operations for the organization that you yourself are so proudly associated with, who has the same middle and last name as you, and he's on the computer screen because he was smuggling tons of marijuana and trying to run guns and weapons. Well, if your attorney is jumping to conclusions you can imagine what the prosecuting attorney is doing.

I still laugh at the time that we were called in to sit down at a table in the courthouse because the District Attorney had requested a meeting. I was scared to death. I'll bet there were ten people sitting at that big table and all eyes were on me. The District Attorney told me that the Mafia had nothing over on this organization and then proceeded to lay it all out for me from A to Z. My throat was dry, my ears were ringing and my heart was pounding. I was shocked and horrified.

The thought 'Oh my God, what is Yogiji going to say when he hears all of this is going on? He's going to be really upset!' raced through my mind.

And then the District Attorney led this 'crime wave' to within one 'hand shake' of The Master Mind - Yogi ji, my spiritual teacher. All they wanted at that moment was to close the gap and they wanted to know if I was the person to do it.

Now it was they who were utterly stunned and confused in disbelief to experience first hand from a member of a cult that I had no prior knowledge that these crimes had been committed, that I was involved in the personal spiritual development afforded by the cult and that Yogiji was successful in keeping the cult members in the dark as to the dastardly deeds.

Did I say that I grew up in a sheltered environment? If all you do is go to work, classes, lectures and Gurdwara then there's no time left to view the darkness. "Oh I get it, that was the plan all along wasn't it?"


All this happened almost a decade ago. I chose to stand by GuruBir's side, even though I received a threatening phone call from one of Yogiji's bodyguards. In time GuruBir Singh proved his innocence but it was not easy.

"I learned a valuable lesson in American Courts, public servants believe that if you wear a "Mickey Mouse" hat and you sing the Musketeer Theme Song, and you are a card carrying member of the Mickey Mouse Club then whatever Mickey Mouse does is about you too, prima facia! You are guilty through association and condone the activities that are carried out as long as you continue your association."

Over the decade since leaving the cult and all that excitement, GuruBir Singh and GurSiri Kaur and I have tried to put it behind us, and we have prayed for the feeling of danger to lift. For a long time we didn't know how to talk about it. We didn't want to talk about it. Thus we lost track of each other.

But in the summer of 2000, I discovered that other members of our old cult had created a web page to expose the criminal activities and the terrible abuse that so many experienced in our cult.

I immediately attempted to find GuruBir Singh and GuruSiri Kaur but they had changed their names and moved. I wrote about their story as best as I could, while praying to the "waheguru" that they contact me. I knew that not only was GuruBir Singh's story important but that he was in possession of court documents that Yogiji had worked hard to have never come to light. Getting them up onto the web and getting our story told would greatly help many of us former cult members feel safe at last.

http://yogibhajan.tripod.com/

Then, in fall of 2000 it happened. I came up online to check my email and there was a letter waiting for me. I burst into tears reading the subject, "Lapis, Carnelian and Jade."

Now GuruBir Singh and I co-host an online forum anyone can visit as a guest and read his whole story and explore many other cult member's sad, humorous and shocking experiences as well.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/KamallaRose/start

People, particularly from my own culture, wonder how I can believe in God, given I was so bamboozled, betrayed, threatened, endangered and conned by a cult this life, but I have always had this strong sense of divine guidance. I was deeply searching for God this life and I made a mistake and joined a cult when I was very young and vulnerable at age 18.

Yet it was all part of God's Plan. Just as GuruBir Singh and I are siblings of destiny symbolized by three semiprecious gems - lapis, carnelian and jade.

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