English on Roxana-Mălina Chirilă

A post about hobbits in engineering

Sun, 06 Dec 2020 17:25:27 +0000

The nature of belonging to a small culture is such that, when a friend of the same native language writes a blog post in English, you respond in English. Then you continue the dialogue in English, regardless of your level of fluency and comfort.

Welcome to digital colonialism. We speak English or we’re marginalized.

I’ve just read Dorin Lazăr’s „I never felt represented in C++ conferences, and that’s OK„. I also watched parts of one of the diversity inclusion panel he references, and he’s right to criticize it.

Reinventing the wheel

I’m not an engineer, but I was this close to becoming one. In school, I was on a hard sciences track, with an emphasis on physics, math and computer programming. And I was, in short, pretty damned good.

I was always encouraged by my family and teachers to pursue a career in science; or rather, it was always assumed that the only possible career I could have was math-related. I was literally unaware that you could do something that didn’t involve math. Physics? Programming? Robotics? I could follow my dreams!

But… I’m not an engineer. I’m a philologist, which nobody saw coming, least of all me. By the end of high school, I was burned out and absolutely convinced I was a failure, so I wanted to fail on my own terms. Let’s put a pin in that.

The humanities have a bad reputation; they’re considered „useless” and „a waste of time” in general, and in my family this was no different. When I gave up computer programming to study languages, I was informed that my grandparents wept in despair over my future.

I can’t blame people for thinking the humanities are useless, because I, too, thought they were. Becoming a philologist felt a bit like indulging a whim. How could it be useful, aside from teaching? And, to be fair, I didn’t realize the value of my humanistic education until after graduation, when I watched engineers discuss social issues, and found their talks naive and superficial.

The humanities help you become a deeper, better thinker, but that’s not immediately quantifiable or recognizable. You don’t feel your level of intelligence changing (and indeed it doesn’t), but one day you realize you can tackle „soft” issues in a subtler, more comprehensive manner than your non-humanist friends.

The humanities offer both an exposure to things that have previously been thought, and the tools to do some thinking of your own. Alas, just like some programmers can’t code a simple foobar if you cut their access to stack overflow, you’ll find humanists unable to think. It’s human nature that, no matter the domain, some people thrive and others lag behind; no domain’s potential is revealed by the worst examples of those who studied it.

But let’s get back to our sheep, as Dorin Lazăr likes saying in his post.

The parts of the panel I watched had little to say, aside from communicating the desire for a friendlier, less conflict-ridden environment to work in, and the desire and need for a nurturing community. All issues mentioned were broad: racism, sexism, transphobia. Solutions, on the other hand, were tailored to those who participated in the panel.

I’ve seen _all _of this before. The panel does not:

inform us about new issues – we were already aware of these topics;
inform us about specific issues these people have gone through – they have avoided giving details about their personal experience (understandable);
throw a new light on old topics – there is nothing I have heard here that I hadn’t heard before;
go into depth about the potential cause of these issues („white men” is not a cause);
offer wide solutions for these issues.

I now know that I can call Gabriel Dos Reis either „Gabby” (not sure about the spelling, sorry), „professor Dos Reis” or „GDR”, which would be great, but this doesn’t tell me much about how I should handle new names in general. What about a Siobhain? Or, if you’re not Romanian, what on Earth are you supposed to do with my name, Chirilă?

Getting names wrong can be offensive, but what do we do so names aren’t gotten wrong? Dos Reis decided to call himself „GDR” and be rid of the issue – that’s fine, for him. But what do you do on a company-wide scale?

Here’s an idea: make greeting cards where you spell them in the international phonetic alphabet. Here’s another idea: create an internal, really basic, who’s who website, where everyone can add a short audio recording of themselves pronouncing their own name, so everyone else can practice pronunciation, if so inclined. Here’s a caveat: get used to people mispronouncing your name, because you’ll never educate the entire world about you.

I admire the fact that software engineers have set out to Make Things Better, and that they realize that things can be improved. But realizing there’s an issue and solving the issue are two very different things. And, watching the panel, it became clear to me that engineers do not have the tools necessary for enacting real change.

They’ve picked up some of the large topics discussed in the humanities today, revolving around identity politics, but not the finer points of discourse. And that’s, well, not surprising. It’s hard to find a very good software engineer. It’s hard to find a very good humanist. Finding both in the same person is going to be a struggle.

But here’s my view on the matter: some things in social life are pretty much like engineering. You can push this way or that, but you work within a set of constraints, and no matter how much you hate those constraints, no matter how deeply you wish that those constraints weren’t there, or were different, you have to work with them.

Yet you have to work with them. In my admittedly limited coding experience, crying and asking my code „WHY won’t you do the things I want, you’re SUPPOSED to” doesn’t fix things. In my wider experience with people, the same holds true.

Who are we? A narrative

Due to personal inclination, as well as by accident, I’ve been following identity discourse on and off for some time now, and I can’t help but notice the deep US-centrism of most of it.

America has its own set of specific issues, but it also has a tendency to navel-gaze to the extreme. It is the Bucharest of the world: it is almost surprised that other places exist and have an unrelated life of their own. I was recently watching a documentary on the history of video games which mentioned The Atari International Asteroids Tournament, which was, in fact, a „nationwide event”.

To me, this is hilarious.

It’s also a good reminder that one is never outside of the world, looking in. Stepping outside your area of comfort to look at things from a different perspective is difficult; but stepping outside of all cultures to view the world in an objective manner is downright impossible. We all live somewhere. We all have experiences that shape us. We don’t exist contextless.

Our context is what we experience directly, as well as what we’re told; it’s our personality, and it’s situation. We’re mixes of all sorts of elements, and culture is definitely a big part of that, because it informs how we react to situations around us.

Dorin says he doesn’t feel represented by the white men in C++ conferences, but that as a teenager he felt a deep affinity with black culture through the music of Tupac, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. He also felt represented by women, and Star Trek’s Geordi La Forge.

I’ve had a similar experience – while I was never a fan of rap or Star Trek, my favorite childhood books were adventure novels. I didn’t bother tracking the gender of the protagonist, because gender meant little to me; whereas I was similar to adventurous spirits, and dissimilar from my non-adventurous classmates. Neither boys, nor girls were interested in fighting grizzly bears in the Wild West, but fictional characters were!

Starting out in the world, both Dorin and I were blissfully ignorant of discourse regarding race and gender. Later in life, I was discovered the hard way that boys and girls are supposed to be different and I am a Defective Girl. I do not dress properly. I do not behave properly. Is this true – am I defective? Doubtfully. Did being told that I don’t correspond have a lasting impact? Yes.

Who we are is not a stable entity, but more of a narrative. We tell stories to ourselves about who we are, what we want, why we do the things we do. Dorin discovered himself in rap music because it spoke about growing up in a bad neighborhood, not having opportunities, being poor and having the system screw you over in the favor of a small elite of bastards. Therefore he was black.

I was uninterested in being pretty at the expense of adventure, I was socially uncourteous the way no girl should be, I was not ditzy, and I was good at math – in order to not be a girl, I shunned girlish activities. I am still uncomfortable with being told I am female, because I associate it with people wanting something from me, be it free praise, sex, cleaning services, or more convenient behavior on my side. „But you’re a woman” – them’s fighting words.

And we all have some larger narratives which we’ve grown in and which we either identify with, or fight against. If Dorin’s missing something in his post, it’s the fact that his narratives are not general narratives. And just because a narrative is false, or harmful, it doesn’t mean you’re not influenced by it in some way.

Sometimes, hobbits are more human than humans

If you’ve read of watched „Lord of the Rings”, you’ll have noticed that Gandalf the wizard is awe-inspiring, Aragorn is admiringly noble, but it’s the hobbits that are somehow more human than others. If high heroism is something you can aspire to, hobbits are people who enjoy good food, a bit of fun, a lot of comfort and living the good life. They can be brave, strong and powerful in their own way, but give hobbits a choice and they’ll choose a good meal rather than burdening responsibilities, high politics and taking over the world.

**Now, hobbits don’t really exist, which is why it’s so easy to empathize with them. **Hobbits are not our neighbors. We don’t compare ourselves to them through difference. There’s nobody telling us that brunch is a hobbit sort of meal, not a human meal. There’s nobody telling us that, by contrast with hobbits, we are high and noble human beings who must self-sacrifice for the world, and we can’t take the day off to eat, drink, and be merry, because that would make us halflings.

In other words, we don’t have a narrative about hobbits as opposed to us. They are not truly Other, so we feel free to see ourselves in them. We’re free to choose how we relate to them and we’re free to decide whether they speak to us or not. And at the same time, hobbits are fictional, so we discover them with more openness about their culture, knowing that we don’t know it.

You might have heard that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing – let me give you a larger context for that quote, which comes from Alexander Pope’s „An Essay on Criticism„:

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

Knowing a little bit about something is dangerous, because you think you know quite a lot. You need more knowledge to supplant the impression that you know things – when, in fact, you don’t.

In Dorin’s case, he knows something of black America, but America is far away, and we probably don’t know much about it. On the other hand, Eastern Europe is far away, and Americans know next to nothing about us. They are unaware, for example, that we are what Jean Rhys called „white cockroaches” in „Wide Sargasso Sea” (I believe I’m obligated to tell you this is an affiliate link). We’re not quite white enough for the rich white, who dislike us, and not quite worthy of our cause being taken up as minorities, either. We, too, are Other. We’re too lowly for white people, too white for people of color. And that shows in our discourse about ourselves, but let’s not get distracted.

They’re taking the hobbits to engineering!

Back to our sheep (Dorin’s right, the sheep thing is fun in English).

The problem of inclusivity can’t be solved for everyone. I think it was Patricia Aas who said something along the lines that inclusivity is when you go to work and feel happy to be there. My question was: is the happiness a prerequisite to feeling included, or a consequence? Because the two are very different beasts. What makes Patricia Aas happy might be inclusivity, but what makes me happy is when I don’t have to fill in forms. If inclusivity is being happy, inclusivity, for me, would be a lack of forms to be filled – and that can’t be the right definition of inclusivity.

To put it in more engineering-like terms, in order to achieve change, you need to figure out what your goals and constraints are.

Let’s start with the constraints:

an incredibly large number of social groups
limited mental resources
limited physical resources
conflicting needs

So let’s start with the number of social groups to be included – you have race (America), culture (outside America), sexual minorities, illness and disability etc. Go into things a bit deeper, and you’ve got more cultures than you have countries on Earth, and many of them can come into conflict.

Politeness in America is shaking hands with collaborators; good service comes with a smile. But shaking hands is bad in Japan, and service with an American smile looks a bit deranged in Romania. Add personal preference, and it’s impossible to cater to everyone.

Aside from that, people in general have limited resources when it comes to adapting to others. For friends, we are willing to expend time and energy to learn about them in detail, but when it comes to strangers, putting in the same effort is not feasible.

You need a solution for the unknown. For the strangers you encounter for the first time. For the hobbits, as it were.

Hence, politeness.

Politeness is a way to interact with people you don’t know in such a way that everybody leaves the interaction without offence, and with possible positive feelings.

Inclusivity needs something of the same: a solution that, while not 100% universal, will work for most of those involved. What do you need as a baseline? How do you get that?

I could discern a number of problems regarding inclusivity, from that panel:

getting people interested in the domain
getting people into companies themselves (I think?)
getting people to stay/return
creating a positive environment for those involved

All of this is doable, but goals and approaches are needed.

As far as getting people into companies is concerned, I’m a fan of blind entry tests. If I assess a test and don’t know your name, and have never seen your picture, and I’m going by your initials or a randomly generated ID number, I won’t be influenced by unconscious biases.

Otherwise, remember that thing we pinned far above? About how I switched from sciences to philology?

By the end of high school, I was burned out and absolutely convinced I was a failure, so I wanted to fail on my own terms.

We’re coming back to that, and to the issue of narrative. Here it is: what do we tell ourselves? What do we believe? Looking back, knowing what I know now, I was wrong. But I didn’t see it that way at the time.

If you want to change the domain, you need to change the outlook on it, both from the outside, and the inside. You need to tune the stories, as it were.

Perhaps you can do this by having kids code and realize it’s cool. Perhaps you can create meta conferences explaining how programming how foobar leads to Facebook, so it’s all more approachable. This is not something I can decide as an outsider: it needs people more in the know to see where the story breaks down.

When it comes to people already interested in the domain and creating a positive atmosphere, you can use rules that function like politeness – or that are politeness version 1.02: find things that everyone can agree signify benevolence. You know the sort: „hello”, „please”, „thank you”, things that are carriers of social meaning. Find the problem points, eliminate them: we don’t talk about the finer points of mummifying a corpse during fancy dinners, we can probably avoid asking people how they have sex during work hours.

But this needs asking questions and deliberately establishing rules. What can everyone do for the sake of getting along? What are you willing to sacrifice in the name of others feeling comfortable? What is the common ground you can find?

I can’t answer these questions for people in software development; my context is different. But these are questions that need asking: what is _important _to you? How can you achieve it? Is what you are asking for feasible? What about if 100 other people ask for similar things? If it feels like it’s a bit much, is there a way to achieve better results by employing different tactics?

Solutions need to be simple and not very personalized; the office hermit should know what to do without needing to go through documentation. They need to be applicable to unknown situations. They need to be not stellar and not something that makes you happy, but something you can live with.

But to get to those solutions, you need to really look into what’s going on with you and the others in your group and stare at the issues from a bunch of different angles until they start arranging into something that you can fix. Perhaps what you want is not for Jewish and Muslim people to get their holidays off by default, allowing people to take Christmas off or not depending on inclination, but not losing anything if they don’t. Perhaps it’s less important that you’re happy and that your identity is embraced at work, and it’s more important that you work 6 hours/day in a polite environment that isn’t very stressful, so you can pursue happiness in your personal life.

There are many possible answers, but you need to formulate the questions properly first.

Gizoogle + Gregorian Bivolaru

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 11:07:49 +0000

Because of Stephen Fry, I ended up on Gizoogle.net. It appears to be a search engine that takes Google results and turns them into their gangster-speak versions. It’s an online translator of sorts, but with magnificently hilarious results.

Stephen Fry results on Gizoogle were really funny.

Gregorian Bivolaru results made me laugh my arse off. I wonder if the official Yogaesoteric website will issue an outraged cry against Gizoogle XD

Here’s the main page of the gregorianbivolaru.com website:

Da Romanian Yoga mackdaddy Home page – Introduction

This joint raps bout tha case of Gregorian Bivolaru, tha mentor of a big-ass spiritual movement up in Romania. Da organization he dropped is called MISA, tha Movement fo’ Spiritual Integration up in Absolute, n’ its main focus is on tha practice of yoga n’ meditation.

Pimp Yoga Gregorian Bivolaru be a well-known yoga & tantra mackdaddy, wit over 35 books published, tha lyricist of over 100 articlez on yoga, spirituality, love, tantra, horny-ass continence n’ meditation, co thug n’ translator of nuff other published shit. Cuz of its effectiveness, tha yoga n’ tantra system taught by Pimp Yoga Gregorian Bivolaru has been implemented up in over 30 ghettos up in Europe, Uptown America, Downtown America, Asia, Africa n’ even Australia yo. Dude is currently tha Spiritual Mentor of MISA yoga school n’ nuff sista schools around tha ghetto dat is embracin tha same stupid-ass teachin system. Many competent yoga & tantra mackdaddys was trained under his fuckin lil’ direct guidance, based on tha ancient yoga knowledge n’ his own underground experience. Da spiritual school dat Pimp Yoga Gregorian Bivolaru has dropped has mo’ than 40.000 actizzle students ghettowide n’ hundreadz of thousandz of sympathizers.

Ever since tha beginnin of his yoga practice back up in tha 70’s, Mista Muthafuckin Bivolaru has been tha object of constant surveillizzle n’ persecution by tha totalitarian communist regime. Recently, a cold-ass lil court decision aknowledged dat Gregorian Bivolaru was sentenced n’ jailed fo’ polistical reasons durin tha communist regime. Even afta tha fall of tha communizzle up in 1989, Gregorian Bivolaru continues ta be persecuted fo’ his beliefs, tha authoritizzles managin (with tha support of mass media) ta turn his ass tha fuck into a outcast person, marginalized by tha Romanian society, together wit all MISA yoga students.

Da peak of dis abuses n’ persecutions against Gregorian Bivolaru n’ MISA was reached on 18 March 2004, when tha authoritizzles – prosecutors, five-o, gendarmes, secret skillz – started a unprecedented intimidation campaign.

Troops was busted ta private housez of MISA yoga practitioners. Muthafuckas was brutalized, threatened at gunpoint, underground belongings n’ documents was confiscated, false declarations was obtained by force, crimes, witnesses n’ suckas was fabricated.

A warrant of arrest was issued on 31 May 2004 against Mista Muthafuckin Bivolaru whoz ass decided ta hide away, convinced already dat schmoooove muthafucka has no chances fo’ a gangbangin’ fair trial up in Romania, n’ followin two straight-up attempts on his fuckin life.

[…]

„Da prosecutor now investigates organized crime n’ human traffic cases concernin a shitload of tha MISA members. One has instituted tha measure of „insurin arrestment” on 70 buildings fo’ coverin tha damages dat they fronted. Y’all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka! Officially, one has noted that, under tha cover of courses fo’ initiation up in tha yoga practices, tha investigated peeps attracted, manipulated n’ exploited tha participants (of whom nuff was minor) ta they own underground interest, thus endangerin they psycho pimpment. Nevertheless, from tha contradictory data published by tha media, there is only 8 suckas. Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass. Some of tha investigated peeps was busted ta trial. It aint nuthin but tha nick nack patty wack, I still gots tha bigger sack fo’ realz. A straight-up unusual thang fo’ Romania, the entire indictment was made hood by tha penal prosecution body, which among violatin tha muthafuckin rights ta a equitable trial n’ tha protection of tha investigated peeps’ private life, may be yet another element fo’ tha manipulation of hood opinion.

[…]

Da aim of dis joint is ta present tha detailz of tha whole campaign against Gregorian Bivolaru, a playa of pimped out character, wisdom, kindnizz n’ profundity. For almost 35 muthafuckin years dat schmoooove muthafucka has been tha sucka of obstinizzle, yet ungrounded, persecution, n’ these documents will present you wit the TRUTH.

Source: http://gizoogle.net/xfer.php?link=http://www.gregorianbivolaru.com/

[Note: Of course this is all in jest and good fun.]
[Here’s the first paragraph of my „Translator Story”, via Gizoogle:

Da Translator

Malena started doin thangs on tha third of April, a heady Aries n’ a talented translator. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass. Biatch only waited fo’ so long before she put her foot down n’ took charge of her destiny, ridin it like a cold-ass lil lil pimp of tha sea would a thugged-out dolphin.]

Article About Me on Yogaesoteric.net (translation)

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:53:20 +0000

My note: The following article was published on the Yogaesoteric.net website on the 8th of March 2013. It’s a response to a conference in which I talked about MISA, a Romanian yoga group which is spreading in various other countries, and its leader, Gregorian Bivolaru. The conference was held at the meeting of the anti-cult organization FECRIS in Perpignan, France, in October 2012. You can find the written conference on this very blog.

As a side note, I spoke freely during the conference, which means that any recorded audio/video version is going to differ slightly from the written one. However, the basics are the same.

Unfortunately, the author writing this article for the MISA official website, Yogaesoteric.net, only read my impressions of the trip to Perpignan and not my actual conference, which means he missed the opportunity to offer a reply to the issues that I really raised. The author still pretends he read it, though, which I find to be delightfully ironic in some corners.

This translation appeared out of a desire to share this article with some of my foreign friends and acquaintances, as well as with interested parties. I searched far and wide for relevant quotes to demonstrate MISA standing points on aliens, the Apocalypse and so forth, gathering them from wherever I could. I find that the following article neatly demonstrates some of the points I was trying to make during my FECRIS conference. I hereby allow any interested parties to reproduce it or use it as they see fit, with the note that I would appreciate it if they offered a link to it (or credits). The credit/link, however, are not strictly necessary.

I have provided in-text notes concerning some very punctual issues that I wanted cleared. I will eventually provide an actual commentary on this. The oddity of the text and the run-on sentences are features of the original Gruia-written article.

**********************~

The Slanderers of Our Yoga School Attempt to Discredit the Planetary Saving Program No Apocalypse (I)

They Are Attempting to Bring MISA to the Attention of International Organizations Known for Their Abuse Against Authentic Spiritual Groups

by Călin Gruia

Roxana Chirilă, aged 24, translator and former MISA student, published several tendentious articles on her blog, in which she brings false and unfounded accusations against our yoga school. Chirilă claims to be a victim of our yoga school, but fails to bring any real evidence in support of her shameless, false accusations.
As is common for those in the tiny group of ridiculous slanderers of the MISA yoga school, Chirilă does not fail to use the sleazy, unscrupulous methods of „media clowns” such as Cecilia Tiz or the dog-lawyer Rapcea. What is particularly grave, however, is that we are currently faced with an attempt to discredit our yoga school by cataloging it as a cult because it initiated the planetary saving program No Apocalypse! Considering its importance for the future of our planet, we believe that it is necessary to sanction the aberrations launched by Roxana Chirilă by offering a few logical and pertinent observations.

According to the declarations made on her personal blog, Chirilă attended the yoga course for seven-eight years. It would appear that in 2011, the translator quit and started, instead, to discredit and slander the MISA yoga school. We aren’t surprised by the fact that Chirilă associated herself with Cecilia Tiz, who has recently been condemned for calumny by a German court. In the summer of 2011, the former student Chirilă participated alongside sweet Cecilia in a sensationalist tabloid TV show in which they slandered our yoga school. In that show, Chirilă’s former yoga colleagues recognized her behind a „camouflage” done in poor taste and they were horrified by her hypocrisy and by the phantasmagorical lies that she spouted into the microphone.

On her personal blog, Chirilă laments, saying that she’s a victim of the MISA yoga school, but, aside from that, she is the one who, with humongous impertinence, attacks, discredits and slanders our yoga school. Although her slandering articles bring great prejudice against the image of our yoga school, Chirilă doesn’t bother bringing any palpable proof in support of the ineptitude and dirt with which she splatters the image of the MISA yoga school, basing her accusations only on the fact that people listen too readily to gossip and allow themselves to be filled with demoniac doubts even if the accusations lack logic and basis.

For example, in one of the texts that the translator posted on her blog, Chirilă describes her visit at a meeting of an anti-cult organization in France. The story happened in the autumn of 2012, when the former yoga student would have been invited as a witness to speak about MISA, which would be – in the distorted and confused view of the former student Chirilă, a cult.
Aside from the absurd fact (as any person with intelligence and common sense can see) that someone who was a student of letters until very recently, thus having absolutely no training in psychology or sociology, proclaims herself a cult expert, what is also revolting is the way in which so-called anti-cult organizations use such shady, ill-meaning and lying people in their fight against authentic spirituality.

Actually, there’s already a notoriety around the activity of some anti-cult organizations, such as FECRIS, or the French MIVILUDES, who, under the guise of a social battle they lead against cults and sects are actually leading a 21st century witch hunt against authentic spirituality.
Aside from the so-called „good” intentions that some of the anti-cult organizations proclaim, the gross way in which these organizations violate human rights and liberties in their rush to repress, violently and entirely unfairly, all spiritual minorities is already notorious, both in Europe and across the ocean. A majority of the researchers in this domain from all over the world noticed that the French anti-cult system is extremely suppressive, this position being pointed out every year by Asma Jahangir, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Supervision of Human Rights [translator’s note: Wikipedia says United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief.]

Aside from the cults and sects that have already been recognized as dangerous for society, some elitist groups of occult interests (such as the satanic cult of freemasonry) use anti-cult organizations to control groups or associations of people who choose to live according to beneficial and harmonious spiritual and moral values, which our human society, in its current form, has lost in the storm of so-called „technological development”.

The position adopted by the former student Chirilă against our yoga school obliges us to remind everyone, and especially those who aren’t in the know, that the MISA yoga school hasn’t been, isn’t and (we believe) will never be a cult. Moreover, we find it necessary to underline that although the MISA yoga school has been continuously subjected, from its founding up until now, to a true media lynching and to immeasurable abuse and injustice from the Romanian State, our enemies have never found legal incriminating evidence because it simply doesn’t exist.
Because of this, one of the abject types of accusation used by the enemies of our yoga school to discredit its image is the slandering accusation that MISA is, actually, a cult. Although there are countless pieces of evidence that would completely dispel this false accusation, such as the detailed study made by the priest Karl Erik Nylund, the greatest cult expert, still, the rigorous research which demonstrates that the MISA yoga school does not have a cult-like quality is disregarded by the enslaved Romanian media, because politics dictates that MISA should be continuously discredited in front of Romanians.

Certainly, if those who wanted to condemn MISA at any cost had had at least one piece of solid evidence regarding the false and slandering accusations which they bring against MISA or against the yoga professor Gregorian Bivolaru, there would be no need for unstable and ill-intended people such as Chirilă, Rapcea or Tiz to parade themselves in the tabloid media to discredit the MISA yoga school in front of public opinion.

Several replies we consider to be necessary to dismantle the series of insinuations, slanders and aberrant accusations made by former student Chirilă, on the occasion of her abject and slandering conference in France

Last autumn, Chirilă participated in a FECRIS meeting in France, which was centered on cult visions of the so-called Biblical Apocalypse [translator’s note: Inaccurate. The theme was the Apocalypse in general, not the Biblical Apocalypse]. Seeing that some cults such as Jehova’s Witnesses are very attached to the idea of Apocalypse, to the end of the world and to the fact that only the members of those groups will be saved from an imminent and catastrophic death (which will happen for all mankind), we believe it to be necessary to draw one’s attention the the difference which exists between the way in which such cults see the Apocalypse, compared to the point of view of the MISA yoga school.

The style in which Chirilă’s so-called conference is written is manipulating and insidious, the former student spouting several aberrations to demonstrate the so-called association of the MISA yoga school with those cults which feel threatened by a possible Apocalypse and the „centers” of which gravitate around the fear of humanity’s total destruction and the salvation of those who „do what they must” alone, as the former student affirms. The forced association with this pessimistic perspective was based on the fact that our yoga school initiated the program No Apocalypse! From this point of view, we find it important to mention that, first of all, the program of planetary saving No Apocalypse is not compulsory for anyone who participates in the courses of our yoga school and the activity of our school does not center at all around a „fear of the Apocalypse”. [translator’s note: Incidentally, I never claimed the opposite]
Rather, we could say that due to the effects of the systematic practice of the yoga techniques offered through our courses, many human beings choose to overcome their egocentric attitude and their preoccupation with personal welfare alone, responding to, each according to their own possibilities, numerous beneficial calls, such as the one that pertains to applying the Supreme and Efficient Method.

Moreover, the Supreme and Efficient Method can be done by anybody who has faith in GOD and who wishes to convince him/herself of the miraculous effects of this method, even if that person isn’t or was never interested in yoga. Even this profoundly significant aspect on its own represents overwhelming proof of the fact that MISA is not a cult.

Considering the profound planetary transformations taking place during this time, which can be observed by anyone gifted with clarity and common sense, many students of our yoga school embraced the practice of the Supreme and Efficient Method, not because they believe they are heroes, as Chirilă insidiously affirms, but because any man who has a harmonious, beneficial, divinely oriented lifestyle can understand the truth lying behind the aphorism, „to know and fail to act is the supreme cowardice”.
It’s worth mentioning that, considering the current horrible spiritual decline of humanity, it is even more praiseworthy that within our school yoga is practiced in a profound manner, based on a vast and wise spiritual vision. The fruit of this practice is meant to make every individual feel responsible for the society he lives in, and this permits thousands of human beings to wish to become involved in the practice of such a pure and harmonious method.

The Supreme and Efficient Method is based on the third prophecy from Fatima, which contains a true apocalyptic warning made by the Virgin Mary which could, in the end, hold true if humanity doesn’t transform spiritually as soon as possible.
This prophecy truly exists, it was made in 1917, hundreds of thousands of people bore witness to the miracle of Fatima, and today this prophecy is hidden by elitist circles of occult interest which control our planet from the shadows and whose sovereignty is based precisely on maintaining the ignorance and naivety of the people of this planet.
Although some officials of the Catholic Church know this troubling prophecy, they won’t or they aren’t allowed to make everything public, being afraid of the repercussions.

The priest and theologian Malachi Martin, who was appreciated for his long-term collaboration with the Vatican, claimed that the Papacy hides a terrifying and shaking secret from humanity about the terrible apocalyptic punishment reserved for humanity if it doesn’t return to GOD with its entire soul: „when I was around Pope John the XXIIIrd, this paper was held in a box on the fireplace of the Pope’s private apartment in Rome.” It was Malachi Martin again who claimed that Pope John Paul the IInd didn’t agree with revealing the prophecy of the Virgin Mary, because „the message of the secret is very apocalyptic.”

Aside from the inertia and spiritual blindness manifested by Chirilă, who criticizes without research and practice, some of these so-called apocalyptic signs have already appeared and they can be noticed all over the planet.
In the past two years, there has been a worrying increase in natural catastrophes on our planet. Climatically speaking, the characteristics of the four seasons are turning less and less visible. In the past three years, the solar storms have been much greater than those we’ve known thus far, which made many scientists worry and wonder what would become of life on our planet if this accelerated heating of the sun continued? It is important to mention that during Mary’s appearance in Fatima, which was witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people, the Virgin Mary showed the people gathered there an apocalyptic vision in which the sun crashed down on the earth. On that occasion, as well as in other appearances of the Virgin Mary this century, she asked people to pray so that the sins of humanity may be forgiven and she told them to turn towards GOD.
Those divine visions from Fatima represent a significant warning for us humans and they deserve to be treated with all due attention, and if a united group of human beings, oriented towards good, willingly choose to practice the Supreme and Efficient Method, this doesn’t prove at all that the MISA yoga school is a cult.

MISA Is a Spiritual Yoga School

The theoretical and practical yoga courses, the valuable spiritual initiations, as well as the exceptional spiritual conferences that are offered by our yoga school are based on the principles and millenarian values of the yoga system, and their profoundly transforming effects can be felt by all those who are curious and willing to practice these yoga techniques systematically. Those who don’t make a minimal personal effort to practice these techniques will, obviously, feel no effects – and if they have a questionable character, they will start criticizing the yoga system. The criticism invented by, for example, by Roxana Chirilă is baseless and it only serves to hide gross techniques of manipulation which want to induce baseless demoniac doubts in all those who wish to get closer to yoga practice.
This is where we can place the association between MISA and the abject, manipulating and dirty hoax that was Caritas – this is a fantasy of Chirilă’s mind and it is entirely baseless. Among the fantastic comments made by the former student is one according to which our yoga school manipulates those who enroll in its courses, „catching them with an emotional hook” which tempts them by explaining how well they’ll do if they „leave themselves to MISA” (an expression which belongs to her).

Aside from Chirilă’s perverse insinuations, this manipulation might be true in the case of cults, but it is entirely false and non-existent in a yoga school such as MISA, the principles of which are based on authentic spiritual and moral values and on the profound transformation of the human being which cannot be obtained in any way but through personal spiritual practice. How could anybody in this school promise the „good” which pertains strictly to the rhythm, character and individual structure of each student? Anybody who practices yoga enthusiastically within our yoga school tries to keep in mind the famous aphorism „a gram of practice is worth tons of theory”. From this point of view, we would like to tell the former student that nobody, at any time or in any place will be responsible for her even if they wanted to, for her happiness or contentment, especially when she won’t bother to make even the tiniest effort towards self-knowledge.
In other words, we could deduce that Chirilă’s fears also show her immaturity and the extremely superficial and naive vision (which in her case comes close to pathology), with which the former student regards the activities in our yoga school.

The XXIst Century Inquisition

The more we look at the absurd accusations made by Chirilă during the FECRIS conference in France, the less we can abstain from noticing that either the translator is entirely misinformed, or she pretends to be so in order to discredit the image of the MISA yoga school at any cost.

We quote from the translator’s „masterpiece”: „Aside from that, I say, apocalypses differ… But they know that as well. MISA believes in aliens coming to help, in the photon belt which will swallow the earth and kill those who aren’t ready in December, in freemasons who manipulate everyone and who build all sorts of things underground to which they’ll evade, but they won’t be able to escape anyway. MISA believes in looming natural disasters and in the fact that soon enough we’ll enter not the New Age-like Age of Aquarius, but Satya Yuga, the spiritual age described by Indians.”

Aside from Chirilă’s unfounded aberrations, MISA is a yoga school and its values and principles are based on the ancient yogic tradition, not on New Age „beliefs”, as Chirilă tries to insinuate in a manipulating manner.
Actually, the recent „New Age” combines some spiritual truth with the fantasies in the heads of those who invented it, with the purpose of maintaining human beings far away from the authentic spirituality which we might consider to be represented by yoga, which has been successfully practiced for thousands of years.
Although this „New Age” has been embraced by some contemporary spiritual seekers, it is a hoax precisely because it isn’t based on either profound faith in GOD and or on belonging to an authentic spiritual path, as we can say is the case of the ancient science of yoga and within which there were some authentic spiritual guides who were able to transmit the pure knowledge they received from GOD.

Because within our yoga school we try to reach a global and profoundly spiritual integration of man in Creation and not just a materialistic and egocentric one, as the society we live on dictates, it isn’t at all coincidental that the increasingly profound discovery of GOD’s existence is the miracle that can be experienced by all those who practice yoga within MISA, being filled with pure, good intentions.
In other words, although we believe that it is naive to think that humans are alone in this Universe, Chirilă’s affirmations according to which MISA believes in aliens and in the whole string of oddities that she exposed is false, because the faith of any conscious yogi filled with noble aspirations lies in GOD.

Seeing that in the past two years there have been numerous sightings all over the world which demonstrate, in images, the presence of so-called amazing UFOs on the sky of the planet Earth, even the Russian prime minister Medvedev recently bid the US, publicly, to show the entire world their complex information concerning extraterrestrial visits on our planet.
In the context in which the presence of UFOs on our planet becomes more and more obvious to humans, why wouldn’t people in MISA be free to experiment as they will with some meditations of communion with beneficial extraterrestrial beings?

Also, it is worth mentioning that the very special calls made to contact highly spiritual extraterrestrial civilizations that take place at the end of yogic YANG spirals are open to all those who are curious and wish to experience such sublime telepathic communications personally. This altruistic feeling that the students in our yoga school have for those who, although they aren’t interested in yoga, still wish to convince themselves of the existence of good aliens, represents a clear proof that MISA does not have a dogmatic, rigid and cultish character.

The photon belt is not an invention of our yoga school. The probability of such a „photon belt” existing in the universe, having a complex relationship with solar systems and developing cyclically and the fact that this has already been scientifically proved by the researcher Gregg Baden don’t demonstrate in any way that MISA is a cult. Anybody who freely chooses to study the theory of the photon belt can do this on specialized internet sites, and practicing yoga is not a requirement.

Chirilă’s accusations are nonsense, because freely chosen beliefs do not demonstrate cultish traits in any way, especially if these convictions are willingly embraced and don’t presuppose a separation or isolation from society. They are manifested rather as a freely assumed and creative vision on life and one’s surroundings.
Aside from that, the MISA yoga school never and under any form supported the aberration claimed by Chirilă according to which „the photon belt will kill those who aren’t ready”. This is a fatalistic description, a fantastic and inept one which counters all ethical, moral and spiritual yogi values and principles that form the basis of MISA activities.

We consider that the accusation that MISA believes in freemasons who manipulate everyone is tendentious and manipulating. Today there is much undeniable evidence about the intentions and criminal plans of the satanic cult of freemasonry. The fact that some people in our yoga school took a stand against the worldwide manipulation done by the so called „Illuminati”, exposing, in several articles, the amount of overwhelming evidence concerning the danger represented by the satanic cult of freemasonry is not singular at all. Anyone who wishes to study the issue of the elitist worldwide conspiracy more closely can do it via the thousands of written papers as well as on many internet sites, a huge number of written texts as well as videos are at their disposal for discovering information about the evil plans of the masonry, which are exposed clearly, in a Machiavellian manner, in the canonical propagandist paper „The Protocols of the Freemason Masters”. Far from being cultish, the preoccupation with the good of our society and the desire to draw attention to the perversity, manipulation and corruption that exist in the world today because of the insidious infiltration of the masonic mentality in all the areas of our lives renders salutary and even brave the initiative of some of the students of our school to draw attention to the villainies of the masonry, considereing the context of a sleeping society which is enslaved by gross, materialistic habits.

The Sanskrit term SATYA YUGA belongs to the ancient Hindu spiritual tradition and, regardless of former student Chirilă’s manipulating words, using this term doesn’t demonstrate the fact that MISA is a cult at all. In our yoga school, just as in the ancient yogi tradition, that term is used to represent a certain period in the history of humanity and seeing that MISA is a yoga school based on the ancient yogi science, it is natural that in some descriptions it would have borrowed the basic terms which define them.

Aside from Chirilă’s abject and petty accusations, we ask ourselves with concern what authority belongs to those who listened to the translator and how ready these people are to judge what is and what isn’t cultish behavior?

Condemning the freely assumed beliefs of some people who simply open their eyes and wish to see something other than what the corrupt and politically enslaved media dictates in such a clear, violent and annihilating manner constitutes a gross lack of recognition for the fundamental rights of citizens. What is also worth emphasizing is that this theft of „spiritual freedom” which insidiously happens under our very eyes is a true contemporary inquisition and the slandering conference in France held by the former student Chirilă is extra evidence that proves that human beings are on the brink of losing their right to free association and faith in the hands of some materialistic, half-learned people.

(to be continued)

The Piano Demon [Story, Fantasy, Draft 1.03]

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 08:24:00 +0000

Author’s Note: This is another one of my infamously stuck-in-first-draft stories. One day I’ll actually edit it.

The first time I saw her – really, really saw her, not just glanced at her as we tried our best to catch the back seats in the small university classrooms – she was at a piano. Maybe I’d never have really been able to notice her had it not been for that one, strange evening when destiny gently pushed me out of my awkward life and into hers.

If only children can be prodigies, then I wasn’t one any longer. I’d lived through my glory years at school, where I’d gone off and won prizes for art and English, maths and physics, running circles around classmates and less talented professors. Eventually, when push came to shove and I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I hid behind some more studying, delaying that dreadful moment when I’d have to prove that not only was I smart, but that I was also able to do something. I chose English and physics as majors, convinced I could do both easily enough. I wasn’t right. I wasn’t very wrong, either. There wasn’t much of a personal life left between the two, but I took my exams with flying colors and dreamed of the day I’d win a Nobel prize. I don’t think it will ever actually happen, but even fools can dream.

I was going to write a BA dissertation on the impact that 19th century scientific discoveries had on literature. It was an interesting topic and one of the few I could choose to reunite both my loves and get away with studying the history of physics, with its wild theories and random inferences. Word got out and before I knew it, one of my professors was suggesting that I should hold a conference on the matter in this event they’d have at our university. She said I should discuss the birth of science fiction and how its history differed from fantasy. Well, fine by me.

Then, my Renaissance Literature professor and I discussed it over coffee one morning in the underground bar where we waited for classes and in a spur of the moment decision she told me that I should join her and some other members of the faculty for a semi-official planning discussion that afternoon at Stanislaw’s place. I’d never had classes with Stanislaw, nor do I know why he bore that name. He wasn’t Polish, nor did he have any Polish relatives that anybody knew of. I wouldn’t really have cared enough to ask other students, but he was in his early 40s and he was handsome, so he was a common choice of gossip among female students.

I met up with the professors after we all finished out classes. Stanislaw came to meet us so he could lead us to his place and I was wondering how I’d managed to get myself in between all these people who were much above me in training and experience and how I’d fare spending hours with them. Maybe I’d embarrass myself with something stupid, pour coffee all over myself, or say that I’d never read Plato or something of the sort (although I supposed I could keep quiet about my failures).

There a few houses in the same courtyard where Stanislaw had made his home. There was a nasty little dog which tried to bite one of the professors, but he kept away with an extended leg, jumping around to lead us to his place.

„My apartment mate,” he warned us before we could go up – he lived on the second floor -, „is busy playing the piano. She’s a bit strange, but she’s nice otherwise.”

So we followed him up the stairs. There was some piano playing indeed, getting louder with each step. It sounded random, wild, furious, then it stopped, then it started again in rapid succession. Very short pieces of songs, like a storm that smashes itself against the window for a howling moment, then lets up, then starts again. It didn’t take that long to go up, but between the quick, sudden, furious bits of music it somehow it sounded much longer.

My Renaissance Literature professor walked in first – Stanislaw was at the very rear, having kept the dog away from us – and she made the piano playing stop abruptly and not return. Then one of the older professors walked in, and then I did.

I’d looked down on her in class. I’d thought she was one of those je m’en fous rockers, with her big, black T-shirts with strange designs, wolves, witches, Indians, Gothic ladies. She never had any with band pictures, though. Black pants or jeans. Black hair, silver jewelry. Other than her fashion statement, she was quiet and polite. Her grades, whenever I bothered to check, were high, but not at the very top. She wasn’t competing with me in anything, which settled the matter. I didn’t care about meeting her. I thought she was a party goer, a fun lover, all the things I’d never been, all the things I only cared about when I felt shunned and alone.

She was wearing a man’s shirt when we walked in that night. I thought I recognized it as something Stanislaw sometimes wore. It was probably his, now that I think about it. Of course, we all thought they were sleeping together. After all, it was blatantly obvious that they were living together and that they shared clothes. We knew she wasn’t his kid. So we came to the quick and embarrassing conclusion that they were sleeping together. Neither of them said anything on the subject. There was no apology, no explanation. It wasn’t my place to say anything and I think the others were too polite to mention it.

Later it would turn out that there was nothing between them. She was living there because she’d been kicked out by her parents, and by her aunt, and by everybody else who she had turned to. She had an extensible armchair in his library, where she also kept the few clothes and belongings she had. She wore the crazy T-shirts to advertise them – she made them for a living, sold them out to rockers and weirdos. She didn’t draw them, mind you. She came up with the idea, then collaborated with an arts student – later with me – and then she printed them at a specialized shop. Whenever she wasn’t busy wearing her own creations, she preferred manly button-up shirts, like Stanislaw’s.

I don’t know how they ended up living together. There was a history there. I never asked. She’ll tell me one day. Maybe.

That night, she looked a sight. Dark circles under her eyes, paler than usual, hunched over an electronic piano that was thrown against the dining room/kitchen wall. She looked drunk, or drugged. Maybe that was why we didn’t comment on her relationship with Stanislaw. We were too shocked. I don’t know.

„Come in, come in,” Chris said, carelessly. She laughed, but it was hollow. „I know how I look. I know damned fucking well how I look. But I’m not ashamed, so come on already. Sit down. Welcome to the dragon’s den.”

I thought she was maybe half-crazy. But she was just herself on a very bad day. Sarcastic, bitter, with a hint of deliberate insanity.

„Christine!” one of the professors said. He recognized her, or maybe remembered her name now. Or maybe he’d just found his voice again.

„Ah, I’m flattered to be recognized,” she answered. I couldn’t tell if it was meant ironically or seriously. Probably the latter. Maybe both. „And look, it’s Judith!” She’d finally noticed me. „You’re that double-major girl, the genius. How’s that working out for you?” She tittered on her chair as she said it and her haunted eyes followed me as I took a chair.

Nobody honestly called me a genius, even if I suppose I kind of am one. Except my family, they sometimes do. Some of the boys from my school would shout it to my face, tauntingly, ‘ge-nius, ge-nius, geek, geek, geek!’ They looked down on me, I could tell. So did the butcher whom my mum sent me to get our meat from, and one of my teachers. Sometimes girls would say, ‘oh, she can’t come to the party, she’s too busy being a genius.’ Others were just intimidated, or thrilled. I didn’t know how to handle it and in time I became one of those cleverer-than-thou people, but I’m not sure I meant it. Or maybe I did. Anyway, I never felt normal until I went off to college and even then, sometimes…

„Fine, I suppose,” I said. „How are you?”

„Crappy,” she said. She looked up and saw that our professors were still uncertain. As I said, I didn’t know Stanislaw except from seeing him in corridors and from gossip, but they probably knew him better and hadn’t expected to find a female student wearing one of his shirts in his kitchen. „Hey, please sit. Don’t let me bother you. I don’t bite nice people and you look nice enough to me.” She turned back towards me. „Actually, kind of worse than crappy. I got my ass kicked in a fight today and I hurt like no tomorrow.” I’d find out later that it was because of all her fights and irregular hours that she got kicked out of her own house and that her grades weren’t quite up there with mine. She’d been deemed a lost child by her father and by her five younger brothers and sisters. None of her family looked up to her, but they didn’t look up to anybody. Her mum had run off at some point before, after it had been found out that Chris wasn’t really her husband’s. ‘Dysfunctional family much?’ I’d ask her later when she’d rubbed off on me and told me her story. ‘Love, you’ve no clue.’ She called all people she liked love. It’s why it took me awhile to realize she wasn’t sleeping with the professor. ‘Auntie Lisa slept in the attic, thought she was closer to God that way. One of my cousins stole cars and when they caught him he said he was promoting jogging in an innovative manner – and he believed what he was saying.’ The list went on.

Stanislaw was the best host I’d ever encountered. We gave us some excellent tea and cookies and had Chris write down our ideas. She listened intently, wrote it all down, but didn’t say much. She sat at her piano seat all throughout our meeting, laughed at our jokes and when we were done for the day, she asked if she could play for us.

„Gotta warn ya, though,” she said. „I play with an accent. I play like a demon.”

So she played. Gods, she really was a demon with that piano. Her fingers ran so fast it sounded as if she had four hands, not two. She never faltered, never hesitated, never made a single mistake. Her music didn’t just have an accent, it was furious, mad, depressive in the way a full orchestra with canons can play ‘depressive’, biting, snarling and at the same time I wanted it to never end. And when she started singing, her voice was a musical screech, beautiful because it had taken everything in it that it hadn’t liked and beaten it into a pulp. It was strong and strange and wild and pained.

I can’t remember what she sang. Something about fairies ripping the world apart by moonlight, I think. We were rooted to our seats. My Renaissance Literature professor started crying. I think I started crying, too, and I knew for certain that each and every one of us was remembering something that we didn’t really want to remember right then, but we couldn’t help it. Chris was a genius way beyond me, way beyond anything I could imagine. I thought I saw her standing in hell and screaming defiance against all the devils – but then I was carried away and it was all about me. I remembered all the times I failed and every mistake I’d made and every embarrassment. I remembered that my boyfriend had left me because I was too caught up with physics. That I was afraid I’d never make it. That deep inside I was always scared that one day my brains would go away and everybody would find out I wasn’t much aside from that. It hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe, I felt all the air knocked out of my lungs, but it was beautiful. She made it beautiful and sad and wonderful.

„I’m depressive,” she told us before we left. „But I don’t let it bother me.”

„How did you learn to play?” my Renaissance Literature professor asked her on the next meeting at Stanislaw’s place.

„A deal with a demon,” she said. She looked much better than the first time, rested and healthy.

„What?!” I asked. I tried to figure out what she was getting at with that metaphor. „Did you sell your soul or something?” Maybe she’d worked hard, I thought, for years and years and years…

„Gods no. I didn’t make the deal with it, it made the deal with me. It got into huge trouble, said it’d give me anything if I saved its clumsy behind. I guess I could’ve asked for immortality, but I wanted to play the piano. It was so pissed to hear that. Had to go through hell and ask everybody about it. In the end he made a really bad deal to get me piano skills. I’m not sure he ever forgave me.”

We didn’t press her for an actual answer. We didn’t know we’d already gotten it, see. I assumed that it was something about her parents making sacrifices, maybe her mother taking on some really dirty job to get her prodigy daughter lessons – back then I didn’t know her mother hated her for being a mistake that she’d never been able to take back. In those early days, I took much of what Chris said as a metaphor. It was later that I realized she said the truth out loud carelessly because nobody ever believed any of it.

She played again for us, something slow and beautiful. Nothing weird happened. Nobody cried.

„She could’ve been a musician,” my Renaissance Literature professor said. „I wonder why she never went for that.”

Because she’d only been able to play the piano for three years, she’d never been seen practicing and she didn’t like the idea of being in the public sphere. Even so, the word was spread around by my Lit professor. After a month she was offered a job to write a soundtrack for a short film, and then the demands kept coming, a slow trickle of income.

Stanislaw was great. He never minded us using his house after we got closer. My own roommates back at the dorm didn’t like Chris much and they could do without me, too, so I started spending more and more of my free time there. We’d study together, then I’d move on to physics, then I’d draw her T-shirt patterns. Sometimes she’d go out and come back covered in bruises, or with torn clothes. I worried for her.

„I can hold my own,” she told me.

„But who’s doing this to you? Why do you keep going? What if one day you can’t make it?” I asked.

I don’t know exactly when we became friends, but I knew exactly why. I’d felt so awkward my entire life, never fitting in because I was the wrong sort of geek, but she made me feel as if it didn’t matter, because the entire world was outside somewhere, irrelevant. She didn’t make me feel like one of the crowd, which had been my secret wish until then – but she made me feel like a solitary one of a kind and a damned awesome one at that. She didn’t let me walk in her shadow – she cast no shadow. Neither did I. Chris plucked me out of the world and took me with her into another reality. It felt great and wrong at the same time, as if she was doing things with me that were forbidden and wonderful.

„I’ll always make it,” she answered. „I have a secret.”

„What secret?”

„I can keep it myself, thanks.”

She told me about other things, however. How she could sing better than she could study, play better than she could sing and fight better than anything else. Her mother had probably been a witch, she supposed. Her paternal grandmother definitely was, and she hadn’t gotten to die before she was whisked off to hell. Chris hadn’t been in hell, but she could feel the devils’ presence when the old lady disappeared.

„Or maybe my mum was a demon,” she told me. „You never know. Or maybe dad isn’t really my father and the real one was a warlock who sold my soul before I was born. Or I really am a bastard, but to a guy who’s just a man and I have shit luck.”

„My family’s all sane and human,” I said, apropos of nothing.

„I pity you. That’s why you’re so out of place. Me? I’m nowhere, but then I don’t need to be. Hey, you can be with me.”

I felt a warmth in my chest and a smile on my face. „I wish I were happy like you.” But I was happy right then.

She let out a very cheery laugh. „Happy like me? Rich, mate. Really rich.”

There was a gig in a bar once. She played like a demon again. Her hands were blurs, her eyes burned with rage and fire. She brought the audience to roars of approval when she cried-sang her chorus lines and then she looked at them and held them under her gaze, reducing them to utter silence as her hands slowed to a strange, discordant trickle of notes.

I thought then: maybe she got the talent from some crazy deal, but she got the music from herself. My physics could match her fingers, my knowledge of humanities could rival her voice. But she had this thing and she played with whatever it was. I was too scared, too trapped in failure even when I won. I had so much to lose, from my position to my parents’ approval, to my feeble few contacts. She had nothing. I envied her. And I loved her. I wanted to be her. I wanted to be with her, to drink her, to become her. If I were her, I’d win more than a Nobel – I’d win the whole goddamn world. I wouldn’t be Willis Eugene Lamb, who nobody knew about. I’d be Marie Curie. I’d be Albert Einstein. I’d be one of the people who didn’t need a damned prize so you’d know who they are. The people about whom you sometimes talk in present tense even when they’re long dead (Napoleon commands the French armies… Charles Dickens is born… Albert Einstein wins the Nobel prize…).

I’d be somebody alive.

One day, Chris didn’t come back. We waited, Stanislaw and I, until it was night. I went back to the dorm at about 11 PM. She wasn’t in class the next day, nor the day after that. I went back to Stanislaw’s and slept in her armchair for a week or more, waiting for her to return. My calls landed on silence, then her phone went dead. I was afraid she’d lost that fight – the one she was never expecting to lose. She’d never told me her secret.

Maybe she was dead, her body stashed somewhere, or thrown in the river. Maybe some demons had dragged her to hell, like they’d done her grandmother. Maybe her mum had come back for her.

Eventually I didn’t visit Stanislaw anymore. His kids had come home – a daughter my age, a boy a bit younger, living with their mum in Italy. I never knew what to tell them about my being there, about Chris being there, about Stanislaw letting us stay with him even though it was inappropriate. I just felt embarrassed. So I stopped seeing him, too, except on corridors. We talked less and less. There had been only Chris between us and now she wasn’t there.

I think I’d know if Chris were dead. I’d be able to feel it. My life would feel emptier. No, she’s alive somewhere. Maybe she doesn’t want to contact anybody, or maybe she can’t. Maybe she’s amnesiac. Sometimes I think I hear an echo of her piano in songs – she might have gone underground. She could have a small empire of her own, in a hell, or in a paradise, or in a place in between.

If she were dead, I’d know, wouldn’t I?

She never told me her secret, but she has one. She’s using it now. She’s playing dead. And I can forgive her for being away for so long. I can forgive her even if she’s run to LA and become really rich and looks down on me (though she wouldn’t). Because she’s alive. I know it. I know it. People like her don’t die. They’re just away.

The Translator [short story]

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 13:22:43 +0000

Author’s notes: I wrote this a while ago for a friend. It turns out that this blog has any number of spiritual people visiting, so as I was going through stories and trying to pick one to post here, I decided that this one would be perfect for all audiences.

I broke a few polite rules in writing this one. One such unspoken rule is that a character’s name shouldn’t resemble that of the author. Another says that characters aren’t supposed to look like self-inserts unless they are self-inserts. Those things make it so much easier for people to interpret and criticize, but I like having fun and seeing what happens if I do one thing or another.

Here you go, peeps. I won’t bore you with other comments, although there’s much I could say.

Happy holidays and all that!

***

The Translator

Malena was born on the third of April, a heady Aries and a talented translator. She only waited for so long before she put her foot down and took charge of her destiny, riding it like a child of the sea would a dolphin.

She began her job with diligent care from the moment she first awakened from the drowsiness of the very young and into the slow comprehension of children. She first translated her own simple thoughts to the world in an agonized cry – ‘I’m hungry! I’m hungry!’ – first in the Spanish words of her parents and then repeated in the strange, native Tupi dialect of her Mestizo nanny. The dark-skinned woman had gasped in fear and tried to cover the child’s mouth before any of those of the house heard and fired her for teaching Malena to speak the wrong language. But before she could even reach out towards the tiny mouth, the great wooden doors of the child’s room burst open to admit Malena’s fiery, proud mother. ‘She speaks! Oh, she speaks!’ the Spanish lady cried, waving a white shirt about like a flag. ‘I’m hungry! I’m hungry!’ the child repeated again and again, first in Spanish, then in Tupi, making herself heard so loud that many years after men would claim to have heard her from across the town letting the world know that the devourer of knowledge had come to Earth.

After the joy of hearing their only daughter speak lifted and she was fed, Malena continued learning new words, translating her thoughts into both Spanish and Tupi until she finally drove all those around her to desperation and a visiting aunt dared to do what the others out of superstition would not even attempt: she pulled Malena aside and explained that one could not always speak in all tongues one knew. Just one outcome was needed. The child understood immediately.

Without her parents knowing how she did it, Malena also came to speak the Portuguese of her grandmother and the Tupi dialects of her nanny’s friends. By the time she went to school, she had learned English and German from a tall man with round eyeglasses who had asked for a translator into the native dialects and had been brought to see the miracle child. Malena had led him around, laughing at his difficulty with any language, and ended up mimicking his way of speaking to perfection – coming to know words, he felt, which he had never spoken before her.

In school she learned French from her teachers before the others could even count properly to a hundred, then spent the rest of her classes yawning demonstratively until a miserable Hungarian boy started teaching her his language secretly while they waited for the lectures to be over. Malena found out that Attila had never wanted to leave his country, but his parents had dragged him across the Atlantic in the search of a better life.

„You shan’t find it here!” Malena had laughed, then danced circles around him in all her languages before she settled down to really look at him and study his plight. Reaching out, she translated him into something new, better suited for this new continent. She made his shyness into mystery, his strange accent into charm, his longing for home into a hint of an exotic land within his eyes. „You’ll always have Hungary in your heart,” she said, touching his chest. „And it will be there more than it will ever be on a map.”

After she translated Attila she noticed that translating from language to language became as easy as shaking one’s whiskers is for a cat. She only had to glance at a language to fill her huge bags of words, even if those languages were Chinese, Bengali, or the obscure Arawakan, or even the Latin caught in church. After some time she came to understand languages she had never heard before just reading them through those who spoke. But as time went, languages concerned her less and less.

She started translating cultures and people, touching them and seeing them melt under her fingers to become something of the same essence and of a different shape. Curious to see how far she could go, she experimented on her own person, translating herself into a common Tupi woman, into a Spanish noble girl, into an English princess and amused herself by going deeper and deeper every time until one day she found that she could translate her black hair to blond, her white skin to black, her round eyes to slants. Malena became a mistress of disguise, always the same deep inside, but ever more changing on the surface, today Japanese, tomorrow Hindu, the day after that Mestizo, always keeping it her secret. One day at school she became frustrated with a proud, stuck-up girl that boys all seemed to dream of and decided to translate herself into a tanned, manly Antonio just so she could scoff at the Consuela’s pride. That way, Malena accidentally found out about the difference between men and women, though at first she was confused by what she considered to be an accidental extra appendage. But as soon as she discovered that she had followed nature, she realized that her gift was more marvelous than she had expected. Consuela and her pride remained forgotten.

When Malena’s father decided that he had had enough of his ever prettier daughter running around acting disgracefully and making friends with the oddest of characters, he tried to stop her from going out and turn her into a proper young lady. In a fit of rage, Malena ran through the entire town, uncatchable until the very center of the town when her father’s fingers finally encircled her arm, only to have her translate her body into that of a sparrow that flew away, followed by the frightened cries of men and women who thought they’d seen the devil kidnap a child, or the fairies spirit her away.

Not daring to look back, Malena went on for days and nights as a bird or as a goat or a bear, dodging humans. When a hunter caught her fox’s trail, she learned how to translate into plants and started through being an oak. Later, sad and away from home, she turned into clouds and moonlight, then figured out how to turn rain into drought and poor men into rich. And all the time she felt that her true self, the one deep down inside was becoming smaller, smaller, smaller, a single point around which the world could be made to turn, whatever touched her becoming something else. The tinier she became, the more she could shift herself and the things around her. When she had been as large as a watermelon, she could transform into humans, when as large as an orange, into animals, when as a grape seed into plants. Now as the tiniest fleck of dust from the head of a pin, she flew over the ocean as breeze, dived between the water drops as a fish and turned dark, murderous oil spilled from boats into sea monsters. She translated herself into a cloud that kept a handsome sailor cool, then floated above the land again and translated a battlefield under her into a peaceful gathering. One day she translated herself into an atom, another into a solar system far away, exploring herself in all forms she could imagine.

Finally, when she felt that she could translate herself so well that she could be anything, anywhere, know anything, do anything, she discovered that the tiny spot she had become could hike upon atoms that seemed much larger than the Earth and see each fleck of light separate from the others. And there was something much, much smaller yet than her, something she could finally sense in the background, something she could not entirely understand nor translate yet either. As if the entire world was built within a vast, vast sea of this and never knew it. Wondering what more she could do if she could be as small as that, Malena dived.

She made herself smaller and smaller, holding her breath to get as tiny as the things around her, trying to translate them. She shed her name, her concepts of herself that were somewhere within, pushed them outside for later use, let them drag behind her. She became so small physicists would never guess her presence. She shed the idea of appearance, shed her personality and became smaller than can be conceived. She shed everything else she had, looking deep, deep inside for the thing she had in common with this strange mass of the tiniest particles. She became tiny, tiny, tiny beyond belief, beyond understanding, beyond what can be explained and in the end she also dropped her efforts at being smaller and gazed on, almost as tiny as these things.

What she saw she could almost touch, but not yet understand. She could smell that whatever it was molded itself into matter, she could taste how gravity worked, she could hear energy transformed and touch Life being alive. Almost there, she thought, almost there. Why, if she watched carefully, maybe she could find out. So she stood still without even realizing she was still, stopped thinking without realizing she was not thinking, watched without realizing she watched. She just was.

What there is left to say there are no words to translate.

MISA & The Apocalypse/MISA și Apocalipsa

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 13:11:44 +0000

EN:
The conference I held for the FECRIS organization in October has been translated into Spanish by the wonderful people over at AIIAP and published into their magazine, Traspasos (No. 3). It was also translated into German.

RO:
Conferința pe care am ținut-o pentru FECRIS în octombrie a fost tradusă în spaniolă de persoanele simpatice din AIIAP și publicată în revista lor, Traspasos (Nr. 3). A fost tradusă și în germană.

LINK ES:
http://www.aiiap.org/publicaciones/revista/traspasos-n3/

LINK DE:

Click to access Chirila_DE.pdf

"Sucker Love is Heaven Sent" – A Romanian Yoga Cult Under Investigation

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 11:48:07 +0000

„Sucker Love is Heaven Sent” – A Romanian Yoga Cult Under Investigation

MISA spiral meditation -- thousands of people holding hands

In Romania, MISA has a dark and worrying public image: an orgiastic, pee-drinking yoga movement, full of strange, incomprehensible practices, spiral meditations, brainwashing and master-worship. The Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute, founded in 1990, has often been featured in the media after it came into public attention in 2004 when the police broke into and searched a number of MISA homes in Bucharest.

The legal prosecution against MISA and its guru, Gregorian Bivolaru, includes accusations such as sex with a minor girl, tax evasion and illegal crossing of the border. Bivolaru escaped to Sweden, where he managed to convince the Swedish court that the violence of the media against him, as well as the context of a post-communist country and the unexpected and rough treatment MISA received in 2004 at the hands of the police involved in the searches were proof enough of his being persecuted in his home country. Due to this, he received political asylum and he supposedly lives in Malmo, Sweden – although former members point out that his actual location may be Paris, France.

The (In)Famous MISA and Its Even More (In)Famous Guru, Gregorian Bivolaru

Although the media boom concerning MISA happened in 2004, riding a wave of scandalous sex stories and abhorrent pee-related practices, a bit of journalistic digging revealed it as an unsafe religious movement much earlier on. One article published in 1993 in the Tinerama magazine was illustrated by a picture of the great guru Gregorian Bivolaru involved in a sex act with a faceless woman. The article informs us that the photo was used by Gregorian Bivolaru as tuition material for new yoga students – and that Bivolaru was involved in trafficking pornography and seeking out women for perverted practices.

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Gregorian Bivolaru, top right, demonstrating Tantric sex -- Tinerama, 1993

While other articles were published about Bivolaru and MISA over the years, they had little effect when it came to informing the general public and the guru and his ever-growing yoga movement. Thousands of people of all ages were attracted by the possibility of learning about yoga and Eastern practices from what seemed to be a legitimate school. Little did many of them know that the printed courses and brochures they received were plagiarized and that their master was ‘initiating’ his young female yogis sexually.

Those who started attending MISA yoga classes were first presented with entrancing ideas about spirituality, among which were Tantric sexuality and the idealized, divine romantic love. The concepts served as the foundation on which later on other ideas were added to construct a world-view in which sexual energy is the basic energy of life, which must be controlled in very specific ways. Sexual ecstasy became a spiritual endeavor. Once sex became entirely regulated by MISA, women would be invited to sleep with Bivolaru or to become erotic videochat workers, masturbating online for the pleasure of paying men. At one point, women started being sent to Japan to work as hostesses in night bars or even strip dancers – following their success in earning money for MISA, these „spiritual activities” became widely spread and women were also sent to strip in European bars, or even the Bucharest Lucky Love, MISA’s own night club.

A Lucky Love promotion video:

This involvement in sex biz, initially kept secret from the world at large and from many low-level members, started being revealed after the police interventions in 2004, when members and former members of MISA profited from the anonymity of the internet to share stories of their yoga school and their yoga teachers. After long debates about the better and worse sides of MISA and the founding of the Exmisa forum, a large amount of information was gathered and shared with the press. This eventually led to MISA tightening its grip on members and introducing strong thought-control methods to force its students to stay in place. Bivolaru’s conferences started speaking out against the „gossip” around the questionable activities and eventually against „demoniac doubts” which made yogis doubtful about his authenticity – and, implicitly, that of the school. Some members were punished for their beliefs – such as kicking out high-profile student Mihai Rapcea, once Gregorian Bivolaru’s lawyer, who published a number of articles voicing his concerns about MISA’s policies and activities on his personal blog.

Over time, the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute provoked new scandals internationally by its continued involvement in sex biz and its shady practices. In India, the MISA yoga center was closed when Mihai and Adina Stoian, the leaders of the Denmark branch of MISA, were supposed to hold a yoga camp there. The two yoga instructors, and also porn stars, had to flee the country before they could be caught by the police. MISA was also involved in a media scandal in Argentina and it was the sex biz side of the organization that got it kicked out of the International Yoga Federation. Currently, MISA is being thoroughly investigated by the Italian Antimafia Commission.

The Italian MISA Investigation: 25 Locations Searched, Gregorian Bivolaru a Suspect

The Prosecutor in Florence, Angela Pietroiusti, filed charges of conspiracy, enslavement, human trafficking and sexual violence against MISA – charges not much different from the human trafficking and sexual perversions with a minor that Gregorian Bivolaru has been accused of in Romania.

According to former Italian MISA-affiliated instructor, Virgil Cătălin Călin, the investigation started when a number of MISA students filed complaints because somebody had placed porn DVDs of MISA students on their cars while they attended Mihai Stoian’s conference in Italy. Instead of getting the wrong-doer arrested, they found themselves under investigation after they admitted that the porn actors were their colleagues. While Călin doesn’t specify which MISA porn film this was, it should be mentioned that Mihai Stoian starred in „The Magic Passage” and „Ecstasy Water” along with his wife, Adina Stoian.

Gregorian Bivolaru in the Lotus position

The investigation grew in scope from this initial report and, on the sixth and seventh of December 2012, it led to 25 raids across Italy against the Italian branches of MISA – searches were performed in MISA quarters and suspect homes in Bologna, Florence, Milan, San Benedetto del Tronto and Bari. Eighteen people, ‘spiritual master’ Gregorian Bivolaru included, are suspected for enslavement and sexual abuse.

The official MISA website, Yogaesoteric, blamed the Italian investigation on vengeance from Virgil Cătălin Călin and disclaimed any connection with either prostitution or pornography. This might simply be a matter of the MISA perspective: members will be more likely to consider their own explicit films art rather than pornography. While the „Making Off”[sic!] for „The Magic Passage” (starring Mihai and Adina Stoian) has been taken offline, another film, „Ecstasy Water”, carries forwards MISA beliefs about sexuality and spirituality.

„Ecstasy Water” depicts pee games, spiritual teachings and group sexual practices. The storyline revolves around a disciple learning the Tantric path under the guidance of a true spiritual master, played by renowned MISA actor Ioan Pohariu. There are some connections between the spiritual master in the film and Gregorian Bivolaru himself – Pohariu’s character demonstrates his paranormal abilities by making a compass spin through the power of his thoughts alone, something that Gregorian Bivolaru himself has claimed to be able to do. (Sequences of the film can be found on pornhub – please do not click the link unless you are over the age of consent in your country)

However, the Italian investigation is not about the morality or immorality of these practices. As an investigator puts it, “Liberation through sex? That isn’t a problem.” Although MISA yogis seem to believe that they are persecuted because of a misunderstanding of their spirituality or because the evil Satanic cult of the freemasons is afraid of them, the Italian investigator says, “sex itself is certainly not under investigation. But if it becomes a tool to commit abuse against other people, to enslave some, exploit others, the issue changes profoundly. Especially if it turns out that some people are emotionally fragile on a psychological level.”

One of the problems with psychological abuse, however, is that it is hard to find the fine line between consent and coercion. According to December 10 article in Firenze Today, students and instructors from the raided centers described MISA sexual practices as “necessary for spiritual evolution”. However, 10 witnesses, aged 20 to 30, both men and women, discussed psychological subservience, violent sex acts and being filmed without their knowledge or consent during sex. The usage of the secretly filmed footage is under investigation, but there is a theory saying that they were sold as adult films.

A worrying case is discussed by former instructor Virgil Călin. One of the women enrolled in the MISA courses in Italy was invited to meet with Gregorian Bivolaru. Călin warned her no to go, but she had heard from other women that meeting her spiritual master was a ‘great occasion to evolve’ – thus, wanting to get closer to God and to her own self, she accepted the invitation. Popular stories in MISA say that women sleeping with Bivolaru evolve very rapidly, because their auras mix with their master’s and his spiritual achievements will be partially transferred to them. However, the Italian woman’s story was not one of divine sex – once she was face to face with Bivolaru, she was offered two large glasses of strong liquor that got her intoxicated. During sex, she felt ill and asked him to stop, which he didn’t do. When he asked her to pee on him and she couldn’t, he told her she was „a very stupid person” and blamed her inability on demonic possession.

Obviously, this was far from the spiritual and enlightened behavior she had expected – far enough for her to share her story in front of a yoga instructors’ meeting in Italy, prompting others to share their own worrying experiences. This very quickly led to most of the Italian branch of MISA splitting away from Bivolaru’s tutelage.

MISA Demands Justice

Despite the evidence of abuse and of immoral practices, MISA students continue to demand justice and freedom of thought and religion. A number of core believers profess their love for Gregorian Bivolaru, their trust in him as a spiritual leader and their persecution at the hands of the authorities, of the media and of the world in general. They believe that their phones are tapped, that their activities are under surveillance, that at least the Romanian Intelligence Service is trying to bring them down by fabricating evidence.

On the 18th of December, they caroled in front of the building where one of their lawsuits was judged, demanding justice and favorable verdicts. Today, on the 21st of December 2012, they expect a worldwide transformation which doesn’t yet seem to be happening. One cannot doubt the earnestness with which most strong-going MISA members support their favorite causes, the strength of their beliefs and their love for MISA and their spiritual master. While I am certain that they see these as qualities, looking back on some who claimed to have donated tens or hundreds of thousands of euros, or goods and time and money, to MISA and Gregorian Bivolaru, and on the women who slept with their master from love of the man himself and from love of God, I cannot help but hum, along with Placebo, „Sucker love is heaven sent”.

Happy Doomsday.

– Roxana-Mălina Chirilă
21.XII.2012

Police raid against the MISA yoga school in Italy: 20 suspects, including the guru Bivolaru

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 13:35:14 +0000

[Roxana Chirilă’s note: Despite the initial misunderstanding, I did not write this. I just got asked to post it (by the person who wrote it and who remains anonymous). My actual article discussing Italy and other issues is here.]

The prosecutor of Florence has ordered 25 raids across Italy against the Italian branches of the Romanian association „MISA” (which stands for „The Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute”), which were carried out in collaboration with the anti-cult police. The raids took place in Bologna, Florence, Milan, San Benedetto del Tronto and Bari on the sixth and seventh of December 2012 and have been carried out not only in the quarters of the MISA branches, but also in the homes of involved suspects.

The prosecutor of Florence, Angela Pietroiusti, filed charges of conspiracy, enslavement, human trafficking and sexual violence. The investigation was caused by at least two complaints made by alleged victims of the disciples of the “holy man” (MISA’s Romanian guru – Gregorian Bivolaru). After they gathered the strength to break free from the movement, they told their stories. Other witnesses will be questioned on various issues.

The police seized computers, diaries, documents, but also videos which are now being examined by the investigators. Eighteen people, including Gregorian Bivolaru, are sued for alleged enslavement and sexual abuse.

The guru Bivolaru, aged 60, is an ambiguous figure. He has been imprisoned several times for various charges, including charges related to pornography. In 2005, Bivolaru, wanted in Romania for the crimes of sexual acts with minors and human trafficking, requested and was granted political asylum in Sweden.

„Liberation through sex? That isn’t a problem,” says an investigator, „sex itself is certainly not under investigation. But if it becomes a tool to commit abuse against other people, to enslave some, exploit others, the issue changes profoundly. Especially if it turns out that some people are emotionally fragile on a psychological level.”

The reaction of MISA representatives:

Florence:
”Yes, there was a raid. We do not know what we are accused of. This is a yoga school. We have the exclusive right for the MISA method. But we do not want to talk further: we are waiting to see where the investigation leads,” said a representative of the Atman Yoga Center in Florence, Simone Catocchia, involved in the raids ordered by the prosecutor of Florence against the alleged cult that would have formed based on the so-called ’esoteric yoga’ which is part of the „The Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute” led by the Romanian guru Gregorian Bivolaru (himself under investigation). (found here)

Genoa:
„Gregorian Bivolaru is our master, but we are responsible only for what we do here in Genoa.” Roberto Zambrenti, who runs the Atman Yoga center of Genoa alongside Daniela Trogu, does not comment on either rumors or international online complaints against MISA. He also deems the whole enquiry of the prosecutor’s office in Florence to be unwarranted: „It is a carbon copy of the judiciary attacks against this school which happened in other countries: it recently happened in Finland and now it is happening here in Italy.” He added, „The police came to our home and seized computer equipment and spiritual treatises. We have nothing to hide. I should also point out that in the charges against suspects there is no specific reference to sexual abuse or violence.” (found here, page 21)

Update, December 11: According to an article in Firenze Today, posted on the tenth of December, the investigators questioned 10 witnesses, considered possible victims. The witnesses are men and women whose ages range between 20 and 30, who according to the indictment were brought in a state of psychological subservience and then convinced to take part in violent sex acts, filmed without their knowledge. Currently there are 20 people investigated in the inquiry, students and instructors of the raided centers, who described those sexual practices as „necessary for spiritual evolution”. The usage of the secretly filmed footage is under investigation. One of the hypotheses is that they were sold as adult films.

Virgil Călin breaks the silence and responds to MISA. New disclosures about the inquiry in Italy – Part II

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 13:30:05 +0000

[Roxana Chirilă’s note: This is the follow-up of the article I’ve just posted before this one, and it contains some new disclosures from Virgil Cătălin Călin. They were initially posted on Rapcea’s blog one day apart, but I got to both of them now, hence the speed. If you have any connection to MISA, keep reading. This stuff sounds bad. The original Romanian version can be found here. It has pictures. I might get around to adding them – or not.]

II. Message from Cătălin Călin concerning the recent events in Italy, written for all those interested in the truth.

Now, since we’re already talking about jobs and other such, let’s clear up another matter that Gregorian Bivolaru and yogaesoteric pick on, namely the fact that I would call myself „master Virgil”. This is another cheap manipulation that they use so that the few people who are still faithful to them would think that I have some sort of desire for glory and that this would be one of the reasons why I left MISA. I will start by saying that I’m not the one who calls myself that, but SOMETIMES, some people call me that and they do it for entirely different reasons than those Gregorian Bivolaru and yogaesoteric refer to. In Italian the word „master” is used with to mean something entirely different than it does in Romanian. In Italian the word is used for all those who work in a certain domain which, generally, has to do with teaching, but not exclusively. Therefore, in Italian we will encounter such phrases as: „ski master”, „swimming master”, „maths master”, „kindergarten master”, „painting master”, „dance master”, „yoga master”, „karate master”, „master chef” (you see, chefs are masters as well, so you could say that I am twice the master – this being a joke, of course). Thus the mystery of my supposedly calling myself „master” is revealed.

In the next sentence in the article people refer to my having fans. This is entirely false. I have friends, people whom I respect and who respect me and appreciate the work I do. That is all! As far as this is concerned, we all know that it is actually mister Bivolaru who has fans, because he is adored by a number of people who become hysterical and faint even at the bare mention of his name.

In the same context, the article on yogaesoteric says that I have contacted Swami Suryananda to threaten him that, if he goes to the yoga congress in Romania, he will be arrested. This is another way of twisting the truth. It all started from the fact that, after the first yoga congress held in Bucharest a few years ago, in which Swami Suryananda participated, the latter reproached me for not telling him about the fact that he would have to hold conferences at the same table and in the same context as some porn actors, for which the people in the Federation strongly reproached him. Now, when I found out that he would participate in the so-called yoga congress this year, you can imagine that I was very surprised. That was why I called him and asked him if it was true. He said yes and I asked him if he remembered the situation that was caused by the other congress. He said yes, he remembered, but he had been called insistently a number of times by Swami Mahalayananda from Portugal, and the latter had strongly urged him to participate in the new „congress” and guaranteed repeatedly that MISA no longer had any legal problems and that they were cleared. I told him that those affirmations were false and that MISA still had legal problems – even more so, these problems had spread to many other countries, among which Italy, which was proved by the fact that there was an inquiry concerning the MISA branches in Italy and that I had already been visited by the authorities who searched my home, cars, etc. He thanked me and said he’d think about it. Now I found out from yogaesoteric that I did nothing else but than „threaten” this man. Gentlemen from yogaesoteric, do you know what a threat is?

Yesterday, after I found out about what was written in this article, I called Swami Suryananada again to ask him when I threatened him or if he had felt threatened. He denied that and he even thanked me repeatedly for my warning, considering the fact that he had now read the Italian newspapers and he was sorry even about the fact that he offered those from MISA that video conference. He said that his decision to not go to that congress in Romania was taken after a conversation he had with his collaborators from the Federation, conversation in which the latter insisted that he shouldn’t participate, saying that there was a risk that he would besmirch the name of the Federation again. He then called those from MISA to tell them that he no longer intended to participate in that „congress” and he proposed that he should return the money for the ticket and the other expenses that MISA paid for, but they refused him. Then, mister Suryananada, as he told me last night on the phone, somehow felt he owed them because of the yogi principles of fairness. At the suggestion of his collaborators, he offered those in MISA that video conference. He actually asked me last night: „How have I wronged these people, why do they want to cause me trouble? I have lived all my life honestly and now they put me in this risky situation where I could get in trouble with the authorities without having done anything wrong. Is that what I need at my age?” If you want to convince yourselves of what I said regarding this, mister Suryananda can be contacted by telephone or e-mail at the addresses that are found on the European Federation of Yoga website.

Now let us talk about other things as well, you could say more serious ones, MISA and I and about my breaking off from MISA. Despite all the lies that were told about this, I decided to cease all contact with MISA and Gregorian Bivolaru mostly due to four reasons:

The interminable legal problems which, in my opinion, are problems that appeared due to behavior that is contrary to the moral and ethical yogi principles.
The misrepresentation – in many cases, the complete misrepresentation – of the authentic yogi teachings.
The fact that mister Gregorian Bivolaru himself suggested that I should manipulate my students (he said: „Well, I think that in this case you should use some manipulation techniques with them”)
The invitations made to girls from the yoga courses to attend so-called Tantric initiations with mister Gregorian Bivolaru. These girls were invited by other girls whom Gregorian Bivolaru trusted and they were told: „Be discrete, Cătălin mustn’t know.”

First of all I would like to clarify the absurd claims that some people in MISA make, according to which I had been sent to Italy by Gregorian Bivolaru to spread his teachings. This is completely false. I came to Italy to work, I became acquainted with many yoga schools, martial arts schools, etc., and at one point I started holding yoga courses. At the time I had no connection to MISA or Gregorian Bivolaru, but my brother attended their courses. He went to Gregorian Bivolaru and told him he had a brother in Italy, etc.,etc., and Bivolaru caught the idea and proposed: „Well, he could teach for us, why should he prepare courses himself when we have them already written down and we can offer them to him.” I don’t want to bore you with the details, I will only tell you that after four years of teaching I had only received the first 5 courses from the first year, the introductory ones which describe nearly nothing, and those were in a sorry state. On the other hand, Gregorian Bivolaru had already started asking me for my „monthly contribution” in cash and considered me and my courses to somehow be his property, which was the reason why (I think in ‘94-‘95) we had a very heated discussion, a discussion in which he accused me of gaining some benefits from the MISA courses (?!) and of not giving anything to „them”. He called me „an amazingly selfish person”. I explained then that he had no right to ask me for absolutely anything, because: 1. I did not hold „MISA courses”: 2. I didn’t have any profit, seeing that I myself put in $500 a month to sustain the expenses with the courses and 3. If it were that important for him, I could give him money I earned myself (as a chef), in case he needed it. He insisted on being hysterical, and then I proposed a game with „coloured pencils” through which I would try to make him understand that something was wrong with his approach. He sat at the table with a pen in his hand to calculate (that was all he was interested in) and he kept screaming that if I was honest, why didn’t I bring him accounting papers. In the end he, too, accepted that I had no reason to do that since I had received no support from MISA, not in cash, not in courses, not in any way, and he tried to change tracks and somehow repair the situation by asking: „What, you really don’t earn anything from these courses and you even have to pay money yourself? Well, if that’s the case, you’re stupid! So you go in the West and hold courses for rich Italians and you still have losses? I’ll teach you what to do, because I’ve been in jail and I know all the tricks, I can’t be tricked by anybody. Many have tried, but none have succeeded. Even recently, a boy who grew mushrooms thought he could fool me in this affair, but he couldn’t manage it. Look, you have to adopt Maharishi’s system and ask for a tax equal with 30% of their earnings.” That was when I started laughing and I told him that his view on Westerners wasn’t a very accurate one and that, in my opinion, nobody who has a head on his shoulders shows up at a course with a declaration on how much he earns, so he’d pay you a 30% tax :). The discussion continued on several subjects as he tried to correct his initial mistake. I can tell you that after I got out of the room I told my brother, who was waiting for me, that there was something strange in Gregorian Bivolaru’s behaviour and that I would rather have nothing else to do with him. My brother told me then that I was wrong, that I should think on it some more and he practically spent that summer trying to convince me. I then said ok, let’s try again. That was my mistake! Later on Gregorian Bivolaru proposed that I should be sold written courses (he said it was so that I wouldn’t have to work on writing them). The initial sum that he asked me for – we’re talking about ‘94-‘95 – was of $300/month, then that became $400, then $500, $600 and so on. When the euro appeared, we switched to euros. If we sum up all the „donations” I gave him, we get to almost 200.000 euros and most of the time I didn’t even get those „courses”, I always had to fight with the people at the library, as if they were doing me a favor.

Naturally, I tried to continue studying elsewhere. At the same time, every time I came to Romania I brought mister Gregorian Bivolaru many books and CDs that you couldn’t find in Romania at the time, again as donations. Many of the songs that I used for meditations came from the CDs I offered him and which most of the time MISA sold back, changing their label and naming the songs for meditations. Many of the courses „written by” Gregorian Bivolaru come from such books that I and others who lived abroad brought him. Same goes for the courses on Shivaism. And here’s the equation: I pay a lot of money for some books in the West, which I later donate to the MISA „school”, Gregorian Bivolaru copies them word by word and writes such „courses”, which he later offers me for money. We have to admit that here, when it came to schemes, he was clever. Of course I noticed it, but, like many of you, at the time I thought that maybe I didn’t get it. I have told you all this to clarify this lie about „Cătălin, sent by Gregorian Bivolaru abroad, look how ungrateful he is now, a rebel.” And to ask those who keep claiming that I have used the MISA courses: which courses, gentlemen? Do you even know what you’re talking about, or are you parroting what you’ve been told?

Let’s return to recent times. After the events in 2004, Gregorian Bivolaru started revealing his true nature more openly and also started acting increasingly strange. During the meetings that I’ve had with him (always in Paris, not in Sweden as he claims), I tried to understand what was going on and to convince him to change his behaviour concerning the „yoga school” in Romania: girls dancing in night bars (and don’t tell me that they don’t exist, because it was suggested both to me and some of my students that we should open such night bars which would also have erotic massage parlours, but we refused), the dictatorship and absurdity imposed during camps and courses (let me remind you of a few examples: the way in which those who decided to quit MISA were publicly accused and the way they were insulted with words that aren’t at all worthy of a spiritual school, waiting in the tent at Costinești in horrible conditions even for two days in a row in insanitary conditions, etc., or even the absurd situation in which during some courses you were obligated to listen to colleagues describing their own experience for hours in a row, or more absurdly, the very strange demand that instructors should read, during courses, those horrible letters in which some of the top representatives of MISA threw mud at each other) etc.

During all these meetings with Gregorian Bivolaru, when I mentioned these situations he told me that he actually has nothing to do with them, but he guarantees that he’ll fix them. For many years that was the way it went and he had reached the point where he lied continuously and even more than that, he wanted to lie to me about situations that I myself had attended and about which I knew the truth. There was even a case when I told him: „Grieg, remember that back then I was there as well and things aren’t like you say they are.” It all came to an end when a girl who had just returned from him came and told all of us, nearly 40 instructors (we were at a meeting with the instructors in Italy), about the inhumane treatment she had been subjected to by Gregorian Bivolaru. She said that when she saw Gregorian Bivolaru in the flesh for the so-called initiation, he first offered her 2 rather large glasses of liquor that was very strong, after which, she said: „I no longer knew what I was doing and I didn’t understand anything.” During the actual initiation, at one point the girl felt sick and she asked him to stop, but he didn’t care and went on. He later asked the girl to pee on him, but she couldn’t do it. The girl said that when that happened Gregorian Bivolaru started screaming at her, telling her she was stupid („you are a very stupid person”), and that she was full of demons that made her cringe and fail. After that he took her hand, took her to the bathroom, he sat in the tub and asked the girl to pee on him. What the girl told us was this: „Believe me when I say that I’ve never seen anything more pathetic.” In the end the girl told him that she wanted to go back home, but he started screaming and told her that she had to stay for another week, so they could meet again. She replied that she didn’t want to and that she would have problems in Italy if she were late, because she had no way to justify her absence. Gregorian Bivolaru asked her what sort of problems she would have and she said she’d get in trouble with her boyfriend, but also with me (Cătălin), because I didn’t agree with her going to him. (Regarding that, I want to say that when this girl was invited to meet Gregorian Bivolaru we had a huge fight because I insisted she didn’t go because something was wrong, and she told me that wasn’t true, because many girls told her that this might be a great occasion to evolve). Hearing this, Gregorian Bivolaru got very angry and started screaming at her, saying the following: „How dare Cătălin do such a thing? He should be proud when you come to visit me and he should even help you do it, doesn’t he realize that he is what he is because of me? Because back when I met him he was a lowly dishwasher!” This is when I said: enough! It was the last drop because before this happened there had already been all sorts of issues. That was when I decided that from that moment on I wanted nothing to do with Gregorian Bivolaru and MISA and I ended our „relationship” by sending him a letter. That was also when two other girls got up and told us about their unpleasant experiences with Gregorian Bivolaru, and at the end of that meeting with the instructors, after I decided along with the other instructors that we should break off all ties with MISA, I found out something else: the cherry on top of the cake, as they say, that told me that we couldn’t have done otherwise anyway. An instructor came to me and whispered in my ear that he also had something to say to somehow confirm our decision, seeing that we had broken off with MISA anyhow. He told me then that many months previous, at the end of a training for future instructors in Denmark, he was pulled aside by Mihai Stoian, who told him that Gregorian Bivolaru intended to replace Cătălin Călin from the leadership of the Italian school and that, in this respect, he had already thought of a few people who could replace him, people among whom was this instructor. Gregorian Bivolaru told these people to choose a date when they could go to him to establish who would replace Cătălin. Then, this instructor asked Mihai Stoian: „But does Cătălin know about this, have you told him?” Stoian’s answer was as follows: „No, he hasn’t been informed and he mustn’t know yet. First you’ll have to meet with Gregorian Bivolaru and decide who will replace him.” (The pattern is the same as the one used to replace Raphael Mitica Achirei in England, Narcis Tarcău in India, Dinu Roman in Denmark, etc.) I want to make it clear that my decision to break off from MISA was taken before I found out about the plan to replace me.

Virgil Călin

Virgil Călin breaks the silence and responds to MISA. New disclosures about the inquiry in Italy

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:22:19 +0000

Dec.11,2012

[Roxana Chirilă’s note: This message was written by Virgil Cătălin Călin, formerly a MISA instructor in Italy. It refers to the recent events in that country. It can be found in the original Romanian on Mihai Rapcea’s blog. I was asked to translate it for the benefit of English speakers and I am taking the liberty of spreading it around via my blog.]

I have decided to write these lines in response to the repeated accusations that have been brought against me during the last few years by Gregorian Bivolaru, the MISA leadership and the yogaesoteric website. I want to point out from the very beginning that up until now I didn’t have the slightest intention to respond, in any way, to the multiple false accusations that were brought against me by these people. I really wasn’t interested in the subject. I thought that if I didn’t answer, if I didn’t stoop as low as they do, finally they would stop and everybody would mind their own business. It would appear, however, that this is not the case and that these „people” dine on filth, which is why they always seek to provoke and maintain fights. I believe that, considering these last accusations that were brought against me on the yogaesoteric website (and considering the style in which the article is written, it is very likely that Gregorian Bivolaru is behind it), things have already gone too far and, seeing that these „people” won’t stop, I have decided to reply to shed some light for those who might be interested in it and who can still think independently and wish to use their discernment.

I will start by shedding some light on the lies in this last article, where it is impudently asserted that I would be the one who made the complaints that led to the police raids against MISA in Italy. The title of this yogaesoteric article says: „The investigations are based on a series of complaints made by a Romanian chef who lives in Italy and who wanted to get revenge for being kicked out of the Romanian yoga school”. Let us be clear: I am asking you to use your reason. First of all, I would like to say that I DID NOT FILE ANY SINGLE COMPLAINT! Not to the police, nor to anyone else. This is a lie that belongs to Gregorian Bivolaru and its purpose is to make you focus on a new „enemy” so you wouldn’t see the filth that this „school” wallows in. Should I understand that, through yogaesoteric, Gregorian Bivolaru „understood” that the stories about evil freemasons don’t work anymore and that now he’s trying to grab a hold on anything and anyone who can become an „enemy” to you? And, to prove that I haven’t lost my sense of humour, I challenge those from yogaesoteric and the person who, like a real vira [n. hero] hides behind this article, to a bet – a bet on how many million euros they want, if they prove that I have filed any single complaint. I want to repeat: I HAVE FILED NO COMPLAINT. As far as I know, the inquiry started from a complaint made, strangely enough, by the MISA representatives in Italy. These people were so „intelligent” that they went to the police to file a complaint saying that I put porn DVDs on their cars while they were attending a conference held by Stoian, which had as subject „The Power of Truth”, conference in which he talked about me and about how evil I was to have left MISA. In their great „intelligence”, they then declared to the police that, yes, they personally know the actors in those porn films and they’re all part of the same yoga school, but actually it’s not pornography, it’s art – and they themselves practice these Tantric customs. Their motivation for this complaint was that, supposedly, they were very worried that a child could have taken that DVD from car windows (DVDs that I hadn’t placed there, but, as in the case of other people, they had to have a scapegoat). Imagine that this was a tragicomic moment. The person making the inquiry, who called me there since I was an individual who had information on the subject, looked at me wide-eyed and said with astonishment: „Sir, I don’t understand, tell me. What does yoga have to do with pornography? And then, these people who made this complaint didn’t think that I am actually a cop and therefore I get a „lit light-bulb” when they tell me such a story and that I’ll therefore start investigating? The official question I have for you is: do you really know anything about these films and, I personally, because I do have a „lit light-bulb”, I want to know if you are aware in this case about any prostitution network or other activities connected to that area?” My answer was that I knew nothing about all that and that it was best for him to ask these questions directly of those who came to complain, because they were the ones who claimed they were friends with those actors, etc. That was all!

I was told then that he would continue his investigation. That was the first step, I think, in the beginning of this inquiry and it was made precisely by MISA representatives. Later on, as the majority of Italian newspapers wrote, I found out that there had already been many people, men and women, who complained about the treatment they were subjected to in these MISA branches. I have absolutely nothing to do with the things that happened these days, instead I can tell you that I was actually the first, this summer, who had his house, cars and yoga center searched to gather information for this inquiry. That was when I found out as well that there were complaints made by MISA students in Italy, that was when I found out that the legal circumscription was a serious one, even more so considering that those doing the inquiry were the Antimafia Commission of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Italy. I don’t know if that tells you anything, but if you look it up, you’ll see that this Antimafia Commission rarely picks up insignificant cases and, before police raids, they tend to have the necessary evidence to start an inquiry. But if you find it easier to believe that there is a secret plan through which MISA is „persecuted”, you are free to continue to let your conscience and reason sleep.

Also, in the title of the yogaesoteric article, it is claimed that I would have filed these complaints in order to get revenge because I would have „been kicked out of the Romanian yoga school”!?! First of all, if I really wanted revenge (?), do you really think this is how I’d have acted? What sort of revenge is this? Think for a second that I had many more means to do such a thing. Think a bit about the fact that what happened now in Italy is first of all a dirtying of the YOGA name, as it happened in Romania, and for me, as a person involved in this system, this is unpleasant, especially since many people unfortunately still think of me as connected to MISA. What sort of a person who had my possibilities would come up with such a stupid sort of „revenge”? I didn’t even think of revenge. People, will you really accept to be lied to in this way? Is there nobody who will get up and say: „Sirs, who are you trying to fool?” During that „divinely integrated action”, where people so heatedly asked for my charisma to be withdrawn, etc., wasn’t it exactly Gregorian Bivolaru who was talking to you and telling you that I was the one who decided to leave the „mother school”? When was I ever kicked out? I am the one who left precisely because of, among many other things, these infinite judicial vicissitudes with which MISA is endlessly confronted – and despite that they won’t stop those activities which harm the „school” no matter what. Didn’t Gregorian Bivolaru say in that message that I preferred to leave without even talking to him? And now he’s the one who comes and says, to fool you again, that they were the ones who kicked me out! Wake up and see the lie that is happening under your very eyes and which you aren’t reacting to. Didn’t Gregorian Bivolaru say in that message that I didn’t take any single yoga lesson from him or any other MISA instructor? Well then, where was I kicked out from? Ask yourselves why you’re continuously lied to.

And one final aspect referring again to the title of the article. This is connected to the fact that, as Gregorian Bivolaru mentioned in the beginning of his litany, and in that message from the „divinely integrated action”, I would be a „simple chef”, or more precisely, in this article he writes that I am actually a chef. This is said in a context in which it can seem that being a chef is a degrading occupation. Let’s make things clear. From my point of view, being a chef, like having any other job through which you honestly earn your living, is a noble job. I would like to point out here both my statements and the statements made by Gregorian Bivolaru, especially for those who practice karma yoga [n. volunteer work] in the kitchens in ashrams, in camps, in Gregorian Bivolaru’s home, and I will ask them to think, even for five minutes alone, about the opinion that Gregorian Bivolaru has about them and what he thinks of their worth as human beings. I gather from here that he judges and classifies people according to the jobs that they have, but, at the same time, we can see that he also has an unhealthy opinion about those jobs. I see that for him being a chef is something worthy of contempt, but videochat is something honorable and profoundly transforming. And since we’re talking about these things, let’s clear up this aspect in order to cure this obsession that some people have regarding my job. First of all, I am not a chef. My ID card says something entirely different (in Italy the ID card also names the owner’s job), namely: freelancer; but it doesn’t say chef at all and I don’t work as one, either. I did in the past, more than 20 years ago, and I made pizza and I’m proud of it. It was an experience that made me rich, both in experience and money, but also in inner growth. It was and it is a respectful job in the West and it’s very well paid, which was the reason why Gregorian Bivolaru often asked me to make donations. Back then he wasn’t quite as horrified by this job. Aside from that, because I said that I would help some of you to get past this obsession concerning my supposed job as a chef, I’d like to add that I have graduated, almost with the highest grade, from the Faculty of Political Sciences and International Relations. Moreover, I have a post-university diploma in Herbal Medicine and Bioenergotherapy, diploma gained with the maximum grade from one of the most renowned Academies of Natural Sciences in Italy. Aside from that, I have also studied at the most renown (real!) schools of yoga in the world, among which I will mention Shivananda’s School, Iyengar’s School and others that are less known, and I have also taught the class to train new yoga instructors in one of the World Yoga Federations. I have mentioned these few domains that I am proficient in here because I have truly studied them and I haven’t just improvised, to show you that the „bait” that mister Bivolaru keeps throwing at you, the one concerning being a „simple chef”, is false and also improper when you talk about someone. You don’t judge the person based on the job they have, especially if that job doesn’t harm others and is also an honest one.

And since we’re talking about jobs, I would like to ask you a question, in the spirit of the yogaesoteric article. It’s a rhetorical question: What is Gregorian Bivolaru’s profession? As far as we know, he is a plumber and he worked somewhere in the subway system. Not that this would be bad or ugly in itself, but since he’s the one who is so bent on discussing professions, he should first explain to us how things work in his case. What are his studies? What jobs do you have, you who have edited this article in which, like true viras, you hide behind nicknames?

VIRGIL CĂLIN