MISA (En) on Roxana-Mălina Chirilă

The inhumane treatment of yogis in Bucharest ashrams

Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:34:44 +0000

**Roxana's notes:** I was asked to translate this shocking, heartbreaking letter from Romanian into English. Many of the things in it (like hunger, theft, or stupefying rules) speak for themselves. Others, alas, don't. So I find myself offering a short introduction to who these people are and what context they live in.MISA -- the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute -- started out in 1990, in Romania, as a 'yoga school'. In the over 20 years since then, it grew to have thousands or tens of thousands of yogis attending their weekly courses and it spread to many other countries, like the US, the UK, Spain, Argentina, France, Germany, Finland, Hungary, Denmark, Italy, Australia and others. In some places it thrives, in others it merely gets by.

The yogis who wrote this letter are from Romanian ashrams, but MISA also has ashrams in other countries.While supposedly the organization itself has 20-odd members, the rest being volunteer instructors and yogis merely attending classes, the real structure of the school has Gregorian Bivolaru on top as the spiritual master and a number of VIPs, mostly yoga instructors, deciding things on a lower scale.

Bivolaru was involved in a number of trials in Romania, with some of the charges against him being human trafficking and sexual acts with underage girls and he currently has an international arrest warrant on his name for the latter charge. He ran way from Romania after his legal issues started in 2004 and obtained political asylum in Sweden in 2005. However, after that date many female yoga practitioners were invited to visit him for sexual purposes and discovered him to be located in Paris.Female students who were to his liking would receive free vacations in Costinești (a Romanian seaside resort where the international MISA yoga camp is held on a yearly basis), lasting from two weeks to a month, all expenses paid. They would also receive gifts of books, CDs, perfumes or other such. Those who were invited to Paris might also have their trip there paid and would stay for free, receiving gifts of money, perfumes, chocolate and so on.MISA has also been involved in media scandals for getting women involved in sex biz (pole dancing in foreign countries, erotic chat, erotic massage parlors, 'erotic' films).

These being said, here is the translation of the letter originally published on Mihai Rapcea’s blog, with his comments.

________________

There is no spiritual evolution through fear! Concerning the terrible drama lived by yogis in MISA ashrams

The 1st of August, 2013

I’ve received the text below through e-mail, after I was first being contacted by a group of people living in MISA ashrams in Bucharest, who told me that they would send it. The people involved in this asked me not to let their names be known so they wouldn’t get in trouble with those leading MISA and Romanian ashrams at this time.

According to their claims, the purpose of this text is not to denigrate, but to sensitize and warn those responsible (including Gregorian Bivolaru) about the difficulties and issues that yoga practitioners in Bucharest ashrams are faced with.

Some of them are so exasperated by their problems that they asked me to announce that if, even after this warning text is released, the situation of the average Bucharest ashram dweller fails to improve, they are ready to speak out publicly about everything they know and even to testify in legal inquiries – in the name of all the baseness with which they were treated in the ashram.

The text itself:

____________

We are a group of MISA yogis who chose to dedicate themselves to spiritual practice and to be integrated in Bucharest ashrams. Many of us reached this decision after it was suggested to us by Grieg [n. Gregorian Bivolaru] very many years ago; we were next to him and our colleagues during many important moments of this yoga school. We have chosen to turn our backs to a world that offered material satisfactions alone, desiring spiritual evolution and wishing to become centers of divine light in a world that sank in the darkness of an era of ignorance and confusion (Kali Yuga).

We have endured in hostile conditions in the establishments of our yoga school, faced with all types of shortages and deprivations, animated only by the promise of exceptional spiritual achievements, which for many of us ceased to appear.

We have built, bare-handed, with shovels and buckets, tens of buildings, yoga halls and establishments, without any demands or thoughts of reward for our dedicated work, filled with aspiration towards God, without realizing that what we built around us was a prison, „spiritually” dominated work camps, governed by draconian rules that grew in number and absurdity.

When we became tired, we were animated by the thought of exceptional achievements, of sudden growth through accumulated effort, of the transformations our yoga school would bring to the entire planet, through the revelations that our spiritual master would make to the world.

All of these fail to appear. All that we have left are the exceptional states and experiences we feel after spiritual exemplifications; and a certain spiritual integration, a certain glow of consciousness specific to the one integrated in the ashram. Paradoxically, however, these positive aspects coexist with some concrete everyday aspects which are truly malefic.

There is theft in the ashram. People swear falsely on the Bible in the ashram. And, especially, people LIE everywhere. Lies have become the supreme Truth, especially for those who lead us. We are given small lies or big lies, according to need or interest and there’s always a reasonable excuse for them when the truth is discovered. Today, the ordinary ashram dweller is used, deceived and robbed by those who lead MISA. The one living in the ashram works for free, without medical insurance, without a right to retirement benefits, without being given the minimal social or medical protection he might need, being fed low quality food in insufficient quantities. The one living in the ashram receives the following as food: – for breakfast, half a pack of butter per week (if the week isn’t complete, the person receives no breakfast, not even the half a pack of butter); for lunch, a small bread as tiny as one’s palm (sometimes moldy!), a plateful of soup (fixed serving!), a ladle of boiled potatoes; for dinner, a tiny pie smaller than small pastries, or a mug of stewed fruit and two crackers with chocolate cream in the middle (fixed servings again!).

The MISA leadership decided that the person who lives in the ashram needs to pay: the taxes for the buildings, maintenance costs (electricity, water, sewage, heat, garbage payments, gas) – which are usually unjustifiably large (especially during the summer – when heating isn’t necessary), and all these while in the majority of ashrams you live worse than during Ceaușescu’s time [n. during the communist regime]: in some ashrams we only have power for 3 hours, and then only during the night (for reasons of saving money – although we supposedly pay gigantic bills). Some people in the ashram must pay 250 lei [n. around 60 euros] per month for maintenance (during the summer!), they must pay their yoga courses (80 lei per month! [n. about 20 euros]) and to buy clothing, food (because what they receive isn’t enough) and medicine, if they’re sick. How are they supposed to get that, if they don’t work outside the ashram, because they don’t have the time? Because you must do your daily karma yoga [n. unpaid labor, done as a gift to the community and to God] (between 6 and 8 hours a day), plus the 15 hours in the printing house – which is still better than those 49 hours that were the norm last year before the Costinești camp. Foreigners are better off, because they have money and usually their norm for karma yoga isn’t over 5 hours per day. In the printing house you work in inhumane conditions (heat, filth), permanently humiliated and treated like a slave by employees, and the hours you didn’t put in are doubled, the sanction being that you’re not allowed to go on vacation. To all of that is added the OBLIGATION (for the ordinary person living in the ashram it comes 3 or 4 times per month, without being allowed to get there later than 20 minutes – which would count as being absent) to participate in pro-MISA meetings, where you are obligated to chant different slogans and to hold all sorts of placards you ceased believing in long ago. Obviously, you don’t get any money for (and nobody cares about it) the bus or subway fare you need to pay to get to the meeting (some people were „advised” to consecrate the trip to God… and to take the bus or tram without paying the fare [n. there’s obviously a chance of getting caught and needing to pay a fine]). At the meeting, you wait 4-5 hours underneath the blazing sun (summer) or in the freezing cold (winter) without the „organizers” giving you a glass of water (summer) or warm tea (winter), or even a pretzel – to have the strength to chant.

You must also participate in weekly ashram meetings, where they make activity lists (street meeting participants) and other activities. In these meetings, which rival the interminable party meetings of the Communist Party, which sometimes last until late at night, you pay policies, those who protest are morally lynched in public (the famous self-critique) and those who have the courage of their own opinion receive punishment. If you’re late or missing, you are punished with extra work hours in the printing house. Lately, in some ashrams and even in yoga halls they’ve (discreetly!) installed surveillance cameras which record everybody there.

Slowly, MISA has become a closed totalitarian system, absurd and impossible, where people are exploited and the only „spiritual” race has remained the one in which you endure all sorts of privations, but also abuse from ashram leaders, who are directly supported by Gregorian Bivolaru and use his authority in front of us.

Hunger and privation have eaten away our colleagues’ consciousness. Food is stolen from the fridge, FROM HUNGER. Leaders and those who keep track of attendance lists are bribed. If you have money (and not a lot!), you do well in the ashram. You can pay your hours of karma yoga and printing house; we won’t have long until we end up paying our colleagues to do our nauli kriya for us (and to consecrate the results of that to us), so we can manage to do our daily yoga practice.

All of these show a life lived in falseness, fear, lies and hypocrisy.

When did those who lead us become so INHUMAN?! What do they want? We are told we’re free to leave whenever we want if we don’t like it, but we can’t leave the ashram at night without a note of permission from Neacşu Cristian (who is in charge of all the ashrams in Bucharest) and we can’t leave Bucharest even for an hour without his permission.

When they’ve planned how you spend all of your time, when and how can you earn money to pay all the expenses imposed on you, where can you find the money to buy clothes, shoes, food, toothpaste, toilet paper, tampons, phonecards or subway fares? Never mind having a lover and wanting to buy a gift!

Moreover, some were thrown out just because they tried to find a job to buy their own food! But they accept it if you work for two dimes for Steaua Divină (6 or 8 hours a day), without papers attesting to it, or with papers saying you worked far less than you really do, for wages of 250 lei a month [n. about 60 euros], which are enough to pay your maintenance expenses!

Sometimes they do accept it if you work, even if you live in the ashram, but only „in exceptional cases”, if it’s a good job; but then you’re obligated to donate half of your salary to MISA, and obviously you spend the other half paying your ashram expenses…

That’s not the case for the women in the ashram. The young and beautiful ones end up (because of poverty, privation and pressure) working either in erotic chat studios, or in strip clubs as pole dancers. ALL the money goes to MISA, because their work is ‘karma yoga’ and they receive only 1% of what they earn. Even so, women no longer want to work for you, and you came up with stories that say good aliens inspired you to create Miss Shakti competitions, which is where you recruit your women.

Lately, it’s not just women who leave. The Mahavira ananda[sic] group has become an entrepreneur of yogi work as of late. They offer jobs outside of Romania for men (construction work) and ensure housing, transport and, partially, food, for 300 euros per month, the rest being… „donations”. The compulsory condition to work for Mahavirananda [sic] is to do hard work for 2 weeks (in construction) for their ashram, FOR FREE, merely for housing and food (partly covered).

Lately, MISA leaders have approved something else; during the Costinești spiritual camp, because those in the ashram are forbidden to light candles (for fear of fire), they (those who have a tapas of light offerings – and there are THOUSANDS OF SUCH PEOPLE!) THAT THEY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO LIGHT THEIR CANDLES in the ashram called the Little Villa belonging to the Mahavirananda group, FOR MONEY, for 2 lei [n. about half an euro] per person/candle tray.

So there are some who’ve figured out even how to transform the spiritual energy of candlelight into money!

There are many things that come to mind now, all sorts of injustice and abuse. Not from prosecutors and the law system, but from MISA leadership. Grieg [Gregorian Bivolaru], you are the first who does us injustice, when you treat yogis differently. The women who do you sexual favors are buried in money and expensive gifts, you take them to Paris and delight them with fine food, but those who work in ashrams like slaves to keep a yoga school alive – and to maintain your LIFE OF LUXURY AND DEBAUCHERY, for them there’s no money for food, housing, health, electricity or vacations.

It’s our fault, too. It’s our fault that we believed in you. It’s our fault that we were silent, that we accepted your baseness and authority, but one day we’ll finally talk to you face to face, even if you always refuse to meet us or to listen to our problems. We will hold you accountable for all these miserly things and for all our suffering. Despite what MISA says in public, we know your people bribe judges and prosecutors, we know that all the MISA companies (starting with the publishing house!) act illegally, with yogi slaves! But slaves can’t quit. They’re merely bought and sold. Dear Grieg, you sold us to Neacşu Cristian, to Nicu Catrina, to Iulia, to Costică, to Cristi Ion, to Lăcrămioara, Edi Franţi, Monica Dascălu, Teo Pop, Radu Constantin and all the other money leeches you surrounded yourself with. These people continue to EXPLOIT us IN YOUR NAME, even if you no longer live in Romania, where we don’t think you’ll ever return! Despite that, although you and He are already judged for these actions, WITH INCREDIBLE INSOLENCE you dare TO CONTINUE TO DO THESE DISHONEST ACTIONS.

Don’t you fear God?! Then FEAR US, because we have reached the end of our patience.

Signed:

A group of people living in the ashram (who are truly outraged!)

[Later edit: I’ve gone through the text again, editing some leftover issues from the first draft translation I initially posted; sorry for the bother.]

On MISA & Silence

Mon, 13 May 2013 19:57:37 +0000

I’ve watched the show concerning MISA and Gregorian Bivolaru made for Yle TV by Riikka Kaihovaara – „The Call of a Tantric Guru”. I speak Finnish like I speak Swahili – not even a tiny wee bit. So I mostly watched the pretty pictures, listened to the music, kept my ears up in the hope of hearing words that sound like words I know and listened to the parts in English.

There were several parts in English, of course, because not all interviewees were Finish. There was Mihai Rapcea, lawyer, former MISA student. Then there was myself, with my name, Roxana Chirilă, pronounced in a fun way: with a hard ‘R’ for ‘Roxana’ and ‘Tsh’ for ‘Chirilă’ (it’s actually Kiril-um). (I collect these things; they’re fascinating, because they’re markers of the phonology of the speaker’s native or familiar languag– I’ll drop that subject now, gotcha).

Pleasantly Professional – and Then Add Some Nice

Working with Riikka Kaihovaara, who was also behind the documentary „The Dark Side of a Tantric Cult” a few years ago, was a pleasure. I sat with her in Cișmigiu Park, in Bucharest, for an interview that lasted longer than the show would eventually be. I think I must’ve shared everything from my vision of MISA to small details all over the place.

I have to say that, just like the stereotype would dictate, I am not entirely happy with the way I sound and with the way I look, and I am not happy with how little of everything could make it in. But. Since the world doesn’t, in fact, revolve around me, I have to say that I love what she did. She picked the parts that I would have picked, had I been in her shoes – not the things that would make me, Roxana, happy, but the things that worked best in the documentary. I can’t understand the whole story, but I understand enough to say, „yes, that works, that works, the other one works.”

And since cameramen get mentioned so little in general, I have to say that Taisto Lapila, the big man carrying everything necessary for shooting from camera to tripod, was an encouraging, pleasant presence just out of line of sight.

Now, I’ve written about this a bit yesterday, but it was in Romanian. Here goes.

Why should YOU care about MISA?

There are a number of people who will be interested in MISA because they are attending their courses, because they attended their courses or because their dear ones attended/attend their courses. What if you’re not one of them?

Well, here’s what I think: I think MISA is a very particular example of something that’s spread all over the world. It’s a spiritual movement, yes, soaked in orientalism, with a tinge of extra sex and an air of something special. But in the end, it’s about people who hope for a lot and let their hopes and desires be used as a tool against them. I was saying yesterday that there’s surprisingly few prerequisites to joining it: you need to want to better yourself and to have faith that it’s possible to do so. You need to be inclined even the least bit towards oriental practices. And you need to have some faith in teachers. The rest can be done by your MISA instructors.

[Side note: somebody was commenting on my blog, regarding the orientalism thing, that not all people who joined were particularly interested in oriental practices, nor are all MISA practices oriental. He has a point in saying that things aren’t as clear-cut as all that, but I firmly believe that if you are repelled or dismissive of yoga or meditations, you will not join.]

But the same principle holds true for other groups as well. Maybe you’re oriented towards Christianity and hope to do good in life – you might fall prey to a Christian sect. Or maybe you end up in a gang, in a nationalist group, in ‘freedom fighter’ groups, in some other sort of group that will seem to respond to your needs.

MISA is striking because of its beliefs and practices – so striking indeed that many people fail to understand why one would join. Well. You might be safe from joining. Everybody you know might be safe from joining. But it’s not alone. There’s always something just there, some religious group that might be harmless or harmful, that might be Christianity-based or inclined towards oriental practices, or towards the New Age medley of anything and everything. MISA shows how things can go wrong in one direction – trust me when I say it’s fascinating to see even as a case study. But it also shows THAT things can go very wrong with the best of intentions.

So Why Did I Shut Up for so Long?

Now, I stopped believing in MISA somewhere around 2008, stuck around for awhile because I had friends and acquaintances there, then eventually left in about 2010 or so. It’s 2013. What the hell have I been doing, right?

Well, here’s the deal: you don’t just leave. You take some time off. You heal a little. You retreat into a corner and lick your wounds and try to see where your life is going. Riikka’s documentary, at the end, has me saying that I was very, very angry when I left MISA. And I was very, very aware of that I was angry and that I needed to chill.

I finished my undergraduate studies. I finished my graduate studies as well. I thought long and hard about MISA. I healed. I started talking a bit when I felt that I could do so without hurting myself. I talked more when I could talk more. I held a conference about the topic when I could do it with a clear head.

Now I have a life. Sure, MISA is still a conversation topic. But it’s somewhere in the past, distant. I can understand it, but I am not as affected by it. At one point it mattered to me that my old ‘friends’ would call me demoniac and evil and fallen. Now I can laugh. I can talk about all sorts of stuff I did or saw. After I’m done talking, I can go back to my books and my studies and to nicely random discussions with friends, to coding stuff and playing games. MISA and Bivolaru are things that I understand, but they aren’t part of my everyday life, of the existential questions I’m faced with. Does that make sense?…

But Why Do I Talk About It?

Because I find talking easy, I enjoy debates and people might profit from it. Some time ago MISA based its counter-arguments to accusations on things such as „Nobody talks against us except Cecilia Tiz”. It’s time that stopped. Just because most of those who suffer are silent doesn’t mean they’re not there.

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)

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.

[][2]

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

Comments on the Huffington Post MISA article

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 17:31:26 +0000

I wondered whether I should comment on the Huffington Post article about MISA and Gregorian Bivolaru in English. After all, my blog is supposedly in Romanian. However, in Romania you have a lot of people commenting on MISA and Gregorian Bivolaru and you can ask any number of former students what’s what (plus, we know our own history). Hell, if you want, you can ask current students as well. But foreigners have less to draw upon. And Romanians speak some English, while foreigners rarely speak any Romanian at all. And the article itself was initially in English.

The coin has been tossed. English it is.

All quotes are from Stewart J. Lawrence’s article.

European Yoga Porn ‘Cult’ Establishes a U.S. Beachhead: Where Is the Outrage?

Funnily enough, some of the news here says that our yoga cult ended up on US beaches. Now, a few days ago I didn’t know what a beachhead was, either. But then I used a dictionary. To all translators out there, I recommend thefreedictionary.com. Thus far it’s never failed me.

Gregorian Bivolaru, has been accused of coercing or seducing hundreds of vulnerable women into producing hard-core porn videos, abandoning their spouses, and in some cases, becoming strippers and prostitutes — all in the name of “liberating” the female body and bringing MISA members into intimate communion with the “Divine Goddess.”

That’s a pretty accurate description, although it’s not what MISA yogis would say. The oft-repeated lines say it’s for „getting rid of inhibitions” and „becoming more feminine”. As for divine goddesses, you’re supposed to picture yourself as one and thus, through resonance, attract the qualities of the divine goddess in yourself.

On its face, the group might sound like an obvious fraud, even a criminal one. But it has escaped prosecution to date, in part because Bivolaru, who first founded MISA in his native Romania in 1990, was persecuted under communist rule.

Ah, well, erm. Not really. Gregorian Bivolaru did found MISA in 1990 in Romania, and he was persecuted under communist rule, but there’s no connection between that and escaping prosecution. A lot of people were persecuted by the communists, Bivolaru was just one of them – an anonymous other. He managed to escape for so long because news of all this crap didn’t get out until, oh, 2004. And then there was a long and winding road through courts and trials.

For years many of his countrymen, including influential members of the Romanian elite, as well as human rights groups like Amnesty International, have treated Bivolaru as a “victim” worth defending.

Again, not quite… Let me put this in a bit of context: MISA claims (over) 30.000 yogis in Romania. The population of Romania is somewhere around 19-20-22 million people (depending on year and census). Politics? All over the place. Economy? Could be a lot better. Salaries? A crying matter. To quote one of the TV political commentators here, „We live in Romania and that takes up all our time”. There was simply not enough awareness of Bivolaru until 2004 for nearly anyone to stick up for him, and even if there had been, we have other issues. In 2004 there was this huge thing with the police breaking down the doors to MISA houses and the news shouting out all over the place that MISA yogis were sex-obsessed pee drinkers, so guess which way public opinion swayed?

There was never a context for ‘many’ of our countrymen to rally up to defend Bivolaru. We don’t even rally up to protest for things that affect us on a daily basis.

However, that quote holds some truth as well: in 2004, when the police really did act out of hand, MISA went around to human rights groups demanding justice – and some of them offered their help. To my mind, the fact that the police moved in with guns and masks and shouts and threats, confiscating objects and filming everything, then leaking bad info to the media, was a huge tactical mistake. MISA yogis rallied up (including myself) to protest the injustice that happened to our colleagues in Bucharest. The fact that some of us had guns held to their heads was used as proof that the authorities had been and still were against us – because we practiced yoga. We were the ones who went on the streets, all in good faith, because back then not many of us knew about the porn biz behind it all. There really were thousands of us, yes.

At the same time, it also made MISA a victim and allowed it to play the abused card. Because of 2004, the MISA leadership can keep claiming that everything is a lie said by an abusive system. Things got a hell of a lot more difficult to sort out than they could have been.

Thousands of Romanians have marched and protested on MISA’s behalf, and after the communist regime fell, and the new authorities still decided to arrested him — this time, on sex crime charges — Bivolaru somehow escaped from prison and wound up in Sweden.

Ooook, difficult one. Yes, thousands of Romanians marched and protested on MISA’s behalf – but they were MISA yogis. This happened in 2004. The communist regime fell in December 1989, right before MISA was founded.

Nobody marched for causes during communism, because it could be very bad for your health. The way to express your discontent with the system, as a novelist nicely put it, was to shut yourself in your house, lock the doors, go into the bedroom, climb into bed, put your head under the pillow and whisper, but not too loudly, „Screw them”; you didn’t mention who, just in case anybody can hear. Well, this is meant as a joke, but the truth is that you could end up in jail for speaking against the system, so no marching.

The new authorities arrested him, then they released him, then they took him back, then they released him and so on. I’m not sure how the justice system works, but it was necessary to let him go at the time. He didn’t escape from jail, he just illegally crossed the border once he was temporarily discharged. He did escape arrest during communism, though. But that was many, many years ago.

Bivolaru is unique, perhaps, in placing a self-styled “Tantric” eroticism at the center of his group’s theology, suggesting that all human, especially female, sexual inhibitions must be removed to allow the Divine spirit to flourish.

True, but a MISA yogi would put it differently. Inhibitions must be removed so you can evolve. It is only by evolution that you can reach spiritual liberation. Hence, remove your inhibitions!

The initial pitch suggests that the women will learn “esoteric yoga” and begin to live in a larger “movement” setting that will nurture them in ways that their families alone cannot.

That they’ll learn ‘real’ yoga, not the ‘sports stuff’ done everywhere else 😛 The thing about nurturing them is implied more than said. You get a nice dose of love-bombing to start with. But yeah, they mention that your family/the society aren’t as great as they could be and they’re not teaching you the right stuff. But MISA is a true yoga school, where real spirituality happens. People are nicer here, better, kinder, more loving.

are slowly drawn into a series of deepening and more compromising personal commitments, frequently backed up by written contracts that the members are led to believe have the force of law.

Most of the time they’re backed up by your oath to do something and the oath not to reveal that matter to anyone, on pain of losing your spiritual evolution and health. I rarely ran into anything that was written down as a contract, but I didn’t get involved in the porn chat slash pole dancing business. Maybe they have those there.

Sometimes the pressure — and the threats — are far more overt, but despite their growing doubts and discontent, many feel too vulnerable to “escape,” defectors say.

Threats aren’t overly physical. They don’t threaten to beat you up if you leave or give up, at least not in my experience (again, I wasn’t omnipresent in this thing, I don’t know all the details). That’s how they can keep saying everybody’s free to do as they like.

You’re threatened with paranormal payback, which may seem like a laughing matter unless you actually believe in it – which MISA yogis do. And the payback would come from God, not from MISA, so it can seem inescapable. Among the things I was told: that I’d get ill, that I’d lose everything I gained through years of yoga practice, that I’d never have fulfilling sex again or be in a loving relationship (because men outside the yoga courses don’t know how to treat women right), that I was throwing away my future, that I was throwing away God and spirituality. It’s lucky that I didn’t take all that to be absolutely true, but there are people who do.

The women are usually housed in confined, overcrowded quarters and their movements strictly controlled, defectors say.

Overcrowded quarters and strictly controlled movements aren’t characteristic only for pole dancers. Yogis in ashrams are similarly overcrowded, though not as much (they need to breathe in order to work, after all). Women invited to spend their summer vacation for free in one of the seaside MISA houses are also overcrowded (you can easily get 3 people on a 2-person mattress). Women who go visit Bivolaru have also reported being overcrowded – somebody mentioned over 20 women in a not very large 3-room apartment, without the possibility of going out whenever you wanted to.

Newcomers to the gatherings must provide photos of themselves in bikinis as well as proof that they are free of sexual diseases before being allowed to attend.

Not just newcomers, but everybody who attends. Both male and female. Children as well (STD test results included). You are assured that this is natural and it happens all over the world in civilized countries.

According to testimonies, MISA leaders use these “applications” to size up potential sexual conquests, and also to make decisions about who to approach to get more involved in MISA’s less publicly known activities, including a nude “Miss Shakti” beauty contest that in past years has featured live sex on stage,

Women are invited to join the Miss Shakti beauty contest regardless of the photos. The rest of the stuff is probably true, though I personally cannot vouch for anything; I know that women invited to spend their summer in the yogi all-women’s Villa at the seaside are chosen that way.

Also, Miss Shakti doesn’t have sex on stage – just sexy dancing and simulations of sex. The solo sex challenge happens off stage, in secrecy (and privacy). There’s also erotic clips, for which some women actually have sex with their lovers while being filmed, but they’re edited like romantic softcore erotica. Those are projected on large screens for the audience to see.

One of MISA’s better-known porn videos, “Water Ecstasy,” showcases Bivolaru’s rather bizarre view that women — and their male lovers — can achieve heightened states of spiritual consciousness through what amounts to pornographic “watersports” or what MISA calls “urinary orgasm.”

It’s „Ecstasy Water”, actually.

While we’re on the subject of MISA porn videos, which MISA calls ’erotica’, you can see a „Making Off”[sic!] of one of these films right here. It’s called „The Magic Passage” and it’s one of those in which all parties knew what they were getting involved in – and you can see one of Gregorian Bivolaru’s top students, the leader of the Denmark branch of MISA, NATHA, in his porn actor persona, as Paul Diamond. His wife, Adina Stoian, is Claire Diamond.

„Making Off” is considered an erotic initiation film by many MISA students who don’t agree with the ‘porn film’ label.

In 2008, the European Yoga Alliance and the International Yoga Federation expelled MISA, calling it an illicit “business front.”

And calling Gregorian Bivolaru a „vulgar sex businessman”.

And earlier this year, Bivolaru managed to get part of its original indictment by Romanian authorities dropped, even as MISA members, including a group of well-known European porn stars, led by Mihai Stoian, a top Bivolaru aide, were being expelled from South India for illicitly filming graphic sex videos.

Actually, Mihai Stoian’s Indian adventures happened last year. And he was expelled from South India mostly because of „The Magic Passage”, I think. Although you never know.

The unregulated anarchy of the yoga movement may be guaranteeing it freedom from excessive state control. But as the MISA case demonstrates, it may also be providing the kind of loose “cover” that weakens public accountability and oversight of the yoga industry and that could end up allowing hundreds and perhaps thousands of vulnerable women to be placed at greater risk for abuse and exploitation. Surely there’s more to yoga sisterhood than this.

I like this part. This is very true. Never mind America, we could use knowing which yoga school is which all over the world.

Article about MISA in the Huffington Post

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 20:14:11 +0000

Have a link to it.

It starts:

European Yoga Porn ‘Cult’ Establishes a U.S. Beachhead: Where Is the Outrage?

It calls itself the „Movement for Spiritual Integration in Absolute” – or MISA – and is reputedly the largest „yoga” movement in Europe, claiming some 40,000 members in more than a dozen countries. But it’s actually a dangerous personality cult whose „supreme spiritual leader,” Gregorian Bivolaru, has been accused of coercing or seducing hundreds of vulnerable women into producing hard-core porn videos, abandoning their spouses, and in some cases, becoming strippers and prostitutes – all in the name of „liberating” the female body and bringing MISA members into intimate communion with the „Divine Goddess.”

You can find the rest on HuffPo.

The FECRIS Conference

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 09:22:54 +0000

This blog will mostly be in Romanian, but since my conference in Perpignan was in English and it’ll take awhile before I get around to translating it, I figured I might post the text as-is.

Two things:

You may use the text of this conference as you wish – as long as you don’t modify it and you attribute it to me (and it would be nice if you also specified the context). Re-post it, criticize it, publish it – be my guests. If you’re doing something with it online, a link back would be very nice. If you’re doing something interesting with it, I enjoy being told. But if I’m unavailable for comment or whatever, just assume you have my permission.

For further info (or for criticism or whatever), I am available here, or at roxmchirila (at) yahoo (dot) com.

This written text is what I planned on reading at the conference. However, when I found myself there, I chose to speak freely. The obvious side-effect is that there are discrepancies between what I wrote and what I said – mostly in wording, although there are a few things in writing that never got to show up in the actual speech (the Benedict Anderson comment, the invocation from the „No Apocalypse” technique, the reference to the article on Yogaesoteric.net).

This IS the official written version, though, which I sent for publication on the FECRIS site and which will be published in the Traspasos magazine (translated in Spanish).

And here is the conference:

The Emotional Apocalypse:
A Quick View of MISA and its Apocalypse(s)

An apocalypse is an emotional event. I am referring here not to the usual meaning of the word apocalypse, the death of mankind, the destruction of civilization, the end of our world. Instead, I am referring to the phenomenon that occurs when a sect makes the end of the world a part of its doctrine: a very specific apocalypse is prepared for and it becomes part of the mentality and everyday life of a restricted, local group of people. Benedict Anderson once explained that most communities we are part of are too large for us to personally know every other person involved in them (“Imagined Communities”) – thus we imagine communities, feeling a kinship with others who live in the same territory, speak the same language, have the same beliefs – or even share the same apocalypse.

An apocalypse is a local solution for generalized problems and desires. It connects to the fear of death, translated into larger scale death and destruction that can paradoxically make the individual feel more in control of his or her personal destiny. An apocalypse is a judgment of value that will decide once and for all who are the virtuous and who are the sinful, who was right in their belief and who was wrong. An apocalypse is a chance to fight against evil and to prove oneself a savior, a worthy person or a hero who can withstand any challenge.

While sect apocalypses are many and vary according to the specifics of each sect’s teachings, the core of the various scenarios for the end of the world remains the same and it generally forms a knot of emotions and meanings, of concepts and desires and fears. It is my belief that in order to begin defusing the concept of the apocalypse it generally will not be enough to bring proof against the pet apocalyptic theory of the group – it is also necessary to understand how that apocalypse came to be believed and what its implications are for those members.

I will be addressing the issue as a former student of the Romanian MISA yoga school – in other words, as a former sect member of an orientally-flavored group that believes it has already averted at least two large-scale disasters and is working hard to delay or stop the 2012 Apocalypse. One averted disaster would have taken place in 1996, when an asteroid would have hit the earth, and another one would have been a devastating earthquake that would have destroyed a great part of Romania – MISA yogis believe that they have managed to avert both disasters by meditating and praying against them. Now they are meditating, praying and invoking God’s grace to avert or delay the 2012 apocalypse.

To better understand the concept of this particular apocalypse and how it relates to the rest of the sect beliefs, it is necessary to have some background of the MISA yoga school. It has been established in 1990 under the name of the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute and it was one of the first sources of oriental philosophy and spiritual practices in the country, all oriental disciplines having been banned during the communist regime that lasted until the end of 1989. Yoga classes are held once a week – at the end of a year of study, those who have attended enough classes automatically graduate into a superior year (today the highest ‘yoga year’ is 23). Due to its good timing and course-like structure, it boasts a high number of intellectuals who attended or continue attending its classes. MISA also organizes yoga camps, conferences, shows, courses on traditional Indian medicine, astrology or spirituality-related topics, as well as student groups that have as purpose the improvement of the master-disciple relationship, or the personal improvement of women. Eventually, students are led to believe that they can find the answer to most questions and life situations within the sect, that the leader Gregorian Bivolaru knows anything of all possible subjects and can suggest better alternatives than those found outside and that anything in the world can either be incorporated into the sect, or is based on false knowledge. They gradually come to believe that they are better than „normal people” and that going back to the world, back to normal interests or interacting on a normal level would maybe affect their spiritual level.

Despite the fact that MISA calls itself a yoga school, the theoretical teachings are also drawn from other traditions – the Hindu Shiva and Shakti are worshiped along with Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Other teachings are drawn from New Age beliefs or conspiracy theories, such as neo-Tantric sexual techniques, beliefs in benevolent aliens coming to the aid of humankind, a belief in freemasonry taking over the world and trying to bring MISA to its knees. Bivolaru and the higher-up circle of the sect (the big name instructors and VIPs) attempt to transform these elements into a single, coherent whole, but occasionally problems of doctrine can arise. Often, discrepancies or contradictions are smoothed over by modifying the texts of other spiritual traditions to make it seem as if MISA ideas are universally supported.

However, even when contradictions do appear, they are usually glossed over and ignored because MISA yogis are encouraged not to research matters thoroughly, but to swallow what they can of the theory – and practice according to what their higher-ups recommend. There is an enormous amount of written courses, books, brochures, conferences and articles written on a wide range of topics, but the core of MISA beliefs is actually orally transmitted, sometimes with short aphorisms attached for easier memorizing and quicker responses to issues.

For example, „one gram of practice is worth more than tons of theory”: the yogi is led to believe that if he or she does what the instructors or especially Gregorian Bivolaru say, then they will evolve quickly. Then, the much sought-after evolution is judged by the „states” that the yogi has: „A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds and the yogi by his states”. The elusive „state” is a mood/sentiment/condition in which the student can find oneself – the state of happiness, the state of wisdom, the super-mental state, the state of communion with God. Yogis are encouraged to become over-sexual, because „sex energy is the basic energy of life”. MISA yogis are also encouraged to feel rather than to trust their logic skills – „The mind lies”. They are encouraged to blindly follow Gregorian Bivolaru as well („the chance of encountering a true spiritual master is the same as that of a sea turtle that comes up to breathe every one hundred years and even then manages to bump its head on a floating piece of wood”).

In this context, all possible apocalypses can be averted by using methods proposed by Gregorian Bivolaru, which will involve asking for God’s help in the matter. The success of communicating with God will be judged by the ‘states’ that the yogi will have during meditations/invocations (feeling better, feeling light, feeling life). Not believing in the apocalypse due to disbelief would be succumbing to the mind’s lies, the mind’s so-called stupidity.

MISA’s concept of the Apocalypse is, like much of its doctrine, orally transmitted and made up of various elements taken from vastly different contexts. December 2012 is seen as a time when the world will move into a new era – the Hindu Satya Yuga -, a spiritual age in which the Earth will enter the photon belt, which will kill all those who are not spiritually prepared for the event. Benevolent aliens are offering their help to mankind and must be told that their help is accepted through meditations in which an affirmative answer is transmitted to them. There will be a number of natural disasters, which will mostly happen anywhere but in Romania, but all this can be averted through the prayers and invocations of MISA yogis – the Apocalypse can be delayed and drawn out for the good of all mankind with just a gram of practice and the grace of God. At the same time, the freemasons, a group of people who wish to enslave humanity, are also aware of these imminent disasters and are building underground structures to defend themselves – but some of these underground structures were destroyed due to God’s will, which was prompted by the meditations and invocations of MISA yogis.

Even if when summarized this entire theory looks more than unlikely, the yogi comes in contact with it gradually and will be likely to believe at least part of it, if not all of it. However, the apocalypse as a whole is a somewhat secondary and optional belief in the MISA system – the topics which are universally accepted and which form the MISA doctrine are usually related to sexuality, conspiracies or the personal effort made to evolve spiritually. Even so, the half-believed in apocalypse still has an influence on the mentality of yogis, who will pray and meditate against it and mention it often enough in conversation.

The fact that they discuss and consider it even if they are not entirely convinced by it is due to the fact that the apocalypse is a ‘strong’ idea. We live in a culture where we are very familiar with end of the world scenarios due to films and other media, as well as due to a Christian tradition that speaks of the end of the world. More than that, the local apocalypse of a sect will connect to three ideas that have strong emotional attachments: 1. the personal fear of death, generalized to the picture of everybody dying; 2. a judgment of all those who die (either in the sense of somebody judging, or of only the worthy ones surviving/going to heaven); 3. the hero aspect of the cult follower, who battles the forces of evil in an ultimate setting.

As far as the first aspect, that of death, is concerned, the individual shifts the uncertainty of their own future existence (we all know we’re going to die, but we don’t know when or how or what will happen afterwards) into the certainty of an outside event that will affect everybody. This has the paradoxical potential of making personal death seem more manageable – on the one hand, major events can seem escapable; on the other hand, the person will be surrounded by many others and at least will not face non-existence alone. Still, the death-aspect isn’t the one that MISA focuses on.

The second aspect is that of judgment – whether the apocalypse is the Christian one in which good men go to heaven, or the photon belt one in which only spiritual people survive, there will be some sort of measuring by which the individual is weighted and his or her value is established. The reward at the end would justify present problems and give a meaning to all suffering or discomforts that may arise on the way. For example, the image of MISA in Romania is that of a sex-obsessed, pee-drinking group of pseudo-yogis worshiping the guru (which is not that far from the truth) and adepts have to live with the unpleasant labeling. Some yogis have experienced health problems or mental problems, but they are considered tests which will make them all the better and stronger at the end. Sometimes adepts are asked to do things like working for free or near-prostitution (pole dancing and erotic videochat for women), or they are urged sternly to go through difficult practices on a daily basis. However, to members these can appear not as degradations or abuse, but as stepping stones to achieve a spiritual level that will eventually have divine validation when the yogi survives the apocalypse or defends himself from freemasonry-related disasters or becomes enlightened. The deeper the yogi goes in these practices, the more likely he is to keep believing in the system, in the apocalypse, in the guru in order to give a meaning to difficulties, ascetic practices and suffering. The desire to have all of these things be true grows as time goes by in order to maintain the person’s inner equilibrium and to validate their lifestyle.

The third aspect is the heroic aspect: MISA yogis are always meditating, praying and invoking forces to help the planet or mankind. They can see themselves as noble heroes that save the world even if the world doesn’t know it. More than that, they see themselves as battling their own lower aspects and evolving in the face of demonic influence, the apocalypse, the difficulty of living in what they think is a fallen, materialistic age. Not only are they validated, as we have seen above, but they can see themselves as people who are to some measure pure and good.

The apocalypse now established, there are two further issues to be taken into consideration: how to react to it and what happens if the apocalypse does or does not occur. Due to the fact that MISA believes that any destiny can be changed if one knows how to act, MISA yogis attempt to avert the death aspect through a ritual technique described by Gregorian Bivolaru („the supreme and efficient method”) as part of a long program stretching over years: the “Planetary Program of Urgent Action: No to the Apocalypse!!!” (also published as a brochure) Persuasion is used to convince students to do the technique at home or at work.

The technique contains invocations of angels, the Holy Ghost and a prayer-like invocation directed towards God which asks him to forgive the sins of humanity. Sample invocation: „I invoke, here and now, with a full, profound and strong faith, the mysterious manifestation of God’s grace in my being and I strongly aspire to feel ever more clearly and intensely its accumulation in my inner universe. I am profoundly and fully convinced that this is happening due to the miraculous help that the heavenly father – God – is offering to me.” (Bivolaru 95)

On MISA’s official website, there is an article called „10 reasons to perform the Supreme and Efficient Method”, signed by Maxim Hongell that enumerates ten reasons for involving oneself in the program:

The love for our planet and for humanity.
The privilege and responsibility granted by the fact that one knows about the technique and the apocalypse.
One’s faith in God – if the disciples believe in God, then they should believe he can save the world as well, if asked to do it.
Assuring the continuity of life.
A good impact on the general state of the planet and of humanity – since disciples are praying for the forgiveness of sins.
Elevating the vibration level of the planet and of humanity.
The excellence of the Supreme and Efficient Method – it is so good that it should be practiced at least twice a day and should have priority in one’s spiritual practice.
Doing what the spiritual master says – and thus evolving spiritually
The efficiency of group action
Personal spiritual evolution due to helping out the rest of the world.

We can see here that the death-aspect is mentioned, but only through negatives: the technique will abate death. The heroic aspect is underlined: yogis will be able to save the world. Also, they will become better people by doing so. An interesting addition is the fact that by doing the technique one follows the master, thus evolving more rapidly.

One can ask why yogis would willingly go through a time-consuming technique even if they’re not certain that the end for which it is employed is actually real. This question is actually connected to why yogis – and sect members in general – would follow techniques and orders and allow somebody to dictate their lives. A scholar of emotions, William Reddy, suggests that they do so in order to avoid emotional conflicts: strict regulations sacrifice freedom, but allow the individual to become more stable and less vulnerable when they are confronted with problematic issues (125, 126). In this case, MISA yogis can feel that they are less vulnerable in the face of death and social failure – if they fail in the ’normal’ world, they can always make up for it by following a few easy steps to become heroes in the MISA world.

It is emotions, and not beliefs, that make them go through the motions of averting the apocalypse, or meditate with the guru, or work for free for MISA, or even, in the case of women, prostitute themselves because Gregorian Bivolaru asks them to do it. As Nico Fridja put it, “What is wrong with death, other than it is disliked?”(qtd. in Reddy 21). What is wrong with any course of action, in fact, other than we like or dislike the outcome? Even if we proceed in a rational manner, weighing options and collecting data, then acting upon the information we have, what we are trying to achieve is determined emotionally.

Conversely, our emotions can make us prioritize the information we receive – we can take or leave data, believe it or disbelieve it, at least to a point, depending on our emotions connected to that data and to data that would contradict it (Yudkowsky). Even worse, we may have a tendency to look at a conclusion and then find evidence to support it, therefore rationalizing our favored data. So, even if MISA yogis can see that we are in October 2012 and people are not yet dying the way they were supposed to according to doctrine, they can rationalize the situation. They can conclude that the reason the apocalypse does not seem to happen is that they averted it, like they made an asteroid change course and a devastating earthquake disappear. They can also look for signs of the apocalypse and interpret anything unpleasant they discover in that key: if there are unidentified lights in the sky, they must be alien ships. If there is a new epidemic (like swine flu), it is a sign of impending doom and the one of the Biblical signs of the end of the world. They have taken steps concerning the end of the world: now whether anything happens or not, it can confirm their belief – if they want it to. The question that arises is whether they are sufficiently attached to the apocalypse to desire that to be the outcome of their reasoning.

The apocalypse will change the individual’s world view – it depends on them if they are willing or able to change it back. Whether the MISA yogi believes wholeheartedly in the apocalypse or not, the idea of impeding doom modifies their perception to the point where disasters and sudden deaths would not be unexpected. They come to see MISA techniques as being very powerful and they believe that they can do anything with them, but „they do not work enough”. This means that in case anybody becomes physically or mentally ill, the situation is blamed on their not using the techniques enough or properly.

For example, two MISA yogis, Cristina Gaina and Diana Dobrin, who were famous enough and who had starred in MISA porn films that were supposed to ‘sexually educate’ the world, died of breast cancer. Their getting ill was blamed on emotional issues (Cristina Gaina was known to be somewhat harsh, while Diana Dobrin had had relationship issues with one of the MISA VIPs) and they sought medical advice from Gregorian Bivolaru, who warned them against going to normal doctors and getting the common treatment. When they died, it was believed to be because they did not manage to resolve their emotional and spiritual issues – as I have mentioned about, ‘states’ are the measure by which the evolution of a MISA yogi is judged and it is supposed that a perfect yogi is safe from all physical harm. Also, two other yogis killed themselves – Attila Nagy and Mihaela Diaconescu. Their deaths were mostly glossed over and blamed on ‘demoniac influences’. Also, there are numerous other yogis who have many physical or psychological problems, but their problems are seen as arising from their spiritual imperfections. There are few questions asked about their cases because they are considered ‘atypical’ of yogis.

There are many ‘hooks’ that can play on the fears and desires of sect members and make them wish to believe in what they are told. The solution, in my opinion, would not be to prove that each hook is false: after all, there will always be some hook that can catch the individual, whether it is the religious one, or the materialistic one (the basis of gambling games), or any other one. The solution would be to go to the heart of the matter: the apocalypse, like the sect, is mostly an emotional phenomenon – we must solve that. It is a battle of what we want to believe against what we should believe in. If we want to believe something, then we will rationalize in order to prove to ourselves that the situation is as we picture it to be. Therefore, an approach to resolve this issue would be to attempt to convince people to seek to believe what is true, not to seek proof that what they believe is true. The solution is not an attack against the apocalypse – it is a local phenomenon, an emotional phenomenon and it can be fought against again and again without getting very far, but an attempt to convince individuals to test and retest what they believe in before they commit to it. A healthy dose of looking at one’s emotional triggers can help ‘vaccinate’ against apocalypses, sects – and all other unhealthy hooks that catch emotional attachments.

Works cited:

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Print.
Bivolaru, Gregorian. The Planetary Program for Urgent Action „No to the Apocalypse!!!” Vol. 1. N.p.: Natha House, 2011. Web. .
Hongell, Maxim. „10 Reasons to Perform the Supreme and Efficient Method.” YogaEsoteric. N.p., 10 Mar. 2012. Web. .
Reddy, William M. The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 2001. Print.
Yudkowsky, Eliezer. „Affective Death Spirals.” Less Wrong. N.p., 2 Dec. 2007. Web. .