Translations on Roxana-Mălina Chirilă

Writing, video games and so forth

Wed, 27 Nov 2013 11:55:18 +0000

I don’t often write blog posts because somebody says „Be part of this! Write about this topic!” And yet here we are, because I find a certain topic interesting.

Cathy Day, whom I’ve occasionally mentioned on this blog, wrote the following:

I’ve never played a video game, but I recognize that it’s a narrative experience that lots and lots of people value. No judgement. But in my fiction-writing classes, I often read stories and novels that read as if I’m watching someone else play a video game. There’s plot, action, scene, all great, but virtually no interiority, which for me is *absolutely necessary* in fiction. My students have always used films and TV shows to talk about fiction, but now they also reference video games. “This is like Bioshock,” for example, and I have no idea what that even means. I wonder if other creative writing teachers have noticed this quality in student fiction or these references? I wonder if people who play video games could give me some tips about how to help my students make the transition from gaming to writing narrative.

She wrote it on Facebook, then she posted it on her blog and asked for opinions. I like the question and it’s part of something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. It’s a slightly different take, and I’ll start from here: what is up with literature, anyway?

I’ve run into endless discussions concerning whether listening to an audiobook counts as reading the book. Some say it’s less valuable to listen to a book than to read it – because it’s lazier. And then, of course, people often say that books are superior to movies/TV shows, because the latter are less valuable/more commercial/easier to follow. Theater is above TV, but I’m not sure where it is in relation to reading books. Probably a bit lower on the scale of values, unless you’re watching some damned difficult crap. Video games are, of course, at the very bottom of this scale of values, because Pacman can’t compare to Tolstoy, or something like that.

Which is all fascinating and, in my opinion, all wrong. I describe myself as a writer, but what I actually mean by it is that I am a storyteller whose main medium is the written word. But man, I love other mediums, too. I write my own novel and I do my own audio recording of it. If you read it yourself, you get to add intonations and moods yourself. If you listen to it, you get my interpretation of how the story and the characters sound like. You might think this is good, right? I am telling a story, I naturally want to get it across my way, no? No. Sometimes it helps me. At other times, I am very sad that my own voice, no matter how good, will never echo in your mind in the same way as your own soundless inner voice.

The fun part is that no matter how a story gets told, we never get the whole of it. We recreate it from what we have, but in the end we all see our own version of that story. Fans put this in practice: they often write their own crazy stories based on small gestures which are definitely there, but which meant something entirely different to the scriptwriter, director, actors. And that’s perfectly alright and normal and I love it.

So where am I going? Well, to this: there’s no ‘right’ way to tell a story. There is no ‘perfect’ medium. Art is a lie: it makes us think we’re getting the full story, but it’s always giving us more of something, less of something else. There will be things you will wish you had been able to leave out, but must add. A movie will never manage to have an indistinct background as well as a comic series can. It’s easier to hide background details in film than in literature: in literature you need to mention them, but keep the reader’s attention focused on something more exciting. In film, you literally put them in the background.

Here’s what I mean. Look at one of the pages of Exiles, a number of The Sandman, from the volume The Wake:

Look at the subtlety of the black and white, at the elegance of the drawings. The scenery is barren, or maybe it barely exists at all. Different fonts to suggest different types of speech, but they don’t tell you anything about what characters’ voices sound like. I can’t change fonts in a book: it’s too odd, it jumps at you. What you can’t do: add music; describe actual voice pitch; add every gesture. There is a lot of suggestion here – and in other mediums, that suggestion would need to be done in different ways. Literature would use vague words, cinema might use filters and carefully considered sets.

It is unfair to compare a medium with another from a value POV because they all do different things.

But what about video games and fiction writing and what Cathy Day said? I’ve taken you on a ride, but we’re finally arriving at our destination. She mentioned no interiority from the characters. Well…

In video games the main character can be a shell that the player enters (usually first-person games: shooters, Portal, Amnesia). Or s/he can be very clearly defined as a character (Monkey Island’s „Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate!”). In the first case, the player’s psychology substitutes that of the character’s, doesn’t it? There is still psychology going on, but you don’t see it because it’s yours. You put it all in. It’s something you simply can’t do with books, they need psychology.

Well, the problem with video games from this point of view is that they don’t teach you how books look like. Which is an odd thing to say, I suppose, but I think it’s the basic problem that Cathy Day encountered: her writers might have stories to tell, but they aren’t familiar with how literature tells stories.

Oh, no. What is there to be done?

Well, the short answer is: read books. Read more books. Look at what it is that books do. Grab books from various different genres, different countries, different times and see what they do and how they do it. What catches your attention? What makes them interesting? What makes you read on? Study books, don’t just read them. If you like a page, figure out why you like it. I am not saying you should do this as a reader. As a reader, you really ought to give in to the story and enjoy it. But as a writer, that’s how you learn how to do things. By studying others.

C. Day is asking about transitioning from one medium to another.

Well, transitioning is a bit like translating. The theory of translation says the following: a translator doesn’t go from language A to language B. Instead, he goes from language A to a certain meaning, which he then moves into language B. In other words, „Mary goes to the market” is English. It is then translated into the idea of Mary going to the market, in present tense, which then needs to be retold in, say, Romanian: „Mary merge la piață.” This can lead to several choices for the translator (Do I call her Mary, because that’s her original name? Or do I call her Maria, so Romanian readers can feel closer to her?).

The same is true for changing mediums, I think: you have the story in medium A, which you then translate to yourself as a complex web of plot, character and details, which you then try to get across in medium B, with medium B’s tools and techniques. But the story is, to my mind, the central thing.

I haven’t played Bioshock, but I’ll talk about Tomb Raider, which is new, shiny and well-known, okay?

Lara Croft struggles there against two types of opponents: ones who catch her and ones who don’t. This division is important because those opponents transmit two different things: the ones who don’t catch her are at a distance. They have guns and other such. They can shoot her and kill her, but you can evade them. They are there to underline her skills with a gun/bow and arrow/weapon of choice. They create a stealthy Lara, who works hard at not being seen, who is a scared woman, but a deadly woman. They make you feel strong.

The enemies who catch her are up close and personal. They grab her. They hold her. You need to hit a sequence of buttons at the right time to escape their grasp and you often can’t. This Lara is more scared than skilled, more desperate and in difficulty than on top of the situation. I did wonder for awhile why the hell I needed to press left and right in quick succession to evade a crazy psycho, but the answer is this: because it’s effing hard for her to escape.

This is how the story works for games: is it difficult for Lara? The player will struggle. Are stealth and skill needed? You get ten opponents and alarms everywhere.

Literature is more subtle. You don’t have to kill ten opponents to prove stealth. One or two are enough. Four are numerous. I will disbelieve you at ten. Explosions don’t affect us much, because it isn’t the idea of an explosion that really makes an impact on us: it’s the sound of it, the light, the way things fly all over and are destroyed. You need to describe that.

Video games are explicit. They need to hit you over the head with a hammer to get a point across. Literature is subtle and relies on small things, on details and observations.

Here’s how it can be done. Lara against opponents who don’t catch her:

My knee scraped against the ground as I fell, but I couldn’t scream. They would hear me, and then they would kill me. I hurt all over, but I needed to find a way out, so I searched for something, anything, a rope, a surface I could climb on, but seconds ticked away and they got closer and closer…

Lara caught:

She felt his hands running across her body as he whispered words in Russian that she couldn’t understand. Lara had no idea whether he meant to kill her or rape her, she wanted to curl up into a ball and cry either way, but that wasn’t an option…

If you want to transition, you need to switch modes of expression. What can literature do that video games can’t do (as easily)? References, thoughts, impressions, feelings, moods. It comes down to learning what your medium can do, what has been done so far and how. Which is why writers need to read books.

(But you can pick up stuff from other mediums as well, of course. And as for video games, I really recommend that people should play some. You might eventually realize that they Aren’t Your Thing, but they are an experience of their own, no? A whole new type of telling stories.)

Translating for pay vs. translating for friends

Sat, 03 Aug 2013 13:58:29 +0000

When getting paid:

translate
procrastinate
translate
procrastinate
finish first draft
procrastinate
edit for the first and last time
procrastinate
edit again, for good measure
procrastinate
throw a really final glance over the text, because you never know
turn in (nearly precisely) on time

Translating for friends:

translate
translate
translate
finish first draft
post, because my first drafts are freaking awesome – or at least better than some people’s final drafts would be
mind my own business for a day or two
decide that maybe I should throw another look over what I translated
realize I have these annoying mistakes and weird phrasings in all sorts of places
edit
go „I will never do this again. I will edit before posting!”

Need to change the second one to look like the first O_o

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.]

Tomb Raider and the History of Japan

Fri, 02 Aug 2013 08:49:54 +0000

[Note: This is a translation of an article I originally wrote in Romanian, but which I realized I wanted in English as well. And translators translate, even if they hate translating themselves.]

I’ve been playing Tomb Raider these days. I won’t pretend I’m enough of a gamer to write a proper review, but I personally liked it. The plot isn’t amazing, but the atmosphere is. And it’s really neat to play from beginning to end.

However, I noticed a few mysterious things about the history of Japan pretty early on. I won’t necessarily say they’re bad (it’s a game that has a strong fantasy side, in the end), but they drew my attention. (I was a Japanese major)

1. Yamatai.

The first time I heard the name, it sounded vaguely familiar – because I’d heard of Yamato (an old region of Japan, associated at one point with the imperial family). So I browsed the net to see what Yamat_ai_ was all about. It would seem that there are indeed old documents which say that it was the land where Himiko ruled, but the its location is merely „Where in Japan?”, not the romantic notion of „Let us seek out the lost kingdom”. Long story short, if it was in a certain area, then Himiko was the local ruler and that was that, but if the kingdom was in another (specific) region, then she might be connected with the imperial court later on.

2. Himiko

She is actually mentioned in Chinese chronicles, but not so much in Japanese ones. Or if she is, she’s mentioned under another name. The thing is, with the Japanese you can always encounter things like postmortem names for emperors or with the desire to avoid calling women by their proper names (in the Tale of Genji, 11th c., written by Murasaki Shikibu, the majority of women are named after where they live, or details that remind you of them; even „Murasaki Shikibu” is a pseudonym).

Technically speaking, the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, two important Japanese chronicles, were written at the beginning of the 8th century and they avoided naming women during the Heian period, which started at the end of the 8th century. But whatever. I don’t know enough history to be able to tell if that naming interdiction existed earlier on.

3. Sam as a descendent of Himiko

This is where that interesting thing with the unknown location of Yamatai is of consequence. If Yamatai is in the area in which the Yamato imperial court lived later on, that means that the emperors of Japan are Himiko’s descendants. And here’s the fun part: it means that today’s imperial family is descended from Himiko, because the Japanese never changed their ruling dynasty. Moreover, the noble families descend out of the imperial family themselves – when it was clear that a child wouldn’t end up on the throne, he got a family name and became a noble. They didn’t ennoble commoners.

Then, after so long, and so many descendents in so many clans… it’s possible that Sam is very distantly related to a huge number of Japanese people, via Himiko. (so it’s not that unlikely that she’d be compatible with the funky blood-dependent rituals mentioned in the game)

Oh, and about that: in mythology, the Japanese imperial family descends from the sun goddess, Amaterasu.

4. Himiko’s samurai

This was the detail that had me going „Wait, what?!” in the beginning. That legends would say Himiko is guarded by samurai. The Ancient Himiko, guarded by Middle Age samurai. It’s like saying, „Legend has it that the Caesar was a leader from Ancient Rome and his personal guard was formed of loyal knights.” Not really. Warrior samurai appeared centuries after Himiko.

This should’ve been the legend that made Lara wonder what was going on.

5. Himiko as a Buddhist

The island is full of Buddhist statues and Himiko’s represented in the same way. But Himiko was most likely a Shintoist (Shinto is the Japanese indigenous religion, full of gods, demons and spirits). That’s probably where she gets her shamanistic reputation.

6. The art is all over the timeline

Between statues and paintings, my feeling is that they were more keen on representing medieval Japan. Which is explainable in context, but it really should’ve made Lara think.

7. Seppuku

The idea of suicide (with the implications and meanings we associate with Japanese suicide) started around the 12th c. and became a ritual later. So the corpse Lara finds of one of Himiko’s generals who committed seppuku was really suspect.

8. The mummies.

They’re very mummified. Which isn’t really something that would happen, considering the climate. Approximately all the dead you come across seem to have enjoyed the benefits of an Egyptian climate, in which they wouldn’t decompose too much. But considering the weather on the island, they would’ve turned to dust a lot faster. And the samurai who’d committed seppuku would’ve probably been eaten by various animals and bugs.

But, well. Magic!!!

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)

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

Nichita Stănescu – Cubul englezesc

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:25:32 +0000

You take a piece of stone,
chip it with a chisel of blood,
polish it with Homer’s eye,
scrape it with rays
until it becomes a perfect cube.

After that you kiss the cube endlessly
with your mouth, with other mouths
and especially with the infant’s mouth.
And then you pick up a hammer
and sharply smash off a corner.

All, but all, men will say:
„What a perfect cube it would’ve been
had it not had a broken corner!”

–„Lesson on the Cube”, N.S.