Russian Esoteric Academy

The Ashram As It Is

Those who have gathered in their ashram - read and think. It also is useful know for all other people!!!

http://stopfools.narod.ru/text/ashram.htm (This link is in Russian)

Not all the sects this book concerns, have all the attributes of totalitarian ones. However, it is completely correct to speak about the Rudnev's sect as of the perfectly totalitarian sect. To confirm this we offer one of the numerous evidences given by a former sadkhak of the “Shambhala School” (The document is at http://stopfools.narod.ru/text/ashram.htm -- this link is in Russian):

So, when the pupil “is ready”, he is offered to go to Ashram, having paid about 4-5 thousand. It is supposed to be the donation to the “School” and a certain fee for you will be intensely taught in spirituality; for the “high knowledge” should be paid a high material price, if you don’t want to pay something else, health or life, for example. Naturally, the pupils with pleasure pay this sum (and even more) in money not to pay something else.

When it is revealed, that the pupil has such a sum and (s)he is able to pay it at once after his/her arrival at “ashram”, they determine his/her destination. Of course, it is determined by the “instructors” on the “Teacher’s” permission, asking not the pupil’s wish. <...> During the conversation or diagnostics the instructors flatter some people, saying that he has great future and great abilities and that he should develop them exactly in ashram. <..>. And in “ashram” the sadkhaks are constantly suggested that they are higher the than the others, though at the same time they are let down “below sewerage”. <…>.

And don’t be expecting the full address, you will be simply told to arrive to such and such a city by such and such a time, at such and such a station. There they will meet you and will lead you through back streets and with changes in “ashram”, as if you are a spy. Then you would understand what such secrecy is for.

Sometimes, after considerable seminars, such as the one at Sochi, the sadkhaks are recruited from the pupils present (without delay). The lists of the volunteers is written, and then they (the volunteers) are transported in group to an “ashram”.

On their arrival at “the place” an instructor has a 3-minute talk to each sadkhak, and last endows the school with all the money and provision he has. He will not see the money any more, and the food, too, will be eaten by the instructors. The sadkhak hands over all the ‘means of hygiene’ ([i.e. his toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, soap, towels, toilet paper and so on] the translator’s note) to the senior sadkhak for the common use, and the best of it is taken away by the instructors.

Probably, it is already interesting to get to know how an ashram looks like. I should disappoint you. It is a common apartment in a multi-storied or a country house, and that’s all. The sadkhaks huddle in one room, the instructors live in another. A room for sadkhaks is 3 to 5 meters, where about 16-20 people work, eat and sleep. The instructor’s room is designed for 2 or 3 people (that is for the juniors), and the senior instructor has a separate room. <…>.

The life there is very severe, it is just a survival. Get up at 6 a.m., go to sleep at 3 or 4 in the night. The constant lack of sleep results in that people sap their strength. And they need more than a lot of strength and energy: every hour there is a 15-minute warm-up, not just anyhow, but at the maximum efficiency; have 2 meals a day and work, work and work “for the sake of the school and society”. Many get mad because of cold, famine and starvation there.

The warm-up are like that: monotonous press-ups ([to lie face down and move your body up and down with the help of arm-presses; sorry I don’t know the exact English word] the translator’s note), knee-bends or squats and exercises on abdomen press, sometimes alternated with exhausting dances (“dynamic meditation”). A sadkhak is forced to apply constant superefforts to warm-ups, to do everything quickly and energetically, and not to sleep, even if your eyes are closing out of weariness. Try to do the same exercise every hour and every day and you will feel that there comes dullness, and you simply mechanically do what you are demanded to do, just for they leave you do not punish. And they punish there for the slightest fault.

The punishments are extremely various: famine from one to several days keeping the work on, from 200 to 500 press-ups or knee-bends in addition to the warm-ups, lavatory cleaning, and loneliness. And if you refuse to perform the punishment the instructor forces all the sadkhaks to press-up, until the sadkhaks exhausted by loading will ask you to reconcile, and you, not wishing to torture the others, start to perform the punishment yourself.

After getting up you have an hour warm-up with the music being on. At night all can be waken and forced to dance up to exhaustion, then you are allowed to sleep again. And if you do the bed slowly, the “rehearsal” is repeated until all are instantly able to lie down on a command side by side. The sadkhaks sleep on the floor, on whatever they can. If you have managed to retake a sleeping-bag or a blanket, you are lucky then, if not — you have to sleep right on the floor. The windows are always open both in winter and in summer, producing a draft.

They feed only 2 times a day: in the morning and in the evening. After getting up there passes about 6-7 hours until the instructor will allow the “cook” to go to the kitchen make some food. For the sadkhaks they cook the cheapest food in a big pan, and for the “instructors” the food is better and in a small saucepan. Vegetable peelings, leaves, grass, pearl-barley or millet go to the sadkhak’s pan. They have herbs extracts instead of tea. And the instructors eat rice, salads, mushrooms and all the other things that normal people eat. Hungry sadkhaks attack the food and push in their bellies everything that is possible. The following practices are frequent: to feed the neighbor (and the neighbor feeds you), to have meal with the eyes closed, to eat sitting back to the plate and not to look back, to distribute and eat the food in a certain time, to eat with their hands from the common pan or from a plate of hot gruel, to change places during the meal. And almost always there are readings (in turn) of one of their School’s books, the one the instructor tells to read. Having poor and unvaried meals without salt and spices, a person becomes greedy, ready to take a piece of food away from a neighbor, and nothing is sufficient. That is why on walks the pupils eat everything that it is possible to find and eat: mushrooms, berries, grass, and leaves. This animal state is strengthened by the practices of quickness: “the quickest ones are to eat” (when there is food in the center ([of a group]) and if are quick enough to get it you have it, otherwise you stay hungry).

The walks are rare indeed — one or two times a week. The sadkhaks who day after day have got used to sit in a pose of “half-lotus” ([i.e. the legs are crossed, the feet are under the knees] the translator’s note), can hardly move their legs, stumble, never run, and creep over the land. The walks are allowed either early in the morning, or late at night, when it is dark. Day walks are very seldom — only on special occasions (to escape from the militia men). The group is divided into subgroups and the last, in certain time intervals, are let go outside. In the street they gather in a group and go somewhere with the instructor. The same way is to come back, i.e. in subgroups.

The work in “ashram” is different: making and signing the envelopes... tailoring the chitons (the top part of a kimono with Rerich's circle and a belt), the composition of verses and songs, making the paper copies of the Teacher and the instructors’ lectures, typing the texts of books on a computer, copying audio and videocassettes. <..>. In the envelopes they put the newspaper... [and] a set of leaflets... And so passes a day, every day, all day long. The hands are stained with glue, they’re dirty, but you should eat with them, as it is believed that under the influence of the “energy” everything becomes disinfected. The signed and packed envelopes are delivered by the instructors to a post office in lots.

In others “ashrams” they make “magical” objects, amulets, guard talismans — everything that is put up for sale on the seminars for enormous sums. Here they work not for the quality but for the quantity, for the performance; those who cannot give the necessary rate of output are to starve. Then, all these objects are looked through by the instructors and take approval or not. The approved objects are subscribed and packed again by the sadkhaks, and it is they to think out the names for them. <…>.

It is the occupation of a great bulk of sadkhaks. Only a few write music, verses, copy video and audio cassettes. To vary the monotony, the sadkhaks are given the assignments they should perform every hour: massage (of legs, feet, hands, ears, a nose, shoulders, a back), beating with a stick, reading or singing of verses aloud, combing, walking back to front, 100 press-ups, etc. Each sadkhak has an assignment he is strictly responsible for: watching the street (the in-comers and the out-goers), a computer, video or audio cassettes, washing, ironing, drying of linen, flowers, the order in a room, ashram's things, the way of ablution, etc.

http://stopfools.narod.ru/text/ashram.htm (this link is in Russian)

Now the “Teacher” (i.e. K.Rudnev) never visits “ashrams”. He just sends for those who can be used as instructors afterwards, lectures and conducts consecration. Sometimes an “ashram” is visited by occasional “instructors”, and they are paid honor and respect. The aura of mystery and sanctity is created around the “Teacher” and the “instructors”. <…> (1) (The document is at http://stopfools.narod.ru/text/ashram.htm)