Talk:Swami Satchidananda Saraswati/Archive 1

Archive 1

Misc Comments

As we all know, the internet is a great source of information as well as disinformation. With regards to the entry for Swami Satchidananda, which I am primarily concerned with, there are many topics which cannot easily be researched through unbiased (more or less--obviously a complete absence of bias is impossible) sources. I speak as someone who grew up at Swami Satchidanda's Ashram and as part of a family whose five previous generations have grown up with Swami Satchidananda. When the administration of the Ashram chooses not to directly address the allegations of detractors, what recourse do those people, who actually have experienced the concrete reality of the man and the place concerned, have? Wikipedia has rules about providing verification for edits and updates but in these cases, where the bulk of sources are bought-and-paid-for by obviously biased detractors, it seems as if the paper reality of Catch-22 (interpreted in our age as the electronic reality)will rule the day and the opinions of readers perusing a source declared, "as accurate as Britannica." CNN Story Such instances, where credible sources are literally nonexistant, should be clearly labeled as entries where all information can be considered faulty and compromised by bias. I would even move to say that such entries should not even be supported--this democratisation of reference material should not degenerate into a normative anarchy of opinion and assorted blathering. -User:ILLankan

Before deleting critical material (which was indeed substantiated by sources), please explain here. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:57, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Negative Statements from rickross.com

It is essential to note, that all of the negative statements listed on this page against Swami Satchidanada use a page at rickross.com as their link and their source of reference. The first statement on the homepage of rickross.com is, "The Rick A. Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults, Controversal Groups and Movements."

Though each person on Wikipedia is certaintly intitled to their point of view, the basis for the information they are presenting to the public should also be known. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yogiraj (talk • contribs) 05:16, 8 August 2005

But the sources for the information were give, so I'm not sure what your point is. Moreover, why should it be a surprise (or in any way suspicious) that negative information about a cult come from an organisation whose aim is to uncover negative information about cults? That's like complaining that we should beware of taking a news item seriously because it comes from a newspaper. If you have reason to believe that this organisation is untrustworthy, that's different; have you? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:40, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

-The site, rickross.com, did not open a Satchidanda/Yogaville section until the Cheng family began to organize a agitation-propaganda campaign against the organization and community. I have not retained the services of a private detective but I believe it is quite obvious that rickross.com only took interest in Yogaville at the behest of the Cheng family Rediff article, who were willing to spare no expense in buying domain names and defending their agitation-propaganda campaign in court. attorney agreement Rick Ross, the man, is known as a criminal (remaining unapologetic for multiple involuntary 'deprogrammings') and has absolutely no academic or real-world credentials to 'deprogram' supposed brain-washed individuals. Summary of Public records with links Rick Ross is a profiteering cowboy--not a man qualified to investigate supposed cults or shadowy organizations. We already have the FBI for that purpose. (ILLankan 15:54, 20 December 2005 (UTC))

--Rickross is a known wacko right wing extremist whose widely known for doing the Christian rights bidding against groups and organisations who don’t conform to the traditional Christian message on salvation. I once put to him that he should consider listing the Roman Catholic Church as an evil cult, given that this institution throughout history has maimed and murdered millions of innocent people only because they refused to conform to its particular brand of religion and culture. The conversation with Ross ended thus. --Mombas 10:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

"speaking out after death" and other issues

Hi. It seems we have two new users here, one who is more pro-Swami, and one who is more anti-Swami. People at Wikipedia have different viewpoints, and factual, encyclopediac information is welcomed. I realize you two users are new and somewhat unfamiliar with Wikipedia, so in good faith I am assuming some of the lapses of Wikipedia etiquette and keeping to rules has been due to lack of knowledge about them.

Looking over the last few edits I see User:71.105.88.78 in this edit[1] removes the sentences "At least one third of the organization left. Satchidananda attempted, in vain, to remove a protest website containing many of the allegations.". In the same edit, he replaced this with "It is important to note, however, that none of the people involved in these claims ever filed either criminal or civil charges against Swami Satchidananda or his organization." I'm guessing this user is Yogiraj, and will refer to him as such henceforth.

Then User:67.82.111.102, who I'll nickname "anti-Swami" comes in and makes an edit[2]. Anti-swami's addition to the article is "Odviously, if people were protesting since 1991, women came out to complain well before his death. In fact, the quote from Satchidanada proves it. The person who keeps writing that sentence is in denial and keeps deleting relevant links proving the contrary."

OK, I'll start with Yogiraj. Yogiraj deleted the part mentioning how the Swami tried to shut down a website without explanation. Anti-swami challenges Yogiraj's assertion that no one came forward until after Swami died, stating that women came forward in 1991, years before the swami died. Yojiraj has to explain why he deleted the part about the attempt to shut down the web site, and he also has to answer this question from anti-swami about how his statement about only after the death meshes with the 1991 charges.

Turning to "Anti-swami". Anti-swami writes in the article "The person who keeps writing that sentence is in denial and keeps deleting relevant links proving the contrary." This type of comment should not go into the article. It should go into here, the discussion page, or at least into the edit summaries, it does not belong in the article. Also, you say Yogiraj is "in denial" on your edit. This sort of ad hominem attack is not helpful - provide facts, references and so forth like the Montreal Mirror article archived on rickross.com, and neutral editors who have no opinion on the Swami one way or the other like me or Mel Etitis will be more impressed with that than an ad hominem attack.

Speaking of unsupported ad hominems:

Rick Ross, the man, is known as a criminal (remaining unapologetic for multiple involuntary 'deprogrammings') and has absolutely no academic or real-world credentials to 'deprogram' supposed brain-washed individuals.

And,

Summary of Public records with links Rick Ross is a profiteering cowboy--not a man qualified to investigate supposed cults or shadowy organizations. We already have the FBI for that purpose.

What public records? Private detectives are profiteering cowboys as well, does that mean that what they discover is untrue? I guess if you get a private detective to investigate a cult and they report what they found, what they find is meaningless as they are not qualified to investigate supposed cults or shadowy organizations. How does that work exactly?

And,

Rickross is a known wacko right wing extremist whose widely known for doing the Christian rights bidding against groups and organisations who don’t conform to the traditional Christian message on salvation.

I didn't see a link to support those accusations. Don't shift the topic, we're talking about Yogaville being a cult. If you want to discuss Christianity and whether its a cult, make your point here: Christian for that conversation. Speaking of RRI, I did see pictures of a real girl who got brain washed into a cult; and a worried family who was trying to get their daughter back and make people aware (what some have called "agitation-propaganda", but if my daughter got brain washed into a cult, I would register domain names and put up information about the cult and its evils as well -- "agitation-propaganda"). What does that mean anyway? They're trying to agitate Yogaville? So far the only thing that seems to be agitated has been to remove any negative comments about this cult from this article, but no information to contradict what has been said. So far everything I've seen from RRI is more real than the deleted text and supposed truths presented here by pro-Yogaville people. --yawaraf 16:25, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Probably the best thing to do is for Yogiraj and anti-Swami to state their cases here in the discussion page and we can all discuss it here. If you are going to have an argument, it is better that it happens here then on the article page. Don't delete stuff without explanation, don't make accusations without references. Discuss things here, cite sources, explain changes, and follow Wikipedia policies. Both of you should probably read Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines.

We're happy to have both of your contributions, as long as you both follow the Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I advise you both to read the policies and guidelines over, some of the policies and guidelines perhaps relevant here are Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Cite sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. Mr. Know-It-All 07:12, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

People that attempt to use Wikipedia as a platform to character assassinate others without basis need to be identified and removed. After all, Wikipedia is not a corporate tabloid where anyone with a personal gripe can simply vent their hatred in such a public manner without presenting unequivocal evidence. As far as the Satchidananda accusations go, at all worse, the man may have had sex...oooooooh!!!! (Mombas 10:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC))

It is true Swami Satchidananda is no longer alive. But it seems appropriate to consider the general principles behind the Wikipedia standards. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons As Jimmy Wales says:

"I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. "

It also important to keep talk page on topic, rather than getting side tracked to other issues. (Radagast5 08:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC))

Referenced information added

I've added referenced information for the Controversy section. In case anyone has objections, as long as information is properly sourced and referenced according to WP:RS, there are no issues with it. Specifically the sexual advances allegations were true and were mentioned in the news multiple times and therefore are worthy of mention here and cannot be removed. --Kleopatrasf (talk) 15:47, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

"External links * Swami Satchidananda Disciple" - how the heck does this site qualify for inclusion?

"External links

   * Swami Satchidananda Disciple" - how the heck does this site qualify for inclusion? Fp cassini (talk) 11:32, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Infobox

This article needed an info box, so I added a simple one, and placed the image in it. However I am sure that other people can expand the box considerably, so please go ahead if you can do so. Best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 13:36, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Scandals and Controversy

These have been well-documented are not reliable sources, but seem to have been edited out here. This section needs to go back in. I've read these in mainstream news media, etc -- I don't have the sources at my fingertips so am putting this in Talk for now, with a few pointers.[3][4][5][6] -- Benefac (talk) 11:10, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

LOTUS = Light of Truth Universal Shrine [not Light] - can someone fix that?

LOTUS = Light of Truth Universal Shrine [not Light] - can someone fix that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hhansma (talk • contribs) 03:06, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Page move

I see there's some objection to the new title, so let's discuss it here. (The article was moved without discussion in August, so the 'new' title is really the old one.)

Your comment about not using honourifics, @Chiswick Chap:, is exactly right, but it's the "Swami" part that's an honorific title (similar to Reverend, Bhikku, etc.) not the "Saraswati". See also his guru, Sivananda Saraswati (usually called "Swami Sivananda"), Satyananda Saraswati ("Swami Satyananda"), Bodhananda Saraswati ("Swami Bodhananda"), etc., as well as others like the Gaudiya reformer Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati (who is called "Prabhupada" by his followers).

The title as it is now is the Swami's monastic name, shorn of honourifics or titles. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 13:01, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes indeed. The policy is sensible and long-established. It does not apply only to Indian figures; the article on "Dr Johnson" (as we always call him) is "Samuel Johnson", while "Dean Swift" (as we call him) is "Jonathan Swift", to name just two celebrated people whose titles we do not use, either in article titles or indeed in their infoboxes, per the policy you cite. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:12, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

See Swami Vivekananda and its 2014 RM concerning the 'Swami', where the close was "Consensus indicates that in this case swami is not used as an honorific". When you say 'August' that's August, 2020, so with a year at the title this would need an RM for another move (added for revert of undiscussed moves at RM page). To Chiswick Chap, 'Samuel Johnson' and 'Jonathan Swift' are the common names, as is 'Swami Satchidananda'. Another fly in the tofu here is 'Pope', regularly used on names for Popes and not an honorific (as is 'Swami', see the 2014 RM mentioned above). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:31, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

No, their common names have for centuries been as I stated, at least on this side of the pond. Among devotees (who are numerous, so a hit-count might well find large numbers of uses, as we would for every other Indian guru), the honorific is obviously widely used, but that's exactly what we avoid, on grounds of neutrality not least; there's also a tradition in India to give anyone famous a string of honorifics, and we choose to avoid that also. "Satchidananda" is described as such by scholarly commentators. The author of the popular-style The Story of Yoga in America, Stefanie Syman, nearly always calls him just plain Satchidananda, though she uses "Swami" as the first word of a chapter for rhetorical effect (again, not an encyclopedic tone that we would wish to emulate). No, I understand the devotional feelings and the sincerely-held beliefs, but we really mustn't go there. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:45, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Again, see the close of the 2014 RM at Swami Vivekananda which states "Consensus indicates that in this case swami is not used as an honorific", and is applicable here. You pulled out one book out of how many books, articles, and news reports which do use the common name, so a name survey should accompany an RM if editors go that route. But after a year at the common name and then an undiscussed move the title should be reverted. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:54, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

It wasn't at the common name, it was at Swami Satchidananda Saraswati, which is the worst of both worlds. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 14:33, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Agree on this one although it is still better than the present undiscussed move. Swami Satchidananda should be the stand-alone for the RM per Swami Vivekananda. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:36, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Randy Kryn, I've completed your move-request. It should be discussed through RM whatever is the COMMON NAME, and the article should be moved accordingly. Undiscussed moves in such articles are problematic. ─ The Aafī ^(talk) 16:38, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. The common name is by far Swami Satchidananda, without the 'Saraswati'. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:42, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

So now we're back at a title which is neither the man's name, nor the name by which he's most commonly known. How is this an improvement? Dāsānudāsa (talk) 07:52, 13 August 2021 (UTC)