Latest news with #ScienceofIdentityFoundation
India.com
20-05-2025
- General
- India.com
Gen Z's Shift from Religion to Spirituality
In recent years, a significant shift has been observed in the spiritual landscape of Generation Z, those born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s. While traditional religious affiliation appears to be declining among this demographic, there is a notable surge in interest towards spirituality, meditation, and yoga practices. This trend reflects a broader search for meaning and inner peace among young adults in an increasingly complex world. Shifting Paradigms: From Religion to Spirituality Recent studies have highlighted Gen Z's evolving relationship with faith and spirituality. According to a 2021 Pew Research Center report, 48% of Gen Z individuals in the United States express some form of spiritual belief without aligning themselves with traditional religious institutions. This statistic underscores a growing trend of young people identifying as 'spiritual but not religious.' Dr. Jean Twenge, a psychologist and author specializing in generational differences, observes that 'Spirituality offers a sense of connection and purpose that Gen Z increasingly finds lacking in material pursuits.' This sentiment reflects the deeper yearning for meaning that characterizes much of Gen Z's approach to life and personal growth. The Appeal of Eastern Spiritual Practices Yoga and meditation have emerged as popular gateways to spirituality for many in Gen Z. These practices are seen not only as tools for physical and mental wellness but also as avenues for spiritual exploration. Science of Identity Foundation emphasizes the deeper spiritual purpose of yoga, beyond its physical benefits. As taught by Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa, yoga is fundamentally about union with the Supreme. He explains: 'Yoga means 'union' and 'union' means a loving relationship; just like two friends can be united. They're united by love. Or the husband and the wife are united in love. They are one, yet they are distinct. So, this oneness is actually the oneness of yoga. That is the meaning of yoga: a loving relationship between you and God; an ongoing loving relationship between you and God.' This perspective resonates with many young people seeking a more profound connection to themselves and the world around them. Mental Health and Spiritual Resilience The mental health crisis among youth has prompted many to seek deeper meaning and practices for emotional resilience. Meditation and mindfulness practices have gained traction not just as stress-relief techniques, but as tools for spiritual growth. Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa teaches that true meditation goes beyond relaxation or stress relief. He says, 'Meditation means union with God. The word 'yoga' also means union with God, when the individual spirit soul links up with the Supreme Soul; when the individual spirit soul is focused completely on God—his mind, body, heart, his entire being is immersed in God. This is the meaning of yoga. This is the meaning of meditation.' This approach to meditation as a means of connecting with a higher power or one's true spiritual identity resonates with Gen Z's search for authenticity and deeper meaning. The Role of Social Media Social media has played a significant role in spreading spiritual ideas among Gen Z. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok host thriving communities centered around mindfulness, meditation, and spiritual growth. Apps such as Insight Timer and Calm have made meditation and spiritual practices more accessible than ever before. However, it's important to note that while social media can introduce spiritual concepts, true spiritual growth requires deeper engagement. Science of Identity Foundation's teachings are rooted in the foremost Hindu and yoga scripture, Bhagavad-Gita (Song of God). The essential teachings of the Bhagavad-Gita are that individuals should cultivate their love for God, their love for others, and use their lives for the well-being of others, guided by God within their hearts. Conclusion: Shaping the Future of Spirituality As Gen Z continues to redefine spirituality on their own terms, we may see a future where traditional boundaries between different spiritual practices become increasingly blurred. The integration of ancient wisdom with modern understanding, as exemplified by organizations like Science of Identity Foundation, could play a significant role in shaping this new spiritual landscape. The rise of spirituality among Gen Z represents not a rejection of deeper truths, but a sincere search for authentic connection and meaning. As this generation matures, their approach to spirituality may well lead to innovative forms of practice and community that bridge the gap between ancient wisdom and contemporary life. Disclaimer This article is from the Brand Desk. User discretion is advised.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Who is Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's new intelligence director, and why is she controversial?
On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as President Trump's new director of national intelligence. Only one Republican, former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, voted against her. An ex-Democrat, Gabbard has long been a divisive figure in Washington. Here's how she got that reputation — and why Trump picked her anyway. Born in 1981 in American Samoa to a mother from Indiana and a father of European and Samoan descent, Gabbard moved to Hawaii with her family at the age of 2. She was raised in the Hindu faith — specifically as a member of a sect now known as the Science of Identity Foundation, which has ties to a direct-marketing firm accused of orchestrating an international 'pyramid scheme.' See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. Gabbard has described the group's leader as her 'guru dev' — meaning, roughly, her spiritual master — while he has likened her to a star pupil. But in 2024, the Trump transition team insisted Gabbard has no affiliation with the SIF, adding that 'the repeated attacks that she has sustained from the media and Democrats about her faith and loyalty to our country are not only false, they are bigoted as well.' Gabbard's father, Mike Gabbard, was elected to the Hawaii state Senate in 2006 as a Republican; he rose to prominence campaigning against homosexuality and gay marriage. Gabbard initially supported her father's efforts, but later apologized. 'In my past, I said and believed things that were wrong,' Gabbard explained in 2019. 'And worse, they were very hurtful to people in the LGBT community and to their loved ones.' In 2002, Gabbard, then 21, became the youngest woman ever to win a seat in a U.S. state legislature (in this case, Hawaii's House of Representatives). The following year, she enlisted in the Hawaii Army National Guard and went on to serve in Iraq (2004-05) and Kuwait (2008-09). After a stint on the Honolulu City Council, Gabbard was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Hawaii's Second District. She was the first American Samoan and the first Hindu to serve as a voting member of Congress. In 2020, Gabbard ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. She was widely seen as a progressive candidate, with 100% ratings from Planned Parenthood and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence as well left-wing positions on climate change and Medicare for All. But citing her experience as a combat veteran, Gabbard was also critical of establishment Democrats for supporting what she dubbed "regime change wars' — and even then, she advocated for withdrawing U.S. troops from conflict zones like Syria and Afghanistan. After losing the 2020 primary to Joe Biden — whom she subsequently endorsed — Gabbard gradually moved to the right on guns, abortion, climate and other issues. In 2022, she left the Democratic Party — which she described as 'an elitist cabal of warmongers' — and joined Fox News as a paid contributor. Over time, Gabbard has increasingly aligned her preexisting anti-interventionist views with Trump's America First ideology. For years, one of her main interests was Syria: She worried that American opposition to Bashar Assad, the country's authoritarian president, might empower Islamic terrorists and spark a broader war. In 2017, she visited Assad in Syria — a move that was widely criticized by politicians on both sides of the aisle. "Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States,' Gabbard said at the time, expressing skepticism that the regime had used chemical weapons against its own citizens. More recently, Gabbard has blamed the United States and NATO for provoking Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine by ignoring Russian security concerns — and she has gone on to suggest, as the New York Times reported last November, that America 'covertly worked with Ukraine on dangerous biological pathogens and was culpable for the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany in September 2022.' These remarks, in turn, have made Gabbard 'a darling of the Kremlin's vast state media apparatus,' as the Times put it — and raised concerns in Washington about a worldview that 'mirrors disinformation straight out of the Kremlin's playbook.' 'Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda,' former Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah once wrote on X. 'Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.' In the 2022 midterm elections, Gabbard campaigned for Republican election deniers such as Arizona's Kari Lake. In 2024, she formally joined the Republican Party and endorsed Trump. During the campaign, Gabbard assisted Trump with debate prep, attacked the so-called deep state and criticized the Biden administration's 'woke' policies — at one point going so far as to compare diversity, equity and inclusion efforts to the "geneticist core principles embodied by Nazism and Adolf Hitler." 'The Democrat elite and their cronies are using our criminal justice system to prosecute and distract the Republican presidential candidate in the midst of his campaign," Gabbard said after Trump was indicted for mishandling classified documents. Trump initially rewarded Gabbard with a spot on his transition team, calling her an 'amazing person.' Then he nominated her to oversee 18 spy agencies as his director of national intelligence. Unlike previous directors, Gabbard hasn't held any senior government roles. Her immediate predecessor, Avril Haines, served as deputy national security adviser, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency and deputy counsel to the president for national security affairs before taking over the top job. In contrast, Gabbard spent two years on the House Homeland Security Committee. But as with many of Trump's other Cabinet-level nominees — Pete Hegseth at Defense, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Health and Human Services — that's part of the point. In his first term, the anti-establishment Trump tried to placate skeptics in his own party with establishment-friendly picks. But now Trump seems to prefer nominees more like himself: Beltway outsiders who aren't afraid of blowing things up. Officially, the director of national intelligence — a job that was created after 9/11 — is supposed to prevent future intelligence failures by streamlining interagency cooperation. Gabbard will also oversee the President's Daily Brief, an intelligence summary assembled each morning. But more broadly, Gabbard's job is to root out what she and Trump see as 'all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus,' as Trump put it in 2023. 'There are plenty of them,' Trump continued. 'The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled.' At her confirmation hearing last month, Gabbard insisted that her critics were wrong to question her motives. 'Those who oppose my nomination imply that I am loyal to something or someone other than God, my own conscience, and the Constitution of the United States — accusing me of being Trump's puppet, Putin's puppet, Assad's puppet, a guru's puppet,' she said. 'Not recognizing the absurdity of simultaneously being the puppet of five different puppet masters.'
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Tulsi Gabbard Pictured at Altar Dedicated to Her Wacky Anti-Gay Guru
This is Tulsi Gabbard placing flowers at an altar dedicated to her 'guru'—a man whose group she denies ever being part of. The photograph of President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be director of national intelligence shows how a teenage Gabbard took part in a ritual dedicated to Chris Butler, the leader of the Science of Identity Foundation, while she was a student at one of its boarding schools. It was obtained by the Daily Beast along with an image from the program for her second marriage, in 2015, which includes a special blessing from Butler, under the name he uses, Siddhaswarupananda. Both images shed further light on Gabbard's connections to the Science of Identity Foundation. On Monday The New York Times quoted Gabbard's spokeswoman as saying 'she has never and doesn't have affiliation' with the group. Gabbard will face a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, when the Intelligence Committee will consider whether she should have unfettered access to America's most closely guarded secrets. But Republican senators are not united behind her and have voiced doubts about her views and even whether she understands the role she has been selected for. John Cornyn, of Texas, said Monday, 'I think the jury's still out.' The importance of Butler and his Science of Identity Foundation—which is an offshoot of the Hare Krishna movement, itself an offshoot of Hinduism—to Gabbard had gone under the radar for years. Butler is a man followers call a living god but who is also accused of running a 'cult' by former followers. Gabbard called Butler her 'guru' in 2015. Gabbard was around 15 when the photograph of her at Butler's altar, the first visual evidence of her participation in the group, was taken in the Philippines. Her parents, both deeply enmeshed in Butler's movement, had sent her to one of the group's boarding schools there. Her office declined to comment on the photo to the Daily Beast. The Daily Beast revealed earlier this month how Butler had ranted anti-gay hate on a tape from the late 1990s, shortly before Gabbard first ran for state office in Hawaii on an anti-gay marriage platform. She has previously said that her views on same-sex couples' rights have 'evolved' and voted to overturn a constitutional ban on gay marriage while in Congress. When the Daily Beast asked for comment on Butler ranting about gay people being 'deviants' and comparing homosexuality to beastiality, Trump's transition team said reporting on Gabbard and Butler was 'Hinduphobic.' Meanwhile Butler's group hired a crisis PR firm and pointed the Beast to a long 'open letter' complaining about 'media attacks that perpetuate harmful Hinduphobic narratives and rhetoric.' An SIF spokesperson said, 'We will not engage with sensationalist narratives driven by political motives, rather than fair reporting.' But a former member of the SIF, Anti van Duyn, has written to members of Congress to express concerns about it. She told The New York Times that it warned Gabbard is 'under the complete influence of' Butler, and alleges that he 'harbors ambitious political goals,' although she did not claim to know them. The SIF group is not part of mainstream Hinduism, and multiple former members told the Daily Beast that they believed it to be a cult—something Butler and his followers have long disputed. Some requested anonymity because they feared retribution by the group for speaking out. They told the Beast that Butler exerted almost 'complete control' over his followers, who had to treat him as god on earth. Butler took the name Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa. He is addressed as Jagad Guru, which translates as 'world teacher' and carries the meaning that he has the last word on everything. The former followers said the group had little to do with Hinduism, accusing it of being focused entirely on Butler. Notably in the 1990s it hosted Christmas celebrations 'in honor of the appearance of Jesus Christ.' Butler, born in 1948 in New Orleans, was brought up in Hawaii where he now lives as a virtual hermit. He leads as many as 10,000 followers, according to estimates by former members, from his compound in Kailua. Those former SIF members painted a picture of a controlling 'cult of personality' in which, they said: Every day began at 5 a.m. where followers prayed to an altar with Butler's image, then made offerings of food and flowers to the 'guru,' like in the photo of Gabbard. Children were made to listen to his 'insane' lectures as he swore and used homophobic slurs. Butler lived in an aluminum foil-wrapped room in his Hawaii compound because he believed it would shield him from infectious diseases, which he was 'paranoid' about contracting. He divided his followers into 'As, Bs and Cs' to determine who was allowed near him—and only those who 'quarantined' for two weeks could approach him. Followers working for free in his home and kitchen had to follow dozens of rules, including that they paid 'obeisance' as soon as entering the house. Butler's control extended from childhood into adulthood, determining who people could marry and where they could work. Those who left were ostracized so completely that one man said he was not even told about his father's death. The Science of Identity Foundation emerged in the late 1970s when Butler split from the Hare Krishna Consciousness Movement after the death in 1977 of its leader Srila Prabhupada. Both Gabbard's parents went on to become key parts of the movement. Like many initial followers of Butler, Gabbard's father Mike had been involved in the Hare Krishna movement, a letter seen by the Daily Beast confirms. In the 1980s, Mike Gabbard became the unpaid personal secretary to Butler and took on the name Krishna-katha das, according to documents reviewed by the Daily Beast. Meanwhile, her mother Carol took the name Davahuti Dasi and worked on the group's finances. Among his tasks were seeking masseurs for Butler, who at the time was also going by the name Srila Prabhupada. Rama Renson, a former member who was an almost exact contemporary of Gabbard, accused the Science of Identity Foundation of being a 'cult.' 'It's very controlling, very much like it creates this very limited belief system and perception and control,' he said. 'Chris Butler has a way of hijacking people's fear and their belief system. They believe everything about him. It's a cult of personality.' Renson was born in New Zealand to parents who were followers of Butler. They then moved to Hawaii to be closer to the guru. 'He's the pure holy, the literally only living representative of God and he's right about everything,' he told the Beast. 'If you go against him it's the worst sin and you'll be the equivalent of burning in Hell, tortured for eternities.' Worship of Butler began at the family altar in followers' homes at 5 a.m., with a prayer to the Jagad Guru. One follower said it was still etched in their memory and recited, 'The lotus feet of my spiritual master are the only way by which we can attain pure devotional service. I bow at your lotus feet with great awe and reverence; by your grace one can cross the ocean of suffering and attain the mercy of Krishna. My only wish is to have my consciousness purified by the words emanating from your lotus mouth. Attachment to your lotus feet is the perfection that fulfills all desires. You are my lord, birth after birth.' Butler was on a spiritual quest as a young man which brought him into contact with the Hare Krishna movement. But when he started his own group, he moved into a Hawaii compound where, witnesses said, he lived in an aluminum foil-lined room because of his paranoia about infectious diseases. Those who sought to come close to him would have to 'quarantine' for as long as two weeks before being permitted into his home, the Beast was told. As the new head of his own sect, Butler adopted Srila Prabhupada's tradition of being waited on by his followers, but added his own rules. Among the most bizarre was dividing his followers into 'As, Bs or Cs' to determine whether they were allowed to approach him. Butler's personal servants were called 'As,' working closely to him in the kitchen and preparing meals, massages, which meant they were not allowed to go into stores and had to remain 10 to 20 feet away from public places. 'Normal people' who could go into stores were called 'Cs,' and they would do most of the shopping and supplying, a former follower said. Only a few rare people were awarded status as a 'B,' such as Butler's wife Wai Lana. They had to put clean clothing on when they went to work in the kitchen, and all furniture and cars used for transportation needed to be covered. A former follower who spent time working in the kitchen said that all food and supplies brought into the center for Butler needed to be sanitized. A document seen by the Beast shows five pages of rules for workers, with the first rule saying, 'Pay obeisances when entering the SPV home.' 'We had to first sanitize them outside with alcohol. Vegetables and (produce) were soaked in an acid water solution,' the former kitchen worker explained. 'Basically, my entire job was dish sterilization. I wasn't even a cook. They basically needed an entire 12-hour shift dedicated to this sterilization.' Butler's living space, dishes, and personal effects also needed to be sterilized. 'They bought this machine from Japan that sterilized,' the former follower added. 'All of his dishes had to be safe in the oven for an hour at 350 or higher degrees, or sanitized in acid water with alcohol.' Obeisance to Butler covered the whole of the followers' lives, one former member said, particularly when it came to education. 'From the late '80s all of us kids were removed from public schools because he didn't want them influencing our minds away from our service to him,' one former member wrote in testimony shared with the Beast. 'So from that point we were home schooled, until there were schools established in the Philippines. After that all the children were sent to the boarding schools there for intensive schooling.' Gabbard's parents first home-schooled her then sent her to one of the Philippines schools, which were segregated by sex. One former member, a male contemporary of Gabbard's at the schools said they were designed to implant devotion, discipline, indoctrination of Butler's beliefs and needs. The school had about '30 to 50 boys' in each level from the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia. Keeping the students segregated by sex kept their minds off sex and they were 'brainwashed' to view the opposite sex as entirely different species, the ex-follower alleged, and said that by the time he came of high school age, he was 'traumatized.' 'When I came back, I was all freaked out and scared of girls. It took me a couple years to kind of get over that stigma, but I was very socially awkward,' they said. 'I left there in '97, '98, then they closed the school down for a couple years after that,' he said. Former followers accuse Butler of retaining control over followers far into their adult lives, including deciding who they could marry and where they could work, while people who left the movement were ostracized from their families. Gabbard's first husband Eduardo Tamayo was also brought up in the SIF. Fear of retaliation from Butler's associates and estrangement from family is another way Butler traps many followers under his control, former followers alleged. 'Butler was God's voice on earth, and if you questioned him or offended him in any way, you were effectively offending God,' wrote a former Butler follower named 'Lalita' in a 2017 essay, who is known among Butler former followers. She explained, 'Because we believed in reincarnation, that meant that you would be reborn as the lowest life-form imaginable and then have to spend eons working your way back into God's good graces.' Questioning Butler is spiritual suicide, she wrote, 'which was seen as worse than death.'
