“Memories” about the spiritual future of our civilization as I see it now
The aspects that I am writing here are not referring to a specific time but to a specific state of consciousness. The time is yet associated with it but the way this time we can expect to be is very much in accordance with the level of consciousness that our humanity is having and the way we evolve in the future years and decades.

If these aspects here will be understood by many, a lot of them will already change for it is only the unconsciousness that is predictable and foreseeable while the consciousness is spontaneous and is unpredictable. Once we understand about ourselves a certain predestination we are already on the changing course of that destiny. As we already scientifically proved, the mere fact of understanding a process is already transforming that process.

It is therefore sometimes a prophecy is apparently not fulfilled for it is enough that lots of people understood it and took it seriously then the future was already transformed and that prophecy is not valid anymore. Of course we will say that if the prophecy was not made than the events will happen as the untold prophecy will reveal. From this perspective we can say that a prophecy is acting as a future changing tool that is guiding the human consciousness toward a better future by the power of awareness.

We are now in a moment of great importance for our human development both as individuals and as a civilization. Our planet is becoming more and more as a fast learning class where the teaching lessons are very intensive.

The lesson that is facing the human being right now is the lessons of conscious letting go of the individuality and of the separation. We are in the full speed development of the informational communication that is sooner or later leading to the emotional breakdown and a necessary revolution in the emotional communication. Before this will happen, a great crisis of the morality will take place on the planet, probably due to the discoveries about the manipulation that is done through informational control, manipulation that will become ever more destructive in the following years.

Devices that will combine the latest discoveries of science with the psychic abilities of some people enhanced by the devices will create genuine mass psychosis that will lead to social tensions. Those will first of all affect the individuals from inside in the form of anxieties, stress, and unexplained sadness. Soon after, the information about these aspects will come out and the moral issue will be intensely debated.

People will gradually begin to realize that nobody can stay apart from the whole humanity and that everybody is linked with everybody. Notions as “psycho ecology”, “a clean mental environment”, “mental protection”, “emotional protection” and so on, will emerge in full power on a background of amazing scientific discoveries regarding the power of our mind over matter and the way we influence the planet on which we live. After the first rush and some violent confrontations of a religious nature – confrontations in which the religions as we know them today will loose most of their power and influence among the people of the world – the people that will remain will start to understand that we are all together in this cosmic adventure and that we are all the sons and daughters of the same Cosmic Father.

But these elements, even thou they are amazing and should create an entire revolution, they will be really understood under the power of some events of an intensity and magnitude that will affect deeply the whole planet. Thus the lesson of giving up the individuality and separation will be given by three big disasters that will make people experience the solidarity and in the same time will make them understand that without a state of unity we cannot make it through this universe on this little planet. This external threat will coincide with the beginning of the previously mentioned internal troubles. A new collective consciousness will reappear and gradually tend to replace the collective unconsciousness.

The old science and scientific spirit, that is holding in the back the occult organizations, will tend to control the human spirit in a final attempt to eradicate this increased tendency toward occultism and obscurantism – as they will call the new tendencies for spiritual research and the vivid spirit to question the old and rigid beliefs. This ideological battle will be given on the field of informational ground, the old world trying to control all the informational channels and to label all the new tendencies as: “dangerous attacks to the established order and modern civilization”. They will try even to create some associations between the modern vanguard scientists and the charlatans that are using people’s increased natural  openness toward these aspects in order to get material advantages. In the future the ideological battle will be as fierce and as damaging for humans as the battle with bombs and rockets. The more humans become aware about the power of the mind over patter the more this battle will commence.

The technology development will be reoriented in the following years by the new discoveries in the domain of energy and will also be enormously encouraged by the energetic crisis. Due to this crisis, humanity will invest more attention in the areas that until now were unknown and in the 21^st century we will face the first experiences that will prove without any doubts the existence of the so called subtle energies and the way they interact with the physical world. That will open a new era in the science and the theories that revolutionized the 20^th century will collapse with big noise. The spiritual science will make the first steps on these grounds. Once that is happen, the science is developing in an unseen rhythm in a period that will be known as the second renascence.  A new generation of evolved spirits will come in earth to reformulate the spiritual doctrines in accordance with the new horizons that were given by the science. This new spiritual doctrine will be simple and will be a new religion that is individual and direct, without any intermediary, adapting to all the scientific discoveries and using every element of life as a gate to spiritual transformation and direct communion with God.

After the informational revolution – after the big informational abuses will be revealed and the people will start to understand more such issues that until now where completely out of reach for ordinary people – the emotional revolution will come. The world will understand that emotions are a very important part of our life and that we need proper development and proper education as well at this level. There will be given new laws for emotional protection, based on the new discoveries about the subtle energies and the fact that the emotions can be measured and their impact studied. Gradually the attention of most of the people will focus in this area of life and it will become quite common to perceive directly the subtle energies and the subtle colors. A new era will begin in human relationships and communication. The couple relationship will be revalued to its cosmic dimension and the idea of androgyny will be again going out for the public. New understanding about human nature will emerge in these troubled times. The occult law of resonance will become the mile stone for all the science and the unificatory force that will allow all the systems to discover the fifth element, the Unification, the Oneness.

The mistakes of the past will be understood from a clearly different perspective and the state of unity and tolerance will grow on earth. After the three big disasters and the informational revolution that will lead to the emotional revolution, humanity will know a time of growth in spiritual dimensions. The new generations of evolved spirits will create a spiritual environment in some areas of the planet, making possible to appear a new race of people that will be genetically superior and also will be endowed with new abilities that humans never new in the modern history at such extended scale. The use of intuition and a primitive form of telepathy will become wide spread and in the areas that will be the cradle of the new religion there will be large communities that will use a new form of intuitive language as a basis for their communication. In such areas the development will be faster and they will be separated by the different level of consciousness and even by a different language.

The time of unity of the whole humanity will enter another phase when all people will be united in a kind of human consciousness and in the same time will freely develop different communities that will be the seed for the future specialized communities that in the end will form the Great Human Consciousness of the Cosmic Human.

All these are happening right now and for every one of us.

The fundamental freedom of expression, free media and information Statement on the current conflict between freedom of media and other Human Rights, such as presumption of innocence in criminal proceedings and the right to freedom from discrimination

“It is easier to turn an arrow from its way then to stop a word that left your lips”

Media as the fourth power of the state must be kept accountable for the full consequences of its actions. In most OSCE participating states today, media does not challenge the human rights as limited in freedom of speech by state legislation. Today media conflict with the freedom of thought in a system wrongly believed to be morally self regulated much in the same way as the prices in a market economy. In reality media today many times come to violate the fundamental human rights by a public management of information without regulation by accountability or a commonly accepted convention of professional conduct.

The question of accountability when private actors carry through actions of state level is well illustrated by the recent debates regarding the situation in Iraq. Private entrepreneurs of war do not have to obey to the same regulations as state troops and are not as individual or collective actor accountable for their misjudgements to the same degree as a regular army would be. Together with the Hypocrite code one of the uncontested triumphs of human morality is, paradoxical as it might seem the existence and appliance of the conventions on conduct in war. The common sense of modern society is offended when these conventions are not kept in a war, even when keeping to them might seem contrary to the immediate purpose of that specific action of war. In the field of media and public information management, humanity has yet not reached to establish such conventions and common sense.

As we intuitively understand that media and public information by definition is based on an unequal and potentially harmful interpersonal relation – just like between doctor and patient, soldier and civilian or soldier and prisoner of war – we have a common sense understanding that this relation should be guided and regulated by some certain universal fellow values beyond the immediate interests of the one in power.

Indeed the self regulation of morality in media is many times most efficient. In other situations media seem collectively to allow them selves not to consider the inner self regulating norms of morality as valid anymore. Sometimes an else diverse and multilaterally reflecting media landscape is completely dominated by one single opinion little related to common sense or morality. We find three major such situations – when by patriotism relating to sports and international conflicts, when a specific group temporarily manage to by force implement their specific views and when relating to unfamiliar cultural and spiritual praxis undesired by the surrounding society.

We frequently experience that in the field of information incidents innocent people have being hurt. The fact that the damages inflicted by immoral and unjust actions of journalists are not so easily measurable as in the war field in Iraq might be one reason to why there is not any debate on medial accountability today.

Media plays a key role in forming the public opinion. No modern society allows teachers with no or inappropriate education to work in the educational system and still no modern state have yet issued a degree needed to form the public opinion. Those working in public media management should enjoy at least the same support and attention as the educational system. The power of a journalist is in many ways equal to that of a priest in pre-modern society. It is a profession in need of moral and spiritual education without which we risk “one blind leading another blind”. A truly free media require journalists morally free by having a tolerant moral understanding.

The public opinion is a complex and vulnerable mechanism not self regulated in a way parallel to the free market economy. As discussed in previous sessions, “hate crimes” are propelled by exactly this failed self-regulation and the failing of moral responsibility in the media environment. Still the individual journalist does not even by common morality stand accountable or convicted for such crimes, nor does the company who contracted him. An article will destroy the life of a person and in the end, if proven wrong the paper is responsible to publish a small apologize in the fifteenth page. “One dump is throwing a stone in the river and even ten wise cannot take it out”. This fact is today cynically and systematically used in accordance with the so called Machiavelli principles. The real responsibility has to come from a free minded media that is a consequence of a properly prepared journalist.

As we have started to present here the complex and severe case of the MISA yoga school in Romania, here is the situation presented from the point of view of the freedom of expression.

During the period 1997 – 2006 a number of 2700 negative or calumnious articles appeared in the media only about this yoga movement. Only less then 4% of the cases were followed by the right to reply.

The influence in the case from the media was so big that the decision of the Swedish Supreme Court denying the extradition in 2005 of the Romanian yoga teacher Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru states the following:

“Madalina Dumitru (the alleged victim) has further stated that her apprehension by the police on 18th March 2004 was filmed and that the film along with excerpts of her confiscated notes was repeatedly shown the following day on Romanian television. The pictures and the notes have also been published in several newspaper articles. This has led to severe harassment from people within her immediate surroundings and she has not been able to continue her schooling.”

“The tone in the media has, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, periodically been very vicious. (…) In the case it has furthermore been made probable that the immediate TV broadcasting of the arrest and the following press campaign based upon information from the investigation was deliberately handed out by the authorities in the aim of turning the public opinion against GB”.

The lack of real accountability in the fourth power of state is seemingly a growing problem in modern open societies. It is clearly misused by states or other powers of interest to by force impose their will and ideas in society with media as agents that will not face any consequences in proportion to the sufferance they might cause.

The report made by Transparency International in Romania in 2006 show regarding the influence of media in judicial processes, that judges and prosecutors perceive that in the cases of interference with the justice, media is responsible for more than 56% of the cases, the rest being shared between the other major forces of the state.

There is in the open society a natural resentment regarding state regulating the media through legislation. Among journalists there is an inherit idea about a specific and common conduct of honour similar to that of soldiers, doctors and so on. Still it was not yet stated in conventions and is many times proven to be largely relative according to the pervading normality of the recipient society.

We consider that the lack of efficient self regulation of media in accordance with the democratic and tolerant principles stated by the OSCE participating countries regarding the protection of the human rights is a problem that should be addressed internationally.

Recommendations

• We recommend OSCE to initiate the establishment of a convention of intellectual and moral justice in media. This convention would be formalised as self regulated based on common journalistic principles developed and defined in this forum.
• We recommend to the OSCE to encourage the creation of an independent international commission that can provide an unbound referential to journalists, thus easing the pressure from specific groups of interest upon the media.
• We recommend to the OSCE participant states to support the development of public informational management into a science with at least the same importance as pedagogy.

Link to the conference document:

http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2007/10/27058_en.pdf

Annex Right to a fair trial: Case study on MISA yoga school – ROMANIA
VIOLATION OF THE ARTICLE 6 OF THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION – RIGHT TO A FAIR TRIAL As to a fair and public trial within a reasonable time, by an independent and impartial court established by law, with all the other guarantees, as provided for in article 6 of the Convention, these provisions were violated in 6 different situations. I. The violation of the Article 6 by not observing the presumption of innocence First of all it must be said that in the Romanian judicial system the presumption of innocence, stipulated by the Romanian Penal Procedure Code in article 52, by the Romanian Constitution in article 23, but especially by the European Convention for Human Rights, remains an empty concept that the courts do not take into account. The entire theory according to which in dubio pro reo must be applied every time when there is not enough evidence showing the guilt of the charged, especially in penal matters, remains a beautiful speech of the lawyers with no impact or relevance in a penal trial whatsoever. In this context, after the violent actions of the Romanian authorities, which were meant to “stem the criminal potential represented by Bivolaru”, there were also numerous official persons who publicly and shamelessly stated that Gregorian Bivolaru was guilty of the offenses attributed to him by the Prosecutors’ Office of the Bucharest Court of Appeal. As a first example, Raj Tunaru, deputy of the ruling party, requested in the session of the Chamber of Deputies on the 23rd of March 2004: “I insistently ask the investigation authorities, especially the General Prosecutor of Romania, to issue urgently a warrant of arrest according to the legislation in force, and this to be prolonged by the judges, according to the law, until evidence will be produced in order to arrest the bastard [Gregorian Bivolaru]”. After the Bucharest Court of Appeal had to decide the release of Gregorian Bivolaru on the 1st of April 2004, due to the fact that the prosecutors had wrongly appreciated the norms related to competence and invested the Bucharest Tribuna instead of the 5th District Court of Law with the solving of the request of pre-trial incarceration, numerous officials found it proper to come out and express their disapproval towards the release, clearly passing the message according to which simultaneously with the cause re-judging by the 5th District Court of Law, the measure of pre-trial incarceration should be also ruled. Ioan Rus, the minister of Administration and Internal Affairs, was quoted by several newspapers: - Ziua – the 5th of April 2004 – “I consider as strange the release of Gregorian Bivolaru on procedure reasons.” - National – the 5th of April 2004 – “I consider as strange the release of Gregorian Bivolaru on procedure reasons.” - Realitatea Românească – the 5th of April 2004 – “Ioan Rus wants Grieg in jail.” - National – the 2nd of April 2004 – “Ioan Rus [declared that] M.I.S.A. has been watched since 1995, but the specialists within MAI (the Ministry of Administration and Internal Affairs) decided it is time to intervene.” Bogdan Drăghici, the president of the National Federation of Civil Servants, quoted by the newspaper Jurnalul National on the 1st of April 2004, the same day when the Bucharest Court of Appeal decided the release of Bivolaru and his judging by the competent instance: “In Romania there are over 100 important civil servants, especially within the structures of the Ministry of Administration and Internal Affairs and even in the Government’ General Secretariat, who protect M.I.S.A. or are M.I.S.A. members. At the level of the central administration, in Bucharest there are tens of such employees.” The same Bogdan Drăghici declared for the Ziua newspaper on the 31st of April 2004: “There are tens of employees in the whole country. Not only in this ministry did M.I.S.A. members infiltrate, but also in others such as the Government’ General Secretariat. We now gather information from all our branches and we will release them to the press as soon as possible. [...] as persons from the central state institution, the Government, have been the main protection suppliers of Gregorian Bivolaru. [...] The companies of important members or followers of the Bivolaru’s organization were doing illegal economic activities. For these services, including the protection and information from the state institution, the employees have received material benefits [...] and sexual favors.” The same day when the release of Gregorian Bivolaru on procedural reasons was decided, that is the 1st of April 2004, the newspaper Curierul National writes: “Radu Timofte (chief of the Romanian Secret Services), the secret chief of M.I.S.A. Confidential sources close to the investigators declared last night [...] that there is certain evidence that the S.R.I. head belongs to the yogi movement. [...] President Ion Iliescu called urgently the Supreme Council for the Country Defense (CSAT) where they will discuss the replacement of Radu Timofte.” A larger number of such statements and newspaper excerpts can be found in www.gregorianbivolaru.com Considering all these statements which came to support the accusations of the Prosecutors’ Office of the Bucharest Court of Appeal, to emphasize the necessity to arrest Bivolaru and to manipulate the public opinion and instigate it to hatred and despise towards his activity and the organization he founded – the presumption of innocence cannot subsist. Moreover, although the pre-trial incarceration was requested for the serious offenses for which the investigation is till in profress (propaganda in favor of the totalitarian state, communication of false information, association in an organized criminal group, money laundering, tax evasion, pornography, pedophilia etc.), all the quoted officials tried to manipulate the public opinion by stating that the measure of pretrial incarceration is necessary for the committing of these offenses and not for the ones for which the preventive measure was really asked. In this way, they created antipathy, despise and even hatred towards Gregorian Bivolaru, meant to justify the disproportionate and illegal measure in relation to the evidence gathered in the dossier. The most serious problem is the fact that not only the public opinion has been influenced, but also the courts; they were accused of being “indulgent” towards Bivolaru due to the presumed influence he had upon them through different MISA members. Consequently they seriously ignored the fundamental rights of the defendant in order to solve as quickly as possible this controversial dossier and to satisfy the state representatives and the public opinion. The same meaning has also the motivation of the judicial decision on the measure of pre-trial incarceration: “The notorious reaction of the public (who took note of the committing of serious 19 penal facts against a minor) has resuscitated a certain public disorder that justify the taking of a drastic measure towards defendant Gregorian Bivolaru, without denying the presumption of innocence to which the defendant is entitled until a final sentence. The letting at large of the defendant really disturbs the public order.” How can the judges talk about observing the presumption of innocence while disposing the most drastic preventive measure only to satisfy the public opinion intoxicated by the public statements of the Prosecutors’ Office, which affirmed they took 5 trucks of hard evidence without mentioning they took the most personal belongings, which mocked a practice recognized in all the democratic countries – yoga – by releasing to the press accusations sustained by nothing, not even by the presumed victim, and which, after 10 years of careful monitoring by the Secret Services, considers investigations still need to be carried on in order to produce evidence for charging Bivolaru with such serious offenses?! The violation of the presumption of innocence is obvious when – defying the article 202 of the Romanian Penal Procedure Code that states that “the penal authority is obliged to produce the necessary evidence in order to find out the truth and justly judge the case. The penal authority gathers evidence both against and in favor of the charged or the defendant. The obligations provided for in the previous paragraph shall be carried on even if the charged or the defendant confess the deed” – the prosecutors turned a statement into a complaint for an offense of sexual act with a minor in the version that incriminates the abuse of authority in order to obtain sexual favors. It must be emphasized this is the statement given after 13 hours of interrogation following the searches; this can be referred to at pages 116-117 of the cause dossier. Moreover, the minor never accused to have had sexual relations with Gregorian Bivolaru and declared before tens of reporters that she has a fiancé whom she intends to marry; she even tried to explain this during the judging of the request of pre-trial incarceration. Considering all these things, the violation of article 6 paragraph 2 of the Convention is obvious. II. Violation of article 6 by the fact that Gregorian Bivolaru was not judged by an independent and impartial instance. Another aspect concerning the violation of article 6, paragraph 1 of the Convention concerns the composition of the panel of judges. In order to judge the case on the 1st of April 2004 a panel of judges was formed that was held secret until entering in the judging room and, furthermore, the judge assigned to be the president of the panel was the president of the 5th District Court of Law, Mrs. Mihaela Andrei. This violates the provision of article 6 of the Convention, which states that “any person has the right to an equitable judgment… by an independent and impartial instance instituted by law”. Note that, according to Law no. 92/1992 republished in 1997, the court presidents are appointed by the Minister of Justice by direct order which is published in the Romanian Official Gazette. Furthermore, the first panel of judges who ruled on the 30th of March 2004 as to the warrant of arrest of Gregorian Bivolaru, at Bucharest Tribunal, was presided by judge Antonela Costache who has, like judge Mihaela Andrei, an administrative position within the instance, the Presidency of the 2nd Penal Section, to which the dossier was assigned. The fact that after ascertaining the incompetence of the Bucharest Tribunal for solving the request of pre-trial incarceration and after sending the cause to be re-judged by the 5th District Court of Law, it 20 was considered necessary to assign a judge with an administrative position within that instance for the presidency of the panel, and after the Bucharest Tribunal had constituted a panel of judges on the same criteria, raises big question marks about the way this dossier was managed. The subordination to the Government is obvious in this context; if we also consider the statements of some Government members, as quoted above, the violation of article 6 paragraph 1 of the Convention becomes obvious. Moreover, the disciplinary action against judicial bodies is exercised by the Minister of Justice, the penal action is also exercised by the Minister of Justice (article 91 paragraph 2 of Law no. 92/1992 republished in 1997), the Minister of Justice can give direct and compulsory orders to the prosecutors, in view of respecting and applying the law (article 33, article 34 of Law no. 92/1992 republished in 1997), according to Regulation no. 9 for the working of the Superior Counsel of Magistracy, the Minister of Justice can suspend by direct order any prosecutor or judge etc. In this respect there have been numerous debates in the press, on TV and even in the Romanian Parliament, and consequently on the 1st of October 2004 the new law of judicial organization will come into force, by which the judges are taken out of the Government’s tutelage, following the requests of the European Union. This approach of the Romanian authorities proves the abovementioned and is basically recognition of the fact that until the above-mentioned date, there were no independent and impartial instances in Romania. However, on the 31st of May 2004, when the measure of pre-trial incarceration of Gregorian Bivolaru was judged and decided, Law no. 92/1992 was still in force and, as already mentioned, the panel of judges was presided by the instance’s president. The fact that the instance of the 5th District Court of Law was challenged had no relevance; the Bucharest Tribunal and the Bucharest Court of Appeal accomplished only a formality by denying the invoked arguments. III. Violation of Article 6 by the fact that the haste to judge Bivolaru’s case led to repeated violation of the right to defense Article 6 paragraph 3.b states: “Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights: …b)to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defense”. However, after the Bucharest Court of Appeal released the charged, when the instances could no longer motivate their haste by their wish to solve the pre-trial incarceration request before the expiration of the detention measure, the judgment terms were set the same day for different instances in spite of the lawyers’ repeated request to be given a reasonable time to prepare the defense. Thus, after the Bucharest Court of Appeal had to acknowledge on the 1st of April the prosecutors’ mistake and to release the defendant due to the expiration of the detention measure, during the same day the dossier was sent from the Bucharest Court of Appeal to the 5th District Court of Law, where still the same day the dossier no. 3989/2004 was put together, and they tried to rule on the proposal of pre-trial incarceration in the Council Chamber. Because of the instance’s refusal to respect the right to defense and because of the suspicions concerning the way the made up the panel of judges, Gregorian Bivolaru’s lawyers had no other solution but to challenge the whole instance of the 5th District Court of Law. As rejection grounds, they showed the instance the fact that all this extreme haste in the situation in which the celerity could no longer be motivated by the expiration of a preventive measure, and because within a few days an impressive number of procedures was carried on, that could not be carefully examined by the defendants’ lawyers in order to prepare the defense – these were considered valid reasons to suspect there was political pressure and other kinds of pressure, so the instance could no longer rule objectively upon the case. The dossier is forwarded to the superior instance, which is the Bucharest Tribunal; judging the challenge request in the dossier no. 1881/2004, the Bucharest Tribunal ruled by the Conclusion pronounced in the Council Chamber the same day, the 1st of April 2004, that there was no incompatibility and denied the rejection request. The conclusion issued by the Bucharest Tribunal was appealed. At Bucharest Court of Appeal, in the dossier no. 1177/2004, Gregorian Bivolaru’s lawyers invoked the non-constitutionality of the provisions of article 52 par. 2 of the Penal Procedure Code, which states that the examination of the exception request can be done in the absence of the parties, and the instance who judges the exception request must listen to the parties only if considered necessary. Although Gregorian Bivolaru was represented by a lawyer at the Bucharest Tribunal, that judged the exception request, the constitutional provisions are violated by the fact that the defendant was not cited and called to be heard; due to the negative consequences of the denigration in the media and the exaggerate hurry with which the procedures took place, the defendant’s rights were violated, especially the right to defense. The Bucharest Court of Appeal by the Conclusion on the 2nd of April 2004 decided the notification of the Constitutional Court and suspended the judgment of the cause until the non-constitutionality exception will be solved. The Prosecutors’ Office of the Bucharest Court of Appeal appealed, thus forming the appeal dossier no. 2196/2004 of the High Court of Cassation and Justice. The appeal before the High Court of Cassation and Justice was established on the 27th of April 2004. At this first term the lawyers of Gregorian Bivolaru asked for more time to prepare the defense and to consider the appeal reasons raised by the Prosecutors’ Office of the Bucharest Court of Appeal; the instance admitted the request, but set the new term the following day, the 28th of April. The High Court of Cassation and Justice admitted the appeal of the Prosecutors’ Office of the Bucharest Court of Appeal (Decision no. 2283 on the 28th of April) therefore decided to send the cause to the Bucharest Court of Appeal for the continuation of the trial. This happened while at the Supreme Court Gregorian Bivolaru’s lawyers invoked the non-constitutionality of the provisions of article 3852 and article 362 paragraphs 1.a of the Penal Procedure Code, on which basis the prosecutor can attack with appeal or recourse the decisions. This was motivated by the fact that the mentioned texts are in contradiction with the principles governing the whole activity of the Public Ministry, which are the principles of legality, impartiality and hierarchical control, as long as exercising the appeal by the prosecutor is not subject to the confirmation of the hierarchically superior prosecutor. The High Court of Cassation and Justice, despite the provisions of Law no. 47/1992, republished, which states that the instances before which non-constitutionality exceptions are raised are obliged to refer to the Constitutional Court, ruled in this respect and denied the exception. At the Bucharest Court of Appeal, on the 10th of May 2004, in the dossier no. 1551/2004 Gregorian Bivolaru’s lawyers claimed that judges of the Bucharest Court of Appeal could no longer be impartial, given the evolution of the dossier and the already obvious pressure; they considered that somewhere else in the country there will be less interference and pressure on the justice then in Bucharest, and consequently took exception to the whole Bucharest Court of Appeal. The cause was sent again to the High Court of Cassation and Justice who considered that the exception request was inadmissible and denied it (Conclusion no. 96 on the 12th of May 2004 pronounced in the 22 dossier no. 2624/2004). Gregorian Bivolaru appealed, but this was also denied as insubstantial by the High Court of Cassation and Justice by a panel of nine judges (Decision no. 170 on the 14th of May 2004 pronounced in the Council Chamber in the dossier no. 128/2004). The rush through so many proceedings in such a short time led to the effective hindrance of the defense preparation, the courts categorically refused to take into account this fundamental right of the defendant, right that is also provided for in principle by the Romanian Penal Procedure Code in article 6. The right to defense was seriously violated if we consider that during one single day, that is the 29th of March 2004, the Nădlac customs police decide the measure of detention, the dossier was sent to Bucharest, the dossier of the Prosecutors’ Office pendant to the Arad Court of Appeal was connected to the dossier of the Prosecutors’ Office pendant to the Bucharest Court of Appeal, it was decided the start of the penal proceedings for three offenses (attempt to fraudulently cross the Romanian state border, sexual act with a minor, sexual perversions), and the proposal of pre-trial incarceration was drafted by the same Prosecutors’ Office pendant to the Bucharest Court of Appeal. In the same very busy day the General Prosecutor of the Prosecutors’ Office pendant to the Bucharest Court of Appeal found the time to solve the complaints of the minor Mădălina Dumitru against the way the search and the interrogation were performed, and by the Resolution no. 977/VIII-1/2004 on the 29th of March 2004, stated that her requests could not be taken into account; this time her capacity of minor didn’t grant her any favor; her statements were contested and she was practically obliged to take the role of injured party, although she denied it. It is probably a national or even international premiere that a presumed injured party affirms denies this capacity while the authorities contradict her, saying that her statements cannot be taken into account. It is very hard to believe that the prosecutors had the necessary time to study the dossier in all its complexity, as it has an impressive number of pages, in order to analyze the evidence and to draw up the above-mentioned documents, so that the rights of the accused be also observed and the proceedings be correctly conducted as provided for in the Romanian Penal Procedure Code, such as the right to defense and the personal freedom; furthermore, it is also hard to believe they also had the time to hand in the dossier to the General Prosecutor in order to study and analyze attentively whether minor Mădălina Dumitru’s complaint was well-grounded or not. It is also worth to mention that between the 29th of March 2004, when the Prosecutors’ Office pendant to the Bucharest Court of Appeal requested the measure of pre-trial incarceration, and June 2004, when the Conclusion of the 5th District Court of Law by which the measure of pre-trial incarceration was decided remained final, the prosecutors continued the investigation of the merits and as various procedural documents were issued they were added to the initial dossier. In all this period, the defenders requested several times, according to article 172 Penal Procedure Code, to be called for every act of penal investigation, but the claims handed in through the registry got too late to the prosecutors, others disappeared, sometimes the prosecutors themselves “could not be found”; thus, the judicial bodies proceeded to various investigations in the absence of the defenders. The proving documents can be found at pages 1087-1123 of the dossier. In this context, it is even easier to understand the instances’ refusal to grant reasonable terms for the preparation and the assurance of Gregorian Bivolaru’s defense. The flagrant violation of article 6, paragraph 3.b of the Convention is therefore more than obvious. IV. Violation of Article 6 by the fact that the judgment was not suspended in order to allow the Constitutional Court to judge the exception of non-constitutionality When the exception of non-constitutionality of the provisions of article 52 of the Penal Procedure Code was invoked, the judging instance was obliged, according to Law no. 47/1992 concerning the organization and working of the Constitutional Court, to suspend the judgment and to send the cause to be solved by the Constitutional Court, the only one empowered to rule as to the constitutionality of the provisions of a law. The Law of the Constitutional Court provides that an exception of non-constitutionality can be denied by judging instances only if it is considered inadmissible because it does not concern a law or an ordinance, it was not invoked by the court, the parties or the prosecutor, or it was subject to a prior constitutional check (prior to the enforcement of the law or ordinance), or the Court had already ruled on the invoked text and declared it not constitutional. In Bivolaru cause none of these points that could have justified the denial of the non-constitutionality was applicable, and the High Court of Cassation and Justice admitted the appeal of the Prosecutors’ Office against the conclusion of the Bucharest Court of Appeal by effectively pronouncing in place of the competent instance as to the constitutionality of article 52 of the Penal Procedure Code, as one can easily see in Decision no. 2283 in dossier 2196/2004 of the High Court of Cassation and Justice – Penal Section. A fortiori the High Court of Cassation and Justice flagrantly violated the legal provisions by drastically denying the non-constitutionality exception invoked. The High Court of Cassation and Justice, by the Decision no. 2283 on the 28th of April 2004, also refused to send the dossier to the Constitutional Court after at the supreme court Gregorian Bivolaru’s lawyers invoked the non-constitutionality of the provisions of articles 3852 and 362 paragraph 1.a of the Penal Procedure Code, on which basis the prosecutor can attack with appeal or recourse the ruling. This was motivated by the fact that the mentioned texts are in contradiction with the principles governing the whole activity of the Public Ministry, which are the principles of legality, impartiality and hierarchic control, as long as exercising the attack by the prosecutor is not subject to the confirmation by the hierarchically superior prosecutor. Despite the provisions of Law no. 47/1992, republished, which states that the instances before which the non-constitutionality exceptions are raised are obliged to go to the Constitutional Court, the High Court of Cassation and Justice pronounced ruled and denied it. V. Violation of Article 6 by the fact that the objections raised during the solving of the request of pre-trial incarceration were ignored without arguments It is useless to comment the way in which the instances pronounced every time upon the objections formulated during the solving of the request of pre-trial incarceration; in none of the judicial decisions there were arguments on why Bivolaru’s affirmations were repeatedly ignored. The argument invoked by the judging instances, that the challenge reason provided for in article 48.d of the Penal Procedure Code, which provides that “the judge is incompatible if in the respective cause, …d)there are circumstances showing he is interested in any form, he, the husband, or a close relative” could not be taken into account, is a natural consequence of its subordination to the executive power, as shown above. Consequently, acknowledging that the objection reason is valid in this case would have meant to acknowledge not only that the instances (as already notoriously known in Romania) are neither independent not impartial, but also that the “Bivolaru dossier” was truly instrumented in a such manner to give satisfaction to the certain members of the Government who had publicly expressed their opinions. VI. Violation of Article 6 by the fact that the authorities justified the measure of pre-trial incarceration by the so-called attempt to escape, without taking into account the submitted evidence The 5th District Court of Law decided the measure of pre-trial incarceration claiming that Gregorian Bivolaru has been escaping, although his lawyers sustained the defendant is hiding as he received threats that made him consider his life in danger. In this respect they handed in the declarations of two acquaintances of Bivolaru, certified by the lawyer, in which they testify the defendant received threats saying “he was going to be eliminated”. Gregorian Bivolaru had serious reasons to take such threats seriously, considering his past when he had been the victim of a criminal action and he is still alive thanks to the fact that he was not at home when the explosion took place. The lawyers continuously asked the judging instances for the defendant’s protection, taking into consideration the authorities haven’t taken any measure in this respect up to the present moment. However, the judging instance appreciated this newly-occurred situation represented only affirmations meant to delay the trial and, without taking into account the statements in the media, the filed declarations and the simple fact that by guaranteeing his protection they could ensure Bivolaru’s presence at the trial, concluded that the affirmations are not proven and, with no other analysis, decided the measure of pre-trial incarceration concluding the defendant was escaping the prosecution. This is another reason to ask the European Court for Human Rights to acknowledge the violation of article 6 paragraph 3.b of the Convention, which stipulates the right to defense. Excerpt from the independent report released in 2006 by SOJUST on the juridical system of Romania Chapter 5: Human rights III. The M.I.S.A. caseA. The actual case One of the cases that arose publice suspicions regarding the procedural correctness and compliance with the fundamental rights is that of the Spiritual Movement for Integration into the Absolute (MISA) 25. The M.I.S.A. leader, Gregorian Bivolaru and others of his disciples were prosecuted, put under arrest, beaten by the Securitate even from the 70’s. One does not rule out that the prosecution of the M.I.S.A. leader continued after 1989 as well. To these, one adds the public’s reticence towards the yoga techniques, especially in the 90’s, due to a lack of a reasonable education. The biggest official action directed against MISA took place in March 2004: Operation “CHRIST”. On the 18^th of March 2004, a few hundred policemen, gendarmes and prosecutors forcefully broke into several personal property buildings belonging to yoga students, locations where tens of yoga practitioners were living together, pursuing their spiritual practice by the model of the Indian ashrams. The immersion was broadcasted by several TV stations and an entire country could see the breaking of doors by law-enforcement officers and the forceful treatment of persons who were found in the buildings (of whom some were foreign citizens): while being held at gunpoint, they were summoned to lie down on the floor, face down and hands around their necks; they were not allowed to get dressed; they were not asked for their approval to be recorded on camera. In one of the cases, it seems that there was no search warrant. Several tens of persons were carried by police vans to the Prosecutor’s Office where they were questioned. One did not allow them to contact their lawyers, for the reason that they were questioned as witnesses, and the Romanian Law provides for the possibility of allowing defense only for parties, and not for witnesses27. According to the content of the search warrants, they were supposed to concern information data, regarding information users and traffic. The people who were searched claimed that huge quantities of personal goods were confiscated28, some of them without being mentioned in the search protocols and most of them having no connection to the motives specified in the warrants whatsoever; two years later, the owners were only returned one third of all these. One of the evidence, the journal of a yoga practitioner witness, was released to the press and made public, although the authorities guaranteed confidentiality. The prosecutor now investigates organized crime and human traffic cases concerning some of the MISA members. One has instituted the measure of “insuring arrestment” on 70 buildings for covering the damages that they claimed. Officially, one has noted that, under the cover of courses for initiation in the yoga practices, the investigated persons attracted, manipulated and exploited the participants (of whom many were minor) to their own personal interest, thus endangering their psychic development29. Nevertheless, from the contradictory data published by the media, there are only 8 victims. Some of the investigated persons were sent to trial. A completely unusual thing for Romania, the entire indictment was made public30 by the penal prosecution body, which among violating the rights to an equitable trial and the protection of the investigated persons’ private life, may be yet another element for the manipulation of public opinion. B. The MISA files With all the internal investigations performed by the CSM31 or the judiciary ones performed as a consequence to the filed complaints, the presumptive negative aspects concerning the actual development of the investigation were not cleared up. From the 55 penal complaints that were filed in May 2004, only 9 were retained in view of solving at the Prosecutor’s Office, and those for a single offence. The rest got a non-prosecution resolution, without even questioning the victims; at present, this resolution is appealed at the Supreme Court. At the same time, two arrest warrants were issued on the name of Gregorian Bivolaru (gone to Sweden), one for the offense of sexual act with a minor and the other for human traffic. These were the grounds for the Romanian State’s request of his extradition. But the Supreme Court of Stockholm got to the conclusion that, due to the violation of the presumption of innocence, of implicating the political scene32and the media in this case (one even got a special mention that the authorities deliberately turned the public opinion against the defendant), the Romanian Justice cannot ensure an equitable trial to the citizen whose extradition was requested, a reason for which the Romanian State’s request was turned down33. After two more months, the Swedish Government accepted to grant Mr. Bivolaru the statute of political refugee. C. Possibly violated rightsOn the way in which the searches, the hearings and the investigations were conducted one has questions as to the possible violation of several internal dispositions (illegal confinement; threatening; unjust repression; illegal entry; destruction; misfeasance against the person’s interests; misfeasance by restraining rights; attempt to determine false testimony; illegal arrest and abusive investigation; abusive behavior) and international ones (freedom from torture, the right to liberty, the right to a fair trial, freedom from arbitrary interference with one’s privacy and family life, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association; freedom from discrimination; the right to own property). The inefficiency of the internal investigations concerning the claimed abuses is all the more serious as Bivolaru got the asylum and then the refugee status in a foreign country. From this viewpoint, the competence or the bona fide of the Romanian bodies is seriously questioned. Source: http://www.sojust.ro/sistemul-juridic-din-romania-raport-independent/5-human-rights.html

The right for a fair trial

On the Rule of Law – the right for a fair trial

(With examples from the violation of the right for a fair trial in Romania)

As a continuation of the exposed problems with division of powers in a unicultural society that ware presented in the first session on this afternoons topic, Soteria wish to point out some specific problems related to the concept of fair trial. We have to mention first that these particular problems are added to the ones mentioned previously by our distinguished introducer, Mrs Monica Macovei namely: corruption of the justice system and especially the political corruption.

As it was noticed in various situations, the freedom of speech and especially the freedom of media can come much faster into use than the freedom of the mind of the people in that society. In some cases the mind of the people involved in the justice process is still under some totalitarian tendencies while the influences from the media grow freely, expressing sometimes intolerance and hate toward the ones that are different. These two situations can work together and create severe violations of the human rights and make almost impossible a fair trial even if the laws on the paper will allow it. Thus the pressure that the prosecutors and judges have to face in their work comes sometimes not only from a corrupted system but also directly from the society. A prosecutor that tries to stay objective in his work have to face also the public pressure created by a media that is not used to reflect multilateral points of view and that serve a society which is not used to accept the ones that are different. This phenomenon is affecting different minorities and some of the most affected groups are the spiritual and religious minorities. In their cases the fact of being different then the society around might come from a fundamental difference in the set of beliefs and it cannot be easily spotted and treated as such without an awareness on this aspect.

Many OSCE participating states, especially from the eastern region, experience problems created by the mindset of prosecutors and judges that were formed and determined by cultural and professional norms that would not anymore be valid in a just and tolerant society. The whole scale of latent and acute problems is present in the former communist countries as well as other nations in transition from a nation ruled by strong cultural dogmas to a society ruled by law and tolerance. This problem often combines with another problem arising from the new form of conformist society that emerges – the unicultural society created in close collaboration between state and media. From this situation especially the rights for a fair trial by those whose behaviour differ from the norms are vulnerable. We will now speak from the perspective of those with a spiritual praxis that differ from that of the surrounding society. The trials in their case are per se unjust when targeting the very structure of the undomesticated spiritual praxis under guise of the individuals’ actions within this structure. A social and cultural intolerance thereby easily turns into a judicial mistake.

Since we have been starting to show in this forum the very complex and severe case of MISA yoga school in Romania, we consider necessary to give the perspective of a fair trial that in this case was violated. In the document that is made available to you in the DDC as an appendix to this statement we have given a full report on the violation of the Article 6 from the European Convention for human rights (1950) – the right for a fair trial in the case of MISA members. The number of juridical mistakes and violations upon the human rights in this case are so numerous that we needed a full annex only to mention them. This is a result of the political corruption that still exists in the Romanian juridical system (as shown also in the opening of this working session by Mrs Monica Macovei) combined with the inflamed reaction of the mass media in a society yet tributary to an attitude of intolerance.

As it was briefly shown before in other statements from SOTERIA INTERNATIONAL, one of the leading figures of this yoga movement, Mr Gregorian Bivolaru was granted in the beginning of 2006 the status that is equivalent to political asylum in Sweden. From the decision of the Supreme Curt of Sweden we can read that:

“In the matter there has been referred to several letters from individuals and from organizations, among them the Helsinki Committee for the defending of human rights in Romania, and Amnesty International, concerning harassment and crime against basic rights committed by Romanian media and institutions against MISA and Gregorian Bivolaru. In the letters it is adduced that Gregorian Bivolaru runs the risk of being pursued in Romania and that he cannot expect to have a fair trial there.”

As a reaction to that event the Romanian PM, Mr. Catalin Popescu Tariceanu, officially declared that: “If the yoga teacher is granted asylum in Sweden because his fundamental rights are not respected here in Romania, then that is a clear proof of the fact that justice does not function here”!

Illustrating even more what we have stated before, after the decision of the Supreme Court of Sweden was published the Romanian minister of Justice at that time, Mrs Monica Macovei, our distinguished introducer today, asked for an investigation from the Supreme Council of Magistrates (SCM). The results of this investigation – in our opinion formed on the facts shown in the annexed document – are in themselves an example of how the justice process can be corrupted in a society manifesting a certain degree of intolerance. The report from SCM concluded among other things that the images that invaded the media immediately after the severe events that took place in March 2004 were not from the prosecutors but from yoga practitioners that were dressed in policemen and filmed themselves as brutalizing other yoga practitioners and then deliver the film to the media. Also the reason for the decision of the Supreme Court in Sweden was mainly the failure of the minister of Justice to provide proper documentation to the Swedish Supreme Court. Even Mrs. Monica Macovei declared for the media at that time that:

“Actually this report is rushed and protective for the magistrates. It is large as it actually comprises a list of dates and measures, but no verification whatsoever has been made as to the legality of each measure, under the excuse of the magistrates’ independence. I want to say that I see here a dangerous tendency and it is not the first time I see this in a Superior Council of Magistrates inspection. Under the justified concern for the magistrates’ independence, they practically refuse to undertake any responsibility check.”

As one trial against Mr. Bivolaru and 21 other yoga teachers started in Bucharest in June 2007, the right for a fair trail was again trespassed by the judicial authorities by publishing the indictment – in itself a document that is violating several times the presumption of innocence – in the main stream media in the same day as the file was send to the court. More details you will find in the appendix of this statement. We will end with an excerpt from a report released in 2006 by SOJUST – SOciety for JUSTice. This society is made of judges, lawyers and other workers in the romanian judiciary system. The justice system in Romania – an independent report. In chapter 5 section 3 we find MISA case analyzed. Here is the conclusion:

” The way in which the searches, the hearings and the investigations were conducted raises the issue of the possible violation of several internal dispositions (illegal confinement; threatening; unjust repression; illegal entry; destruction; misfeasance against the persons’ interests; misfeasance by restraining rights; attempt to determine false testimony; illegal arrest and abusive investigation; abusive behavior) and international ones (freedom from torture, the right to liberty, the right to a fair trial, freedom from arbitrary interference with one’s privacy and family life, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association; freedom from discrimination; the right to own property).”

The full text can be found in the annex to this document. Source: http://www.sojust.ro/sistemul-juridic-din-romania-raport-independent/5-human-rights.html  

Recommendations:  

• We recommend that OSCE will support an educational program for the countries with a “young” democracy that will explain the right to be different in a modern and free society. That will remove a part of the pressure that the magistrates have to face and will ensure a fair trial for the people that are part of spiritual and religious minorities.  
• We recommend Romania to review the grounds for the trial against the members of MISA yoga school and to ensure a fair trial to them. As a consequence of the above mentioned problems we recommend a public debate (maybe using the “lessons” from this particular case) in order to educate the public opinion of the dangers of intolerance regarding the fair act of justice.  

Link to the conference document: http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2007/10/27030_en.pdf

The police forces’ internal video recordings from raids conducted 18th March 2005 towards 16 private collective homes are shown on TV the same evening, displaying innocent people half asleep half naked in humiliating positions enforced by the Special Forces conducting the raids. Private diaries and photographs taken during the raids are published in mass media only days later. Transcriptions of private telephone conversations bugged motivated by reason of national safety are appearing in media.

In continuation this summer of 2007, the prosecutor’s indictments documents are published in media the same day they are given to the court.

 The mass medial aggression, fuelled by close collaboration with politicians, police and prosecutors endangers the separation of power as it in the domestic culture creates a preconceived conviction.

A country side police officer acting on his own initiative twice apprehends a young woman by the request of the woman’s mother and brings her to a psychiatric hospital. Second time she is forced into treatment of schizophrenia with heavy medicines. When asked about the grounds on which to act the police officer replies that “Every one knows that this yoga is dangerous. I did her a favour to bring her out of it.”

A young judge working with reforms in the Ministry of Justice under former the Minister of Justice Macovei stated that methods and attitudes built up under the Ceausescu regime are so deeply rooted in the judges and prosecutors who were active in this period, that he does not believe in de facto changes before a change of generations.

When the Supreme Court of Sweden in 2005 denies extraditing the leader of MISA to the Romanian authorities, it is motivated also in concern of the general hostile attitudes created by this close collaboration between state and mass media.

The MISA case is not unique. Here in Poland is an almost parallel case with a spiritual movement called The Himavanti Fraternity.

In Scandinavia the publishing of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in Danish media raised the question of freedom of speech in relation to spiritual tolerance without any actual result.

 In Sweden there is an ongoing debate regarding if non governmental schools run by organisations with a spiritual praxis different than the generally accepted should be allowed, even when they comply with the curriculum stated by the Swedish Ministry of Education.

 These and many other question questions can by their nature not be solved within a culture without foreign perspectives.

Soteria recommend the establishment of a commission under the OSCE/ODIHR representing directly the diversity of authentic spiritual praxis followed in the OSCE participating countries. Such a commission would as needed issue recommendations in the following areas: 

 - Recommendations to parliaments on legislative matters to secure the respect of non-domesticated spiritual praxis. 

 - Recommendations to the national organs regulating mass media in order to hinder campaigns and aggressions towards any specific spiritual praxis based in spiritual xenophobia. 

- Recommendations on how to open the educational system in order to provide the pupils a tolerance towards lives based in different spiritual praxis.

Link to the conference document: http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2007/09/26774_en.pdf

A Social Analysis of the persecutions of Yoga Teachers in Romania
by Dr. Seppo Isotalo

representing the swedish network for NGO’s

Bucharest 08-08-2007

18th March 2004 the antiterrorist department for fighting organized crime and terrorism (DIICOT) received a politically motivated assignment to make a strike on the yoga movement MISA. The direct cause is believed to be the promise from a candidate that MISA would be finished, if he received a prominent position in the elections as prime minister or president.

Media has created a very bad public image of the MISA movement and this was used to reach political goals. By this an uncontrolled process started to escalate. The private life of the yoga teachers became very hard following the campaign in 2004.Gregorian Bivolaru, who founded MISA in 1990, has for many years been a controversial person in Romania. He managed to escape and received political asylum in Sweden.

 The MISA affair was for the first time raised in an international forum at the OSCE meeting in Bucharest 8th June, 2007. This led the head of investigation Marian Delcea to deliver the result of three years investigations, 90 folders, to the city court of Bucharest. Only seven weeks later, during vacations, 21 yoga teachers were requested to meet in court. The case was accelerated beyond the in practice possible. All persons could not be found. The accused had no chance to investigate the material, to find lawyers etc.

The newspaper Jurnalul National published on its website an act of 790 pages accusing 43 yoga teachers.

 Two specialists; Vicar Karl Erik Nylund for the Supreme Court of Sweden and professor Gabriel Andreescu for a scientific Romanian magazine, have both exhaustively analyzed the situation and the accusations. It is beyond doubt that the activities of MISA are juridical and morally irreprehensible. Andreescu concludes that Marian Delcea is not conducting true investigations but misuse his position to publicly turn yoga teachers into “devils”.

I continue the analysis from a social perspective based on two visits in Romania 5th – 6th of June and 29th July - 8th August, 2007.

I have investigated the activities of MISA in Bucharest and have taken part in the yoga conference in the summer resort Costinesti. I was present at the trial in Bucharest 6th August 2007 and met six of the accused and Marian Delcea as well. The interviews with these were conducted in private and confidential manner without recordings and with only a translator present.

 I have especially investigated the interplay between Marian Delcea and media. This is easily done as Romanian media in this case act in unison to the finest details. Foreign media has neglected to report the events, maybe in consideration of Romania being a new member of the European Union. Vibeke Sperling for Politiken is a noticeable exception. She has a reputation as being an expert on violations of Human Rights.

 Since 1996, MISA have endured ongoing media campaigns and since 1996. From March 2004 the violations of the Human Rights of the members reached a new level of bluntness.

During 2004 – 2006 the judicial structure of the country was reformed due to the admission in the European Union. Now the opposite take place; the Romanian justice is violating the Human Rights so bluntly that all members of the European Union are obliged to grant political asylum to all the yoga teachers that are the victims of the persecutions of Marian Delcea and Romanian media.

Ashram – a social invention like Micro-loans MISA provides yoga classes for tens of thousands of yoga practitioners in Romania and a dozen other countries. Marian Delcea attacks a minor part of the activities of MISA called “Ashrams”. All 16 houses containing Ashrams were searched in 2004 by 300 policemen. The material that Delcea delivered to court in 2007 was gathered during this strike, except for the evidence by interrogations.

 Ashrams are old fashioned youth housings. Two or three persons share a room. There are common bathrooms and dining rooms. The yoga hall of the Ashram is at the disposal of the MISA for yoga classes. Lodging and food is paid for by working for the common good of the house; first it is renovated and then you daily clean, cook and keep 24-hours guard to keep aggressive reporters away.

 Lodging and food on the common market in Romanian is as expensive as in Sweden even if the salaries are about 10-30% of the Swedish. The prices of houses have escalated so that it is very hard to buy something new for your own, if you do not have a house to trade with. MISA has acquired houses when the prices were low and renovated and built by their own labour and can thereby provide a secure life basis. This coincides with the MISA principle that the individual yoga practice should be in connection with commune work. Marian Delcea on the other hand raises an alarm of “return of the communism”.

The Ashrams of MISA could be seen as-should be considered as “Micro-loans” The Ashrams are a solution to a common situation in the post Soviet countries. Through “Micro-loans” individuals are helped to get started with production. You can live in an Ashram without money and receive a secure life basis for your further advancement in life. Those living in the Ashrams are also working or studying.

 I stayed four days in one of the three houses of MISA by the Black Sea. To stay one month at the resort would normally cost 500€ per month. With MISA you pay 10€ for the whole stay including vegetarian meals, a safe place to stay and a full time yoga program. In return you work 8 hours a day, rebuilding, cleaning, cooking etc.. There are rules; for example the food is not allowed in the bedrooms to avoid vermin. The shoes are left outside and the mornings are silent as many prefer to practice yoga and meditation in these hours. The beds and bookshelves are not to be moved. Men and women stay separated on different floors, but there is no prohibition to visit each other. In the bathrooms specific shoes are to be used and only in the bedroom are you allowed to walk bare foot. There are no radios or TVs. Every night films are shown. The dining hall is opened two hours for lunch and two hours for dinner. Outside these hours you can eat your own food in the dining hall, but not in the bedrooms. There are refrigerators in the corridors.

 I conclude that from a certain point of view it is not even a question of voluntary work but more as a payment of lodging and food – the yoga classes are given on top.

 Marian Delcea has misused his position to make former inhabitants of the Ashrams to testify against MISA. Still he has only succeeded to convince two families of a total of seven individuals to do this. The vast majority is perfectly happy. The people in the MISA movement are open individuals with a strong self-esteem.

Media and the head of investigations Talking to Delcea gives an impression of an insecure man who is unaware of the damage he is causing to innocent humans. He immediately told my translator that she belongs to MISA and that he is familiar with intimate details about her life. He said he was critical to the few testimonies he had received and that he bases this personal conviction on ideas like. “How can girls choose to go to Japan for work?” or “No-one can by his free will choose to live in an Ashram where the conditions are so pore!”. He is not trying to find evidence. When I pressure him regarding him giving confidential material to media he starts to explain how good he is at riding his motorcycle, and that he has a flying certificate, and crashed twice.

 By medical terms Marian Delcea is to be considered a psychopath.

Marian Delcea began his actions immediately after international attention was put on the affair. 14th June 2007 the groundless accusations were leaked to media. Jurnalul National followed through and published the whole on its website. Then the process halted. The material was not further used by TV or written media. Media was not present at the trial and the opportunity to show the faces of the accused was not taken. The few journalists present had only me to interview.

In court two flags hang behind the judge; the Romanian flag and the flag of the European Union. What took place in the court was though solely a Romanian variation of justice. The accused were lined up In front of the judge and a dialogue regarding the summoning of Bivolaru, which was without relevance as he Is protected by asylum in Sweden. It was decided to postpone the trial for six weeks. The lawyers pointed out that the accusations were defined as trafficking of minors, even if no minors are mentioned in the actual case. The judge immediately changed the definition. We left court confused.

I was interviewed by Realitatea-TV. I pointed out that the trial could be harmful for Romania as the financial support of the European Union can be cancelled. Nothing of the Interview was broadcasted. Media choose not to spread the false accusations of Marian Delcea, but the critical voices raised against the trial were not given any room in media.

The reporters of two local news agents put many questions and delivered to their customer. This leads to media reporting on my presence at court, but nothing regarding my views on the case. I was criticized for mistaking in naming the source where I found Marian Delcea’s document of accusations.

 I went to see Marian Delcea primarily to investigate if it really was his official documents that were published on the website of the Jurnalul National. The documents were at his desk and I showed him an electronic version of the document published at the website. He did not let me see the documents at his desk. Thus Marian Delcea did not allow me to view the official documents that were leaked to media two months earlier.

The public has no insight in the process. We could suppose that Marian Delcea had wanted media to work up public opinion from the start of the trial. Something came in between. Romanian media is quite today’s. Now the trial is moved six weeks and media is given more time to spread the false accusations.

 As professor Andreescu pointed out the conditions of a fair trial are thereby already eliminated. 

.http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2007/09/26679_en.pdf

By looking at the way in which world events are evolving we can see this speech more valid than ever.

This “arrogance of power” that the unconscious power-thirsty world leaders displays nowadays enables the lucid ones to see this “monolithic and ruthless conspiracy” in which JFK refers to in his speech, acting in plain sight without bothering to cover their traces as they have done so until now. The control exerted upon the media today by some mechanisms of financial and political power becomes clearer on a background of increased lethargy and lack of willpower to do anything to change this situation.

The secret societies (especially the sect of FREEMASONRY) have  became very skilled these days  in controlling the media through mechanisms that are so well disguised that they are mistaken with the democratic processes.  The American President is underlining here in his speech this situation, but without pointing his finger specifically at one or another of these forces. Yet for his views, he paid with his life. (In the middle  of “civilized” 20th century America!).

If we add to this the fact that in the country with one of the biggest budgets for intelligence in the world the president was assassinated and there is still no answer regarding the reasons and who the real perpetrators were, we will see that JFK’s speech becomes an important icon in the puzzle. Like in the case of 9/11, the investigation regarding the JFK assassination didn’t lead anywhere, stating only what people could see on TV and leaving all the questions unanswered! And this was happening in the country that hypocritically gives the rest of the world lessons on civilization and democracy!

The “new world order” is coming into place with a higher rhythm than ever and this is the reason why the ones who up until now have been ’sabotaging’ from the shadows, are coming to light, to claim the ruling position.
We will probably see more arrogance from these world leaders and more acts that are no longer discreet, because they are now hiding in plain sight.

It is important for all who want to have a better understanding of what happens today with their life, to take all these elements into account and to proceed to a difficult but highly revealing process of INTEGRATION that implies connecting all the separate elements into a comprehensive and coherent understanding. This will take a while and some effort but will give the one who “pays the price” the premises of a bigger state of freedom in a world that becomes more and more like a mental and physical prison.

This is what i found on the JFK speech:

Here is the full transcription of the speech that President John F. Kennedy gave at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on April 27, 1961. “The President and the Press” before the American Newspaper Publishers Association. Better known as the “JFK speech on secret societies”.

In memorial of all the innocent people who were killed in WCT on 9/11, and in uncompromisable protest against hiding the truth about 9/11 and a long chain of crucial world history events, we here bring the full transcription of John F. Kennedy’s speech about secret societies.  JFK  is supposedly only one out of two American presidents in the world history who were not involved in freemasonry and a member of the lodges. The other one also got murdered.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03NewspaperPublishers04271961.htm

TRANSCRIPT: The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association

President John F. Kennedy
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
New York City, April 27, 1961

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate very much your generous invitation to be here tonight.

You bear heavy responsibilities these days and an article I read some time ago reminded me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present day events bear upon your profession.

You may remember that in 1851 the New York Herald Tribune under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed as its London correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of Karl Marx.

We are told that foreign correspondent Marx, stone broke, and with a family ill and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per instalment, a salary which he and Engels ungratefully labelled as the “lousiest petty bourgeois cheating.”

But when all his financial appeals were refused, Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame, eventually terminating his relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents full time to the cause that would bequeath the world the seeds of Leninism, Stalinism, revolution and the cold war.

If only this capitalistic New York newspaper had treated him more kindly; if only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent, history might have been different. And I hope all publishers will bear this lesson in mind the next time they receive a poverty-stricken appeal for a small increase in the expense account from an obscure newspaper man.

I have selected as the title of my remarks tonight “The President and the Press.” Some may suggest that this would be more naturally worded “The President Versus the Press.” But those are not my sentiments tonight.

It is true, however, that when a well-known diplomat from another country demanded recently that our State Department repudiate certain newspaper attacks on his colleague it was unnecessary for us to reply that this Administration was not responsible for the press, for the press had already made it clear that it was not responsible for this Administration.

Nevertheless, my purpose here tonight is not to deliver the usual assault on the so-called one party press. On the contrary, in recent months I have rarely heard any complaints about political bias in the press except from a few Republicans. Nor is it my purpose tonight to discuss or defend the televising of Presidential press conferences. I think it is highly beneficial to have some 20,000,000 Americans regularly sit in on these conferences to observe, if I may say so, the incisive, the intelligent and the courteous qualities displayed by your Washington correspondents.

Nor, finally, are these remarks intended to examine the proper degree of privacy which the press should allow to any President and his family.

If in the last few months your White House reporters and photographers have been attending church services with regularity, that has surely done them no harm.

On the other hand, I realize that your staff and wire service photographers may be complaining that they do not enjoy the same green privileges at the local golf courses that they once did.

It is true that my predecessor did not object as I do to pictures of one’s golfing skill in action. But neither on the other hand did he ever bean a Secret Service man.

My topic tonight is a more sober one of concern to publishers as well as editors.

I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future–for reducing this threat or living with it–there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security–a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.

This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President–two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.

I

The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.

But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to re-examine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country’s peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of “clear and present danger,” the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public’s need for national security.

Today no war has been declared–and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.

If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of “clear and present danger,” then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.

It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions–by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security–and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.

For the facts of the matter are that this nation’s foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery or espionage; that details of this nation’s covert preparations to counter the enemy’s covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.

The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national security. And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.

The question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration.

On many earlier occasions, I have said–and your newspapers have constantly said–that these are times that appeal to every citizen’s sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal.

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or any new types of security classifications. I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: “Is it news?” All I suggest is that you add the question: “Is it in the interest of the national security?” And I hope that every group in America–unions and businessmen and public officials at every level– will ask the same question of their endeavours, and subject their actions to the same exacting tests.

And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate whole-heartedly with those recommendations.

Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In times of peace, any discussion of this subject, and any action that results, are both painful and without precedent. But this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.

II

It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation–an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people–to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well–the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers–I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: “An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed–and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment– the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply “give the public what it wants”–but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.

This means greater coverage and analysis of international news–for it is no longer far away and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved understanding of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means, finally, that government at all levels, must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security–and we intend to do it.

III

It was early in the Seventeenth Century that Francis Bacon remarked on three recent inventions already transforming the world: the compass, gunpowder and the printing press. Now the links between the nations first forged by the compass have made us all citizens of the world, the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all. In that one world’s efforts to live together, the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warned mankind of the terrible consequences of failure.

And so it is to the printing press–to the recorder of man’s deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news–that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.

Here is a recording of part of this speech….

An article by Mihai Stoian
The ecology of the SOUL for an updated perspective on politics and politicians
In the modern society, an increasing powerful trend is the discovery of the new dimension of life that is happening inside the human being. There is an entire new world inward and we can say without mistaking that the opening of these new dimensions of human experience and understanding is similar if not bigger to the discovery of the New World in the 15th (??) century. 
For the understanding of many people nowadays, the activity of the “inside” is un-doubtfully becoming more important in the daily life. In fact it was always important but we didn’t pay attention to it because we were “busy” with other things in the outer world. But now we are more aware about the impact the “inside” world have over the decisions and the life we have “outside”. Lets remember that even thou everybody have thoughts almost continuously in the awake state, no medical institution was able yet to trace precisely any of the thoughts in the physical brain. Even more obvious are happening the things with the feelings and emotions. Everybody is acting in many moments of life according to the feelings and to the so-called “heart”. But despite the fact the anyone of us was using at least once in life the expression “This is what I feel” or “I love you” or “You break my heart”, nobody was able yet to identify the centre of these phenomena inside of our being. Such large extent phenomena were used only to “decorate” our life. Yet now when we are trying to put light in many issues of our life, we must take more serious into consideration these mentioned issues. They influence the life of each of us and therefore the life of the whole society thus the work for a better society will become meaningless out of the integration of topics like Soul, heart, feelings, emotions… 

One of the first important ideas in this concern is that the ones that are shaping the life of the community must understand that these new dimensions are becoming more and more important not because they are developing now (in fact they were developed already but just now they are coming to the “surface” of our awareness) but because ignoring them, on the background of losing the spiritual values is leading to many side effects that now we are aware of. The decisions that we are taking now together with some of our actions are sometimes going against our deep inner needs and they are damaging the deepness of our being. Ignoring in most of the cases the “inside”, the “Soul”, is exposing us to repeat the same story like with the ecology some decades ago: before the industrial revolution it was meaningless even to talk about ecology. The term itself didn’t make sense. But after the environment was poisoned by the irresponsible actions of the industrial society, the ecology became a must and it was reflected immediately in the political level by the apparition of the “greens”. Are the ecological commandments so complicated that decades ago we couldn’t understand them? Definitely not! It is just our awareness on certain subjects that was “forced” to increase by the events that occurred. Taking into consideration these facts we should not wait till the ecology of the Soul will become a must. One should learn from history.

We are racing to increase the impact of our advertising on people seen as target-groups but we ignore the tremendous effect which this advertising bombardment is having upon our souls and our inner development. We are striving to reach a high-speed rate of information and communication creating in this way a genuine informational storm around ourselves. We don’t pay attention on the mutations that these information storms are generating gradually in our mind and our souls. We make movies with more and more power of impact, which are playing with our emotions, ignoring the consequences of this complex game upon our destiny. How can we avoid all these, if not first of all becoming aware of the areas that we unconsciously damage?
 The politics of the body
Most of our concern in nowadays is oriented towards the needs of the physical body. Therefore in the immense majority of the cases, the politicians are focussing their attention and thus their decisions towards fulfilling these needs. Busy of being focused almost exclusively upon the body needs, the modern politics doesn’t represent at all the aspects concerning the Soul needs. We are more preoccupied about increasing the annual income then about the fact that the average duration of the couple relationships is dramatically decreasing. We are more interested about what we eat at the Christmas dinner then about the spiritual meaning of this celebration. We care too much about our own selfish materialistic interests that we almost forgot generosity and love. Blinded by the aggressive marketing and consume society, pushing us to accomplish more desires, we are getting more and more distanced from our real needs of our heart. As a conclusion we may say that the politicians nowadays are working on increasing the precipice between our Soul inner life and needs, and the outside layer of gross desires by urging our materialistic needs. Thus they create a system for serving rather body needs than Soul necessities.
The Indian J. Krishnamurti was clear about the limitations of this we call body-politics when he stated that the problem for contemporary man is spiritual and all solutions offered by a system that is not spiritual in its core, will not solve anything. Probably it will only make things worse.
Krishnamurti was very precise in his criticism on politics, but weak in solutions. The solution is not to wait passively for the society to ‘wake up’, hiding in a safe place, until things will change by themselves. The solution is to participate in the ongoing, present process where society is being shaped creating what we have called here “politics of the Soul”.
 Politics of the Soul for a “Soul ecologic environment”
For many years we have been fighting for the ecology of the physical nature. For a pure and unspoiled nature. Now the time has come to fight for the soul and to make society ‘soul-ecological’! This means to build a society where the soul is preserved and appreciated. If The Greens where the ones taking care on ecology of the physical environment, The Blues will be the one representing the Soul ecological environment.Politics of the soul therefore implies that the practitioners (Soul politicians – The Blues) stand strongly on certain principles.
The principles are:
• Each of them is an intimate knower of his own Soul.
• For any of The Blues the universal morality will be a code for the daily life.
• The Blue is starting the transformation of the entire world beginning with himself.
• Knowing his soul in its most intimate aspects, The Blue is prioritising properly the needs of the soul correlated with material needs.
• The Blue has to know the immense, the subtle impact of most of our actions in physical world, thus being able to represent properly our Soul.In order to build all these, the first step is to become aware of the Soul increased importance in our society and in our individual daily life. Once we will accomplish that, we will be able to ask for a new level of representation in the political process, representation which was named before: The Blue. We have now the chance to prevent rather then cure the effects of our carelessness. This will be a sign that we have learned from the past and we are mature enough for the future. 

The ideological bomb was launched in the heart of a big world religion, destroying more than ever before. If up until now we knew the killing effects of atomic bombs, now in the terrorism age, we have assisted the appearance of a new form of weapon: the ideological bomb. For this to be efficient, it is first of all used by terrorists who throw a doctrine out in the air – in other words, a fortress of human values, from the inside. Here is how this weapon appeared, terrible both through its effects as well as through the fact that most of the time it cannot be detected unless by those who are very well prepared from the spiritual point of view – which reduces drastically their number. This weapon is the one that was launched at the beginning of the year 2002 by the United States Department of Defense and it represents the greatest attack ever launched against the Christian world. When the Christian countries (led by the United States) launched the doctrine of “Preemptive attacks”, they actually, blow out one of Christianity’s fundamental pillars, which says: “turn the other cheek”. In this way – similar to the crashing down of the Twin Towers in September 11^th 2001, which obviously had had their foundation pillars cut, so that they could fall down due to their own weight in such a spectacular and convincing way – also the structure of the Christian world is now seriously damaged by this terrorist attack at the level of ideas. How can Christian teachings now be taught in the countries which had adopted and had already acted in the name of this doctrine? If until now there is at least the justification that “we did not know that what we do contradicts so much our spiritual teachings”, now we can no longer have a justification! These aggressive actions are made in the name of a clear doctrine which flagrantly contradicts the Christian teachings. In this context, the non-existent reaction of the Christian church representatives appears even more serious. Because although they have heard – just like we did – about this ideological terrorism action, they did nothing to stop or even to counteract the disastrous effects of this irresponsible act. Here is how, after 2000 years of Christian thinking and feeling and from the bosom of the nations proud of their Christian heritage -  as opposed to Islam, at least – they come to the conclusion that it is better if we attack first, instead of turning the other cheek, as the Teacher used to say, 2000 years ago. A strange modern adaptation of a universal principle.  

by Joel Labruyere

L’etat inquisiteur la spiritualite en danger.pdf

by Joel Labruyere

La sectophobie.pdf

Religious Discrimination of MISA – a Political “Exchange Currency”
The case of the Romanian yoga school MISA – a follow up after the Bucharest high level meeting of June 2007
By Senior researcher Mihai Stoian
Honorary secretary of International Yoga Federation for Scandinavian countries
September 2007 Abuses against MISA

Dear Mr. chairman, dear ambassadors, ladies and gentlemen,

I am from Romania and for the moment work and live in Copenhagen, Denmark. I am representing in front of you the “Movement for spiritual integration into the Absolute – M.I.S.A” – a yoga movement having more than 300.000 students and about 35.000 active students (yoga practitioners).
After being presented in the high level meeting of OSCE in Bucharest June 2007 the situation with the yoga school MISA was not improved but the opposite happened. Here I am giving you a follow up on the case and I will begin first with a briefing since it is representing – according to some of the human rights activists that were investigating the case – one of the most severe cases of discrimination and abuse in the post communist Romania as for sure one that reached the media attention in an abnormal and abusive scale.
Actions before 1989
In 1972, in the communist Romania an advanced yoga practitioner (Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru) begin to teach yoga in a so-called “house of culture” in Bucharest. Soon after, the yoga course become famous especially among students and teachers in University and the number of yoga students rapidly increased.
The totalitarian communist regime started to put pressure on the yoga students that was following these yoga courses and on the person of Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru to stop the yoga courses.
In 1982 yoga, martial arts and any eastern spiritual disciplines were taken out of law and all the courses within these disciplines were declared illegal. Despite this fact Mr. Bivolaru and other advanced yoga teachers continued to practice and teach yoga secretly. For this reason Mr. Bivolaru and other teachers were arrested several times, and they went through the full communist oppression mechanism that now you already know it: torturing, beating, forced labor camps.
In 23rd of January 1990 – after the anti-communist revolution, a group of 22 teachers leaded by Mr. Bivolaru (who was just released from the prison) set up the “Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute – MISA”. Immediately after, yoga courses were open all over the country and the number of students in these courses is continuously increasing.
Abuses after 1989
In September 1990 a vast media campaign against the yoga students and against the teachers was starting (in September the new yoga classes starts!). Yoga practitioners were accused in all the media of several crimes: sexual abuses, brain washing people, homicide in black magic rituals, drugs, and prostitution. Of course the police didn’t start any action due to the fact that these were only incredible lies. Since then – 1990 – every year we experience one or two big campaigns against the organization and against the yoga teachers and students. The accusations are almost the same every time; only recently accusations of terrorism and being a paramilitary organization dealing with weapons were added (probably because of the new international situation).
In this context, the Association for Defending the Human Rights – The Helsinki Committee, notified in 1996, after they made their own inquiries and made reports regarding the M.I.S.A. Association, reports in which they express their worries towards the repeated persecutions to which M.I.S.A. and its students have to suffer.
In the above-mentioned reports, they agree that “there is nothing illegal in the activity of M.I.S.A. members and there is nothing to motivate a campaign against them”.
The reports showing the abuses against MISA came out in 1997, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.
In March 2004, several raids took place; they were filmed and broadcasted on TV for many days, without protecting the faces of people shown barely dressed. Later, personal belongings seized during searches (family pictures, personal agendas etc – abusively offered to journalists by prosecutors) were shown on TV, aiming to discredit the detainees and pretending that they were proof of crimes such as drug dealing, prostitution, guns possession, although no such accusation was ever made but on TV. No one was put on preventive arrest or detained following these raids – which raises serious question marks about the legitimacy of the huge display of force, however the lives of many yoga students became a nightmare, some of them lost their jobs, their social status, or even their families.
605 people (out of which 76% with university degrees) gave statements about the serious persecutions and discriminations they underwent following the raids and the media campaign, for the only reason that they admitted having practiced yoga at MISA yoga school. Many persons are mistreated at their work place (in two extreme cases people were fired from the Army and the Police, cases of Paul Ivanov and Lucian Gradinariu), a judge (Simona Lungu) was forced to resign following absurd charges of immorality and an aggressive press campaign that affected her image and credibility, many persons are rejected by their families, sometimes they are not even allowed to visit their children, neighbors are scratching their cars or proffering insults, children are marginalized at school if their parents are known yoga practitioners, and the examples could continue.
An example of severe abuse
Among the terrible experiences that many yoga students underwent following the mass hysteria created by the authorities with the media support, one stands out. Dana Craescu, 20, a passionate of poetry, coming from a small Romanian town, was sequestrated by her own family and forcefully kept in a psychiatric hospital and later at her family’s house for almost 9 months (January – October 2005), with no contact with outsiders, with the purpose of “removing yoga of her mind”. A similar event had happen in 2003, but after 3 days spent in the hospital the doctor released her considering she was the victim of an “emotional abuse of her parents”.
During the 8 weeks spent in the hospital in 2005, with the complicity of a local doctor, she was given extremely strong medication, normally used for schizophrenia, medication that affected her mind, her weight (she gained 15 kilos), her overall physical condition, including her capacity to procreate. The complaints made to authorities by her fiancée, friends, by herself to a local police officer, were ignored, and a prosecutor abusively approved the treatment inflicted upon Dana Craescu, allowing her family and her doctor to continue to abuse and mistreat her. She managed to escape in October 2005 by deceiving those who were watching her, and she came back to Bucharest where she married her fiancée.
Social consequences of the persecutions campaign

High officials, magistrates, ministers, members of the parliament etc. took a stand and publicly accused MISA yoga school, Gregorian Bivolaru, yoga students, requesting drastic punishments, the shut down of the yoga school, completely ignoring the presumption of innocence and the lack of any serious evidence, thus instigating the public opinion to hate and discrimination.
Since March 2004, hundreds of yoga students (especially young women) throughout Romania were visited by police officers or invited to hearings by prosecutors, without being told in what capacity they are heard, and asked tendentious questions about their yoga practice and possible relationships with Gregorian Bivolaru.
In the case of two doctors (Cristian Boerescu, Otilia Craciun), yoga practitioners, their neighbors were questioned by authorities (but wearing plain clothes), who were insistently urging the neighbors to give incriminatory statements about the behavior of the doctors.
Over 20 companies belonging to yoga students were repeatedly controlled by the Financial Guard, both before and after the events of March 2004. The controls after March 2004 were heavily mediatized, inducing to the public the idea that any yoga practitioner with a private business is by default a criminal (ex. Costica Cojocaru, Andrei Gamulea, Catalin Visterneanu). Some of these companies could not present the official documents requested, including fiscal reports, since they had been seized during the searches. Interestingly, most of the questions asked during these controls were about the yoga practice and MISA yoga school, and in some cases the owners were requested even written statements about their relations with MISA and Gregorian Bivolaru (ex. Elisabeta Ionescu), although none were connected in any way to the activity of the company. The activity of these companies was prejudiced not only by the confiscation of legal documents, or the fines they had to pay, but the owners lost during the searches the results of years of scientific researches, such as files with studies, pictures, descriptions and properties of hundreds of medicinal herbs, loss which affects the existence even of such companies (case of Andrei Gamulea). Even relatives of some yoga practitioners, who had no connection to yoga themselves, were visited by Financial Guard and other relevant controlling authorities, and asked questions about yoga, not about the activity of their own firm! Despite all these “efforts”, nothing illegal was ever found in the activity of all these firms.
Actions without any result from MISA
Approximately 100 memorandums, accompanied by declarations, images, statistics, were submitted to all institutions that have responsibilities in such situations: Prosecutors’ Office of Bucharest Appeal Court, General Prosecutor’s Office, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, Senate and Chamber of Deputies (both to individual members of the Parliament, and to Parliamentary commissions, such as Commission for Human Rights, for Justice, for National Defense etc), Presidency, Prime Minister, Superior Council of Magistracy, Romanian Secret Service. None of these institutions took any measure, or at least decided to start a proper investigation. In the great majority of the cases we didn’t even receive an official answer (although the authorities are bound by law to answer within 30 days to any petition), and in the few cases when we received replies the respective institutions declined their competence and redirected the memorandums to the Superior Council of Magistracy or to the General Prosecutor’s Office. The interesting part is that even these two institutions redirected the memorandums between themselves. Over 250 street demonstrations were also organized since March 2004, most of them taking place in front of the institutions mentioned above. Although audiences were requested every time, to allow the representatives of our school to expose the problems we have been facing, we were granted no more than 10-12 audiences in total, none of them leading to any concrete result. Only during the last month we have organized daily protests in front of the Superior Council of Magistracy, the only result being that they moved their internal meeting in other locations, not to be bothered by the noise.
Synthesis of the abuses against MISA yoga school
Unfortunately the discrimination doesn’t have anything to do with the regime that is running the country here is the main political periods in the last 35 years and their contribution to the abuses against MISA:

-During the communist regime
-1971 – 1989: yoga classes monitored by Securitate, Gregorian Bivolaru (MISA’s spiritual mentor) imprisoned several times, yoga banned as “conspiracy against communist regime”

-1991 (first democratic regime, the Front of National Salvation) – MISA calumniated in the press

-1992 – 1996 (Iliescu’s social-democratic regime) – hundreds of calumnious articles in the press, instigating to hate

-1995 – bomb attempt to Gregorian Bivolaru’s house

-1996 – report of Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH) on abuses and aggressions against MISA

-1996 – 2000 (Democratic Convention, president Constantinescu) – unprecedented attack against MISA, violent press campaigns as well as direct actions

-1996 – antiterrorist forces stop a yoga class, yogis publicly blamed as dangerous criminals, although no legal action followed. Abuses stayed unpunished.

-1997 – report of Amnesty International on authorities abuses against MISA

-2000 – 2004 (Iliescu’s social-democratic regime): instigation against MISA and Bivolaru, violation of fundamental rights

-2002 – 2003: TV shows presenting lists with yoga practitioners (names, addresses)

-18 March 2004 – 300 police officers, gendarmes, prosecutors, secret service agents performed house searches in 16 private locations, using masks and military weapons

-Gregorian Bivolaru arrested; criminal file set up; an attempt to fraudulent border crossing set up; in January 2006 Sweden grants him political asylum on grounds of religious discrimination

-2004 – 2007 (ruling of “Dreptate si Adevar” Alliance): over 50 yoga teachers and MISA leaders abusively charged with persons trafficking. 70 private residences of yoga practitioners under sequester.

-Within 1997-2006: a total of 2678 calumnious press articles

-Up to this date no evidence to prove accusations raised by politicians and secret services over past 30 years
Even thou so many accusations were thrown against MISA and its students, now after more than 35 years the state authorities didn’t came with any proves or with any explanations. The abuses continues despite the fact that many yoga schools in Europe were organizing protest actions in front of the Romanian embassy in Paris, London, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Prague, Budapest, Berlin and so on.
Now while we are talking, there is an arresting warrant on the name of Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru and he is searched by the Romanian police. He is having the status of political asylum in Sweden and on is name were received in Sweden more than 14 letters of treat that are under the investigation of the Swedish police.
Follow up after the Bucharest conference in June 2007
Since we have presented this information in Bucharest the court case started against Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru and 20 more yoga teachers. The court case started with another abuse that is following the same pattern that was described in the previous pages.
In the same time as the files are handed to the court, the indictment was published in the on-line edition of “Jurnalul National”, creating a great prejudice to the court case. The prosecutor house is denying any connection with this event, the judge house is also denying any connection. The indictment is still simultaneously appearing in the court house and in the media.
Continuing the set of abuses against the yoga school, the indictment is containing four studies regarding the MISA yoga school even if the accusations are only against some private persons. In recent declarations from different officials we hear that the authorities are not having anything against MISA yoga school, the whole trial is against private persons that are breaching the law.
The indictment of this new court file is breaking not only the innocence presumption (that is ensured by Constitution in Romania) but also many other human rights, according to Mr. Gabriel Andreescu, in a report published in the “New magazine for Human rights” (3/2007).

Conclusions
Taking in consideration all these facts we respectfully ask you who hold the political power to help this organization for being properly protected against any political abuse.
Making research I learned that MISA is just one little part form what it appear to be large phenomena that is going on underground: the victims of political interests and political abuse.
What will be the reason to attack such groups as MISA yoga school other than to accumulate some political capital? But these irresponsible actions are having some side effects that in our opinion have to be underlined here:

• In the general tendency for rediscovering the spiritual values, tendency that in the last years become more obvious, compromising the religious and spiritual freedom for small political interest it is generating a general reaction that might lead to a corruption of all the spiritual efforts that are done now.

• The pattern of using the small groups for different purposes in order to manipulate larger groups represent a violation of the human rights that give a dangerous precedent and – in my opinion – is just a generalization of the anti-Semitism.

• Letting this to happen is creating an insecure spiritual environment that is inhibiting the free development of the spiritual initiative, situation that afterward will tend to kill the spiritual search and spiritual values while they are too little to survive.

Since Romanian citizens are discriminated, harassed and persecuted by the very institutions supposed to protect them, we have no choice but to ask for the support of the international community, of the democratic states, where the justice is fair and independent, and the fundamental rights and freedoms are sacred. Otherwise there is a high risk that the “original” concepts about justice, truth, respect for the law, will be successfully “exported” into the European Union now, with the accession of Romania. We hereby send another serious call for help in the effort to clarify the situation of the Romanian yoga school MISA.
Recommendations
All the mentioned facts are in our opinion a good reason to reflect deeper at the European level upon the religious freedom and the way this issue can be misused by the authorities in order to create smokescreens or to gain political capital.
We recommend the representatives of OSCE to organize a fact finding mission in Romania to clarify the situation of the MISA yoga school that for the moment remain under a great deal of incertitude, affecting the work and life of thousand of people.
We recommend the creation of an international commission in Romania, in which the representatives of MISA will be invited to participate and under the supervision of ODIHR – OSCE. This commission will organize hearings with all the parts and will recommend the solutions that take into account all the facts and circumstances. In this way the whole case will find a transparent and fair solution for all parts. This recommendation is an urgent one!
Thank you for you concern

Mihai Stoian

Here is the first participation into an international event regarding Human Rights. At the conference in Bucharest the MISA subject was one of the shocking parts.

Religious Discrimination of MISA – a Political “Exchange Currency”

By Senior researcher Mihai Stoian
Honorary secretary of International Yoga Federation for Scandinavian countries

Dear Mr. chairman, dear ambassadors, ladies and gentlemen,

I am from Romania and for the moment work and live in Copenhagen, Denmark. I am representing in front of you the “Movement for spiritual integration into the Absolute – M.I.S.A” – a yoga movement having more than 300.000 students and about 35.000 active students (yoga practitioners). I myself practice yoga for more than 18 years and I am Christian orthodox. I am educated in nuclear physics and later specialized on artificial intelligence.
The issue I am raising here is an important one since it is representing one of the most severe cases of discrimination and abuse in the post communist Romania as for sure one that reached the media attention in an abnormal and abusive scale. In order to arrive to the point and the questions that I would like to put here to all of you, with your permission I will briefly introduce some facts that will be later relevant.In 1984 a great yogi and author of yoga books stated: “Yoga is not a religion but it is a science like any other” Swami Satyananda. Being a new kind of organisation, open and unbound to any already existing system, a yoga school is including people of all religions and social status, yet embracing the set of principles of life. Yet a yoga school can be easily mistaken with a religious group since it is promoting spiritual values for human life.
In the following, without claiming to present the whole case I am presenting a list of abuses that were taking place over 35 years against MISA.In 1972, in the communist Romania an advanced yoga practitioner (Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru) begin to teach yoga in a so-called “house of culture” in Bucharest. Soon after, the yoga course become famous especially among students and teachers in University and the number of yoga students rapidly increased.
The totalitarian communist regime started to put pressure on the yoga students that was following these yoga courses and on the person of Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru to stop the yoga courses.In 1982 yoga, martial arts and any eastern spiritual disciplines were taken out of law and all the courses within these disciplines were declared illegal. Despite this fact Mr. Bivolaru and other advanced yoga teachers continued to practice and teach yoga secretly. For this reason Mr. Bivolaru and other teachers were arrested several times, and they went through the full communist oppression mechanism that now you already know it: torturing, beating, forced labor camps.

In 23rd of January 1990 – after the anti-communist revolution, a group of 22 teachers leaded by Mr. Bivolaru (who was just released from the prison) set up the “Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute – MISA”. Immediately after, yoga courses were open all over the country and the number of students in these courses is continuously increasing.

But in September 1990 a vast media campaign against the yoga students and against the teachers was starting (in September the new yoga classes starts!). Yoga practitioners were accused in all the media of several crimes: sexual abuses, brain washing people, homicide in black magic rituals, drugs, and prostitution. Of course the police didn’t start any action due to the fact that these were only incredible lies. Since then – 1990 – every year we experience one or two big campaigns against the organization and against the yoga teachers and students. The accusations are almost the same every time; only recently accusations of terrorism and being a paramilitary organization dealing with weapons were added (probably because of the new international situation).

In this context, the Association for Defending the Human Rights – The Helsinki Committee, notified in 1996, after they made their own inquiries and made reports regarding the M.I.S.A. Association, reports in which they express their worries towards the repeated persecutions to which M.I.S.A. and its students have to suffer.
In the above-mentioned reports, they agree that “there is nothing illegal in the activity of M.I.S.A. members and there is nothing to motivate a campaign against them”.
The reports showing the abuses against MISA came out in 1997, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.

To prove the fact that the discrimination doesn’t have anything to do with the regime that is running the country here are the main political periods in the last 35 years and their contribution to the abuses against MISA:

During the communist regime
1971 – 1989: yoga classes monitored by Securitate, Gregorian Bivolaru (MISA’s spiritual mentor) imprisoned several times, yoga banned as “conspiracy against communist regime”
1991 (first democratic regime, the Front of National Salvation) – MISA calumniated in the press
1992 – 1996 (Iliescu’s social-democratic regime) – hundreds of calumnious articles in the press, instigating to hate
1995 – bomb attempt to Gregorian Bivolaru’s house
1996 – report of Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH) on abuses and aggressions against MISA
1996 – 2000 (Democratic Convention, president Constantinescu) – unprecedented attack against MISA, violent press campaigns as well as direct actions
1996 – antiterrorist forces stop a yoga class, yogis publicly blamed as dangerous criminals, although no legal action followed. Abuses stayed unpunished.
1997 – report of Amnesty International on authorities abuses against MISA
2000 – 2004 (Iliescu’s social-democratic regime): instigation against MISA and Bivolaru, violation of fundamental rights
2002 – 2003: TV shows presenting lists with yoga practitioners (names, addresses)
18 March 2004 – 300 police officers, gendarmes, prosecutors, secret service agents performed house searches in 16 private locations, using masks and military weapons
Gregorian Bivolaru arrested; criminal file set up; an attempt to fraudulent border crossing set up; in January 2006 Sweden grants him political asylum on grounds of religious discrimination
2004 – 2007 (ruling of “Dreptate si Adevar” Alliance): over 50 yoga teachers and MISA leaders abusively charged with persons trafficking. 70 private residences of yoga practitioners under sequester.

Within 1997-2006: a total of 2678 calumnious press articles
Up to this date no evidence to prove accusations raised by politicians and secret services over past 30 years

Even thou so many accusations were thrown against MISA and its students, now after more than 35 years the state authorities didn’t came with any proves or with any explanations. The abuses continues despite the fact that many yoga schools in Europe were organizing protest actions in front of the Romanian embassy in Paris, London, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Prague, Budapest, Berlin and so on.

Now while we are talking, there is an arresting warrant on the name of Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru and he is searched by the Romanian police. He is having the status of political asylum in Sweden and on is name were received in Sweden more than 14 letters of treat that are under the investigation of the Swedish police.

Volunteering seen as crime
Christian monasteries, yogi ashrams, Jewish kibbutz – are all these outlaw??? Of course not!!! We can say that one common issue that all these communities have in common is that they rely on volunteering.
But under the law of persons trafficking, such as endorsed by the EU, all these religious communities may be charged with a strange form of trafficking if the law will be interpreted in a strange way. However, MISA ALONE is charged with this crime. Therefore the authorities generate discrimination by biased interpretation of the law. More than 50 yoga teachers are now charged with trafficking on the ground of the voluntary work. They are facing from 2 to 20 years of prison.

All the communities that are based on voluntary work are protected by their associations and by the religious customs but MISA remains uncovered in front of the law. This creates a dangerous precedent for all religious communities which therefore become vulnerable to any political interest

Taking in consideration all these facts we respectfully ask you who hold the political power to help this organization for being properly protected against any political abuse.
Making research I learned that MISA is just one little part form what it appear to be large phenomena that is going on underground: the victims of political interests and political abuse.
We have found in Poland, Italy, France, England, similar cases to the one presented above (for those interested in details please contact us). The striking similarities in these cases were leading us to another point of view on the problem. In all of these cases, the reason for the persecutions is the political interest to manipulate the public opinion. These organizations are used for this purpose because they “fit” with the profile: they are small enough so they can be easily handled; they have some exotic issues that are useful in the media scandal, they are somehow religious or can be associated to some religious controversies.

What will be the reason to attack such groups other than to accumulate some political capital? But these irresponsible actions are having some side effects that in our opinion have to be underlined here:
In the general tendency for rediscovering the spiritual values, tendency that in the last years become more obvious, compromising the religious and spiritual freedom for small political interest it is generating a general reaction that might lead to a corruption of all the spiritual efforts that are done now.
The pattern of using the small groups for different purposes in order to manipulate larger groups represent a violation of the human rights that give a dangerous precedent and – in my opinion – is just a generalization of the anti-Semitism.

Letting this to happen is creating an insecure spiritual environment that is inhibiting the free development of the spiritual initiative, situation that afterward will tend to kill the spiritual search and spiritual values while they are too little to survive.
Considering all the above mentioned facts, we consider that it is necessary for all those that are having the political power to work intensive to create a proper protective environment for the religious and spiritual initiative to develop safely for the good of all mankind.

Reinforcing the call for help from the organization that I represent here (MISA) thank you for your patience and concern.

Religious Discrimination of MISA – a Political “Exchange Currency”

The case of the Romanian yoga school MISA – a follow up after the Bucharest high level meeting of June 2007

By Senior researcher Mihai Stoian

Honorary secretary of International Yoga Federation for Scandinavian countries

September 2007 Abuses against MISA

Dear Mr. chairman, dear ambassadors, ladies and gentlemen,

I am from Romania and for the moment work and live in Copenhagen, Denmark. I am representing in front of you the “Movement for spiritual integration into the Absolute – M.I.S.A” – a yoga movement having more than 300.000 students and about 35.000 active students (yoga practitioners).

After being presented in the high level meeting of OSCE in Bucharest June 2007 the situation with the yoga school MISA was not improved but the opposite happened. Here I am giving you a follow up on the case and I will begin first with a briefing since it is representing – according to some of the human rights activists that were investigating the case – one of the most severe cases of discrimination and abuse in the post communist Romania as for sure one that reached the media attention in an abnormal and abusive scale.

The totalitarian communist regime started to put pressure on the yoga students that was following these yoga courses and on the person of Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru to stop the yoga courses.

In 1982 yoga, martial arts and any eastern spiritual disciplines were taken out of law and all the courses within these disciplines were declared illegal. Despite this fact Mr. Bivolaru and other advanced yoga teachers continued to practice and teach yoga secretly. For this reason Mr. Bivolaru and other teachers were arrested several times, and they went through the full communist oppression mechanism that now you already know it: torturing, beating, forced labor camps.

In 23rd of January 1990 – after the anti-communist revolution, a group of 22 teachers leaded by Mr. Bivolaru (who was just released from the prison) set up the “Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute – MISA”. Immediately after, yoga courses were open all over the country and the number of students in these courses is continuously increasing.

Abuses after 1898

In September 1990 a vast media campaign against the yoga students and against the teachers was starting (in September the new yoga classes starts!). Yoga practitioners were accused in all the media of several crimes: sexual abuses, brain washing people, homicide in black magic rituals, drugs, and prostitution. Of course the police didn’t start any action due to the fact that these were only incredible lies. Since then – 1990 – every year we experience one or two big campaigns against the organization and against the yoga teachers and students. The accusations are almost the same every time; only recently accusations of terrorism and being a paramilitary organization dealing with weapons were added (probably because of the new international situation).

In this context, the Association for Defending the Human Rights – The Helsinki Committee, notified in 1996, after they made their own inquiries and made reports regarding the M.I.S.A. Association, reports in which they express their worries towards the repeated persecutions to which M.I.S.A. and its students have to suffer.

In the above-mentioned reports, they agree that

605 people (out of which 76% with university degrees) gave statements about the serious persecutions and discriminations they underwent following the raids and the media campaign, for the only reason that they admitted having practiced yoga at MISA yoga school. Many persons are mistreated at their work place (in two extreme cases people were fired from the Army and the Police, cases of Paul Ivanov and Lucian Gradinariu), a judge (Simona Lungu) was forced to resign following absurd charges of immorality and an aggressive press campaign that affected her image and credibility, many persons are rejected by their families, sometimes they are not even allowed to visit their children, neighbors are scratching their cars or proffering insults, children are marginalized at school if their parents are known yoga practitioners, and the examples could continue.

An example of severe abuse

Among the terrible experiences that many yoga students underwent following the mass hysteria created by the authorities with the media support, one stands out. Dana Craescu, 20, a passionate of poetry, coming from a small Romanian town, was sequestrated by her own family and forcefully kept in a psychiatric hospital and later at her family’s house for almost 9 months (January – October 2005), with no contact with outsiders, with the purpose of “removing yoga of her mind”. A similar event had happen in 2003, but after 3 days spent in the hospital the doctor released her considering she was the victim of an “emotional abuse of her parents”.

During the 8 weeks spent in the hospital in 2005, with the complicity of a local doctor, she was given extremely strong medication, normally used for schizophrenia, medication that affected her mind, her weight (she gained 15 kilos), her overall physical condition, including her capacity to procreate. The complaints made to authorities by her fiancée, friends, by herself to a local police officer, were ignored, and a prosecutor abusively approved the treatment inflicted upon Dana Craescu, allowing her family and her doctor to continue to abuse and mistreat her. She managed to escape in October 2005 by deceiving those who were watching her, and she came back to Bucharest where she married her fiancée.

Social consequences of the persecutions campaign

High officials, magistrates, ministers, members of the parliament etc. took a stand and publicly accused MISA yoga school, Gregorian Bivolaru, yoga students, requesting drastic punishments, the shut down of the yoga school, completely ignoring the presumption of innocence and the lack of any serious evidence, thus

Since March 2004, hundreds of yoga students (especially young women) throughout Romania were visited by police officers or invited to hearings by prosecutors, without being told in what capacity they are heard, and asked tendentious questions about their yoga practice and possible relationships with Gregorian Bivolaru.

In the case of two doctors (Cristian Boerescu, Otilia Craciun), yoga practitioners, their neighbors were questioned by authorities (but wearing plain clothes), who were insistently urging the neighbors to give incriminatory statements about the behavior of the doctors.

Over 20 companies belonging to yoga students were repeatedly controlled by the Financial Guard, both before and after the events of March 2004. The controls after March 2004 were heavily mediatized, inducing to the public the idea that any yoga practitioner with a private business is by default a criminal (ex. Costica Cojocaru, Andrei Gamulea, Catalin Visterneanu). Some of these companies could not present the official documents requested, including fiscal reports, since they had been seized during the searches. Interestingly, most of the questions asked during these controls were about the yoga practice and MISA yoga school, and in some cases the owners were requested even written statements about their relations with MISA and Gregorian Bivolaru (ex. Elisabeta Ionescu), although none were connected in any way to the activity of the company. The activity of these companies was prejudiced not only by the confiscation of legal documents, or the fines they had to pay, but the owners lost during the searches the results of years of scientific researches, such as files with studies, pictures, descriptions and properties of hundreds of medicinal herbs, loss which affects the existence even of such companies (case of Andrei Gamulea). Even relatives of some yoga practitioners, who had no connection to yoga themselves, were visited by Financial Guard and other relevant controlling authorities, and asked questions about yoga, not about the activity of their own firm! Despite all these “efforts”, nothing illegal was ever found in the activity of all these firms.

Actions without any result from MISA

Approximately 100 memorandums, accompanied by declarations, images, statistics, were submitted to all institutions that have responsibilities in such situations: Prosecutors’ Office of Bucharest Appeal Court, General Prosecutor’s Office, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, Senate and Chamber of Deputies (both to individual members of the Parliament, and to Parliamentary commissions, such as Commission for Human Rights, for Justice, for National Defense etc), Presidency, Prime Minister, Superior Council of Magistracy, Romanian Secret Service. None of these institutions took any measure, or at least decided to start a proper investigation. In the great majority of the cases we didn’t even receive an official answer (although the authorities are bound by law to answer within 30 days to any petition), and in the few cases when we received replies the respective institutions declined their competence and redirected the memorandums to the Superior Council of Magistracy or to the General Prosecutor’s Office. The interesting part is that even these two institutions redirected the memorandums between themselves. Over 250 street demonstrations were also organized since March 2004, most of them taking place in front of the institutions mentioned above. Although audiences were requested every time, to allow the representatives of our school to expose the problems we have been facing, we were granted no more than 10-12 audiences in total, none of them leading to any concrete result. Only during the last month we have organized daily protests in front of the Superior Council of Magistracy, the only result being that they moved their internal meeting in other locations, not to be bothered by the noise.

-During the communist regime

-1971 – 1989: yoga classes monitored by Securitate, Gregorian Bivolaru (MISA’s spiritual mentor) imprisoned several times, yoga banned as “conspiracy against communist regime”

-1991 (first democratic regime, the Front of National Salvation) – MISA calumniated in the press

-1992 – 1996 (Iliescu’s social-democratic regime) – hundreds of calumnious articles in the press, instigating to hate

-1995 – bomb attempt to Gregorian Bivolaru’s house

-1996 – report of Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH) on abuses and aggressions against MISA

-1996 – 2000 (Democratic Convention, president Constantinescu) – unprecedented attack against MISA, violent press campaigns as well as direct actions

-1996 – antiterrorist forces stop a yoga class, yogis publicly blamed as dangerous criminals, although no legal action followed. Abuses stayed unpunished.

-1997 – report of Amnesty International on authorities abuses against MISA

-2000 – 2004 (Iliescu’s social-democratic regime): instigation against MISA and Bivolaru, violation of fundamental rights

-2002 – 2003: TV shows presenting lists with yoga practitioners (names, addresses)

-18 March 2004 – 300 police officers, gendarmes, prosecutors, secret service agents performed house searches in 16 private locations, using masks and military weapons

-Gregorian Bivolaru arrested; criminal file set up; an attempt to fraudulent border crossing set up; in January 2006 Sweden grants him political asylum on grounds of religious discrimination

-2004 – 2007 (ruling of “Dreptate si Adevar” Alliance): over 50 yoga teachers and MISA leaders abusively charged with persons trafficking. 70 private residences of yoga practitioners under sequester.

-Within 1997-2006: a total of 2678 calumnious press articles

-Up to this date no evidence to prove accusations raised by politicians and secret services over past 30 years

Even thou so many accusations were thrown against MISA and its students, now after more than 35 years the state authorities didn’t came with any proves or with any explanations. The abuses continues despite the fact that many yoga schools in Europe were organizing protest actions in front of the Romanian embassy in Paris, London, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Prague, Budapest, Berlin and so on.

Now while we are talking, there is an arresting warrant on the name of Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru and he is searched by the Romanian police. He is having the status of political asylum in Sweden and on is name were received in Sweden more than 14 letters of treat that are under the investigation of the Swedish police.

In the same time as the files are handed to the court, the indictment was published in the on-line edition of “Jurnalul National”, creating a great prejudice to the court case. The prosecutor house is denying any connection with this event, the judge house is also denying any connection. The indictment is still simultaneously appearing in the court house and in the media.

Continuing the set of abuses against the yoga school, the indictment is containing four studies regarding the MISA yoga school even if the accusations are only against some private persons. In recent declarations from different officials we hear that the authorities are not having anything against MISA yoga school, the whole trial is against private persons that are breaching the law.

The indictment of this new court file is breaking not only the innocence presumption (that is ensured by Constitution in Romania) but also many other human rights, according to Mr. Gabriel Andreescu, in a report published in the “New magazine for Human rights” (3/2007).

Conclusions

Taking in consideration all these facts we respectfully ask you who hold the political power to help this organization for being properly protected against any political abuse.

Making research I learned that MISA is just one little part form what it appear to be large phenomena that is going on underground: the victims of political interests and political abuse.

What will be the reason to attack such groups as MISA yoga school other than to accumulate some political capital? But these irresponsible actions are having some side effects that in our opinion have to be underlined here:

• In the general tendency for rediscovering the spiritual values, tendency that in the last years become more obvious, compromising the religious and spiritual freedom for small political interest it is generating a general reaction that might lead to a corruption of all the spiritual efforts that are done now.

• The pattern of using the small groups for different purposes in order to manipulate larger groups represent a violation of the human rights that give a dangerous precedent and – in my opinion – is just a generalization of the anti-Semitism.

• Letting this to happen is creating an insecure spiritual environment that is inhibiting the free development of the spiritual initiative, situation that afterward will tend to kill the spiritual search and spiritual values while they are too little to survive.

Since Romanian citizens are discriminated, harassed and persecuted by the very institutions supposed to protect them, we have no choice but to ask for the support of the international community, of the democratic states, where the justice is fair and independent, and the fundamental rights and freedoms are sacred. Otherwise there is a high risk that the “original” concepts about justice, truth, respect for the law, will be successfully “exported” into the European Union now, with the accession of Romania. We hereby send another serious call for help in the effort to clarify the situation of the Romanian yoga school MISA.

We recommend the representatives of OSCE to organize a fact finding mission in Romania to clarify the situation of the MISA yoga school that for the moment remain under a great deal of incertitude, affecting the work and life of thousand of people.

We recommend the creation of an international commission in Romania, in which the representatives of MISA will be invited to participate and under the supervision of ODIHR – OSCE. This commission will organize hearings with all the parts and will recommend the solutions that take into account all the facts and circumstances. In this way the whole case will find a transparent and fair solution for all parts.

Here we want to show what we have found out regarding the situations when spirituality is subjected to abuses of all kinds. But also we will show all the positions that were made to protect spirituality in any form of it so that we can see who are the ones that already started to understand that if we want to have a spiritual life in the new world then we have to protect it and help it grow among our busy lives. In this way one can understand the real dimension of the war against spirituality that is now silently unfolding and the complex consequences of it at the human dimension. It is better to disclose this now then to talk about it when the damage was already done – as we did so many times before with other aspects of life. The signals that we have are showing clearly that the situation of spirituality today is aggravating from certain perspectives, despite the apparently increased liberty people have. All are invited to come with more information and thus to show all the delicate sides of this important issue.  

I will start this chapter with a little, short true story: During exams, in the tense atmosphere of the university’s hallway, a group of students curiously surrounded one of their colleagues who had just came out of the exam. The group asked the one who had just came out how did it went and why had he come out so soon? The one who had just come out had a perplexed gaze in his eyes and said he had failed the exam. From his colleagues’ surprise, I could understand that he was not one of those students coming to an exam unprepared. But his explanations also left me very puzzled: because before picking at random the subjects for the oral exam in physics, he had closed his eyes and prayed to God. Seeing this, the teacher got angry and told him to get out saying that he did not belong in a physics class with such an “obscurantist” (n.tr. obscurantism=opposition to the increase and spread of knowledge) attitude. Beyond the respective teacher abuse of the student, our little story shows a symptom that manifests quite often, until people begin to censor themselves.

Nowadays we often see how spirituality no longer finds its place in our daily agenda, being overbooked with all sorts of things that seem important for the immediate reality. Spiritual life hardly finds its place in our calendar and consequently, many times our reactions have strange aspects when it comes to spirituality, spiritual evolution or even God. Until we will print agendas with a special place for praying or meditation or hours of spiritual practice, we need to become aware of these reactions, which also often manifests as violence (both physical, but also mental) against what represents authentic spirituality. Thus, we have easily come to accept the fact that some people get drunk and shout at others on the street, because they are just having fun and do not harm anyone. But when some people do yoga, quietly (because yoga is quiet) on a beach, many will be those disturbing their meditation, saying that what they do is weird. We have come to find it weird when a man prays to God, but we do not react in any way when people torture other people or when our fellow men behave like animals, even in the neighborhood we live in. Of course, we can find many explanations for the appearance and development of this phenomenon, but what is important for us now is the fact that it exists. During Communism, we considered the communist regime an atheist regime. But now we can observe Capitalism from the inside and what we see is that people are more atheist then we were during Communism. An atheist is not the one who says out loudly that he does not believe in God (because he has his form of belief, through denial). The “real” atheist is the one to who is indifferent to spirituality! In this direction, out of all societies so far, modern society has created the greatest number of atheists.

An ashram in the middle of the city

The new role of the monasteries and ashrams in the modern society

In the modern society we are confronted with a lot of challenges raised by the civilization process itself. The old way of living was swept away by the industrial revolution and the secular traditions were lost. But in most of the cases we didn’t put anything in exchange. What the ancestors were doing in the daily duties out of a natural wisdom so they could stay in harmony and sanctity in the middle of their life, later become a set of traditions that were still keeping people in the spiritual integration yet in a more rigid way, and is now covered insufficiently by the slow progress of science. The cathedrals that were replacing the places of natural energetic power marked in the old times by sanctuaries are now replaced in their turn by shopping malls. What was a place for recovering our forces and giving us a reorientation toward what’s essential in life become nowadays places designed to confuse and make us loosing the track of time and our common sense in order to spend more of anything (money, energy, time). The individual is therefore struggling to find a solution to the problematic of the daily life that is too complex to be comprehended by our weak senses and agitated mind.

One of the increasingly big problems is the life stile especially in the civilized society. The welfare system proved already, for those that are ready to see, its problematic angles. Weaken by the lack of direct daily challenge and training, people’s life-force is drying out quickly and this process is more spread than ever in the civilized world. The human qualities, especially those regarding the human soul that we are now knowing mostly from books and movie characters, are decreasing under the pressure of the stressful life in the cities. Our life is flattening and looses its deepness, becoming more and more a “bidimensional life” from a “three-dimensional” life that was once, analogically loosing one of its dimensions under the pressure of the life consuming civilization.

Once I was together with a tantric master, eager to learn more about life and spirituality. We were in the nature and a little bug landed on his right hand. Instead of chasing the bug away, the master started to observe the bug and while doing this the bug begin to run on his flattened right palm. When the bug reached the end of he palm, the master placed the left palm in continuation and the bug continue the race on the left palm. In the end of the left palm it was already waiting the right palm again. And the “game” continued for a while, caching the attention of all the people around, curious to understand the meaning of this game of the master. After a while the master raises his eyes and looked directly into my eyes saying: “can you imagine what a revelation this bug will have if it will stop now?”. In that very instant I realized that in fact we are like the little bug in the palms of Life, being supported but in the same time running toward the end of it and every time going through the same places and same situations  again and again, being too busy running to observe the game itself. For that we need to stop! But the problem that appears is how and where to stop without being taken by the flow or without being “crushed” by the immense flow of people that are still rushing toward the “horizons”.

The attempt to stay sharp and keep the aspiration toward perfection intense and vertical is many times challenged by the life stile that is almost not at all including any spiritual issue. We do not have “space” in the daily agenda for spiritual evolution and therefore the one that want to go for transformation must practically run “against the current”. In this respect, like in any process of healing (because in fact the first attempt on the spiritual transformation path is to cure ourselves from the weaknesses, from the bad habits, from compromises, from ignorance) a stage of protective environment is needed; in this stage we get the strength and knowledge that are needed for successfully realize this spiritual step under the protective help of the spiritual environment. 

The “fortress” of spirit

Traditionally the idea of an ashram or a monastery was to provide a safe place, away from the “world”, to those that were aiming to seek perfection and to dedicate all their life for that. It is a place meant to be the “fortress” of spirit where the eternal Light of Divine Wisdom was preserved unspoiled by the world changes. It is a place where one can “stop” from the race toward the end of life and have the necessary time to observe the Divine Game. By giving up the world with all its temptations, the aspirant is able to gradually embrace more and more the Kingdom of GOD. Silencing the outside noises the aspirant is aiming to listen the “voice” of the Heart where GOD is talking always to us.

Therefore an ashram is a place where the hearts meet and not a place between some walls. The ashram is also that privileged place where people “take refugee” in order to gain the battle with their own inferior tendencies. The ashram is not only a house but mainly it is an attitude toward evolution. It is that special place where people are taking the chance to challenge their destiny for better and have the proper conditions to succeed in this difficult task.

The fortress turns into an “eagle nest”

These days the options are not anymore so clear and therefore the meaning of an ashram or a monastery and under the pressure of necessity the meaning enriched with some new issues.

In the modern time a rather “living life” option is embraced by most of the people that are approaching a spiritual life instead of “getting away” from life to reach spiritual heights. Many realize nowadays that every experience in the world is a very good training and it’s very hard to seek perfection out of the world. For this we have to live our life and not refuse life in an endless chain of mortifications. But in order to live our life first we have to wake up from the “trance” of our own habits. As we have shown in the above story with the bug, we have to stop “racing” and for this we need first the protection of a nest that let us training apart from the world dangers that will stop us before we have the chance to start. People knows that by instinct and when they have some new ideas that need to get crystallized before facing the big test of the others skepticism they are seeking for the company of other people that share the same vision or have the same system of values.

For those that aim the spiritual awakening and need a “nest” to fetch their progress, the solution is the ashram or the monastery. In this situation the meaning of this settlement must be enriched with a new significance that adapts very well to the modern spirituality and fulfills the goal to live life and evolve spiritually in the same time. From the “fortress” where spirituality is guarded, the modern ashram turns into a “nest” where spirituality and life are fetched together and spread into the world.  The ashram is not anymore placed in a remote location, far from the world temptations, it is placed in the cities, and there where people are living. People are not anymore hiding into the ashrams from the world; they are living in the ashram while learning and getting the strength to live into the world a spiritual life, being able to stand by their own strength and learn from the lessons of life instead of learning from escaping life in different ways. The time spend into the modern ashrams is for many people a temporary but necessary “reduction” of their social existence and not a life time option. Enriched with this meaning the ashram is amazingly up to date and ready to provide the solutions for the very complicate problems of the coming spiritual revolution.

We can say from this perspective that an ashram is a “spiritually controlled environment” in which al the transformations are taking place under the protective setup. The agitation of the modern society is proportionally kept away so that the spiritual seekers can constantly come back to the silence of meditation without necessary living completely isolated from society. The ashram is the “silent island” in the middle of the stormy ocean.

The ashram is a sacred place but not because it is built with sacred stones but because is inhabited by future saints. For this reason all the activities in the ashram have the goal to serve the best the inner transformation of inhabitants and not to serve their ego. But since the people are integrated into life, the ashram life will reflect the inner life of the inhabitants. The problems that are encountered in the life of such spiritual community are in fact the exteriorization of the problems existent in every inhabitant of the ashram.

The ashram is the place where the limits are all the time pull down and the physical appearance of the ashram is important only in the extent is reflecting the inner reality. In the ashram, for each individual the “outside” and the “inside” meet under the sharp light of the constant attention. For example if one have a messy room, that reflect the inner mess and by cleaning the room he/she aim to clean the inside that was the cause for the outside mess. If one is always postponing to do certain tasks for the common living in the ashram, that person show a mental pattern that is in fact affecting all his/her life, not only those particular situations where it become visible for the others. And knowing this, that person has the chance to transform efficiently for better using the spiritual techniques that are provided to get out from the “tyranny” of that mental pattern.

Every attempt to organize the life in the ashram have to take into consideration the spiritual goal and also the fundamental law of correspondence that make possible to influence and even to modify what is “up” (in the higher aspects of our being) by modifying what is “down” (in the physical level). For this reason the life in the ashram will sometimes have situations that are not usually found in the normal life but this is due to the fact that the life in the ashram itself have a purpose: to create the best conditions for its inhabitants to transform. In a situation that a person brake a glass and doesn’t announce this but is just hiding the pieces, the main focus when this is discovered is not to replace the glass as soon as possible so that the life take its normal course but to find the person that did that and with specific methods to help the person to understand the deep mechanism that make him/her to do that (hiding from responsibility). In a normal situation we don’t care much who did it but to restore the order as soon as possible. In an ashram the first concern is to help the person to understand the mistake and of course after that to restore the order.

When the light is bright the dark looks darker

In the ashram are the most demons. The more you stay in the light the more the darkness looks darker. If a person is stilling from his neighbors, that is seen as a regrettable act but if this is happening in a spiritual community than it looks worst. For this reason some have the tendency to see in the ashram a place with a lot of problems but in reality in the ashram the problems are highlighted by the general level of awareness that is higher than normal and also by the raised standard of expectations from a spiritual community. But being a spiritual school, an ashram is a place where mistakes are even more visible because the mistakes here are the way of learning and nobody is avoiding them (at least not consciously).

Another important aspect that is deeply specific to the life in the ashram is the “spiritual integration”.  This means a special field of interconnections between the inhabitants so they are always confronted with the situations of life serving the best their spiritual goal. This “spiritual integration” is given by two aspects that are common to all the persons that are living in the ashram:

1. The individual dedication for a certain and clear spiritual goal followed with intense aspiration. One of the fundamental conditions to live in an ashram is to place the transformation on a higher priority than the individual comfort. Usually we are seeking consciously or not for comfort and easy life and when confronted with the transformation (especially the spiritual transformation that is affecting very deep all the levels of our being) we realize that we are not ready to “pay the price” that is requested or it. It becomes obvious in those moments that we are pricing higher the comfort and easiness of our life than transformation and evolution. Living in an ashram makes sense only for those that already have a priority from their spiritual evolution or al least want to do that when they are confronted with the choice.   For the ones that place GOD on the first place in their life, the ashram is a “launching site”. And in the ashram the evolution can be much faster. For those that are not ready, the ashram is a kind of “prison” from which sooner or later they will “escape”. The fact that most of the ashram inhabitants are linked by a common aspiration makes the events in the ashram to become “synchronistic” and highly significant for each of the members of the community(to understand better this notion please read the article “….” from the second issue of Logos magazine). Only a group of people that are studying by out of curiosity and in a flabby manner the spiritual texts, in the rest of time being focused on all kind of other goals, are not part of an ashram, even if it might be called like that.
2. The connection to a spiritual school or system. In this way the inspiration and the feed back are assured for the process of transformation to be safe and to go always in the right direction. A spiritual school or system, represented here by teachers that in themselves are realizing the goals that the aspirants are aiming for,  is providing with the assistance, with the “expertise” to pass the difficult moments, and – most important – with the proper techniques for operating this transformation. Therefore a group of people that are living together and that are individually interested into the spiritual evolution are not necessary forming an ashram.

Empowered by these aspects mentioned above, the “spiritual integration” is manifesting as a protective field of “significant coincidences” and “lucky” events that are always having a spiritual meaning and tend to teach exactly that lesson that the aspirant needs for the moment, the evolution becoming thus an accelerated process of inner transformation. It is possible to appear such phenomena because of the above mentioned conditions that in an invisible way connect through resonance all the members of a spiritual community.

Both these things are essential to create an ashram. Any attempt to break these aspects lead sooner or later to evanesce of the ashram (even thou the building and even the inhabitants are still there!)

We say that the transformation is possible instead of being certain because here lays another very important characteristic of the ashram that make the ashram different than a blind oppressive system. In an ashram a person comes by free will and goes by free will. And most important, is assuming the ashram discipline and practice by free will as a part of the assumed “price” of the spiritual transformation. Because of this situation, the ashram is a spiritual transformation friendly environment, giving the necessary discipline, silence, community with persons having the same preoccupations and the same spiritual goal, but in the same time it is not guarantying the results. It is exactly like going to the gym. There we have all the conditions to train our body, we even have competent assistance but nobody can tell for sure that we will do it because it’s all based on our own effort.

Even if it is a system that helps the transformation, the ashram is not canceling the individual responsibility for evolution. And this is another characteristic of the life in the ashram.

The individual spiritual goal that is aimed intensely is important so that the permanent orientation of all the attitudes and actions of the inhabitants are integrated into the spiritual field that is generated by the goal itself.  This is giving to the spiritual community a great stability and reliability in front of the very many problems that appears in the life of such community. This common orientation toward a spiritual goal is what makes the people in the ashram to live together in harmony even in the most difficult situations that appear.

The spiritual transformation through action

An important tool of transformation that was always at a very high price in ashrams and spiritual communities in order to maintain the spiritual level of the life there was the form of yoga called: KARMA YOGA.

By definition the KARMA YOGA system is “the yoga of communion with GOD through all the actions that we are doing in a perfectly detached way”. Basically no one can stay without doing something, without acting in a way or another. On the other hand anything we are doing involve a “reaction” (we are thus programming a reaction from the universe that is coming sooner or later in our life). The solution to this apparently paradoxical situation is to realize the fact that we are just channels through which the Divine Consciousness manifests and we are not the authors of the action itself. In this way the reaction that the action was creating is not addressing us anymore and is returning to the real Author of the action. This process itself is creating the most fascinating game of forces in our being and we gradually transform from the one carrying the burden of all the reactions from the actions (the so called KARMA) into the detached witness that is participating into the whole show without being burden by the reactions that are anyway not meant for him.

From the other perspective the life of the ashram always tend to become intensive and to “force” the participants to overpass their egoistic limits. It is therefore the life there is not always easy and it is not meant to be like that. Between easiness and intensity is the big abyss of death – the “death” of the ego that is followed by the birth of the spiritual awareness. The special condition that the aspirants to enlightment have to fulfill is to relax and abandon into the flow of transformations without giving up the awareness. Trying to always be in control in a forceful and egoistic way will bring back the limits that were removed in the first place. Trying to relax in an unconscious way, loosing the awareness is also leading to unconsciousness and to mistakes. The only wise solution here is to learn to relax and abandon while in the middle of the action itself. And here is the Karma Yoga system proving its spiritual value by teaching the practitioner to participate to the universal game as a witness without ceasing the activity that is done through him.

But the ashram is not at all like a “pensioner’s house”, but more like a training place for high performance sportsman. Or like the eagle nest. People don’t grow older in the ashram, they grow wiser. And after the solid base of deep inner transformation was built, its time for the “young” aspirants to face the real life and to make room to others that needs the protection in order to begin their spiritual life. The ones that evolve become the living models for the new aspirants and in this way the whole environment is permanently providing the aspiration for going further. Within the ashram is created a genuine spiritual lineage, beginners and advanced, students and teachers being in a very close connection and walking the path together.

Many times the spiritual path was seen by the people that were not yet spiritually awakened as entering in a “collision course” with the society, the collision being most of the times devastating for the aspirants that are not wise enough to understand this fundamental antagonism. For this reason it was considered that these two have to stay separated at least until the aspirant grow wiser. In this way the so called “conflict” between the spirituality and society reach to a wise and peaceful solution, spirituality being harmoniously integrated into the society, both fulfilling their role in the formation of us as perfect universal beings. That is the final meaning of the modern ashram or spiritual community into the modern world.  

From natural freedom to anarchy until spiritual freedom

“Know the truth and the truth will set you free”

One of the keywords of our world today is freedom. Many of the themes of discussion about our life systems are spinning around the concept of freedom.  Freedom became nowadays even a trading value, reorganized comparing with the old era of slavery. But freedom is deeply related with other notions like responsibility, knowledge, compassion, sacrifice, and love. 
Some spiritual traditions are saying that freedom is a golden chain.  Even if it sounds paradoxical this statement (the association between freedom and a chain – even made of gold – might sound like a paradox), just looking around us will give an unmistakable confirmation for it. In our world today, we are facing sometimes-paradoxical situations even greater than the golden chain of freedom. Today we are talking about notions like “fight for peace” or “war on terror” as part of our daily life concepts. If nowadays peace is obtained with fight and terror is cured with war than we should not be amazed that freedom is just another chain made of gold. 
Let us take as an example how the idea of freedom develops for an individual. A newborn child is so charming because his spontaneity is coming from a freedom that is unspoiled by any personality yet.  The amazed eyes of a little child express the best this state of inner freedom to abandon in the protective hands of life. 

When the child grows into a teenager the first notions about individuality, pleasure and ego comes into the attention. The first reaction is to “liberate” from the “tyranny” of the parents, the “protective hands”.  The teenager has a strong impression that he needs to be free and this becomes his principle of living thus his first chain. 

In the name of this freedom he becomes anarchic. The way he walks, talks and dresses, expresses almost all 0f the time the tendency to contradict what he has learnt until then. In the case of the newborn child freedom was associated with total surrender, thus the child has this capacity to take everything as it is, being in the state of natural freedom. The moment he grows up and become more aware about himself, he begins to be enslaved by the tendency to interfere and to impose his newly awakened will thus becoming an anarchist. He breaks the rules but he is not aware about the consequences of his acts or why those rules were in place. He exists at this level only to break the rules and freedom is often measured by the rules he have broken.

Out of this attitude the teenager is making mistakes that hurt him and the people around. Due to this fact while reaching adulthood he is already wrapped into new sets of rules that are the results of the traumatic experiences from puberty. Gradually the anarchic freedom is replaced by the idea of responsibility.

Trading freedom for responsibility leads the teenager to adulthood through a continuously growing labyrinth of rules and conventions.  In this way, the so-called adulthood is just a set of predefined rules among which freedom is just one of them. Freedom becomes just a dry concept used to cover most of the time the fears we have in front of any form of superior authority. The responsible adults gradually lose their appetite for life because life is deeply related to freedom. Solving this apparently conflicting situation will become the reason for searching the truth.
Nevertheless, while struggling with the self-imposed rules the adult begins to understand life and the more he understands it the more he values the power of the truth that brings back the ineffable feeling of freedom without killing the responsibility.

First, the adult is “squeezed” from all the directions by the rules he assumed before, in the early years of his life. Trying to survive the routine of an responsible existence buried in rigid rules and conventions, the adult is forced to realize the limitations that are imposed by these rules and the freedom given by the truth in the shape of the right knowledge. Here begins the spiritual transformation.

From this moment on the individual is searching for the truth as a solution to solve the conflict between responsibility in life and freedom. Nevertheless, freedom has more to reveal. The first attempt will be to become an egoistic seeker for the truth, caring only about himself. When this attempts to find the truth will become a very rigid and sometimes painful practice of a doctrine, than in the soul of the aspirant – and out of this spiritual suffering – starts to grow love and compassion for all the beings around. Thus, the individual enters the Christic “legacy” of those that are free to love and to sacrifice for the good and happiness of their beloved ones.
As we can see, freedom is an idea that constantly pushes us further in our evolution. We can say from this perspective that the only moments when we experience freedom is when we are on the path of transformation.
Unfortunately these days we can see freedom associated with ignorance and thus turning into the strangest paradox. This is the level that our civilization is at today.  We can see clearlly this in the case of the concept in fashion “preventive strikes”!

To see the whole absurdity let’s complete the picture: after 2000 years of Christianity – a doctrine based on the idea “turn the other cheek……” – we, the Christians, synthesized our “experience” in the idea “better to strike first”!!! Until now the church was imposing very strict ways to look upon different matters of life and the conflict situations where among them. It was the era of childhood.

But nowadays we feel freer from the church doctrine (which failed to adapt to the rapid transformations in the world) and out of this freedom we created such an anarchic paradox! Moreover, we did that because we dropped the rules without replacing them with the proper knowledge.  We are not ready to be free!  In this way we proved to be in the puberty with our civilization, experiencing the difficult times of this period.  If we look carefully, we can even see the teenager’s “pimples” on George Bush’s brain and heart expressing a reality for the most majority. Let us hope together that our humanity will get out of this puberty without hideous scars as a mark of our “classes” on freedom. 

Tantra, the consciously assumed freedom – solution to the modern freedom

Today, freedom is reflected differently by the two fundamental currents: science and religion. If religion is asking us to believe without questioning its sets of values proposed, science is questioning everything thus ending up with a relative conclusion on anything.

Caught in this dilemma the modern society is struggling between blindly assumed moral rules – leading to rigidity and intolerance – and complete denial of any need for moral rules – making us lose the fundamental purpose of our life. Apparently, these two extremes cannot be conciliated.

On one hand, religion is giving us a higher purpose in life and a certain direction but make this without any explanation by imposing rules that often cannot be understood. On the other hand, modern science is teaching us to dare to question anything but fails in finding a higher purpose for our life.

Speaking from the point of view of freedom in the first case we are told what to do with our freedom but without being told how to get there and in the second case we are pushed to have the freedom which does not have a meaning.
The ancient concept of tantra is giving here the genius solution. Tantra means “network” so the tantric system is the system that find the links and the correlations that exist between everything.

The Tantric system brings the scientific method into the spiritual life creating in this way a form of spiritual science, which represents the synthesis between religion, and science. We can say from this perspective that tantra provides a staircase from slavery to freedom.

The method used in tantra is the conscious approach on every experience of life. Experiencing life in full awareness will allow us to receive a very efficient feedback, to learn fast about the consequences of our actions and becoming in this way free of any fantasies, daydreams or illusions.

As we previously saw, we lose our freedom when we blindly assume certain rules or when we blindly deny any rules. However, tantra is not saying “don’t eat that” or “eat only this” but is saying, “be aware that if you eat that you will have these consequences and if you eat this you’ll have these consequences”. For this reason, tantra was often considered to be the science of life, linking in a harmonious whole – net – all the genuine science and all the genuine religious systems.
Freedom in this way becomes a measure for our awareness, a result of knowing the truth, truth that is revealed by life itself once we “wake up” from the “dream” of our daily life.

The tantric is not questioning everything but is experiencing everything in full awareness. The tantric is not taking anything for granted but is open to experience. In this way, tantra is replacing the dogma with life experience and dry theories with direct understanding. There is no more need for building a fence of taboos around something that is not good or is dangerous because with this new attitude we will know precisely what is not good or what is dangerous, what is harmonious or what is good.

Life becomes a chain of spiritual lessons through which we get to know the Truth which will set us free.

“Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.” Liberty Hyde Bailey

What was the lesson that Judas was teaching the humanity? What we can learn from Judas episode in the big drama of human history?
These are questions that many people pose to themselves while reading the dramatic events described in the bible’s NEW TESTAMENT. Judas was the disciple of Jesus that was giving the Savior on the authorities for a sum of money. This is how the story appears to us at the first sight. Of course the situation has to be seen also from Judas perspective but will the situation be different even from that perspective? Is there any perspective from which we can agree to what Judas did? Can we find a spiritual perspective that will excuse Judas and will explain what he did in such way that we can accept what he did?

Intuitively everybody will tend to say that the answer is NO. There is no possibility to find a correct angle from which the betrayal is not a betrayal and Judas was a saint that did the right think in the right moment.

Still if we want to learn this lesson we should understand why Judas did what he was doing? Was he doing it on purpose, completely aware of the disastrous consequences of his act? In this case he must have been a sadistic and cynical traitor that was maybe infiltrated into Jesus group to act as such at the right time. But if he was not a cynical traitor than what was Judas guilt?

From a certain perspective we can say that Judas mistake was to think without common sense, it was the first famous documented case of mind without consciousness. After that the consciousnessless mind become more and more spread as a disease until today most of the people suffer of that so the state became normal. Judas didn’t betray Jesus because he was angry with Him or because they were fighting with each other. He didn’t do it for money or for gaining anything. Judas was thinking that he knows better than Jesus what is good and that he can take such an important decision without even asking. It was just the sin of pride. He was thinking that he is doing it for the good of all the others and also for the good of Jesus. If Judas was having a good intention is quite clear but we should not forget that “the road to hell is paved with the best intentions”. Judas was not selling Jesus for the money he received. He was doing it because he thought that it is better like that and that he doesn’t have to ask Jesus’ opinion because he (Judas) knows better. Some are saying that Judas was a tool of the Divine plan. But as we know, we are always free to choose to become the miserable tool of destiny or to be the reason why the destiny changed. Of course we don’t gain anything by blaming Judas and instead we should aim to understand his mistakes. the picture with a Judas as a traitor is as comfortable for the ego as the picture with Jesus as the Son of God, perfect and unreachable therefore leaving us with the conformable thought that we are not responsible so much of not being prefect ourselves. Yet in reality Judas was not a traitor in the sense we try to put it. In the terms of our days we can say that Judas was just a smart guy, one that was considering himself high enough that he can judge by himself and even to take his own decisions. And there are so many like him today.

In the recently discovered text of “Judas Gospel” we have a confirmation of a completely different angle of Judas story. From the text we can see a Judas that was considering himself special and far above the level of the rest of disciples that he was considering quite “simple” and “uneducated”.

But when asked by Judas about his destiny, Jesus is replying: “You will become the thirteenth, and you will be cursed by the other generations—and you will come to rule over them. In the last days they will curse your ascent to the “holy” generation.”

In the biblical story there is a very interesting aspect that should give us some perspectives. In the night after Jesus is betrayed by Judas, the first among the apostles, Peter, is denying Jesus three times. Why his denial was not so much discussed into the Christian teachings as Judas’s? The main reason is that Judas betrayal is done with a totally different perspective than Peter’s denial. Judas was acting by himself while Peter was reacting to some situations, maybe not at the level expected from him. The example and the lesson that Peter is giving is that the aspirants might have their moments of hesitation on the path to perfection. But the example that Judas is giving to us is that when we start to think that we know better than our master, better than God, we expose ourselves and all the other to terrible consequences that we are not aware about. For this reason Judas action is worst and his example more poisonous.

Judas was an important lesson not because he made a mistake; he is an important example because he represents all those that making a mistake believe that they were doing the right think. They cannot be stopped by anything till the end when they also have a chance to see the mistake with all its consequences, unfortunately too late. These people are thinking more than perceiving or asking and trapped into the illusory cage of their mind these people are worshiping only their own intelligence that is separated from the universal wisdom not because is meant to be like that but because they choose to think separately. They are following the satanic message of Judas: I can do it with my mind better than God!

Lucifer was falling not because he was denying God but because he was thinking that he can do at least the same as God was doing. From this perspective we can see the Judas message being same with Lucifer’s one. Judas didn’t deny Jesus; he just thought that he knows better in some aspects. He just gave God a secondary position but he didn’t exclude Him. And giving God a second place in life is one of the most common situations today. It is also true that to give God the first place in life is an adventure that goes many times through fanaticism, obscurantism, mass manipulation and many other things that have nothing to do with this spiritual perspective. but that is not the reason why we should just give God the second place in life. Old texts of wisdom were saying: “giving God the second place in your life means giving Him no place”.

Yet if we take a closer look to the thinks that are happening today we will be shocked to discover something: Judas example was copied many times and nowadays we are using this example at a very large scale, doing acts that are similar with the one Judas did. Most of the people today are giving God a secondary place in their life if giving any. The impression that we are alone and that we are doing everything by ourselves, isn’t that what many people are experiencing nowadays? The search for “independent” and “objective” thoughts and results, the more sober from any idea of God the better, are in fact the Judas followers legacy after two millennia.

The development of the scientific spirit nowadays show many times the same attitude that we can call it the “arrogance of intelligence”. The arrogant scientist is daring to deny what was previously stated, challenging everything just in order to, later on, come to the same conclusion but after a lot of troubles and a very high price. Was not the science that was trying to explain that everything regarding the mind is happening only in the brain and that nothing else exist in order to later on begin to accept that there are lot many other aspects that the physical brain that is forming what we are generally call mind. But how many people were dying waiting for the scientists to rediscover what was stated long time ago, before the modern science appeared.

The modern medicine (about which our magazine was writing in one of its previous issues) is a typical example of what we can call Judas descent or heritage. In many situations the scientists were denying the evidence, refusing to seriously study aspects of reality that were getting out of their theory or didn’t fit with the “official” dogma. And they were doing this being aware of what they were doing but…they were thinking that it is better like that.

The modern science is moving slow and many times is only guessing the way and the main reason for that situation is that the scientist is not anymore an initiate one, one that is himself on the path of perfection, having God as the Supreme Teacher. The modern scientist is in most of the cases an erudite that is thinking by himself and is not including God into his search, most of the time being as rigid in his scientific theory as the religious fanatic in his dogma. Of course the erudite scientist that is reading the article here will deny already these statements because “there is not clear method” that can explain how can one include God in his scientific work. That is in fact a terrible lack of education because the ancient spiritual systems, genuine initiate sciences were giving practical solutions in order for the initiate scientist to follow the path to perfection both outside and outside.

But the modern scientists betrayed God! They were not denying Him, but they were just giving Him a secondary place in their theories, research and also in their life. And they are not the only ones. The politicians also betrayed God. Recently in the European Parliament was discussed if God should be mentioned in the European Constitution. Judas must have been very proud of such great disciples! The ones that denied the very essence of the Christianity by inventing the concept of “preemptive strikes” are the direct descents of Judas.

Yet from a certain perspective the betrayal of scientists is the biggest hit because they were the ones that were supposed to keep the flame of searching for the truth alive. But the ones that were inheriting the treasure of the alchemists became the Judas nephews, acting by their own thinking and selling God for a bunch of privileges. But the real characteristic of Judas heritage is the impression of being able to replace any higher authority in the universe because we can think by our “own”. The terrible impression that we are independent and that we can do our own destiny is what is keeping us in ignorance, says the old texts of wisdom. With the attitude that we have many times nowadays we turn to be more Judas followers than Jesus followers. Judas thought that he knows better than Jesus and acted as Jesus was not there, we think that we know better than God and act as if God is not here. In its frenzy to permanently reaffirm its “freedom” and “objectivity” science is going deeper into the Judas way.

The typical exponent of the Judas legacy member of nowadays is the “expert” or the specialist. An expert is “one that knows more and more things about less and less things”. From the “experts” hoards we have the brilliant servants of Judas legacy, the ones that have the impression that they can know something very well ignoring anything else, and basically by ignoring the Unity they think that they reach the knowledge of something particularly. Unfortunately everything today depends on them: the international financial system, the life of people, the starting of the wars, and so on. Judas was an easy pray for the angry rabbi that wanted to stop Jesus because he was blinded by his arrogant intelligence. In the same way the “experts” are used today in many situations just because they are the easy pray for those few that use them for acknowledging different “expertly proven” lies.

The initiate scientist from the past was serving God and was aiming all the time to discover what is meant by God for human to know. The Judas scientist is excluding God from the Whole, trying to do everything by himself, to understand from a so called “objective perspective” and becoming immediately annoyed by any reference to God or any Supreme Power in the Universe. Permanently tormented by doubts and lost in an immensity that the more is researched the more is showing its infinity, caught between the anxiety of not understanding much and the daring attitude with shades of anarchism to question everything, the modern scientist is walking the path very slow, with an immense burden on the shoulders: Judas heritage. For this reason we can say that the destiny of the science as we know it today is similar to the destiny of Judas. But the spiritual science, the science of Unity and Wholeness is just about to be born as the sacred child in the “outskirts” of the big scientific citadels.