Soka Gakkai — No More!!!
I was a really strong member of Bharat Soka Gakkai who was nurtured by loving leaders and had a rocking district supporting me. I saw many, many victories and Soka Gakkai help me overcome the depressed / sad state that was a chief characteristic of my personality since my teens.
However, since 2015, I have been off this whole Soka culture. I do chant and do go for some meetings, but that is not because I like the organization, but more a token of my gratitude for all the victories that Nam Myoho Renge Kyo has shown me.
Around 2013–2014, there was this big emphasis on getting your friends and family to join the practice. Like a devoted member, I chanted for my friends to be connected to Gakkai. I felt happy when guests attended district level meetings and I prayed fervently for India Gakkai to touch 100,000 members by Nov 18, 2014 or 2015, am little confused now.
This campaign led to another and yet to another and all campaigns were about increasing membership. If someone said I don’t want to be a part of Gakkai, you kept calling and convincing them and you never gave up because you were doing the Buddha’s work of propagation of the Law. The more you propagated, the more good fortune would come your way. This was the promise of Gakkai (Jihad sans its violence). Like cattle in a herd, we went about propagation single-mindedly, collecting the promised good fortune for our lives.
By the end of this 100,000 campaign, I started growing cynical. As a statistician in Gakkai, I knew we were adding people to the membership database, even when in our hearts we knew these people were quite bored in the meeting and are not interested in Gakkai. When someone attended a meeting with their children or parents due to logistics related issues, we put those accidental meeting attenders as members. Just to reach the promised number of 100,000 members.
Once the member was on the database, he had no choice. He / she would be inundated with calls and people wanting to visit. I have faced this with my neighbours whom I had invited for one meeting.
As members grew, aggression in meetings grew. The aggressive formula was simple: pray for materialistic things, get more members, and keep chanting. And then there was the strategy of love bombing. If you got members, attended meetings, and got determined to spread Buddhism then you would be loved and pampered by leaders at all levels. You would be made a hero in every meeting.
After the 100,000 members campaign got over, started the youth campaign for 50,000 youths to fight on behalf of Sensei. Again, numbers being fudged and fudgy targets achieved. And youth brainwashed into believing in a human god called Sensei.
And now let us talk about Sensei Ikeda. However, noble this man is and for all that he has accomplished, I am not very sure of him. He is no God, but the stature Sensei has is of God. People pray to his pictures. The monthly magazine, called Value Creation, is filled with Sensei — his struggles in life, his victories, his love letters to members, his quotes. The poor Shakayamni Buddha / Gautam Buddha (founder of Buddhism) has no mention in these books for months. The tone of Value Creation is simple: Sensei worked hard and sacrificed his life so that you could pray and chant to the Gohonzon (the scroll). He went to jail, he faced persecution. Now for all this, you members should feel indebted for the rest of your life.
The three pillars of Gakkai are faith, practice and study. Study is supposed to be study of scriptures. Gakkai is based on the Lotus Sutra. Nowhere is the Lotus Sutra explained to a member. And you should not ask this — because no senior leader has ever read the Sutra. All that you hear is how Sensei and his mentor fought for you to receive Buddhism, how they sacrificed their own youth / lives for their members. And how Sensei is praying for you. So any victory (good things) in your life needs to be attributed to Sensei (and mind you not to Buddha). Slowly and surely, you are fed that Sensei is the reason for everything good that happens in your life. And the side-effect is that if your non-member husband or wife or child or sibling gets a victory, you will attribute it to your prayers and to Sensei’s magic in your life. And this Sensei doesn’t even utter a word in support of Dalai Lama or against Islamic Terrorism. He will speak on nuclear weapons every year, when that is the least of threats to people on a day to day basis.
Now let us talk about meetings: often senior leaders very discreetly run down Hinduism. They keep referring to how in Gakkai there are no rituals and no visiting holy shrines (the Buddha is you). And quite to the contrary, there are small rituals in Gakkai too and you are encouraged to visit the Great Hall of Kosen Rufu in Tokyo and asked to pray there. Once you have prayed there, you are truly blessed. And these visits, to Tokyo and all other shrines of importance in Gakkai, are arranged by Bharat Soka Gakkaik. They berate Hindu culture of saints and enlightened men, but of course, praying to a picture of Sensei is, well, pure faith and joy.
When you read Sensei’s message over years, they all have the same tone and character. He convinces you that troubles will not get over and hence you need Gakkai and that he is always praying for you. A philosophy that is based on the fact that life is full of troubles is regressive to my mind. And I realised this after being an active member for 4+ years.
Also, the housewives in Gakkai are sort of idle kitty party types. So many of these ladies leaders get together and discuss members’ issues without regards for privacy; they gossip, they love bomb, they report fake victories, talk shallowly about karmic cycles, they probably have no other entertainment in life other than Gakkai. These leaders live in a false bubble of karmic connection. My sense is the real connection is gossip, not karmic :)
Soka Gakkai is good when you are in the dumps and need someone to hear you out and give you encouragement. But once you see the bigger picture, like i have, you get completely pissed off.
Nam Myoho Renege Kyo is powerful and so is Gautam Buddha. Definitely disappointing are Soka Gakkai and Sensei Ikeda.
PS: this is my experience with Gakkai and the two districts that I have been a part of. I am sure there are many who will agree with me and many who will think i am being spiteful.
