Dear Robin,
I know you well, I was in the inner circle of your followers. I lived in the group house you named Annapurna in Victoria. I fully experienced what ultimately became a waking nightmare in being a member of your cult. I have a vivid memory of the day when a member of the group who had been extremely close to you attempted suicide after you ruthlessly confronted her and declared her to be an evil being who was only appearing in the guise of a human being. I remember the meeting at Heronwater in which you spoke with ice cold disdain about her when the news came of her attempted suicide, your only concern was to send someone to her apartment to collect any items from her belongings that could connect her to you. This is a fact, a horrible ugly fact which could be verified by all the people in that room, about 15 members of the inner circle.I am not proud of my involvement in this and many other heartless atrocities that took place over the years I was associated with you. In due time my turn came to be on the receiving end of an ultimate pronouncement on my soul as being irretrievably lost and after being brutally confronted by you and the whole group I was ejected from the cult with great scorn. This was the standard operating procedure and happened to many others over the years. Robin I have a simple question for you, what in your background gives you the the standing, the credibility to make pronouncements about the ultimate value of the Eastern Spiritual tradition and declare the death of Christianity? I would have thought that if you were truly remorseful for the harm you had done to so many people, the last thing you would have wanted to do is to give into the temptation to represent yourself as an authority capable of passing judgment on whole spiritual traditions as well as in some instances making harsh judgments about individuals on FFL. Robin you were never enlightened nothing could be more obvious. The biographies of enlightened teachers down through time are filled with stories of their extraordinary love, compassion and sacrifice in being of profound service to their followers. Yours is a record of extraordinary abuse done to your followers. I care not a whit for your experience of enlightenment it is all words, words, words. You did not walk the talk, you were never enlightened. In my opinion you were someone who was mentally unbalanced who had a very expansive spiritual experience whose ego appropriated it instantly and you ran with it. You have natural gifts of intellect and charisma which made it possible for you to attract a small group around you who fell for it hook, line, and sinker. The center piece of your unique revelations as an "enlightened man" was the imperative to confront your followers in order to expose the demonic and then expel it. Where in the biographies of enlightened sages do you find this method being used to enlighten the disciples? The idea that you were faithful and true to Maharishi and his teaching is pure fiction that lives on in your mind and your mind alone. To put into perspective and accurate chronology your "revelation" about the Eastern spiritual tradition, it came in 1987 when you told the group that the the mantras we received through TM were the names of demons or fallen angels. It did not come years later after you had purged yourself of your supposed "enlightenment".It was while you were still in a self admitted deeply disturbed state that you received this "truth", and not as you have represented here as coming years later. In fact at the time this revelation came to you, you also believed that your wife was the incarnation of the devil and that Jewish people were evil. This was the nature of your very disturbed mind when you had the revelation that the whole Eastern spiritual tradition was satanic. The one new conclusion that you have offered here on FFL is that the Christian tradition and most significantly the Catholic tradition no longer has any spiritual substance whatsoever and has not since the bombing by the Allies of the monastery of Monte Cassino (1945) during World War II. A very strange and eccentric theory, which is at odds with the example of Mother Teresa's life (1910-1997) and also that of saint Padre Pio (1887-1968), to give just two prominent examples. Robin your record of accuracy on your grand theories and insights is abysmal. A pharmacy student in college is allowed only 3 occasions of lethal errors in making up prescriptions before he is bounced out of the pharmacy department, if you were held to the same standard as a practicing spiritual teacher you would have flunked out a hell of long time ago. Why it is you think anyone would believe and trust what you have to say about religious or metaphysical truth is beyond all reckoning. I am aware of your subtle way of controlling the context by claiming you are only just innocently following the prompting of reality itself, this was your same way of expressing it during your time as the "World Teacher". You put yourself forward as someone who is uniquely capable to read the very pulse of reality with no subjectivity interfering with your innocent discernment of true knowledge. This seems to me self deception in the guise of humble discernment. This is the same methodology you claim to be following now, I pray to God the results will not be as destructive as they were in the past. I am also aware that you have disavowed your "enlightenment" and point to it as the cause of your destructive behavior, however I do not detect any significant change in the way you express yourself that would be necessary if you had truly cured yourself of your "enlightenment". You express yourself in the same convoluted style as before, loving disputations as much you always did and boldly pronouncing strange unique metaphysical theories as always. At times you display a beguilingly disarming friendliness, but underneath is the same proud spirit. You are still playing the part of the provocateur extraordinaire, who while throwing in enough seeming kind words of appreciation here and there to keep someone on the line, will always prevail over those who you deem are “reactive”. The word you would previously have used instead of “reactive” is "demonic". You use your gifted intellect as a battering ram as you always did when confronting the “demonic”. Why have you made yourself now the great teacher of anti-enlightnment with essentially the same way of projecting that you have the inside track on what the truth is? This is really just the same as before, you have only changed the content. You are now the specially gifted one you is the only person in all history to reveal the mystical lie at the heart of the Eastern spiritual traditions, whereas previously you were the "World Teacher" the only person in history to reveal that enlightenment could be individuated on the level of the personality. You have toned down your language, no more mention of demonic, but the basic energy of dominating through subtle manipulation is the same. The difference I see is that now instead of confronting someone as being demonic you point out that they are defensive and reactive and you always claim the moral high ground of innocent non reactive objectivity. You then turn your scalding irony on the miscreant reactive and defensive people needing correction. This is in essence not unlike what you used to do in the bad old days of the cult, maybe it could be called RobinLite. For you coming and posting on this forum is a major temptation, it is like a alcoholic going to the bar. Robin even if you could have debated with Maharishi and won by conclusively proving that the whole Vedic tradition is a mystical lie, you would not find any real peace. You are a prisoner to your mind and it will never give you any peace, because it seems to me your mind is disturbed. I was a captive to your mind for years, as we all were, and it is a scary, dangerous, and crazy place to live. Robin you are the last member of the Robin Carlsen cult. Seek help and get yourself free. I will not enter into disputation with you and I will not change a word of what I have written. In my opinion you are mentally unbalanced and arguing with you would serve no purpose. I heard the false rumor that you had committed suicide a few years ago, when I heard it I was shocked and deeply saddened. In that moment of hearing that rumor, I realized I still had a real affection for you in spite of everything. I sincerely hope that you will find your way out of your personal prison. A number of years ago I requested of a well respected healer to do a healing for you. In spite of the toughness of what I have written, I sincerely wish you well. **************** A note to readers of FFL who have found Robin to be very intelligent, erudite, insightful, even at times kind and thoughtful. Yes Robin was all of that and more when we followed him as well, but at bottom Robin is not trustworthy, he is not what he seems. There are people on this forum who have found this out. It seems to me that the experience of Curtis exemplifies this well. I believe Robin set his sights on becoming Curtis's friend because he judged Curtis to be one of the most intelligent, interesting, and influential contributors to this forum. Robin was over the top in complimenting Curtis about his intelligence, his humor ect. ect. (not that this was not truly seen and appreciated by Robin) but it had an ulterior motive. That ulterior motive I believe is always the same for Robin i.e. to be "The Special One", who is uniquely gifted and able to delineate, define and articulate the most subtle truth that is knowable and thereby prove his special status. In doing this he fulfills his desire for recognition and power. If he could work his mojo on someone as significant on FFL as Curtis then he could conquer more of the territory that is FFL.This strategy that he tried to work on Curtis was one that is recognizable to those of us who were in the cult, Robin used it frequently. He even had a term for it, he called it compensation. When Robin was in this mode we knew he was reeling someone in so that at the right moment he would confront the hell out of them, for their own good of course. He would be as charming and complimentary as is possible and yet still be believable. I am not saying that each and every time Robin expresses appreciation of someone that it is leading up to confrontation, it is not that simplistic. At a certain point I think Curtis had enough of Robin and quite rightfully probably thought who the hell is this guy and what gives him the right to always put himself on the moral high ground and to put me through a grilling. Finally Curtis confronted Robin with the deception Robin had been carrying on about not having hit any of his followers when in fact he had. To fill in an additional point about that incident, the person who Robin hit told me he thought his jaw might have been broken by the force of the blow. Robin is subtle and very difficult to defeat in argument not because he has truth on his side but because he is very intelligent and a master of manipulation. Robin's primary method of manipulation is his insistence that he is only just innocently following the prompting of reality itself. It could be called Robin's truth-o -meter. He is constantly laying claim to being in possession of this magic truth-o-meter and apparently he has a patent on the damn thing. His favorite tactic is to claim he has the moral high ground because he is innocently following the truth with his uniquely sensitive ability to intuit the truth. If you call him on this every time he does this you will be able to able to effectively take away his most important tool in his attempt at domination through manipulation. If you don't get anything else out of this post please just follow this one essential point when interacting with Robin. One additional point is about Robin's use of irony, he can not disprove any factual statement through his use of irony, try as he might. He might well use his biting irony in response to what I have written, but it doesn't change a single fact of what I have written. Finally, what pushed me to post on FFL was Robin's comment to Share in which he surmised that those close to him felt that they had gained from the experience of being in his group. I would say I have gained in the sense that probably anyone would say they have gained from going through a trauma, for example someone who is a cancer survivor would say that they have been deepened by facing death and now appreciating the preciousness of life. What was gained has nothing to do with the cancer itself, it has to do with finding the grace and wisdom that came with the total experience.This is what I would say about my experience with Robin. This is my opinion on the question, others may differ. Robin is a fascinating character of that there is no doubt. He has very interesting, provocative and unique things to say on topics of great consequence (God,Reality,Good,Evil, Maharishi,Christianity, ect.ect.) enjoy him as pure entertainment if that is your taste, he sure does stir the pot. He is seemingly in his dharma as provocateur extraordinaire, I can't think of anyone who does it better.
