Ryker:10. Opinions, Likes and Dislikes
I had serious conflicts with some of the other members of the group. The ones that stood out were, Martina, who was his right-hand-man for a time. I knew she was abusing her position because Angelo gave her a lot of power to make decisions for people. I remember one time going up into my bedroom and my telephone was gone. I discovered Martina took it because Angelo’s phone had broken and she thought everyone should just serve him without question. This was while I was trying to be the president of a company and she takes my phone… without asking me or anything. I was always telling Angelo, “There’s something wrong here… she’s misusing her power and position.” And again his response to me was, “You don’t question her!” Just like with Malario. Martina was one of the people from
Gaboto was another one I had trouble with. The most stubborn, ornery, my-way-or-the-highway person I had ever met. And it was literally impossible for me to get along with him. There was such a deep misunderstanding between us. He also joined the group back in
The people I got along with were Spicoli. Hebetudino.. but that was touch and go… Xena… No-one until Xena came along… I mean, I got along with most people. As far as being inspired…not a lot of people inspired me. Little things people would do might inspire me -- but I had myself in a role of BEING the inspirer. I felt like that was my job. I didn’t really have anyone to “feed me” in that way. Angelo wasn’t because I was becoming more and more grossed out by him so I was really starting to feel that I was on my own.
I would say my time of greatest involvement was from right from the beginning all the way up until the end. My whole life was satsang. From beginning to end it was total. Even though I definitely (toward the end) was at the end of my rope with Angelo. Even so, prior to a year ago, there had never been a time that I considered leaving the group.
It was definitely presented that if you are in the group you are supposed to share Angelo’s opinons about thing. I had my own opinions. But I knew he didn’t want to hear them. In the beginning, when I was 23 or so, maybe I tried to share his opinions… but as soon as I started seeing that he would just express opinions about things to share whatever he felt like sharing at that time. Like with a movie.. if I didn’t like the movie and he said, “Wow you didn’t see this in it?” I fell for that for a little while. Then I saw how he’d say anything he wanted to about a movie -- at any given time it can be a great movie or a shitty movie and it doesn’t matter! He just wanted to say certain things and he used whatever to do that. So I didn’t feel obligated to share his opinions. I felt disgusted by those that tried to as a matter of fact.
Opinions about stuff:
We were supposed to follow his very specific rules about eating. Meaning what to eat or not. When to eat or not. For discipline. And he would say it affected our meditation. And that we were creating karma by eating certain things. He’d say certain things are poison… like potatoes are poison. To me, his idea of healthy eating was based on that food triangle out of the 60’s… no starches… It was ridiculous.
Marriage, spouses, children… we were supposed to think they were all ridiculous. Because we are here for enlightenment and all of that other stuff was really low and commonplace… that traditional B.S. marriage, “I love you, honey.” I accepted completely his idea of that as my own. Now here I am about to get married. But I started all this so young that I’m finding I’m really steeped in that part of his ideology. Some of it I just picked up… I guess it jived with me.
As far as our ideas about our parents, I was a little different because I invited my parents to Satsang and they came and became an active part of my life. And I’m sure they came because they knew if they didn’t they wouldn’t see me. Because I’m like this sub-leader of this group. This is my responsibility. It’s my job. It’s my vocation.
Pets. We had a cat that we brought from
As far as different races went, I think he had a general naive prejudice against black people from where he grew up (in
Other spiritual teachers. Rajneesh was generally accepted. Yogananda was accepted. Christianity was considered absurd. Most things were absurd. And, of course, you weren’t supposed to read anything except for the books Angelo told you to read.
Sex and relationships was considered very low and limited. And frowned upon. You’re not supposed to have it (even though I never stopped.) And a lot of people were mad at me since I had a position of power they thought I was “getting away with something.” I don’t think I ever heard him say that he had transcended sex and that he didn’t have sex. He did seem to imply that all the time. But I don’t think I heard him say that myself. Love relationships were considered low because you’re turning the other person into an object… expecting things from them, and being devoted to them (instead of God.)
What we were supposed to think about Angelo. That changed. More and more he put himself in the role of the infallible, omniscient, clairvoyant Master. And during the last 5 years it got really bad. I spent the last 5 years of my life, literally,… my whole purpose was to be against that. I got so much of my identity being against that. And whenever I had my meetings I shared against that and everyone that was allowed to come to my meetings (which he didn’t want but couldn’t really prevent) wanted to hear what I had to say. Because it was more universal. It was truth. It wasn’t about worship of the Master. He and I had so many fights about this… I’d say, “This is guru-worship. What are you doing? Where have you gone?” And he would say, “I’ve evolved. You’re not letting me evolve. You’re not letting me be where I’m at right now. You haven’t seen that I’ve evolved.” And I’m sure… God knows what stories there are about why I left the group, but I’m sure I’ve become a demon, and Judas, and shortsighted, and I’ve “gone back to my old ways” and I’ve “stopped serving God”, and… who knows what he’s saying.
Charity: Angelo was not at all into doing social work or volunteering at homeless shelters or anything. He scoffed at that, like he did with most things. Scoffed at them and said, “Let dumb people do that who don’t care about God. That’s really low. You have higher work to do here.”
School/education: All such thigns are completely unimportant. Because you’re just going to die one day anyway and your diploma isn’t going to do anything for you if you’re not free.
Businessmen were very, very low. I had a business -- which was fine because he asked for lots of money for different things. Like $25,000 for a trip to
Abilities/Talents: I used to write a lot of music and I would play it in the meetings. So I got to express myself that way. But it was really a very narrow road that I had to go down as far as where I could go and what I could say in the songs. That was again another bone of contention. He liked it to be literally correct (with his philosophy of spirituality) and if I veered off into any kind of poetic license, I would hear about it. It made me sick. I remember having this conversation with him about a line in a song… it’s a song called, “I Will Mother You.” It’s a song we were doing in the group choir. It’s basically a mother singing to her child. And one of the lines was “all the violence in your soul” and one of the other people in the choir pointed out “but the soul has no violence, it’s Divine, so we have to change that line.” And I’m like, “No… it’s poetic. You don’t have to change it.” So of course that person called Angelo and I quickly got a call about it, berating me for it. “There’s no violence in the soul. Make it something else.” He’d always turn it into something else… which, he didn’t have a really good command of the English language but he thought he could make poetry in a language he didn’t command very well. It was awful. He would write lyrics to songs and they were repulsive to me, as an artist. So my creativity was very limited in that way. And I would constantly be held up as the example of an uncultured person. Somehow he got it in his head that since I was from