Ex-Morninglanders

Copatos / Matt: The Morningland Frying Pan and Fire

I was a young dude when I came into ML. I was 17.

In my mind Sri rescued me from an extremely abusive family life. She did that, she pulled me out of one abusive family and brought me in to her family, an even more abusive one.

Even at that young age Sri stripped me of everything I was. No more surfing, no more baseball, ML policy said no drugs, so I quit smoking pot. That in itself isn’t a bad thing, but how hypocritical can you get?!?!

I entered ML not for the promise of a ride home, but for the self realization, the oneness, the peace of mind, the love, the brotherhood, the family, and so I could find myself. As far as I’m concerned the only solid time you experience that is when you first walk in the door and for about a half hour after you become a disciple. Just enough to get you in the door and keep you there. There were hints of those feelings throughout my discipleship, but what I mostly experienced was years of being afraid of where the next mind fuck was going to come from. Even in the times that I felt that I was “getting it”, I was always deathly afraid and constantly felt like I was walking on eggshells all the time. What a way to “grow up” in those formative years, I was there from the time that I was 17 till I was 25, about 8 and a half years. Those are the years most people are growing from being a teenager and finding out who they are as a man. I didn’t do that in ML, when I left I was still a teenager at 25, and an extremely confused one at that.

The first thing I did when I left (even while doing all those drugs), was go and find out who I am as an adult. That took years, the drugs slowed me down in that. I missed out on so much, a college education for one. Sri, Melikia, and Mahanta made sure of that, they said, “Are you still in school Matt? You don’t have a job?”, in sneering, nasty voices. I immediately quit going to Palomar J.C., and got a job at MacDonalds. That one fucked me for life. I’m the first one to admit, it’s my fault, I did it.

I loved them so much, felt I owed them so much, that I just immediately dropped everything I was doing and did whatever they asked. I wanted all of the same things you did while you were there Terry. I wanted the peace of mind, the spiritual growth, the love. I truly believed in the dream of Morningland. The one where ML would grow and thrive, spreading oneness across the world, helping everyone who needed it. I wanted to be a part of that, and Sri had me convinced that I could do that best by serving as part of the leadership in ML. Boy was I fooled!

Look at where ML is today, a closed up, walled off, keep like building that houses less than 100 disciples. Sri has never had any intention of seeing Donato’s dream of Morningland come to fruition. That was painfully obvious to me even while I was still there. If you asked me at the time I’d have denied it, but I knew it, and the knowledge wasn’t that far beneath the surface.

As far as animosity is concerned, I don’t think I have any towards them. I know they helped me in many ways. Many, many ways, I wouldn’t be the person I am without their teachings. But now, I’m in the middle of realizing that for all the ways they helped me, they held me back in twice as many ways. So when you cancel out a good act with a bad one, what do you get? The answer is nothing, an empty space, kind of like a black hole.

So what are we saying here? That ML is the black hole that they were always berating us about? It’s a good possibility, Sri has been abusing her powers for a long time now. I’m the first one to admit, there is real power in ML, you feel it from the first time you walk in the door. It’s intense, powerful, real. Sri used to teach that we have to keep the Uranian energies moving outward, if we pull them inward and keep those energies to ourselves we’ll end up imploding, becoming nothing. Is that what we’re witnessing happening to Morningland? The implosion of everything Donato created because Sri wants to keep it all to herself and a select few?

Remember the story of the big frog in a little pond, that’s the story of Lucifer. I’ve been wondering for a while now (actually a number of years though I wouldn’t admit it), if that’s not the story of what’s happened to Sri and ML. Sri’s gotten too into the power and money and abuse of power and forgotten the true vision of ML. I don’t think we’ll see ML in Long Beach for too much longer. If they survive, good for them, but I’m not going back to that hellhole!

–Matt