We have a situation with a former inquirer, Wayne Robert Harrison, who having used Shiningworld to learn Vedanta and set himself up as a teacher on Facebook, is abusing his ‘students’. My initial response was that it is beneath us to take this matter up. Who cares what goes on in the grimy bowels of social media? It will always be populated by the creepy crawlies living in the dark under rocks there. Let them be, is my feeling. That tamasic realm will always exist in the world of duality and ignorance. If anyone is swayed by Wayne’s con act it will backfire on them soon enough. I was not for it, but Ramji decided we had to respond after hearing the mounting allegations from people who wrote to us complaining about him. We do not like to force confrontations like this one, but sometimes they are necessary. We are in the employ of Eternal Truth and must take a stand against anything that disrespects it.
Now more than ever, truth is under siege. One ancient saying presaging the dark age or Kali Yuga, as it is referred to in the puranas, is that truth would stand on only one leg. It seems that time has come with all that is transpiring in our world. The fact is though, that while relative truth, which is truth about anything in this world, may be subjective up to a point, and fail as a result, the truth, with a capital ‘T’, never fails, changes or adapts to any personal view. It does not stand on any legs at all because it is what everything stands on. This truth, Vedanta, is inviolable. While those who wield it may be corrupt, it cannot be corrupted. It is not possible.
Wayne approached us for teaching through Shiningworld over five years ago. From what he selectively told us at the time, he was still heavily embroiled in, but purportedly trying to escape, his criminal lifestyle. We understood that he was on the run from other criminals and sought by the police. But when we pressed him for details, though he did not lie outright, he doctored the truth with great dexterity as only an accomplished conman is capable of, to make himself look like a victim. He can be charming and knows exactly how to play the game to get what he wants in most situations. And it works, for a while. But unavoidably, the chickens always come home to roost.
Like most people he manages to fool, we imagined a lifetime of great deprivation and suffering as the cause of his unfortunate criminal past. This is not true. What we did not know was that he chose a criminal life coming from a stable home. He started his nefarious career in childhood and actively sought to become an accomplished criminal. He has been incarcerated in almost every prison in Ireland and relished his time inside as an opportunity for rest, safety and, to network. He has a hardcore criminal record that is a mile long. To say he has created a lot of unenviable karma is putting it very mildly. More recently he decided that revealing all in a blog detailing his fallen past to his ‘transformation’ would give him more spiritual traction. In fact, though he seems to be quite proud of his past, while claiming to be totally reformed, of course, his life story reads more like the chilling ramblings of a sociopath.
If we had known the truth of his past, we would not have allowed him access to Shiningworld and would not have taken him on as a student. As it was, with what we did know, we were very dubious about teaching him. But as with everyone who comes to us for teaching, we gave him the benefit of the doubt. He seemed sincere about cleaning up his act, and we believe, in some ways, he was. Which is why when the law caught up with him and he landed up in prison for violent assault, though we did not believe the story he gave us, we did not abandon him. He would mail us handwritten letters from prison, to which I painstakingly replied. I personally mailed him many letters along with books to help him continue his inquiry in prison. We had and still have compassion for him.
When the time approached for him to be released, we had many stern discussions with him regarding what awaited him on the outside. While it was clear he knew about the Self, he was nowhere near having cleaned up his act or actualizing Self-knowledge. Though we did not know the full truth of his past we knew his criminal vasanas run very deep. Because we wanted to help boost his moral and keep him on stay on the straight and narrow, we introduced Wayne to our social media moderator, who took him under his wing and accepted his help to run our Facebook page.
Stan became a good friend and mentor to Wayne, showing him endless patience and compassion. But working on Shiningworld Facebook gave Wayne the perfect opportunity to sample the sweet taste of having some power over those who posted on our page. He was well taught by us and had a fairly good grasp of Vedanta doctrine, enough to impress those who know far less. Vedanta is the most powerful of all teachings and it is very easily co-opted by the ego. And for those who don’t know better, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Wayne had the worst case of enlightenment sickness we had seen, minus the enlightenment.
We realized we had to put a stop to it because he was getting out of control. We shut down our Facebook page, but after a while we tentatively opened it again. Having been chastised we thought he would follow dharma, and we were mistaken. We once again had to shut down our Facebook page and remove him from all contact with Shiningworld, this time permanently. As we had done before, we explained to him in no uncertain terms that he was not qualified to teach. I put together a long thread of satsangs James and I had had with him at that time, and with his consent, I posted it with his name on Shiningworld. He was all for having the courage to man up, to be transparent. But once it was up, he then claimed that I posted it without his permission. And then he went truly rogue.
Then, as now, he started a blame campaign against us and joined forces with other online trolls and haters trying to damage us by spreading their ridiculous fabrications about James. Unsurprisingly, he soon claimed that he had found another Vedanta teacher who told him he was qualified to teach. We doubted the veracity of this claim but have since heard that this teacher disowned him as well. Clearly, he had managed to con someone else for a while. But undeterred, because of his association with us and Shiningworld, he had access to many of our inquirers, and he set up shop on Facebook as a Vedanta teacher. This would all have been ok if he did not abuse the position. as we thought he would and, did. He has created a cult based entirely on him under the veneer of Vedanta. Not only does he threaten those who disagree or question him with immediate expulsion, he extorts money from people under the pretence of a loan which he never pays back. He even borrowed money from Stan at a time he could ill afford it and has never paid him back.
Worse still, he is abusing his position sexually with some of his women group members. We have had several women write to us alerting us to this fact. Although they are too scared of him to give us their names because he has violent tendencies and has threatened them, which tells you everything, they have told us they want to report his activities to the police. We received an anonymous account from one of the women abused by Wayne, speaking on behalf of several other women as well as herself about his financial and sexual abuse. She forwarded it through a friend to us because she wanted our advice on this matter. But she does not want to make herself known and refuses to allow us to post the excerpt, even anonymously. She is that scared of Wayne, yet for reasons known only to her, still wants to defend him. Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes.
A lot has filtered through to us over the last two years about what Wayne is up to. For a while, we chose to ignore it because we were certain Isvara would resolve it in time. We know how karma works. It will eventually come for you, there is no escape from its unerring arrow. But since the allegations grew more serious we realized that we had to take a stand for the sake of Vedanta and Shiningworld. We feel inadvertently responsible for having unleashed him onto an unsuspecting public. As the saying goes, never a good deed goes unpunished!
James has posted two satsangs about this, Fake Vedanta Teacher 1 and 2, alerting all our Shiningworld people to what Wayne is up to and where we stand on it, because this is what people who wrote in complaining have asked of us. People who do not know any better are confused about how a qualified Vedanta teacher should behave. Make no mistake, Wayne is not original in his abuse of power. The number of fake teachers extorting money and sexual favours from gullible people is legion. But it is extremely rare in Vedanta, almost unheard of. And that is because people who genuinely understand Vedanta follow dharma impeccably and understand the consequences for not doing so. But most importantly they hold the law of non-injury as their primary value. Something that Wayne seems incapable of assimilating. He has spent his life in crime harming people and not caring about the consequences.
Not surprisingly, he has mounted an indignant and self-righteous counter-attack claiming we are guilty of defamation and slander, which is really rich, coming from the hardened conman he is. He is threatening legal action, which we welcome given his criminal past and with all the evidence we have on hand proving our allegations. In addition, if we had to publish all the satsangs we have had with him over the years, it would make for a very long and very interesting read indeed.
We encourage anyone who has been burned by Wayne to come forward so that we can stop him from hurting more innocent people and save him from himself. While people are free to believe whatever they want to under the guise of ‘truth’, the truth that never changes eventually prevails. It will bring him down sooner or later.
To Wayne, who reads everything we post and who has used our material to his own ends to make his name, I leave this message. I know you will read this and distort it to your suit own purposes. As your teacher who went way beyond the call of duty for you, and the one you claimed helped you realize the Self, I say:
Shame on you. You dishonour the teachings, you dishonour us, and you dishonour yourself. What do you think you are gaining? There is nowhere to run, Wayne. There never was. You play the victim when it suits you to get what you want. But no matter how many people you manage to con, the greatest victim in your pathetic adharmic life story is you.
We know there is a pure soul in you somewhere. That is why we tried to help you.
Find him.
Sundari
