Thakar Singh Myth Busters

Setting the Record Straight on Sant Thakar Singh

Myth: Sant Thakar Singh mistreated children in a “Sant Thakar Singh” meditation center in Buchendorf, Germany.

Status: Multiple

  • A mother and father, initiates of Sant Thakar Singh (see Initiate), while living with a third initiate in a private home in Buchendorf, Germany, displayed irresponsible behaviour by forcing their child to meditate (see Meditation) and depriving the child of common-sense parental care. The father and the house owner received six months probation for child mistreatment in a Munich court in 1995.
  • The private home in Buchendorf was not associated with Sant Thakar Singh nor any organization supporting his work, and Sant Thakar Singh was not aware of and never condoned these individuals’ irresponsible behaviour towards the child.

Origins:

In 1993, a Sant Thakar Singh initiate (see Initiate) in Buchendorf invited two other initiates and their two-year-old child to stay with her in her house, which she self-proclaimed to be a meditation center of Sant Thakar Singh. Against common sense—and against Sant Thakar Singh’s teachings that children are best taught through the loving and caring example of their parents—this overzealous initiate implemented a strict regimen of discipline and meditation for herself and her guests that went far beyond the pale of reason and caring.

What she didn’t realize is that the spiritual path and the meditation are not a mathematical nor a military exercise, but rather a path of love and caring and inner unfoldment that cannot be forced.

The ill-treatment of the child came to a halt with the intervention of the German authorities. Sant Thakar Singh was aggrieved by the adults’ behaviour in this case and by the distress the child had to endure due to this incident. He reiterated the importance of the parents’ love and care toward their children as key to any child’s healthy development.

The self-proclaimed meditation center in Buchendorf was not in any way a project of Sant Thakar Singh nor any organization supporting his work, nor were the activities at that location ever condoned or supported by Sant Thakar Singh nor any organization supporting his work.

Though Sant Thakar Singh often paid visits to local initiates as part of his frequent speaking tours abroad, Buchendorf, Germany is conspicuously on the list of places he never visited.