The MISA instructors

The yoga and other courses are leaded by the so called instructors. They have a special place in the Misa hierarchy. They organize and lead what happens at the courses. There are others called coordinators who do not share in the privileges of the instructors and who coordinate and lead the other courses (Shakti, Vira, Shivaism, Ayurveda, Master-disciple relationship etc.). They are considered the elite of the course and are considered infallible and the perfect example for the students.

The truly devoted Misa instructors have yoga classes on a daily basis, on every day of the week, including Sundays. Since the number of hours of a single yoga course is 4-5 hours, plus if your a good yogi you have in true Misa tradition you have at least a 2-3 hour tapas (spiritual practice) plus the yoga and other courses the instructors go to for their own pleasure, add to that the time needed for your personal or family stuff, after a few years you recognize that the best thing to do is to live off the yoga course.

Now why would this be a problem? In the eastern countries the yogis can beg and are usually supported by the community, no matter how poor it is. They also can live on the street, because the weather allows it, and of course because this is an excepted way of life there.

In the western countries if you do a few courses, take an exam and have enough money you can open up your own yoga studio or work for a yoga studio for money. This is a legitimate profession. And there is no problem with it. You learn all sorts of yoga stuff, practice it for a few years, you become good and you wish to share your knowledge with others or wish to help them discover the wonder of yoga. So you become a yoga teacher. This is good, and I totally agree with this. You ask people for a certain amount of money for your services and they pay when they come to you. This is also a good thing. This is an obvious business transaction. And there is nothing wrong with that.

But the problem at Misa is that the instructors are not like this. From the first second on they lie to the people who come to the yoga courses. They say that they do not receive money for their services, but they do it from the goodness of their heart. And you should be thankful for this. You should consider this a favor. And should look up to them for their big spiritual attitude. Of course this is not true, but is one of their manipulation methods: the students should feel stupid and inferior from second one so that they work even harder to live up to the expectations of the group and especially those of the instructor, who in this case is the substitute of the master. The all knowing aster who knows everything the students do or even think. This paranoid thought is induced from the first minutes of the first course. This is a Misa and a cult classic.

The instructors receive deductions from the money collected as course fee from the students for their travel expenses, from the yoga course fee and any other Misa course they participate in, and the camp fees. This is not money per say, but is a form of reward coming from above in the hierarchy.

Another problem is the fact that all of the instructors are smug and superior in their attitude towards the students and in general. They think that they are a special and better than everyone. They are one of the special groups inside Misa. Because of this they feel special and superior compared to everyone else.

This thought is supported by the leaders of the movement and the students.

They also are given the opportunity to sell all sorts of pyramid-schemes and Misa products. I don't know if this is true, because, yet again the information is not public, but according to the former students they pay a share to the leaders of Misa in order to be allowed to do this at the courses, officially. They also promote the books published by Misa, and I suspect that they receive some form of payment for this.

The second line of advantage is the power coming with the instructor position. They are in control of the information at the yoga or other courses. They bring in the written courses, brochures and in the advanced or “big years” the VHS tape with the audio course by the master. They control this and some of them use this to manipulate the students.

They also keep track of the number of times the students were at the yoga courses. The yoga course by Misa is organized in years of study, so far 19 years. In each year each student has a certain number of absences that are allowed if you had a reason and a certain number of absences without a reason. After a certain number of absences you had to repeat the year.

Misa always claims that all that is done at their courses is yoga, and that the courses they organize are just another course, like a cooking class or collecting stamps. Does all of this seem like it's just another course? Don't you think at another simple course you would be threatened with the humiliation of loosing a year. In Misa circles this would mean that you should be ashamed of yourself because you are not spiritual enough, you do not have enough aspiration. This is one of the biggest shames possible for a Misa student. The instructors have power over this. This is also a means of manipulation.

So in all it's not too bad to be an instructor for Misa.

MISA terms dictionary

This is a translation of a post on one of the Romanian forums exmisa. I think it's useful for those who wish to go to a yoga course organized by Misa, and to amuse those who did. And also to open the eyes of those who still are students. It's also a tribute to the Misa custom to put glossaries at the end of each book they publish, so that no one misunderstands what they are talking about.

Detachment-let him/her rot, it's his/her nasty karma

Shakti-an elevated being of feminine gender, vital, with tits to the waist, who masturbates with the help of a vibrator in front of a web camera, or does striptease to elevate the spiritual level of humanity.

Vira-know-it-all that uses the wooden language. Sometimes can be seen around a shakti, helping her in the planetary sublimation.

Karma-yogi – idiot who does not know his own value and lets other exploit him because of this.

Karma-yoghini – a sort of Shakti, but stupider, because she donates all she makes.

Enlightened person-old, horny guy, full of hate, smug, cheap, obsessed, forgetful, distracted, who knows how to attribute to himself informations he gathers and copies word by word from different sources. Spiritual being who gives out photos of himself to people so that they worship him and tell them to light 7 candles for him like for a dead man.

Urine-Misa beverage.

24 hour prayer-a moment to meat with God for a little gossip.

Consecration-or how to get rid of the responsibility for your actions.

Transfiguration-replacement for alcohol. Makes an ugly guy/girl in a beauty.

Samadhi-a legend from books, but something that no one from the Misa courses never experienced.

Meditation-the Misa version of the traditional siesta. Requires a musical background. In the superior forms the body is not immobile, but moves continuously.

Asanas-an inferior form of evolution at Misa. In the big years they use Tantra.

Laya-form of auto-suggestion consisting of the repeating of ultra-secret mantras that are available for free on the Internet, accompanied by a sound in the head. In the superior stages it leads to meditation. (for the definition of meditation see above)

Initiation-form of manipulation in which you take your wife/girlfriend to an enlightened (see definition above) old man for sex.

Initiated woman-a stupid woman who believed the lines of an enlightened man.

Initiated man-an idiot who took his wife/girlfriend to be fucked and had intercourse with before he washed.

Colored subtle currents-colors used in chrome therapy, which is taught wrong at Misa.

Sweden-country of refuge for enlightened people.

Instructors-people who cash in the fee, put on the tapes at the courses and keep presence. Some transformed in Shakti or Vira (for definitions of these see above).

Yoga student-the one who pays the fee.

Yoga student with spiritual aspirations-future Vira and initiated men. (see definition above)

Mantras-secret words, that exist for free on the Internet, used in the Laya yoga technique, and the pronunciation of which is a mystery to the Misa students and instructors and the enlightened man himself.

Kashmir shivaism-compilation of informations by means of copy-paste made by Nicu (Nicolae Catrina former president of Misa) from various sources which he defined as poorly educated. Compilation out of which all of the elements that are not in accordance with the Misa leaders and direction were taken out.

Blessing-mysterious technique through which we can get rid of the need to help someone in need whith money.

Jnana yoga-a form of yoga in which the evolution is based on awareness. It is a form of yoga unrecommended at Misa, considered to be without use.

God-all-powerful, all-knowing, all-compassing being, to which the yogis report when they forget or loose the photo of the master.

Source

Money issues

The course fee

In order to participate in the so called yoga courses you have to pay a monthly fee. When we asked in the first year what the fee was for the answer was that it is necessary to pay for the rent of the room where the courses were held, and for the different costs like water, heating, electricity etc. Also for the written course. These are printed in the Misa printing house, by the so called karma yogis, who live in the Misa ashrams (this means for free), on a very cheap paper, so you could guess, it's not something very expensive. This means that the students pay four times for the course. First for the printed course, and for the ashrams supporting the people who print the courses.

I don't know how it is outside Romania but we never received any form of receipt or any fiscal evidence for our money. This is illegal. The only thing we received for our money was a stamp and the instructors autograph on the yoga id (also produced by MISA). Also we were told that the instructors do not receive any money for their services. But they collect the money for the course (in cash), they take it to Bucharest once a month and they can deduct their course-related costs from this money (first form of payment). They also received discounts from the camp fees which are approx. 60 EUR two-three times a year (second form of payment). They also receive a deduction from the yoga and related courses fees (third form of payment). So the affirmation that the instructors do not receive any money for their services being a yoga instructor for MISA allows them to save up to half of the costs of that their regular students - who are not so privileged - have to pay.

Since all of the fees were always collected in cash, all of the profit was and still is and will be in cash, without any form of evidence and so anything can be done with this money, without the burden of having to answer for what they do with it. Even if Grieg is the wonderful, above-it-all spiritual master that they claim he is, do you really think that all of the other hundreds of people who handle Misa's money on a daily basis are so pure and perfect that they never-ever-ever once in the past 20 years have not done anything with this money?

The ashrams

The ashrams are sustained by the money from the regular students. The Romanian forums are full of the stories of yoga students men and women who say that a lot of the girls in the ashrams do video-chat to make money. Some even say that this is something that was and still is an officially recognized way to do their share of karma yoga that is mandatory for the yogis who stay there on a daily basis.

From what I understand the ashrams work in the following way. Most of the ashrams are in Bucharest There are three ashrams that I know of, but like many of the information regarding MISA, are not public. So I can not say with 100% accuracy what the number of ashrams are in Romania. Outside of Romania there are other ashrams as well. These places from what I understand based on their public information that is to be found on their homepage, have the purpose to be the place of the yoga and related courses

The ashram consist basically of one or more buildings where the misa yogis or ashramists stay. If one of the yoga students of misa wishes to stay in a misa ashram they have to send a letter to the master (Grieg) asking him to allow him or her to stay in an ashram. They also have to send the mandatory pictures and personal information. Another way of getting in a Misa ashram is to be invited by Grieg personally This option is available mainly for the good looking women and the men from Grieg's inner circle. Now the average misa yogi who only goes to the yoga courses and the meditations and or camps think at this point that this is all fine and dandy but they certainly do not allow others inside the ashrams. But sadly this is not true. Based on the preferences of the bosses of the individual ashrams, anyone could get in and stay there for free for various period of time.

The costs related to the ashrams are supported by the different courses organized by MISA. And other supposed forms of income, that are not illegal, but are very much hypocritical and very-very wrong coming from the members of a so called spiritual school and spiritual people.

Also according to some of the former students there are some special smaller luxury ashrams for the special yoghinis or preferred girls of the Mis VIP's or Grieg himself. One of these luxury ashrams is located in Costinești. I was invited to this luxury ashram in 2008 and I saw the conditions there. I stayed in the same room with a few girls from these special ashrams.

Because I never was in the main ashrams, in Bucharest, I have to base the following information on the accounts of the former members. They say that the living conditions there are poor. They don't receive enough food, they have to work very much. Also they are used to organize mass protests supporting Misa's causes, and to do special meditations for saving the planet, manipulating the political situation in the country, for favorable court decision for Grieg etc.

The only ashram I stayed in was the one of the Costinești ashrams, called Lotus. If you've been in summer camp there you know the building. It is across the street from the so called comandament, where you pick up your camp id.

The conditions were not so good, but I guess that depends on each persons individual needs or preferences There were separate rooms for men and women, but there were rooms available for married couples in the other building, called Rai (meaning heaven) across the street. This is the big building where the comandament is. In the Lotus ashram there was a special room where couples could go to make love. There was a key to this room, which was at the yogi who was in service for guarding the entrance for the building.

The rooms are small, with bunk beds. Three people stayed in one room, but it was a bit too much. If all of us were in the room at the same time, with our bags put against the wall, we barely had room to move.

The karma yogis who stayed here for the duration of the summer camp received food twice a day in the cafeteria under the room where all of the activities are held in the first period of the camp. The food was also prepared by karma yogis. It was not much, but most of the time you could go back for seconds after the serving time was over.

There was almost never warm water in the building. If we wanted to wash our clothes we had to do this in cold water, by hand, and we had to take the clothes to dry to a separate garden two doors down.

In the rest of the year few people stay here, but it's the same thing.

Other services offered by MISA

Naturist products

The Divine star, Dacia plant and other naturist products lines, are owned by Misa. On paper the firms on the names of someone close to the Misa inner circle, so that the authorities can not say that Misa has any means of income that should be taxed. The money from these go to the pockets of the leaders and also fuel the movement.

There are also no name brands commercialized inside the yoga courses, for which the instructors do promotion saying that it's important that everyone takes this or that plant that they can provide you with. Some of these are said to be special for preventing different diseases like the avian-flu, SARS, and whatever is in the news.

Lately they keep the composition of some of these products secret for a “certain reason”, which of course you never can find out, because this would mean that everyone can make these plant mixtures and no one would buy it from them. An example for this is the so called trance plant mixtures. There are different varieties: for romantic trance and trance forte. The recipe for these are secret because of “certain reasons”. This is written on the package.

Printing houses

Misa publishes esoteric books, the yoga, ayurveda, shivaism, shakti, and special courses, two magazines (Yoga magazine and Revista misterelor). These publishing houses publish the works of the privileged Misa students and the works of Gregorian Bivolaru (Grieg).

The publications are sold at the yoga courses, the spirals, the camps, and also publicly. The instructors also promote these books at the yoga courses and at the different events.