WARNING!!!! Stay away from Agama Yoga. It is a sex cult and many assaults have taken place there. It is a DANGEROUS place!!!! Google it for info.
So it’s time for me to share my side of this story… grab a cup of tea and bear with me cause it will be long (but please, read anyway cause it's really important!)
I had been at Agama Thailand from Oct, 2014 to Feb, 2016. I started as a student, then I became a teacher and further then I took the Operations Manager position so I’m sharing this article from a place of knowing.
I’ve learnt many years ago, with my Tibetan Buddhism Lama, that no one should ask for or should be given any kind of forgiven cause all of us are doing our best all the time. I brought this teaching to my life and I practice compassion.
I also learnt, even at Agama, that Kali is the goddess of fierce love and she is the one who cuts the heads of the demons who are killing their sons and she licks their blood so they can’t keep reproducing themselves. She uses her fierce love to kill the evil. I also brought this teaching to my life and now it’s Kali time for me.
I deeply believe that there is no good - as best as it can be - that could justify any evil.
I’m compassionate about the ones who are involved. I know they are doing their best. I know some of them might not have / had the intention to hurt women (not Narcis Eduard Tarcau’s case, for the record). And I know it’s hard to face all of this storm now. I feel for them and for the ones who are close to them.
But fact is that, no matter what, hurting is happening and it has to stop. Now. And responsibility needs to be taken by everyone who is involved, in any way.
I’m not simply sharing a “sensational” article. I’m here to say: I had been there. I saw it happening. Several women came to me looking for support. Some of the things exposed in the article happened to me as well. I burned myself out trying to make things happen in a different way. I have failed, unfortunately.
And I was not the first one who have failed. Women’s abuse has been happening for too long at Agama. People has been working to change it for too long. Agama has been saying they will take definitive actions to stop this toxic behaviour for too long and they never did.
What they do is to manipulate people who are close to them to believe they will do something. What they do is to gain time to make people tired to fight against them. What they do is to pay the local authorities to not interfere.
I'd been told by an elder teacher that I was losing my time and energy trying to change something. I didn’t want to listen to her. I couldn’t believe those things would keep happening so I kept doing everything I could.
After a lot of fighting and hearing continuously "I don’t care / I’m not anyone’s father / I’m not here to take care of anyone / Let them cry / Let them go away”, Narcis Eduard Tarcau finally agreed to look at his behaviour, to start to attend women only with his secretary together in the session, to offer professional support for women who had been feeling abused in any way. He made me believe all of this would happen. He motivated me to interview people, looking for someone who would support us, he motivated me to tell women we were working towards a solution, he gave me his word he would not get involved sexually with students again. And I wanted that to happen so much that I kept going.
Today I look back and I question myself why I believed him since the signs were so clear that he wouldn’t do anything. What comes to me is: Koh Phangan was my home. I had great friends there. I really liked to go for my yoga classes and Bhajans and group meditations. I was working there. I had a beautiful lover. I was living my life there as I wanted it to be. And I didn’t want the dream to come to an end…
This been said, it took me a while to understand he was just manipulating me. He was just saying whatever I wanted to hear and he was making me busy so he could keep doing whatever he wanted. Needless to say, but I will: he never changed. Nothing ever changed.
And if you’re not happy with a situation, change it or leave it. Right? I used all my energy to change it, to the point I couldn’t get up from my bed - I’m dealing with Chronicle Adrenal Fatigue until this day. So I left cause all that toxic situation was really far from a dream.
I started my healing process while I was still working at Agama, with Ananta Kranti’s support. Later on, she introduced me to Shakti Malan who had been my mentor and teacher til her passing last year. And I keep finding support at wonderful women’s spiritual groups. I keep studying tantric sexuality, doing Shadow Work, learning how to deal with trauma and so much more in order to transform and resignify everything that I learnt and experienced at Agama. I became a Sexual Awakening for Women facilitator cause I deeply wanted to support women and that’s why I’m exposing myself and my story - even being an introvert and an empath and preferring to stay very far from confrontation.
So, yes, there were good things about Agama and the yogic community and I believe there are still good things happening there and great people around. But I believe nothing will change if the school is not closed.
Narcis Eduard Tarcau is the leader and he has disciples. And the teachings diminish women, putting them in a lower / inferior position. It’s clear that the problem is not only Narcis. The problem is endemic and it is institutionalised.
As I said before, it’s Kali time. Heads has to be chopped and the blood has to be licked. With love, yes, but fiercely. All this pain has to come to an end.
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EDIT: Several friends contacted me inbox worried about what had happen to me at Agama so I decided to be clearer about it.
Fortunately, for me, I was strong in my power so I was able to say NO and to stand up for myself so my physical integrity was preserved (aka I've never been touched, grabbed, kissed, raped or anything in between).
My burn out had to do with dealing daily with Narcis Eduard Tarcau and his lack of integrity with myself and with others. Fight him almost everyday was terribly exhausting.
And I was bearing with him trying to diminish me and to not legitimate what I had to discuss with him, saying:
- How long have you been without good love making? You’re so stressed…
- How many lovers do you have? If it’s just one, find another one, you need more love making my dear.
- Who is your lover? I’ll talk to him cause he’s definitely not doing a good job. You should be smiling and being sweet.
- How many days a week are you making love? If you do it frequently, you feel blissful… it doesn’t seem to be your case. (I can help you with that / I can assign a senior teacher for you to have sex with)
- A woman who has deep internal orgasms for 2 hours every now and then don’t have your bad humour / is not picky as you are / is not bossy…
- I can feel some heavy energy in your voice. Are you having your period?
- You seem to be emotionally unstable today, dear. Are you about to have your period?
- Do you know you can make love even when having your period? It would help you a lot with the madness.
And there was the seducing game happening all the time as well:
- I had a lover who was a Capricorn, rising Scorpio - just like you. Those are the best women, they are like volcanos! I love volcanos...
- I would love to try your fire.
- (Me: I was screaming at you - he was far away from me - but you didn’t listen so I’m calling you) I would give my life to hear you screaming to me.
- (Me: I’m feeling so happy today) Come dance over me to celebrate.
And much more...
While saying those things, he was always making “seductive” faces as well and every time I was looking at him as “seriously?”, he was putting his shoulders down and making “sad little dog” faces and turning his back to me.
Every time I was not indulging his behaviour, he would act like a teenager who had been disapproved by his mother (yes, he has serious issues with his mother).
I was also constantly been offered to have sexual mentors - aka Narcis Eduard Tarcau and advanced teachers proposing to have sex with me - so I could "learn" about the wonders of tantric sex and walk faster in my path to awakening. I never took the many "opportunities" I had.
So, my adrenal fatigue came from too much work been done with almost no support (I was responsible for Services / Registration Office, Maintenance, IT, Agama and Healing Center Admin and Finances, Community and Legal) and I had to manage Narcis Eduard Tarcau so he could let me do the work that was needed plus all the fighting, lack of integrity and people suffering (students, staff and teachers) that was going on.
And it got worse cause I went to Maha (who is a medical doctor who had treated me very wisely before, telling her my story and my symptoms and she told me my hormones were all unbalanced but she couldn't help me cause I was dealing with a spiritual challenge and I should keep going on with my life and ask for grace to be healed. This was end of July, 2015 (I started working at the school on April 27th, 2015). I believed her (I trusted her very much and I held her very dearly in my heart) so I kept working and dealing with Swami until October, when I finally resigned. But my phase out went til mid Feb, 2016 when I could really leave my job. When I came back to Brazil and I had the opportunity to have a medical appointment I learnt I had Chronicle Fatigue and I was so bad cause I didn't stop working and stressing when it was in the beginning.
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EDIT 2: I just learnt I shouldn't be referring to Narcis Eduard Tarcau as Swami so I changed all "Swami" of my text to his birth name.
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EDIT 3: Dee Sunshine had shared my post sating he doesn't believe Agama needs to be closed as I state so I took the opportunity to talk about my reasons to believe Agama has to be closed.
Thank you Dee for mentioning where you stay at. I would like to say that, in my point of view - from what I had experienced as a student, teacher and manager - for Agama to remain open, it would need to suffer a huge reform. Some things I have in mind (just initial ideas that would need to be worked at, shared, thought more about, refined) are:
* Taking Narcis completely out of the school - completely
* Having a strong feminine presence in a leadership position
* Having clear, well defined, strong guidelines about each and every role of the ones involved in the community, built based on safety and support (there are some good examples around)
* A commission with internal (teachers, staff) and external integrants (maybe some elected by the community) to keep vigilance on the guidelines so they are a living process happening at the community
* Having an external investigator once a year (at least in the first 5 years) to guarantee things are on trail - according to the guidelines
* Professional management which takes care of the business and who has her/his action submitted to judgement by the commission, when it comes to disrespecting of the guidelines
* Having a complete review on the teachings (I mean re-writing / re-defining them and remake the materials) made by senior serious professionals who truly understand the Shiva / Shakti dynamic / concept bringing it to it's original and sacred meanings. A few examples of what I'm referring to:
- Agama actual teachings define women as Shakti - mater, inferior to man as Shiva - spirit and this is a distorted and misogynistic way of seem (and teaching) this concepts
- Taking out of class all Narcis' videos - they are played in every Level
- Re-training teachers to teach the new curriculum which would be more balanced feminine - masculine approach
This been said, why I believe Agama should be closed?
1- I've been working as Cultural Change Management Consultant and as an Executive Coach (ICF Certificated), acting mainly in support leadership development and there is no change unless the leadership want to and fully embrace it. I know Narcis very well and I strongly believe he won't step out of the school definitively and he doesn't want to change anything (starting by himself). He sees his behaviour as of one of a Samurai who does whatever is needed to protect his beliefs (he is very proud of it) and he doesn't realise his lack of integrity - he doesn't see what he does as wrong or immoral or damaging. Without awareness of the problem, there's no change possible.
2- Maha is a medical doctor and a yoga therapy teacher and she is profoundly influenced by Agama's misogynistic culture (which is very similar to the one of her guru - who was Narcis' guru as well), she has been manipulated by Narcis as well to the point she doesn't acknowledge her own capacity and she is definitely not a manager nor even a strong feminine presence.
3- I had been working with culture changing in big multinational corporations and for it to really happen it demands a lot of investment (money, time and energy), a lot of involvement and commitment, a lot of ego transformation and a lot of work in processes and training, all lead by very well experienced professionals. Some cultural changes (like the one Agama needs) take several years to happen and to solidify. I dont see any interest from Agama to invest on this.
4- The guidelines could be built based on other school's / ashrams good guidelines but if there's not a deep change in the culture and a real engagement of the teachers, staff and management, they won't be of any value cause things will remain the same in the backstage (as they are so far). Same for the commission. Same for the investigation.
5- I also don't believe Narcis would agree to have HIS teachings and materials being reviewed by "who knows who". He sees himself as a demigod and his teachings are sacred.
I state all of this with my heart sorrowful cause - again - I had good times at Koh Phangan and I know there are great people around and there are good things happening at Agama (despite of everything). But I can no longer deceive myself that things will change considering all the effort required and all the lack of awareness and willingness showed so far (from my point of view).
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Please share it hardly, like, comment, ask questions. Just don’t ignore it. There’s no time for this anymore.
"If you have experienced sexual assault at Agama please write to: agamasurvivors@gmail.com where your testimonial can be submitted and you can receive support, help and other options for your situation. All submissions are strictly confidential and are received by a counselor on Ko Pha-ngan knowledgeable of the situation"
https://medium.com/@bescofield/women-accuse-agama-yoga-founder-swami-vivekananda-saraswati-of-sexual-assault-28baf12c781e
I am sorry for what happened to you. But I wonder why, if you knew what was going on, you didn't report it/him to the authorities? I lived on the island for 10 years and knew the stories. I was also told many times by higher ups on the island that Agama was going to be shut down. This never happened because he kept paying the right people off. I feel that if the women that worked there and knew what was going on spoke up and warned other women than perhaps it wouldn't have gone on for so long. So I question why this never happened. Yes, I get it, he manipulated you into believing things would change. But you said women kept coming to you for support, so you knew that nothing actually was changing.
Sorry. I don't mean to sound harsh or insensitive. I am 100% sensitive to your situation. But as a women, and a yoga teacher, I don't understand why women working there didn't do anything about it. The goings on at Agama were/are not only illegal, but completely unethical. At the very least, it should have been reported to the Yoga Alliance so that the school was striped of their affiliation.
Again, I am not being insensitive. I am just shocked that it was allowed to go on as long as it did and that it took this long to finally come out.
Yes!!! 100% right!! And I know a girl personally who is one of the sexual victims of that school. The teacher manipulated her to have sex and then gave her Chlamydia. She was in pieces. We both lived on the Island for 9 months. There are WAY better yoga schools in KP!! KEEP AWAY FROM THIS AWFUL PLACE!!!
Can you give me the name of a better yoga school in KP? I went with a friend today after hearing he had been sacked but he was there. We didn't like his vibe.
He can't be sacked. He owns the place. But I was under the understanding that he had left the country and was going to remain out of it. So thanks for the heads up.
There are plenty of other schools on the island. The Yoga Retreat is excellent and has excellent teachers. Also try Orion, Samma Karuna or Wonderland Healing Centre.
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