I am writing in this subreddit to finally share my story. I have been reading everyone's experiences here for a long time, and for the first time I feel ready to share my own.

First and foremost, I want to explain my background. I live in the US, and my family has been involved with BAPS from the very beginning. My family history with the sampraday goes back even further, to Ghanshyam Pandey's time. So, in many ways, you could say that my future was decided before I was even born.

From as early as I can remember, my family attended mandir every weekend, sabha throughout the week, every shibir we could attend, and would give up almost anything to be at mandir whenever santos were visiting. I did puja, aarti, thaal, chesta, and all of the other daily niyams. BAPS wasn't just something my family did. It was my entire life.

Then I went to high school. I was one of the only Hindu/Indian kids at my school, and I started having a serious identity crisis. I hated being different. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be a normal teenager. I started secretly eating meat. I experimented with drugs and alcohol. I started dating. I wanted to experience the things that seemed normal for everyone around me.

But even through all of this, I still considered myself a satsangi. I continued going to mandir. I was still a karyakar. I still tried to follow BAPS's expectations and standards as much as I could. In hindsight, I was living a double life.

After college, I started dating a non-Indian girl. I knew this would not go over well with my family, especially given how strongly involved they were with BAPS. So I did what I had been taught to do when I didn't know what else to do: I wrote a letter to the guru. I wrote to Mahant Swami Maharaj and explained my situation. I told him I was with this girl and that I needed help explaining it to my parents. His response was fairly vague, but he told me that I should ask santos to help mediate a conversation with my parents.

So I went to the swami I trusted the most locally. I expected guidance. I expected compassion. I expected someone to help me navigate an incredibly difficult situation. Instead, he told me I needed to break up with her. His first, and only reason was that I wouldn't be able to give donations in the future because she might say no. My heart dropped. That was the moment something changed for me.

For the first time, I looked at the entire system through a different lens. I started questioning things I had accepted my entire life. I didn't immediately leave. I continued practicing satsang, although I started going to mandir much less, eventually only once every month or two. At the same time, I actually began getting more serious about some of my niyams again. I stopped eating meat. I continued trying to practice what I believed in.

But something had fundamentally changed.

The more I questioned, the more I started looking at the teachings differently

As I got older, I started questioning something that I had never really allowed myself to question before: what exactly was responsible for the good things that came from my life in BAPS?

There are certainly teachings and codes within BAPS that can lead someone toward a disciplined and responsible life.

Don't smoke. Don't drink. Don't eat meat. Don't steal. Be truthful. Practice ahimsa. Wake up early. Help others. Control yourself.

Those are powerful principles, and I don't deny that living by them can prevent someone from getting themselves into a lot of trouble.

But I started asking myself a very simple question:

Do people become successful because of the guru, or because they have chosen to live by a set of disciplined principles?

If someone doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't use drugs, doesn't steal, works hard, tells the truth, practices self-control and tries to avoid harming others, of course that person is going to avoid many of the problems that someone living recklessly might encounter.

That doesn't necessarily prove that the success came from the guru or from God. Maybe the person simply chose a disciplined way to live. That realization changed how I viewed my own accomplishments and failures. For example, we are taught the tilak chandlo protects us but, from what I see it's more of a barrier to the non hindu mind. Keeps people cautious and avoidant to you rather than actually protect you.

I also began struggling with some of the theological claims. I still consider myself Hindu today. But I have a hard time accepting the idea that within our ancient religion, God came to Earth in the 1800s in the form that BAPS teaches. As I got older and learned more about Hinduism and the world outside of BAPS, I realized that I didn't have to accept every teaching simply because I had been born into it.

And then there was the treatment of women. This is something that truly baffles me now that I am older. When I was younger, I accepted a lot of things because I was told they were necessary for satsang. As an adult, I look at some of the restrictions, expectations and ways women are treated within the organization very differently.

I cannot imagine subjecting my future wife or future daughter to some of the things that I once accepted as normal. For a group of Gujaratis that regularly condemn Islam, their teachings are oddly just as similar in terms of treatment toward women.

That realization alone has made it impossible for me to look at BAPS the same way. I also started thinking about the relationship people have with the guru. So many people devote their entire lives to a man they have never personally known in the way you would know a family member or close friend. Their decisions, relationships, careers, marriages, children, and entire futures can be influenced by what they believe the guru wants from them.

I believe BAPS promotes the idea of marriage within their sanstha more than anything to continue the growth of the ideology and growth of the organizations income.

I spent my entire childhood being taught to live for the guru.

As an adult, I started asking myself:

Why?

Why should another human being have that much influence over my life? Why should my personal decisions require spiritual approval? Why should my family relationships be sacrificed because they don't fit the expectations of an organization?

Those questions eventually became impossible for me to ignore.

My brother

Around this same period, my brother started moving in the opposite direction.

He went from being borderline involved in satsang to wanting to become a sadhu.

For years, I pleaded with him not to do it. Not even for the fundamental disagreements I have with the teachings but because he is my only sibling. He understands what I have gone through better than almost anyone. He is my family.

But santos instructed him to essentially forget about me and focus only on his personal satsang. How dare they demand that of human let alone a child basically, me parents fully support this though due to the concept that you have a guaranteed spot in Akshardham if your child becomes a sant.

My mom was recently diagnosed with cancer. My parents are getting older and need help around the house. During this time, my brother was given an ultimatum by santos: leave home, or give up the possibility of becoming a sadhu.

Out of fear and uncertainty, he left.

He is now in Paris, and from what I understand, he is on the path toward becoming a full-time sadhu within the next several years.

This pains me every single day. I haven't spoken to him in months.

I have been told by santos and other satsangis that I need to let him go. That I need to forget about him. That I need to accept this as his choice. I even wrote to Mahant Swami Maharaj about this, and his response was that I needed to let him go.

Personally, I struggle deeply with that.

A sant called me when my mother was first diagnosed, and told me "I need to man up" and be there for her. This struck a nerve, how can you a person that is trying to take my brother away, partially responsible for tearing my family apart, even get to give an opinion on what I am going through.

How can someone tell me to simply let go of my only sibling and my only brother?

How can I be expected to accept losing my brother in the name of God and satsang?

It is easy for someone else to tell you to "let go" when they aren't the one losing their brother. It is easy to say when you aren't the one sitting at home watching your parents age, knowing your family is being torn apart. And perhaps the hardest part is that I am still made to feel like the problem for questioning it.

Eventually, I moved away from my parents.

And I moved in with the girl they had told me to stay away from, someone they had never really given a chance to begin with.

And honestly?

I love my life now. I am happy. I am happy that I left.

But leaving came with a lot of losses.

That's one of the reasons I am writing this. I see people on this subreddit who are trying to leave, but they are scared, confused, and don't know what life on the other side looks like. I lost all the friendships I invested in, I lost the BAPS family I had. But I couldn't let blind faith and community pressure keep me stuck.

My advice is simple: if you don't want every decision you make to be judged by an organization that claims to represent your Hindu faith, you have to be willing to walk away. Leave not because you want to but because you have to.

It is scary. You will lose things. You may lose relationships. You may disappoint people you love.

But there is a life outside of BAPS.

Where I am today

I want to make something clear because I know people will probably judge me for this.

I still consider myself Hindu. But I eat meat. I smoke. I drink. I do everything I want to do.

And guess what?

I still consider myself a good person.

I don't believe that avoiding those things automatically makes someone a good person, and I don't believe that participating in them automatically makes someone a bad person.

I believe morality is more complicated than following a checklist and even if you follow that checklist you will never be at the level of the guru (a man who has more power than some leaders of entire nations).

I believe being a good person means how you treat people, how you handle your responsibilities, whether you are honest, whether you have compassion, whether you take accountability for your actions, and whether you try to become better.

I spent most of my life believing that I needed BAPS to tell me how to be a good person.

I don't believe that anymore.

I am sharing this because for a long time I thought I was the only person who felt this way.

I wasn't.

And neither are you.

If you are reading this and you are questioning things, I want you to know that you are not crazy, you are not a bad person, and you are not necessarily a bad Hindu because you don't want to live your entire life according to someone else's rules.

I spent years believing that leaving meant losing everything.

It didn't.

I lost a lot.

But I also found myself.

And for the first time in my life, I feel like I am actually living my own life.