Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

Tibetan, rides up to us and says in a subdued voice: 'Not far from here, as the Dalai Lama was
traveling to Mongolia, all the people and animals in the caravan began to tremble and the Dalai Lama
explained that they should not be alarmed since they had entered the forbidden zone of Shambhala
and the vibrations of the air were strange to them” (Schule der Lebensweisheit, 1990, p. 73). A plume
of toxic gas is also supposed to have streamed out of one of the famous Indian crematoria, the
meeting place of many Maha Siddhas. It was assimilated by the submarine fire of the doomsday mare
(Kalagni) also mentioned in the Kalachakra Tantra (White, 1996, p. 234).
Since Auschwitz , the terror of gas is also associated with the fate of the Jews and it is not surprising
that Asahara as an admirer of Hitler integrated an aggressive anti-Semitism into his system. In a
special issue of the AUM journal, Vajrayana Sacca, entitled “Manual of Fear”, war is declared on the
Jewish people: “On behalf of the world’s 5.5 billion people, Vajrayana Sacca hereby declares war on
the ‘world shadow government’ that murders untold numbers of people and, while hiding behind
sonorous phrases and high-sounding principles, plans to brainwash and control the rest. Japanese
awake! The hidden enemy’s plot has long since torn our lives to shreds” (Brackett, 1996, pp. .107-
108).
The international contacts
AUM Shinrikyo was not a purely Japanese phenomenon but rather an international one that spread
explosively through several countries, principally Russia. The starving nation, hungry for any spiritual
message after so many years of communist dictatorship, became a paradise on earth for the guru from
the Far East. In 1992 he stood in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow with 300 of his followers,
smiling and giving the victory salute. The pose had its effect. Within just a few months AUM was
experiencing an unbroken rise in popularity across all of Russia. At its peak the number of members
exceeded 30,000. Asahara enjoyed a surprisingly broad public recognition. He held a sermon on
“Helping The World to Happiness with the Truth” before a packed crowd at the University of
Moscow. He was introduced to the nascent capitalist power elite as “Japan’s representative Buddhist
leader (Kaplan and Marshall, 1996, p. 70).
The guru even gained influence over leading Russian politicians. He maintained an especially warm
relationship with the influential chairman of the Russian Security Council, Oleg Ivanovich Lobov, at
this stage one of Boris Yeltsin’s close friends. Lobov is said to have done not a little to assist the
spread of the sect. Asahara also knew how to cultivate contacts with well-known scientists. Things
were similarly successful on the propaganda front: in 1992, the government station Radio Moscow
broadcast his program “The Absolute Truth of Holy Heaven” twice a day.
Of course, Asahara was not tightfisted when it came to donations, a gesture which at that time in
Russia opened all doors. But that doesn’t explain the large influx of enthusiasts who received nothing
other than the pretty words of the “last messiah”. One gains the impression that here an heir of Agvan
Dorjiev’s Shambhala vision- where the hidden kingdom was to be sought in Russia — was at work.
AUM Shinrikyo was the first religious sect from a highly industrialized country which with deliberate
terror tactics turned on humanist society as such. It came from a religious milieu which espoused like
no other the principle of nonviolence — that of Buddhism. Until then, people had known only occult
groups like the 900 followers of Jim Jones in Jonestown, or the Sun Temple in Switzerland and
Canada or the Branch Davidians from Waco, who had exterminated themselves but not uninvolved
bystanders. Because of this new quality of religious violence, the events in Tokyo caused much