I also had some interaction with him when his name was sidaswarup - i chanted with them in Hawaii, i also checked out the iskon group. i also sat in darshan with both swami Bhaktivendanta the leader of iskon and siddha who at the time didn't have a name for his group. some one in this thread -one of his followers said there was no group to join - this is misleading - i was never invited to join anything but it was heavily suggested i get initiated - and there are rules to fallow so that seems like a group to me. I loved the chanting it was so hypnotic and you felt some how ritious doing it. Both swamis seemed to be truly sincere and i believe they believed they were serving humanity and trying to liberate them from the suffering of the "material world" Sidda was as i understand initiated by Bhaktivendanta so the message should and seemed to be the same although i never heard either talk about gays Bhaktivendanta seemed partial to celibacy at least for the men. I have since met many ex devotees very disillusioned. and after bahaktivedant passed the bunch of gurus who took over were definitely not to the same standard and although they claimed they were appointed by the guru himself - it latter was confessed by some that they were not. I guess its hard to not be a cult if you set yourself up as better than your followers make them fallow rules or get out. etc. but then i also don't buy the sanitised version of hinduism they preach here - if you spend some time in India [ i have] you will find all the same problems in those religions as all the rest. Krishna by the way had 108 girlfriends who were married to other men. so as a woman worshiping him didn't feel right to me in the end even though i loved the food :-) the incense - the saris - the singing etc etc and who would want their name to be said - shouted - sung all day by a bunch a groupies ?? a megalomaniac? so if iskon or sif are cults or not just look at what they are asking you to worship - that might be a big clue.
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