Description This book is the story of how a penniless Tibetan refugee with fierce ambition managed to establish himself in the West as a renowned Buddhist lama and hoodwink thousands of people, including show business luminaries, tycoons and politicians, for more than 30 years.
It is also a story about the culture clash that occurs when the misogyny of old Tibet is greeted with na ve acceptance and adulation by spiritual seekers in the West..
Based on interviews with victims and eyewitnesses, together with detailed research and first-hand experience, it echoes the feminist perspective highlighted by the Me Too and Times Up movements.
This book does not sensationalise the perverse behaviour that caused profound suffering to scores of devotees.
Now seriously ill, he is a fugitive rumoured to be in Thailand beyond the reach of police and civil investigations.
He stands accused of financial and sexual misconduct, physical Violence and fabricated credentials.
But, as revealed here, it turns out that Sogyal was a charlatan who was never trained as a lama.
At the peak of his fame he was the most powerful and best-known Tibetan holy man after the Dalai Lama.
He starred in a Hollywood movie and his Rigpa Fellowship attracted followers across the globe.
Sogyal Rinpoche, as he became known, was a charismatic multi-millionaire, credited as the author of a best-selling book.
His transition was spectacularly successful.
Arriving in England in the early 1970s, he brought with him traditional ideas and attitudes rooted in a culture whose spiritual sophisticated was coupled with near-feudal social norms.
Sogyal Lakar left his birthplace in eastern Tibet aged eight when his family fled the Chinese invasion to seek refuge in India.
Description This book is the story of how a penniless Tibetan refugee with fierce ambition managed to establish himself in the West as a renowned Buddhist lama and hoodwink thousands of people, including show business luminaries, tycoons and politicians, for more than 30 years
