The day Jayarava tracked Verdex down
It was December 25th 2006. I was visiting the website www.swrebellion.com - a site solely dedicated to the PC-game "Star Wars: Rebellion" (published in the UK as "Star Wars: Supremacy").
For the first time ever there, I got a private message. The sender called himself "mahaabaala". He soon made it clear that he had no intention of playing "Rebellion" but was there only because he had searched for me on the Internet. In two e-mails which he later sent he confirmed that:
"No, I'm not interested in playing games, but you are not easy to track down."
and that...
"I had some difficulty tracking you down!"
Furthermore, he confirmed that he did not just look for me at swrebellion.com but at least on one more site:
"I think there may be another Verdex, unless you were a "hot young stud" leaving notes on a dating website in the UK - I found that while I was tracking you down :)"
Well, I don't know what an order member is doing on a dating website (and, no, I am not that "hot young stud" he obviously found ;) but I got curious: Who was mahaabaala?
It turned out that mahaabaala was no one else but the WBO's Michael Attwood aka Jayarava.
Now, who is Jayarava? It is very interesting to google that guy.
Jayarava is among other things the author of such interesting articles as "Suicide as A Response to Suffering" (and this is NO satire!). He has so far translated the Avalokiteshvara Mantra into such great languages as Star Trek's Klingon and the Lord of the Rings' Elvish (mahaabaala.blogspot.com) and he seems to be quite proud of calling Tony Blair a liar (see that same page). He also likes to answer his own posts in Google Groups under different names, for example take a closer look here. This last thing sounds a little like Psycho's Norman Bates to me...
But maybe it is best to let Jayarava explain Jayarava. Here we find this highly interesting description of Michael Attwood by Michael Attwood (PDF).
"I don't know when I first became depressed but I think I have had 4 or 5 episodes of major (ie clinical) depression in my life. Having read other people's accounts of depression I would say that I have been lucky - for one thing I have survived, just, and my episodes have not been so completely dibilitating as they could have been.
I've taken a variety of anti-depressant drugs and I'm currently taking Aropax (paroxetine) a relative of Prozac - hey I'm a part of the Prozac generation :-) My experience is that they do work, but on their own they are not enough. Yes they will alleviate the obvious symptoms, but for me there is a lot of attendent psychological disturbance that I need to work on and I have a good counsellor who is invaluable at the moment.
One of the most painful aspects of having depression is the reactions of the people around me. People always seem to think that my aberrant behaviour during my worst periods is something that I'm choosing to do - that I just need to pull myself together. At long last depression is being recognised as a disease with physiological causes and effects (...) - you can't just snap out of it, and many people die as a result of having it. The myth that depression is a sort of personality flaw, a psychological weakness, a cop out etc is still quite prevalent and causes much unnecessary suffering.
One of my doctors told me that I would never be able to live a normal life, that I would have to avoid stress at all costs and move out of the busy city. He then proceeded to prescribe an antidepressant drug at about 1/3 of the clinically effective dose. By the time I figured out for myself that he didn't know what he was talking about and sought a 2nd opinion I was suicidal and barely able to get out of bed in the mornings.
Things are a lot better at the moment, though my marriage broke up partly as a result of me being depressed. I'm an active artist and try to keep fit which really helps. I also practice Buddhist meditation which is very helpful in maintaining my physical and mental well being. I have a few friends who have been there and they're quite helpful. I've had to walk away from friendships with people who just didn't understand where I was coming from and were basically detrimental to my health"
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And that guy was 'tracking me down'. Spooky! But it even gets better: Michael Jayarava Attwood now plans to sue me for defamation and extortion. The problem is that he doesn't seem to be too sure of his case, because he wants a special order member to help him and threatens that he "will supoena Dhammarati if he won't come willingly!" Well, I guess, that's what friends are for...
Now you might ask who Dhammarati is. Maybe the following excerpt from an e-mail I got in the early days of 2007 will help:
"I think Dharmarati has become effective leader or figurehead of the FWBO because he is 'clean', there are no allegations of sexual abuse etc. against him. Another front runner was Kulananda, but there are allegations against him. And Subhuti damaged his chances by criticising Sangharakshita for unethical behaviour. I know Dharmarati fairly well, he is quite a decent chap in himself, but unwilling to tackle the reality of what has been going on in the FWBO - he just seems to turn a blind eye to it all."
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(Please note that in that same e-mail the sender writes: "I would be more than happy to be a witness in court, in fact I would love to be." It feels so good to not have to "supoena" your friends into helping you ;)
Actually, I know Dhammarati personally myself. Some years ago he traveled all the way to my hometown to persuade me to give up www.fwbo-files.com. In the aftermath he asked me what I think the site would be worth.
It is a little known fact today that the FWBO bought the domain www.fwbo.com for a little more than 8.000 US-Dollar back in 1999. Before that, that domain hosted the "FWBO-Files". I thought to myself that this is a rather strange way of dealing with criticism - and started www.fwbo-files.com.
Over the years this site has gathered a lot more information about the f/wbo than 'just' the "Files" - so I think a hypothetical 'worth' would be higher - at least ten times - than that of www.fwbo.com. Which is what I told Dhammarati.
It seems that nowadays Dhammarati still thinks about using my statement to sue me for extortion. At least, that is what Michael Attwood is throwing at me all the time, for example in his third e-mail he sent me on www.swrebellion.com:
"Well you'll surprised and delighted to know that I have seen the email with my own eyes where you offer to sell the files site to Dhammarati for £80,000. He has kept it and is still pondering what to do with it. You just never know when the cops will come knocking :) That was naughty of you to put it in writing wasn't it, very naughty."
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Well, I don't think that it was "naughty" - just plain stupid to trust any order member when they give their word or appeal to ethics or morals...
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