Elizabeth Kracht - Chosen Intrument Child - Fair Use Excerpts

Introduction
One purpose of Digital Citizens described in its Mission Statement is to upload accurate source
material which helps counter false claims by hate groups or individuals. In keeping with that
purpose, this document contains fair use excerpts from Elizabeth Krachts blog Chosen
Instrument Child located here:
http://choseninstrument.blogspot.com/
When Ms. Kracht first published this blog in 2009, she proclaimed its contents to all and sundry;
but I understand she has since made it invitation-only. However, this does not require archive
sites to unpublish it.
More recently, Ms. Kracht and her friend Celia Corona-Doran (a.k.a. Suchatula Cecilia Corona)
created matters of public concern by making false and defamatory statements of an extreme
nature on Salon.com (and elsewhere, in Ms. Corona-Dorans case). They have tried to put over a
testimonial which takes the form of a captivity narrative alleging that Ms. Corona-Doran was
an innocent maid who was somehow led astray when she joined a spiritual group circa 1987.
However, Elizabeth Krachts blog paints a quite different picture. For background on the
underlying issues, please see:
Can Salon Learn From Rolling Stones Mistakes? Part 1
False Salon Story: What was said at the time
How far would you go to get a book deal?
See also:
Celia Corona-Doran (Suchatula Cecilia Corona): Testimonial 1
Celia Corona-Doran (Suchatula Cecilia Corona): Testimonial 2
Celia Corona-Doran (Suchatula Cecilia Corona): Testimonial 3
Celia Corona-Doran (Suchatula Cecilia Corona): Testimonial 4
The portions of Elizabeth Krachts blog quoted below establish that like many young women
growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1980s, Elizabeth Kracht and her friend Celia
Corona were mobile, independent, loved partying with surfer guys, hitting the elite clubs, and
did not lead sheltered lives. Of those nights of frenetic partying, Ms. Kracht writes: In
retrospect, were both amazed we survived.
Regarding her later experience with Sri Chinmoy Centre, Ms. Kracht attests to the clean and
celibate lifestyle led by followers of Sri Chinmoy, whom she describes as good people,
straight-laced, and monks. She states that when she first came into contact with Sri Chinmoy
Centre, she was a party girl and a lazy teenager preoccupied with smoking. She also
indicates that for quite some time before she and Celia Corona joined Sri Chinmoy Centre, she
had observed the positive influence which meditation and a simple lifestyle had on her older
brothers Andy and Joe. When the two women later began studying meditation with Sri Chinmoy,
their lifestyle gradually changed and no longer involved wild partying.
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Here then are excerpts from Elizabeth Krachts blog Chosen Instrument Child. I want to stress
that these quotes from previously published material are being uploaded as a defensive measure.
Some people seem to think the Internet is the place to engage in therapy, emotional venting, or
personal vendettas. Where people opt to conduct public show trials, they need to know that they
cant get away with suppressing or ignoring exculpatory evidence.
Note: Every effort has been made to quote only the minimum amount of material necessary to
address matters of public concern raised by Ms. Kracht and Ms. Corona-Doran. The portions
quoted address questions of fact, questions of motive, questions of character, and questions of
background.
* * *

Chosen Instrument Child (excerpts)

Monday, November 23, 2009
My First Celebrations
The Sri Chinmoy Centre definitely wasnt ready for this party girl. And this party girl was a
mixed bag of being totally unprepared and prepared for what she would face in New York.
...
The disciples were a clean bunch, and the bathroom just never dried out from one shower to the
next. One shower a day in the August heat just wasnt enough. I was always last in line for the
shower, because I had no idea of the importance of saving seats or what the hurry was always all
about.
...
I didnt bring a sleeping bag, thinking my brother would have everything I needed. Eventually, I
had my own lagoon in my room too, a product of leaving the window open while out during a
torrential thunderstorm. Honestly, no furniture and all, it wasnt a whole lot different than living
with mom, which might be why I never complained and simply asked for a sleeping bag or
blanket. But I was also a lazy teenager, and my first preoccupation was wondering how I was
going to smoke cigarettes around all these good people. I resolved to take walks in the
neighborhood at night, but was promptly told on my first attempt that it wasnt safe to go out
alone at night. Unheard of in my safe California neighborhood. People, apparently, got mugged
all the time in Jamaica, Queens. Id have to find another way, which I only did once, by going
late to a function. I almost got caught by some French disciples as I smoked out the upper
window, who I didnt realize were staying behind us.
...
I was somewhat oblivious to it all, caught up as I was by the increasing number of good-looking,
international guys that were around, particularly two brothers from London. Hot stuff, man. They
had weird names. I remember my brother introducing me to one of them -- Dave Ashishu -- and
thinking to myself, Funny, he doesnt look Japanese. I didnt get that his name was actually a
Bengali spiritual name that meant divine child (Devashishu).
Devashishu ended up keeping me somewhat sane as things began to unravel for me in New York;
unraveling mostly because I was in hot pursuit of his brother Sahadeva and their mother Bhavani
was having none of it (Bhavani and I make nice a few years later). I came from a different world,
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where such things werent forbidden, and in my world, to be conquered -- kissing as many guys
as I was attracted to was a personal mission back at home, like Kirk Anderson. I actually had a
diary of all the guys Id kissed; it was a long list. No one had told me the rules, that the Centre
was a celibate path and women were to look upon the disciple men as brothers only. I didnt
think anything of stealing away with Sahadeva and Vikara (another British male disciple) to
Manhattan to see the Empire State Building. O man, and what a picturesque place it would have
been to plant one on Sahadeva, smitten as I was by his eyes, full lips and high cheekbones. But
we werent alone. And he didnt make the move. And we had a concert to get to back to in
Queens, where all hell would break loose when the three of us arrived late, and together.
My poor brothers. I have little knowledge of what was going on in their camp, trying to field the
rumors and dealing with upset mothers and sisters who thought I was going to be the end of their
dear boys spiritual lives.
...
Bhavani let me have it at Sports Day. In no uncertain terms, she told me to stay the hell away
from her sons, right on the New Rochelle High School track. I was stunned, and didnt really
know what to say.
...
When I arrived in San Jose at the airport and met Cecelia [Corona], I was armed with unusual
music from the Centre, that I actually liked, from a group of Sri Chinmoy disciples that called
themselves Akasha. Cecelia had been calling my dad on a regular basis to ask when I was
finally going to get home. We were due to hit a party that night! Actually, I think the party was
going to be at my house in Morgan Hill because I think my parents were going to be away -- it
might have just been a couple guys that were coming over.
...
Regardless, the one thing I remember telling Cecelia about my trip, 18-year-old that I was:
Those are the kind of guys you want to marry.
...
Posted by Elizabeth K. Kracht at 10:28 PM
----Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Shes Already A Disciple?
The summer of my graduation I was a thorn in the side of my stepmom and dad. I slept until 2
p.m. in the afternoon, lazed about in the sun on the back deck of our house in Morgan Hill and
only motivated myself to meet friends in Los Gatos and do more of the same: party.
...
My brother Andy was on a different trajectory. Hed finally surrendered to his fate and joined the
Sri Chinmoy Centre, joining my older brother Joe, whod done the same years earlier. By this
time Joe was living in New York, close to the master, and Andy joined the Cupertino meditation
center and was working at a cafe affiliated with the group. I would make my way over the cafe
from time to time to see Andy, and he was hard at work winning me over to the side of a simpler,
happier life through meditation by making the most amazing avocado sandwiches, and stuffing
me with black bottom cupcakes. Both food for the soul. And the couple people I met that were
part of the cafe and disciples of Sri Chinmoy I liked too: Pujari and Giribar.

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I had a job over the summer working for a startup computer company. ... But just after my
birthday, in August, I was laid off. I thought it was because I didnt show up to work the day
after my birthday, hung over as I was. But when I went to cash my last check, I found out after
Id gotten the money, that the check was no good; the company went belly up shortly thereafter.
...
A disciple that worked with Andy at the cafe had a ticket to New York that wasnt going to be
used. In August, the Sri Chinmoy Centre had a retreat scheduled around the celebration of Sri
Chinmoys birthday. ... I knew Andy was going to New York for the first time. And I just had a
hankering to see my brother Joe. I figured I would go to New York and stay with him, probably
in a sleeping bag on his floor or something.
...
But was the New York Centre, nay, the entire Centre, ready for this party girl?
Posted by Elizabeth K. Kracht at 9:02 PM
----Monday, October 19, 2009
Fast Friends
Cecelia [Corona] and I became fast friends. And when I say fast, I also mean we were probably
moving faster at that age than we should have been. Andy was noncommittal in his relationship
with Cecelia. He just wasnt that into her, as the movie title goes. That is, until she became
more interested in hanging out with me and less interested in fooling around with him. Cecelia
lived pretty far away (out of the Los Gatos school district), but by that time I had my drivers
license and my stepmom had given me her old metallic blue, automatic stick shift Volkswagen
bug. We were mobile. We had wheels. I didnt think twice about the drive, picking her up and
taking her home. It actually gave me time to think and smoke cigarettes. But eventually it made
sense to orchestrate her switching schools. It was all part of the master plan of getting as much
partying and socializing in as possible. In retrospect, were both amazed we survived.
...
Although I was at dads, the endless partying continued, with maybe less partying on school
nights. We went and partied in SF with our gay friends brother, hitting some of SFs elite clubs,
thanks to my skill at doctoring our driver's licenses -- I became quite skilled with chalk and red
pencil, back in the days when it was possible to fake your own ID. We hit house parties in Los
Gatos, partied up off old fire roads in the Los Gatos mountains, went to lots of concerts and went
to Santa Cruz to party, where all the hot surfer guys were. We once got invited to party on a
sailboat docked at the marina in Santa Cruz when we were up in the area traipsing around. It was
night.
...
Needless to say, I was in danger of not graduating from high school. My graduation depended
upon my passing a history class, which required the memorization of time periods and events,
something I was a little late for. The only events I was memorizing, or time periods I was aware
of, were those that took place on weekends or after school and involved boys, cute ones. The
partying continued and, come finals, I crammed.
Posted by Elizabeth K. Kracht at 12:47 PM
-----

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Sunday, October 4, 2009

Coming Around The Mountain
When Joe moved out to join the Sri Chinmoy Centre and live with a bunch of other Centre
monks at the San Jose Centre, I secured a room upstairs in the house we lived in with my dad
and new stepfamily. ... I got Andys window foot traffic, mainly Eddie, which I certainly didnt
mind as a ragingly hormonal teen. ... I did fool around on the roof with Greg once or twice,
feeling pretty exposed up there even though it was dark and no one was looking up. Eddie came
around to see me from time to time, too, delivery-service style. And I did get caught smoking
cigarettes out those windows; my dad liked to drink his bourbon and coke and smoke cigarettes
in the backyard in the dark. One night I popped open the windows, with the room lights full blast
in the background, and all I heard was, Put it out, Lizzie.
...
I got a call from my straight-laced, meditating brother while living in the sticks too. He called for
my birthday, and I was embarrassed to be talking to him while under the influence, 16-year-old
that I was.
Even though I was a social animal that liked to party on the outside, I was alive on the inside,
spiritually and philosophically, and was an innocent. In between experimenting with drugs -when the drugs were actually good and somewhat pure -- and sometimes during, I was paying
attention.
...
I found my friends at Los Gatos High. I never really fit into one group, but dabbled in them all,
probably because I couldnt dress any one part. ... In between the blur of parties, friends, making
out with as many guys as I could and going dancing on school nights at a club called Stargaze in
Fremont, Andy turned me on to U2, and other great music that spoke to my soul, as cliche as that
might sound.
...
Andy and I also talked spiritual shop. He told me he thought he would be a disciple some day,
a term devotees of Indian guru Sri Chinmoy called themselves, like my brother Joe. He thought
it was just a matter of time. I wasnt sure what that meant or what he was waiting for. All I knew,
was that I liked his new girlfriend Cecelia [Corona].
Posted by Elizabeth K. Kracht at 9:54 PM
----Sunday, September 13, 2009
My Spiritual Awakening
I became conscious at the ripe old age of 10. It happened in the shower. I remember just being
aware of myself, and actually saying out loud to myself, I know Im special, but I dont know
why. That was my first recollection of being aware of myself in a conscious way. That was also
the age when I was coaxed to take my first drag off a cigarette butt burning on the front lawn of
our neighbors, the first time I kissed the fugliest, head-gear-wearing boy in school, the age I
thought I had a vision of Jesus Christ and the first time I took a hit of pot. I really crammed it in
at 10.
...
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Mom was/is an actress, a Leo and into spirituality. Tarot, Runes, the I-Ching; they were a way of
life. So was smoking pot and nudist parties -- I was very clear at a young age of how I did not
want my breasts to hang as they got bigger and as I got older; mainly, sideways and pointy, like
bananas. Mom got all three of us kids into meditation, which was probably the best skill a kid
could possibly learn.
...
I was sure Id been alive before. And it wasnt until I got black-out drunk at 15 (someone fed me
vodka in a beer bottle after my taste buds had quit for the night) that I realized being able to
remember a past life is a lot like getting black-out drunk; the sordid details and memories are all
there, theres just no accessing them.
...
Posted by Elizabeth K. Kracht at 12:04 AM
Source: Elizabeth Krachts blog Chosen Instrument Child:
http://choseninstrument.blogspot.com/
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