Lexy wrote

In those days there wasn't the means to really do research.It was a different era.I've certainly never thought " O my God , it's all my fault.I didn't do enough research." The expertise about "cults" just wasn't out there.

There were some critical articles about Rawat in the media and you could have asked questions to the organization etc. However I cannot blame you for not doing so, because I did not do it myself. The root cause is, I think, that it may have taken some effort to find substantiated criticism and it is quite unnatural to do the effort of actively looking for criticism of something that you are quite happy with (at least initially) . After all, you cannot expect every convert to be a religious scholar and an investigative journalist at the same time. I was neither of them, though I did hear and listen to some criticism of SSB by the Indian skeptic Basava Premanand on Dutch TV which I then found unconvincing. Of course, I should have investigated more, but did not do this for stated reasons.

Andries