I fear you are not considering the 3HO/Yogi Bhajan situation ('3HO, Yogi Bhajan and The Sikh Way', March 07) from the point of view of our USA audience, particularly my family and my hometown Unitarian Universalist church, nor the families of other X3HOers - or, beyond that, the families of the other 70s Flower Children who joined cults.

Here in the USA, Yogi Bhajan/3HO/SikhDharma/SIKHNET is just one of many cults that started after the 60s Rebellion. Show me a website on cults that doesn't list 3HO. Yogi Bhajan is one of a whole pack of cult leaders (Rajneesh, Hubbard, Erhart, Satchitananda, Muktananda, Swami Rama, Amrit Desai, Prophet, Rev. Sun Moon, the list seems endless) who are all in trouble with their former chelas. That is what Yogi Bhajan is known for here in the USA, being a cult-leader, and cults in general are popular sensational News here. People in the USA are often more interested in cults than in learning about Sikhi in other words - sad but true.

Thus it deeply concerns me that in the face of our suffering (after reading the court documents and all our testimonials out on the X-3HO-Friends Forum - which was linked to both my column, Lapis, Carnelian and Jade and GuruBir' Singh's Letter to Global Sikh Daily News), and knowing, as you must that rejoicing anti-cult activists and Religious Studies academics are watching this "Historic Intercultural Exchange" with interest, that you would be so remote and distant about it all. We are talking about murder, rape, beatings, child abuse. Again our families are reading and evaluating Sikhs; and they have had no reason to admire Sikhs much this life so far. I, of course, idealist that I am, am praying for Sikhs to be helpful not hurtful, when faced with true stories. Are you really as dispassionate as you seem?

Kamalla Rose Kaur