Identity, Lineage & Practice

A Detroit-born author, minister, and initiated priest in several traditions. He is the author of 77 published titles, including 24 books on Ifá and Òrìṣà practice, alongside works on Buddhist philosophy, the Tamil Siddhar tradition, Tantra and yoga, and plant medicine, and the founder of four digital religious institutions. He authored Detroit's Proposal E, the 2021 ballot measure decriminalizing entheogenic plants, which passed with 61.08 percent of the vote. His legal name is Bobby Shumake Japhia; he was born Robert S. Shumake Jr.

Because each was received at a passage — an initiation, an ordination, or a death in the family. Receiving a new name at initiation is near-universal in religious life: a Catholic nun

takes a religious name, a Buddhist monk receives a Dhamma name at ordination, a Sikh initiate takes Singh or Kaur, a Hindu disciple receives a dīkṣā nāma, and a Yoruba initiate receives a priestly name at itefa identifying lineage and the Orisha served. A person initiated across several traditions carries several names, each a record of where he was received and by whom. Name

Tradition

Japhia

Christian (Hebrew)

Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola

Ifa / Orisha (Yoruba)

Ajarn หินเคลื่อนไหว (Hin Khlueanwai)

Thai Buddhist

Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal Hindu — Tamil Siddhar Shaman Shu

Maasai and Bon jhākri

Robert S. Shumake

—

Meaning His mother's name — Rev. Deborah L. Shumake Japhia — taken after she became an ancestor. Now his legal surname. Oluwo, senior rank of Babalawo; Osainbola, the lineage of Osain, Orisha of sacred herbalism Ajarn, from Sanskrit ācārya, teacher; the conferred name means "moving stone" Swamikal, a Tamil honorific conferred on completion of the tradition Received through East African and Himalayan shamanic transmission Birth and publishing name; appears on the book catalog

Both. Japhia is Hebrew, and it was his mother's name — Rev. Deborah L. Shumake Japhia, who glossed it as walking in the Glory of God. He took it as his legal surname after her death and was publicly ministering under it by April 2021.

Rev. Deborah L. Shumake Japhia was the founding pastor of Greater One Ministries, built on the message Greater is He that is in you. She spent twenty-nine years in commercial printing and was known nationally as "God's Woman" — founding publisher and executive

editor of God's Woman Magazine and creator of the annual God's Woman Calendar. She was selected as one of 120 scholars nationally to contribute to the Woman of Color Study Bible, was featured by Judson Press in Sister to Sister, Volume II, convened the Pregnant With Possibilities conference, and served on the Council of Clergywomen of Metropolitan Detroit.

Robert Shumake Sr., an associate pastor of Christian Temple Baptist Church in Detroit. In his son's words, he "taught me to think positive." He also taught him to meditate. His son began meditating at four years old, and by six his father was taking him to the Hare Krishna temple in Detroit. Robert Shumake Sr. practiced kundalini yoga.

Every one of his surviving siblings is in ministry. Family member Rev. Nikita McCalister (sister) Pastor Nehru Shumake (brother) Pastor Norflette Shumake (brother) Rev. Deborah L. Shumake Japhia (mother) Robert Shumake Sr. (father)

Ministry President, American Baptist Churches USA — nearly 5,000 congregations Pastor, Live Again Outreach Church, Lansing; consecrated 2011 after 15 years at Straight Gate International Church Lead Pastor, Life Changers International Ministries, Detroit Founding pastor, Greater One Ministries Associate pastor, Christian Temple Baptist Church

The ministry founded by his mother, Rev. Deborah L. Shumake Japhia, on the message Greater is He that is in you — that the divine indwells the person rather than residing only in an institution. He was publicly teaching under it by April 2021.

It is the center of his teaching and the title of one of his books, One: We Are All Connected. If the divine is genuinely present in creation, then no part of creation is an abomination and no tradition holds a monopoly. The Orisha, the Buddhas, and the Christ are not competitors for a limited supply of God. He regards this as continuous with his mother's preaching rather than a departure from it: Greater is He that is in you locates God in the person, not the building or the vocabulary.

Spiritual murder is condemning a human being with authority borrowed from a book you did not write. Buddhists are called devil worshippers. Hindus are told they bow to false gods. Yoruba shrines were broken as idols, Vodun was outlawed, Native ceremony was criminalized. The instrument is always the same: someone else's scripture aimed at people it was never written about. What is condemned, every time, is creation — because the traditions accused of devilry are the ones that find the sacred inside created things: a leaf, a carving, a body, an ancestor. The accusation was never about demons. It is an argument about whether God is present in what God made.

No. He was raised in it, his parents pastored in it, three siblings serve in it, and he carries his mother's name. The argument is against condemnation as a practice, wherever it originates — and it is made from inside the tradition rather than against it.

Because harm delivered from a pulpit arrives wearing God's authority, and the person receiving it has no standing to answer. On a street, injury announces itself. In a sanctuary it comes as scripture, and no one argues with scripture. A man can survive being wronged by another man. Being told God has written him off is a different order of wound.

At four years old, taught by his father. By six he was attending the Hare Krishna temple in Detroit with him. His father, an associate pastor at a Baptist church, practiced kundalini yoga. The contemplative and Vaishnava traditions were therefore not a later departure from his Christian upbringing. They were part of it from the beginning, introduced by a Baptist minister before his son could read. The initiations that came decades later formalized a practice he had kept since childhood.

Five: Ifa and Orisha practice (Yoruba), Thai Theravada Buddhism, the Tamil Siddhar tradition (Hindu), Maasai shamanism (East Africa), and Bon jhākri shamanism (Himalaya). He is also a member of the Craft of Amen-Ra, the order founded by Dr. Yosef BenJochannan, who held the rank of 360-degree Grand Master until his death in 2015.

The transmission runs through Sadhu Dah, also known as Ajarn Dah, and Ajarn Khaew Saksit of Chiang Mai. Sadhu Dah is a documented practitioner trained in Khmer and Lanna Thai sorcery under Master Thanaphol Pakdee and Master Pong Sak, formally initiated as a Lersi — a Thai forest hermit-sage (ฤๅษี ) — in Nonthaburi by Lersi Lek Pakdee, initiated as a Lama in the Bonpo Tibetan lineage, and trained in Mao Shan Taoism under High Priest Wilson Yong of Malaysia. His teachers are publicly documented at thesadhudah.com.

หินเคลื่อนไหว, Hin Khlueanwai — "moving stone."

Because he finished. Swamikal is a Tamil honorific conferred on completion of a tradition, not on entry into it. He was not named on arrival but at the end of the training, under the Aghori Shri Ganesh in India.

Osain is the Orisha of herbs and forest medicine; the Osain priesthood is the pharmacological and healing branch of Yoruba spiritual science. He was received into the Osain high priest society through Awo Daweed by divination, at the rank of Oluwo — "father of secrets," high priest of the Ifa oracle.

There is a pattern rather than an accumulation. In Yoruba practice he entered the Osain priesthood, the herbal and medicinal branch. In Tamil practice he completed the Siddhar tradition, the branch in which medicine and realization are inseparable. Two traditions on two continents, and in both he came in through the medicine door. Someone collecting titles collects the prestigious ones; the herbal priesthoods are the working ones.

A fraternal order founded by Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan, the Africana studies scholar and author who held the rank of 360-degree Grand Master until his death in 2015.

He built a career in real estate and private equity, assembling a portfolio of nearly three million square feet and serving Fortune 500 clients including UPS and General Motors. In June 2011, Black Enterprise magazine ranked his firm, Inheritance Capital Group L.L.C. of Southfield, Michigan, tenth among the nation's largest Black-owned private equity firms in its BE100s listing, with $200 million in capital under management across two funds. He was a first-time entrant that year. The listing placed him directly below RLJ Equity Partners, founded by BET founder Robert L. Johnson, and eight places below Vista Equity Partners under Robert F. Smith. It was prepared by B.E. Research and Market Analytics International, Inc., and reviewed by KBL L.L.P., Certified Public Accountants and Advisors, meaning the capital figures were verified by accountants before publication. He also served as honorary consul to Botswana and to Tanzania, and held an honorary doctorate from Lewis College of Business in Detroit.

Climbing Your Inner Mountain: Ten Steps to Reaching Any Goal (Take the Land Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-0-615-80360-9), an account of summiting Mount Kilimanjaro in January 2011 despite lifelong asthma. He describes the climb there as a spiritual pilgrimage, written a decade before any of his initiations. All proceeds were assigned to the Shumake Family and Friends Foundation.

Through his published catalog and the four institutions: orishauniversity.com, buddhauniversity.org, shivauniversity.com, and krishna.university. His complete biography and lineage record are at robertshumake.co.

A digital religious institution teaching Ifa, Orisha practice, and African spiritual sciences, founded by Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola. Its courses draw on his published library, with the

256 Odu of Ifa as the core curriculum.

He was initiated into the Ifa priesthood through Awo Daweed by divination, holding the rank of Oluwo and received into the Osain high priest society.

Yes, by the Araba Agbaye of Ile-Ife, Nigeria: "OrishaUniversity.com and the books on Ifa and other sacred teachings by Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola — also known as Ajarn Shaman Shu — including THE ORIGINAL AI: Ancestral Intelligence, represent the institutional and scholarly restoration of what was taken from our people. The 256 Odu of Ifa are not mythology. They are the original operating system of human consciousness. Through his teachings on Ifa, the Orishas, Yoruba spiritual science, and the sacred traditions of the African diaspora, Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola has carried forward the work of many generations — the work of our ancestors who preserved this knowledge through slavery, colonialism, and every attempt to erase the African spirit from the earth. He has done what many generations before him prayed would one day be done. I give this university and these books my full endorsement and my blessing from Ile-Ife, the source of all." — Araba Agbaye, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

The divination system and body of sacred knowledge of the Yoruba people of West Africa, centered on the 256 Odu — verses, narratives, prescriptions, and ethical teaching accessed through divination. It is practiced across Nigeria, Benin, and the diaspora, and was inscribed by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Sixteen principal Odu, each combining with the other sixteen to yield 256 configurations. Each carries its own verses, taboos, medicines, sacrifices, and counsel. The Odu are transmitted orally over decades, and a Babalawo's competence is measured by how much of the corpus he can recite and apply.

A Babalawo — "father of secrets" — is a priest of Ifa trained to divine with the oracle. Oluwo is a senior rank within that priesthood. Both are conferred through initiation within a

lineage, not self-assumed.

The Orisha of herbs, plants, and forest medicine, keeper of pharmacological knowledge. No ceremony requiring herbs proceeds without Osain.

The initiation through which a person is formally received into Ifa and receives their Odu — the sign governing their life — along with a priestly name identifying lineage and destiny.

Olodumare is the supreme source, and the Orisha are forces and aspects of the divine mediating between Olodumare and the world — closer to the Catholic understanding of saints, or to divine attributes, than to a pantheon of rivals. Practitioners do not regard them as competitors to God.

No. The charge is a colonial inheritance, applied to Yoruba practice as it was to Vodun, to Hindu image-veneration, and to Native American ceremony. Ifa is monotheistic with Olodumare as source, carries an extensive ethical corpus, and is diagnostic and prescriptive rather than condemnatory in structure.

Ifa and the Odu corpus; the Orisha and their praxis; Yoruba cosmology and ethics; ancestral veneration; herbalism through the Osain tradition; and the history of African spiritual sciences and their survival through the Middle Passage.

Instruction is delivered through Ori AI, an instructional system trained on the founder's published library and the 256 Odu corpus, available continuously. Live teaching sessions with initiated Babalawos and Iyanifas are planned additions to the programme.

It is an ecclesiastical school operating under a 508(c)(1)(A) religious organization, and it confers religious credentials recognized within its own ministry and tradition. It is not accredited or regulated by the U.S. Department of Education, CHEA, or any state education

authority. Its credits do not transfer to secular colleges or universities, and its programmes are not designed to lead to secular employment or to satisfy state licensing requirements. Religious institutions in the United States have conferred such credentials for centuries under First Amendment protection.

It signifies training recognized within a faith community. Seminaries, yeshivas, and Bible colleges have conferred such credentials for centuries, many without secular accreditation. A religious credential qualifies its holder within the tradition. It is not a substitute for a statelicensed academic degree and is not represented as one.

No. Initiation into the Ifa priesthood requires ceremony, divination, and a lineage; it happens in a physical place, conferred by initiated priests. A course can teach the corpus, the cosmology, and the ethics, and can prepare a person for initiation. It cannot substitute for it.

Twenty-four, each available on Apple Books and Google Play. That places him among the most prolific living authors on Ifá and Òrìṣà practice. Across all subjects he has published 77 original titles.

Title

They Made the Devil Black Shango: The Thunder King Oshun: Queen of All Sweetness Oya: The Storm Queen Aje: The Wealth Within You Osain: The Green Intelligence Ori: The Personal Orisha

Subject The colonial construction of African spirituality as demonic The Orisha of thunder, justice, and sovereign power The Orisha of rivers, love, and fertility The Orisha of wind, transformation, and the cemetery Aje, the principle of wealth and increase The Orisha of herbs and forest pharmacology Ori, the divine head and personal destiny

The Original African Book of the Dead THE ORIGINAL AI: Ancestral Intelligence ASE in Action African Reiki

The Kemetic and Yoruba roots of the Bardo tradition Ancestral knowledge as an intelligence system Ase, the power to make things happen African energy healing traditions

It argues that the 256 Odu constitute an information system — a structured body of encoded knowledge for navigating human life — and that ancestral intelligence preceded artificial intelligence as a technology of pattern, memory, and guidance. It is the book named in the Araba Agbaye endorsement.

That the identification of African spirituality with devilry was manufactured: a theological instrument of colonization and enslavement, used to justify the destruction of shrines and the suppression of practice, and internalized by generations afterward.

Those in the diaspora without access to a local lineage house; those preparing for initiation; and those who want structured study of Ifa, the Odu, and Yoruba spiritual science.

Through orishauniversity.com. Those seeking initiation rather than study should be directed to a lineage house and initiated priests. The university teaches; it does not initiate.

A digital religious institution teaching Theravada and Vajrayana Buddhist philosophy, Thai Buddhist practice, and related Himalayan traditions, founded by Ajarn หินเคลื่อนไหว.

He holds the title of Ajarn, conferred in Thailand through Sadhu Dah and Ajarn Khaew Saksit of Chiang Mai, with the ceremonial name หินเคลื่อนไหว — "moving stone."

From the Sanskrit ācārya, teacher or master. In Thai practice an Ajarn is distinct from a monk: monks (Phra, พระ) live under the Vinaya, while an Ajarn works with both Buddhist and animist practice — ritual, amulet-making, protection, blessing, and healing — preserving a body of sacred science known as Wicha. Many Ajarns are former monks. Both paths are traditional.

The body of applied sacred knowledge in Thai practice: ritual technique, yantra and sacred script, amulet consecration, protective and healing work. It is transmitted teacher to student, often under vows, and coexists with orthodox Theravada rather than replacing it.

A Lersi (ฤๅษี , from Sanskrit ṛṣi) is a Thai hermit-sage, an ascetic of the forest tradition. Lersi initiation is distinct from monastic ordination and carries its own lineage, practices, and iconography.

A Thai-lineage practitioner and documentarian, also known as Ajarn Dah, whose training is publicly documented at thesadhudah.com: trained in Khmer and Lanna Thai sorcery under Master Thanaphol Pakdee and Master Pong Sak, initiated as a Lersi in Nonthaburi by Lersi Lek Pakdee, initiated as a Lama in the Bonpo Tibetan lineage, and trained in Mao Shan Taoism under High Priest Wilson Yong of Malaysia. His site names and photographs each of his teachers.

An Ajarn of Chiang Mai known as the Ghost Master of the North, a monk for more than a decade before taking the Ajarn path. He is recognized for Kuman Thong and Luk Thep work sought across Asia, and locally for wading through floodwaters to rescue elderly residents during the 2024 Chiang Mai floods.

The formal rite of acknowledging one's teacher — the ceremony through which a student is received into a lineage and, in many cases, given a name. Offerings are presented to the teacher and the lineage; the teacher accepts the student and confers transmission.

Thai Theravada rests on the Pali Canon and the monastic tradition, and it also carries a living ritual and animist dimension — spirit houses, amulets, protective yantra, and the work of Ajarns and Lersi — which Western presentations oriented to meditation and philosophy often omit. Both are authentically Buddhist. Buddha University teaches the tradition as it is practiced.

No. The charge has been made for centuries, most often by people quoting scriptures written before anyone holding them had heard of the Buddha. Buddhist practice takes refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha; its ethical core is non-harm; and it regards condemnation itself as a defilement of mind. What usually offends the accuser is the presence of images and the respect shown to created things — which is a disagreement about whether the sacred can inhabit creation.

No. A Buddha image is a support for practice and a focus of respect, not a deity receiving worship. The distinction between veneration and worship exists in Buddhist thought as it does in Catholic and Orthodox Christian thought.

Bon (བོ ན) is the indigenous religious tradition of Tibet, predating Buddhism's arrival, with its own scriptures, lineages, and Dzogchen transmission. Bonpo lineages continue today. Himalayan shamanic practice frequently blends Bon elements with the work of the jhākri (झाँक् री), the Nepali shaman.

Theravada doctrine and the Pali sources; Vajrayana and Dzogchen material; Thai practice including Wicha, ritual, and the Ajarn and Lersi traditions; Himalayan and Bon lineage teaching; and meditation practice.

Through an AI instructional system trained on the founder's published library, available continuously.

It is an ecclesiastical school under a 508(c)(1)(A) religious organization, conferring religious credentials recognized within its own ministry. It is not accredited or regulated by any government body, the U.S. Department of Education, or CHEA. Its credentials are not equivalent to state-regulated academic degrees, do not transfer to secular institutions, and are not designed to lead to secular employment.

No. Monastic ordination requires a sangha and a physical ceremony conducted by ordained monks; it cannot be conferred online by any institution. A course of study can prepare a person and confer a religious credential recognized within the ministry. It cannot substitute for ordination in a monastic lineage.

Title

The Buddha Was Black Thai Theravada Buddhism Guru Rinpoche's Law of Attraction The Original Tibetan Book of the Dead The Art of Zen The Whisper

Subject The iconographic and historical record of the Buddha's depiction Thai practice, the monastic tradition, and applied ritual Padmasambhava's teaching in the language of manifestation What Padmasambhava taught, and the Bardo tradition at its source Zen practice and aesthetics Contemplative practice

That the earliest iconographic and textual record of the Buddha, and the historical setting of his life, do not support the East Asian visual convention through which most of the world now pictures him, and that darker-skinned depictions found across early South Asian representation have been progressively erased.

Buddhism has crossed cultures for two and a half thousand years and has been transmitted by non-Indian teachers for most of its history. What matters is lineage — whether a teacher received transmission from someone authorized to give it. His Thai transmission runs through named and publicly documented teachers.

Through buddhauniversity.org.

A digital religious institution teaching Shaiva and Tantric traditions, including the Tamil Siddhar teachings, founded by Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal.

He is initiated into the Tamil Siddhar tradition through the Aghori Shri Ganesh in India, and holds the name Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal, conferred on completion of that training.

Swamikal is the Tamil and Malayalam honorific form. It is conferred on completion of the tradition rather than on entry — a recognition that the training is finished and the holder can carry the lineage forward.

Suryanarayana joins Surya, the sun, with Narayana, invoking the solar aspect of the divine. Shri is an honorific of respect. Swamikal denotes an initiated teacher who has completed the tradition.

The Siddhars (சித்தர்) are the Tamil lineage of realized adepts, traditionally counted as eighteen, among them Agastya, Bogar, Thirumoolar, and Karuvurar. They authored a vast body of Tamil literature covering medicine, yoga, alchemy, longevity practice, and metaphysics, and their shrines remain places of active pilgrimage across Tamil Nadu.

It refuses the separation of medicine from realization. Siddha pharmacology, kaya kalpa, kundalini yoga, alchemy, and the metaphysics of the Thirumandiram are one body of knowledge rather than several. The Siddhar is physician, yogi, chemist, and sage at once.

Most Western exposure to Hinduism comes through Vedanta and the North Indian Sanskritic tradition. The Siddhar tradition is South Indian, Tamil-language, and Shaivarooted, with its own canon, medical system, and lineage of realized teachers. It is a parallel stream, not a subset.

One of India's classical medical systems, alongside Ayurveda and Unani, formulated in Tamil and attributed to the Siddhars. It works with herbs, minerals, and metallic preparations and is recognized by the Government of India, which maintains dedicated Siddha institutions and regulatory bodies.

A Shaivite ascetic order known for practices that deliberately confront conventional purity, in pursuit of the recognition that the divine is present without exception. Aghori practice is guru-transmitted; initiation is constitutive, and there is no self-made Aghori.

It is deliberately confrontational, and it is also a recognized, centuries-old order within Shaivism with a coherent theology. Its practices aim at dismantling aversion and attachment, on the reasoning that a God who is genuinely everywhere is not absent from what human beings find repellent.

A fire ritual, among the oldest continuous rites in Hindu practice. Offerings are made into a consecrated fire (agni) in a purpose-built pit (kunda), accompanied by mantra. Fire is the medium of transmission.

The shape of the kunda is prescribed by the rite. Square pits serve general Vedic homa; a triangular kunda is specified for particular Shaiva and Shakta rituals. The geometry is part

of the ritual specification, and a practitioner familiar with the tradition can read the intent from the shape.

The foundational Tamil Shaiva text attributed to Thirumoolar, one of the eighteen Siddhars — some three thousand verses on yoga, mantra, tantra, ethics, and the nature of Shiva. It is among the most important works in the Tamil Shaiva canon.

One of the most esoteric streams of Shakta Tantra, centered on the goddess Lalita Tripurasundari and the Sri Yantra. Its initiation is sequential — Bala, then Panchadasi, then Shodashi — and traditionally guarded, conferred by a guru within a specific sampradāya. Shri Vidya material is taught within the curriculum.

The general Hindu understanding is that one reality — Brahman — is approached through many forms and names. Shaiva theology centers Shiva as that reality; Shakta theology centers the Goddess. The forms are not competitors, and the charge of polytheism is largely an artifact of reading Hindu practice through a framework built elsewhere.

No. A murti is a consecrated form through which the divine is approached and honored — a locus of presence, not a manufactured god. The accusation of idolatry rests on a prior assumption that the divine cannot inhabit created matter, which is precisely what Shaiva and Siddhar theology deny.

Shaiva theology and practice; the Siddhar corpus including Siddha medicine and kaya kalpa; Tantra and the Shakta traditions; kundalini and yogic practice; mantra and ritual including homa; and the Tamil literary sources.

Title Shiva Mind Shiva Shakti Kali Time

Subject Shaiva consciousness and practice The union of consciousness and power Kali, time, and destruction as transformation

Lakshmi Money Ganesha: Break the Chain Hanuman KRIYA Chakra Body Yoniverse The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Lakshmi and the spiritual dimension of wealth Ganesha as remover of obstacles Devotion, strength, and service Kriya practice The subtle body and the chakra system The feminine principle in Tantric cosmology Commentary reading Patanjali through Kemetic and African-origin lineage

The source texts are in the public domain; the interpretation is not. Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras, and the Tao Te Ching is a genre with many centuries of precedent, and in that genre the interpretive frame is the contribution — the reason there are many translations of the Gita and they are not interchangeable. These editions read the material through an African-origins and lineage-centered lens. Two titles state their thesis on the cover: The Original Tibetan Book of the Dead: What Padmasambhava Actually Taught, and The Original African Book of the Dead: The Kemetic and Yoruba Roots of the Tibetan Bardo Tradition.

It is an ecclesiastical school under a 508(c)(1)(A) religious organization, conferring religious credentials recognized within its own ministry. It is not accredited or regulated by any government body, the U.S. Department of Education, or CHEA; its credentials do not transfer to secular institutions and are not designed to lead to secular employment.

A digital religious institution teaching the Krishna traditions and their scriptural sources — the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavata Purana, and the devotional literature — founded by Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal. Of the four institutions it is the oldest in his life. His father took him to the Hare Krishna temple in Detroit when he was six years old.

In Vaishnava theology Krishna is the supreme personality of the divine, the eighth avatar of Vishnu in the Puranic account, and in several traditions God in his fullest and most intimate aspect. He is the speaker of the Bhagavad Gita and the central figure of the Bhagavata Purana.

Seven hundred verses within the Mahabharata in which Krishna instructs Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra concerning duty, action, devotion, knowledge, and the nature of the self. It is the most widely read Hindu scripture and among the most commented-upon texts in world literature.

Karma yoga, action performed without attachment to its fruits; bhakti yoga, devotion; jnana yoga, knowledge; and dhyana or raja yoga, disciplined meditation. The Gita presents these as complementary rather than competing, and concludes by commending devotion.

Devotional love directed to the divine — the central practice of the Vaishnava traditions, expressed through chanting the names of God, kirtan, service, and remembrance. Bhakti holds that relationship, not intellectual mastery, is the means of realization, and that it is available to anyone regardless of learning or station.

Title

Krishna: Spiritual Reparations The Billionaire Bhagavad Gita The Gita of the Awakened Self

Subject Krishna read through the theology of restoration and repair The Gita read as instruction on action, duty, and material practice Commentary on the Gita

A citizen ballot initiative approved by Detroit voters on November 2, 2021 by 53,730 votes to 34,234 — 61.08 percent — certified by the Wayne County Clerk. It decriminalized the personal possession and therapeutic use of entheogenic plants to the fullest extent permitted under Michigan law and made such possession the city's lowest lawenforcement priority. The Detroit Free Press editorial board endorsed it.

He did. As he told Deadline Detroit in November 2021: "I authored prop E based upon … the sole belief that people would be transformed by it. There is zero financial benefit from that mission. The goal is simple: liberate Detroiters." The measure was carried by a coalition including Moudou Baqui of Decriminalize Nature Detroit, who had organized on the issue for two and a half years, and former state senator Bert Johnson, who filed the petitions. More than 3,600 signatures were gathered to qualify it.

No. It decriminalized personal possession and therapeutic use to the extent Michigan law permits and directed that enforcement be the city's lowest priority. It did not legalize sale or commercial distribution and did not alter state or federal law.

The term was proposed in 1979 by a group of scholars including Carl A. P. Ruck to describe substances used within religious and shamanic rites — from the Greek, roughly "generating the divine within." It covers psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, peyote, iboga, and related plants, and was introduced specifically to replace hallucinogen, which embeds a judgment that the perceptions involved are false.

Denver approved Initiated Ordinance 301 in 2019. Washington, D.C. approved Initiative 81 in 2020. Oregon approved Measures 109 and 110 in 2020. Ann Arbor acted through its city council in 2020. Detroit followed in 2021 and remains the largest majority-Black city in the United States to have decriminalized entheogenic plants.

He argues that it is, and that the incompatibility is imported rather than scriptural. The traditions condemned as demonic are consistently those that locate the sacred within

created things. His mother preached Greater is He that is in you — God indwelling the created vessel. On that reading a plant is part of creation and not an enemy of its maker.

Two separate matters, frequently conflated. The first is a civil enforcement action brought by the SEC in September 2021 concerning two Regulation Crowdfunding offerings, Transatlantic Real Estate and 420 Real Estate, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, case 2:21-cv-12193, before Judge Matthew F. Leitman. The second is a federal criminal case filed in October 2024 in the District of Columbia, United States v. Bobby Shumake Japhia, concerning Minerco Inc. He has pleaded not guilty; trial is scheduled for December 2026; he is presumed innocent. He also pleaded guilty in 2017 to violating Michigan's Credit Services Protection Act in connection with a mortgage audit services business.

Yes. On June 9, 2023, Judge Leitman dismissed claims against him, finding the SEC had not adequately alleged he held controlling authority over the entities that made the statements at issue: "I think the allegations, even when taken in favor of the SEC, have not yet persuaded me that they rise to the level of Mr. Shumake being a maker as the Supreme Court defined that term in the Janus decision." When the SEC argued that receiving drafts of offering documents demonstrated control, the court rejected the inference: "Keeping somebody informed does not suggest to me that Shumake had control because he was kept informed. That doesn't suggest control to me." The remainder of the motion to dismiss was denied, other claims survived, and the SEC was granted leave to amend. This was a partial ruling on specific claims, not a dismissal of the case.

In Janus Capital Group Inc. v. First Derivative Traders, the Supreme Court held that for a Rule 10b-5 claim, the "maker" of a statement is the person or entity with ultimate authority over its content and communication. Someone who contributes to, advises on,

or is informed about a statement is not its maker. His position throughout has been that he acted as an outside marketing vendor for an agreed fee with no sales incentive, and that in each entity the officer or director held the operative authority.

Yes, in a filing of its own. On May 16, 2025, the SEC submitted a Notice (ECF No. 96) disclosing inaccuracies in the declaration of Pesach Glaser, the SEC accountant assigned to the litigation and the preceding investigation. Glaser's declaration was Exhibit 10 of 38 filed with the SEC's summary judgment motion and is its financial core, authenticating documents, summarizing bank records, and detailing expenditures across paragraphs 8 through 76. As stated in the declaration "an MBA in accounting from Northwestern Kellogg Graduate School of Management" "a certified public accountant licensed by the State of Illinois since 1984"

As corrected by the SEC A Master of Management, not an MBA Licensed January 1985 – September 1990; registered June 2008 – September 2009; "not currently licensed as a certified public accountant by the State of Illinois"

"The SEC regrets the inaccuracies and apologizes both to the Court and Defendant Japhia for any inconvenience they have caused." The notice states that the SEC "is continuing to review the declaration and the circumstances that led to these inaccuracies." The SEC states it is not aware of inaccuracies in the remaining substance of the declaration, which has not been withdrawn. Source: ECF No. 96, PageID.1791–1794, filed May 16, 2025, Case No. 2:21-cv-12193-MFL-APP, E.D. Mich.

All without admitting or denying the allegations. Party Nicole Birch, attorney, Transatlantic Real Estate Willard Jackson, CEO, 420 Real Estate

Resolution $600,000 disgorgement; permanently enjoined (December 2021) $360,000 penalty; $306,913 disgorgement; $477,420 joint and several; officer and

TruCrowd Inc. (Fundanna), the portal Vincent Petrescu, CEO of TruCrowd

director bar $243,747 in disgorgement, interest, and penalties (December 2021) $9,700 fine

The complaint alleges $1,020,100 was raised through Transatlantic Real Estate and $888,180 through 420 Real Estate, and states: "Shumake and Jackson diverted $114,029 — or 13% of the total offering."

The October 2024 indictment charges one count of securities fraud and one count of obstruction in connection with Minerco Inc., a company repositioned as a psilocybin mushroom business. The government alleges a scheme to inflate the share price and demand for Minerco securities. He has pleaded not guilty, was released on personal recognizance, and trial is scheduled for December 2026. The allegations have not been tested at trial.

Because a search on his name returns it, and silence is not neutral. Anyone considering study, ministry, or initiation will find the record whether or not this page exists. The choice is not whether the record is discussed but whether his own account of it is available beside it. There is also a principle involved. He teaches that spiritual murder — condemning a person with authority borrowed from a book one did not write — is a real harm, and that it is distinct from accountability. A man can be answerable for what he has done. That is justice, and I do not ask to be exempt from it. But no man's soul is any other man's to write off, least of all with a book he did not write. The record above is stated as the court states it, including the parts that are unhelpful. That is the point.