When we first moved to Maui about ten years ago to set up our retirement residency for half of each year, I looked for places to get good food. I wanted locally sourced, if possible, fresh stuff for a pesco-vegetarian like myself.

I thought I found the ideal place. It was a grocery store, part of a Hawaiian chain, known as Down to Earth, and it had yummy stuff. But I soon found out that it was owned by a secretive religious group known by the enigmatic name, the Science of Identity Foundation. The stores were one if its major sources of income. And the US Representative from the district that Maui was in was a member of the movement. Her name was Tulsi Gabbard.

The leader of SIF, Chris Butler, was a tall blond surfer who attended the University of Hawaii in the 1960s. It was then that he became deeply involved in the Hare Krishna movement (ISKCon, the International Society of Krishna Consciousness), only to leave it in 1977 after the death of the movement’s leader, when Butler started his own movement. He proclaimed himself the Guru, and adopted a Hindu name, shortened to an affectionate phrase, Jagad Guru (“spiritual master”). He claimed to be in direct mystical contact with Lord Krishna, and was a vessel for the God’s wishes. His disciples treated him as semi-divine.

Tulsi’s parents, Mike and Carol Gabbard, joined the movement early on, and Mike quickly became one of the leaders in the inner circle. He adopted two of the movement’s pet oppositions, anti-Islam and anti-Gay, with particular passion over the opposition to homosexuality. During the 1990s Mike had a talk show, “Speaking Straight,” and formed an organization to oppose the increasing liberalization over gay rights in the Hawai’i legislature.

Mike and Carol gave their children Hindu names, hence Tulsi was assigned the name for an aromatic Indian basil plant, much revered in Hindu culture. Though she was born into the movement, and attended its schools, she never rebelled from it. Quite the opposite, she became as ardent a member as her parents, regarding her Jagad Guru as a beloved mentor and spiritual guide.

Though he became increasingly secretive, the directives of Chris Butler – Jagad Guru – were obeyed without question, delivered in a stream of messages through his aides. He told his most devoted followers whom to marry, what employment to seek, and even what to say in important moments.

He wanted his movement to have political impact. Mike Gabbard was elected to the Honolulu City Council, then the Hawai’i Senate, first as a Republican and then switching to the state’s dominant Democratic Party. Since his mother was Samoan, he could tout his Polynesian heritage as an asset in his campaigns.

His daughter Tulsi was even more politically successful, and again the SIF movement and Jagad Guru’s instructions were behind her success. At age 21 she was the youngest person elected to the House of Representatives in Hawai’i, and she also served on the Honolulu City Council before running successfully for one of the two districts for the US House of Representatives. As luck would have it, her district included the island where we lived half of the year, Maui.

Tulsi served four terms in the US House of Representatives. When she was sworn in, she put her hand on the Bhagavad Gita, asserting that her religion was Hindu.

During those eight years her office received thousands of emails with directives about what to say, what issues to support, what bills to propose, and whom to meet and greet. Though the name of her Jagad Guru, Chris Butler, never appeared on any of these emails, it was clear who sent them, and she always obeyed. As a recent Washington Post exposé revealed, some of her public pronouncements and legislative proposals were taken verbatim from the emails she received from the movement in Hawai’i.

When she ran for President in 2020, it was revealed that most of her advisors in her inner political circle were also members of SIF and followers of Jagad Guru. Those of us in Hawai’i just assumed she was getting her directives from the movement. The same assumption stayed with us when she switched from Democrat supporter of Bernie Sanders to a Republican MAGA supporter of Donald Trump, and was rewarded by being dubbed the Director of National Intelligence, a position for which she was profoundly unqualified. But then, the same could be said of almost all of Trump’s other cabinet choices.

Shortly before the Washington Post published its exposé based on the purloined emails, one of the reporters who wrote the story contacted her to give her a head’s up and get a comment from her if she wished to give it. She didn’t. But two days later she resigned from her position, stating that she was concerned about her husband’s health.

I suppose Tulsi is now back in Hawai’i. I might even see her in the Down to Earth grocery store, if I ever go back to it again. I stopped going ten years ago, and have never looked back.