Corina Bardasuc’s, destruction of the Self Inquiry group in Pittsburgh, PA.
This web site is a record of the actions taken by Corina Bardasuc on May 8th 2014. The specifics of Corina actions will become less important in time, but this site will remain as a testament to Corina’s short sighted behavior, hurtful actions, and destructive decisions. Prior to May 8th, I considered Corina my friend and trusted her to facilitate my Self Inquiry group, be the administrator of my web site, and be the liaison between our group and the organization that so graciously provided us with meeting space. On and after that date, Corina destroyed her relationship with me, every group member, and with our hosting organization. Corina’s actions on that day were so egregious that they have caused me to reevaluate who I will allow to be my friends.
The specifics will demonstrate that there were ambiguities in group leadership, lack of clarity of the rules of the organization we dealt with, and personality conflicts. However, these issues are not uncommon to any group, and one would hope that as adults, such topics could be resolved through conversation and negotiation with the goal of clarity and compromise. However, instead of peaceful resolution what Corina did was to permanently end most of the relationships with the people involved. I post this site to document what went on for anyone who will interact with Corina in the future.
Brief History
For a decade prior to April of 2013, there was a small social group run in Pittsburgh, PA to discuss the topic of Philosophical Self Inquiry. The term Philosophical Self Inquiry had been coined by an author named Richard Rose and promoted in Pittsburgh by Art Ticknor. He ran his group for many years until retiring and moving to Florida in early 2013.
The goal of Self Inquiry could be the topic for endless intellectual debate, however the process of Self Inquiry is well defined and useful. Simply put, a group member expresses their views on a topic, and other group members ask questions of genuine interest to help that person on their path of self discovery. The high point of the process is that the attention stays focused on the group member, and that no one else expresses their views in an attempt to solve anyone else’s problems. Maintaining this process is essential to prevent the group from deteriorating into an amateur therapy session and to maintain the focus on the individual’s self growth.
At the time that Art left Pittsburgh he provided no instructions for how the group would continue after he was gone. After he left some of the remaining group members held an unannounced meeting in which they decided to disband the group. At that time, they canceled the Meetup group, and all that was left was an empty meeting room. They did not even inform the hosting organization that they would no longer be using the meeting space. I returned to that empty meeting room for months in the hopes that other people would decide to attend, until finally restarting the Self Inquiry group myself.
After I restarted the group, one of the members who returned was Corina, a practitioner of Self Inquiry and a former member of Art’s group. Because I recognized that Corina had practiced Self Inquiry longer than I had, I welcomed her contributions to my group. On the first day that Corina attended to my group she told me about the ad-hock meeting where she and others had met and made the decision to disband Art’s group. She told me that if I hadn’t restarted the group she would have just let it go. What I failed to recognize is that although the other group had ended, and I had paid for and restarted the Meetup, Corina felt that my group belonged to her.
Sincerely, if Corina had asked me for the Meetup group I would have given it to her to run and pay for, and I may or may not have continued attending meetings myself. The first months of my restarted group went well, with new members joining, and long-time members teaching them the ways of Self Inquiry. During this time, Corina renegotiated our use of the meeting space, although we did need to shift to another room in the building. Many meetings that Corina attended I let her facilitate, not feeling that I needed to assert myself in a Self Inquiry meeting. Other meetings I facilitated, or left to another long-time member of the group.
For me, there was less value in the meetings as time went on and Corina became more controlling. The meetings became increasingly uncomfortable as Corina insisted that we follow her “Strict rules of Self Inquiry.” As I later learned, these strict rules were of Corina’s invention and do not exist anywhere else within Self Inquiry.
Over time, Corina became so harsh with other group members, both in person and by email, that I called her on the phone to talk with her about what was going on. In our conversation, I thought that we had come to an agreement that Self Inquiry did not need to be practiced so severely, and that she would be more accepting of other group members during the meetings. I was surprised when only a week later, Corina sent a severe email to the entire group stating that we were now going to require a strict practice of Self Inquiry. In response to this group email, I sent her a personal email asserting that the group was mine and what she was doing was not acceptable behavior. In response, Corina sent a libelous email about me to every group member, telling them that I had stolen money from the group, and then she proceeded to dismiss every member from the Meetup so that they could not be contacted again.
Because of Corina’s actions, I have lost most of my group members and I suspect that they will never rejoin. Then, after destroying my relationship with the group members, Corina went on to end our relationship with the organization that provided our meeting space. As a result of Corina’s actions, it is likely that we will never be able to meet there again, ending a relationship that took ten years to build. Corina has so completely compromised my trust that I will never co-lead a group with anyone again. Never in my life have I been personally attacked as Corina has gone after me, and had my work intentionally destroyed with such malice. Now, to warn others from being hurt by Corina, I post this site to document her aggressive, destructive, and petty behavior. I have presented these events to the best of my ability and I leave it to the reader to make their own decision whether they will interact with Corina Bardasuc in the future.