This all makes sense when you understand the methodology of cults and high-control groups:
If a person has time to think, this person is dangerous to the leaders. Therefore, the leaders must hijack ALL of your time and energy, keeping you so immersed in group activities that you have no time to think and do some meaningful reflection.
Your life is so focused on the religion you do not realize the religion is your entire life. And that's the way they want it.
After you've given everything, the leaders will ask, "can't you give some more?" No? You are disloyal and unfaithful!
From, "The Cult Test":
Part of surrendering to the cult is giving up on having a personal life or personal goals. Newcomers are instructed to abandon "selfishness" and to devote their lives to serving the master, his group, and their "great cause"
the cult is the most important thing in the lives of the cult members. Sometimes, it is their entire life.
Faithful members will tell you that the cult has given them a whole new life, but that new life is often nothing more than working for free all of the time to raise money for the cult, and recruit new members for the cult, and going to meetings, "Bible study classes", "worship services", chanting sessions, meditation sessions, prayer sessions, work parties, "auditing" sessions, training sessions, conventions and other get-togethers. Sometimes, cult members live together in communal houses and have few social contacts besides other cult members. And all they talk about is the cult.
"too many meetings". They want to occupy too much of your spare time — like all of it. They have meetings, and then they have classes or "Bible study" or "training", and perhaps also lots of prayer sessions or chanting or meditation sessions, and then they have assemblies and conventions, and then some more meetings, in an endless cycle. And somewhere in the midst of all of that you are also supposed to go out recruiting and/or fund-raising.
The cult also wants to control you. First, they want to control all of your time, and then they will try to control more and more parts of your life: your sex life, your diet, your choice of reading materials, your choice of jobs, your consumption of drugs and alcohol (both legal and illegal), and sometimes even what doctor-prescribed medications you may take.
The cult demands total loyalty from its members, but the cult has no loyalty to its members. Cult members may be subjected to physical, mental, and/or sexual abuse.
Cults are marked by the callous, cruel, and insensitive treatment of their members. The cult feels no obligation to tell its members the truth. The cult has no respect for the members' minds, opinions, integrity, or feelings. The cult often subjects members to psychological abuse and mental torture. There may be sexual exploitation and abuse. There may be physical abuse, beatings, or other torture.
The group is considered more important than the lives of the individual members. The rank and file members are considered expendable; the guru and his cult are not.
Cults often use members like just so much slave labor. Some cults coldly discard members when they have no further use for them.
