Grilling The Gurus

[Amer]

I've always been interested in the figure of the religious/spiritual/enlightenment ?guru? ? why people follow a guru, how people attain guru status and the figure of the guru in all its guises- pretty and ugly.

I believe the figure of the guru per se is not always a positive feature for society. I am open to being proven wrong. However I put forward the argument that the principal teachings of a lot of gurus today are for example:
1. The concept that ?individuality? is negative.
2. The concept that any emotional attachment is negative.

Our individuality is sacred, we are individual sparks of the cosmos, each with our own paths to walk. It is becoming increasingly difficult to be allowed to do this- to decide for ourselves, to think and act for ourselves. Spirituality has its place, I am a firm believer in this, however I would urge a degree of caution in any teaching that entices us into the shedding of any form of our individuality- emotional or psychological.

Emotional attachment is one of the integral parts to being human. It starts the moment we are born. In forming attachments of course they must be healthy, they must not seek to suffocate or control, they must consist of mutual trust and respect. A healthy emotional attachment will help you grow, it will give you wings. It is a thing of beauty.

I have heard gurus talk negatively of the family- the family is the curse of today, the attachment that children have to their parents is wrong, they must be raised by the commune, the commune must take the place of the family and we will solve the problems of society. I say balderdash.

In any case I would like this thread to be a place where we put it to the gurus of today and those of yesterday who still exercise a degree of control on people?s minds. If they are worth their mettle, it will be apparent. But let?s ask ourselves why do we need gurus? Should gurus be without blemish? Can a guru be enlightened and at the same time screw up royally? Why do some enjoy mass devotion?

It is more than evident that there are those out there who have done and are doing a lot of damage, serious psychological damage. Some of them, far from being models for society should probably be on an island by themselves where they can do no damage.

[Amer]

I haven’t finished watching the documentary on Sai Baba on Lightblue’s thread http://nexus.2012info.ca/forum/showthread.php?8645-Sri-Satya-Sai-Baba-s-scum , halfway through it and it’s definitely worth watching.

I have noticed some videos posted on Nexus by the guru Osho. The first time I looked at something by him, I couldn’t actually finish the video because he made me extremely uncomfortable, something in his face that seemed altogether wrong. When I saw another video posted I said I have to look at why I am having such an adverse reaction to this guy…….


“About Osho Rajneesh
Osho was one of the most renowned as well as most controversial spiritual leaders of his times. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Later, he changed his name to 'Osho'. He was the founder of Osho movement, a controversial spiritual and philosophical movement.
As per Osho, he received enlightenment in the year 1953, at the age of 21

Osho Philosophy
As per Osho, there is nothing more valuable or precious in this world than love, meditation and laughter. Enlightenment the normal state in which a human being lives. It is because of being bounded in the emotional ties that he fails to recognize this state. Meditation is not something that needs to be taught, it is the state of just being.” Iloveindia.com


The site and many other sites that sing the praises of Osho however fail to mention one or two small details that might be pertinent to how someone might take a closer look at him.


“After Osho died in Pune on Jan 19, 1990, he was cremated, and as per his wishes, his ashes were interred in his bedroom at his residence ‘Lao Tzu’ on the Osho Commune premises.
This marble floored and marble-walled bedroom has a majestic circular chandelier and is recognised as Osho’s samadhi where his followers were allowed to meditate silently.”


I don’t know if it is just my hang up- but if you receive Enlightenment with a capital E- does it not bring release from all the attachments and trappings of the superficial materialistic world? Does opulence not become simply ugly in the face of poverty and the plight of humankind in that moment you realise that you are One with all?

What is it with marble floors, marble walls and majestic chandeliers?

Osho when he was alive resided in the most majestic of surroundings, bestowed his wisdom from his expensive chair, expensive clothes which he would wear just once and ever notice those bracelets/watches on his wrists? Not bijou, no definitely not bijou. But then he was called in his life the rich man’s guru. And of course we cannot forget his penchant for Rolls Royce ( 93 of them )…. A most enlightened choice of vehicle no doubt.

However apart from the material side, there are very serious charges that were levelled against him in his advocation for a certain way of life:


“deliberately divided and broken families, serial noncommittal relationships, sham marriages to defy immigration laws, mass abortions and sterilizations of women (many suffering from surgical complications) and vasectomies for men all ordered by the guru, a few thousand neglected children, and, for too many periods of time, neglect by Rajneesh of the spiritual welfare and bodily-emotional-financial welfare of tens of thousands of young adults and older disciples who had given to this mesmerizing little man so much of their lives—their souls, minds, energy, money and years of labor. The majority of these disciples never or only rarely complained, having been brainwashed to regard all the manipulation, neglect and/or abuse as a "test," a "game," a "big joke" by the Bhagwan and his elites.” http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/rajneesh.html

His time in Oregan where he established a commune in 1981 before being deported, reads like a thriller:


“Fears that insiders at the Oregon ashram may have been plotting to murder Rajneesh soon took root, however. Thus, in late 1984, Bhagwan and his “right-hand woman,” Sheela, allegedly commenced with spending $100,000 per month on the installation of wiretapping and bugging equipment throughout Rajneeshpuram (Milne, 1986).
Directing their attention as well to concerns outside of the ashram, followers in the same year
spiked salad bars at ten restaurants in [nearby The Dalles, Oregon] with salmonella and sickened about 750 people (Flaccus, 2001).
The goal there was apparently to incapacitate large numbers of voters, allowing the Rajneesh-sponsored candidates to prevail in county elections. A contamination of the local water supply was reportedly planned for after the “test” restaurant poisoning.
Investigations into that salmonella outbreak ultimately revealed an alleged plot to kill the former U.S. Attorney for Oregon, Charles Turner.

And all of this is merely the tip of the iceberg in what delving into the life of Mr. Osho turns up.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSyurKi6FKM

Informative video, unbiased, gives you a certain amount of the facts and leaves it to you to decide.

[Chicodoodoo]

Can a guru be enlightened and at the same time screw up royally?

Yes.

Those that answer "No" should report to the nearest GFL recruiting station.

[Going by]

In my idea, true masters and enlightened ones have very few followers (they try to escape followism because it creates dependency, which is contrary to enlightenment), and mostly, have an absolute respect for absolute freedom. Even advice on one's life or preferred actions are avoided. Only teaching is given.

One is left with a feeling of absolute freedom. At least, this is my opinion of what it is or it should be in my unlightened ways.

[Ross]

Here is an old article, written 1991...


I was prompted to post this after Ramtha was mentioned in another thread today...


LINDA EVANS'S GURU, J.Z. Knight, a petite blonde in her forties, sits surrounded by acolytes in her palatial home in Yelm, Washington, a small farming community fifty-five miles south of Seattle. Suddenly her eyes close, her body spasms, and she goes limp.

When the eyes flick open, she is Knight no more. She is Ramtha, the Enlightened One, a thirty-five-thousand-year-old warlord from Atlantis. Ramtha invented warfare after a "wondrous woman" gave him a magic sword. Eventually, he got religion, becoming one with God and part of the "unseen brotherhood" of Enlightened Beings who answer our prayers. Then he waited around for all those thousands of years before dropping in on Knight, a former cable-TV executive and horse breeder, whom he chose as his vehicle to convey the secrets of the ancients to our wisdom-starved world.

Speaking in a deep male voice and swooping up and kissing the female devotees, Knight, by all accounts, puts on a good show. She was already a hot ticket on the channeling circuit, dispensing Ramtha wisdom to hundreds who paid up to fifteen hundred dollars for a private audience (Ramtha set the price, Knight said) and churning out a cottage industry of Ramtha books, audio tapes, and videotapes, when Shirley MacLaine discovered her. After MacLaine, who wept for joy upon hearing that she had been Ramtha's brother in Atlantis, wrote about J.Z. in her 1985 book, Dancing in the Light, Knight became a New Age superstar.

That's around the time Evans found her. Ever since she was dumped, at age thirty-one, by husband John Derek for a sixteen-year-old sexpot named Bo, she'd been seeking out yoga, meditation, and mysticism to repair her shattered self-esteem. When she came across the Ramtha books and tapes, they "impressed me as profound, because they translated mental concepts into emotional realities," she has said. And she wanted to meet Knight, "because I knew what it felt like to be in the shadow of a powerful man, and J.Z. was very much in Ramtha's shadow."

The two--or is it there?--hit if off. "In the beginning, I was totally suspicious," Evans said. "I wanted proof that the channeling wasn't just trickery." Ramtha's teachings convinced her. "He holds you in the moment--holds a truth or emotion until you totally feel it and know it. I'm happier now than I have ever been because of the feeling within myself of finally knowing who I am." Evans bought a home in Washington State to be near J.Z. and ignored friends' pleas that she not publicize the friendship.

In the eighties, Knight made enough off Ramtha to last her several lifetimes. But a series of events shook her credibility. Natural disasters Ramtha prophesied--California and Florida falling into the ocean, acid rain poisoning New England's water supply--didn't happen, causing many who'd sold their homes and moved to the Pacific Northwest for safety to question Ramtha's omniscience. The state of Washington slapped an injunction on Knight, who'd been telling followers that Ramtha recommended they buy her Arabian horses, at up to $250,000 each. Knight's former advance man revealed he'd come upon Knight in a non-trance state practicing Ramtha voices. And after Ramtha began making homophobic comments ("Mother Nature" wanted to "get rid of" gays, he said), other prominent channeled spirits, such as San Francisco's Lazarus, questioned how enlightened, not to say real, he was.

Still, Evans continues to stand by her entity. "J.Z. has changed my life, and I'm proud to say that I love her. People may think I've gone off the deep end, and I respect their right to fell that way."

Three thousand miles away, in New York City, Richard Gere is excitedly addressing the press. "I've just come from His Holiness," he says. "I'm shaking from that audience." His Holiness is the Dalai Lama, the exiled God-King of Tibet, who has been the actor's spiritual teacher since 1982.

Gere is speaking at the opening ceremonies of Tibet House, an organization he co-founded in 1987, at the request of the Dalai Lama, to bring knowledge of Tibetan culture to the West. He became infatuated with Tibetan Buddhism in 1978, he says, when he visited a Tibetan refugee camp in India. "I . . . was moved by the people. They have a joyous and deep understanding of the true values of life." They have also suffered terribly under the Chinese, who overran their country in 1950, sending its leader packing and causing hundreds of thousands of deaths in their effort to obliterate Tibetan culture.

At first, it seems an unlikely pairing: the bad-boy actor and the Himalayan holy man. The Dalai Lama, now fifty-six, was plucked from a remote farming village at the age of two and a half to be enshrined in Lhasa as the leader of the world's most spiritual people. But opposites attract. "It's amazing being in the presence of someone who not only wishes you the best but has no sense of his ego," Gere has said. And Gere, who was brought up a Methodist, has long been a seeker. At twenty-four, he studied Zen meditation because, he once told a reporter, he had experienced a great deal of suffering and was searching for some way to deal with it. When he met the Dalai Lama, he was home.

Gere's involvement is deep. "He spends at least three-quarters of his time, when he isn't making movies, on things having to do with Tibet," says Elsie Walker, Tibet House president.

"A human being is meant to live the same way a car is meant to stay on the road," Gere notes. "Eventually, you find your way." But he recognizes that some need help in making the journey. As part of the 1991 Year of Tibet, a series of international conferences and art exhibitions, "we will have a booth at Bloomingdale's, where we'll sell first-class tickets to nirvana."

Behind every celebrity, it seems, stands a guru. Sometimes, the guru stands under him. In 1988 and '89, Sri Chinmoy, a fifty-nine-year-old Bangladeshi spiritual teacher and physical fitness buff--whose followers have included Carlos Santana, Sheena Easton, and track star Carl Lewis--toured seventeen countries, hoisting the likes of the Prime Minister of Iceland, two San Francisco 49ers, and Eddie Murphy into the air by means of a Nautilus-like contraption. Weight lifting is "the perfect analogy to the spiritual life," explains one devotee. "As the dead weight is lifted up, so also a person's lower, unilluminated being can be lifted to a level of increased peace, light, and delight." "He's constantly inspiring me," adds music producer Narada Michael Walden, who's done albums for Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin. "He reminds me of God."

Even Imelda Marcos and Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi arms dealer, have a guru--India's Shri Chandra Swamiji Maharaj. In addition to providing spiritual counsel to the fabulously wealthy and hobnobbing with Elizabeth Taylor, the guru, who's been called a "one-man jet-set-introduction service" apparently greases the wheels in weapons transactions and was implicated in the Iran-Contra arms deal. The vastly rich swami was arrested by the Indian police in 1987 on charges of currency fraud.

There is nothing new, of course, in the talented, rich, or famous looking outside Western tradition to fulfill their spiritual needs. The nineteenth-century transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson was strongly influenced by Oriental philosophy; beats like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac popularized Zen. But it wasn't until the sixties, an era in which all things Indian were in vogue, that the guru as we know him washed up on American shores.

He arrived in the person of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the tiny, avuncular, white-bearded swami who preached salvation through transcendental meditation--repeating for twenty minutes twice a day the customized mantras he sold for seventy-five dollars each. His brand of lite Hinduism attracted the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, who flew to his Rishikesh, India, ashram in 1968, and though their stay was short-lived--they left in disgust after a few weeks, reportedly claiming that the swami propositioned women in their entourage--the publicity was such that soon half of New York City and Los Angeles could be found sitting, eyes closed, concentrating on Sanskrit syllables.

The Maharishi's success in the West opened the floodgates to a host of dhoti-clad successors. There was Guru Maharaj Ji, the pudgy thirteen-year-old Perfect Master of the Divine Light Mission, whose touch was supposed to confer Knowledge and whose mother renounced him after he married a twenty-four-year-old; the chain-smoking Swami Satchidananda, championed by artist Peter Max and Carole King; the free love-espousing Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, whose Antelope, Oregon, commune degenerated into a caldron of sinister intrigues and murder plots. And there was Swami Muktananda, the guru's guru, who, to many in Hollywood, was the holiest of all.

Introduced to the U.S. in 1970 by Baba Ram Das (a former Harvard psychologist and LSD proponent who wrote the sixties hippie bible, Be Here Now), Swami Muktananda claimed to be a Siddha, an enlightened yogi of a centuries old Hindu tradition. A teacher of great charisma, Muktananda drew such celebrities as Marsha Mason, John Denver, former California governor Jerry Brown, Phylicia Rashad, James Taylor, and Carly Simon into his fold. By the time he died, in 1982, at the age of seventy-five, his SYDA Foundation operated eleven stately ashrams and hundreds of meditation centers worldwide.

Soon after his death, though, scandal surfaced. Although Muktananda had claimed to be celibate, dozens of former disciples, including members of his inner circle, revealed that the guru had had sex with female devotees and was especially attracted to members of the PSAT set. At his Ganeshprui, India, ashram, "he had a secret passageway from his house to the young girls' dormitory," one reported. "Whoever he was carrying on with, he had switched to that dorm. had girls marching in and out of his bedroom all night long." Some were as young as thirteen. Even before the swami died, one veteran ashram director wrote an open letter accusing Muktananda of "molesting little girls on the pretext of checking their virginity." "You should be happy that I'm still alive and healthy and that they haven't tried to hang me," Muktananda replied.

Some south to rationalize their guru's secret sex life by saying that he was practicing tantric sex, an unorthodox but real form of yoga in which the male does not ejaculate but instead uses his semen to drive his spiritual "kundalini" from his groin chakra into his head. This didn't wash with others. "If you're going to be celibate and you're going to preach celibacy, you don't put it in halfway and then pull it out," one high-ranking former member said.

Muktananda's movement survived the bad press and other scandals over alleged beating of disciples, threats against defectors, and financial shenanigans involving Swiss bank accounts. Today, under the spiritual guidance of Muktananda's successor, a thirty-six-year-old Indian woman named Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, the SYDA Foundation appears turmoil-free and celebrity-full. Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith named their daughter Dakota Mayi after her; Peggy Lipton credits her with having "helped me honor myself and strengthen my self-esteem." (According to People magazine, Lipton's obsession with Gurumayi was one of the reasons behind the breakup of her twelve-year marriage to Quincy Jones; she had issued a "join me or else" ultimatum.)

Other stalwart followers include or have include Denver, James Brolin, Patricia Neal, Marlo Thomas, Rosanna Arquette, and Isabella Rossellini. "She's an Enlightened Master," swoons a SYDA Foundation publicist. "When people come into her presence, they know. Something mystical and great happens." At a recent birthday blowout for Gurumayi in the foundation's princely South Fallsburg, New York, headquarters, she sat on a throne above two thousand devotees while Mandy Patinkin, Lulu, and Jimmy Webb serenaded her. "It was like a party for royalty or a god," one non-follower told the press. "When you go up there, it's like entering Stepford land; people drive around with Gurumayi's picture on their dashboards and honk if they love her."

It would be difficult to predict the outcome of a Tournament of Stars between the followers of Gurumayi and those of the late L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the controversial Church of Scientology. Dreamed up in the forties by Hubbard, a science-fiction writer who once mused that "if a man really wants to make a million, the best way would be to start his own religion," Scientology is regarded as the new Buddhism by its followers, a money-mad, mind-altering cult by its detractors, who include psychologists, cult-watch groups, the AMA, and journalists, lawyers, and former members who have been targets of its wrath. In his bible, Dianetics, Hubbard wrote that all inner turmoil is the result of what he called "engrams," mental aberrations resulting from past traumatic events. If these engrams could be eliminated, one could be "cleared" and hence open to spiritual growth. Scientologists strive to rid themselves of engrams with the aid of "E-meters," lie detector-like devices used in "auditing" sessions with Scientology ministers, in which the intimate details of members' lives are laid bare. Auditing is pricey: It costs from $250 to $1,000 an hour or more.

John Travolta, a church member since 1975, says it's worth it. Before Scientology, "I'd get very depressed, for no reason," he has said. "Scientology made sense to me right away, because it seemed like a means of self-help. A meter shows you when you're responding to a bad experience in your past; you find the source of pain, acknowledge it, deal with it. I get answers that way, okay?" Kirstie Alley says Scientology helped her kick her cocaine habit in 1979. It "salvaged my life and began my acting career."

Similar testimonials are offered by Chick Corea, Al Jarreau, Karen Black, Priscilla Presley, folksinger Melanie, Frank Stallone, and Nancy Cartwright--better known as the voice of Bart Simpson. Tom Cruise and Mimi Rogers are also involved, as are Sonny Bono and Anne Archer. You can read many of their Scientology "Success Stories" in Celebrity, the glossy magazine the church displays in its recruitment centers.

But Scientology's superstars don't talk much about other aspects of the church. For example, Scientology teaches that seventy-five million years ago earth was called Teegeeach and was part of a galactic confederation ruled by an evil titan named Xemu. To solve the problem of overpopulation in his empire, Xemu rounded up miscreants and imprisoned them in volcanoes on earth, which he then exploded with nuclear bombs. Their spirits, called thetans, were gathered in clusters and trapped in frozen alcohol. Xemu then "implanted" them in humans, which is the cause of all our suffering; only through Scientology auditing can our thetans be cleared. Or something like that.

But the celebrities aren't taught about Xemu: That info is part of Scientology's most esoteric teachings, accessible only to "Level 3" disciples, those in the church's inner core. (Should the unprepared so much as glimpse these sacred texts, they will catch pneumonia and die.) These are the same church leaders who, as is well documented, have terrorized church "enemies," laundered hundreds of millions of dollars through dummy corporations, and behaved in other not-recognizably-religious ways. In 1977, eleven top church leaders, including Hubbard's third wife, were sentenced to prison for infiltrating, wiretapping, and burglarizing more than one hundred government offices of the IRS, FBI, and CIA, to sabotage a Federal investigation of the church. Far from an Enlightened Master, the reclusive Hubbard, who is said to have died in 1986, was perhaps more accurately described by family members as a "paranoid schizophrenic" and "hopelessly insane."

"The celebrities are given a rosy picture of the lower level of Scientology, which is a lot of pop psychology and some beneficial things," says a former high-level church official who worked at the Los Angeles Celebrity Center, one of Scientology's plush mansions where the famous get their auditing done. "They're not isolated in RPF programs, which is basically a kind of Korean final brainwashing, they're not exposed to the alien stuff. Our mission [at the Center] was to get celebrities in and use them as bait to bring in naive adolescents and young adults. The celebrities are themselves victims of information manipulation, highly sophisticated influence techniques, and their own vulnerability."

While Hubbard--who was terrified of dust and germs and demanded that his clothes be washed thirteen times in spring water before he would wear them--was an odd bird, the strangest gurus seem to be based in New York City. Take Frederick Von Mierers, a former male model and social climber from Brooklyn who convinced scores of beautiful, young, rich New Yorkers, including top models from the Ford Model Agency, as well as Sylveseter Stallone, that he was an alien "walk-in" from the star Arcturus. Physical beauty was a prerequisite to membership in his cult, Eternal Values, which was based in an elegant Sutton Place apartment house. "I'm here to train the leaders of the New age," he told writer Marie Brenner. "Everyone I am training for leadership will have perfect features. I believe in the master race!"

One of the ways Von Mierers would save his followers from the coming Armageddon was by making them buy expensive gemstones, which he sold for many times their worth, often supplying phony appraisal certificates. Sex was also required; he coerced them into bizarre practices, like the multiracial gangbang called The Treatment. "You need to sit on a six-foot dildo in the middle of Park Avenue," he told his female disciples, who included Jackie Adams, a Ford superstar with an Elizabeth Arden contract who was desperately seeking insight into her unhappy childhood. For his own pleasure, Von Mierers kept a Polaroid collection of enormously endowed black men.

As his fame spread through New Age circles, the cheek-implanted, face-lifted Von Mierers amassed millions selling his stones and psychic "life readings," which he claimed were accounts of previous incarnations, to the likes of Stallone, New York arts patron Alice Tully, and Rae Dawn Chong. He had a New York cable-TV show and was prominently featured in the 1986 book Aliens Among Us. His philosophy was a mishmash of Eastern teachings, New Age psychobabble, and rabid anti-Semitism, but his control over his devotees was seamless. "Satanic" defectors, however, eventually including Adams, went to the police and denounced him as a fraud.

The bizarre story of Von Mierers, whose death last year from AIDS spared him a likely prison sentence, brings to mid the even weirder story of Bernadette Peters's guru. In the seventies, Oric Bovar, who was renowned in Broadway circles for his uncannily accurate astrological charts and prescribed meditations that brought inner peace to such disciples as Peters, Carol Burnett, the ever-seeking Marsha Mason, and Neil Simon, became convinced that he was Jesus Christ and claimed that he could endure a year without going to the bathroom. One follower became convinced that Bovar was indeed divine when, during their first telephone conversation, he received an electric shock. On Christmas Eve 1975, Bovar instructed his followers to look up at the sky, and they saw him create a star.

As Bovar went bonkers, some of his followers dropped off, but not Peters. In the summer of 1976, he announced that Christmas would now be celebrated on his birthday, August 29. He began arranging marriages for his devotees--"Someone would come into the room and he would say, 'This is your husband--you must marry him,'" one recalls--and spent his free time watching The Exorcist. He put his followers on strict diets and forbade them to have sex.

Bovar's greatest feat was to have been the resurrection of twenty-nine-year-old Stephanos Hatzitheodorou, a disciple who died of cancer in his New York apartment in the fall of '76. After covering the body with a shawl, Bovar and five disciples kept a vigil over the corpse, chanting, "Rise, Stephan, rise, rise, rise." It was only then that Peters, whom the New York Times called one of Bovar's most loyal devotees, jumped ship. For two months, the group changed over the body, until a woman who identified herself as Mary Magdalene called the cops. His arrest for violating the health code by keeping a decaying corpse in the apartment marked the beginning of the end for Bovar, who was now referring to himself as "my son, Oric Bovar." Hours before he was to answer his doubters, he jumped out a window, intending to appear in resurrected glory in court.

There are other celebrities, other gurus, who should be mentioned. Ted Danson, Valerie Harper, Raul Julia, and John Denver (again) are followers of Werner Erhard, whose self-improvement training of the seventies, EST, brought us the phrase "Thank you for sharing." According to published reports, the California-based Erhard is now considered godlike by the faithful ("When you listen to Werner articulate," Denver said in 1987, "you know that you're listening to a historic moment being made.") and is referred to as the Source. His own family relations aren't so good, however: He allegedly forced his wife to participate in group sex and raped one of his daughters, who refers to him as a "monster."

Patrick Duffy, Herbie Hancock, and Tina Turner are members of Nichiren Shosu Soka Gakai of America, a yuppie Buddhist chanting circle many consider a cult. Leigh Taylor Young and Sally Kirkland are ordained ministers in the "Melchizedek priesthood" of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, a West Coast New Age outfit run by John-Roger, a former English teacher who is revered by followers as the embodiment of a Christ-like power called the Mystical Traveler Consciousness and possessor of "Preceptor consciousness," a rare enlightenment that exists on this planet only once every twenty-five thousand years.

David Viscott, a popular Beverly Hills psychiatrist who hosts radio and TV call-in shows in LA, has a theory about why so many celebrities wind up with gurus or in cults. "The more insecure people are, the more fame they want," he says. "And the more fame they get, the less they're able to handle it. So you see a lot of very insecure, famous people--people who feel alone and bewildered."

The insecurity is worsened by the vicissitudes of show business. "Look at who you're talking about--Linda Evans, Richard Gere, John Travolta," says Dr. Viscott. "They've all had certain jolts in their lives. The need for stability and for a base in the face of a world that seems ever-flimsy is the force that leads such people to seek something that gives them solidarity."

And the famous, of course, are warmly embraced by the cults. Ever since the Beatles, gurus have been latching onto celebrities for the publicity they bring them. "The group gives [the stars] their celebrity status not only in terms of the world without but also in terms of the cult they've become a part of," Dr. Viscott continues. "They get the feeling that Ramtha loves them especially. It's the politics of insecurity."

The breaking news on the guru front is that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is back. Championed by magician Doug Henning, a seven-hour-a-day meditator, the swami the Beatles dubbed Sexy Sadie has announced plans for a 450-acre mystical theme park called Veda Land, scheduled to open in Orlando, Florida, in 1993. Among its attractions will be a white building that appears to levitate fifteen feet above a pond, a time tunnel from the Big Bang to Eternity's End, and a 120-passenger chariot that will travel into the DNA of a rose petal. "The idea was the Maharishi's," Henning said recently. "Maharishi looked me in the eye and said, 'All theme parks are superficial. Create one that stimulates the intellect, stirs the emotions--and enlightens people.'" Maharishi's inspiration, Henning added, was a trip to Disneyland.

[VajraYaya]

Really, the time for gurus is over. People that flock to gurus and other perceived masters all have the pattern of wanting to give their energy, their responsibility for awakening, to something outside themselves. They're joiners. they feel comfort in being part of the group, sheeple. And for spiritual awakening, comfort can be deadly.

The one thing that following a guru can do is force one to deal with the experience of betrayal in a strong way. EVERYONE who follow a guru will experience betrayal at some point, either directly or indirectly which, hopefully, should push them to a greater self-examination and eventually on to true realization. [Dependence on an guru can prevent this.] At some point everyone will have their eyes opened to the hypocrisy, and humanness of that person to whom they have put so much of this identity into.

Gurus are not needed but one can benefit from a teacher. I have not worked with a teacher before, one has never appeared, but I am open to it if it is needed. A teacher is someone who will point the way, and not prescribe or dictate. Also a good teacher should be a temporary thing, and should eventually send you on your way at some point. Anyone who fosters dependence or demands worship or admiration is a narcissist. But a good teacher SHOULD have an ego, a sense of humor. That ego should be highly evolved and plugged into and referred to that greater ground of beingness, of suchness. I do believe that it is possible that there are highly realized people, out there, who people can feel, and flock to. But if that is what they are, they would not encourage dependence.

JZ Knight is an out and out fraud. Many people who have left her have talked about it. Osho was a big problem too but a lot of what he taught had value. I have a bunch of his books which are all really good. In them he is really just repackaging esoteric Buddhist and Vedantic teachings, which I find to be clear and truthful. But, I wouldn't have done really well if I went to his Ashram. I am not at all a joiner, and would definitely not supplicate myself to a guy who needs me to. That says more about him than it does me. I would be ope to a lesson from a teacher, then move on.

I'm betting that you won't find a lot of highly realized people who are long term residents of an ashram or other flock. Awakening is always a profoundly personal experience that really is only experienced alone. Although I do think that there is value in group meditation. I think it can be powerful. But can also be problematic for those who think that this is the only way change can happen.

We are at a time now, I believe, when the veil is thinning, as it were, and a lot of people are starting to realize on their own, or feel the pull toward it. I don't think this has ever happened on such a scale in all of history. Awakening is something that happens, when you are walking, in the shower, sitting quietly, driving a car, writing a story, having a crap, drinking tea. It just happens when needed. No guru is needed to help that.


There is my jumble of disjointed thoughts for today. :neo:

[Unified Serenity]

Everytime I see the title of this thread, I think, "Yes", with some ketchup and A-1 sauce.

Sorry, it's just what comes to mind.

[Anchor]

In the 90's, I used to know a very great deal about the Oracle relational database system. People referred to me as the Oracle Guru. Similarly, there were those that knew a lot about the Solaris UNIX system, and they were Unix Gurus.

These people never called themselves Gurus and nor did I, other people did it and it was kind of a label and it stuck for a while.

I don't think Guru in the spiritual sense meant enlightened - though it probably helps - I tend to think of it as meaning that the person is an Expert in a certain branch of spiritual knowledge.

It all goes horribly wrong when people start trusting the wrong people.

[flower]

Labels are useless in this context imo

[Amerillo]

It's not the guru's who are the problem, it's the followers desperately in need to follow a leader. Or as the buddha likes to say: you already have the Buddha nature. If you meet a Buddha, just kill him.

[Amer]

In the wake of Friday?s radio show which brought up the question of Gurus, I?m reminded of one case which fits very much into this topic and it is that of the guru Oberti Airaudi and his sect Damanhur.

3645

When I was on Avalon I remember someone posting about a community called Damanhur in Italy. They said that they had visited it, and talked in a very positive light about the experience.

Being here in Italy and having never heard of the community I looked into it on the net and to my surprise discovered it was in Piemonte where I live.
I looked at their website, thought that at first glance it all seemed very interesting and decided to visit it the following Sunday with some friends. This was about more than a year or so ago.

First a little about Damanhur from their own website:

?Damanhur, is an eco-society based on ethical and spiritual values, awarded by an agency of the United Nations as a model for a sustainable future.

Damanhur promotes a culture of peace and equitable development through solidarity, volunteerism, respect for the environment, art, and social and political engagements.

Damanhur has a Constitution, a complementary currency system, a daily newspaper, a magazine, art studios, a center for research and practice of medicine and science, an open university, and schools for children through middle school.

The Federation of Damanhur is also known throughout the world because its citizens have created the Temples of Humankind, an extraordinary underground work of art dedicated to the reawakening of the divine essence in every human being. It is considered by many as the ?Eighth Wonder of the World.? The art studios that made the Temples are located at Damanhur Crea, a center for innovation, wellness and research, open to the public every day of the year.

Damanhur has centers and activities in Italy, Europe, Japan and the United States and collaborates with international organizations engaged in the social, civic and spiritual development of the planet.? www.damanhur.org/

In fact these Temples of Humankind that the community worked on for years unbeknownst to anyone ( and without any permission to see if they could dig into the side of a mountain ) are really something incredible and awesomely beautiful.

3644


Reading their website it all seemed idyllic, they even had their own school, their own organic restaurant and creative workshops.

And so myself and two friends with our children went off for a visit one damp Sunday having telephoned ahead and organized someone to meet us and give us a tour. First we went for lunch at their restaurant which is located about a mile away from the actual community. The food was lovely and the people there nice. There was some drama going on that particular day as we could see several members huddled talking at the caf? where we went after to have coffee; someone was crying, there was a sense of unease and faces seemed drawn.

We then proceeded down to the Damanhur headquarters and to the visitor reception area where a really enthusiastic young woman greeted us, she was to be the first and only person full of bubbles that day we would meet. She explained that Tasso would be our guide and he would arrive shortly. Tasso means badger in Italian, for when members join Damanhur they forsake their original names and take on the name of an animal. The founder, Oberti, is known as Falco, or Hawk in English.

There are places, people and situations that immediately resonate with you either positively or negatively and I had already sensed something back at the recreational centre and there at the compound it was considerably heightened. I felt uncomfortable, there seemed to be a heaviness in the air. While we were waiting for Mr. Tasso we strolled about, there were some stalls where they sold jewelry that supposedly worn would ward off negativity, or bits of wire construction put in your car would protect you, the lady behind the stall that explained this to us had such a blank look, a vacantness that it was almost sad. And that was what I saw in many faces that day- emptiness and a kind of tension.

When Mr. Tasso arrived he had the same look about him coupled with a sort of mild irritation, as if we had woken him on a Sunday morning and forced him out of bed. We started our walk around the grounds and he started his talk about Damanhur, its history and philosophy.

After about five minutes he became irritated with my son as he was interrupting the pace of the walk, and basically said if I was going to pander to every whim of my son?s I was wasting his time. And I guess that about did it for me. I countered that his Damanhur philosophy hadn?t seemed to teach him much patience or how to be with or appreciate children and their ways. A sort of very evident antipathy formed between us, whereby my friend?s husband who is very diplomatic took over the situation, engaged Mr. Tasso in questions and feigned interest and we concluded the tour.

I wondered had it just been me, but my friends assured me that they had gotten the same feeling that I had. I came away from the place sorry I had gone, and wanting to get far away from it.

Naturally the bulk of my judgment on the place was purely feeling, but sometimes that?s the biggest indicator of how valid something is for you or not. And I stress for me it was not valid, for the hundreds of members it may very well be. I don?t know their realities but when I got home I started to research the place more and I started to see why I might have perceived that place in the way I did.

The following is a testimony from an ex-member:

?I was a member of Damanhur for many years and I left recently because I woke up to the fact that I was helping to sustain a system of subtle psychological abuse. It is heart breaking to see how much damage Damanhur is causing to the people who have wholeheartedly pledged their lives to its ideals and social aspirations: people who sincerely believe that they are creating a new Atlantis, a new social model and a self-sustaining way of life.

Damanhur conceals many agendas on magic and energetic levels that are only now coming to light.

Initiates are subject to a subtle system of ?thought reform?, which is exercised by the School of Meditation and the ?Tecnarcato?, both designed to control, maintain discipline and suppress criticism within community. Public humiliation is used to create fear and obedience and a system of rewards for good behavior and status within the ranks ensures everyone tows the line. Those who do not follow the rules and disciplines are ostracized by their fellow Damanhurians and excluded from group activities. They are required to write letters explaining their actions to the ?Vertice? and are often subject to humiliating sessions of public apology in front of the whole School. I often saw grown men breakdown and cry when faced with this ordeal. All disciplinary procedures are made public during obligatory Meditation School meetings on Monday evenings. Initiates live in constant fear of the disapproval of Falco and the heads of the Meditation School: they are desperately careful to carry out all that is requested of them.? http://damanhurinsideout.wordpress.com/testimonies/a-damanhurian-life/


This is only a short extract from one testimony, there are many heart-breaking ones, people who are left with their lives in pieces, trying to get it back together in some shape or form.

The website that shines a very strong light on the darker side of Damanhur and its Falco leader is http://damanhurinsideout.wordpress.com/about/

The wealth of information and the professional way it puts it across is important for anyone thinking of getting involved in this community. It provides numerous testimonies, newspaper and magazine articles, court reports and book references, information accessible for the English and Italian reader. It is indeed very interesting.

This post cannot do justice to the intricacies that are involved in Damanhur, the complexity of their belief system and the very, let's say unorthodox practices that go on on so many levels.

Anyone interested in cults and false gurus I would urge to have a look at the community of Damanhur and its leader.

[reaver]

It is very hard to just walk out of the gate even though it is always open. A Damanhurian’s sense of identity is firmly established within the community walls and outside the gate it ceases to exist, along with all that has been invested in it. Falco often reiterates that if you choose to leave, it is as if you had never arrived in Damanhur, all that you have contributed is wiped out. Imagine how this feels to someone who arrived at 18 and has spent over 20–30 years in the community! Leaving requires an enormous amount of courage. You are even told you will lose your soul. Until recently only a few Damanhurians involved in the innermost circles had ever managed to leave. In the past those who did escape remained isolated and without support. Fortunately the situation is now changing and in the last three years, over thirty citizens have left, including a founder member and initiates of over twenty years standing. Some of them have created a support network so that those in crisis inside have someone to turn to if they should seek help.

In the months since I left Damanhur I have struggled with the long and painful process of rebuilding my life, my sense of self, and faith in my ability to perceive the truth. I feel like a refugee in the outside world and yet this is the world to which I really belong. The damage goes very deep and also involves my children who grew up in the Damanhurian system. They have their own confusion and anger to deal with and their sense of insecurity. They no longer believe in my capacity to keep them safe and see what is real. We are a complex and sad psychological mess.

I cry with despair sometimes when I think of the damage that following my dream to Damanhur has caused us all. I am not only talking of the family’s economic ruin but of my deep sense of personal failure. How could I have allowed myself to be taken in by so many stupid and ridiculous lies?
I took that fragment from the whole article. This bit is something which people around the world should think very deeply about. From my perspective this is the crux of the matter, not only in cult dynamics, but the whole modern paradigm.

A large chunk of the world has entered into a time where there's a lot of permisiveness compared to previous epochs, the doors are wide open and yet people seem to prefer to become self-sadistic on a psychological and emotional level, sometimes it goes to a physical level. It's akin to what you can see with prision inmates who can't adapt to society again (although society itself is a bloody prison) and some end up commiting suicide.

I see this in my environment, people go on putting chains around them and developing a toxic dependence. I see it in schools with people who complain about assignments being too much, I've told some of them to just don't do it... and they are like "are you crazy? If I don't do it the teacher is going to get mad". I see it with people who are in romantic relationships. I know this guy who bitches about feeling suffocated by his girlfriend because he can't get to meet new girls when he goes out and you know he could just walk away from that relationship... but he prefers the mental masochism and has been there for years.

The whole system seems to be geared towards this pathology and as the guy/girl in the article stated:


You are even told you will lose your soul.
And that's basiclly what you are told if you ever think about leaving the cultural prisions. It's do or die. If you leave organized religion you'll rot in some nasty place, if you leave school you will be a failure in life. It's all deeply rooted in alieanation, collectivism and the fear of death.

You can live within the most beautiful buildings, be able to walk in the most beautiful parks, you can be sorrounded by wonderful art and still be slave. This is one of the reasons why Free Energy by itself will never set humanity free, by itself it's just a decoration.

People at large get extremely identified with their toxic environments and their toxic leaders and just as "The Matrix" shows, they will fight to defend it. Heck if you try to erradicate those memes then a lot of people would rather kill you (metaphorically and sometimes literally) to protect their own investment in those cancerous ideas.

Walking away from mental/emotional cages can be painful, you can feel very alieanted from the rest of the world and the fact that many people are not willing to pay any mind to your new discoveries can be quite painful. At the same time being inside the prisons is painful too, just as the article points out, people are extremely exhausted and they don't even realize that they are automatons living within a happy nightmare. BUT at least the pain which being at outlaw brings is owned by the individual and that is priceless.

[VajraYaya]

Excellent post Reaver..I agree with 100% of it.

We all have to identify the cages that we have been conditioned to be so comfortable in and also what in us stands in the way of our leaving through the open gates in front of us. I have been walking out of many of those gates for years, gates that most people say they could never walk out of. The cages that are the idea of employment, credit card debt, other kinds of debt slavery, consumerism, toxic friends or relationships... But after you have been facing the illusions that are the fears we have been programmed with for some time, the next ones get more and more subtle and harder to see, but also easier to walk away from.

It brings to mind the elephant who is trained to stay in one place by a chain around his ankle tied to a stake in the ground. Eventually the chain is replaced with a small piece of twine and the elephant still stays put despite easily being able to break his bond.

[Jenci]

I agree, that's a great post Reaver.

They may condition us into these psychological cages but it is the people themselves who shut and lock the door. It's believing their minds that keeps people enslaved.


Walking away from mental/emotional cages can be painful, you can feel very alieanted from the rest of the world and the fact that many people are not willing to pay any mind to your new discoveries can be quite painful. At the same time being inside the prisons is painful too,

Breaking out does take courage and it can be very much a lone journey. The first step though is that you have to see the prison you are in.

Jeanette

[Luke]

( ..)Walking away from mental/emotional cages can be painful, you can feel very alieanted from the rest of the world and the fact that many people are not willing to pay any mind to your new discoveries can be quite painful. At the same time being inside the prisons is painful too, just as the article points out, people are extremely exhausted and they don't even realize that they are automatons living within a happy nightmare. BUT at least the pain which being at outlaw brings is owned by the individual and that is priceless.

Also , there is this dynamics of: if you walk out, you will be alone.

Actually , some people willingly play it out, choosing "cabin in the woods". Sometimes they even know it is dead end solving nothing (you die and get reinserted as square one .. or so I think).

So facing being alone , and being part of something, well choice is obvious. Too obvious.

Yet another dynamics to be rethought

[Limited Edition]

So facing being alone , and being part of something, well choice is obvious. Too obvious.

Longing to be alone.
Longing to be a part of something.
I had to kick that longing to the curb. It makes you miserable. :yes4:

[Amer]

Your post was indeed brilliant Reaver, thanks for the valuable insight.


A large chunk of the world has entered into a time where there's a lot of permisiveness compared to previous epochs, the doors are wide open and yet people seem to prefer to become self-sadistic on a psychological and emotional level, sometimes it goes to a physical level.

Why this holding onto to something so harmful to self? It reminds me of a radio show the other day which was talking to women who had been in abusive relationships. They recounted how when you are beaten on a psychological level down to a point where you believe yourself to be nothing to no one, that your belief in self is zero, it is very difficult to find the courage to walk away from such a relationship. It is a psychological place that is hard to imagine if we haven't been there.

The same must be true of those who remain in cults; the psychological damage is so great that one gives up their control and free thinking. Why are we willing to give up our sovereignty to others? To believe that their truth is greater than any other, greater than what we own ourselves?


Longing to be alone.
Longing to be a part of something.
I had to kick that longing to the curb. It makes you miserable.

What middle ground did you find Limited?

[Limited Edition]

I enjoy being alone when I am alone. When I am active in a group, I try to enjoy being in a group. When I am in a group I can still feel alone, but it is OK because I am OK with being alone. For me the middle ground is not longing for one or the other, but being OK wherever I am.

[Heretic]

Should gurus be without blemish?

It is more than evident that there are those out there who have done and are doing a lot of damage, serious psychological damage

should parents be without flaw so they do not pass those flaws on to perpetuate a dysfunctional world?

and if so would we have a world left due to there being NO flawless people?

I think the key word here is intent

passing on flaws with intent like any prejudice (or just pick a flaw you like that is controversial)...sure I am against that, but also for the freedom to do so without being dissected by an outside party creating just another "judgement" by a possible equally flawed being to determine whether or not you are "fit" to raise a child

so I tend to have a innate respect for the freedom to "fuck up", but not a supporter of those who "fuck people up" with premeditated intent and long for the discernment to tell the difference without flaw

[Amer]

should parents be without flaw so they do not pass those flaws on to perpetuate a dysfunctional world?

and if so would we have a world left due to there being NO flawless people?

I think the key word here is intent

passing on flaws with intent like any prejudice (or just pick a flaw you like that is controversial)...sure I am against that, but also for the freedom to do so without being dissected by an outside party creating just another "judgement" by a possible equally flawed being to determine whether or not you are "fit" to raise a child

so I tend to have a innate respect for the freedom to "fuck up", but not a supporter of those who "fuck people up" with premeditated intent and long for the discernment to tell the difference without flaw

Hi Burke, I'm not sure where you're going with the parent/child analogy in relation to gurus. Would you mind expanding?

[Heretic]

Hi Burke, I'm not sure where you're going with the parent/child analogy in relation to gurus. Would you mind expanding?

the parent/child relationship could be said to be the ultimate guru/chela relationship, and even in that relationship in which safety in life and skill sets of life lessons are passed on from the wise to the naive

even this is imperfect and riddled with problems in terms of psychological damage done

that when it comes down to finding fault and blame perhaps it just boils down to "intent" IMHO

[Amer]

But Burke our children are not our disciples and we are not their spiritual leaders. If anything we try to pass on the tools to them to discern what may or may not be true, what may or may not be of value. That we leave our fingerprint upon them in some spiritual, psychological etc. way I think is inevitable; the ideal would be that this imprint would not be so cumbersome that if so desired it could be let go off in order to take on one's own imprint on self.

That our parenting ways are imperfect is true; our reality will never be perfect. We have never experienced perfection in this present reality and so its pursuit is a non sequitur. The pursuit of something that has never been. How do we know what it tastes like?

Yet there are many spiritual leaders who sell the pursuit of perfection and the need to attain it. Perhaps it would be better to pursue this life and live it.


that when it comes down to finding fault and blame perhaps it just boils down to "intent" IMHO

There are many gurus out there who probably mean well, who quite possibly believe in the fantastical and believe in their capacity to lead you on a better path. Should we not "dissect" their message just because they mean well? That we are all flawed is a given. But is my "dissection" of the message merely an act of passing judgement? What then is the pursuit of truth?

[Heretic]

But Burke our children are not our disciples and we are not their spiritual leaders.

you may not see it this way, but when you look to various religions and the degree of control a religion has over a family to the extremes of honor killings and who a child can or cannot marry in life, some may feel differently

from my experience, in the healthy sense a guru is like a spotter who offers you feedback on your own internal discoveries while encouraging an individualistic approach to your own truths without interfering much anyway

in so many cases of unhealthy guru type settings you usually have runaway ego and hero worship elements involved in which someone who may not be strong enough to endure these elements of guru-hood without these things playing out destructively because a guru's metal gets puts to the test and the whole thing gets derailed if he fails it

as far as the pursuit of truth goes my opinion is that there is no path to truth, truth is merely a common result of walking some paths and all paths have the potential to do so. What usually happens is that the person who actually does reach some enlightened state does so by transcending the path he has been on to find such a truth in the first place. If we had "the truth" listed on sacred papers somewhere as a part of some "path" then it would be self evident and this truth would be shared and passed about commonly among the people and we would be in a different world. There is usually a cognitive leap made from a given path...into truth which plays out differently with each person who realizes that truth.

The very idea that a guru could lead you to truth is a lie IMHO, it is a solo journey only, and is the first sign that this person wants more from you than for you to have the truth, and should be investigated

and just like any product in this day and age...there will be snake oil, and snake oil salesmen so it is a good idea to be wary


Should we not "dissect" their message just because they mean well? That we are all flawed is a given. But is my "dissection" of the message merely an act of passing judgement?

the larger point i was trying to make with the parent analogy is this:

people are flawed period, even regarding our most sacred of all relationships (the parent and child relationships)

so the passing on of flaws is simply unavoidable, therefore flaws passed on don't necessarily mean snake oil alarms but just being human

the dissecting and judgment comes in when you are trying to discern if you are dealing with a humanly flawed system, or a charlatan posing as a guru trying to take advantage with per-determined "intent" to take advantage

so yes it is passing judgment and that is perfectly ok IMHO, there are many schools of thought and well walked paths that are available to pursue towards spiritual enlightenment and it is nice to be able to have such a choice among them in terms of what resonates with you the most as a good fit

in the end it is my opinion that you transcend the path you choose anyway because they are all flawed in their own right and cannot take you all the way there....or we would ALL be there now as a result, it would be the most important literature in the world, these words that could supposedly cause you to transcend by simply understanding them upon reading them

it is all flawed, it requires judgement

[Amer]

you may not see it this way, but when you look to various religions and the degree of control a religion has over a family to the extremes of honor killings and who a child can or cannot marry in life

Absolutely, but here it is the religious organisation that usurps the place of the parent and the members become the children, and what you have is a very unhealthy imbalance in society of things that puts things in their improper place. And the damage is reflected by the above member from Damanhur:" the damage goes very deep and also involves my children who grew up in the Damanhurian system. They have their own confusion and anger to deal with and their sense of insecurity."

Giving over your power to anything or anyone who is selling "Truth" is a dangerous road. I agree with your synopsis on truth, there is no one path, it is something inherently interior. However I don't go along with the idea that all paths lead to truth, some lead to some very scary places and in its essense I believe truth to be a liberating force not a binding one.



in the healthy sense a guru is like a spotter who offers you feedback on your own internal discoveries while encouraging an individualistic approach to your own truths without interfering much anyway

For me here Burke you're describing someone who is either your true friend or someone who is your soul-mate; someone who whispers your truth back to you when you've forgotten it. A rare beauty.

A guru by definition and if you look at many of them out there are leaders, initiators, ones who point out the path they have discovered and that they mantain to contain their own truth. My take would be listen to all but allegiance to none.

I suppose my hang-up is with the figure and role of the guru per se, that of course says more about me than the guru lol !