Sri Chinmoy Cooks Up Some Good Ones

File under: Wackadoo Gurus

Strong-man showoff guru Sri Chinmoy must have popped a few blood vessels in his brain from lifting all those weights. From his new book, The Wisdom of Sri Chinmoy:

“When one disciple’s father died, he was asked if he had known any spiritual people in his life. He said, ‘Yes, I know my daughter’s friend,’ who happened to be me. When my name was said, he was then able to leave the world of torture and go to a very good higher world.”

“One of my sisters died when I was 18. I followed my sister’s soul for about three hours in the world of death. With your consciousness you are flying like a kite. I was fighting with three death forces that wanted to snatch away three of my close disciples…”

“A young wife was terribly afraid of staying alone at night, so the Master said to the husband… I shall take care of her. That night she saw the Master in a corner of the room, not the Master’s physical body but his luminous subtle body. The Master said to her, ‘My child, until your husband comes back, I will be here to protect you.’”

“If one enters secret domains where the inherent powers of the cosmic realities exist, one can get the capacity to do anything” but he basically believes, “My teaching is not a kind of miracle-mongering. My business is to help the aspirant to reach God.”

A name that takes souls to heaven? Chasing ghosts in the afterlife and fighting with Death? Bi-locating in a luminous form to comfort the wife of a disciple? Er... last time we checked, those were all full-blown miracles... or symptoms of acute psychosis. Yet it's just your standard holy man hyperbole, courtesy of the Hindu mythology concerning godmen and their own desire for name and fame.

Chinmoy is playing a very well known tune. But it's just so goddamn old. And more importantly, it's basically just a fairy tale. Gurus use this fairy tale to dress themselves in the drag of a fantastic being and thus make themselves more attractive to potential devotees, at least those who are willing to believe in this nonsense. [Ed.note: We once did ourselves. See where we are coming from?]

We suppose the guy is getting old and looking for one last hurrah. Who can blame him for pumping some fantasy into his story as a way to kick up the adoration and adulation around him... before he says his own name and goes on to his own "higher world".

It would almost be quaint were it not for the fact that these ideas are preventing his devotees from becoming self-realized themselves. Instead of pearls of wisdom, Chinmoy is serving up hot, steaming plates of stinking occlusion, the sewage of gurudom. Out of his need to be a big man, his devotees suffer yet more delusion; their own awakening delayed by what they've been led to believe by the likes the lying Sri Chinmoy, and quite a few of the rest of those you could call big time gurus today.