Sandeep's Prattling

File under: Real True Gurus and The Siddhi of PR

Today our friend Sandeep Chatterjee – who is also one of our gurus of gurubusting – dropped in at the Guruphiliac Yahoo! discussion group to drop a bit of science for us. Absolutely as qualifed to be a guru as any personage ever mentioned on this blog, Sandeepji is always at the ready with a glass of Remy Martin and the unvarnished nondual truth:

One of the common and wide-spread issues debated and discussed in the spiritual circles whether it is in physical satsanghs or in cyber based forums........is the issue of whether practice is absolutely a must for spiritual enlightenment.......or........ there being nothing else but the Self (or Bozo)......who is to do what and for what purpose, to what end.

The debate goes on and on with disciples of either schools absolutely convinced about their own position and the absurdity/foolishness of the other's position.

Arguments go to and fro and supporting quotes from scriptures are hurled by both sides in order to clinch the debate.

The school of practice have even coined phrases like "neo-Advaita" and the "Advaita-shuffle" to disparage the "All-is-Self-anyway" proponents.

The debate is very interesting and reveals nuances in both the positions.

First of all the very debate is ambrosia for the "me-entity".

For the "me".....the very debate is its existence and the continuance of the debate......the perpetuation of its identity.

The debate lends the spiritual halo, the religious glow to the "me".

For the school of practice (whether the specific practice is of Self-Enquiry, aka Ramana or Nisargadatta, or meditation aka the various schools of Zen, prayer aka Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, or charity work to earn merits useful for salvation, it makes no difference).....

....fundamentally the issue is the belief that an effect, any effect needs a cause, separate from the effect.

The "me" having seen evidence where apparently without effort there is no success in the material world,........... this belief gets reinforced by Teachers, Gurus hollering from the rooftops that the path of salvation, is only through the practice of X, Y, Z, which of course only the specific hollering teacher can show, teach, transmit, deeksha-it.

The "me" which is essentially the sense of insecurity.........having sought security in the temporal icons like relationship, career, money, social position, acquisitions, knowledge, power etc....

....realizes the hollowness, the transitory nature of these temporal icons and now seeks security in the eternal.

The same equation is brought in, with the only change being a conceptualization of a new icon which is now chased.

Aka, there is a problem, for which there exists a solution, if only the seeking can diverted to the right direction and the necessary cost be paid.

And there are enough characters who are skillful in utilizing the innate sense of insecurity to create "to-be-chased-solutions", in the process augmenting Bank balances and disciple numbers with some good old sexual romps thrown in.

Why does the "me" not see through this charade?

It does but does not acknowledge........because now the claim of ownership of the meditation, of the Pranayam, of the Self-Enquiry, of the number of charities supported, worked for........is its identity.

There's more where that came from on the list and at Sandeep's own website. If you're lucky, you may get him to take one of his famous "walks" with you. We went on a few of those ourselves and want you all to know that they are highly recommended here.

Pana-Wave Bye-Bye

File under: Wackadoo Gurus

In more guru news from Japan, the leader of the Pana-Wave cult and Japan's guru of electromagnetic paranoia, Yuko Chino, is no more. These are the folks who camped out on a highway in Japan in 2003, shrouding everything in white to repel an imagined microwave attack:

In a peculiar twist, she began touting claims of being the target of a communist guerilla conspiracy to have her murdered through the use of electromagnetic wave weaponry. Chino then commissioned an intellectual vanguard from her spiritual following to research the negative effects of these electromagnetic waves. This group would come to be known as the Pana-Wave Laboratory and its objective would be to prolong Chino’s life through the scientific analysis of electromagnetic wave warfare.

There is no shortage of amazement when one considers how over 50 people could be convinced they were under attack by EMF-weapon wielding communist guerillas. Then again, you take 50 lonely and slightly nutty people looking for community, and one queen wackadoo to come up with exactly what to believe, and you might just end up with something like the Pana-Wavers.

AUM To Abandon Canon

File under: Wackadoo Gurus and The Siddhi of PR

As his former master sits on death row awaiting his date with a noose, Fumihiro Joyu is bringing the flock into a new era, free from some of the apocalyptic stylings of its past:

“To break away from the former leader, we’ll advance reform of our educational materials, and make the changes visible by February next year,” Joyu said at the cult’s premises in Tokyo.

While it may be not much more than a ploy to throw the Japanese Intelligence Agency off the trail, just about anything will be an improvement from the guru-centric nonsense that the subway-gassing Shoko Asahara spouted.

Just look where he ended up.

Hagelin Harps On

File under: Wackadoo Gurus and The Siddhi of PR

Three-time presidential failure and leader of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's attempt to take over the United States, the "Natural Law" Party; John Hagelin is the senile old coot's number one cheerleader and ass-bouncer. As expected, he's again giving credit to the ass-bouncers for everything right in the world at the moment:

It's the 1,200 advanced Transcendental meditators who are camping out for six hours a day in Fairfield and elsewhere, "creating coherence in national consciousness" and changing the national mood.

No, they're not. It's the product of our holy dog's ass that's doing it all.

Of course, Hagelin leaves himself plenty of wiggle room to explain all the other bad shit going down in the world today:

"Lebanon was easier to quell," Hagelin said, "because the political solutions were easy. Iraq is an entrenched mess. The mistakes that have been made will take time to unwind.

Yes, our holy dog's ass will usher in a new Golden Age, and he doesn't need any white elephant marble peace palaces full of thousands of people bouncing on their asses to do it, either. We'll put our dog's ass against all the Maharishi's asses any day of the week.

Eckhart's Stinky "Presence"

File under: The Siddhi of PR

Today it was suggested that we take a look at Eckhart Tolle. We haven't read his book, The Power of Now, but we've run into many folks online who regard it as a kind of bible. And according to the official Eckhart Tolle Teachings, Inc. website, it's so much more than just words:

Readers of The Power of Now will already know that Eckhart has the rare gift of being able to convey the deepest spiritual truth in clear and simple words. More importantly than any words, however, these sessions represent an invaluable opportunity to allow yourself to be drawn into the awakened state by the intense conscious presence of the teacher and thus experience it first hand.

Let's all welcome Tolle to the ranks of occlusion spewing, self-aggrandizing gurus who make it all about themselves in their quest to fill seats at the satsang. His "conscious presence" may as well be a series of stinky farts for all the good it can actually do.

It's another disappointing glamorization of self-realization by a guru bent on building his business. What little understanding of self-realization he can offer to others is not augmented by the "presence" fantasy, it is thwarted by it. It seems to indicate a basic maxim of the guru business: make it all about the power of your presence, and they will come. Make it all about the actual truth, that self-realization is ultimately normalizing rather than some kind of magic gift bag from God, and you're just another fool with a webpage.

Jazzy Guru Bows To Kid-Diddler

File under: Hands Where They Don't Belong and The Siddhi of PR

Lately we've come across several articles about Alice Coltrane, out on tour with a new record to promote and widow of the legendary jazz musician John Coltrane.

A jazz legend in her own right, Alice is also Swamini Turiyasangitananda. She claims to be a teacher of Vedanta, yet she is a devoted follower of the pubescent boy-diddling Satya Sai Baba. She even refers to him as "our Lord." [Ed.note: Now might be a good time for us to try that Drano/Grey Goose cocktail we thought up the other night.]

The fact that she's still pimping the avatard despite the many allegations of sexual abuse against him puts her in one of two minds. Either she knows about the allegations and doesn't believe them, or she knows that they are true.

In either case, it makes poor Alice not much more than the star-struck sycophant of a man many believe to be a child-abusing monster, one quite possibly protected by the local governmental authorities against these claims with some good, old-timey bribery and graft.

The fact that Coltrane calls Sai Baba "Lord" and takes her devotees to his ashram for initiation is a rigorous indictment of her own qualifications as a guru. If you asked us, Alice needs to spend more time on the music, where she might actually do some good, because she sure isn't doing any by holding up Sai Baba as the acme of spiritual realization.

Just keep pounding those keys, Alice. Hopefully one day it will knock a bit of sense into your head.

Lynch Pinched By Terra Linda Parents

File under: The Siddhi or PR

The voices of the dissenting parents at Terra Linda High School, where principal Carole Ramsey and famous auteur David Lynch were conspiring to indoctrinate students into the teachings of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, were louder than that of the pro-TM™ers, and so David Lynch is taking back his 175 Gs and cutting out:

The [$175,000] grant would have provided funds for 250 students and 25 staffers to practice TM, a meditation style past adherents claimed allowed them to levitate. Lynch, best known as the director of dark, surreal films like "Eraserhead" and "Blue Velvet," has meditated for more than 30 years and credits TM for nourishing his creativity.

That explains a lot.

Cohen Suddenly Gets "Integrity"

File under: The Siddhi of PR

Seemingly in response to the Jaxon-Bear brouhaha – or at least timed suspiciously close to it – "bad boy" and fellow Papaji-ite (and rival) Andrew Cohen has released "A Declaration of Integrity" on his blog. Apparently, it's getting hot in the kitchen and the boy does not want to leave:

I’ve always been the kind of teacher who evokes reverence and respect from some, and suspicion and hatred from others. In recent years, however, this polarization has become more extreme, due in large part to the dedicated efforts of a small group of former students who seem to have made it their life mission to create and spread a negative picture of who I am, in a couple of books and in online forums.

One of those "former students" being his own mother! We read her book The Mother of God last year on the plane, but we couldn't finish it as it was just endless stories of Andrew being a grandiose asshole. Too close to home, we guess.

It doesn't appear that they've caught this yet, but since it's more in the purview of the What Enlightenment? blog, we'll let them take it from here. It's been a while since our last visit and it looks like there's a couple of new articles about abusive gurus up, so check it out.

Update: It looks like they've caught it now.

When Om Becomes Oink!

File under: Satscams and Gurubusting

The other half of the criminal flimflam team Amma Bhagavan.

Never let it be said that we're not equal opportunity offenders.

Om Reversed Is Mooooooo!

File under: Satscams and Gurubusting

One half of the criminal flimflam team Amma Bhagavan.

The cows have come and have brought us good fortune. In our stalls, contented may they stay! May they bring forth calves for us, many-colored, giving milk for Indra each day. You make, O cows, the think man sleek; to the unlovely you bring beauty. Rejoice our homestead with pleasant lowing. In our assemblies we laud your vigor.

Rig Veda (4.28.1;6)

A New Moon Tries To Rise

File under: Gurubusting, The Siddhi of PR and Wackadoo Gurus

Today a good friend turned us on to Tathagata, yet another nutbag who claims to be the Maitreya Buddha, awaited by crystal-grippers all over the world to usher in the New Age™ we've all been waiting for.

Looking a bit like a cross between two other Koreans, Kim Jong Il and Sun Yung Moon, Tathagata clearly belongs in a psych ward with the other Buddhas, Napoleons, Jesus Christs and George Washingtons.

In other words, a bump on your forehead and the grandiose delusion you're here to save the world do not a Buddha make.

TM™ Turbulence At Terra Linda High

File under: The Siddhi of PR

The Madharishi better get his ass-bouncing peace battalions pointed at Marin, 'cause folks are shouting each other down and storming the stage to denounce principle Carole Ramsey's moves to get a TM™ program started at Terra Linda High School:

Principal Carole Ramsey hosted half a dozen supporters of the program so they could explain it and answer questions from parents who want to know more about the school's possible new club. But Ramsey ended the meeting abruptly when a parent stormed the stage, refused to leave and angrily denounced Transcendental Meditation as a cult she'd broken free of after teaching it for 35 years.

There's no doubt that it's religion in the school, but now they're calling it a "club."

Ramsey has supported a Transcendental Meditation club that would be voluntary and not part of the curriculum. She said more than 60 students indicated interest in it after physical education teacher David Garcia proposed it as a way to reduce student stress.

Since Terra Linda undoubtedly has a Bible study club, there's really nothing to stop Ramsey from forming a TM™ club. The $175,000 David Lynch gave her the school will probably help see to that. Some of the students who join will probably get razzed for it by their non-TM™ing friends, but in the woowoo capitial of Northern California, all of these kids have been exposed to much crazier things than sitting on the floor and mumbling to yourself twice a day for twenty minutes.

As long as it's a club and voluntary, it's going to be ok, and may actually do some kids some good. Will it turn them into Madharishi-mad minions bent on destroying all buildings that don't face east? Only in that old man's crazy dreams.

The Brits Love Them Some Amma

File under: Amma All Over The Planet

Ammachi has been working her mommy magic on the citizens of the U.K., as this tabloid writer seems enchanted by "the Big Hugger."

We've got to admit that her hugging has been a very effective way to market herself to a much wider audience. She is clearly the biggest of the big-time gurus and the number one devi since Sarada Devi was alive.

It has become our custom to say that if you're going to go for a big-time guru, you could do a whole lot worse than Amma. But then, like all the big-time gurus, she doesn't seem to care much that people think she's God with miraculous powers. And her people are actively promoting that myth for the very good reason that people go to these gurus because they're looking for a space-mommy to make everything better. Amma fits that bill to a "t", thanks in part to the efforts of her people to foster her continuing deification.

Amma is sweet, but she's wrapped in a rancid rind of ridiculous ideas about self-realization. One can only hope she'll eventually recognize this and come to show us just how very human and like us she really is.

Jaxon-Bear's Mea Culpa

File under: Hands Where They Don't Belong

A former devotee shares his histrionic commentary about the Eli Jaxon-Bear sex scandal, along with Jaxon-Bear's letter of apology to his community:

The wound of the pain that I have caused will be with me for at least as long as this body lasts.

It sounds like a pity party the size of Burning Man over there, and the whole thing pivots on the idea that there are separate entities who get hurt by stuff like this. There are and they do, but only as the result of ignorance (avidya), which is what these gurus are supposed to be dispelling.

The whole hullabaloo can be an opportunity for the parties involved to look past themselves as the people who are hurting to their underlying nondual truth, but instead they coddle and foster the very sense of identification they are all trying to transcend.

Nevertheless, it's a really good thing that it's all out in the open, despite the over-the-top mourning of the loss of trust, etc. And besides, what they're really mourning is the death of their own ideas about their teachers, and that's a really good thing too.

Marinharishi High

File under: The Siddhi of PR

As crazy as the old coot is to think he's going to take over the world, you've got to give the Madharishi Mahesh Yogi credit for still having some brain matter that's not yet gone to goo. Case in point, the TM™ org would just love to Trojan horse their programs into schools in the U.S., and they've enlisted freak filmmaker David Lynch to shove it down the throats of the educators who make the decisions:

Lynch established a foundation in his name to spread Transcendental Meditation to schools as a method of stress management. The Terra Linda program would be the David Lynch Foundation's first in California, although others operate in Washington, D.C., and Detroit.

Principal Carole Ramsey became an enthusiastic supporter after hearing Lynch speak, but some say Transcendental Meditation is rooted in a religious movement that is inappropriate for public school.

No duh! The fact is that TM™ is derived from Hinduism, and there is no number of "scientific" studies (all funded by TM™) that will ever change that fact.

The fundies are going to come down on this like Moses off the mountain. As much as we personally believe in the value of meditation as an important life skill, we stand right next to the Jesus brigade in their objections to this program. If Carole Ramsey wants to bring meditation into her school, there's literally thousands of alternatives to TM™ that would be just as effective at stress reduction without any of the baggage that comes with it being the cornerstone of a senile old man's world takeover scheme.

Duhvi Deadweight

File under: The Siddhi of PR

A reader recently turned us on to Mirabai Devi, yet another entry into the increasingly crowded field of devidom. And like all the rest of them, she's got an inflated sense of her own importance as a vehicle for the transmission of something that is supposed to be divine:

When you come up for darshan, it is not Mirabai the personality you are interacting with but rather the Divine Mother which comes through her while in samadhi (a merged state of union with the divine). Please prepare yourself before coming up by sitting in silence. Come to darshan with an attitude of a surrendered mind and ego, and a heart that is devoted to God and the Light. Allow yourself to offer all of your problems, burdens, and questions to Mirabai. Try to make yourself empty and witness everything that arises for you in the darshan. You may also bring a photo, mala (prayer beads), shawl or jewelry (washed in water) to darshan to be blessed by Mirabai.

Light, smight. Ask Benny Hinn what's going on. He and his bank account know all too well.

There's another occlusion-spewing nonsense factory up and running. Mirabai's "Light" may as well be carbon monoxide for all the good it does for her devotees' own self-understanding. So step right up and suck in the ignorance.

Jaxon-Bear Boinks Student, Bounces Self From Board

File under: Hands Where They Don't Belong

Eli Jaxon-Bear, founder of the Leela Foundation and husband to famous Papaji-ite guru Gangaji, has fessed up to messing around with one of his students. As it turns out, the wifey got wind of it a whole year ago:

Eli told Gangaji about the relationship in October 2005. At the student's request, neither Gangaji nor Eli disclosed the relationship. Recently, Eli encouraged the student to disclose the true nature of the relationship to people in our community.

What was initially seen as a matter between adults is now recognized to be a betrayal of the teacher/student relationship and an abuse of power. A trust with the larger community also has been broken. This is an important revelation as real harm is being experienced by the student and is being fully acknowledged. The repercussions of this betrayal are reverberating in ways that were never imagined, but are very painful.

Wait a minute. The student was ok with the wife knowing about it for a whole year, but when Jaxon-Bear asks her to go wide with the disclosure, it's suddenly not ok?

Obviously, there's more to the story than in the announcement a number of readers turned us on to this morning. Maybe one of y'all can fill us in a bit more. That said, we've got to give credit to Jaxon-Bear, Gangaji and the Board members for dealing with this out in the open rather than attempting to cover it up or simply demonize one of the parties to the tryst.

What we don't give them credit for is all the wailing and gnashing of teeth they're apparently rocking over there now:

My prayer is that all the hearts affected by this including the student, the staff, the community, and Eli and Gangaji can heal the pain that is present and over time rebuild the broken trust. As students, we can all come together as beginners, to expose the betrayals and to see the heartbreaking consequences of our actions. We have the opportunity to share our true feelings, experiences and realizations, to meet our own and others' pain and humanity, and to offer and receive our apologies, condolences, and gratitude. In the realization of our true silent nature, we can gather with compassion for all the harm we received and all the harm we have caused, and then see what comes from that meeting.

You can blame the inky darkness that is our heart for this, but those sound a bit like weasel words designed to mitigate the potential lawsuit brewing here. A guy in a position of power hooks up with an impressionable follower. When has that ever not happened before?

It's yet another demonstration of the absolute supremacy of being human when you're a human being. There is no amount of realization that gets you out of that, folks. Not until that final mahasamadhi, anyway.

Update: Here's Stuart Resnick's recent commentary on the imbroglio from the discussion group:

They get points by being so much more open and straightforward about the issue than say Siddha Yoga or Hare Krishna or the endless other "spiritual" groups rocked by sex scandals.

Still, the response seems a bit too precious for me. Sure, it's worth contemplating whether adultery is always harmful, or whether such relationships between a teacher and student are automatically abuse of power. But I feel that if Gangaji and Eli had been more clear about presenting themselves as ordinary people (using the teacher/student form as a technique for mutual help), this all could have been dealt with as a relatively common type of human struggle.

By elevating this teacher/student connection to something so special, sacred, and spiritual (in announcing Eli's resignation, the Executive Director writes of how he "breached the sanctity of the teacher/student relationship"), perhaps they've created more heartache than necessary. Couldn't they try to minimize suffering by viewing it all as normal human difficulties that we can learn from, rather than a spiritual catastrophe?

We've got to be straight with you all, sometimes we think we need to sound more like this. He said the same thing we did, only more like a grownup.

When Bad Gurus Are Good

File under: Gurubusting

Today we decided to catch up with one of our fellow anti-Kracki blogs, Sunyata, only now it's called Nothingness, Everythingness and it's not anti-Kracki anymore. Apparently, the author seems to have undergone some kind of major transformation. We're not exactly sure what to think of the results, but we're very happy this person seems to get the idea of occlusion created by gurus:

So a lot of false or immature seekers are attracted to gurus who promote the occluding ideas they already believe in. These gurus fuel these ideas. Imagine this idea being a balloon which the guru is blowing up. For a few sincere seekers who landed up with these ‘occluding’ gurus, a day will come when this balloon blows up on their face, their occluding ideas are destroyed, and now their real ’satguru’ appears, and they are able to imbibe his directions, since the shit has been cleared off.

Had the satguru come in earlier the occluding ideas would never have allowed the seeker to appreciate and follow the right path to realization. The occluding guru however, performed the task of cleaning up the garbage, not by showing the aspirant that it was garbage, but by promoting it, expanding it, to a point where the aspirant could see that it was garbage. In some people it could take a few months for the person to see the light, I personally know of one (very notable in the West) person who took fifteen years to have his head cleared by one such ‘occluding’ guru. So it's up to the person whether he will ever come out of his ideas, and how much time he will take.

It's wonderful to see through a fauxvatar's fog of nonsense, but we're afraid it's not quite as common as the optimistic writer seems to think.

Hence, where he has declared:

It is our belief that all happens by God’s will alone, and all is God Himself. Thus, there is really no need to carry on a struggle against Him in any of his forms.

We're still going to lug around this sword of discrimination that Kali gave us and go at whatever nonsense we can find for as long as we have arms to lift it.

So Crazy It's Cute

File under: Wackadoo Gurus and The Siddhi of PR

Today the New York Times explores the delusions of grandeur of that wacky old coot, the Madharishi Mahesh Yogi. He's now close to 90 years old and still believing he's going to remake the entire planet, physically and culturally, into his idea of a Vedic paradise. The scale of the grandiosity astounds us:

Another element of his vision is to rebuild the world according to Vedic principles. He has called for the demolition of “improperly oriented” buildings, believing them to be toxic, and includes among them the United Nations and the White House. There are proposals for New York and Paris to be cleared to make way for 3,000 marble peace palaces. (His organization operates such palaces in Bethesda, Md., Lexington, Ky., Houston and Fairfield.) Maharishi is also convinced that every country’s capital is wrongly located. In India and America, his organization has bought land near what it calls each country’s “brahmastan” — or the geographical and energy center. The future capital of the United States would be Smith Center, Kan., population 1,931.

And the folks who live there are all POed about it. They do not want some long-haired Hindu false prophet and a bunch of crystal-gripping, ass-bouncing nincompoops taking over their God-fearing, Christian community.

But what was most intriguing about the article was this statement:

His first 50 years, he says, were merely a “warm-up” for his goal of creating world peace by, among other things, rebuilding national capitals according to his harmony-producing precepts.

Did he just tell us he's going to live 50 more years to see his plan implemented? It wouldn't surprise us. Someone crazy enough to believe they are single-handedly bringing about the Golden Age could just as easily be convinced they were going to live forever. Out of all his castle-in-the-sky global redevelopment schemes, that's the one project that will most definitely not see a completion.

You Say Avatar, We Say Avatarded

File under: The Siddhi of PR

Recently on tour in North America this summer, [Ed.note: For anyone who went to see her, reviews are most welcome in the comments section.] Mother Meera gets the treatment by Cliff Bostock, a depth psychologist and former devotee of the devi-duplication diva and space mommie for tens of thousands all over the world.

Cliff reveals how his guru love for the Germany-based, silent satsanging Meera began with such promise:

She explained... that she was not interested in becoming the object of a cult and that people could go directly to the divine rather than through her if they were able. She also said that other teachers were just as legitimate.

Oh, how far do they fall! Here's what they are saying about her now:

The unique gift of Mother Meera to the world is to make available for the first time in the history of the Earth the radical transformative Light of Paramatman, the Supreme Being. In this time of crisis and growing spiritual hunger, the Mother offers Her children a direct transmission of Light that dissolves all barriers and changes the entire being. This Light can be received by all who are open, whether or not they have met Mother in the body.

Cliff goes on to describe a classic case of the guru googoos:

I can't articulate what the experience was like for me those first visits. I vibrated strangely. My breath flew out of me. Once, I saw my heart in the air. Her gaze, even though momentary, was an experience of the most profound intimacy I'd ever had.

The pleasure of this intimate contact with a divine presence was almost addictive. A week after my first darshan, I awoke in the middle of the night in a Paris hotel, feeling as though I'd fallen into the deepest love of my life. It was not the first time I had experienced a direct feeling with my heart, but it was the first time I realized that the heart is truly a perceptual organ.

Meera and Benny Hinn should trade notes. It's the same thing working for the both of them.

But then Cliff falls out of love after Meera's rejection of prominent devotee Andrew Harvey when he came out to her as gay:

I was disappointed by her statement... that homosexuality is "against the law of nature." And I was embarrassed when I confronted her secretary, Adilakshmi, and was told the statement was a "printer's error." She produced a still newer edition that eliminated the statement.

There's nothing like a little clumsy confabulation to keep things neat and tidy.

Next week we get treated to Cliff's experience of going back to Meera when she visited Raleigh, North Carolina, last August. Stay tuned.

Another Damn Devi

File under: The Siddhi of PR

Today we visited the website of Sri Maa Lakshmi Devi, where we were confronted with this image:



The "shock" of this woman's "shakti" almost put this morning's Earl Grey all over the new iMac. We'll just never keep up with all the emerging Ammachi rip-offs who offer mammaries full of occluding nonsense to a world rife with infantilism, one that's regressing faster than a diaper fetishist with a bottle full of titty milk and bourbon, thanks in no small part to clowns like this.

Update: A reader has alerted us to the fact that Sri Maaaaa (say it like a sheep says "baaaaa") is the spawn of the handsy-with-the-boysy Sathya Sai Baba, aka the Babaster.

Grabbing The Grace: The Rise Of A Messiah

File under: Wackadoo Gurus

An ex-con, ex-junkie as the second coming of Christ? We always thought it would be a skateboarder:

Luis Miranda is a 60 year old former heroin addict and convict. He operates what he calls “God’s Government on Earth” from a warehouse in South Florida. Like any head of state, he is protected by a security detail that mimics the Secret Service. “I will be the President of the biggest government that this Earth has ever experienced,” Miranda said.

Miranda tells his followers they are free to indulge, to have it all. According to this modern messiah, there is no sin, no devil, and no hell to pay. Miranda says “the devil is destroyed, hell doesn’t exist, no condemnation for the chosen ones”.

Luis Miranda is certainly willing to enjoy his earthly pleasures. His followers don’t seem to mind his lavish lifestyle. I asked them, “does it make sense that Jesus Christ would drive a BMW or wear a Rolex, does that make sense to you?” Clara Diaz replied “definitely, we are in 2006.”

It's a stunning illustration of the present state of an American society that teems with people dumb enough to be seduced by the likes of Miranda. And all he had to do was tell them was that they're partying angels, here to get down.

2012 is not to be the acme of consciousness evolution, it's going to be the nadir of our descent into a willing-to-believe-anything madness like this. We shudder to think just how bad it's really going to get.

Stocks Hit High 'Cause Asses Bounce Hard

File under: Wackadoo Gurus and The Siddhi of PR

Today the Dow hit a new high. Tomorrow the Madharishi is going to credit a platoon of bouncing asses for that outcome.

Sri Sri Slys To The Prize

File under: The Siddhi of PR

After a successful publicity trip to Sri Lanka which overflowed with the symbolism only a white shawl could provide, Sri Sri stepped it up with a big Navratri celebration. The usual umpteenth-thousand people were reportedly there, along with some very prominently-mentioned Pakistanis:

Pakistanis were among the thousands who took part in prayers and meditation for world peace at the Navratri celebrations at the Art of Living center here.

True, that could be all of two Pakistanis... but it's the thought, (to get people thinking Sri Sri is bringing peace with Pakistan) that counts.