Just 'Cause She's Bent Doesn't Mean She's A Goddess

File under: Gurubusting and The Siddhi of PR

We weren't sure what to do with news of Steve Cooper, aka Pamela, thought by some in India to be the reincarnation of the goddess Bahucharaji, the patron saint of the hijras (spiritual trannies). The fact is, we are very close to the idea of gender being bent by spirituality and know it to be a very powerful mode of devotional expression for a shakta.

Then we read the article again and realized it's nothing more than brazen opportunism and a carnival side show in a country where anyone can be a "goddess" with the right look:

Steve was living in a tiny flat in Tooting until deciding on his new career after Indian friends told him he looked and moved just like the ancient goddess.

As soon as he arrived at the temple he was treated as a deity.

He now gets up at dawn and dresses in a holy saffron robe before beginning the daily ritual of blessings.

It's a sweet gig for a unemployed trannie from the U.K., but clearly just another manifestation of the runaway superstition that cancels out the truths of Vedanta in her native land.

Once again, the clear light of the Upanishads gets screwed by superstition in Bharat. We'd call it the national pastime of India if we didn't have so much respect for the land and those who (have) live(d) there. But we can't see ourselves ever respecting the magical malarkey that floats like a brown cloud of smog over the subcontinent. Vivekananda tried to clear that cloud away while he was alive, yet outside the somewhat limited purview of the Ramakrishna Math, it may as well still be 300 A.D., (as opposed to the 1895 of the Math, we suppose.)