Kramer Tries To Clean Up With Sri Nit
File under: Gurus to the Stars and The Siddhi of PR
[Ed.note: We've run both hot and cold for Nithyananda over the last few years. For right now, the spigot is rather icy.]
Several readers have sent links detailing actor/comedian Michael Richard's journey of contrition with Swami Nithyananda in South Asia.
You may remember when the Seinfeld actor went on a racist tirade after getting heckled during a stand-up performance at a Los Angeles comedy club, effectively torpedoing what little career he had left.
You may also remember Nithyananda as the handsome young Swami who is working the style of both Swami Vivekananda, as well as that cheap imitation of Swami V., Paramhamsa Yogananda. Sri Nit has been building his satsang in Los Angeles with the combination of his rougish good looks, his boyish charms and his big-time guru aspirations, which include miracle-mongering and building a real-time hagiography to document his holy existence on this plane.
And now Nit has learned another trick of the big-time guru: get famous people to follow you, something that's worked for the Maharishi, Deepak Chopra, Gurumayi and the Man Amma.
When someone gets a little jnana, it sometimes goes straight to their head, making them believe they've been sent by God to save the world. But in order to do this, they've got to get famous and bring in the cash first.
Thus, once again, the truth of Vedanta – that we are all God equally – gets shat on by the very people who we trust to espouse this truth. In the end, the devotees get screwed while the guru sits on his dais and gloats over how rich and popular he's become.
Labels: Gurus to the Stars, The Siddhi of PR
posted by guruphiliac @ 3:44 PM
10 Comments:
I saw his flyer for an event and passed on it. I just can't get past his looks and imitating Vivekananda or others. Maybe I should give him more of a chance, but I am not ready yet. And you haven't flipped for him yet, so I will wait till you decide for sure on him. If you decide he is the real deal, then maybe I will go and see him, but until then, I will pass on this guy.
Jody wrote: "...the truth of Vedanta – that we are all God equally – gets shat on by the very people who we trust to espouse this truth. In the end, the devotees get screwed while the guru sits on his dais and gloats over how rich and popular he's become."
1. Can you prove any of us or all of us are God? Isn't it merely a feeble human interpretation of an eternally mysterious experience?
2. Since "we are all God equally", what does it matter if God, playing the role of devotee, gets "screwed" by God, playing the role of guru?
1. Can you prove any of us or all of us are God? Isn't it merely a feeble human interpretation of an eternally mysterious experience?
Well, it's not an experience at all, it's an ongoing revelation of an eternal truth. That may sound like experience, but it's really more of a being tapped into the carrier wave of awareness.
2. Since "we are all God equally", what does it matter if God, playing the role of devotee, gets "screwed" by God, playing the role of guru?
Well, it does matter from the regard of the individual getting fed bullshit ideas about what it's about to know yourself as God. In other words, if an up-and-coming guru tells you he has magic powers of divination, you'll come to believe that's a part of the package of realization. When you see you don't have these powers, you'll assume you aren't up to snuff and deny your own spiritual truth, right as it sits there on the end of your nose.
What about your guru, Swami Chetanananda, did you get screwed while the guru sits on his dais and gloats over how rich and popular he's become?
Or do you just do guruseva to your dog's ass?
What about your guru, Swami Chetanananda
Guess what, lame-o: he's not my guru!
I do consider Swami C. a friend and mentor of a sort, and he is a guru to a good number of my friends.
But he's not trying to get popular and he's certainly not rich. He just does his thing, and always in a very low key way. When folks try to put him on a pedestal, he shuts them down posthaste. In many ways, he is what every guru should be.
He never makes it about him. Never.
Chetanandanda of Nityananda Institute? I hope that's not who you're speaking of. Major dirt on him, if you care to look.
Chetanandanda of Nityananda Institute?
No, definitely not that one.
Which Nityananda are you all speaking of? Gurumayi's brother?
Which Nityananda are you all speaking of?
This one.
1. Can you prove any of us or all of us are God? Isn't it merely a feeble human interpretation of an eternally mysterious experience?
Can't answer that one myself, having not put in enough time to earn my eagle scout badge yet. Though to paraphrase a teacher: "You can begin to experience the end of suffering right now. Just pay attention to the sensations in your butt from sitting for the past hour." "God" is oddly pedestrian.
Being a sometimes paranoid Traditionalist, I wonder. The guru relies on the hierachal situation inherent in nature and religious experience, but by aping it, sets up a false ladder of experience and effectively shuts off many from climbing to these higher stages. The devil's best trick...
2. Since "we are all God equally", what does it matter if God, playing the role of devotee, gets "screwed" by God, playing the role of guru?
Well, big picture, it doesn't. But if you subscribe to the "right plane, right time" theory of morality, you'll be hard-pressed to find a situation that warrants guru antics. To quote: "the world is illusiion, consciousness is the world, consciousness alone is real. That's three step vedanta, full stop... these guys tend to go: '...I can do whatever I want...' which is fine but they almost always conveniently forget the first two steps."
These gurus pulling this crap aren't teachers, they are just assholes who spent some time studying how to manipulate people and *maybe* developing some of the siddhi for back-up firepower. At times I have to wonder if these gurus have any technical skill at all, or are simply a wierd form of social-climbing smooth blatherers.
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