Coming Down Off A Gurumayi High

File under: Blogs of Note

Another excellent rendering of life as a devotee of the gone-missing Gurumayi, Rituals of Disenchantment:

And then, like every conversation with every devotee I've had in twenty years, the topic turned to Gurumayi. With a few words and gestures of resignation we shared our belief that she is not coming back. Or at least, the yoga that we had practiced so lovingly for so long would not return in its old form. Then "C" said something that astounded me; she confessed that this was not a surprise to her because of a letter she received from Gurumayi years ago. What could Gurumayi have communicated to a devotee in writing that would presage her own disappearance? She explained; it was a letter in which Gurumayi declined her request for an extended stay at the ashram, saying that "C's" light was needed out in the world. Suddenly, the bridge to the past we were standing on crumbled down the middle and an abyss opened up between us. Or, so I felt.

Undoubtedly I was projecting, but it seemed to me that "C" had accomplished a set of mental gymnastics that used to be as natural to me as yogic breathing, but that I no longer knew how to perform. She had taken a glaringly inconvenient fact about SY (the Guru had disappeared) and reconciled it in her mind by appending it to another experience that confirmed, explained or even mystically predicted it (Gurumayi told her that our light is needed not at the ashram, but out in the world.)

I didn't judge my friend: I envied her.

Sounds like someone still carries a torch for the enchanting but gone-missing guru-ess of Siddha Yoga. We don't blame him. However, the insidious ideological mindwarp that allows a devotee to draw such a delusional conclusion is nothing to covet. Gurumayi probably declined this person's request because she didn't measure up in some way, or perhaps wasn't needed. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not something you tell a paying devotee, hence the nice little "light" simile to ensure another head to count at the next intensive. And the next, and next...