Sri Sri Rips Off A Rip-Off

File under: Gurubusting

Bangalore is being overrun by yuppie beggars taking courses at Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living ashram:

Men and women trying to camouflage their affluent breeding and chic clothes are going about begging in south Bangalore. People at signals were startled yesterday to find smart, English-speaking men and women seeking alms. The beggars, with grime smeared on their faces, looked like characters out of a college play. Motorists, shoppers, and pedestrians dropped small change into their hands, but continued to gape. The beggars bought food with the money they had earned from begging, and ate in public.

MiD DAY discovered that they were disciples of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who runs the Art of Living spiritual movement from his headquarters on Kanakapura. The beggars, it turned out, were well-bred professionals told by their instructors to go "lose the ego" by begging. "Our areas are frequented by educated beggars from Sri Sri's ashram," said a resident of BTM Layout.

"Lose your ego by glorifying mine" is Sri Sri's credo. And don't think for a second that these losers get to keep the cash they panhandled.

And as it turns out, Sri Sri could have cribbed this exercise from any number of sources, including perhaps this one:

Mid-March this year, I travelled all the way from Australia to the United States at a cost of around $12,000 Aust Dollars (including the workshop admission fee) to attend David Neagle’s workshop “Experience The Reality of Success”. The main thrust of the advertising which enticed me to make the very expensive decision to attend the workshop is that everyone who attends will actually Experience the Reality of Success. Here is an actual quote from one of David Neagle’s promotional teleseminars “… we called it Experience the Reality of Success, because that’s exactly what you do. You experience it for real. We actually show you how to manifest money from nothing – bang! Now you might say, it’s got to be some sort of dog and pony show. It’s a trick. No it’s not. We actually do it. You start with nothing and manifest money. You really do. And if I’m lying or exaggerating you can have your money back” (The Art of Success [AOS] teleseminar Session 4 about 1hr.12mins in).

Now as to the last part, I contend that David was both “lying and exaggerating” because whilst it’s true that we did start with nothing, what we did was to go out on the streets and beg for money. That was the way we were to “manifest” the money. There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between vibrationally manifesting money and begging for money on the streets.

Yeah. At least with street begging, you might actually get something.

One scam is called "Art of Living," the other, "Art of Success." Too much synchronicity for you? Us too.