Hope For Enlightenment

File under: Blogs of Note and Folk Theories

We began publishing this blog as a way express our frustration with common depictions of the what is called "enlightenment." Most commercially-successful gurus use these ideas to promote themselves to potential donators devotees. We believe these ideas are more likely preventing enlightenment, and so we harry the gurus who greedily pollute the world with this ignorance.

Over the course of the last 5 years, we've corralled these notions into a "folk theory of enlightenment." Recently, we've caught echoes of this idea in the words of Dzogchen rinpoches who are quoted by the bad-ass Buddhists of Twitter, but today we found the folk theory stated as a list of expectations about enlightenment on a blog called Open Enlightenment:

• Enlightenment is the transformation into a God, and it only happens to very special people.
• Enlightenment will confer specific knowledge of everything, ever. The enlightened person knows what happened at the beginning of the universe, everything that is happening now, and everything that will happen right up to the very end. The enlightened person can provide an answer to all the Big Questions, because he/she knows God personally. He/she’s in on the plan.
• Enlightenment is the terrifying knowledge of Absolutely Nothing.
• Enlightenment is the death of the self while still alive.
• Enlightenment can only happen to men.
• Enlightenment is the complete destruction of the universe, right in front of your eyes.
• Enlightenment is a shocking, earth-shattering, cataclysmic, reality-tearing, mind-destroying, adrenalin-fueled mystical explosion.
• Enlightenment is the realisation that the world is an illusion, and so the enlightened person can walk through walls, fly, teleport, and perform all kinds of other miracles.
• Enlightenment is waking up from the dream of reality.
• Enlightenment is knowledge of heaven, hell, past lives, spiritual realms, Gods, Goddesses, dead people, angels, elves, pixies and ascended masters.
• Enlightenment is the end of suffering, pain, depression, despair, anger, hate, revulsion and disgust. It will heal my damaged self, and preserve who I am for ever in eternal bliss. I will never hurt again.
• Enlightenment is perpetual bliss.
• Enlightenment is an incomprehensible non-experience that promises nothing, and it is debatable if it actually has any benefit.

A few months ago we published a similar list, which at the time we called the folk theory of guru-based spirituality. The idea has come a long way since then, and now that we're working on a conference presentation about the folk theory of enlightenment, finding Alan's blog has been a great confirmation.

Open Enlightenment is a lighthouse spinning a beam of high-intensity clarity for those lost in the morass of myth, miracle-mongering and superstition that is the commercial spiritual marketplace today. It definitely should be read by anyone who seeks to understand enlightenment in the context of what a big-time guru is telling them. It's so good that we may just decide to retire from this blog entirely.

This Makes Our Self Peaceful

File under: Blogs of Note and Gurubusting

Our Twitter pal Clara Lum turned us on to The Peaceful Self.com yesterday. What a blockbuster!

According to this 'awakened guy,' your reward for finally awakening to “truth,” is to learn how to become more "passionate" about the illusion, but only because you're "awakening" is a "non-dual state of consciousness." Now you can blissfully have your cake and eat it too, because there are two forms of "enlightenment" and "the mystics were only half right."

Stupid mystics!

Being is boring, but “becoming” is where it's at, yo!

Good grief, “Two forms of enlightenment”? Really!? I always thought enlightenment was about “awakening” from the illusion to realize truth - one and done!

But not for the “Dream Police.” In fact, for the Dream Police ('awakened guys') there are hundreds of enlightenment "forms." In fact, there are levels and degrees, stages, tiers, quadrants, states, etc, etc, etc, on and on, ad infinitum.

The Dream Police recognize that we live in a postmodern technological 'world' that thrives on conspicuous consumption and, as discriminating consumers, we should have as many “enlightenment” products that the 'dream' can offer...

It's so gratifying to encounter this kind of clarity in a world of ever-increasing occlusion and ignorance about spiritual truth. The author of The Peaceful Self.com is keeping a very low profile, which is like a spoonful of sugar on top of five scoops of ice cream. The turban comes off and gets stomped into the good green Earth for this guy.

CotHS Comes Back All 'A Bluster, But With A Bit Of Sputter

File under: Amma All-Over-The-Planet, Blogs of Note and The Siddhi of PR

There's more than enough hysteria to go around in the battle between the person who writes the Cult of the Hugging Saint blog and an as of yet unconfirmed action by alleged activist Ammabots.

It began with the original CotHS suddenly dropping off the grid for no reason whatsoever a few weeks ago. Google/Blogger's policy of completely ignoring any inquiries or complaints from its users has left a few folks wondering if it wasn't the work of hackers, or lawyers. We think it was a failure to respond to a notice from Blogger regarding spam blogs.

This venue was similarly inquired recently, perhaps at the behest of an army of Ammabot complainers. We imagine it would have been quite easy for them to generate a diverse selection of originating email addresses by enlisting the upper level members of the org across the world to complain about CotHS, and perhaps this blog too, as being spam sources.

But whatever the cause of the mysterious disappearance of the original blog, the new version comes out swinging for McCovey Cove:

The media image of the “hugging saint” is an entirely different story than the one that begins to reveal itself once an even moderate indoctrination into the cult occurs. Throughout the media and the various propaganda materials of the Mata Amritanandamayi mission, we are presented with the image of a tireless humanitarian, a living saint, and a compassionate woman who spends her days doling out hugs free of charge and establishing charities. Within the cult, Ammachi is worshipped as a living God, an omnipresent guru, and the embodiment of the Supreme Consciousness. Devotees believe she is intervening in their daily affairs and controlling even the smallest details of their lives. Bhajans are sung in praise of Mata Amritanandamayi, a living incarnation of God. She is often referred to as the direct reincarnation of Krishna, the Goddess Kali, and Jesus Christ. Ammachi has also allegedly claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

Amma isn't any more Kali, Krishna or Jesus Christ than any other being on this planet. Get that straight, people. She's just a girl who worked a miracle into a world-wide business and a place at the very top of the heap of big-time gurudom. She got there by peoples' own notions about the presence of divinity and suddenly found herself surfing on a wave of spiritual ignorance. She's been riding that wave across the world annually for at least two decades now.

We're throwing our turban down in admiration for the author of CotHS, despite some unfortunate chatter about psychic attacks. The only agency of any such "attack" is fear, not spiritual truth. We usually recommend certain chill-out-inducing herbal treatments for this sort of thing... or recommend that people stay away from said treatments. And while a little bit of reason can go a long way, unfortunately, wrong reason often goes bad in a big way.

Amma will answer to the Ma she emulates, just like everyone else. She has no more "in" with Kali than any other being on the planet or elsewhere, and the rabid devotion she encourages around herself may very well come back to bite her in the ass.

The Cult of the Hugging Saint blog is just as much an expression of Mother Kali as anything that has ever happened at any Devi Bhava that Amma has fronted in. Ma belongs to everyone, not just the slavish satsang junkies, not just folks from India, and not just a person who found herself being worshipped one day and decided she liked it.

The Not Boring Guru

File under: Blogs of Note

Once again, the comments on this blog are being graced by an unusual presence, a person who understands why big-time gurudom doesn't do what it is supposed to do. Meet the Bored Guru and his Gurucifixion:

A spiritual guru works most of the times like a psychiatrist, at least he is forced to be one. He should be strong in the dealing of the psyche more than dealings with consciousness. Many times such psychological detections will earn the 'all knowing insightful divine guru' title to the guru more easily.

While his blog is a little thin on content for now, it's huge in understanding about gurudom, apparently from an inside perspective. It brings a lightness of being to know such people are out there, making small but important strides at exposing the authentic spiritual truth buried under the mountain of ignorance heaped there by tradition, superstition and the greed of your average big-time guru.

Don't Fix The Broken Yogi

File under: Blogs of Note

Today we were informed one of our more challenging interlocutors in the comments on this blog, Conrad Goehausen, aka Broken Yogi, has one of his own, The Broken Yogi Samyama, in which we turned up a few months back:

I recently had an interesting exchange with Jody over at Guruphilliac over a criticism he made of Bharat Gajjar, an elderly yogic teacher in the Sivananda tradition teaching in Delaware who had mentioned in some newspaper interview that he at times felt and even saw Sivananda giving him guidance in how to teach others. Bharat also mentioned that some of his students had at times seen Sivananda as well. Jody, who otherwise liked the guy, felt that this was an exploitive and deluding thing to tell his students, and that it would lead to delusions on their part. In our exchange, in which I tried to defend Bharat, who otherwise seemed to be the picture of a benevolent and kindly yoga teacher, Jody makes it clear that he views all such claims that subtle phenomena actually exist outside the imaginal subjectivity of the practitioner as simply superstitious personal mythologies, and represent nothing more than cultural indoctrination of Hinduism which deludes and detracts from higher understanding.

And there is not one single shred of evidence to prove otherwise, BY, outside of the cataclysmic flood of wacky personal anecdotes which comprise spiritual wisdom for your average, horrifically un- and under-informed New Age™ seeker.

Every subtle experience every person has ever known has been confined to their own, subjective envelope, even those allegedly experienced by multiple individuals. As a practitioner of self-inquiry, please be advised that any subtle experience you might have is to be accompanied by one clear question: who is the one who is having this subtle experience? That's all is takes to discount all subtle experience in one fell swoop with regards to our actual truth of being (along with anything and everything else that seems to occur in this world of ours.)

Despite the fact he's labeled us a [gasp] "materialist," we're glad Broken Yogi comes by and takes the time to keep us honest. While we may not see eye-to-eye vis-á-vis the import of seemingly supernaturally-generated spiritual experiences, the big wide world holds open the space for both of us to appreciate each others' take on the business of uncovering what is real.

Gurumayi Eruption Imminent?

File under: Blogs of Note and Gurus Clockin' Dollars

Our colleague SeekHer at the Rituals of Disenchantment blog has some very big news:

Hey Jody! SYDA has announced "A Sweet Surprise" is in store for those willing to shell out $100 to hear the New Year's Day Global Audio Broadcast! Awesome!

Speculation as to the nature of the surprise, even among hard-core devotees, runs along two lines:

One: Gurumayi has returned! Cue the gospel choir and orgiastic applause!

Two: Nothing new! But, the ashrams and centers hosting the event will distribute "all day suckers" as prasad.

I'm conducting a poll at "Rituals of Disenchantment" to see which outcome the sangham is expecting most:

Given that South Fallsburgh doesn't exactly do focus groups I'm thinking they will be tuning in for a temperature check. If a majority of devotees say they expect her Guru-ness, will she show? If a majority expect to be hosed, will they at least switch the prasad to something that won't kill a diabetic?

Stay tuned. One thing is for sure. Should the Divine Miss G actually show, even as just an "oh-so-mysterioso voice from the past" I will sign on for the webcast and report back her pearls of wisdom.

Many thanks to SeekHer for being our eyes and ears into the world of the mysterious vanishing guru, SYDA Yoga's Gurumayi, and the thousands of devotees she's left hanging.

Which was probably the best thing she could have done for them.

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...

The Guru And He

File under: Blogs of Note and Gurubusting

This morning's first batch of email included a note from South Africa resident, Avarim, author of a blog called The Guru and I. He was happy to explain essentially who the "guru" is, but isn't ready to tell us his name yet:

The blog relates to a group in the Rosicrucian/Golden Dawn genre, claiming disciplic authority from an ancient mystical tradition. (Like 20 zillion other groups out there.)

The guru is the usual egotistical admixture of complementary urges for money, power and ass. People have been abused, hurt, and financially damaged through their connection to him. The techniques he uses to cement his hegemony are textbook strategies in suggestion and mind control. As always, his groupies are too scared to ever call him out on his failed prophecies and insights - a fear rooted in their belief he is in possession of special powers and has connections to high spiritual places. He is always reluctant to demonstrate his powers (for obvious reasons) but is very quick to take the credit when something happens which is potentially attributable to his mostly non-existent abilities.

The membership is relatively small and the impact of the group negligible. But it remains an interesting, if not entirely unique, study in how ordinary people make assholes of themselves (including myself) when there is a guru in town.

A name won't tell you what this "guru" really is: a self-deluded narcissist who is convinced he has "spiritual power" due to some unfortunate referential dementia supplying deep and powerful meaning to random events – and that's the best case. At worst, he's a criminal who has gotten good at playing the guru game: claim to be God, or in possession of God's powers, and watch 'em drop like maple leaves in Maine, in the Fall, at your feet.

There's a whole lot more at the blog, for which the turban comes off in thanks and praise.

Looking Good ≠ Good Guru

File under: Blogs of Note and The Siddhi of PR

Recently, real writer Marta Szabo sent a link to her memoir, published serially on her blog, The Guru Looked Good. It's all about her time spent in the SYDA yoga ashram of faded former hottie guru Gurumayi. We dug a bit but found nothing we'd call dirt on the missing devi, and a request to the author for this material went unfulfilled. However, it does provide a good look at the interpersonal psychodynamics of ashram life. In other words, it's pretty fucked up:

Gay couples didn't exist on the ashram's radar. Any homosexuality was deep underground, almost too deep to see, easy to gaze past. Now and then the subject surfaced for a moment at a lunch table, how two women had been asked to leave because their relationship was “inappropriate.” You could tell just by looking around you that being gay and the ashram didn’t go together. I just tossed it onto the pile of things that were discouraged or not allowed – all things that seemed worth giving up if it meant getting free of absolutely everything, being liberated.

Besides the ignorance about the Gays, the last sentence equates liberation (moksha) with a freedom from "things." Common thinking at an ashram, and probably the number one reason people subject themselves to that particular house of horrors.

One day they'll learn that liberation has nothing to do with anything but itself. It comes in an augenblick, unbidden and not in response to anything, including someone's adherence to a set of ignorant rules about what things are "spiritual" or not. One of our favorite things is our dog's lovely ass, which constantly reminds us that the truth of our being is at once, always immediate and also utterly transcendent of all things, those Gurumayi proclaimed to be spiritual and everything she said that was not.

Resnick Revs Up

File under: Blogs of Note

As some of you know, we love to gush about our wonderful readers. Of those, we've fallen head-over-heels for some of our insightfully-commenting discussion participants. And of those, one who is at the top of the heap is Stuart Resnick. Sometimes we'd like to be a bit more like Stuart, who thinks before he types and offers measured, considered analyses of the various sociocultural phenomena of gurudom.

We are very happy to report that Stuart now has a blog in addition to his website. His first topic, the falling-from-grace-as-he-was-fattening-up-on-his-grandiose-self-image, Adi Da:

In the Da intro program I spoke of, they said something like this: If you're in Da's presence, you'll definitely get these amazing and wonderful things happen to you, and you don't need to do anything. Except, oh yeah, just one little thing, you do have to accept that he's enlightened.

And I thought, Jeez, of course! Even if you accept that a rock is enlightened, you'll get amazing experiences in the presence of that rock (as in a Hindu temple, or a vortex in Sedona). But why pretend to accept something just because you're told too? It seems like a tiny thing at first, but then it's a slippery slope to no end of non-sense, based on the one little act of pretending.

Stuart is the kinder, gentler gurubuster. We hope he keeps up with his blog and look forward to linking to his wisdom many more times for many more years.