I recently had an interesting experience which I thought I could also share with you. Someone sent me an email with an invitation, very eager to invite me. That person had read my blog posts about several fake gurus and wrote ‘I have been cheated by this master, too! And that one is not a true master, either, he truly is a fake guru!’ He sent along a report of his bad experience with some of those masters. We agreed that he could come to meet and we could talk about those experiences and also about his invitation.
He came and we had a talk. I invited him to write his experiences as comments under my blog posts about those gurus. My intention is to make more and more people aware of those gurus’ actions and cheating and I thought for him this could be a good way to help others, too. He told me however ‘I got cheated and yes, I made this experience that those men are fake gurus. My friends however are still believers and followers! They have to make their own experience.’ He right away told me that he had found a real guru now! He told me another guru’s name whom he was following now.
So this man has been cheated by several gurus in his past but nevertheless now decided to search and find a new one. I said ‘Wait a minute. I am not talking about one guru or the other, I am talking about the system!’ If someone wants to announce himself as a guru and wants to make followers, I am against it. I am against being a master and having the wish of having followers. The whole idea that there is someone who is higher and better than everyone else does not seem right to me.
The man in front of me tried to argue ‘But you know, those who are real gurus, they don’t only show magic tricks, they really have Siddhis, they can really materialize things, levitate and more!’ I answered that I did not believe in any of those things.
This of course was not what he had wanted to hear and he thus did not show much further interest to meet again or to invite me. He may have wanted to hear something about real gurus who can do real magic.
This is the trend: you had one guru, got cheated and simply search for another one. He is a follower. It is as if it is in his blood. Followers need someone. They are like sheep and need someone to follow. When they get disappointed by the person they are following, they search for another one. I am sure, whenever this man will have a negative experience with his current guru, he will leave him and follow another one.
In my life I have met many people who have had this habit or need to follow someone. Among them you can also make out some differences and that is how I decided to write about different types of followers in the next days. You can read a lot about how gurus are and should be but little about how followers are. But without them, a guru would not be a guru, so we should not forget them.
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कृपया ग्लानि न करें यदि किसी की कल्पना करके आपका खड़ा अथवा गीली हो जाए
Bitte haben Sie kein schlechtes Gewissen, wenn Sie eine Erektion bekommen oder nass werden, weil Sie sich jemanden vorstellen
Please don’t feel guilty if you get erection or wet by imagining someone
Meine Beziehung zu meinem Vater
My relationship with my father
पिता के साथ मेरा सम्बन्ध
Neues Kapitel im Leben, Herausforderungen und Lektionen
New chapter in life, challenges and lessons
My point of view on this is that as long as there is no excessive authoritarianism or efforts to control on the part of the guru or spiritual teacher, no submission of will on the part of students, no high or excessive prices and charges, and the teachings are interesting and possibly helpful, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with having a spiritual teacher. They are just a teacher of a subject like any other. As long as they don’t abuse authority, there’s no reason to fear them. My main yoga teacher only claimed to be a friend and teacher to me, and never took any significant charges or payments. And he was an excellent friend and teacher. I benefitted greatly by knowing him. And satsangs can be great fun too, a chance to have fun and also perhaps to meet others with similar interests. But it’s true that the situation I found of a guru who was not authoritarian or profiteering, and only claimed to be a friend and teacher may be quite rare and hard to find now. It seems that almost all are exercising the abuses of authority, exploitation, and deception that you describe. It’s true that many people can not find any inner voice to follow, so they feel they need to follow and submit to some guru, and most if not all so called gurus now do exploit, deceive, and oppress.
Dear Deniz,Thank you for your comment. You are absolutely right, there is no problem to have teachers. I am also very comfortable with teachers and I had many, too. But my point is here about those who are not really interested in teaching their students but interested in manipulating them and having followers like slaves who give them money, too, and followers are also actually not interested in getting knowledge or wisdom. They are waiting for some miracles and materialization of millions in a short time. They hope their master or guru can do this. Sending you lots of Love and thank you again for your insights.
I honestly feel like I am a follower sometimes in need of “masters” who can give me insight…
fake ‘masters’ is what Jesus yet had warned us for. i can’t believe that this guy you talked about is chasing magic stuff and all. he should be aware of tragedies in those ‘magic’ worlds.The so called Powers are not even allowed to use magic on earth. The real ‘magic’ is what happens when opening your heart to the one and only God and wich can be only done by the real God.
Dear Olivier,You are actually your own master inside yourself. It is not wrong to get inspiration, a new idea or insights from other people or anywhere. But know that you are your own master.
Love
Thank you for your reply Swami. Love.
Dear Brigitte,Unfortunately there are many people on this earth who have this wish to believe in those powers and in magic. For me, magic is what happens in daily life.
Thank you for reading and commenting!
The whole thing with gurus is about big bucks, that’s a given. After all none of the say anything new, they just change their rhetoric, just repeating what other said before them, including the Buddha.
Dear Rene,Well, yes, unfortunately that is what it is nearly always about: money, and a lot of it. Many of those fake gurus just took their wisdom from wherever they could get it and their followers don’t realize that this same wisdom would be available to them for free, too. But as it is, many spend thousands on achieving enlightenment.
Much love!
It seems to me that, no matter how intelligent, spiritual, or evolved someone is, they are still human. They are still capable of being greedy, needy, jealous, controlling, and the like. Why “follow” another human when they are simply trying to discover the purpose of life, as well? It’s an amazing thing to share knowledge, insights, and epiphanies with others. But, ultimately, we are all just wandering humans. So rather than follow someone with devotion, just keep wandering on your own path. We will all be here to support each other on the journey!