Gurus in the West - Fascination and Ego

Who doesn’t admire people who are on the spiritual path and who devoted his life to God? I believe this kind of spiritual souls can live in many different cultures, countries and religions. However travelling in the west I also met many people who are very fascinated by India, the spiritual culture here and this ‘guruism’. They get fascinated by this and then sometimes develop the wish to have this and start behaving like a guru themselves. Then they want to have followers and disciples to satisfy their ego.

Once I saw a very funny situation about which I could only laugh. A person who also pretends to be a guru was sitting with students and invited them ‘Now you can come and touch my feet to get blessings’. The students were all westerners who only partly knew this tradition which is usual here in India where all gurus’ followers do this to receive blessings.

I really had to laugh about this. Spending a lot of time in the west I have experienced similar situations several times. You can find this ego here and there and it comes out in different ways because of culture but you will recognize it if you meet someone with this ego.

Today our phone line was cut again. We had made an arrangement for internet and phone but now the work has progressed that far that they have cut another line which was closer to the Ashram. Not only this, they also cut a big water line and one of the big holes filled completely with water. We had to laugh about it when we went to see the work that is going on.

It is crazy and seems fully disorganized how they dig everywhere but really, in the end it doesn’t help to be angry about it that you don’t have phone or internet or only very slow internet, that you cannot leave the house without getting dusty and dirty or that you have to go long detours to reach a place which is not even a kilometer away. You just can laugh about it and be happy that now we will have a sewage line.