Appreciation, Abuse and Warnings after writing about Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Appreciation, Abuse and Warnings after writing about Sri Sri Ravi Shankar – 22 Feb 13

Post author:Balendu
Post published:22/02/2013
Post category:Personal statement
Post comments:0 Comments

The whole week’s diary entries have been impacted by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, his alleged mobile phone charging powers and the consequences of my article about them. I thought I should share the reactions of different people on my blog entries with you, it might be interesting.

Of course there was the usual angry response from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s followers and members of the Art of Living foundation. The extreme response is mostly rather abusive and not very entertaining, in a language that I don’t use in my blog and which I thus won’t repeat here. Let’s just say that you can let your imagination run wild and think of any insult, they have most probably used it for me in the past four days. The funny thing is that this is people who like meditation, who want to find peace and balance and whose guru tells them himself that they should not say anything bad or think anything bad about anybody…

Well, but that has happened each time that I wrote about some fake guru and exposed their cheating behavior. It is not very surprising and the normal behavior, comparable to a scared, cornered animal. Being confronted with the way that they have been cheated by their guru, those followers try to use attack as a defense but not in a very skilled way!

There are other and more moderate reactions however, too. One person who has used the breathing techniques that Sri Sri Ravi Shankar teaches and who has obviously felt benefit from it, tried to find an explanation for his guru to say such nonsense. He seemed to be himself confused about the question why someone would write such nonsense or even say it in a lecture and so he concluded that the people in the lecture, which was held in a rural area, were ‘simple-minded’ and ‘of low intelligence’ and expected a guru to tell such stories.

It is actually quite funny to explain the story in this way. It is a careful way of saying: the audience is stupid, that’s why he has to fool them. Really? Is this what an enlightened person is supposed to do? For one, you should never assume that the person in front of you is stupid. Furthermore, you are not supposed to tell people whatever they want to hear just so that you get what you want! An honest person will never act in this way! If people even did expect this from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, why would he just make something up to please them?

No, I think you cannot use this as an explanation or excuse for him. I believe that there is probably someone whose job it is to just note down or record every lecture and then make another webpage, another article out of it, without this being further reviewed. He did say it, it was published and when they noticed that not everyone believes him to be all knowing and omnipresent or a divine, enlightened being, they took it down again.

There were however also lots of comments of support from readers and friends, people who have been disappointed by the organization themselves and others who were surprised as they thought him to be more serious and real. There have also been friends who got worried about me writing like this, as his organization is quite big and has lots of money and that he could have some kind of influence and could harm me.

I thank you all friends for your support but you don’t need to worry about me. I know I am not alone when I write about cheating gurus, when I expose scandals or just collect information about wrongdoers, hypocrites and scam religious leaders. There are hundreds and thousands of people more who are not happy with them, who know it is wrong and who are there to support. They may not be as outspoken but they are there and this is something that not only I know, those gurus know it, too!