Of Godmen, Conmen, Deluded Seekers, Flock Folks and an Agnostic........... Balwant Gurunay.

Many friends know of my journey beginning from being an army officer to a cop to a corporate trainer, a poet, painter, writer and continuing into the realms of  mysticism. In spite of knowing my strong agnostic leanings and methodology many of them off and on keep bringing up the topic of mystical Baba's with their magical powers and even introduced me to few such thugs. Many friends who have heard my talks on mysticism and gone through the 'WORK' ( As used by George Ivanovich Gurdjieff )   with me as a facilitator raised issues in ice breaking sessions of my workshop's which made me feel that they expect Sufism and other mystic techniques to be some witches and wizards mumbo jumbo that will give them instant enlightenment. I am sharing the essence of these discussions on 'Gurus and their Methods', public perception of them and people's expectations from them. I am also laying bare certain other truths about the business of spiritualism, the high priests of mysticism and their so called secret circles, methods and also a variety of seekers that I came across.

                       Generally people expect 'A Guru' to be a robe clad soft spoken always in control creature of some other world. The one with fake airs and many Shri Shri or  'His Holiness'  titles or some crazy Japanese or Chinese name like kusho, mushu, rapchik, Mozu etc. A  guru to be popular is also expected to make some tall claims that he has come to uplift the downtrodden souls of poor mortals...... the same old 'Special agent of God’ theory. This theory held, holds and always will hold a huge appeal for the 'Flock Folks'. They expect that a Guru will touch them and some magical light, energy or aura will pass through them transforming them once and for all in to a new being. Due to their misplaced beliefs, their expectations from any method or master are highly flawed. I found that mostly people are not looking for a genuine spiritual guide but a showman, a magician, an agony aunt and an event manager cum entertainer.

                             A spiritual 'Method' is expected to be some special and secret Practice, a hallowed word or sound , a taveez or a charm which demands from them no 'Work' but blind faith and some hard cash. Many folks expect a master to portray a flimsy and fake humility by being ever ready to be bombarded by their half baked questions and unreasonable arguments.  Some expect their 'Jyaan Chakra' to be activated by master's magical touch or their kundalini to be awakened by a kick up their ass or a smack on their balls. Some morons even expect a Sufi or for that matter any Mystic to essentially be some kind of a wizard with supernatural powers who can recast their destiny or give them a 'cure all' charm to set right the wrongs of their lives. That is why there is so much of space being occupied by charlatans.  There are many Mithiy-anands, Thag-anands, Yoni-Babas, Linga-Swamis, Jagat Gurus and Jagat Matas exploiting folks having unquestionable faith in a perceived divinity operating through them. In reality let me tell you that they are all crafty tricksters or glib talkers. People forget that any mysticism without reasonable and rational logic is nothing more than an intellectual big top with its regular tricks, parrots, gymnasts and clowns.
        For seekers we have curious ones and the serious ones. The ones interested in 'Work' as a process and practically getting involved in it and the ones who just want to talk or to be talked to about various dimensions of spiritual realms and different spiritual philosophies. Then we have the fundamentalists who are like a time bomb ready to go off any moment, who think that their religion, faith or life style is unquestionably the only right method and anyone saying a world on subjects of faith, spirit or God other than their way deserves to be told to shut up. The ones who are deeply concerned about covering their heads, keeping or cutting their hair, shaving or not shaving, whether their pajamas should be above the ankles or below them, kind of underwear one should or should not wear, being a vegetarian or a non vegetarian etc etc.  These folks are strongly conditioned by fundamentalist upbringing making them stiff, staunch and intolerant.  They are ever ready to go in to a perceived holy war and bring misery to fellow humans by being violent towards those who reason or think differently. I am not hinting at a particular religion or community but such bigots can be found all across globe in almost all organised religions.

            We forget that all faith is nothing more than parental and social conditioning. Those who want to break the shackles of this conditioning are termed as rebels. Being a 'Rebel' is the first step toward a possible growth but ironically many folks get stuck at this stage and  get lost in the celebrations of being a 'REBEL' itself. 

              Some on the other hand like to live in a superfluous 'Cloud 9 spiritualistic realm' as a matter of absolute ignorance and arrogance. Most of these folks feel that they are special and above the ordinary simple folks whom they look at as LS people with their LS ability and understanding. Wild and muddy are the streams of ignorance running through narrow and rocky paths of a prejudiced and ignorant but arrogant human mind. 

               Some folks enter a learning space loaded with superfluous queries. They are highly attached to their questions in light of who they are and what they know and what specifically they want to know. They will come and ask a master about death and what happens thereafter only for the master to tell them that I don't know as I am not dead as yet.  Than they come up with how the seven heavens and hells are explained in the scriptures. They are like 'full of themselves' cups of tea wanting to be filled more only to overflow every time by getting a little more of what they could not get in the first place. Dressed in cloaks of their perceived 'Self' they feel their questions portray some higher intelligence or awareness, so much so that they become the preservers of questions rather than seekers of truth. 

                        Than we have the hard cooked, the hard boiled ones who will never hatch into chicks. I call them the 'Guru's Snacks' or his side kicks as remaining close to 'Guru Ji'  is their only achievement and only support left for their ego which never dissolved in the first place. Their argument is, "look I have lost the world but I have my ‘Master’ now." They are ever so engaged in looking for a 'Living Master'. They are the ones who end up being the minions running the Guru's circus. They chose to and train to be his parrots and goats that will talk or walk the line for him in his big top to impress the fresh slaughter. 

                             We also have the kids of the gang who refuse to grow. They will always follow the Guru wherever he goes, the little ducklings who like remaining ducklings forever, walking along the mother duck wherever she goes. They are either the dead weight that a master keeps carrying along for he knows they just won't leave or he trains them to be his special train of people. He knows he has to cater and manage for their worldly and physical needs like food, clothing etc. etc so he sets a different sort of work for them. They are the Guru's retinue, following him wherever he goes, followers who depend on the Guru and justify their existence by hard selling him. The men in this group are the Guru’s pimps so to say and the women are the Guru's whores to be precise. They are responsible for little details like what kind of silver or copper glass he drinks from, the kind of sheets on his chairs, where the flowers are to be placed and so on. In this Kalyuga these are the people who form the esoteric circle well aware of and micromanaging the black business and black money of the Guru. Most of the babes are either themselves superb lays or have overtime been trained in to catching best fresh babes to warm the Guru's couch. The slightly older ones function more as Guru Ji’s Nannys.

                                  Than we also have the 'Laughing Budhas' and the 'Winking  Smiles’ of the gang. These poor souls have in fact been ripped off all their money real estate or a regular job they had by the Guru or they voluntarily  got ripped. Result..... They can now only laugh away their losses and misfortunes because they are in a state of perpetual shock. So they laugh and laugh all the time. Sometimes they laugh at themselves for being the suckers that they are and sometimes at the new lambs joining the flock but one singular constant in their blessed lives is their laughter. Their very presence not only amuses the Guru in his sad moments but also helps him impress upon the rest of the flock of a possibility of  eternal happiness possible here and now.  ......... Poor souls.

                          Some Guru's and their flocks bond together in pursuit of drugs, sex or both. Doing Hash is the minimum standard required for entering in these drug circles. In the carnal circles you have to offer yourself by participating in group sex. Not being concerned with any higher truths the basic seeking of these seekers is sex, sex and sex with as many partners as possible. They are convinced that variety essentially is the essence of life. There favorite book always is "From Sex to Samadhi' and favorite method is the 'Linga-Yoni Tantra'. Only few who get into these dangerous psychological labs come out unscathed.  Most of them end up as deeply deluded minds. 

            We also have spiritual groups of closeted Gays and Lesbians who basically hang together for a bang. In such groups a new member is invited or initiated after careful observation but always in the positive hope that he turns out to be an 'Angel' or a 'Daddy' and she a possible 'Butch' or a 'Fairy'. If not he or she is unceremoniously shown the door. The real pursuit of such groups which they love to call 'a wonderful community' is to get in more people whom they can trust with their sexual or drug adventures. You can easily spot them using special, very subtle facial expressions, almost unseen signs and some key words they often use to communicate with trusted members. A cliché modus operandi used by these spiritualists is to bring in a new member, make him/her feel good and then embarrass him/her into submission. It’s called breaking the greenhorn. If the new member stays on in spite of the embarrassment it is assumed that he or she has special needs and thus worthy of further initiation. Such groups are otherwise extremely wary of new entrants because they have more spirituality to hide rather than to reveal. They are the 'Sambhog to Samadhi Gang' who have chosen to forego samadhi for the sake of sambhog once and for all.

                    Than we have the 'Shut mouths’ or 'The Muffled Babas' or 'Silent Swamis'. They can be spotted by their absolute silence or very low soft hard to hear way of talking.   They chose absolute silence as their facade to impress others and themselves of their being mature and seasoned timber. They   are convinced that all their questions have fallen. [My only query to such idiots is now that you have hatched out of the egg, what the hell are you doing here in the first place? Leave ....Go…do some work, paint, sing, run a shop, farm some land, plant a tree or at least sit  under one and look at the birds ..............  but Naaa Naaa No... they are addicted to the opium  of 'SEEKING'. Imagine a grownup man refusing to let go the breast of his mother. They over time become incapable of any practical work or achievement and thus turn seeking itself into a continuous pursuit of a lifetime, more so as a pastime and an addiction rather than a genuine need any more.

                                I always make it clear before every talk of mine on matters spiritual or motivational that though my talks and writings are laced with Sufi stories and analogies and that though it remains my endeavor to teach in depth about the reach, scope and practical applicability of Sufi and other spiritual methods or formats I refer to during 'Work', it certainly never is my endeavor to initiate participants in to any particular method or path. I ensure that the beautiful spiritual way of Sufism is not made a  tool of spreading superstition or irrational beliefs. Sufism is one of the most beautiful ways of discovering the beauties of life and all its truths and its methods are absolutely scientific and rational. I also do not believe in and do not advocate the so called 'initiation ceremonies', 'Guru Pujas' and all the rest of the bull crap. I do not take any disciples. My master had specific instructions on it and he passed away living an incognito life in the Shivaliks flying till the end like a lonely and independent eagle. My effort is always to purely remain concerned with presenting truth in all its different dimensions and naked incarnations, both pleasant and unpleasant as per my masters instructions. It is for the seeker to find his or her own truth. No one can gain even a grain more than what he deserves; how-so-ever desperately any facilitator may try to facilitate the process of realization. The reason for this is simple.  All Truth lies within you and if the time for you to be pregnant with it has not yet come........... We may keep making love night after night but the seed of realization won't embed in the womb of your awakening. 

                    Everyone is conditioned to learn, unlearn or 'Reject learning' in a certain way. The first step in any learning is unlearning. It’s like taking a mental bath to wash all the muck we may have collected in our mind willingly or unwillingly. A deliberate cleansing of both conscious and the subconscious is required for gaining freedom from 'I consciousness’ as well as freedom from 'Collective consciousness'. It is also a psychological process of scraping off all the personas and facades that we wear, the so called make up we apply to hide our ugliness or to seemingly look better. Unlearning not only involves deleting all that we call conditioning but also reloading and refreshing our learning methodology. Our mind's hard disc has to be formatted and re-partitioned before we load it with new programs and some good quality antivirus needs to be loaded too. All this involves serious work at an advanced stage. It is not easy. It is difficult because the mind naturally resists it. A feeling of 'Knowing' or being ‘Qualified to Know' or being matured enough is very hard to shed. It is like a personal hat or a cloak embroidered in golden threads of pride embellished with tags and feathers of social rank, worldly achievements, financial status and other paraphernalia of our ego.  The moment we decide to let go we are infected with a virus which is nothing but the other side of same old Ego, namely 'anti ego' and 'anti pride' also more popularly known as humility. So we have to get rid of both sides of our magical ego.

                       Ironically there are many pseudo enlightened ones who feel that they already have the right software’s loaded. These blessed souls do not wish to seek answers but an approval of their questions. Their questions are tools of certifying or qualifying themselves as genuine seekers and also impressing the greenhorns of their chequered journey as seekers. Many of them strongly feel that due to their journey from Guru to Guru and method to method they have now progressed into being divinely ordained instruments of quantifying and qualifying 'Gurus and Methods'. When a learner decides to qualify his mentor the process gets flawed to begin with ... better known in Sufi tradition as 'Fitting a head to the hat or a hand to a glove'. 

             

               We have plenty of people whose approach is simple genuine, honest and ever dissolving. Only they deserve the time and company of a Sufi who with his 'limited resources' opens the doors to 'limitlessness'. A Sufi does it neither as a duty towards God nor as a favor to the Seeker. He gets involved in 'Work' for the pleasure of 'Work' itself. A Sufi is in Ishq for the sake of Ishq iand not as a means to an end. Ishq itself is the means and also the end. That is why in true sufism Ishq-Hoo is more important call than Allah Hoo. Those who have acquired the precious gem of simplicity and firmly embedded it in their hearts are welcome in to the limitless, timeless and spaceless realms of a Sufi Faqeer saturated with Ishq.... 'A Divine Pagal Khana'.  For the rest, let someone else do the preliminary work of bringing you to the preliminary levels of 'Just being'  or 'at least being a Pagal first' (Clean Formatted un partitioned Disc) or as they say develop the basic capacity to be in love with all your heart   .......      and yes all your mind. 

                    In the end it is important to have a look at the divinity factor of any Guru/ Master and what he or she does. Let’s get over the myth once and for all that a mystic master is in any way connected with any kind of extraterrestrial divinity or godliness. He is like any other mortal amongst the millions with only a different inclination for learning and teaching and of course a different field or subject so to say. Just like we have medicine and engineering as fields of study so we have the psychosomatic sciences aka mysticism. A man who studies engineering or medicine and practices his craft is called an engineer or a doctor respectively. Similarly a student and practitioner of art and science of managing body and mind health along with a sharp eye for ethics and social harmony so that an overall order and balance in body mind and society prevails is called a mystic. They train people in sciences like breathing, Tai chi, yoga, martial arts, meridian balancing etc etc. They should be and mostly are first class mind trainers with deep insight into the matters related to human mind. They have a deep knowledge of rational and relevant literature which they use to help people understand and resolve personal and social conflicts. They are generally good orators and interesting presenters of homilies. They all use traditional stuff with minor modifications. Some of them package the traditional stuff from past masters like Budha, Patanjali, Rumi, Gurdjieff, Ved Vyas, Nanak, Kabir and many others and smartly market it. Osho, SSRS, SadGuru Jaggi…. All come within  this category and generally end up as jet flying babas having large flocks during their life time itself. Others like, Kabir, Tuka Ram, Nisaraga Maharaj, Sirdi Sai Baba (The Old One) are masters who don’t care about either fame or money and are basically more concerned about social welfare and a healthy society. All halo of divinity around the first category is the result of a carefully designed marketing strategy and flock mentality of devotees and around the latter category is purely the result of flock mentality. After the death of all these masters, from amongst their devotees arise, a priestly class that starts marketing them as products. Now the big question is...... Who is a conman and who is a genuine mystical trainer ? Answer is simple ……. One who claims being a god man, or even if he does not claim to be one, does not deny his being one when proclaimed by others, is a conman. One who out rightly denies any such connection and still successfully addresses all issues concerning body, mind, social and personal harmony as well as the harmony of our complete biosphere is a genuine mystic. The line is thin. There are many godman claimants doing a good job for the society but the problem is that their basic call and appeal comes from fakery and they make sure that their mysticism ensures not just the welfare of people but a well planned personal welfare in terms of huge growth of   personal wealth and political clout.  Certainly Sufism has both these kinds as well. But a true Sufi master like any other authentic mystic makes no promises gives no warranties or guarantees. He likes to remain free as he sets you free. Never forget that the master is neither the door, nor the path, He is neither the journey nor the destination. He is neither the lock nor the key. You are the Lock and YOU are the key. He or She simply helps you find ‘YOU the KEY within YOU to open YOU the LOCK'.  Once you have opened this lock you are welcome to do away with the key as well as the one who helped you find it.    Move on.......... don't even let the master be the thorn in your sandal.   .......... As there is no need to carry locks or keys once you have awakened.............. Because there are no doors, no locks, no keys thereafter........All that is left to be done is dancing and singing......... there after we can travel as friends together  meet as if we had never met.

...Balwant Gurunay...

Two links worth a visit by any rational seeker.

Sai Baba... A ShowMan or a God man

SSRS..... A God Man or Just another smart guy from around the corner.