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GODMAN'S EMOTIONAL BACKMAIL
By M H AHSAN
With spiritual peddlers promising everything from moonshine, money to moksha, the emotionally vulnerable tend to rely on gurus to an unhealthy extent. Spirituality should be used to help deal with problems, not as a means of escape.
Till recently, 25-year-old Simran had few friends. Grossly overweight, she felt diffident going out on dates. But after she joined a class on hypnotherapy, her list of friends has expanded. All her new friends, mostly in their 40s, are from the hypnotherapy class. In their company, Simran has begun to think, and act, like a 40-yearold herself. She talks about the ‘empty’ lives of ‘young’ people, though many of these ‘youngsters’ are older than her. She believes she’s the possessor of ‘esoteric’ knowledge, and claims to have met an alien. Her guruji has told her – this is her first life on earth and hers is a soul clean of past life karma. She also talks of the hypnotherapist who has regressed her through her past lives. She finds no contradiction between these two assertions. Neither does she feel the urge to get healthy and hang around with people her own age. Now she’s waiting for the ‘dimension shift’ in 2012, and feels superior to most of humanity.
Tara, 30, hasn’t worked anywhere except for a six-month stint at a call centre. She’s tried setting up a business several times, but lacked the determination to stick through it. In her rare rational moments, she realises that her life is going nowhere, but otherwise there’s an unsettling calm about her, which she attributes to the ‘life lessons’ she’s learned from her guruji. Her charkas, she claims, have been activated and she feels she can mould circumstances to her will. Her life is an endless round of rituals, chanting and channeling of ‘energy’. She thinks she’s a cut above her friends who are ‘materialistic’ and ‘empty’, bent as they are on pursuing their careers and making something of their lives.
Both Simran and Tara are far from being illiterate or superstitious. They’re both very upper middle-class and well-educated. It’s just that somewhere in the whirligig of life they found themselves rudderless and were willing to clutch at some straw… any straw… that would anchor them to a secure harbour. It is because of this abject desperation that today they’re riding the crest of an unnerving new trend, where the average upmarket housewife seems to have morphed into a seer, and sundry people are spouting beliefs and theories that border on fantasy and falsehood.
Those who have succumbed to this malaise of spiritual overdependency include politicians of various hues, stuffed shirt bureaucrats, dashing designers and corporate bigwigs. What might have started as a harmless dalliance with spiritual guidance and awakening, has turned into an affliction where no decision is taken without their guru’s nod. And the decision could be as inane as how to sign one’s name or which position the best to sleep in. As if this were not enough, many of these spiritual shoppers actually believe that the ‘saintliness’ rub-off lends them an aura of divinity.
When asked about the significance of the ‘dimension shift’, Simran’s convoluted spiritualspeak – “I know you may find my beliefs weird, but you have to reach a certain stage of evolution before you can deal with complex thoughts. You’re obviously not at that stage. But you must bring yourself to that vibratory frequency fast because the human race is going to be forced to move into the next dimension in 2012 and those who aren’t at the appropriate frequency will die” – is symptomatic of what ails her and those of her ilk.
“The pace of change in society is so fast that life seems more uncertain than ever. So the impressionable and the vulnerable often latch onto ideas which purport to tell them how to have control over life’s many variables. You can’t lay the blame for this on spirituality. It’s a form of escapism and superstition fuelled by vulnerability,” says Dr Samir Parikh, psychiatrist, Max Healthcare. Author of many books on wellness and spirituality Deepak Chopra says, “I attribute this behaviour to emotional vulnerability and projection, where people feel their problems will be solved in th consciousness of their guru.”
Adman Prahlad Kakkar sounds a warning against the surrender of one’s will, logic and, very often, funds to charlatans masquerading as spiritual advisers who hold out the bait of Insta-Nirvana. He says, “My problem with any organised form of spirituality, be it any of the major religions or even a cult, is that there is a tendency to exploit the follower. When you are incomplete and you surrender yourself to a ‘teacher’, you surrender your right to discriminate and use your logic. Once you do this, you are open to exploitation.”
“The basics tenets of leading a spiritual life are not new. They’ve been with us for thousands of years and they do not fly in the face of logic. A modern day spiritual teacher can only interpret. And one should be very wary of a spiritual teacher who encourages surrender and this kind of projection. A teacher should make a disciple self-sufficient, he should not try to influence the disciple and in that way enjoy personal power or descend into influence peddling,” states Chopra.
Tara’s existence is a startling example of a youngster who has wantonly surrendered her self to the ‘guru’. Says she, “I was always sure I was destined for bigger things. It took my guru to reveal that I was. He knows all my fears and needs without me telling him what they are. All I have to do is matha teko (prostrate myself) in front of him and he knows what’s on my mind.”
Metaphysical teacher and author of many books on spirituality Vikas Malkani, who opted out of family business to live the life of a monk says, “Spiritual gurus have become crutches for the emotionally vulnerable. But often it’s not the guru who searches for a weak victim but the victim mired in self-pity who wants a quick fix from the guru.” But he also says, “A true guru will help you find inner strength and not harp on weaknesses.” He also feels that people need to understand that it is they who are responsible for their lives and not try to pass that responsibility on to a guru.”
In the New Age, enlightenment is up for grabs and often comes with a hefty price tag in the form of fees for meditation classes and soul salves.
The solution to this obsession with spiritual curealls lies in knowing what one wants from the exercise rather than thrashing around like a beached whale from guru to baba to seer. “You are very misguided if in your attempt to be spiritual all you think about is yourself. Spirituality is an exploration of how to make one’s relationship with others, the environment, and in fact the entire cosmos, more harmonious. When your attempt at spiritual awareness is limited to yourself, it is merely an exercise in self-absorption. It is that selfishness that has led to so many problems in the first place,” propounds Chopra.
What everyone seems to say is that spirituality shouldn’t be an escape from reality. It’s more a means to cope with and make sense of the world while functioning as a responsible citizen of the world.
“People in their quest for spiritual awareness need to keep a grip on reality and search for the godhead within rather than scan the outside world in search of a crutch for their insecurities. I don’t believe in any God per se, though I have gone through a phase of questioning myself as to the code I would like to live by and to judge my actions by,” explains actor Rahul Bose.
Robin S Sharma, author of the best-selling book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, feels that the only spirituality that makes sense is spirituality in practice. “Ideation without execution is delusion. What I mean by this is that to have a great career and a great life takes more than just exploring theory and being philosophical. It takes consistent effort, raw perseverance and endless hope. It’s easy to be seduced by the promise of spirituality and spend your life caught up in books rather than getting into the game and living life fully. The true masters understand that life is to be lived.”
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INSIDE STORY
