Guru SwamiG's journey to realisation, which she describes in this video on YouTube is interesting:
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www.youtube.com]
It is interesting in what it omits as least as much as what is included in the story she tells.
To begin she describes her first experience of Kundalini awakening, which was a physical sensation and a mental experience of light felt when someone from the Holy Order of Mans did a 'laying on of hands.'
I don't doubt that this felt wonderful to her. When someone is desperately seeking signs and wonders, the mind often conveniently produces exactly what is so ardently wished for---that doesn't mean however that the vision is anything other than a passing fantasy, however vivid and seemingly-significant that fantasy may appear.
Indiaspark mentioned paredolia, an ordinary phenomenom that explains how the mind does this:
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en.wikipedia.org]
What is omitted is the amount of doctrine (influence) that SwamiG had previously imbibed from the Holy Order of Mans--a recognised cultic organisation---- that would have primed her to look for and expect these signs and visions. SwamiG promotes bhakti--the path of devotion--that exhorts the devotee to not question the leader in any way. So she accepted the reality of these sensations (signs and visions) as whatever the leader chooses to interpret them as.
She had already surrendered her own mind to the leader.
Any competent stage hypnotist can produce a similar effect in those pliable minds that place their faith in him. Charismatic christian pastors do it at every service when they touch members of the flock who then unwittingly produce the expected performance of speaking in tongues or falling over from the holy spirit. Given enough time to figure out his vulnerablities and prime my victim, I could do it too, and I make no claims to be either a hypnotist or preacher.
This is the path of bhakti, devotion to the Guru, it is a path of complete surrender of your own mind to the Guru, allowing the Guru to dictate what is and is not reality:
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www.guruswamig.com]
"Devotional acts include serving the guru, prostrating daily and offering a gift in love, chanting his or her name and meditating on his or her inner form as the embodiment of the Divine, partaking of ucchishta-waters from his or her holy sandals, and his or her food leavings-emulating his or her awakened qualities, seeking initiation and striving for Self Realization as he directs. Codes of harmony include seeking hisor her blessings, obeying his or her directions, keeping no secrets and honoring his or her lofty presence. Prohibitions include never contradicting or arguing with the guru, never criticizing him or her, nor listening to criticism by others, not imitating his or herdress or deportment, not standing or sitting above himor her, nor walking or driving ahead of him or her; not assuming authority in his or her presence, nor uttering words of falsehood or contempt, and not initiating conversation or asking questions unless invited. The Kularnava Tantra explains, "Be always in service of the guru, ever in his or her presence, giving up desire and anger, humble and devoted, lauding in spirit, upright in doing his or her work."Take good note of:
emulating his or her awakened qualities so the devotee gets in some practice at performing as an awakened one before the big event---priming, or acting?
Guru SwamiG then left the Holy Order of Mans--a cultic organisation--taking with her the belief in signs and visions that she had learned there. She studied the Bible and contemplated for 3 years.
3 is a significant figure, like 7 in numerology. For some reason humans like these numbers, 3, 5, 7, 9 and they frequently crop up in religious stories and doctrine because the human mind hooks onto them and gives them a mystic significance that they do not really have outside of the discipline of mathematics.
There is a reason that conmen salesmen on the internet always give their prices as $39.97, or $49.97 and that is because they have done the market research and know that humans attribute some special meaning to those numbers that isn't really there--it increases the number of people who are influenced to buy.
Then SwamiG had a past life memory as a Buddhist monk. I have past life memories all the time, when I think back to stuff that happened years ago--I try not to do that too often. I have past life memories every night when I am dreaming too, but those are more colourful and imaginative because the mind when it is set free from the normal constraints--as in dreaming or meditation--comes up with some very strange
fictional stuff.
Smart people use this creative ability of the mind to write stories, do maths, produce films, paint pictures, imagine what fun they are going to have on their vacation. Most of them do not claim that their visions are real.
Some people who have such visions start religions if they can convince enough others that their personal dreamtime is real and thus evidence of another, better world somewhere if only we could find it---and who better to show us the way, for a price of course, than the person who dreamed the dream in the first place?
Guru SwamiG then describes her association with ISKON, another recognised cultic organisation. The leader of that organisation--remember that SwamiG promotes bhakti, surrender of her own mind to the guru---- told her that she would reach 'realisation' in this lifetime.
That is a very strong suggestion, from the guru to the surrendered one, and something that all shady gurus promise to their all followers. Each follower thinks that the guru has singled out only them for this wonder, so they feel special and exalted but it is a standard line to everyone--it is the bait that hooks the fish.
The guru has made them feel special so that the person wants to be close to the guru to keep feeling special.
What has been omitted, and very deliberately so by the guru, is exactly what 'realisation' means. You will never pin down what this means by asking the guru because it has to mean whatever fantasy each individual wants it to mean---being god, knowing everything, power, success, being an annointed one---you name it, 'realisation' covers it, it is only bait, remember?
Here is the dictionary definition, quite an ordinary process that happens countless times each day as we learn something new:
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wordnetweb.princeton.edu]
One of the major obstacles of being a spiritual seeker is that the search pre-supposes that there is something to be found but until that something is nailed down in concrete terms, the seeker hasn't a hope of finding it--gurus love this as it keeps the seeker dangling on the
hook of hope for years sometimes.
A good teacher would tell you to be a finder of the truth, not a seeker, as 'finder' implies that you actually have to do some leg-work, and employ your own agency (your critical faculties) at first defining what you are after and then finding it, rather than passively waiting for 'Guru's Grace' to deliver that nebulous 'realisation' as signs and wonders from the netherworld.
(Finder also contains the implication that you might actually get somewhere on this quest)
Moving on, Guru SwamiG left ISKON, thanking the corrupt cult leader and presumably taking the beliefs she had unthinkingly imbibed from him as a bhakti devotee--- who does not question or criticise even corrupt cult leaders--with her. She went to India to study Tantra, not the sexy kind so beloved of the naive westerners but the real magic kind, the one that those wanting power over others study.
Tantra is about manipulating the dark fantasies of the mind, the demons and bogeymen and the things that go bump in the night and scare us witless--to hopefully learn to control those fears. First though you have to control those fears in your own mind and a lot of tantra apprentices--before they become adepts--go stark staring mad, become psychotic, because that stuff is terrifying.
And you can use it to terrify others, if you are willing to risk your own sanity in the process, for those scary things don't go away, even for the accomplished adepts who often get bitten in the bum by their own fantasies. That sword, being double-edged, always cuts both ways.
Let us generously assume that Guru SwamiG has actually become an accomplished adept as she claims, although personally I have my doubts, as the real dudes aren't all over YouTube for a start, they are far too smart for that.
What Guru SwamiG omits in this Tantra section is the exact names of her teachers, although she has been very forthcoming about her previous cult involvement with regard to naming names.
Why this glaring ommission now I wonder?
There is also no proper explanation of what Tantra really is, apart from stating that it isnt the sexy, fun kind--again that fuzzy bait to hook the fish--can it really be whatever you imagine it to be, all those dark powers harnessed to your bidding (everyone's favourite fantasy of omniscience) and absolutely no mention of the very real risks of psychosis? If Guru SwamiG really did become an adept and is now so all-powerful, how safe is it to be around her and how do we know that she came through it with no lingering psychosis that might rear its ugly head anytime?
We move on to the banks of the Ganges, that river sacred to Hinduism, in Rishikesh no less, where every charlatan guru in India has set up a stall since the Beatles and the giggling fraud Maharishi first made it famous as
the place to go to get 'enlightened.' The Beatles and Mick Jagger got enlightened alright, when they realised that the Maharishi was a fraud and riding on their fame to reach a mass audience.
They are significant mystic names to a lot of seekers still, redolent of the exotic, the unknown, the miraculous signs and wonders--just like Medjugorje-- the fuller story of which Indiaspark linked to earlier in this thread:
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www.spectator.co.uk]
I'm agnostic myself, I try to keep an open mind but not so wide open that my brains fall out. There is usually a mundane explanation for these signs and wonders which comes to light in the passage of time. Sadly, it usually involves power sex and money, the three things that humans find most desirable of all, even more desirable than 'knowing god'--which, since I grew up some and stopped demanding the impossible, has always smacked to me of overreaching, or spiritual greed.
Place names are given, as they have mystic significance and resonance amongst the general public, but no names of Tantra teachers--who are also very proud and strict about lineage..... hmmmm, a bit strange that.
To cut a long story short, the biggie happened on the banks of the Ganges at Rishikesh.
SwamiG managed to have 'realisation' even though her mind had 'dropped away'--a bit of a contradiction in terms there.
'A whole new being emerged' although to anyone else she probably looks just like the old SwamiG--a subjective assessment on her part perhaps, or are we talking about the emergence of multiple personality disorder?
Remember that Guru SwamiG is a devotee, a promoter of bhakti, that path where you submit so totally to the Guru that you will drink water from his sandals and obey his every whim. She has, by her own admission already given over her mind to several others. Is this whole new being that emerges the combined implanted avatars of her previous gurus, the corrupt leaders of ISKON and The Holy Order of Mans as well as the nameless Tantric masters?
We are getting into the fantasy film 'Alien' territory now, except that the heroine of that film was fighting the bad guys who were parasitically laying eggs in and killing their victims, not becoming one of them.
What happened to the old SwamiG? Is the husk abandoned on the banks of the Ganges or does it still lurk somewhere in the new SwamiG's psyche? Does she even have a psyche anymore now that she has abandoned her mind to the control of so many other corrupt cultic leaders and reckons that her peak enlightenment experience was her mind dropping away? Where does this mind drop to?
Can a benign being really emerge from the mixed influences and beliefs of several malign cultic leaders?
Finally, Guru SwamiG talks about the wonders we can expect as this new person if we follow her path, the main one being that we need no longer rely on the phenomena of this world.
Guru SwamiG seems to be relying quite heavily on the phenomena of this world, the internet to broadcast her message and bring in recruits, the donations of those recruits to boost her income, the gullibilty and wishful thinking of those 'seekers' who accept not questioning her in any way.
But most of all she relies on simple carny tricks, the phenomena of fake signs and wonders, easily reproduced by any savvy manipulator, to convince her flock that she is really something special and has a direct line to god.
If it sounds too good to be true it usually is.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2010 10:27PM by Stoic.