--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > > > > The funny thing is that I read that Guru Dev page that was posted > > earlier, http://www.srigurudev.net/srigurudev/gurudev/biography.html > > trying to just understand what his quotes revealed about him. He > > came > > off like such a priggish old fart. Obsessed with people not > > sinning > > and preparing for death. Teaching the scriptures without his own > > thinking entering in, just like the good little fundamentalist > > Hindu > > he was. The quotes could have been Jimmy Swaggart if you just > > changed > > the name of the God. I don't know what motivates a kid to try to > > leave home at 9, never have relationships with women to the point > > of > > banning them from his presence when he is older, and living as a > > homeless man in National Parks away from all people...but I'm not > > giving him special guy credit for it. There are much simpler > > explanations. > > Those much simpler explanations, though, might also > have to cover why so many people in India, from all > strata of society, revered him so deeply. > > And oh, by the way, one doesn't usually refer to a > hermit who makes his home in the forest for spiritual > reasons as a "homeless man." That's what's called > "loading the language" in anti-thought reform circles.
Actually, what Curtis wrote is the result of NOT loading loading the language by cutting the guy and his actions a break because he was somehow "spiritual." I found his description refreshing; it's how *most people on the planet* would view the life of such a person if they hadn't been programmed to view it as somehow "special" and "highly evolved." It's the same thing with many people's views of Maharishi, *especially* the ones here who revere him as if he were more than human. Say something *normal* about the guy -- suggest conclusions you would draw about his actions if he were Joe Blow or anyone else on the street -- and they get all offended and huffy, as if *you* have somehow "loaded the equation" by treating him as a normal human being, nothing special. The real "loading" in such a situation is what *they* bring to the table, considering him "special" and cutting him all those "he's enlightened and can do no wrong" breaks. Bottom line is that I find Curtis' description of Guru Dev totally refreshing, and I'd be willing to bet any amount of money that Guru Dev himself, were he to hear it, would find it refreshing, too, and would laugh his ass off. It would probably be the first time in his later life that he'd run into someone who wasn't a simpering wimp and fawned over him, and Guru Dev would probably have reacted positively to that. In my hypothetical opinion, that is.
