Turq, In support of your view of the lengths believers will go to perpetuate the fantasies of their leader:
Mao had many cockamamie ideas about agriculture. One was that he could get ten times the production by planting ten times the rice. It ended up killing the rice and causing a famine but when he traveled to see his successes, there was a train ahead of him that would go out and plant rice in that way in a prefab village so he could see it for himself. They filled the rice silos to prove that he was right and had revolutionized rice farming. If you have been around MMY for five minutes while people tell him news you quickly realize that : good news big strokes, bad news stony silence or anger, often at the messenger. What interests me about the Guru Dev advance letter is its use of the claims for magical powers in the hype. "He combines in himself the Knowledge of the self with the mysterious powers -- the sidhis arising out of yogic perfection and hard penances, which he has undergone throughout his life." What an interesting claim! Mysterious powers, unnamed and without a shred of proof offered. But asserted as part of his PR image, a man who can do magical things that you and I who have not lived in the woods for years don't have. This claim and the money thing takes him out of the regular religious guy camp and he goes into the spoon benders bin. Claiming supernatural powers is bogus and if he had them he could demonstrate them if he wanted to be fair. Instead it is just asserted and the claim is protected from any challenge. It is also interesting that MMY twice invokes that his teacher is the highest, bestest, most fantastical saint in India. Competitive thing isn't he? Best in spirituality. That reminds me of people who claim to be the best in art. --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > > > > Marek, > > > > All my speculation was just that. I'm just not buying the magic > > box. After that, it is anyone's guess! > > > > Thanks for thinking about this topic, it really interests me. > > I think that there's room for a "middle path" here. > For example, Guru Dev could have *been* a total > renunciate, well-intentioned, and with the desire > to never accept any donations. > > But he also had to eat, and to pay the bills. So > who would have been assigned to scrounge up the > money for all those things? Duh. His devoted > secretary. > > What if that secretary was *so* devoted that he > went out of his way to protect the *myth* of Guru > Dev never needing, or accepting, donations by > *hiding* them? What if the majority of his activities > *as* a secretary were to scrounge up money to pay > for the daily overhead of the ashram, but to > "protect" Guru Dev and allow him his *illusions* > of never needing money, so to do this he *hid* all > these money-making activities from him. > > Can't you just see MMY sneaking into GD's room and > putting more money into the "magic box" every time > it ran low? I sure can. It would be *just* like him. > He'd tell himself, "Self, I will perform these minor > sins (lying to my guru and telling him what he wants > to hear so that he can preserve his fantasies about > how nature supports the holy), but I'm doing it out > of love and devotion." > > Now flash forward several decades to the TM move- > ment as it is today. Whole *teams* of people work- > ing their butts off to continually scrounge money, > while they tell *their* guru lies about how much > the ME has improved life on planet Earth and all > that he has "accomplished," so that he can preserve > *his* illusions as long as he can. > > This is pure speculation, of course, but it certainly > sounds believable to me. Maharishi based his notion > of the perfect teacher-student relationship on *his* > relationship with Guru Dev. And the *model* for such > a perfect relationship is "Tell the teacher whatever > he needs to hear to preserve his illusions, while > spending almost every minute of your day scrounging > for money to pay for the illusions." >
