The ultra-chick movie Eat, Pray, Love was released this week. Star Julia Roberts insured its success; I believe it's the second biggest film out there, after the ultra-guy movie The Expendables. EPL is based on the eponymous novel by Elizabeth Gilbert. The novel in turn is based on Gilbert's real-life year-long trip around the world, during which she experienced food in Italy, meditation in India, and a love affair in Bali.Neither the novel or the movie names the female guru whom Gilbert encountered in India, and with whom she had the requisite earth-shaking experiences. But it's clear from all the evidence that it's Gurumayi Chidvilasananda (successor to famed guru Swami Muktananda).
I myself was part of that scene in my youth. I traveled with Muktananda in the US on his 3rd World Tour in the late 70s-early 80s. I then went to his ashram in Ganeshpuri India, staying there through his death in late 1982, plus over a year with his dual successors, Gurumayi and her brother Nityananda. The photo attached to this blog post is from those days in India; I'm third from the right. My sartorial choices were not uncommon for that locale, and made sense at the time.
As you might expect when dealing with such holy and spiritual people, the scandals (power, sex, money, lies) that emerged over time were jaw-dropping. Muktananda had diddled underaged girls (while claiming and promoting celibacy), and had sent goons to intimidate anyone who tried to reveal his secret. Gurumayi, at a minimum, helped keep this covered-up. She grabbed sole control of the org from her brother, and when he started to run independent programs, she sent her own goons to intimidate his followers. The usual stuff.
(Did Gurumayi consciously try to deceive her followers into believing that she was a divine being, bestowing magical invisible spiritual energy? Was it all for the sake of fame, fortune, and adoration? Or did she believe her own hype about her God-like status? Considering the human talent for self-deception, I'd guess it's the latter. But I can only guess. Damn, I do wish she'd come clean about her motives, purely to satisfy my curiosity. Her and Bernie Madoff.)
I was pretty clueless of all this dark underside while I was with the group. It was all slowly revealed in the press in the years after Muktananda's death, and on the net in the decades since I returned to ordinary life in the US from the ashram in India. See these links for more info on the whole sordid scene.
Gurumayi disappeared from public view a few years back, perhaps because she got tired of hiding the scandal, or perhaps just exhausted from pretending to be a superior being. Gilbert's visit immortalized by Eat, Pray, Love occurred after the scandals were well-known, but while Gurumayi was still actively playing guru.
None of this has great philosophical import: even if Muktananda and Gurumayi were absolutely pure and innocent, I don't find them very interesting or important teachers any more. Whatever valuable insights they did offer (under the mountain of nonsense) are available from countless other groups. But hell, I can't completely ignore a good sex-and-religion scandal.
It'll be interesting to see how the buzz around the movie develops, whether it leads to serious mainstream discussion of meditation practice, and/or of the ugly secrets and power struggles in Gurumayi's history. A couple of major news sources have already reported on the kerfuffle. See the New York Post article Eat Pray Zilch, and Salon's The "Eat, Pray, Love" Guru's Troubling Past.
3 comments:
Don't miss the hilarious Lewis Black segment re EPL on tonight's Daily Show.
So.. you never knew or saw anything scandalous while you were there... but just believe automatically what others say, years after? How very enlightened. ;)
Well.. there has never been any great "Guru" without controversy, Mahatma Gandhi was also accused of fiddeling young girl... Sai Baba young boys, Osho with girls and women and drugs etc. -But the point is: All of the above have an enormous shakti, that radiates through all of this... and so, my conclusion is that even if these sex scandals are true, they are still enlightened... ;)
-Whatever the truth, I sure as hell will never believe the words of any other regarding these cases, only my own experience counts. -I`ve been to Ganeshpuri, and I`ve read a number og Gurumayi`s books... both of wich hold a very strong, gracefull and powerfull energy with them. For many years ago someone handed me a book; "My lord loves a pure heart" (by Gurumayi).. and at that point I knew nothing of either Nityananda, Muktananda or Gurumayi. But when I got the book in my hands... My God... then I knew.. and have known ever since. Don`t let others gossip confuse you, and ask yourself what really matters here...
Love and Light...
Teddi
Shaktipat wrote, All of the above have an enormous shakti, that radiates through all of this... and so, my conclusion is that even if these sex scandals are true, they are still enlightened
Hi SP. Note that you can use the same argument to excuse any sort of bad behavior. If someone molests children, or robs banks, or kills people, you can always say that the perpetrator "has enormous shakti" and is "still enlightened."
That's because foreign jargon like "shakti" and "enlightened" have no objective meaning. You can throw these claims around in whatever way you find convenient.
But why do you do that? Do you really think it's good for the world to excuse and rationalize the type of lies, violence, and selfish behavior that you're promoting here?
when I got the book in my hands... My God... then I knew.. and have known ever since.
Similarly, anyone, no matter how deluded or clueless, can claim "I know." Wouldn't it be more interesting to question and examine issues with a clear mind, rather than just make empty claims that you know something?
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