Guru Monk
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The Nature of Experience.wmv
The Business of God-men
The history of Holy Men can easily be traced back to ancient times. Our religious books are full of illustrations which describe them as Ascetics who have renounced all worldly pleasure, hypocrisies, violence and devoted his/her life to Spiritual practice or Sadhana. They can be of any religion, for e.g. Pir/fakir in Islam, monks in Buddhism, saints in Christianity or tirthankars in Jainism and so on. These ascetics were of high moral values and were exemplary in their deeds. Ideals in all true senses, they were social reformers. Slowly the metamorphosis started. It began as a huge wave of spirituality and meditation in early 1950s. India as well as the western countries was highly influenced by the talks of spirituality. Number of followers of gurus preaching spirituality from all parts of world slowly rose to many folds. Their donations to these spiritual gurus in all kinds of currencies started huge cash inflow into ashrams (religious hermitage), making it a highly lucrative business. Over the years the definition of Asceticism took different shapes and what we've got now is a whole new face of these holy men. These self appointed prophets of today love all the worldly pleasures and you'd be most certainly shocked to know the kind of businesses they are involved with. Sheltering fugitives from law, money laundering, blackmailing, prostitution, manipulating government contracts are to name just a few. Their reach today is not only within India but overseas as well, very convincingly luring thousands into their trap under the covers of spiritualism, meditation and yoga.
I once had a chance of reading an article describing the modus operandi of these fake saints. I'd like to quote the author as I feel this invariably applies to almost all of such men. The author said - they start with the dictum-if the individual changes, the society will change. Next they preach the audience to uplift their own selves and progress. Finally they ask them to leave all the problems of their lives to the spiritual powers of the god man and surrender to him. The audience is convinced that their beatitude lies in the total surrender to the god man. This whole process gradually de-socializes the individual.
I had a very special upbringing with the privilege of seeing both aspects of belief. While my parental grandfather whom I admire the most was an Atheist, my maternal grandfather was a devout religious man. I had chances of attending few satsangs - 'the devotional speech programs' as well. As an individual I had the liberty of following the belief I appreciated and I strongly condemn these mortal creatures that exhibit such a low moral standard but proclaim to be incarnations of God Almighty. My conscience does not allow me to take a bow in front of these unholy men. But why should we worry about them? Is it just because they have a large number of followers, pick up few good teachings from religious books and preach to whole world? When they are so much involved in social welfare, building schools, hospitals, temples, is it appropriate and ethical for us to criticize them so much? After all they don't force anyone to follow them. People come to them willingly, they don't blackmail anyone and they don't walk to our doors asking us to follow them. Am I really exaggerating things by making such a fuss about them? The truth is much more stranger than what it appears as.
Even though they are con-men with cheap magic tricks, they hold a huge power in their hand. They have the power of people who are devoted to the extent of blind faith, who are so much under the illusion of their charm, spellbound by their oration that they don't want to look beyond their faith and beliefs. Taking advantage of this trust, these holy men can easily manipulate the thoughts of millions and control them like puppets. Let's rewind a little to the day of Ayodhya dispute - the Babri Masjid demolition. Was it possible for a bunch of politicians alone to provoke that huge crowd for such a misadventure, consequence of which costed thousand lives? Politicians are not the only people to be held responsible for what followed after the demolition. If we turn the pages of history, we'd easily find that there were many small-time Godmen, Acharyas, Swamis involved in such a brainwash. We could not have a bigger example of politician-Godmen connivance than this. In addition to that, these Godmen have often been special advisers or gurus to many high profile politicians. Will it be exaggeration to say these Godmen may even manipulate our as well as our country's future?
There have always been many con men in disguise of holy men present around us. Few notorious were somehow exposed but many are still duping millions. I'm not trying to make any false allegations but we surely know of one such Godman who was on trial for forgery, money laundering as well as conspiracy of assassination of a Prime minister. There was one more Godman whom probably the west admires more than us but was accused of number of crime, few of which were as serious as a bio-terror attack for political mileage and conspiracy to evade immigration laws in United States. One such was recently caught red handed through a sting operation, videos of which are widely available on internet. We have another one who I strongly believe is the greatest among all but falls in the category of 'the one who is still duping millions'. The gentleman who claims to be incarnation of God has such a fine grip on system that he has never been charged or convicted in court of law, though there are probably hundreds of articles, books and videos about his misdeeds and cheap tricks. If we look at the wealth they have amassed, we'd be astonished to know that the annual turnover of few such Ashrams run into millions of rupees. Unfortunately most often these donations go for their personal welfare instead of welfare of society. One baba - a yoga guru to world, runs an empire of yoga and ayurvedic medicines, talks about buying an island worth millions of pound to build a 'peace haven' but does not pay minimum wages to the workers of his ayurvedic factory. I can go on writing and the list will never end. These evils are present in almost all religion worldwide. We live in land of millions of generous, emotional and innocent people where it's really very easy for these frauds to take undue advantage of our generosity and innocence.
It's a high time we look upon ourselves and realize that the faith and belief these unholy men are selling, is it worth a sacrifice of thousands of innocent lives? Contrary to the belief, these Godmen are as mortal as we are. It's just unfortunate that if they die, new ones will take their place. Why do we wait for these frauds to show us miracle when we surely know it would be a cheap trick? Why do we need these Godmen whose work primarily is either just reciting the scriptures in their own words or proposing a new religion, a new social movement? Why do we need a new religion when there are still so many good things to learn from religion we follow? Why should we allow these sinful creatures to misinterpret the scriptures or misguide us? How difficult it is for us to emphasize on moral values of religion rather than debating upon where Rama was born? The answers to all such questions lie within us. These Godmen, gurus, baba, religious leaders or even politicians can take advantage of us as long as we allow them to. It's high time for us to realize if we really want them to.
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