Guruphiliac: Update: Swami V. Still Clean



Saturday, April 09, 2005

Update: Swami V. Still Clean

File under: Reference Library

We've been in contact with Geoffrey D. Falk, author of Stripping the Gurus: Sex, Violence, Abuse and Enlightenment. He corrected us regarding our speculation about one of our heroes, Swami Vivekananda; with this passage from the book Ramakrishna Prasad Prasanga by Swami Jagadishwaranda, translated from the Bengali by Professor Narasingha P. Sil:
I (Subodhananda) asked Swamiji one day: "Hey, have you ever been to a brothel?" Swamiji replied: "Yes, after my father's death our situation [financial] worsened, and my mind was overwhelmed with all sorts of problems. A few friends advised alcohol as a panacea for such predicament: let's visit a brothel. I consumed a little alcohol in their company. Thereafter I felt inspired to lecture to them [friends]: "What would become of you in your afterlife, etc." Then my friends felt that I was a killjoy and they kicked me out. I returned home tottering, thoroughly inebriated."
That's sounds like our Vivekananda; pedantically lecturing anyone within earshot, even while drunk it seems.

3 Comments:

At 4/10/2005 4:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's a shame that "Stripping the Gurus" book isn't available in print. I checked at amazon, which only carrys the older "Guru Papers".

A book available only for adobe reader is interesting, but it's hard to beat printing on paper for a fun reading experience.

 
At 4/15/2005 8:30 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dude, I can understand the need to go after living guru's, but going after Swami V is a pretty low blow.

 
At 4/15/2005 2:45 PM, Blogger guruphiliac said...

Yo. I wasn't going after Swamiji, the author did. But I don't see any problem with him visiting brothels anyway.

 

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