Guruphiliac: The Googru



Friday, April 11, 2008

The Googru

File under: The Siddhi of PR

Sick of all the self-deludedly divine gurus who flimflam their equally self-deluded devotees? Meet Larry Brilliant, former hippie psychedelinaut and resident philanthropy guru at Google's save-the-world effort, google.org:
One day, while waiting in line at the American Express office in New Delhi, Wavy met Ram Dass, a.k.a. Richard Alpert, who, along with fellow professor Timothy Leary, had been kicked out of Harvard for experimenting with LSD. [Larry's wife] persuaded Brilliant to follow Ram Dass into the mountains to meet his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, one of the holiest men in India. It was a seventeen-hour journey, by train and trail, to the ashram, where Brilliant slept on a mat, meditated, chanted, immersed himself in the Ramayana and practiced nishkam karma yoga, which Brilliant has described as "the work of being reunited with God, through actions in the world, without attachments to results." Over the next thirty years, this simple discipline would become, for Brilliant, "the propellent force in my life."
Karma yoga as it was meant to be, the complete opposite of what Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is trying to shove down our throats.

Damn, we just can't seem to escape the shadow that the fauxvatars cast over the world, despite the Brilliants who shine on despite them all.

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21 Comments:

At 4/11/2008 10:21 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Neem Karoli Baba was a true guru, owned nothing but a blanket...

 
At 4/11/2008 10:41 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

but still managed to have sex with his female students...

 
At 4/11/2008 11:09 AM, Blogger guruphiliac said...

but still managed to have sex with his female students...

Which proves even the holiest among us is as human as the rest of us.

 
At 4/11/2008 12:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"but still managed to have sex with his female students..."

Well...What did you think he carried the blanket around for? Jeezz...

 
At 4/11/2008 12:58 PM, Blogger Peggy Burgess said...

the story I've heard is that he fondled some ta ta's.
but: he was an extreme propagator of miracle stories, and all powerful guruness bologna, god knows what would have happened if he'd come to the states, luckily he croaked in time to save his most holy image.
so if you believe he knows all, can dematerialize and appear elsewhere, is literally guiding all his followers now (if only they can get on the astral mainline) go for it. He was a typical Hindu Hoodoo Flim Flamer, the fact that he inspired people is sort of despite himself as far as i'm concerned.

 
At 4/11/2008 1:20 PM, Blogger guruphiliac said...

the fact that he inspired people is sort of despite himself

Welcome to the secret of the guru business.

 
At 4/11/2008 2:22 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ouch! Can't anyone get a break here??? "but still managed to have sex with his female students". WTF! How in the world would YOU know that? Where you there? I doubt it! And yomamma,how do you know or believe, rather, the gossip you espouse? Were you there too?

 
At 4/12/2008 12:51 PM, Blogger stuartresnick said...

Anonymous said...
Neem Karoli Baba was a true guru, owned nothing but a blanket...

Sure, it's an amazing thing to live in such extreme simplicity. Millions of yogis live like this in India. And many more people around the world survive owning nothing out of necessity, not choice.

I'm not sure what's meant here by "true guru." The fact that somene lives incredibly simply may make him an interesting person. That doesn't mean that there's any merit to believing in (or worshipping) such a person as a superior being, or to embracing their words as a higher truth.

Anonymous said...
Ouch! Can't anyone get a break here??? "but still managed to have sex with his female students". WTF! How in the world would YOU know that?

Everybody gets a break, in the sense that everyone ought to be honored as a human being like ourselves. Nobody should get a break, in the sense of believing that they're "true guru" or superior being... based on mere stories.

That is: just as claims that Neem Karoli fondles some ta-tas are speculative, claims of his miraculous powers and exaulted states are just as speculative. Those of us who never met him are just relying on stories. Even those who did meet him can't speak with authority about Neem Karoli's state; only the man himself knew that, and he ain't sayin'.

I think there may be some group-think going on. That is, some gurus, like Neem Karoli and Ramana Maharishi, are so widely and deeply revered, that people will "follow the crowd" and consider them to have god-like powers or attainments.

It's like Paris Hilton "being famous for being famous." Once a guru gains a critical mass of followers, the gravitational force of the shared belief pulls in new people, through the amazing power of belief in group dynamics.

Stuart
Stuart
http://stuart-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/

 
At 4/12/2008 8:38 PM, Blogger Peggy Burgess said...

I know long time followers of his who admit he was a liar. And i know someone who worked for him who said he fooled people, by making them think he was psychic , when really he just had spies.
Jody if you are gonna gripe about Bharat for his piddly Shivananda vision, you gotta bust Neem and the Babsters for all the hooy they have gladly propagated. that being said said they are really fun , nutty, people, great entertainers, and they really believe what they say , but at some point it just becomes good for business , know what i mean? so i think at some point truth just goes out the window.

 
At 4/14/2008 8:00 AM, Blogger Peter Maverick said...

decide yourself: http://maharaj.nu

 
At 4/14/2008 8:16 AM, Blogger guruphiliac said...

decide yourself

Not on the basis of that whitewash.

 
At 4/14/2008 9:28 AM, Blogger CHUCK said...

I my own self was quite taken and in-spired by Neem Karoli Baba as a young man! He was almost as fat as me and just as gapped toothed but folks still liked him! The fact that he--through the writin of Baba Ram Dass-- made us happy when we was younguns probably makes us want to go easy on the man. He may have been a hooter type man but he was fun and didn't seem to want to control the souls of the folks around him, like Mugharishi, Sly Baba, She She, Kracki and others mentioned here abouts! It's kind of like letting Bill Clinton off the hook for likin big bossomed and big haired women like his Mamma. We admired him for gettin blow jobs in a closet and forget that he had the military attack a supposed terrorist bomb factory on the first day of his impeachment hearins, which turned out to be an aspirin factory or somethin like that! Boys will be boys and NKB was a Big Boy!

 
At 4/14/2008 10:04 AM, Blogger guruphiliac said...

Chuckji! I made your own category at the new discussion forum.

Have at it all you want with whatever you want to say!

 
At 4/14/2008 12:31 PM, Blogger Peter Maverick said...

dada mukerjee's frank account: http://babaji.nu.

 
At 4/15/2008 8:20 AM, Blogger CHUCK said...

jody said...
Chuckji! I made your own category at the new discussion forum.

................

Jody, this old hog herder is greatly honored. I will indeed write somethin when I can! Just now I am runnin so hard to make ends meet that I can hardly keep up my weight! Plus, this time of every year there is a month long gatherin of the extended Family Chuck... It's quite a challenge to mine and momma's side by side double wides to contain this much human pork! I am also in quite a quandry over this here topic... As said before I did love and admire NKB when I was piglet but the idea as expressed in the original "Miracle of Love" book before the Krishna Play part got edited out--- that NKB was fondlin young women just to help them in some mysterious way don't sit well with a Texan! It don't have the ring of truth and smells like my septic tank after the Chuck family has been at it for a while! Still I am partial to the man... What to do?? If you threw an extra 25 pounds on NKB dressed him in blue overalls, a string tie, Tony Llamas, and a straw stetson, he would look just like yours truly!

 
At 4/15/2008 8:37 PM, Blogger guruphiliac said...

I will indeed write somethin when I can!

All you got to do is share and comment on the wisdom of Da Free Jack. I know you got it in you and I know that it's gonna be good.

 
At 4/16/2008 6:29 AM, Blogger Peter Maverick said...

Neem Karoli Baba

 
At 4/18/2008 6:43 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Chuckji, wonderful to hear from you again on this blog! I really appreciate the way you look at these spiritual/yoga type things. Must be your Texan sensibilities bringing balance, not hysteria to the discussion. I too am also partial to NKB. I have the third edition of "Miracle of Love" and I don't see the Krishna Play chapter. That being said, I don't believe that crap either. It's just like Mia Farrow saying she "thought" MMY hugged her in an inappropriate way. She was meditating, she was hungry, spaced out, it was the 60's, whatever. I'm not defending MMY, here, rather NKB and I'm saying, a "touching" situation can get confusing, especially when the touchee is tripping on acid, like many of the visitors to NKB were, acid given to them by Ram Dass. Doesn't seem like NKB hung out with the Americans much anyway and touching their breasts, donkey shit. The devotees of NKB that I've met, who MTM, "met the man"....all seem like pretty good people, a little quirky and little neurotic but who cares, we all are! I think NKB not having come to the US was the best thing he could have ever done. I'm sure it wasn't by mistake. The minute we get our western hands on something, we turn it all to sex, drugs and rock and roll. These are all things of which I am in favor, however we don't need to then see the Guru through our stoned, tripping, over-sexed eyes.....Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, fuckupedness is also, don't you think? If you see the Guru through twisted, sour, bitter, cynical, wasted eyes, how are you going to perceive that Guru? Right. Peter, thank you for your posting of the NKB blogspot with the lovely footage of him.
Ram, Ram

 
At 4/18/2008 10:52 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

>>>"The minute we get our western hands on something, we turn it all to sex, drugs and rock and roll. "<<<

Oh, that must have been what happened with Satya Sai Baba. Who knew?

seen too much

 
At 4/19/2008 1:11 PM, Blogger CHUCK said...

Anonymous said...
Chuckji, wonderful to hear from you again
...............

Thanks, podner! Hope I won't disappoint you by saying that I have no doubt that Neem had sex with these gals and the fact that they were western hippy chicks don't let him off the hook. Back then lots of girls and boys felt pressured to have sex in order not to be considered uptight! A Guru ought not to take advantage and if he does he ought to be read to from the Book about it! My dilema is that I still like the old boy!

As for Maharishi, there is little doubt remaining that he did the same kind of thing. People are comin forward. Maybe Mia Farrow didn't come completly clean about Mugharishi's advances cause she was embarrassed that she had been grabbed by a hairy fellow only 5 foot tall! Could be like what I went through in 1967 with Fat Peggy Bryant. Dimebox had played the Crockett, Texas Bulldogs in football and I was under the stands lookin for loose change when Peggy come up on me and tried by the sheer force of her weight to carry me to the ground and have her way with me! Now I was a Baptist and weighed only 250 at the time. Peggy was a holy roller and had a good 35 pounds on me, so I went down under the gal! Did I want to go around tellin folks what Fat Peggy had done? Not this child!

 
At 4/23/2008 7:55 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Having read many of the passages from Mr. Chuck, I must admit often not understanding deeply what he is saying. Is he saying that a great soul like Shri Neem Karoli Baba is not better than a politician like Mr. Bill Clinton?

 

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