Certainly, the spectacle of corrupt and authoritarian cults in recent years has cast a pall over the role of spiritual teachers. Nevertheless, a significant amount of wisdom and compassionate work have proceeded from various gurus and their followers, and one cannot write off every guru as a charlatan and power-tripper. When we first approach a guru, we usually examine their qualities and actions. They need not have given up the world, but they should be authentic to their teachings. In a way, the grandeur, or lack of it, their personal likes and dislikes, or the celebrities around them, aren’t the real point. A false guru’s personal shortcomings are bad enough, but the worst of it is that they aren’t who they say they are. Ironically, a person can make spiritual progress under a corrupt master, just as placebos can actually make you feel better.
But how far can a person really grow spiritually under masters who don’t themselves live the truth? Here another issue arises, teaching something about the nature of all such organisations in which the leaders, not necessarily corrupt themselves, are regarded as infallible by their followers, and therefore, obeyed implicitly. The followers sometimes commit acts to which the leaders have given no moral or rational consent, e.g., expressing to others rules and opinions which the gurus do not necessarily hold. It is a sad but perennial phenomenon. Out of a love for truth and loyalty to those who teach it and appear to embody it, we unwittingly set ourselves up for exploitation and betrayal. Our mistake is to deify another being and attribute perfection to him. From that point on, everything starts to seem okay. Even though a niggling sense of doubt or dissatisfaction remains, one glosses over it since everyone around seems to think it to be normal. To be accepted in the ranks, one tends to ‘play along’, and slowly starts believing the whole charade, sadly transforming into a zealot or an evangelist.
I think the lesson to be learned is that we simply cannot afford to relinquish our individual sovereignty and stop listening to our inner voice, which always tells us what to do-whether it is in a socio-political setting or in a religious congregation. When we stop listening to our conscience and start regarding others’ opinions above our own, we are certain to go astray. Those who willingly put aside their own autonomy, their own moral judgment, to obey another person, or ideology implicitly, do so at the risk of losing a great deal more than they can hope to gain, for rarely does one find a selfless soul helping them along the path. True gurus are far and few. There is no doubt that there are great enlightened teachers who are extraordinary, who possess a singular power, a dynamic personal radiance and charisma that draws people to them and inspires them to lay their lives at their feet. Surely, such power is divine, born of great love and implicit faith; however, such power comes with great responsibility. One cannot even think of taking advantage of this trust for personal gains. It is the greatest crime to use this understanding for personal profit. But, we see so much charade happening around us that we tend to avoid those who are sincere in their teachings and thereby miss a great opportunity to grow spiritually.
Those Godmen who use their position of power to achieve their vested interests must be exposed and punished. They are charlatans, for they have staged a deliberate campaign of deceit to convince people that they have transcended the limitations of mankind and have attained holy “perfection.” They have planted and nourished false dreams in the hearts of innocent, faithful people, misleading them. They have cunningly stolen from hundreds of thousands of people, using them and exploiting their trust. No ordinary, good person could do this; their conscience would not allow it. Because of such godmen, people have become suspicious of all spiritual organisations and practices. After all, these Godmen are typically human. They run after kama, kanchana, and kirti-sex, wealth, and fame. And, like all men who worship power, they are inevitably corrupted and destroyed by it. Their power cannot deliver them from the flesh’s weaknesses, nor from the wickedness and depravity brought about by servitude to it. Their claim of “perfection” is based on the notion that a person who has become enlightened has thereby also become “perfect” and absolutely free of human weakness. This is nonsense; it is a myth perpetrated by dishonest people who wish to receive reverence and adoration as if they were God incarnate.
True enlightenment necessitates great virtue in a person not virtue practiced, but the inherent goodness in all beings. There is no guarantee against the weakness of anger, lust, and greed in the human soul. The enlightened have travelled on an equal footing with the ignorant in their struggles against their own evil-the only difference being that the enlightened people realise the truth, and have no reason to continue with illusory worldly pursuits, other than to aid other souls struggling on the path. They see only goodness in all beings.
Throughout history, there have been many highly advanced souls who have been revered greatly but who, in the pride of their perfection and freedom, have imagined themselves to be beyond the constraints of God’s laws, and who have thus fallen from love and lost the glory they once had. These unscrupulous leaders, thinking of building their kingdom here on earth with the largesse of those devoted to them, often succeed for a time in fooling many and in gathering a large and festive following. But their deeds also follow them and announce themselves eventually, long after the paeans of praise have been sung. There is no freedom, no liberation, from the law of karma, from inescapable divine justice. It is often those who thought themselves to be the most perfect, free and ungoverned, who have fallen the most severely; and their pitiful fall is cause for great sadness, and should serve as a clear reminder of caution to us all.
Captain Deepam Chatterjee (Retired) has recently written The Millennial Yogi published by Penguin Random House India.