Namaste guruji

I recently got a bit caught up in a conversation about gurus on Chronicus Skepticus' blog. I usually hate doing that, i.e. using someone else's space as a soapbox. It is sorta pointless because Blogspot offers you unlimited space right here; to be an asshole on your own time, in your own space, and on your own account. Blogspot is so neat I could have kids with it.

Over the long eons, Hindus have vomited up this busload of gurus, ok? And even bigger busloads of Hindus flock to these gurus. Ostensibly to learn how to live their lives. I would have thought that even a nominal adult would have some sort of a clue about living his OWN frickin' life, but then again, not everybody has a quarter [**]. Some of these gurus are out and out con men specializing in the long con, some are unapologetically misogynistic creeps, and some are marketing geniuses. None is especially holy. All are in it for the money or the adulation, bar none.

But people often go to great lengths to justify a choice. It's part of our psychology. This is why people talk up a moneyshredder portfolio that they have bought into. Or stick with redneck husbands who kick the shit out of them on a regular schedule. Or rationalize indefensible habits. So it goes with gurus too. There is a certain kind of person who will readily join the party in bashing a wide spectrum of gurus, but demur when it comes that special one. Some people, like my mother-in-law (yes, somebody was actually stoned out of her mind enough to allow her daughter to get hitched to me), will not tire of telling you that their gurus aren't like all those other riff-raff, carpetbagger gurus. This is the classic cop out: Oh, but MY guru is "not like that". No sir. He is "modern". He is not the usual gender-biased caste-coddling attention whore.

Yeah, yeah, maybe there is a point in there somewhere, but screw that shit, I say. Why settle for a better guru when you can have the best? You know who the best, most enlightened guru in the world is?

The best guru in the world is the guru, who when you enter his home for the first time, tells you to fuck off and go learn to think for yourself and never darken his doorway again.

Why this is not obvious to anybody with an IQ higher than that of a dung-beetle is not obvious to me.


[**] To buy the clue.