My former gurus putting on a show of holiness: Prakashanand Saraswati and Kripalu Maharaj.
There is a popular saying in the spiritual world: When a student is ready, the teacher appears. I would amend this saying to reflect today’s Western obsession with Eastern “gurus”: When the mark is ready, the con man (or woman) appears.
In hindsight, I see exactly how easy it is for less-than-holy men and women to pose as gurus and perpetrate the God Con upon people who are sincerely searching for “the divine.”
A person’s desire to find God, or the truth, or self-realization, or whatever, sets the perfect stage for conmen and women to swoop in and take over our lives. Spiritual seekers are, as a rule, lost, vulnerable, and desperate. Yet, they don’t realize this fact, and they forge ahead with only positive feelings about their quest.
Often seekers’ quests go unfulfilled for years or decades — until one day a magical person enters their lives with all the answers. A “guru.” The fake gurus (and that is most of the ones targeting Westerners) can smell their innocence, their desperation, their desires — and they use it all against them to create a spiritual lure and set a trap.
“Gurus” Suss Out Our Vulnerabilities
These cunning men and women recognize out desires as something they can exploit for their own gain. Although they claim to possess divine knowledge and even divine status as saints, God incarnate, etc., what they actually possess is a keen awareness of human nature. They are, in fact, brilliant psychologists. However, they use their gifts for evil, rather than for good. They know better than actual Ph.D.s how to suss out potential new recruits, and what buttons to push and levers to pull to get them to do their bidding, from giving money, to performing physical labor, to engaging in sex.
To these “gurus,” our naïve pursuit for “divine happiness” is a joke. They don’t even believe the spiritual teachings they thrust upon us. It’s a game to them: How many people can they reel in, how many can they keep, how much money can they extract from our bank accounts, and on and on?
I discovered after the fact that one of my two “gurus” had studied tantric yoga as a young man. Native Hindus told me that one of the aspects of tantric yoga is learning how to control other people. My fake guru was a pro at that sport.
Supernatural Ability to Find the Weak
Every time I watch a documentary on any cult leader, such as Jim Jones, David Koresh, L. Ron Hubbard, people always describe them as having an uncanny, supernatural ability to determine which people who are weak and who will respond to their tactics and do exactly what they say. This is the hallmark of all cult leaders of any faith.
A few months after I left my cult, I had a dream in which I screamed at one of my two “gurus.” I demanded to know why he conned me and others. He looked at me like I was pathetic and calmly stated: “I just told you what you wanted to hear.” It was the truest words he ever spoke.
Of course, in the dream it wasn’t actually him stating the cold, hard reality: It was my subconscious mind. He had indeed told me exactly what I wanted to hear. And that is the biggest red flag waving in the face of any spiritual seeker.
If you meet anyone who claims to be able to hand you everything you are seeking wrapped neatly in a box with a bow on top, just remember: That box is a ticking time bomb that will explode after you’ve wasted many years of your life, your bank account, and your dignity.
Proceed with caution around any “gurus” you might meet along the road to enlightenment.
