stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

A WILD AND CRAZY WISDOM GUY 111
Finally, others stripped voluntarily and Trungpa, apparently
satisfied, said “Let’s dance” (Marin, 1995). “And so they did.”
And that, kiddies, is what they call “authentic Tibetan Buddhism.”
Don’t let your parents find out: Soon they won’t even let you
say your prayers before bedtime, for fear that it might be a “gateway”
to the hard-core stuff.
The scandal ensuing from the above humiliation became
known as, in all seriousness, “the great Naropa poetry wars.” It
was, indeed, commemorated in the identical title of a must-read
(though sadly out of print) book by Tom Clark (1980). If you need
to be cured of the idea that Trungpa was anything but a “powerhungry
ex-monarch” alcoholic fool, that is the book to read. (Interestingly,
a poll taken by the Naropa student newspaper in the late
’70s disclosed that nine of twenty-six students at their poetry
school regarded Trungpa as being either a “total fraud” or very
near to the same.)
For his journalistic efforts, Clark was rewarded with “lots of
hang-up phone calls,” presumably as an intimidation tactic on the
part of Trungpa’s loyal followers.
And incredibly, even after enduring the above reported abuse,
Merwin and Dana chose to remain at the seminary for Trungpa’s
subsequent Vajrayana lectures.
At any rate, Chögyam’s own (1977) presentation of the goingson
at his “seminars,” even well after the Merwin incident, predictably
paled in comparison to their realities:
I initiated the annual Vajradhatu Seminary, a three-month
intensive practice and study retreat for mature students.
The first of these seminaries, involving eighty students, took
place ... in the autumn of 1973. Periods of all-day sitting
meditation alternated with a study programme methodically
progressing through the three yanas of Buddhist teaching,
Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana.
“Mature, methodical progression,” however, does not quite
capture the mood earlier expressed by the traumatized Das or the
involuntarily stripped Merwin and his wife.
How then is one to understand Chögyam’s “extra-curricular”
activities within the context of such Vajrayana teachings?