stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

20 STRIPPING THE GURUS
One moment they would be adored, pampered, idolized, and
the next scolded for breaching some piece of esoteric etiquette
they did not understand (Vernon, 2001).
Throughout this book, we shall see many examples of students
and disciples being placed in comparable situations by their teachers
and guru-figures. In such psychological binds, persons for
whom it is vitally important to earn the approval of their “master”
are rather unable to discern how to gain that reward, with oftentragic
results. There are, indeed, two possible extreme reactions to
such intermittent reward/punishment, where one cannot ascertain
the conditions by which the reward will be earned or the punishment
given. That is, one can either simply drop all of one’s reactions
and live in “choiceless awareness” of the moment; or, more
often, evolve that impossibility of “guessing right” into neuroses,
violence or extreme depression.
Indeed, relevant experiments have been done by students of
Pavlov himself (Winn, 2000), wherein dogs were first taught, via
reward and punishment, to distinguish between circles and ellipses.
Then, the circles were gradually flattened, and the ellipses
made rounder, until the experimental subjects could no longer distinguish
between them. The dogs were thus unable to give the
“correct response” to earn a corresponding prize, instead being rewarded
and punished “randomly.” The effect on the animals was
that initially happy and excitable dogs became violent, biting their
experimenters. Other previously “laid back, carefree” animals, by
contrast, became lethargic, not caring about anything.
At any rate, even prior to being discovered by Leadbeater,
while still in India’s public school system, Krishnamurti’s own education
had been a traumatic experience:
Never one to endear himself to schoolmasters, Krishna was
punished brutally for his inadequacies and branded an imbecile
(Vernon, 2001).
He was caned almost every day for being unable to learn his
lessons. Half his time at school was spent in tears on the veranda
(Lutyens, 1975).
Not surprisingly, then, in later years Krishnamurti evinced
little regard for academic accomplishments: