stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

350 STRIPPING THE GURUS
“Everything I ever needed to know about religion I
learned,” if not in kindergarten, at least from Monty Python’s
Life of Brian.
And yet, Python’s John Cleese, ironically, has spoken
in support of New Age topics at Esalen, and elsewhere
quoted the Russian-American “crazy wisdom” master
George Gurdjieff approvingly.
* * *
Although I regularly skipped the “mandatory” group meditations
at Hidden Valley, the head monk there explicitly invited me, before
I left, to come back whenever I wanted to—I did not leave on bad
terms with the organization. Indeed, during my stay, several of the
office monks there offered, unsolicited, to write letters of recommendation
for me, if I ever wanted to apply for a paid position,
working at the Mother Center.
It was only after decompressing for several months from the
oppressive weight of that experience, and comparing in detail the
nonsense I observed there with the relatively benign “evil ways of
the real world,” that I came to the conclusion that I had never met
a complete fool in my life, outside of that setting. (I have since met
and worked for half a dozen others, but at least none of them had
“God on their side.”) Beyond that, it was only in discovering the
SRF Walrus (2004) website in late 2001 that I began to understand
that I was neither the only nor the first person to regard getting
involved with that organization as the worst mistake of my life.
(The Cult Busters—SRF Division site has since surpassed the Walrus,
in terms of the quality of its postings and their non-censored
freedom of expression.)
On the bright side, I did meet a decent, direct descendant of
Captain Morgan, the rum-runner, during that same stay. That association
has indeed, in recent years, endeared me to some of the
Captain’s finer pain-numbing products which, ironically, I had
never felt any need to consume prior to spending too much time at
Hidden Valley.
* * *
In the best of all possible readings, then, naïvely taking Yogananda
to be everything that he and his disciples claim him to be, SRF
shows how badly a mere two generations of followers, in a short
half century, can mess things up. (The gospels were not written