stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

GURUS AND PRISONERS 367
quite at home with the Holy Inquisition, since his letter, in
spirit and context, seemed to have been the product of this
notable institution (Lehnert, 1998).
Similarly, from its beginnings, the giving of money and food to
begging Buddhist monks, like the indulgence scams of the Roman
Catholic Church, was a way for wealthy patrons to “purchase” merit,
redeemable for their own future good (Downing, 2001).
Of course, as always, one could avoid many of the problems
arising from such teachings simply by not believing too much of
what one has been told in the first place:
A man, worried about the gruesome Tibetan Buddhist teachings
of the hell realms, wants to know what Tenzin Palmo
thinks happens after death....
[Palmo:] “I once tackled a lama about it as by his definition
I was definitely going there [i.e., to hell]. ‘Don’t worry
about it,’ he laughed while slapping me on the back. ‘We only
say that to get people to behave themselves’” (Mackenzie,
1999).
The fact that Buddhism includes “proof-delivering meditation”
in its path is actually irrelevant in all of this. For, that in no way
offsets the blind belief inherent in the claimed necessity of keeping
the guru-disciple vow, where the punishment for breaking that
vow is to be cast into Vajra hell or the like. East or West, southern
U.S. or northern India/Tibet, agrarian or postindustrial, all makes
absolutely no difference. Rather, the fear of long-term punishment
will produce exactly the same rigid reactions, and inability to walk
away from toxic situations, in the East as in the West. The universal
nature of known psychological structures and dynamics
throughout the human species guarantees this.
When [alleged] cult leaders tell the public, “Members are free
to leave any time they want; the door is open,” they give the
impression that members have free will and are simply
choosing to stay. Actually, members may not have a real
choice, because they have been indoctrinated to have a phobia
of the outside world. Induced phobias eliminate the psychological
possibility of a person choosing to leave the group
merely because he is unhappy or wants to do something else
(Hassan, 1990).