stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

GURUS AND PRISONERS 401
Such beliefs as, “others could be made to do that but not me”
and “others could be swayed by speeches but not me” are
dangerous because they set us apart from other people who
are like ourselves and therefore prevent us from learning
from their experience what may be valuable for ourselves
(Winn, 2000).
Indeed, consider Wilber’s own endorsements of Cohen and Adi
Da, and absolutely indefensible, unsolicited and continuing advice
to “surrender completely” to the latter. Does that not offer one of
the most convincing demonstrations that none of us are above being
fooled by the claims to enlightenment of even the best and the
worst of our world’s guru-figures and their corona-seeing spiritual
organizations?
[O]ur experiences [with the Moonies] could happen to any
American family (Underwood and Underwood, 1979).
[E]ven people who said, “I could never join a cult,” would
walk in [to Rajneesh’s ashrams] as if on a dare and emerge
no different from a person who had entered as an eager seeker....
Bhagwan emphatically stated that what we were involved
in was not a religion, and this appealed to people who
would be the first to decry anyone who joined a “cult.” As a
matter of fact we joined a cult precisely because it wasn’t a
cult (Strelley, 1987).
* * *
Significantly, it was only when an “outsider” objected to the behaviors
occurring within Zimbardo’s study that it was stopped. (That
came, however, only after fifty other outside observers had themselves
voiced no shock or negative opinion.) Just as importantly,
that new outsider had not previously been involved with the experiment.
She had thus not participated step-by-step in the “slow
descent into madness,” instead walking straight into it, unprepared,
on the sixth day (Zimbardo, et al., 2000).
That, of course, reminds one eerily of the old experiment/story
of the frog placed into water in a saucepan on a stove, with that
water then being slowly heated. Lacking any sudden increase in
temperature to alert him that all is not well, the frog will allow