stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

414 STRIPPING THE GURUS
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Incredibly, most of the “enlightened” individuals and ashrams included
herein would have been considered to fall close to the “safest”
of the categories in the typologies of Dick Anthony (1987), et
al., via the Spiritual Choices book. That is, nearly all of the spiritual
teachers we have met thus far (not including the leaders of the
Hare Krishnas, Moonies, or Jim Jones) were:
• Monistic rather than dualistic—i.e., working toward realizing
a state of inherent conscious oneness with all things, as
opposed to placing God as inexorably separate from creation
and approachable only through a unique savior such as
Jesus, with the failure to follow the appropriate savior leading
to eternal damnation (exceptions: none)
• Multilevel—i.e., having a “distinct hierarchy of spiritual
authority,” in gnosis versus teachings versus interpretations
(unilevel exceptions, which “confuse real and pseudotranscendence
of mundane consciousness,” include Findhorn,
Scientology, Rajneesh and TM [notwithstanding that
the Maharishi’s teachings themselves are rooted in the Vedas]),
and
• Non-charismatic—i.e., emphasizing techniques of spiritual
transformation (e.g., meditation), rather than relying on a
personal relationship between disciple and teacher as the
means of evolution/enlightenment of the former (exceptions:
Ramakrishna, Meher Baba, Neem Karoli Baba, Adi
Da, Muktananda, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, Jetsunma,
Cohen, and Sai Baba and Chinmoy to lesser degrees)
Trungpa, Satchidananda and Zen Buddhism were all explicitly
placed in Anthony’s “safest” category—of “multilevel, technical
monism.” In his second-safest grouping (“multilevel, charismatic
monism”) we find Meher Baba, Neem Karoli Baba, Muktananda,
Chinmoy and Adi Da.
If those are “safe” spiritual leaders and communities, though,
one shudders to think what “dangerous” ones might look like.
One’s jaw drops further to find that, as late as 2003, Wilber has
still been recommending Spiritual Choices to others as a means of
distinguishing “safe” groups from potentially “problematic” ones.
That such recommendations are coming years after the central