stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

AFTER THE ORDEAL 431
that emulates the leader?.... Are members free to leave?....
Does the group’s public image misrepresent its true nature?
Reasonable questions, all. But where to get an honest answer
to them? From the guru-figure? From his inner circle of disciples?
From other loyal members of the group, anxious to have you join
them? Surely it is obvious that any spiritual teacher or organization
with things to hide would never tell the truth in response to
those questions, instead giving the potential devotee the “right”
answers which he/she wanted to hear in the first place. And is it
not obvious that all organizations and leaders keep secrets from
the public?
Does the Vatican have secrets? Yes, as every government,
corporation, NGO [i.e., non-governmental organization], and
other institution does (Allen, 2004).
Is it not equally obvious that all groups (even secular ones)
have “pod people” members who mimic their leaders? (Even physicist
J. Robert Oppenheimer’s graduate students used to unconsciously
imitate his manner of smoking cigarettes. Oppenheimer,
for his own group-thinking part, dismissed David Bohm’s work as
“juvenile deviationism,” going so far as to suggest that “if we cannot
disprove Bohm, then we must agree to ignore him” [Peat,
1997].) And obvious, too, that you’re always “free to leave,” even if
being “pursued by disasters” to “drown in the dark sea of ignorance”
afterwards ... and that the public image never properly
represents the true nature of the spiritual teacher or community?
Were common sense to play a greater role, one might instead
do the obvious, in evaluating any particular guru-figure: simply
talk to former disciples who have split from the “master,” and ask
them why they left! That latter approach, indeed, is the only way
(short of published exposés) to accurately gauge the character of
the guru-figure and community.
The best way to learn about a specific group is to locate a former
member, or at least a former member’s written account
(Hassan, 1990).
Minimal thought applied to that subject would further disclose
that the amount of perceived validity and “divine love” in the sage
being evaluated at the beginning of the disciple’s involvement or
“testing period” has little relation to his or her real character. In-