stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

AFTER THE ORDEAL 455
Manson ... called himself “a.k.a. Lord Krishna, Jesus Christ,
Muhammad, the Buddha” during a 1986 parole hearing
(Agence, 1999).
After all that, it should be painfully clear that the delusion of
enlightenment is the most dangerous, not the most wonderful, delusion.
(Again, Jim Jones and David Koresh had similar messianic
regards for their own enlightenment as does the still-incarcerated
Manson. In all three of those “worst” cases, the delusion of enlightenment/divinity
undeniably helped create the violent tragedies for
which they are each known.) That most-dangerous regard is so if
for no other reason than the effect that it has on the ensuing naïve
followers. For, those end up throwing their lives and sanity away
on persons who, even while laying claim to the highest levels of
enlightenment (whether validly or psychotically), grandiosely deceive
themselves, and then mislead others, all with the apparent
goal of being given the proper obeisance due to themselves as “enlightened
masters.”
And as far as the treatment of animals goes, the spellbinding
writer Deborah Boliver Boehm (1996) relates her experiences in a
Japanese Zen monastery in Kyoto, upon being presented with two
stray kittens:
“Will you keep them?” Saku-san asked.
“What if I didn’t?” I asked.
“Then they would be left to die, or to be found by someone
else if they were lucky.”
“But why doesn’t the sodo adopt them?”
“Because then we would become a dumping ground for
every unwanted cat in town, and they would tear up the tatami
[straw meditation mats]. Besides, some monks have allergies.”
“But what about the vow you take every day, to save all
sentient beings?”
“It’s a nice idea, but not very practical,” said Saku-san
with a wide-shouldered shrug.
At least they don’t kick their dogs, swat bugs, or drain water
with mosquito larva in it, though. That, after all, would violate the
precept of not doing harm to other creatures.
And yet—