True gurus

You must meet him, a follower advised me. 8220;He8217;s doing great work 8212; and I8217;m part of that great work.

You must meet him a guru, a follower advised me. 8220;He8217;s doing great work 8212; and I8217;m part of that great work. We8217;ve uplifted hundreds in this village, thousands in that district, millions altogether. We8217;ve transformed convicts. We8217;ve changed lives, even souls. Meet him, write about us, give us publicity.8221;

I get to hear this monologue once a week or oftener. Couple of times, in my naivete, I even went out of my way to get some gyan, become a 8216;better person8217;, learn to get in touch with my spirit. All in vain.

Be free, they say. Open your mind, your heart, your soul, they urge. Sincere in their speech, earnest in their urging, they want us to give up the baggage of past, desires for the future, live in the present. All the ideas we8217;ve grown up with, everything we8217;ve believed as true, impressions we8217;ve assimilated as reality 8212; give them up, they mean nothing, zero, shunya. No more than illusions, maya, which have to be discarded at the altar of a greater truth, a truth we can8217;t see but they can show. Walk on this path, not that; towards this goal, not that; this truth, not that. Come to me.

I go, but since it8217;s a journalist they call and not an individual, I go with my questions 8212; some of them rather rude 8212; so that I can get interesting reactions and engage with the guru in his disturbed form. I get no answers. Asking us to go deep, the gurus I find have a depth that hardly moves beyond two or three questions. Anything beyond this and these religious/spiritual leaders are loath to answer.

As for me and my truths, my 8216;spirituality8217;, I see it with greater clarity in the self-conscious debut of a child in a school play, I hear it in the pip-squeak voices of the schoolchildren as they attempt Pink Floyd8217;s 8216;Shine on You Crazy Diamond8217;, I feel it in the tears that stream down my eyes when they enact India8217;s freedom struggle, with a six-year-old Bhagat Singh dying to a toy pistol. They speak their truth, simply, honestly, freely 8212; no past, no future, just that one precious 8216;spiritual8217; moment.