The other day, I read Brad
Warner's last paper
which is a review of a book he read about (still) another abusive
guru.At the same time, I've been having a correspondence with a young
man, met in a sesshin with Nishijima Roshi, and this young man is very
worried about a friend of his (whom I had met in the same sesshin) who
has decided to follow that way of the authoritarian guru (and therefore
soon to be abusive, that's a fatality). That, plus a woman I meet once
in a while in the street, who knew Deshimaru, and who, at Deshimaru's
death, followed his self appointed successor Kosen Thibault. When this
very Kosen threw her out of his dojo, after twenty years of faithful
devotion, she has thought of nothing else than finding yet another
fatherly substitute whom to vampirize.
I am therefore a bit forced to admit that the
devastations of "guruism" are in no way remote or foreign.
I have had for quite a few years a little
mental play which I sometimes run through and which I find rather
useful. That i is, when I get some disturbing fantasy (this said, I'd
tend to think that any fantasy is disturbing), I'll try to push it
towards its extremities. A proof by the absurd, so to say. Some thirty
years ago, then, at a time when "guruism" was already out there, on the
rampage, I had thought that to become a guru and to found a sect was
certainly an efficient means to become rich and to assuage one's
desires for power, for charisma and for easy sex.
But, by pushing the exercise just as
aforementioned, I had to realize the following details: a guru may
indeed enjoy an (almost) unchallenged authority. (Those who'd as much
as try get rapidly to know their fate: exclusion!) Indeed, the guru may
enjoy sizeable material benefits, without mentioning easy money. But we
are forced to admit that, even through a simple speculative projection,
that such a situation excludes the guru from the start from the
classical circuit of friendships: soon he gets surrounded but by those
who are attracted by his charisma, and power. His true friends tend to
slip away from him, because his environment makes it ever more
unbereable to listen to criticism and negative observations. Indeed, he
may no longer benefit from the discretion of being anonymous. Robert M.
Pirsig, the author of Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, in his second book entitled Lila, mentions a Zen master to whose sesshin he
had been, and who said "Don't become too famous, you'd go straight into
hell".
It is indeed possible for the guru to make
all the girls (or the boys) he'd want (I had met a guy in the early
'70ies who had told me that his guru did him anal penetrations in order
to "make him discover his Kundalini". Obviously, I could never convince
him that he was being... fooled). But how can he be sure that the
person is sincere and not attracted by anything else than his true
self? This is Armida's famous dilemma, who uses magic to seduce Renaud,
but once she's succeeded, is torn by doubt because she feels he is
attached to her but by force. She'd want his love to be true, but it
cannot be if he's not free, and should she free him, she knows she'd
lose him...
But what had had me most disgusted with that
projection, was the idea of being unable to do anything without being
observed, accompanied, followed by the assiduousnesses of admirers and
adepts, etc. That it be impossible to say "Enough! I've got it I'm
leaving for Tahiti" without having some idiots wanting at all costs to
come along, that had seemed unbearable to me. I like to be free of my
moves, and this is one of the reasons why I love motorcycling: but how
do you manage to motorcycle when you're a guru? (I mean, the way I like
to: all by myself).
Finally, it seems to me therefore that, if
you hold on to your own freedom, don't become a guru. And if you're
sincere in your desire to help other beings, avoid becoming a guru,
too. But that's less easy. How do you resist the temptation of
unrestrained sycophancy when you're surrounded by would be admirers? In
a situation which necessarily valorizes our dear little person? If
you've got complexes, even minimally, that may prove devastating.
Mxl
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