A guru is regarded as the one who leads the way. Someone who blazes a trail, and who, looking back upon the path he or she has chosen, provides others with the knowledge and wisdom gained from that experience. In America, the word “guru” conjures up a very specific image. Most likely that of a bearded, turbaned Indian man, possibly shoeless, sitting cross-legged on a podium. Many Americans, especially in the turbulent 60s, traveled to India to find a guru, and began to look towards them for a model of behavior and spiritual wisdom, inviting others to follow. The guru is such a culturally revered icon for many, that it becomes questionable whether the man can ever live up to the myth, especially because he is, in fact, only a man, not a deity. Devotees of a guru learn to take the guru's words as truth, because they believe to have found a person who will lead them on the path to spiritual bliss. But what makes a guru so cherished, so admired, and why do some individuals come to admire their guru so strongly they would sacrifice anything to him? What makes a guru, a guru, and how has this definition changed over time?
According to the Hinduistic tradition, the guru is necessary for spiritual development. In order to wash off old karma (the residual effects of deeds in past and current lives) and reincarnation, the assistance of the guru is essential. The word guru comes from the Hindu tradition, in which the belief prevails that a skilled teacher is necessary for spiritual development (Mlecko, 1982). The guru is regarded in Hinduism as a religious teacher, that educates others on religious life, and may sometimes be worshipped himself. The guru is thought not only to be the ultimate inspiration, but an example of the end goal after successive karma and reincarnations. The English translation of the Pan-Indian Sanskrit term "guru" is teacher, but if the word is broken down, it can mean a number of things. In Sanskrit, gu means "ignorance" and ru means "dispeller", thus the guru is a dispeller of ignorance, which explains why the word guru can be used for many different disciplines apart from yoga and spirituality. The word guru can also mean "heavy" or "weighty" which can either refer to an unusual weight of holy men, or to the strong influence which a guru has upon others. The fascination which surrounds gurus can cause them to become almost mythical beings, performing miracles, healing sickness, and making predictions which devotees can only assume implies a connection with the divine.
In ancient India, the guru began as a religious teacher who taught only a select group of pupils the Vedas, the oldest Hindu scriptures, as well as the skills needed to study them (Mlecko, 1982). Books were rarely used, because the interpersonal contact was thought to be paramount to a religious scholar's education, especially because of the challenging nature of the Vedas' pronunciation. This historical amplification of the guru's importance over time provokes some questions: what happens if the guru is not one worthy of the pedestal on which he is placed? What if his increasing "heavy" social status creates an individual that is someone to be reviled, not revered?
In the West, it seems people have a unique ability to take a simple concept and manipulate it to the point where it becomes unrecognizable. Our intentions may be pure, but our actions can create something that becomes progressively farther and farther from anything healthy or safe, and from anything that may originally have been intended. And if someone comes to an Westerner claiming the answer to some unspeakable, unattainable satisfaction that we cannot find in new cars, modern conveniences, health food or shopping malls, you had better believe that someone is going to believe it.
Swami Vivekenanda first became well known at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. He is regarded as the “bringer” of modern yoga to America, in that he traveled to the West to teach followers the yogic practice, introducing a practice that had previously only been performed by Hindu men (Douglass, 2007). He could be considered to be the first 'guru' of the West, in that he taught ancient Hindu practices to many Americans for the first time. Many flocked to see him, in order to better understand yoga from the viewpoint of someone they considered an expert on the subject. He was described as a very handsome and dapper gentleman, who was fond of wearing nice clothes, especially silk turbans. Americans became very fond of him, and he became very popular and in part, responsible for sparking an interest in yogic practice within the United States. He framed yoga within the context of a health perspective, in order to put Christians' fears to rest about straying from their religion. In a way, he performed some of the first magic tricks of a guru in the West, in shaping the consciousness of many Americans to believe that yoga was not a religious practice, but a physical one. Vivekenanda also made light of his lack of an education by claiming, "No amount of books can help us to become purer. The only power is in realization, and that lies in ourselves and comes from thinking" (Douglass, 2007).
In America in the 1960s through the 1970s, the Divine Light Mission sought to promote its meditation techniques, as the "road to ultimate liberation" and placed Guru Maharaj Ji as the "Teenage Perfect Master and Lord of the Universe"(Foss, Larkin, 1978). The movement existed as an off-shoot of the counter cultural movements of the sixties, in which the youth culture rejected the beliefs of their parents, and sought to create an alternate reality, in which different values presided over institutions, which were seen to be moribund. The Divine Light Mission became most well-known in 1973-1974, when it became widely covered by popular media, in part due to its festival called Millenium-'73--one of the largest youth events of the year. The movement was criticized for manipulating its followers, and segments covering Guru Maharaj Ji and the Divine Light Mission were shown for laughs at the end of news broadcasts. Guru Maharaj Ji became notorious among newspapers as illustrious as the New York Times for his antics, like buying expensive cars, and other high priced items, as well as his seemingly bizarre, meaningless and contradictory behavior. He is described as "chubby, squat, enamored of expensive cars and other gadgets, and in no way saintly in his dealings with his followers" (Foss, Larkin, 1978).
A religious teacher who, in his actions, rejected his own moral advice, seems contrary to the ancient version of the guru who taught only a few carefully selected students the Vedas. Maharaj Ji's gathering of followers at the Houston Astrodome for Millenium-73 were a group of individuals who experienced the fallout after the end of the idealism of the sixties, and were looking for an answer to provide them with meaning once more. Those who followed Guru Maharaj Ji understood his contradictions to be part of his perfection, also claiming that he was a "mirror"(Foss, Larkin, 1972). He bought into his followers' belief systems, and carefully managed their opinions of him.
Because gurus like Guru Maharaj Ji have carefully managed their images, devout followers often believe that all of a guru's choices, even the immoral ones, are part of his teachings, and can be at risk for exploitation. In 1994, the founder of Kripalu Yoga was accused of having sexual relationships with some of his students. Although other American Yogis, like Yogi Satchitananda, and the popular Maharishi of Beatles' fame, have been accused of doing the same, Yogi Amrit Desai was unique, in that he admitted his faults, and resigned from his position. He has been accused of taking a salary that amounted to over $155,000 annually, as well as sales from books and CDs. His devotees have come forward to claim that he exploited them, by sexually abusing female devotees at Kripalu, and by strictly enforcing a way of life through dietary restriction and celibacy, which he did not follow himself.
There is a magical quality about these yogis' careful management of their public images, and in their desire to veil the negative information from their followers, as well as their occasional trick performances. The primitive model of understanding yoga, links its origins from shamanism and agricultural magic (McEvilley, 1981). Therefore, it's possible that both yoga and shamanism were derived from a common source, which makes sense of the magic tricks some yogis try to perform, rolling their bodies in flames like the yogi from the film 'The Fire Yogi', or constructing a false and idealistic public image. Although yoga may have its origins in shamanism, there are points at which the archetype of the guru, common in yogic texts, and the archetype of the shaman differ.
Fredrik Barth, in an examination of the differences between a guru in Bali, and the priest of a mystery cult in New Guinea, met with that important difference. In Bali, he found that the guru was constantly teaching. The villagers told Barth, "He always taught! If he saw or heard someone in the village lane doing wrong, he would immediately stop, and teach and explain and instruct him... One word from Maxfuz Guru, and everybody listened" (Barth, 1990). While the task of the guru was to "lay bare" the essential truths of his teaching, the New Guinea priest "like a conjurer, tries to withhold the essential truths from his audience even while he initiates them as novices" (Barth, 1990).
It would seem then, that the guru within the West, seeks to do some combination of both roles, delivering essential truths, while being forced to hide aspects of his personality from his followers. The veiling and unveiling of aspects of the personality and behavior of the guru of the West is magical, and some of that magic may be lost in the technological age. Due to social media, news can be made accessible to the public instantly, and knowledge that may be harmful to the guru can be spread nationwide. Knowledge that was formerly spread only orally by the guru himself, can now be accessed through podcasts, online journals, and databases. How does that affect the interpersonal teaching that used to characterize the guru in Ancient India? Is the magic gone? How will the role of the guru change within a new cultural context?
In the quick pace of the digital age, it's becoming increasingly more impossible to perform the role of guru within the modern framework of our culture. Baba Ram Dass, formerly Richard Alpert, traveled to India to meet Neem Karoli Baba, his guru, in the late 1960s. He came from what he described as a "Jewish anxiety-ridden, high achieving tradition" and he was transformed by the experience with his guru, as well as his experiences taking LSD (Gez, 2011). He conducted experiments using acid on subjects at Harvard University along with his colleague Timothy Leary, and both were fired for their work. They became examples of the phrase later coined by Leary, "tune in, turn on, drop out" (Gez, 2011). When the counter culture scene became uninteresting, Ram Dass took a spiritual route, that many others would follow after psychedelics became illegal in the US in 1970 (Lander, 2011). He traveled to India, and soon after, wrote popular book Be Here Now, in which he described his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, as well as what he had learned from taking LSD. He became popular throughout the country, and was asked to give lectures on his experiences, becoming one of the first well known nationwide American teachers of Eastern spirituality. He suffered a stroke in 1997, and was diagnosed with expressive aphasia, a condition that affects his speech. He now teaches from his home in Hawaii through blog posts, as well as monthly webcasts and videos. Many of his admirers come to him.
Ram Dass is an example of the way in which gurus and the teaching of Eastern spirituality are changing in the West. Those who have frequently been described as "New Age" philosophers derive teachings not only from Hinduism but from other major religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism. Some of these "New Age" teachers popular in the West include Eckhart Tolle, and Deepak Chopra. Cheerful promotion of the Eastern avenues of thought, and the reinforcement of the belief that the American middle class is lacking in happiness, and abundant in mental illness, helps sell thousands of books, tapes, and DVDs by these popular spiritual guides. In the United States, as well as in India, scientific evidence is now also being shown to support methods like meditation, and to garner new followers, especially outsiders and beginners within the urban middle class (Frøystad, 2011).
It's interesting to note how the Western viewpoint of the guru, as well as the Western understanding of mental illness, is being introduced in a new way back into Indian culture. The suggestion of how to "Indianize" psychology has been made by therapists who have thought to take the guru-chela relationship from the Bhagavad Gita, and use it as a reference for the Indian therapeutic relationship (Avasthi, 2011). How could the Western view of mental illness, as well as its' cure affect Indians? Would the cure be the same one promoted for illnesses like depression within the United States by gurus like Deepak Chopra? Would it also be used to sell things?
Modern day American gurus like Chopra and Eckhart Tolle promote themselves and their products to middle class America by citing scientific evidence, and working with mainstream institutions, instead of remaining in conflict with the mainstream, as gurus like Guru Maharaj Ji in the 1970s. However, proponents of the more traditional style of teaching may argue that newer cultural institutions can still teach the same lessons, but something may be lost without the committed personal relationship between guru and student.
In Indian musical education, the guru relationship is also the chosen method of teaching. North Indian classical music has been taught through the oral tradition for centuries, the firsthand succession of knowledge from guru to pupil is considered important to the process of becoming a musician (Schippers, 2007). The evolution of contemporary Indian students, as well as interest from the West in Indian cultural traditions, has brought North Indian classical music to courses and degrees in Europe and the United States. This has changed the relationship between guru musicians and their students, with gurus holding steadfast for tradition, and students looking for a relationship more accommodating to their needs, and the changing world.
The traditional one-on-one relationship between guru and student may be one that is threatened as the world and its techology continues to advance. If the Western institutional style of learning prevails, and technology continues to advance at such a quick pace, the unique relationship between guru and devotee, for better or worse, may be at risk for change.
Sources:
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Mlecko, J. (1982, July). The Guru in Hindu Tradition. Numen, Vol. 29, Fasc. 1 (Jul., 1982), pp. 33-61. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3269931
Provence, L. (2005, April 21). Guru's past: Yogaville visit opens old wounds. Retrieved from http://www.rickross.com/reference/yogaville/yogaville73.html
Schippers, H. (2007). The guru recontextualized? perspectives on learning north indian classical music in shifting environments for professional training. Asian Music, 38(1), 123-138,166. Retrieved from http://lesley.ezproxy.blackboard.com/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/214158651?accountid=12060
Slaughter, A. (2002). Ram dass shares his battle against stroke. USA Today. Retrieved from http://ramdasstapes.org/usatoday%20article.htm
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