Fake Gurus

[Leonardo17]

   I found this very interesting article in the news today:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/many-yoga-gur...00318.html
 

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   These individuals and societies were booming in the 90’s and 00’s in most industrialized nations. The truth is: faith is one of the easiest ways to trick people. I remember meeting such an ex-scientology person who was telling me how he lost time, energy and money to that organization. + Even true spiritual meetings can turn into ego-based spiritual orgies with no benefit to anyone and nothing but the satisfaction of some basic tendencies with neo-hippie like people being involved and all that.
 
   One of the guys mentioned in this article (Sogyal Rİmpoche). Was once a bestselling author in the 90’s. I used to read him as a teenager to “learn the truth about the mistery of death, astral bodies etc.”
 
   So it’s not so difficult to fall into these traps. Even if you do it intellectually, you may than discover that you wasted your time. So a critical mindset is a must-have for any person who has spiritual aspirations.
 
   Our time is also a time in which we know the benefits or regular meditation. Yoga as a discipline is being taught in universities and many other places as a tool of physical well-being. Ayurveda medicine, acupuncture, bioenergy are being used in many places to heal ailments (that’s how I quit smoking). So what’s still going on with so many frauds?
 
  My opinion on this is this:

1) There is a common approach in the world’s major religions. Anything “new” that is not in line with this common understanding is very likely to be fake.

2) There has to be observable benefits. Like if you are meditating on a regular schedule and not seeing any benefit, than you are probably not meditating.

3) There was a whole second chakra level jungle of books in the 90’s, each one being filled with some fantastic stories mixed with some ego-friendly understanding of spirituality that were designed to be sold as much as possible and entertaining the reader as much as possible.
Today: there is this “group of authors” who are revolutionary in their thinking, but are usually affirming and reaffirming each other’s ideas. And when you become “an advanced seeker” you have already read most of these authors so slowly but surely you start becoming an expert on what is total BS and what is potentially beneficial to you and others.
 

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SO most of us are not fooled by anyone like these people and do not abuse anyone in that way. I think most of us have reached that level from the mid 10’s onward. Or that’s how I perceive it 

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Not sure why you label these people ‘fake’. Manipulating, abusing, and taking advantage of their followers is the norm for religious figures. I think a ‘fake guru’ would be one who taught people how to chant, meditate, exercise, and nothing else.

Boru

[Silver]

Sometimes when tired, my blurry vision does not read things well. I read the title as Fake Guns.