The business of spirituality

Long back I joined a spiritual organization in India and did a meditation course. For people who do not know what a spiritual organization is - it is a business that has a CEO (AKA Guru) who claims to be an avatar of some god and he has employees (AKA devotees) who do marketing and other jobs associated with running this organization. The CEO's job is to make nice motivational speeches (stolen from some books), talk about spirituality (from old scriptures), teach some breathing techniques (invented long back by yogis) and also claim that he/she knows everything about the ultimate truth (why and how all of this exist).

So what is spirituality? For me being spiritual means being a good human, feeling satisfied/ content also having a wonder of what lies beyond our knowledge of the universe, a thinker and someone who doesn't gain ultimate pleasure in consuming material/worldly things. When one wonders about the bigger picture they realize how petty the concep ts of religion and wars are. So would a spiritual person really look for fame-popularity- money-reverence and make ignorant claims that they know it all?

I am a strong believer of science, it states everything with proofs. You can hate science but you can't deny it. When I heard this particular Guru talk I thought it did not make any sense. Why are people blindly following him? I have seen people following Gurus who pull out watches and stuff from their mouths, trust me all the factories will shut down if people start doing things like that, how can anyone believe in that? I mean this is 2015 for science's sake.

To my surprise it is not just the naive or uneducated people who become victims to inane concepts like Guru. I was surrounded by people from all fields during my course - doctors, engineers, scientists. I thought I was the only one who thought that the concept of spiritual company is ridiculous. Spirituality is a business for them, something that buys their sisters Louis Vuittons. I laughed at the whole thing and stayed away.

I recently saw a short film called Kumare which is based on the same topic.

I wish I had made such a short film with my experiences to portray the politics-gossip-sex and scandals that happen in these so called 'spiritual' organizations. I also wish I had the courage to name such orgs or gurus but I don't as most of them have goons and lawyers to take care of those who do not have nice things to say about them.

I highly recommend the film Kumare - it is available on Youtube and I also urge you that don't be a part of such orgs. Being part of an organization or having a Guru does not mean you are on a spiritual path. 

You don't need any such CEO, just read self help books, read science, wonder, live, have a hobby, think about the bigger picture, be a better human and that's it... you will be your own Guru.