LAW of gravity says what goes up has to come down.
High flying self-appointed Bhagwan Rajnish or pseudo quantum physicist teaching on the theory of levitation propounded by Mahesh Yogi are no exceptions. Dissolution of Rajnishpuram in distant hills of Oregon has caused total disarray among his American disciples: some chic girls are reported to be seen among those nude dancers at the notorious Michel night club of San Francisco on O’Farrell Street, some are trying to transform Rajnish preaching’s into so called “DE hypnotization” center near Sant Cruz, while some rich lost souls try to write down the memories of their rendezvous with “Bhagwan”. Rajnish himself is facing another barrage of attack from Hindu fanatics in Poona.
But even more ridiculous is the situation confronting Mahesh Yogi in USA. Recently an American district court has ordered two meditation groups founded by him to pay $137,890 a8 damages to Robert Kropinski, a Mahesh devotee who claimed to have been promised he would be taught to fly, but never got off the ground. Kropinski said he spent nearly 11 years studying Transcendental Meditation (TM) trying to figure out what it was all about. TM techniques instructed him to “levitate or fly, with legs folded in lotus position”.
I do not intend to discuss this technique here. Meditation technique itself is becoming rather a “fast food” item in the hands of some American followers of Hindu gurus.
For instance, meditation is going high-tech. One can say, it is the lazy man’s or woman’s fast track to “enlighten”. No chanting of Mantras or Sanskrit prayers. No religion to join. No orange robes to wear. No tail piece on the head. No Kartals and drums on the streets like those Hare Krishna guys. And no required pretzel like lotus positions to twist into. Some American practitioners merely strap on headphones, listen to tapes and wait for the ecstasy to appear. Listeners relax and absorb a slow moving, ethereal combination of sounds: winds rustling through chimes, a gurgling brook, synthesizer, guitar, vocals and more all designed to alter the frequency of their brain waves with little or no effort needed from the listeners!
Yes. This is true. New York City psychotherapist, Steven J. Levin has placed ten clients on a daily regimen of at home tape meditations during the last two years, calls the tapes “a spiritual Roto Rooter”. From where the original inspiration came to these affluent American “spiritualists”? My investigation reveals that there is a competitor in this high tech field of meditation against Levin of New York mentioned above. He is so called Brother Charles. If Brother Charles goes ahead well with his cutting edge technique, Levin and some other therapists may have to resort to chapter 11 in the court and lose their BMWs and Porsches.
Brother Charles is believed to have spent 12 years as an ordained “Vedic” monk, working closely with his Guru Muktananda Paramahansa, the Hindu Guru, whom the former Governor Jerry Brown was known to visit. Jerry is these days on a “spiritual” mission to Japan and then to Mother Terresa at Calcutta deeply imbibing the “wisdom of the eastern thoughts on spiritualism” according to his own confessions. Muktananda taught orthodox, lotus position, mantra chanting meditation techniques to hundreds of people around the world, including John Denver, Marsha Mason and other affluent celebrities.
After Muktananda’s death in 1982, Brother Charles gave up his shaved head and his orange robe. He then set out to “make meditation more accessible and more fun to the western people in true American fashion. He made his Own meditation tapes called the “audible inaudible threshold, the tapes created in studio but giving more direct effect to the sound echoes of man’s stone age cave life phase. Does it not sound exciting? That is what Brother Charles wanted; Phasing described by him is “a vibrato sound, a tone that contains two tones, the top and the bottom of the vibrations.” Brother Charles set out to alter the frequencies of the lazy brains of those interested in such method.
A few years ahead, one should not rule out the possibility of “instant salvation” through such tabs as “vibratos” or such techniques as electronic gadgets serving you in spiritual mantras wherever you are. while yourself doing quite some different things. This is high-tech age.
But the question that bothers me is: How long these Hindu fanatics and traditionalists going to rule the minds of large sections of Hindus and many ardent Western followers most of whom are simply kept in the dark about the immense material available at least now (which was not known in the middle ages or even during the British period), that demolished the middle ages or even during the British period), that demolished the idealism of Shankaracharya and many other Hindu thinkers. This material came from Charvaka and Lokayata thinkers of India even before Hinduism began to crack and split into several religions. Those ancient forefathers of “materialism” had demolished the theories of “soul”, reincarnation, “Karma”, and even existence of gods. Brahmin priests had successfully suppressed this literature, to keep the masses under the total influence of “idealism” only which believed in idea as the root cause of man’s development as against “matter” theory followed by Lokayatas who were more or less scientists of our ancient India. At the rate the Indian yogis and gurus coming up and dominating the minds of the large Hindu community in this country also, one only hopes here, that this community will adopt to more scientific and secular approach to life, living as they are in a most advanced country, scientifically and technologically. In my view this same expectation from other Indian religions would not be out of place if I may say so.
But as I remarked earlier to put it in other words those who go up in their balloons with irrational mind will have to come down to earth. Indian demigods commercializing Hindu mysticism are doing the greatest disservice to the western people and also greatest harm to the name of India which has many other parallel legacies, rational and scientific in character, besides some mantras and lotus position.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 20, 1987
