Re: Mooji a cult?

Quote

n many a spiritual biography, we hear of how a guru, roshi or sufi master will be arbitrary in giving attention. You may have given years of service and be ignored. A youngster just in off the street may be given fulsome attention, much to the puzzlement of onlookers.

At other time you will suddenly be given the leaders full attention.

All this is readily rationalized as the action of an enlightened or higher plane of realization individual whose actions can never be judged by lowly beings such as ourselves.

But, there is quite another way of looking at this, a mundane explanation.

Anab Whitehouse in his book The Sufi Lighthouse notes this phenomenon.

(Quote)'Baba' means spiritual father, and the phrase 'Baba juice' is a term I have coined to allude to the trance-like state of ecstasy, liberation, contentment, and sense when they are in the presence of a fraudulent Baba. It is a very pleasant state of consciousness to be in, but it is not a spiritually
constructive condition, in fact, quite the opposite.

"Patterns of attitude formation, motivational networks, and habits tend to be rooted in what operant learning theorists refer to as a variable, intermittant schedule of reward contingencies. That is, something of a rewarding nature
occurs in conjunction with a certain kind of activity but in subsequent life experiences, such rewards may occur infrequently, if at all, but one continues wiht such activity in the hope that such a reward will be forthcoming.

"Once established, such learning linkages are very difficult to break, the gambler who rolls the dice one more time, the addict who seeks to recreate the first high...the seeker who longs for a return of an earlier feeling of ecstacy, well-being, peace, innocence, purpose and meaning that occurred in relation with the meeting of a given 'teacher' are all potential examples of the principal of varient, intermittant reinforcement contingency in action,
(Unquote)

Anab Whitehouse The Sufi Lighthouse p 265-266


[books.google.com]


Corboy speculation: Drugs addicts may find themselves able to give up and seemingly "recover" from their addiction to drugs if they find ecstacy in a "Baba-Juice" society, especially if surrounded by very many who have also given up addictions and substituted addiction to the presence and idealization of a Baba.

But they remain in bondage.

To quote the rock song,

Meet the New Boss ( The Bliss Baba)
Same as the Old Boss (the drug dealer)

The addictive drugs and the bliss technologies mastered by generations of gurus affect the same brain pathways and receptors.

(Get and read Memoirs of an Addicted Brain by Marc Lewis if you want to learn more about how this works. )

One who shifts from the drug life to the devotee/Baba servitude life will have replaced the drugs addiction with a process addiction.

The neurological comforts are the same -- but without fear of legal repercussions. One can put on a shirt and tie, and re-enter society. But
it is similar to methadone maintainance, except one lines up to enter the guru's darshan hall, and there are no mandatory piss tests.

The underlying fragility of self and personal trauma which made drug relief so attractive will remain examined if a suffering person abandons drugs but uses Baba bliss and spiritual rationalization to side step genuine inner exploration.

A cosmology of evolution/devolution along the 7 alleged planes of human evolution, eradication of samskaras or nafs cannot repair the injured sense of self coherance. One will remain trapped either using drugs for an illusion of self repair, or use a Bliss Baba guru and live in a group centered on a Bliss Baba for an illusion of self repair.

If one cannot separate oneself from the guru or live apart from the society centered upon that guru, this signals that ones inner self remains broken,
and the Baba Juice is providing relief but not actual healing.

Persons in this predicament persons may, in their servitude and gratitude remain bound to this bliss Baba scene for years, and be easily kept submissive for fear of being ejected.

If the issues that underlay their addiction were to be examined and healed--this would end their servitude to the Biss Baba and lead to genuine citizen emancipation.

A guru dependant upon the adoration and servitude of followers has also an injured self and is as addicted to the devotees as the devotees are addicted to the Baba.


In the old days, people might be able to visit a Sufi shrine once
or a few times in a lifetime. Or, if fortunate, once a year.

Many of these shrines had rituals and celebrations featuring trance music
and dance. (eg the shrine of Lal Shah Baz Qualandar in Sehwan-Sherif in
Sindh, in Pakistan. One common song is "I am Intoxicated With (the)
Qualandar'

In Empires of the the Indus, author Alice Albinia described visits to these
shrines. One of her Sufi friends, a man with an acute awareness of social justice said that he loved the music and festivities, yet was painfully aware
that these were distractions for the poor who were in debt bondage to the
feudal landowners who were hand in glove with the Pirs and Murhids who controlled the Sufi shrines. Yet he admitted, what other option was available for those who were poor. So the same wonderful music and trance that gave ecstacy kept the feudals in the feudal mindset and mallaeable.

Now, have a look at ourselves, fortunete enough to have been born into participatory democracies.

The Murshids, Pirs, and Sheikhs may only know how to treat us as feudals.

Find a way to love God, but as a citizen.

Not for nothing was Musa (Moses) listed as one of the Prophets.

Dont become a feudal to a Sheikh, Pir or Murshid, adore God.

Today, with affluence and ease of transportation and communication, one
can increase exposure and dosage of such experiences, stay in contact with the guru or Baba much more intensively than ages past.

And in today's money economy, gurus and Baba's may become more greedy, especially if they see the glittering decor enjoyed by other gurus and sheikhs.