My dear wormy, worm, worm…

Once in Bangalore–back in ’77– I happened to pass by a park with a large crowd listening to a Mayavadi swami speaking from a stage. The Swami was well known in his day, but because his modus operandi was more like a “personality cult” rather than teaching any viable or genuine Vedic philosophy, he has largely been forgotten. There are different types of fame, after all. There is the temporary “fame” created by PR tactics and the fame that comes to those who are truly great in their fields. This Swami was of the former type. He had spoken the same old hackneyed Mayavadi cliches. He had not done anything unique, other than make sure that his picture was in the daily newspaper.

I was surprised that he was addressing the crowd in English. He had been to America and he obviously wanted to impress the people about how knowledgeable and popular he was there. I remember his particular harangue. He was saying…

“My dear wormy, worm, worm. Where are you going?”
The worm answers: “I am going there.”
And that is because the worm is consciousness. He is pure consciousness.”

I had to chuckle as I watched the gullible crowd quaff his leap of logic with aplomb. With a few deft juggles of language, and without any shastric references to stand upon, he had made a worm into a self-realized personality. For Mayavadis like him, it is all one, God becomes the worm and the worm becomes God.

I heard that couple of years later that swami passed away on life-support in an American hospital. One wonders what becomes in their next life of persons who think that “all is one,” and thus exalt to divinity mere worms.

Suhotra Swami discusses the boy guru

Do you remember the Ball-yogi, boy guru of the 70’s? The following is from Wiki:

“When asked about an Indian guru Maharaj Ji, who was visiting Houston at the time, Suhotra Dasa said that Maharaj Ji’s methods were not authorized in the Bhagavad Gita, the basic Hindu spiritual text,

“What he’s doing has nothing to do with the knowledge Krishna describes. These rascals go on for a while cheating people but gradually – just like John Lennon, he wised up to the Maharishi and wrote that song Sexy Sadie – they’ll get bitter, and turn sour on this guy and his mystic bag of tricks.

” In India they have organizations that our spiritual master describes as Mystic Factories. These are places where they manufacture Gods. Yoga aspirants will go to school and they learn methods of, like, how to put someone in a trance. They learn a smattering of scriptures, so they can quote whatever they want.

“Guru Maharaj Ji has obviously been trained up in some hypnosis and things like that, and he’s come over from India to make a lot of money off the Americans. He’s dragging real spiritual life through the dirt.”

There was an “devotee” named Mahapurusha dasa who fell under the sway of Guru Maharaja ji and “took knowledge.” This was a process of being touched on the forehead by the Balyogi. Mahapurush asked Shrila Prabhupada in a letter to accept this boy as God. Shrila Prabhupada responded by sending Mahapurusha an article from a newspaper about how Balyogi had been caught at Indian customs smuggling watches and had his passport taken away. Prabhupada ended by saying “Do whatever you like.” Which is the harshest blow, because it meas rejection by Shri Guru.

Later when Balyogi fell in love with an American lady, his Mother-Manager objected. For her America was a place for raking in money, not for finding a daughter-in-law. So she appointed Balyogis’ elder brother to the post of God. Balyogi sued in a court of law that he was God, but the mother defended that the elder was actually God, but she made the younger one into god beause he was “cuter.” Our Godbrother Shriman Siddhaswarupa Prabhu noted, “So it was the judge’s job to determine which one was God.”

Hahahaha.