Here's a look at the secret and potentties that bind gurus and
their devotees, and why they need us as much as we need them.
From Marshall Applewhite of Heaven's Gate to the Dalai Lama of
Tibet, from those who inspire suicide to those who inspire nations, gurus
are a holy paradox--especially in America.
Far too often, they have been linked to a monstrous abuse of
power--financial, physical, sexual, and above all, emotional and
psychological.
It isn't often you invite the mother of God to drop by for a visit,
but that's exactly what I did one wet morning last December, when the
rain snapped on the pavement like popped guitar strings. She arrived at
my home in a parka, leggings, and sneakers, shaking out her umbrella, an
endearingly messy halo of bleached blonde hair around her face. After
plunking a few playful notes on my piano, she sat down to tell her
story--a peculiarly American story of the se,arch for transcendence and
how it had gone awry, morphing into a gothic horror flick of abuse and
betrayal. America, home of Deepak Chopra and O. J. Simpson, The X-Files
and Touched by an Angel, the endless search for grace and the endless
fall from it. And home of Luna Tarlo.
Luna wryly calls herself the mother of God (and has written a book
by that name) because her son, Andrew Cohen, is an American guru with an
international following, and for three and a half years she became his
disciple. Today they are estranged and she believes they will never speak
again. "I've been burned," she says. "I don't believe in the premise
anymore that anybody can save you. And my son has become a monster to
me."
Cohen himself is a boyishly attractive 43-year-old with thick, dark
hair and a mustache, and a pensive softness in his eyes. He travels
around the world offering teachings and retreats, and his
foundations--Moksha, and Friends of Andrew Cohen Everywhere (FACE)--are
headquartered on an estate in Lenox, Massachusetts. He produces tapes,
books and a magazine called What is Enlightenment? in which he himself
has addressed the question of purity and abuse in spiritual life.
In 1986, however, he was just another spiritual seeker who had
broken up with his girlfriend when he met an Indian teacher named Poonja.
Later that month he claimed that a "spiritual realization [had]
transformed his life beyond recognition." He immediately began to attract
followers, and brought his mother to India, where, she says, he told her
that the son she knew was dead, that he felt like God, and that in his
presence she was now enlightened. "At first, I felt I'd won some kind of
cosmic lottery," recalls Tarlo, who was astonished by her sons new
charisma and "silver tongue," and who was longing to be catapulted out of
her own pain (she'd lost her husband, father, and mother in the previous
four years' and had just left a second marriage). "Andrew said he felt he
was on fire, that his body was like an electric generator. Poonja told me
he'd been waiting for Andrew all his life." Andrew and Poonja wrote each
other ardent letters. From Poonja, November 2, 1986: "You've occupied my
whole mind day and night." From Andrew, April 13, 1988: "Master, I love
you so! My each breath is only you and you and you!"
By 1989, Luna was sending similar adoring letters to her son:
"Beloved: just as a leaf turns toward the sun, am I turned towards you."
Surrendering to a spiritual teacher is, she says, as mysterious and
shattering an act as falling in love. "Men and women fall in love with
Andrew in this mad, hysterical way, as if he's their savior. I did, too.
I believe he had reached this exalted state."
But the enlightened teacher, she warns, was not all love and
compassion. She recalls him lashing out at his disciples--supposedly in
an attempt to strip away the ego. Tar]o says he told her to give way to
him or their relationship would end; he once ordered a regimen where she
would cook one meal a day, meditate for two hours, and remain in silence
except for talking to him, saying that "since I was SC! full of opinions
and nothing but opinions, I was absolutely forbidden to express an
opinion on anything."
Her son, formerly the "sweetest, sensitive kid, had changed into an
unrecognizable tyrant."
Tarlo found her moods veering from ecstasy to self-loathing. "He
thinks if you disintegrate the personality you'll find your true self. I
think it's an extremely cruel act. I wouldn't have remained if Andrew
were not my son, but I knew if I seriously objected to anything, I'd be
kicked out." Finally, she returned to New York and burned all her writing
as a gift to her guru: "I watched [myself], a remote, alien being, move
to and fro, to and fro, from filing cabinet to incinerator, from filing
cabinet to incinerator." When she called to tell him of this spiritual
act of renunciation, his response, she says, was: "Show me how much you
love me. Show me." When she returned to sit at his teachings, "I hardly
dared look at him. He sat, backed by tiers of gorgeous flowers, looking
like the king of paradise."
Eventually, Tarlo broke with her guru and son. "I've lost a child
and I'll never get over it." But, looking back, she believes she knows
why she followed him and why he is still so popular: "Everybody wants to
be saved from their suffering, and the unique quality gurus have is that
they seem so certain, so confident. Confidence is its own kind of
magic."
Tags:
abuse of power,
adoration,
America,
andrew cohen,
bleached blonde hair,
dalai lama of tibet,
Deepak Chopra,
disciples,
endless fall,
endless search,
gothic horror,
guitar strings,
gurus,
holy paradox,
horror flick,
isolation,
marshall applewhite,
moksha,
mother of god,
o j simpson,
son andrew,
thick dark hair,
touched by an angel,
wet morning
