When Gurus are no more than Prostitutes

Satsang is said to be an important part of the spiritual journey in Hinduism. It is so important that its praise is sung all over the place. But if one looks carefully, one would find that the religious could not have come up with a greater oxymoron that this.

It is said that when all attachments are broken – you are one with the “Truth” or Sat. In Gita, that is what Krishna says. So, clearly, attachment to all – even the notion of “Truth” will be gone when you are in communion with the Truth. Until that time, however, you are just using words or concepts that you feel like calling Truth or God, but its just mind-stuff (something conjured up by mind). And whatever this mind can think of or understand – that is certainly not the Truth as in the spiritual sense. “Truth” is infinite and beyond the mind.

So, what does “Satsang” really stand for? Sat means Truth, and Sang means company or association. Surely, the person who came up with this word had not really appreciated the issues that this word – shallow as it is – could create! Its only when all association has subsided that the “Sat” can be witnessed!

Satsang for most of the initiated has become an exercise into satisfaction of, what I call, their “Lust for God”. Seekers are not seeking freedom or the Truth.. they are seeking to be satisfied every time they enter a Satsang. They do want to face the harsh reality that they are responsible for their own Nirvana but they want a pill a week to give them that shot of satisfaction!

Satsang for so long has been like an exercise in Spiritual prostitution. Like people go to a prostitute to get satisfaction of the body, people go to satsang to get satisfaction of the mind. What happens at Satsang has little to do with spiritual awakening or making people “aware” of their own consciousness. It is more to do with oneupmanship or repeating something over and over again – without any seriousness, awareness or realization .. and there is this complete facetiousness to make the seeker get “happiness” ONE MORE TIME – fulfillment of a very narrow desire!!

Freedom does not come from temporary satisfaction. Desires seek satisfaction. Freedom, however, beckons every bit of consciousness out of its own bounds – and there is no seeking in it. Seeking is necessarily accompanied by desire for fulfillment. And then it becomes the all-consuming passion. The ability to free one-self is then clouded by the race to seek satisfaction or escape from the everyday guilt and sorrow.

The guts to look at sorrow and one’s guilt “straight in the eye” are not there… the meek seeker who is pushed along by faith and belief is content on reflected joy. A joy which is no more permanent than the orgasm from a prostitute’s services. The temporary joy gotten.. its back to the same world. The mind is no richer. The desires no less.. the guilt no less.. and anger is the same… until the mind seeks another round of mental satisfaction.. and it is weekend again.. back to the congregation again!