I have always been a very spiritual person (not religious, a lot of people mix these two or are confused about these two).
Growing up I have seen people around me, listening to various spiritual gurus, babas, going to satsangs and attending various spiritual gatherings. It inadvertently drew me to all these. I found strength in various meditation techniques endorsed by them and at the same time, more often than not I found myself caught up in the middle of a battle, a battle between accepting my trueself and spirituality. The more I changed the babas, the more intense the battle became and the aftermath of it was sever depression, anxiety, fear, and lack of self confidence.
Cause
It took me quite long to understand the reality about their teachings which more often than not are selective and bigoted in nature. Do these babas who have got billions of followers and run huge empires, realise that their bigotry leads to parents disowning their own kids. It brands their kids ‘abnormal’ and also subjects to horrifying cure(??) techniques. I have been blessed with pragmatic parents who listened to their child but there are those parents too who are run by these babas and their idealistic views.
Why can’t they be honest to spirituality and invest time and efforts in understanding the diversity that has always been a part of our social fabric and help parents ‘heal’? Why can’t they be pragmatic rather than being completely irrational and engaging the audience in the distorted versions of spirituality according to their convenience?
May be it’s all about playing to the gallery. Saying only those things which can please the ears of their deciples and shut the dissent. May be it’s all about running their businesses at the cost of innocent lives. It’s about the evergreen marketing principle of selling something that ‘sells’.
Oh wait!! we are talking about businesses and the shrwed businessmen running those, I misread them for social reformers ;).
One such example – https://youtu.be/fjYPPk2WNv4
Effect
1. Education sector
Lot of teachers are followers of such Gurus whose bigoted thinking ofcourse influences them on various levels. Imagine, your child is put into ‘corrective-traning’ because he is effiminate. Or the same child is blamed by the school authorities for his effiminate behaviour when bullied or molested by the classmates. Or you labelling your child as ‘bhatak gayi hain’ when she shows the courage to come out of the closet and speaks to you after going through severe mental torture due to her orientation. Don’t we all need to stand up against such irrational views to protect our next generation?
2. Corporate sector
Corporate sector is no less when it comes to following such babas. Ofcourse it’s a choice which we all have a freedom of. The problem is, when one starts following the preachings with blind faith which subconsciously makes them believe that diversity around sexual orientation or gender is a distorted perception of life. Due to which a colleague from the LGBTI+ community becomes mentally unstable and incompetent which eventually leads to all sorts of discrimination. Can we call ourselves progressive or educated with an alive intellect if we are not ready to breakaway from the shackles which are merely a result of following some baba?
Image credit – https://www.deviantart.com/savark/art/Bigotry-is-a-lifestyle-choice-145648612
Amita Karadkhedkar 