192. gurus
pinpoint then, though now I would describe it, somewhat fancifully to be sure, as a
stirring of the blood to the call of the Indian Passion, the overflow of a feeling of
oneness with one ’s (idealized) community and its traditions. He had touched an
atavistic chord in me of which I would have perhaps preferred to remain unaware.
The unease is much easier to define. It sprang from what I can only call an out-
rage to “liberal, humanist sentiments.” These too are part of my inheritance, as they
are of all those, in every country around the globe, who are heirs to a still-emerging
modern world. I was neither bothered by nor am I referring here to what appears as
an element of medieval feudalism in the relationship of the Satguru with the mem-
bers of his cult. Maharajji, of course, means “great king,” and the meaning ofgaddi,
which indicates what he sits on—and has succeeded to—is “throne.” The litho-
graph of Soamiji, the founder of the cult, that hangs in many public places and in
the homes of devout initiates shows him clad in expensive-looking silks and bro-
cades, richly bejeweled and benecklaced, and quite indistinguishable from the cop-
pery daguerreotypes of Indian princes and “nabobs” that occasionally used to
adorn the pages of turn-of-the-century British periodicals. Nor am I too much trou-
bled by the fact that in the Satsang (as in most Indian mystical cults) favored treat-
ment is given to the wealthy and powerful and that these marks of favor are ration-
alized by the gurus as being deserved by the disciples on account of their past good
karma. I have also little quarrel with the very comfortable, if not opulent lifestyle
of Maharajji and other mystics. The proverbial problems of the rich man trying to
negotiate the eye of the needle are more a part of the Christian than the Hindu her-
itage; the link between ascetism and poverty on the one hand and spirituality and
transcendence on the other has been denied by Indian saints more often than it has
been affirmed.
My unease had more to do with the repeated assertion of Maharajji (and of his
predecessors) that a “seeker” should not only endure but cheerfully and actively ac-
cept the iron law of karma. Saints, he says, perhaps rightly, are not social reformers
who have come to change the world—although even here too one may doubt the
validity of such a clear-cut demarcation between inner and outer changes, individ-
ual and social transformations, saints and revolutionaries. To recommend, however,
a joyous acceptance of the existing social order—with its economic, social, and sex-
ual inequities—as the prerequisite for a state of mind that leads to highest mystical
truths, to advise women to conform cheerfully to the meek subservient roles laid out
for them by a repressive patriarchy, does go against the grain of modern identity,
even if Maharajji considers such acquiescence to be absolutely essential for progress