My husband taped something for me the other day, and discovering it, I sat down tonight to watch it with keen anticipation. Its a short little piece on some holy man overseas somewhere and as I watch, my illusions of holy men in religions (other than those that I'm familiar with) are rapidly dissolving.
Now I don't need to mention him or where he's from because there are so many of them, just like him, in so many religions and spiritual practices. There they sit, having removed themselves from daily life, daily worries and mortal peril. They sit surrounded in opulent wealth, often wearing some sort of robe denoting poverty and simplicity, with thousands of followers hanging upon their every word. I was reading (about a month ago) about a couple just like it who live in India and charge westerners exorbitant fees to share their 'wisdom'. And don't think for a second that I'm excluding churches here.
To make it worse, the squares and commons that the 'gatherings' of these 'holy creatures' are held in, are usually the everyday home of the poorest of the poor. What's wrong with this picture?
So there I am thinking, you fake person sitting there pretending to be wise and wearing pretend-poor-mans robes. No wonder mankinds sense of spirituality is so up the bo-ay when these con-men and women are the ones telling people what to do and how to be.
