Guruphiliac: Just 'Cause She's Bent Doesn't Mean She's A Goddess



Sunday, April 15, 2007

Just 'Cause She's Bent Doesn't Mean She's A Goddess

File under: Gurubusting and The Siddhi of PR

We weren't sure what to do with news of Steve Cooper, aka Pamela, thought by some in India to be the reincarnation of the goddess Bahucharaji, the patron saint of the hijras (spiritual trannies). The fact is, we are very close to the idea of gender being bent by spirituality and know it to be a very powerful mode of devotional expression for a shakta.

Then we read the article again and realized it's nothing more than brazen opportunism and a carnival side show in a country where anyone can be a "goddess" with the right look:
Steve was living in a tiny flat in Tooting until deciding on his new career after Indian friends told him he looked and moved just like the ancient goddess.

As soon as he arrived at the temple he was treated as a deity.

He now gets up at dawn and dresses in a holy saffron robe before beginning the daily ritual of blessings.
It's a sweet gig for a unemployed trannie from the U.K., but clearly just another manifestation of the runaway superstition that cancels out the truths of Vedanta in her native land.

Once again, the clear light of the Upanishads gets screwed by superstition in Bharat. We'd call it the national pastime of India if we didn't have so much respect for the land and those who (have) live(d) there. But we can't see ourselves ever respecting the magical malarkey that floats like a brown cloud of smog over the subcontinent. Vivekananda tried to clear that cloud away while he was alive, yet outside the somewhat limited purview of the Ramakrishna Math, it may as well still be 300 A.D., (as opposed to the 1895 of the Math, we suppose.)

5 Comments:

At 4/17/2007 7:49 AM, Blogger ybr (alias ybrao a donkey) said...

Pl. excuse me. I am tempted to say that Vivekananda too darkened the cloud. www.vivekanandayb.blogspot.com

 
At 4/17/2007 8:36 AM, Blogger guruphiliac said...

Vivekananda too darkened the cloud.

Not in terms of adding or promoting superstition. His fallacy was connecting nondual truth with social action, but that cloud has the silver lining of actually helping people.

I like your blog. Have you read Narasingha P. Sil's Swami Vivekananda: A Reassessment? It's a great attempt to pull the layers of hagiography away from Swamiji in order to show his somewhat faulty humanity.

 
At 4/18/2007 9:59 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't know why this UK hermaphrodite has been made a goddess over there when they already have Semblance in place. It smacks of the same kind of out sourcing of American jobs here to India. And with all the cross dressers in America why do we need to import our godesses from India? We all need to be more self sufficient. Think of the svings in fuel alone!

 
At 10/16/2007 7:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you had been blessed by Bahuchara Ma then you would know she is real.

 
At 10/16/2007 7:32 PM, Blogger guruphiliac said...

then you would know she is real.

All I would know is that I had a special experience in her presence.

 

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