Stuff my Soul!

We had a seminar in school today. Stress-free living. Most of us had a headache when the man finally stopped droning after 2 hours. The headache was a combination of fighting the eyelid droop and fighting the urge to flee. However, at one point I was completely lucid. It was when the man said, "Why are we suffering like this?" I'm sure he had a context for saying it, but at that moment, it felt like the cry of our collective souls. I ducked, laughed, then fell back into my comfortable coma.

The conscious part of me registered something baffling though. The first 15 minutes of the seminar, the guy made it clear that truth and belief are two completely different things. Truth was undeniable, whereas belief was faith in something that could not be proved. For the remaining 72 hours, I mean, two and three quarter hours, he talked about nothing but the soul and how life should be lived from the soul perspective, not the material one. And there were many, many minutes of cheesy-music-with-cheesy-video-meditation when he was chanting stuff about being immortal and all that. Most of the teachers slept right through them.

The whole time I was thinking, 'Bloody hell, isn't the soul a construct of your belief? When did it become truth, that you would make it the complete basis for your life philosophy, and what more, preach it as fact?' I like my job, so I didn't stand up and embarrass him, the principal and the school. But I was sorely tempted.

It's not just this fellow that has me annoyed. Working in various fields, I've been subjected to quite a few seminars and talks by people who have no business being on stage. I'm all for people sharing and learning from each other life's experiences, but it has blown out of proportion and given rise to an alarming trend.

I speak of 'gurus'. Lifestyle coaches, relationship guides, spiritual mentors....call them what you like; I am very uncomfortable with the notion of a person who says he or she has answers that can satisfy en masse. They all sound like formulas to me, a kind of glorified version of the crap you find in fashion magazines- like 'how to get your ex back in 10 days' or some such drivel. Since when has life been so even across people that something that works for one person would work for another. And I must say, many of these gurus are utter crackpots who endow themselves with these titles- really scary shit. I wouldn't want to meet one of them alone in a dark alley, let me tell you. These people invariably are in a sea of denial, floating only because their egos are so bloated, you couldn't sink 'em even if you sat on 'em. A pity, really.

I'm toying with the idea myself. Being a guru, I mean. Why screw up a few people who call you a friend when you could reach a much larger audience? I'm off to buy boring white clothing. Peace out!