From the ashes...

I've written before about Godmen. Except for a rare few genuine spiritual masters, there are many such who have read the literature, nailed the look and the accent, and have gone on to achieve success and fame. 

Nithyananda, perhaps, is the most notorious one in recent times. There is even a documentary now entitled 'My daughter joined a cult' in which they seem to systematically take down the image he has cultivated. 

Long before this, but after his infamous sex tape with Ranjitha, I learnt of his personal paradise Kailasa where he had hidden himself away. I was amused to learn he had his own channel live streaming day and night from this Kailasa.  

So, snacks in hand, I opened the website, sat back and smirked, ready to pooh and paah at this charlatan. That's when the Universe decided to teach me a lesson. I watched him do his daily discourse, which I think was called a satsang. That day's topic was about love. This Mister-I-smile-too-much opened his mouth and put forward the most wonderful and accurate and exact definition of love I have ever heard. He said, "Love is the highest vision you can have for someone. It has nothing to do with your feelings, or theirs, or desires or sacrifices or anything. It is simply the highest existence you can envision for them."

That's not verbatim, FYI. But I admit I was floored. I just sat there gaping and listened to the whole satsang. For many days after that, I tuned in, but I never heard anything that profound again. It was good spiritual literature, for the most part, but nothing remarkable. Of course, there was a lot of pompous posturing and self-gratifying statements. I never visited his virtual Kailasa after that.

The point of this, the lesson I learnt, may seem fairly simple. Don't be so smugly superior and so quick to dismiss and deride another person. I am not defending Nithyananda, of course. He has been accused of many vile things, which I think may be true. But like the proverbial rose blooming in the desert, I learnt that there is gold hidden in dirt, that there are diamonds to be found in ashes, that words precious and true may fall even from the lips of those who are called monsters. 

If nothing else, I learnt to better understand this thing that we call love. How unlikely a source, yet how beautiful this lesson!