The gaze of the gurus

What is missing from our lives that makes us seekers? Or a seeker who becomes a guru? Mick Brown's book delves into this age-old question, revealing a fascinating, horrifying, and amusing account

The Nirvana Express: How the Search for Enlightenment went West

Author: Mick Brown

Publisher: Penguin/Vintage

Pages: 337

Price: Rs 799

There are any number of studies, documentaries, books on cults and their leaders, which focus on the leader and on the organisation that surrounds the guru and his or her persona. These are fascinating, horrifying and amusing.

Mick Brown’s book takes another, and in a sense more intriguing, route as he examines “how the search for enlightenment went west”. The Nirvana Express is a part-history of when and how the Western world discovered Indian religion, mysticism and spiritualism. But it also looks at these discoveries from the perspective of the seeker and the follower. The result is a rich tapestry of believer and teacher, of seeker and guru and also of how some people have the ability to make others feel like they have the answer.

What you learn is that without followers, there is no guru. You may scoff that this is a self-evident truth but think about it. With all these successful teachers and leaders, everyone around has to agree that they have some inner abilities. Those who agree must be willing to subsume  and supplicate themselves. It is a match made in heaven, although sometimes it can lead to distress and misery.

Before you think this is all about stereotypes and Indian yogis , some of these teachers of enlightenment are not Indian. Mr Brown begins with Edwin Arnold’s poem on the life of Gautama Buddha, The Light of Asia, and the enormous impact it had on the Victorian mind in Britain. The seekers were already there, moving out of dominant Christianity into other faiths, belief systems and religions, and Buddhism was at the top of the list.

The formation of the Theosophical Society, Madame Blavatsky’s own occultist ideas combined with eastern mysticism, the influence it had on Annie Besant, is coiled within India’s independence movement. That perhaps is a wonderful inadvertent metaphor of the chaos that can be India, as described in E M Forster’s A Passage to India and the immortal words within, of a religious procession that proudly proclaimed “God si love”. Had Besant not got entangled with the Theosophical Society, who knows how differently India’s freedom movement would have developed.

Swami Vivekananda’s visit to the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893 brought Hinduism and Vedanta to the forefront. As people flocked to listen to the Swami, they felt that they had found answers that they had sought their whole lives. Swami Vivekananda was not however a cultist “godman” or guru. He set up a movement and establishment within India, combining the good works with religious teachings. He was also both practical and sensitive in his approach to India’s peculiar religious and political history. He wanted Indians to combine the Western approach to science and the arts with Indian spirituality and wisdom: “The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor is a Hindu or Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.”

Almost an epitome of this need for spiritual satisfaction in the West is the persona of Meher Baba. By the time he went to America, Meher Baba had taken his vow of silence and communicated only by writing on his slate board. The enormous impression that his face and presence had on his followers is a remarkable insight into the minds of believers. Many collapsed in tears when they laid eyes on him. In proper Indian guru mode, Meher Baba himself was enthralled by films and Hollywood celebrities!

Mr Brown’s theories about the susceptibility of a particular type of woman for a particular type of guru may be irksome, but perhaps anecdotal evidence lies on his side. Rich, middle-aged, influential — but underlying all that, unfulfilled and frustrated — women flocked to Meher Baba and others like him. They introduced them to others, bankrolled their lives and invariably wept copiously. The reader may be moved by feminism to wonder at this, but may also realise that there are reasons for this behaviour that are rooted in patriarchy.

Why such devotion for some? The eyes have it, that has to be the main reason for Meher Baba, who did not speak. But then, Jiddu Krishnamurti, who broke away from the Theosophical Society, had the same effect on people as did Ramana Maharishi. Their deep and powerful gazes drew people in and catapulted some to enormous success.

The Nirvana Express has all the usual suspects, from Mahesh Yogi to Rajneesh. The hippies and the aftermath of peace, drugs, sex and rock and roll. But perhaps more fascinating are the less-known stories —  like Allan Bennett and Aleister Crowley —  who took different paths to enlightenment, long before the second half of the 20th century. Bennett  — who also had the eyes and the look  — and Crowley formed an unlikely friendship, between Buddhism and some strange concoction of varied beliefs. Mr Brown calls them “Bhikku and the Beast”, which provides a juxtaposition of their methods and their lives. Or Paul Brunton, who is not a name that is part of the popular pantheon of gurus.

And everywhere on this journey is the believer, the seeker. Some are taken for a ride by their journeys; others want desperately to be on a ride no matter the outcome. Through the book and to the end, it is that part of the human mind that wants answers it cannot easily get that stands out. What is missing from our lives that makes us seekers? The seeker who becomes a “guru”— a fraud or a true leader?  Does it matter if the seeker is satisfied? These are the questions and the wonders which The Nirvana Express has in store for the reader. Not to be missed, for anyone interested in the human mind and our deep need to believe and to know.

The reviewer is an independent journalist who writes on the media, politics and social issues