How To Become A Spiritual Guru In 90 Days - A Crash Course

[Shanmugam]

Disclaimer:  This is just for fun. I didn’t write this in keeping any particular organization in my mind. Many of the ways that I  have described here have actually been adopted by many authentic gurus. But this is just to show you how sometimes fake gurus may take advantage of this.  . It is good to be aware of this dangerous possibility.

This is a repost of my answer to a Quora question: How can I outsmart the existing Godmen in India?

I will offer you a solution but make sure you implement it as quickly as possible. Because, once everyone gets to know the trick, then the system will no longer work.

1. Read some books of Osho, collect some anecdotes from lives of Shankara, Ramana Maharishi, Ramakrishna and also collect some jokes. It may take approximately 1 or 2 months.

2. Now, you have to create a meditation technique for the basic course. It is easy:

First, go to this link: Custom Random Number Generator

Enter the lower limit as 1 and higher limit as 10,000 and click ‘Enter’. It will create a 4 digit random number. If the sum of all digits are less than 20, then try again. For this example, let us assume that the random number you got is 6834.

Now collect 4 random short spiritual practices. Try mantra chanting, pranayamas, asanas etc. Be creative!

Now you just need to assign each digit from the random number to one specific practice. 6- some kind of asana, 8- some kind of pranayama, 3- mantra chanting, 4- silently sitting and doing nothing.

Your basic course is now ready. It contains 6 minutes of the chosen asana, followed by 8 minutes of the chosen pranayama, 3 minutes of mantra chanting and 4 minutes of silently sitting and doing nothing.

Create an appealing Sanskrit compound word as the name for the course. How about ‘Anandaspandana kriya’? You can fix the price after analyzing the competitor rates. In the beginning, you can start with about Rs.800 or RS.900 and then slowly increase the price.

3. Follow a similar procedure for the advanced courses. Advanced courses may contain practices like non-stop jumping, shouting, lying down like a corpse, laughing etc.

4. Create your enlightenment story. This should be dramatic and touching. This is a very important part. So, be creative! Choose a date for your enlightenment. You can Google for sample enlightenment stories or ask a question in Quora to describe someone’s awakening experience. You will get an idea. The success of your Godman career depends on the nature of the story you create. Let it be unique and interesting.

5. Now, you have to create your past life story. Go to a real town, preferably out of your state. Note down the important details of the town which will help you work on your past life story. Collect some historical details. Now, use the same random number generator to create a three digit number. Subtract that number from the current year. The answer you get is the year you were born in this town during your last birth. This way you can create story that sounds genuine.

6. You need to register a non-profit organization and also have someone design a website for it. There are lots of fancy names that you can choose from: Lifemantras foundation, Anandasutra foundation, Brahmashanthi foundation, Jeevasiddhi foundation etc (all four names are available; I checked in Google and no Godman is currently using them).

7. Your website should describe your enlightenment experience and your past life stories. Photograph some people doing meditations while faking extreme ecstasy on their face. Most importantly, take some photographs of yourself in perfect lighting. You have to do a lot of tweaking in Photoshop.

8. Now you can work your way to build your empire. You can start offering courses for free for a few days. Then gradually start offering paid courses.

9. Initially you may need to temporarily hire some people who sit with other course participants and then do some creepy things as if they are experiencing some kind of special energy or bliss. Each person’s reaction should be different. one person should cry, another person should yell, yet another person should shake their head left and right continuously for a few minutes. Seeing this, other participants will also somehow try to fake it. Make sure all these things are videotaped.

10. Now you need to work on other things like creating testimonials, planting some trees and posting the pics in your website etc.

........................................

Thats it. This is the basic structure that you need to know. How you take it from here depends on your creativity and imagination. If you have good English, good voice and public speaking skills, you can easily start making money in the next one year.

Some additional tips for extra-income:

Within one year, you can start selling the books that have your transcribed talks (price range Rs.200 - Rs.500), DVDs (Rs.500 per DVD), energized lockets, energized rings etc. You can also sell your laminated pictures for Rs.200, Rs.500 and Rs. 1000, depending on the size.

In each program, show the participants a video that explains how volunteering is good for spiritual growth. You will start getting volunteers to do a lot of the work without pay.

A large part of income comes from donations. So, use it wisely.

Learn some cult programming techniques from here: How Cults Work - CULTWATCH . This is very important to get dedicated and large number of followers.

Once you get established in India, it is time to set up a branch in US. The real growth happens after that!

Edited October 8, 2017 by Shanmugam

[cirkussmile]

I read it and waited for you to say "This is a joke!" But it never came. 

Sorry, I have no more comments. 

 

[Joseph Maynor]

This is great.  I think the only way to be a true guru is to speak from direct experience.  Any kind of extrapolating or speculating just hurts people because it is misleading them under a pretense of knowing.  The true guru is modest and cautious and is genuinely concerned about others’ growth.

Edited October 8, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Nahm]

there's a documentary on netflix where a guy does this to reveal how gullible people are.   

[Shanmugam]

@Nahm Is it available elsewhere, like Youtube? I would love to watch it

[Shanmugam]

On 10/8/2017 at 8:14 PM, cirkussmile said:

I read it and waited for you to say "This is a joke!" But it never came. 

Sorry, I have no more comments. 

 

@cirkussmile  Did you read the disclaimer in my post? I know two people in India who were not genuine but used such techniques to convince that they are enlightened... One person turned out to be fake  and caught up in sex scandal.. he is currently producing videos to show how to move coconuts with mind power, to attract some crowds ... 

I have personally met the other person (happened in 2008), who persuaded me to become his disciple  and wanted me to prepare transcriptions for his talks. By the way, he himself was a disciple of the first person. He invited me to his house and his bookshelf was full of Osho's books. Later, when I checked his website, I found the contents to be exact copy and paste from Osho's talks., without missing even articles like 'a' and 'the'...

When someone is a true seeker, it is not a big problem and he will eventually find his way.. But if you somehow get brainwashed to work for their organization and dedicate your own life to build someone else'e empire, that is when it becomes problem, especially if the guru is fake.

[Nahm]

@Shanmugam All guru’s, self help instructors, religion icons, preachers, pastors, fathers, self help coaches, me, you, and everything... are fake. They are pointing to what’s real. 

[Shanmugam]

56 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@Shanmugam All guru’s, self help instructors, religion icons, preachers, pastors, fathers, self help coaches, me, you, and everything... are fake. They are pointing to what’s real. 

[Nahm]

@Shanmugam lol! Thanks!

 

 

Edited October 9, 2017 by Nahm