No Gurus

It was probably 2014, and I went to see a famous wellness and metaphysical guru speak.

Sort of an intellectual with a side of spiritual.

I send a weekly newsletter about writing, creativity, and making space between who we are and who we tell ourselves we are. This week was about dismissing our thoughts, feelings, and instincts out of turn, because something in our heads says someone else knows better.

He’s all about the higher path and very much enjoys the famous-y, god-ly gravitas that goes with it. He writes books with words like “healing” and “awareness” in the title. 

So, I go to hear him, and he’s super smart and legitimately impressive, talking about physics and particles, how everything is constantly moving, and how they hold together like solids sometimes. More specifically, the Quantum Observer Effect, particles change form when they are being seen. So when you look at something, you impact what it is; you are the reason it is a solid or a wave. When you look away, it changes into something else.  

I notice, as I’m listening to him, that he is wearing designer jeans that I know go for upwards of several hundred dollars. I know this because I’ve bought them as Christmas gifts for my brother, and every time I do, I think, Dang! These cost several hundred dollars.

And then, from the stage, the guru showed us his new watch. This, he bragged, was not yet on the market, but would someday be able to anticipate a heart attack. The fascinated audience ooo’d and ahhh’d as he walked up and down the length of the platform, brandishing his wrist. His privileged, access-to-technology-before-the-rest-of-us wrist. It was an Apple Watch. He had an Apple Watch. He had to push his Mala beads out of the way to give us a good look.

I’m not shaming the man for his fashion sense, but there was something incongruent about the spiritual energy and the fancy accessories for me. I don’t recall Gandhi lifting his loincloth to show off $800 sneakers, you know? But I get it, not the same thing, and this guy never claimed to take a vow of poverty. I’m not judging. See? Quickly brushing off the judgment. Quickly quickly. See? 

These things gave me a little poke in my stomach, and then I pushed them aside. And kept reading his books and watching his guest spots on Oprah. I can’t blame him; who doesn’t love money?  

I don’t have the right to think anything. I instantly talk myself out of these thoughts. I undo them; They are feelings I have that I don’t think I have a right to have. This little two-step is a defense mechanism because there is some block in me, some noise in my head that says I don’t have a right to ask these questions that are forming somewhere in me. I don’t know who it is that’s telling me I don’t have the right to feel a certain way about some random dude on a stage at a random time wearing random jeans. I don’t know what voice it is, or why it’s compelling, or why I listen to it. But it’s there, it is, and I do.

But recently, as I was stomping The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success into the snow with my boots, and taking extra satisfaction that this was an autographed copy I had found at the thrift store, I thought, relationships with people like Jeffrey Epstein are how you get a sweet Apple Watch before the rest of us. So that’s what Deepak Chopra’s particles turn into when we look away. Maybe that’s where my vague sense of hypocrisy came from, or when I felt the cracks in the facade that I made excuses for and shut down.   

His message isn't special; many books carry it, many authors write it, many voices speak it. He’s not above reproach. But in my head, there’s noise that says someone else always knows better. I must be wrong. That feeling must be wrong. Even before it’s spoken, that feeling must be wrong. And man, I'm so tired of not listening to myself, ignoring my own eyes because someone louder told me to. 

Gurus don't exist, no one knows anything, and nothing has meaning until you give it meaning. How many times will I have to go around in this circle until I start trusting myself? 

Building trust in your voice is building a muscle. 

Luckily, no sit-ups are involved.