The guru who played god

They still lament on the Internet
that the guru deluded them,
took their money, faked enlightenment
ate chicken on the side,
fucked vulnerable women while sycophants
stood guard on his porch in Queens
all the while preaching
vegetarianism and celibacy and
posing as the last and greatest avatar
ever to walk on earth
higher than Muhammad
greater than the Buddha
bigger than Christ for christ’s sake.

I too believed for a while
or suspended disbelief
longer than I might have
because the one thing I knew for sure
was that I did not know the ultimate
and could not know whether
this man … so charismatic
in those rapt and silent nights
knew god as he claimed
… or not, or not, or not as the
gospel of the burned so burns online
and that I too accept because
lies and fraud cannot be concealed forever
and no way are all those women lying
even if dead chickens tell no tales.

And yet the loyalists
the last most fervent ones
those women in saris and men in white
still trek to Queens from far flung lands
and tarry there with yearning hearts
and walk up Normal Road
amid the sirens and the garbage
on sauna afternoons and bow
with folded hands and onyx eyes
at Aspiration Ground
and talk in Pondicherry tongues
and eat fast food as holy prasad
and ask no questions
lest they fall to darkness

and I feel for them
these earnest ones who served him so
and shared not in the money
and sang for him and pressed his garments
and believed his flesh would not decay
as he lay unbalmed upon his altar
and stank like any corpse
would stink in the autumn air
that too explained by the
ever-changing mysteries of god,
and the gravity of blind obedience
- for hungry souls are easy prey
and truth no match for faith.

It was not fake what I felt there
in those Jamaica Hills
the peace that swept all else away
on long and longing nights
and let us hold the earth again
and rise and serve in quiet ways
nor was he wholly bogus
there on his high stage.
He brought real gifts from east to west
and shared them for a time
until he loved his realm too much
and snared himself as men will do.

I shudder at the karma of any man
who would equate himself with god
or abuse his flock for private gain
but I hold no grudge against him
nor wish any restitution from those days.
Free will is the grandest trick of all
the genius of the gods
playing no favour on whom it falls.
All men fail to some extent and none can
barter with the grave or what may lie
beyond it. I chose him as my teacher and
he taught me well as teachers always do
that only I can seek the truth
and only I can find it.

© 2012