|
Guru Ji Superstar
THE
STREETS of Delhi have seen some strange religious
processions lately. Some 3,000 Europeans and Americans have
been testifying to their faith in God on earth. He is a
fourteen-year-old Indian boy, known to his followers as Guru
Maharaj Ji, head of the Divine Light Mission, which has had
a startling success in only six years. It now has follower,
in America, Australia, Britain France, Japan and five other
European countries.
Unfortunately the Indian festival this month got off to an
embarrassing start. When the jet containing the adolescent
living God and 350 disciples touched down in India, the
Customs discovered a suitcase containing about £27,000
in watches, jewellery and cash. Unimpressed by the
disciples' explanations, the Indian Government has ordered a
financial investigation into the Mission's affairs.
The suitcase with the cash and jewels, according to the
Guru's disciples, was merely a Divine bank, a pool of petty
cash put together by the followers for safekeeping. This
kind of Divine institution is a commonplace of the Mission's
way of life. The Indian festival's encampment included a
Divine cooking area, a Divine currency exchange bank, and a
Divine shop selling such useful items as toothpaste, food
and pictures of the "Holy Family."
Divine Light has boomed since Maharaj Ji took over aged
eight. Already it has more than 6,000 British disciples with
about 40 "ashrams," spiritual communities. In the US there
are now 30.000 Divine Light followers. and the Mission says
that next year they will start collecting followers from the
Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.
To help spread the Word, the Mission has a very
professionally written newspaper, a public meeting every
night in London, and a record album made by "the Anand Band
of London." The claims made on behalf of the Guru are not
modest. A monthly glossy magazine, printed in Denver,
Colorado, has a cover picture of the Guru suffused with the
light of a rising Sun. Its title is "And It Is Divine," and
it kicks off with a familiar quotation from Isaiah's
Messianic prophecies.
The Guru promises nothing less than a "Peace Bomb" - peace
in our time within one generation. And unlike other
religious leaders, his peace promise is peace on earth, not
simply peace within. Much of his reported speech has a
familiar ring. He is quoted as saying: "Come to me. I will
relieve you of your suffering. I am the source of peace in
this world." To the Guru's followers this kind of echo is
perfectly acceptable; for they believe that their
fourteen-year-old master is God in man, just ao Jesus Christ
was nearly 2,000 years ago.
But the methods of worship are different. In Delhi the
festival lasted three days, after which the Western
disciples took off for a provincial ashram. The climax of
the three days came on the last evening, when the young Guru
led a service from a three-tiered stage decorated with
silver tinsel and pink paper lotus flowers. Sparklers were
lit up, and the disciples burst into worship. The Divine
Times: described the scene: "This very holy expression of
devotion went on under a dust-filled sky with Guru Maharaj
Ji there, serene and ever-blissful, above everyone, crowning
the whole scene. Everything was divine." Apart from the
Customs. |
