Just two guests for Vedicsoc this week. The Easter vacation has started, so not many people are around.
As we were finishing the yoga class we got thrown out of our room, since the building was closing early during the holidays. We decided to carry on in a nearby pub. The upstairs part was fairly quiet and non-smoking.
![lotus flower: most beautiful thing in the material world](http://www.deltaflow.com/wp-content/images/lotus.jpg)
(picture's origin)
The discussion was on beauty. I asked people what the most beautiful thing in the material universe was. Answers: girls, sports cars, art (I added that the lotus flower is considered to be one of the most beautiful material objects). However, all material beauty is temporary. Sure to quickly come to an ugly, smelly, rotting end.
We then discussed the 6 qualities of Krishna that make him supremely attractive: wealth, strength, fame, beauty, knowledge and renunciation. M. to the realization that prominent Gurus have most, if not all, of these qualities (though, of course, not to an unlimited degree, like Krishna). That is why people are so attracted to following them. This lead on to a long discussion about bogus gurus, the nature of renunciation and the value of teaching spiritual knowledge to others.
M. made the point that while he respected what I was doing, i.e. running Vedicsoc and teaching the Vedic knowledge while simultaneously living and working in the "real" world, he was contemptuous of many so-called holy men. He said that he would not have been interested in joining Vedicsoc if I were using it to make a profit and/or maintain a family. That would be the same as everyone else who runs a business. Nothing special at all. Sure, the teachings might benefit some people, but the main motivation would be selfishness: i.e. making money.
He relayed how he used to visit a local Swami Narayana temple and whenever the big guru would come for a visit, everyone would compete to invite him to their home for an opulent lunch, offer him many nice things, do anything and everything for him and worship him like God. The experience left him quite cynical:
"Where is the renunciation in that?" he asked. "Being a guru is like being a CEO of company. An excellent career move. Good business. Would these gurus continue to be so "spiritual" if they suddenly had no money, no comforts and no followers?"
I explained how we must be vigilant and use a system of checks and balances (guru, sadhu and sastra) to make sure that someone who proclaims to be "spiritual" actually walks his talk. A bogus spiritualist can be detected by one with knowledge. However, a na??ve and innocent person can (and does) get cheated. We must not have blind faith and never surrender our intelligence.