Gurus

When i was 17 i started to read to change my life by changing my thinking. Mainly i read books about psychology, philosophy, religion and occultism. Anything that was “outside” of the norm was of great interest to me, actually it still is. Then i came across a few books by a man called Osho, AKA Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. They were really amazing and i felt like many of the things he was writing about i had been thinking about. As i started to read more and more books from him and writings about him i felt that this guy has a lot of wisdom. And he was also very controversial which for me is a great sign. If this unbalanced, unnatural, unhealthy and disfunctional society is rejecting a person, usually it means that this person has a lot to offer. Years later i went to a few Osho communities and started to practice some of the Osho meditations. Most of these practises have some benefits. Over the following years i met more Osho followers, some of them really beautiful and some less so. There were a few not very pleasant experiences as well. 

Another benefit i got from the Osho movement is my name that i got in 2009 from a teacher called Ma Ananda Sarita. Then i changed my passport too so now it is the label other call me by until maybe one day i get a calling to change it again. Personally i am not attached to any labels so i´m not bothered if people can´t say the one i have, often people call me "Nara". Native Americal Indians changed their name several times in their lives, whenever a new phase of life started. Modern people are very attached to the labels that they get from their parents. Up to the label on a gravestone that says: “here lies so-and-so”. One psychotherapist/shaman/healer called Alejandro Jodorowsky created a system called “psychomagic” and said sometimes it helps to get rid of old karma when you change your name. From personal experience i can say it worked well for me.

Another thought about gurus and people following someone else they think is more enlightened than them. Terence McKenna, the author and a great psychonaut of the 60:s, said that once he asked the spirit of magic mushroom about this topic. According to him, the mushroom spirit said the very idea of following another human is ridiculous, that all human beings are like grains of sand on a beach. So the idea of a guru is like saying that we follow another grain of sand who can liberate us. When i heard that, for me it makes perfect sense. Guru worship is very common in India and also seems to be a growing phenomenon in the western countries. All the religions are also more or less like that. Instead of finding the divine in the nature or within oneself, people look for external rules and other grains of sand to tell them what to do. It's like throwing the responsibility of my life to someone else's shoulders. For me Shamanic practises with entheogens are beautiful, who else could be a better guide for us than the spirits of the plants who have been around for millions of years more than humanity? :)