THE GURU LOOKED GOOD ~ a personal memoir by Marta Szabo

There's Always More

2011-10-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a little more of the ashram story surfaces inside of other stories. Like what happened yesterday: Experiments in Memoir -- the post for October 23

THE GURU LOOKED GOOD, now an E-Book

2011-06-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

Now you can get the whole book for $4.99 and read it on any Kindle-friendly gizmo. Buy the Digital Book

COMING TO NORTHERN CALIFORNIA SOON!

2011-06-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

I will be in the Bay Area in mid-July just for a few days. I would love to meet up with anyone who is interested in talking about writing memoir, cult experiences, Authentic Writing, The Guru Looked Good, or anything peripherally related! Please be in touch if you are interested and we’ll go from there.

I LOST YOUR EMAIL

2011-04-29T07:05:00.000-07:00

During the last week, someone wrote me an email that I really wanted to respond to. I think the initials of the writer were LW. It seems that I have mistakenly deleted the email -- horrors. I am hoping you will see this note and write again. I appreciated your thoughts and questions and would like to write back. Thanks! Marta

FASCINATING

2011-04-23T05:28:00.000-07:00

For anyone who was deeply involved with Siddha Yoga, or any such group, I highly recommend this well written article, published in February of this year, from The New Yorker. The subject is Scientology. Yet so much is recognizable.
The article

ENLIGHTENMENT? NO SUCH THING

2011-02-25T13:54:00.000-08:00

I no longer believe in this thing called “enlightenment” or “liberated beings.” Perhaps there are people who break through something mysterious and become different from the rest of us. Why would such a person mention it to anyone? Why would they be interested in drawing attention to themselves? If someone were to become enlightened, I believe they would become the most invisible person imaginable, smart enough to be indistinguishable from the rest of us. Like water.

Because when someone claims a special status on the enlightenment scale, it sets up a hierarchy completely in opposition to their claim. It immediately establishes that you are lacking and they are not. For this reason, a person who is enlightened (if such a state exists) wouldn’t tell you. They would simply continue their life – and allow you to continue yours.

Excerpt from my review of American Guru by William Yenner, published in the Cultic Studies Review

SOME LIVE TV

2010-12-13T05:03:00.001-08:00

Just realized I never posted the link here for the Good Day New York interview. It gets into some good material about Siddha Yoga and the cult experience in general. http://bit.ly/d5SOyr

DIFFERENT STORIES, BUT OVERLAPS

2010-10-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

It is interesting to me how many readers of the new story that I am putting up at Memoir in Progress are making connections between that experience and their experiences in Siddha Yoga. Yes, I know. These cults are all the same – whether they be families, corporations, political parties, meditation paths – whether they have a million members or two. Still, I am appreciating how readers who don’t expect to see distinct parallels are finding them. It’s a very very different environment in this new memoir, and yet still people are picking up things they recognize.

RADIO CLIP

2010-10-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a short clip from an interview on "51%, The Women's Perspective" that aired recently on WAMC, the public radio station in the Hudson Valley. Gets into some interesting stuff! http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/0/663/1704349/51..The.Women%E2%80%99s.Perspective/51.Show..1107

On The Radio

2010-10-01T04:36:00.000-07:00

I like this 10-minute interview clip, just aired yesterday on WAMC, the NPR station out of Albany, NY, on Susan Barnet's show, 51%: The Women's Perspective

A GREAT STORY TO READ

2010-08-27T06:50:00.000-07:00

I just posted a story called For the Love of God, written by Carol Welch, at Authentic Writing Stories.

I mention it because I think those of us who were in Siddha Yoga and are now looking at it from a distance will see so much here that we can relate to.

And it's a great piece of memoir. Enjoy!

Call-In Number for Radio Show

2010-08-26T08:05:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'll be on The Merry Monk radio show 11:30-noon, today, Thursday, August 26.

If you want to call in with questions, please do! Here's the number: 1.888.547.8383

m

HERE'S THE CLIP

2010-08-17T03:25:00.000-07:00

Here's the clip from yesterday's live TV moment, discussing Siddha Yoga, Eat Pray Love, and The Guru Looked Good: clip

SYDA exposed anew

2010-08-15T04:51:00.001-07:00

It's been a long time since we've had a really strong expose piece on SYDA. Salon.Com provides today.

Good Day New York

2010-08-13T17:27:00.000-07:00

I'll be on Good Day New York (Fox News, Channel 5 out of NYC) live this coming Monday, August 16 at 9:30am, talking about The Guru Looked Good and its version of Siddha Yoga as compared to that of Eat Pray Love. Hope you can tune in!

Good Reporting

2010-08-13T12:06:00.000-07:00

Roger Friedman writes a very savvy blog, ShowBiz411 -- and today does a great piece about Gurumayi, Siddha Yoga, Eat, Pray, Love, Julia Roberts -- and The Guru Looked Good! Thanks, Roger!

What They Say About THE GURU LOOKED GOOD

2010-08-11T05:40:00.001-07:00

Fascinating!...This writing enriched my life. – Alphie McCourt, A Long Stone's Throw

Eat, Pray, Love from the other side of the sticky mat…clear-sighted and true to the bone… -- Chronogram magazine

The Guru Looked Good is the superb account of one woman's journey through a glass darkly and out the other side. This memoir is a triumph, I couldn't put it down.
-- Abigail Thomas, author of the memoir, A Three-Dog Life

The Guru Looked Good was the best read of the winter. Marta Szabo writes with a searing insight into what would make someone give up their choice to think freely. This is the book people pretend Eat, Pray, Love is, but The Guru Looked Good is the real deal. -- Martha Frankel, author of the memoir, Hats and Eyeglasses

A gripping, fierce and elegantly written story and fantastic read, Marta Szabo's new memoir, The Guru Looked Good is a must-read for anyone who has ever participated in a toxic relationship of any kind." -- Suzanne Bachner, writer/director, author of the Off-Broadway hit, Circle

Marta Szabo's memoir hit me like a bolt of lightning - her writing is so direct, forthright, uncluttered. The impact is immediate, compelling - really a page turner. – Dan Shaw, psychoanalyst

This book kept me turning the pages.… It was one of the more remarkable reading experiences I've had lately, and I'm grateful to have read it. – Charles Woods, book designer

Should be required reading for memoir writers. -- Brenda Mantz, writer

Marta is a superb writer and this book is captivating. – Bennett Neiman, corporate team builder

The Guru Looked Good is a beautifully written, level-headed and honest description of life behind the scenes in one of the most successful Ashrams of our time. I couldn't put the book down until I finished it, for it gracefully answered many of my questions about how people become involved, why they stick with it, and what it is like for them to live and work inside such a powerfully captivating organization. -- Dr. Ilka List

Marta Szabo's The Guru Looked Good is a must read for anyone interested in personal insight, the human condition and superb memoir… I could not put this book down.
ν Heidi Washburn, writer and cranial sacral therapist

Having publicized (and read) hundreds of books over the years, it’s always a thrill to find a book that I can’t wait to get back to for the next “installment.” Marta creates the most authentic “you are there” experience possible. – Fern Marcya Edison, Make-A-Difference Publicity and Public Relations)

The Guru Looked Good is a real page-turner -- I couldn't put it down… It is a very gentle, very human story…
-- Polly Howells, psychotherapist

Marta’s fascinating book, The Guru Looked Good, took me deep into the inner workings of the ashram where she examines with great skill and precision her spiritual quest. Her unflinching self-examination demands that we question our world as she questioned hers and I will come back to this book again and again as an example of finding the courage to be oneself.
-- Elena Batt, Box Office Manager, Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College

I couldn't put down Marta Szabo's book, The Guru Looked Good, from the minute I opened it up and started to read it. She brought me into the memoir immediately and I lived it with her and felt what she felt. Sometimes I even became her. – Bonnie Patterson, accountant

READ AN EXCERPT: Chapter Twenty Eight ~ ON THE DEFENSE

2010-08-11T03:15:00.000-07:00

One morning I was called into a very special meeting. I knew from the location that only the most elite members of the ashram would be present. I slipped into the confidential conference room that very few people knew about though it was just a few steps away from the room I shared with Helen. About twenty of the usual faces were gathered, sitting on the carpeted floor – secretaries, swamis, some department heads, people who just seemed, for whatever reason, to have won Gurumayi's favor over the years.

I noticed many of them had left colorful plastic sandals at the door. The sandals were pretty and good for the monsoon rains. Anything except plastic rotted and molded, never drying out. Gurumayi must have given the bright sandals out recently to some group in which I hadn't been included. Of course, no one mentioned them. They were just suddenly there, lined up at the door.

Katy Parsons welcomed us into the meeting and led us in the opening mantras. She had been around for a few years now, one of the most popular people in Siddha Yoga. Gurumayi seemed to love her and always wanted her around. And everyone else liked her too.

Katy was friendly to everyone, not just the elite. When she gave talks it sounded like a real person speaking. When Katy had first come to the ashram with her chubby, amiable husband and her seven-year-old daughter, her hair had been short and prematurely gray. She'd been some kind of non-profit executive out in the corporate world. Now she wore punjabis and her hair had grown long and become blonde.

Katy had a self-deprecating humor and was highly respected. Even though she was so new, Gurumayi had put her in all sorts of top executive positions – working with trustees and the board of directors -- the kind of positions that landed people in perpetual meetings and stress. But here in Ganeshpuri I saw Katy sometimes just walking around with Gurumayi as if she had plenty of leisure time. Katy was allowed to carry a small camera in the ashram and take pictures of anything she wanted. Snapshots. It was a strange sight. No one else – outside the official photography department -- was allowed to photograph anything, another new rule. Like everyone else, I liked and trusted Katy for her unaffected ways, and she always expressed a sincere warmth for me.

This morning Katy said that Gurumayi had asked her to come and give us an update on the New Yorker magazine article. We already knew something about the New Yorker article. It had started back in South Fallsburg the year before, just before I left. A journalist from the New Yorker magazine – one of the oldest and most prominent magazines in the country -- had begun visiting the South Fallsburg ashram and preparing an article about Siddha Yoga. Right from the start the journalist had raised alarm. She asked questions. The standard answers did not satisfy her. Instead of taking in all that the ashram had to offer, accepting our explanations for everything, she kept wanting to know what went on behind the scenes.

Since I was one of the heads of Registration back then, I had been put on alert. “Page Magdalena the moment the New Yorker journalist arrives,” I had been told, and there was a big flashing message in the journalist's computer record so that we wouldn't forget. The journalist was not to leave the lobby or go anywhere in the ashram without someone going with her.

By the time I was in India the New Yorker article was looming. The journalist wanted to print all sorts of rumors about Baba. We had been told the rumors, whatever they were, weren't true. The journalist was writing an article about the ashram, but I knew she couldn’t understand our practices or teachings at all. She was an outsider looking in. There was no way she could do justice to the greatness of Gurumayi and Baba. She would demean them, misrepresent them. The ashram had asked the magazine repeatedly not to print the article, but plans for publication, Katy said, were going strong.

"We have to stop this article from coming out," said Katy. "That's why you're here this morning,"...

Today's New York Post

2010-08-10T17:56:00.000-07:00

The New York Post today includes in its Pulse section an article by Sara Stewart, describing the Siddha Yoga that is NOT portrayed in the treacly Eat, Pray, Love bestseller. It quotes me a great deal, plus my friend and colleague, Dan Shaw. Nice job, Sara. article

READING IN MANHATTAN, Sunday, July 25, 7pm

2010-07-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

I would love it if you could join us at the KGB Bar on Sunday, July 25 at 7pm. You'll find us at 85 E. 4th Street, just a few steps west of Second Avenue.

photo by Matt Roberts

It's one of the traditional literary hotspots in Manhattan. Housed in a building that has been a center for labor unions, revolution and the arts for over 100 years, the KGB bar has been called the best literary venue by New York magazine, the Village Voice -- and many more! So let us entertain you this coming Sunday evening with some rough and ready reading -- current material from selected writers, hosted by Brent Shearer, author of the memoir, In the Front Row, On the Dole.

I'll be reading a little from Guru, and some brand new material, hot off the press.

Come, let's meet, let's have a good time!

THE NEW BOOK

2010-06-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

The new book begins in 1981 when Baba Muktananda was still alive. Gurumayi was still called Malti. I began to study hatha yoga in Manhattan with a devotee of Baba's, a man who traveled often to South Fallsberg, had gone with his wife and infant daughter to Ganeshpuri, had even managed the Manhattan ashram for a summer. Now he ran his own yoga school. "No one else really understands Baba," he used to say to us. "Only I do." And I believed him. Memoir In Progress

MARTA READS IN MANHATTAN

2010-06-17T07:34:00.000-07:00

Hi Friends, I'll be reading a short piece at the famed KGB Bar at 85 E. 4th Street near Second Avenue in the East Village. This Sunday, June 20 at 7pm. And it would be great to see you there! Please come say hi. With warm wishes, M

NEW MEMOIR IN PROGRESS

2010-06-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

To all those who read The Guru Looked Good -- I am writing now the prequel to Guru, a memoir of the seven years before connecting directly to Gurumayi and Siddha Yoga. I am deeply interested in finding the roots of why a person loses themself in a group as I did in SY and, as the new memoir reveals, in a group before that, one related to Siddha Yoga, but very very very different. You may find it interesting. I am posting the new book one chapter at a time as I write it. Something new goes up about once a week, though not like clockwork the way Guru went up, because Guru was already finished when I began posting it. This is different. If you start reading you will see the book taking shape as we go. So far I have 12 chapters up. I hope you will find it a good read too. Here's the new link: MEMOIR IN PROGRESS.

Book Club

2010-03-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

Honored to be the book club selection of the New Milford, Connecticut book club, meeting tonight!

OFF TO PARIS

2010-02-11T04:17:00.000-08:00

I leave for two weeks in Paris on Saturday, February 13, and I'll be blogging the trip at Bonjour, Paree! Come join me!

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

2010-02-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

Hard at work on the next book! Not Siddha Yoga, but the cult that came before it -- the one that made Siddha Yoga feel like a country club. Will you have heard of it? No, it was small and private, like so many cults are.

LIVE MEMOIR

2010-01-29T15:56:00.001-08:00

HIGH RISK MEMOIR -- from our performance last Saturday, January 23, 2010 at the Woodstock Library! Click HERE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsvg32dK76U

Sabotage Attempt Overcome

2009-10-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

Reading!

A Siddha Yoga Tea-Bagger tried to sabotage our gathering last week by calling the restaurant and telling them the event was canceled. Well, we got wind of the plot and set things straight, and the evening was a resounding success. Sorry, tea-baggers, right-wing fundamentalists whose beliefs are threatened just because I have written a story that is absolutely accurate to my experience.

Here are some more photos, all in the wrong order!

Alphie McCourt introducing Marta

Fred Poole opens the program

Friends and well-wishers gather

Malachy McCourt sings & inspires

Getting ready

Manhattan Writing Workshops

2009-09-18T04:17:00.000-07:00

I will be offering three Authentic Writing workshops in Manhattan on Saturday mornings -- if you want to do some writing, this is the place to be.

All the writing will be from life -- spontaneous and personal. The workshops are for people who have written for years, people who have wished they were writing, people who write in their heads but don't manage to get it down on paper and everyone in between.

These are studios more than workshops, a place for artists to come together and practice their art -- without competition or comparison.

I do almost all my writing in these workshops. The Guru Looked Good was almost all written in workshops.

You may take one or more workshops, or you can sign up for the series of three.

We will meet at:
TRS, 44 E. 32 Street (between Park and Madison), 11th floor

Dates and Times:

October 10, November 14, December 12.
10am - 1pm.

Rates:
$75/workshop (please specify which date)
or
$180 for all three workshops

To register:

You can use PayPal
or
email me at: martaszabo@yahoo.com
or
call me at: (845) 679-0306

Hope to see you there!!

Special Guest

2009-09-17T03:36:00.000-07:00

Alphie McCourt -- author of the memoir A Long Stone's Throw and brother of Frank and Malachy -- has graciously agreed to join us at the book gathering in New York City on Thursday, October 15, 7pm, Via Della Pace. He has long been a true supporter of The Guru Looked Good. The night is building!...See you there!

September 25th update: And Malachy McCourt will be there too!!!! Hold onto your hats!!!!!!

SAVE THE DATE!

2009-08-24T16:39:00.000-07:00

You're Invited! ~ Thursday, October 15, 7pm ~ I'll be hosting a very fun reading party at Via Della Pace, a charming Italian eaterie at 48 E. 7th St. right near Second Avenue in Manhattan ~ bring a friend or two, order yourself a fine Italian dinner, a glass or two of wine, splurge on an espresso and a pastry, and we'll have a wonderful evening together! I'll read you some pieces from the book, answer questions, maybe we'll get into a conversation about what a cult really means, or what writing memoir really means, or something else entirely. In any event, I hope to see you there!

Interview with Steve Cleaver of "Leave It To Cleaver"

2009-08-02T16:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a clip of my interview on Panda TV that of course has been broadcast on all major networks constantly, but in case you missed it, just click HERE

I come in after the first 27 minutes.

And Steve Cleaver is one cool dude.

On The Road

2009-07-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

Had a great time at Oblong Books, reading from and talking about the book.

Will be having another book party this Saturday, August 1, 7pm at Inquiring Minds bookstore in New Paltz, NY. Good food, good company! Please come!

INTERNATIONAL!

2009-07-21T17:27:00.000-07:00

My dear friend Lindsay was in Jerusalem last week. She was in the middle of reading The Guru Looked Good, and took this photo at the Wailing Wall.

She also tucked a prayer into the wall, asking for good fortune for the book.

Wow. Thanks, Lindsay!

July 17, A Reading in Rhinebeck, NY

2009-07-07T11:37:00.001-07:00

I will be reading from the book and answering questions, laughing and enjoying the crowd of whoever can make it, Friday, July 17, 7:30pm at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, NY -- please come! It will be fun.

Praise from Alphie McCourt

2009-06-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

Alphie McCourt -- brother to Frank & Malachy McCourt and a most praiseworthy memoirist in his own right -- is the author of A LONG STONE'S THROW, a book that I deeply admire. I am honored that he read the book and had such a strong feeling for it. Thanks, Alphie!

"The book was easy to read, a ready disguise for all the complexity contained within its pages. You didn't go for the sensational revelation at the end, the Chinese food that is commonplace writing. Instead, you painted a complete picture and let us judge for ourselves. It is a fascinating portrait of guru, ashram and, most of all, of yourself. I coudn't wait to pick up the book and read more and I was sorry when it ended. You writing enriched my life."

THE PODCAST!

2009-05-20T17:28:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Yarrow, for reminding me to post the podcast of the Leave It To Cleaver show we did a couple weeks ago. It's fun. Hope you enjoy it. I think the first 30 mins are skippable!

Listen here!

An Invitation

2009-05-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

I invite you to keep up with my current writing at Experiments in Memoir.

See you there!

MARTA ON THE RADIO!

2009-05-08T04:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday, May 9 -- noon-2pm EST

(click here to)
LISTEN!

I'll be appearing on 'LEAVE IT TO CLEAVER', Steve Cleaver's wild mix of a radio show, talking about writing and memoir and The Guru Looked Good and writing and memoir!

CALL IN DURING THE SHOW!!! (845) 752-5300

Review from April's Chronogram Magazine

2009-04-17T06:29:00.000-07:00

Eat Pray Love from the opposite side of the sticky mat. Authentic Writing and Woodstock Memoir Festival co-founder Szabo launched this intimate account of her decade on staff at Gurumayi’s Siddha Yoga ashram online, drawing hundreds of passionate fans. Her just-published book, clear-sighted and true to the bone, should attract many more. -- Chronogram

BEST PLACE TO BUY THE BOOK!

2009-04-08T06:15:00.000-07:00

I'm very happy that the book is available through the globally recognizable Amazon.com, of course, but you know what? If you purchase the book through LULU, I get a few bucks (I promise you not too many), whereas if you buy it through the big guys I get, literally, a few cents.

FACEBOOK!

2009-03-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

I'm inviting you to join THE GURU LOOKED GOOD Facebook page!

FROM ABIGAIL THOMAS, author of A Three-Dog Life

2009-03-16T03:49:00.000-07:00

THE GURU LOOKED GOOD is the superb account of one woman's journey through a glass darkly and out the other side. This memoir is a triumph, I couldn't put it down.

Review by Martha Frankel

2009-02-27T09:07:00.000-08:00

I have never been involved with Siddha Yoga --- I have never searched for, or found, a guru. I have never lived communally or wanted to. That said, The Guru Looked Good was the best read of the winter. Marta Szabo writes with a searing insight into what would make someone give up their choice to think freely. This is the book people pretend Eat, Pray, Love is, but The Guru Looked Good is the real deal. -- Martha Frankel, author of the memoir Hats and Eyeglasses.

THINKING BACK

2009-02-25T11:35:00.000-08:00

A piece about what it's like to drive by the South Fallsburg ashram these days. It's called Time After Time and the date of the posting is February 25, 2009... read.

A Reader's Review

2009-02-21T14:48:00.001-08:00

Marta Szabo’s online memoir, The Guru Looked Good, is now available in paperback and essential reading for anyone once involved in SY, corporate culture, or dysfunction al relationships where they repeatedly betrayed themselves or felt betrayed. So, basically, everyone should read it.

In TGLG, Marta brilliantly lays bare (without ever pointing fingers, attacking anyone’s “experience,” or memories) the dysfunction within SY. Without knowing anything about me personally, Marta clarified most of the questions I had about SY, helped me put together a puzzle I’d resigned to not solve, helped me finally let go and accept SY and GM as a part of my past.

Ironically I bumped into Marta’s blog early last year while searching for GM’s Message for 2008 – I’d heard through the guru-line she’d emerged from seclusion and made a (vocal) appearance at the NY talk. Upon visiting the SY site to see the message (years ago it was always posted there for all to see by Jan. 2nd), I was asked to register and pay $100 and thought with a sigh: Some things about SY never change.

The entrance fee was typical, if outrageous, and I knew that in 2008 someone somewhere would have written something about GM’s talk so made a few free google searches and landed on Marta’s blog.

Wow.

In a straightforward, here’s-my-story-draw-your-own-conclusions way, Marta’s story helped me look back, trust and accept things I’d always known intuitively. Suspicions and secrets I’d buried as well as SY had buried its own. After I finished her book I felt a combination of great sadness and relief.

I’ve now read TGLG several times, shared it with the person who introduced me to GM in 1989, and the close circle of friends I introduced to GM in the years since. All came away with a similar take.

TGLG inspired me to revisit my personal history with SY (overall positive) as well as the history of SY itself from a sober, absence-of-the -“shakti”-perspective, from where I am now: a parent in my 40s, living in the post- 9/11, internet age, having survived the hell of working for an international corporation, having travelled on three astounding adventures through Asia, having a little more life, growth and experience under my belt (a nd yes, SY was a significant part of that) than I did when I first bowed down before GM at age 23.

Marta’s book also helped me understand why someone would go throw themselves at the feet of a Baba or Gurumayi – a longing that never called me. I was intrigued but could never relate to that kind of devotion. I judged it at a bit extreme, though remained curious about “life on the inside.”

My participation very much took place on the periphery of the devotee fanbase. I loved seeing GM every few years when she glided into town on tour. I chanted, read her books, dreamt about her often . . . but never really did much in the way of seva or time in an Ashram. I did visit SF once for two weeks one summer, just to satisfy my curiosity, and wrote in my journal at the time that “despite all it’s through-the-looking-glass-wonders, there’s something sinister about the place”.

As things began winding down with SY’s active, public presence several years ago, GM gradually fell off my radar. Without my even noticing it, my interest and participation just sort of faded away. It was as if the volume had been turned down to a low, dull hum.

One of the most significant things that became clear to me after I finished TGLG is this:

There was a time when Gurumayi was Malti – and Malti was a young, beautif ul girl living in 1960s India with every aspect of her life dictated to her by her parent s, (and the no doubt suffocating at times for someone with her personality) culture, beliefs, traditions, protocol and religion in which she was raised.

In hindsight, Malti was thrust by her parents at age 13 into the arms of a man she believed or was led to believe was God incarnate. Now, as a parent, the ultimate results of this scenario are heartbreaking to me. Think of Malti at 13; think of her now.

Baba showed her the world, adulation, wealth, fame, and perhaps most significantly A WAY OUT of her oppressive life and the times in which she lived (if only she could hold on . . .).

He also abused her wholly (mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually), abused others, and succeeded in silencing her about that abuse forever, long after his death, long after all his wealth, fame and adulation be came hers. And even, as it turns out, long after she decided she wanted a way out of those things too.

The above conclusions may have been drawn and expressed countless times on countless other blogs over the years – I am posting here for the first time today. They may read as complete speculation but they are truth’s for me that Marta’s book helped me realize I’ve had buried deep in my gut for years, ones I chose to overlook during SY’s heyday in the early 1990s, feelings TGLG inspired me to revisit and accept.

The above conclusions also put together for me the puzzle pieces of GM’s intense rage towards her parents – from everything I can glean she attended neither of their funerals when they both passed away a few years back – her rage against her brother, desire to erase her family from personal history, have control of the organization, all of it.

These are tragic conclusions about a tragic story.

Worst of all perhaps is the epic dysfunction/karma of Gurumayi’s relationship with Baba.

But, sadly, GM’s early years in many ways parallel that of so many of us who were damaged, abused or oppressed as children – and then later sought ways, successful or not, to escape or heal ourselves through our relationships, spiritual seeking, drug use, or our work in the world.

Someone I know who read Marta’s book asked me afterward if I thought GM was a charlatan. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to answer.

Someone else I shared the same question with replied: “She’s not a charlatan, she’s a human.”

I met GM for the first time in 1989 and something big changed in my Life. It was quite a ride. One I don’t regret.

Twenty years later here I am. My understanding feels more complete now. More real.

THE BOOK IS HERE!

2009-02-17T10:22:00.000-08:00

We had a really great event this past Sunday at the Woodstock Memoir Festival to present the book. It was alot of fun. People brought food and we had a full house with lots of books for sale in the back. And then Bob Brader (the actor/writer who had performed Spitting in the Face of the Devil, his incredible one-man autobiographical show the night before) joined me up on stage for a back-and-forth conversation about the writing of the book, the story of this blog, for some readings and then some Q&A with the audience. Thank you to all who came and made it the grand celebration that it was. I spotted one agent-from-ashram-headquarters for a moment by the door. I can't remember his name. I don't know how long he was there. Far more exciting was the surprise appearance of a very old, dear friend from ashram times who had made the trip to express his friendship and support.

Buy the book!

Thank you to every reader of this blog. Let's see where we go from here!

Marta

January 28, 2009

2009-01-28T06:05:00.001-08:00

This blog began in April 2007 with the posting of the first chapter of The Guru Looked Good. Every Tuesday morning from then until September a new chapter went up. And they all stayed up until this morning.

Now the book is coming out in book form, a paperback that you can hold in your hands, dog ear and prop doors open with.

The book will be out in about two weeks, coinciding with the Woodstock Memoir Festival.

If you can't make it to the festival, the book will also be available by that time online and I'll post information on how to get a copy.

It's a turning point for sure. All the chapters and all the comments heaped upon them -- both wildly supportive and the malicious -- are preserved, not deleted.

For those coming here for the first time, welcome. Below are a few excerpts to give you a feel for the book.

with warm wishes,
Marta

CULTS AND WRITING

2007-10-08T04:38:00.000-07:00

If anybody had asked me at any point during my ten years plus of living in the ashram, “Are you really doing what you want?” “Are you here of your own free will?” “Are you happy?” I would have answered them easily and honestly. “Yes! I have never been happier in my life. This is what I want to do more than anything else. This is what I truly believe in. I am assisting a saint and doing more for myself than anything else I could possibly do with my life. I am benefiting the world. I feel myself becoming stronger and freer all the time.”

I had no doubt.

For one thing, the ashram had so many great people, people I loved and admired. I saw creative, smart, dedicated, hard-working, warm loving people all around me. There were the chillier ones, of course, but they were the minority. What better place to live, I thought. It was my home and I loved it as a home.

Baba once wrote something about how ordinary people look pale and lifeless to those who are actively on the spiritual path, and vice versa. People on the spiritual path look pale and lifeless to people out in the world. I noticed that. I noticed how people who visited the ashram for the first time, or people who visited from the town, looked different than us. They didn’t have our bright eyes, our bright light. You could almost pick out of the crowd who was practicing with the guru and who was living out there in the lifeless world.

There was no way you could have convinced me otherwise. It was the writing that made the difference. I was not looking for a way out of my beliefs.

I have learned that in real writing two realities cannot co-exist. Not for long, anyway. You cannot write what is real for you and hold onto denial at the same time. The writing will chip away at it. That’s one of its beauties. Writing – real writing, not writing that seeks to reproduce someone else’s writing, not writing that is propaganda, not writing that has a goal in mind and just exists to reach that goal – real writing will always keep reaching for what is real. As all true art does. That’s its purpose.

I think that very gently, and very surely, writing leads you into what is taboo, what you’ve put a fence around. And it’s in moving past these fences that one’s voice and individuality begins to emerge. I find great satisfaction in writing. Not in the sense that I am proud of what I write. Fred will confirm that I rarely “like” anything I write. Maybe once or twice a year I will “like” something. But I write and I love to write. And then I publish it, I put it up on my blog. Not because I think it’s good but because I am so tired of censoring myself. I do believe there is something real in my writing that is beyond my sense of what is “good” and what isn’t.

Recently, Siddha Yoga devotees have been taking pot shots at the content of what I write, using it against me. That’s really against the rules and I do not listen. In our workshops – where people write genuinely and personally about what has happened in their lives – we are very careful to keep the conversation on the writing itself, not to let it stray into questions (“Did you really steal that car??”), or chit-chat (“I saw that movie too!”), or suggestions (“You should really talk to that boss of yours!”), or even sympathy (“Wow, your brother was so mean to you!”). No, we stay focused on the writing as if it existed independent of the writer sitting across the room. Fred and I even go so far as to remind everyone in the group never to assume that just because someone has written about their divorce that they want to talk about it in the kitchen afterwards. Not at all. What is written is sacred.

So I do not write about my life to get suggestions or sympathy. I don’t write to get anything, except the sense that I am heard. I write to express my world, what I live with, who I am. I have a passion that I cannot explain for translating my world into words. I get satisfaction from it so I keep doing it.

Writing is the greatest weapon I know of against group-think. I define cults by groups that foster group-think. Siddha Yoga certainly did that. I had a thousand ways at the time to justify thinking like everybody else. It wasn’t “group-think.” I called it “surrender.” And if you hadn’t understood me, if you had argued and been unconvinced, I would have just smiled and let you go on your way. This wasn’t something I could explain to you. It was in the guru’s hands.

Imagine, though, if we’d all been doing this kind of writing in the ashram. Not trying to interpret our lives and thoughts through some prism of “guru’s grace”, but honestly writing in concrete terms what we knew to be true no matter how petty and small it seemed under the blazing chandeliers of the meditation hall. The ashram would have been a very different place.

I couldn’t see the group-think for what it was when I was in it, and I am not surprised that people still deeply invested in Siddha Yoga don’t see it either. But I can see that I was not thinking for myself then the way I am now. And I know this through my writing.

I guess another way of saying it is that writing cuts into denial. When I was in the ashram, my life was built around the belief – an assumption -- that the guru was all-knowing and all-loving, that this work was the way to have the greatest life and to benefit the world the most. When I started, in Fred’s workshops, to really explore writing not about my life – but from within my life – I couldn’t go near anything that had to do with my ashram life. I could not write about it in concrete terms. I knew that without “right understanding” it would not be seen as I saw it. And "right understanding " wasn't anything concrete. It was a sort of secret ingredient that only the initiated had. Nothing I could write about.

So I had a fence around my guru-centered life. For awhile, that fence kept writing out. As soon as writing found its way in, that whole area began to look very different. Suddenly, angry words were just that. Angry words. Not the guru's tender teaching.

I didn’t anticipate all the hate mail. It’s funny how they use my own writing that I have published myself as if it were heavily researched material that they have “dug up,” as if they were showing things I never wanted known. I don’t think I would write and publish those stories if I wanted to keep all that hidden. So much for their “scoop!”

It’s funny too how often the writer demands that I retract what I have said about Siddha Yoga. I know that whoever writes something like that hasn’t read much of what I have written. They have probably been prompted to write something aggressive by a phone call from someone else. You can’t retract memoir! You can’t retract the simple honest telling of what you remember. Which is all this book is. If you want to continue believing that the woman in the book, Gurumayi, is an enlightened saint, go right ahead. I guess for a lot of people it works. For me, it didn’t. I wasn’t getting out of life what I wanted. I thought I was for awhile, for over ten years, but I grew out of it. I wanted more. I wanted something else. And I don’t for one moment regret that moving on, this new life I have stepped into that feels my own.

People don’t have to like what I have written. But don’t try and tell me to write something else. You write something else. This is my writing. It’s what’s true for me. In ten years my writing will be deeper. I’ll be able to say more. For now, this is the best I can do.