Current Letter | John's Letter Archives
Winter 1995
NAMASTE,
In September I went to Europe to teach in Germany and Austria. In addition to the classes and some sightseeing I decided to travel to Thalheim, a small German village an hour north of Frankfurt, to visit Mother Meera, a thirty-six year old Indian woman who relocated from her native country in 1981.
I had heard of Mother Meera through the grapevine, but really became interested after reading an article in the Sept./Oct. ’91 issue of Yoga Journal by Mark Matousek titled “Living in the Light”. In it Matousek interviews Andrew Harvey, poet, novelist, scholar, teacher, and author of Hidden Journey: A Spiritual Awakening, a book about his remarkable experiences as a devotee of and spokesperson for Mother Meera.
In discussing Harvey’s book at the outset of the article, Matousek quotes James Merrill, who says of Harvey: “Embassies keep heading our way from superpowers at the outermost (or innermost) reaches of the cosmos. But how few human landing strips there are in any century, and of these how few are literary artists. Andrew Harvey is the exception.”
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Early in the interview, before speaking directly of his relationship with Mother Meera, Harvey, the youngest person ever elected as a fellow (professor) at Oxford, stresses the importance of skepticism for the seeker. He says that “the skeptic has a great advantage over the more fanatical, so-called spiritual people. Skepticism, if it does not block you, is a tremendous advantage on the search, because you need all the lucidity you can muster. You need to be able to doubt, especially the fantasies of your own ego…It is essential to doubt your own desire to overvaluate the experience you’ve had…You must remain vigilant. Skepticism and vigilance are closely akin, but it’s an open-souled, generous skepticism, not a mean-spirited one.”
I like to think of myself as attempting to maintain that quality of “open-souled, general skepticism”, although I know that sometimes I’m not so generous and slip into the cauldron of condescension and cynicism. At other times I’m sure I overvaluate the experiences I’ve had. I’ve magnified minor insights into cosmic import, and I’ve certainly elevated people onto unwarranted and impossible pedestals. But I try as best I can to keep both my eyes and my heart open.
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So I was stunned when Harvey, who has so steeped himself in the bosom of rational Western thought, only two questions later says: “It is important to remember that an incarnation (an embodiment of God) comes down with enormous power…Think what the Buddha made possible, what Christ made possible, what Krishna made possible! And think what Mother Meera will make possible for the world! I know perfectly well that millions of people will attain illumination because she has been here. I have seen her power and have no doubt that she will alter the whole history of this period.”
Whew! After that, and after having heard several people that I know who have been to see Mother Meera speak of their experiences in terms ranging from glowing to ecstatic, and being as how I was in the neighborhood, I figured I should stop by and check out what was happening.
As fate would have it, just before I left on my trip, Common Boundary printed an interview with Andrew Harvey by Rose Solari in their Sept./Oct. 1994 issue. After ten years as Mother Meera’s spokesperson and after uttering the passionate praise I reprinted earlier, Harvey says in this interview: “I left my teacher, I have left Mother Meera, separated completely from her. I no longer believe she’s an avatar (an incarnation of God).”
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Harvey terminated his relationship with Mother Meera, he says, because she disapproved of his homosexual relationship with his lover, Eryk. He says that now he has “met true love, and so [is] no longer alone, melancholy, fixated on [Mother Meera], and always manipulable.” Having in his own mind exalted this woman to the level not just of guru or enlightened master, but to the level of avatar, he now demotes her, describing gurus, including Mother Meera, as “near crazy and very dangerous”.
What is one to believe: that Mother Meera (insert any Guru’s name) is truly an incarnation of God or at least an enlightened master? Or that she is a well meaning (or not so well meaning) but delusional human who simply struck a note many long to hear? That those who believe in Mother Meera are those who are ready to have the truth revealed to them, unlike those who scoff or doubt? Or that such devotees are sad, longing people who prefer to believe in fantasies rather than face a much less comforting reality?
It seems the generous, open-souled skepticism that Harvey advocates dictates that the answer be: I don’t know. As Hamlet says, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
My own experience with Mother Meera was not at all extraordinary. She seemed like a sweet and sincere woman. The 150 or so people who had come to see her seemed, for the most part, honest and open, devoted to Mother Meera or, like me, curious about her. But it was an experience that for me stirred up neither cynicism nor infatuation.
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The point of the newsletter is not actually about Mother Meera, my experience of her, or Andrew Harvey’s adventures and ideas, however. What was stirred up in me by my experience with Mother Meera were questions concerning the desire or need many of us have to find someone to elevate above ourselves, someone to reveal to us some secret that will give us peace, contentment or happiness; someone who will relieve our suffering; someone who will give our lives meaning or purpose. I do know that when we put people on pedestals, we invite disappointment, anger and pain. Goddesses and gods may be able to fulfill our wishes and desires, but rarely humans.
No doubt we will always need guides, mentors, teachers, and exemplary models to help us find our way to truth and understanding. I feel this particularly now as I prepare to return to India to be with my teacher, B.K.S. Iyengar. But maybe it’s time for us to stop trying to turn our teachers and our leaders into “perfect masters” or “divine incarnations” and see them as human beings, struggling with many of the same problems we wrestle with and containing the same spark of divinity we ourselves harbor. Those who have gone deeper than we in uncovering their inner light can certainly show us how we may shed our own mantle of ignorance and fear. But let’s examine our inclination to turn these people into Gods and Goddesses, for by so doing I believe we rob ourselves of our own power. And perhaps we contribute to our idols’ enslavement in a prison they all too willingly enter.
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