alan little’s weblog

paul brunton reprise

10th October 2003 permanent link

Norman Blair responded to my previous mention of 1930s yoga researcher Paul Brunton with an interesting pointer to and quote from Jeffrey Masson’s book My Father’s Guru: A Journey Through Spirituality and Disillusion. Reviewers on Amazon have mixed views on whether the book is well enough written to be worth reading, but apparently pretty unmixed views on its debunking of Brunton.

i wish pb had been the person we all thought he was...pb offered wisdom, not knowledge, divine love, not human regard, visions, not insight, access to secret forces, not meditation, magic powers, not peruasion, mystery, secrecy, obfuscation, and paranoia....you must obey the guru, you must humble yourself, for the greater he is, the lesser you are - until you too reach the inner circle and can start abusing other people the way your guru abused you. all of this is in the very nature of being a guru....as for pb, i can’t find it in my heart to hate him, or even to despise him. i am still left with the mystery of a human being who is more than the sum of his ignorance and his pretense....he brough solace and joy to many by making claims that were not true

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