Saturday, May 16, 2009

Timothy Conway & Guru-Ratings Sarlo

Timothy Conway & Guru-Ratings Sarlo

Timothy Conway cited Sarlo (owner of the GuruRatings WebSite And Yahoo Group) as a notable person on his behalf. Tim Conway put the following quote from Sarlo on his enlightened-spirituality.org website:
“Timothy, you have a lot of ‘engaging’ things to say and it’s been my pleasure to post some of it [e.g., the Sun magazine interview on ‘Engaged Spirituality’ at the Guru Ratings website]. It’s great to learn you have a website now--it looks excellent and broad, already well developed, lots of good news. I'll be happy to list you and link to your site. And i’ll announce it on my discussion forum. And if you don't mind, i’ll link also to your ‘Warning signs of dysfunctional cults’ and ‘Criteria for Authentic Spiritual Realization’ pages from my ‘Other Approaches to Ratings Criteria’ page at www.globalserve.net/~sarlo/Critexpo2.htm, with a few samples. Your signs and criteria would be a worthy addition. --Sarlo, creator of the much-visited ‘Guru Ratings’ website at www.globalserve.net/~sarlo/Ratings.htm.”



For starters, Sarlo (who, for some mysterious reason, does not divulge his full name) is a Rajneesh / Osho devotee (and refers to him as “my Master”), started his spiritual journey (and had a decade-long love affair) with LSD and marijuana (Reference) and refers to himself as “Swami Deva Sarlo” (claiming he is a “master”, initiate and a “god”). “Swami” means ‘master’ (a title usually conferred on initiates belonging to the Osho cult) and “deva” means ‘god’, ‘angel’ or ‘divine being’.

Like Guruphiliac Jody Radzik, Sarlo believes that he is self-realized. As a matter of fact, in an article entitled “Sarlo Declares Enlightenment”, he said:

Gururatings Sarlo: “According to Osho, one of the biggest obstacles to enlightenment is peer-group jealousy. One’s friends will simply not accept that this trippy asshole has arrived at the ultimate fulfillment while they languish in darkness. I am prepared to meet this challenge head-on. The courage to brave my friends’ scorn has been bolstered by: a) the knowledge, from Phil 101, that you don’t exist; b) end-of-millennium urgency; c) the discovery of ordinariness as a way out/cover-up; d) any or all of the above.” (Reference)

Sarlo is also a contact for an Osho-related center in Canada:

Osho Samaroha Meditation Center,
Ma Dhyan Amiyo
3676 W. 38th Ave.
Vancouver V6N 2Y2 BC
Tel.: +1-604-261-5312 (which resolves to “Gaile P. Winterton”)
E-Mail: sarlo@globalserve.net
(Reference)

One should rightly wonder why Rajneesh/Osho is listed on Sarlo’s subjective Guru-Ratings website as being one of the greatest Gurus ever to walk the Earth. I think there are many people who would take issue with such a claim. As a matter of fact, many people already have (Refs: 01 - 02 - 03 - 04 - 05 - 06 - 07).

Sarlo praised Jody’s Guruphiliac Blog as a “worthy project” and that he puts “the humourous bite on the usual guru excesses: money, sex, and power”. Ironically, Rajneesh’s excesses in money, sex and power are unparalleled in Gurudom (remember the 93 Rolls Royces?). Needless to say, Sarlo ignores the faults and failings of Osho (his “Master”) and ranks him as one of the greatest Gurus ever to walk the planet. Sarlo then has the audacity to point his self-righteous fingers at other Gurus and whine, snivel and lament about their faults and failings. Funny enough, Sarlo created a disclaimer page where he admitted that his bogus Guru-Ratings service is based on the subjective opinions of a layman (Reference).

So what did Jody Radzik have to say about Rajneesh/Osho? On his Guruphiliac Blog, Jody said:

Guruphliac Jody Radzik: “A tip of our tantric hat to Osho for his attempts to sustain such a large chakra-puja. Such wide scale transgression was certain to result in all kinds of transformation in the participants...But he had management problems and it all fell apart. We're sorry we missed the fun.” (Reference)

Jody Radzik praised Osho’s sexual excesses as a large “chakra puja” (which is a tantric ritual that involves two to ten couples who engage in ritualized sexual activities, aka “an orgy”), dismissed Osho’s many faults and failings as “management problems” and expressed regret that he missed the fun! That’s right, sexual promiscuity, power-abuse, wealth and hedonism are things that Jody Radzik and Sarlo think are laudable, praiseworthy and serve as valid criteria to give high-ranking marks to Gurus whose feet they happen to kiss and adore. It is amusing that Jody and Sarlo both profess devotion to Gurus, yet trash and bash other Gurus as if they are free from the Guru-affliction they love to point out in others.

Amusingly, Timothy Conway wrote a highly critical article about Sarlo’s Guru, Rajneesh. Timothy Conway said he was under the impression that:

“Rajneesh was another shooting star in the spiritual firmament, one of those strange but rather numerous fallen yogis who attain some glimpses or periods of a certain kind of ‘enlightened freedom,’ open up to become a channel for some unusual and palpable energies (leading mesmerized disciples to think they are in the presence of Divinity), but then sooner or later such figures become imbalanced and egocentrically full of themselves--proud, megalomaniacal, narcissistic, and/or disturbed by one or more other mental-emotional-psychic pathologies.“ (Reference)

Attempting to get some cheap publicity on the Guruphiliac Blog and on the GuruRatings Website, Timothy Conway endorses, promotes and associates himself with Jody Radzik and Sarlo. Mr Conway found Sarlo and Jody to be so respectable, he listed their names and comments on his official website beside those of Jeff Eisen, Swami Abhayananda (Stan Trout), Steve Beckow, Dr. Peter Rohr, Mike Newton and Stuart Goodnick.

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