Stripping the Gurus by Geoffrey D. Falk, 2009, is an important document about the life and pitfalls in spiritual communities around the world. The author himself has spent months in an ashram and many more researching a number of the worlds most known gurus. The research is meticulous, the writing engaging, and the overall thesis: devastatingly true.
“Don’t get suckered in. Be prepared. Be informed. Find out what reportedly goes on behind the scenes in even the best of our world’s spiritual communities. You can start by reading this book.”
Stripping the Gurus
Stripping the Gurus is an important document about the life and pitfalls in spiritual communities around the world
Written by: Geoffrey D. Falk
Published by: Million Monkeys Press
Edition: First
ISBN: 978-0-9736203-3-7
Available in: Ebook
Download the book here (534 pages):
Thank you for having the courage to offer this book. The truism that people believe what they wish to believe is never more evident than in the field of religion. The fact that the personal lives of so many of these spiritual teachers are utterly disgraceful should give one and all pause for thought.
he repeats the story like a man obsessed: religion is a load of guff. Obviously there are many false gurus, but there’s more to religion than that. An antidote to this book is Aldous Huxley’s “Perennial philosophy” which I haven’t found at your site.
I have gone through the book and surprised to note the various activities of spiritual Gurus who have esteem regards in the eyes of the public particularly among Indians. The citations and references are also given by the author to support those facts. However, the author has been very prejudice from religion point of view. He has thrown most of the light on Hindu religion. He should have some more examples from other religion too.
As a former, very serious Comparative Religions major with emphasis on classical language studies — Biblical Greek, Hebrew, classical Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, Coptic, Sanskrit, Pali and Classical Chinese — who also lived in several American yoga ashrams in my 20’s and continued to visit others into my 50’s, I can ASSURE you that Geoffrey Falk’s book deserves close attention by any sincere
spiritual seeker. Naturally, overly pious people who are uncritical in their thinking will try to denigrate his work but, from my own personal experience, having seen some of this behavior first-hand, he is RIGHT ON!! Thanks HolyBooks for including this work on your website!
This book is nonsense.
It has become trend to get afraid of truth about spirit and god and then defame the person. Yes, there are many saints all over world who are just bundle of deception.
But we should also be aware that in the name of being “modern” we should not accept garbage.
It is another trend that if you want to be called good muslim. then abuse islam. If u want to be modern hindu then mock hinduism and if u want to be called as nice Christian then use “f*** and jesus” in same breath as searing words.Abuse everything religious is hip-n-happening.
This books tells that Swami Vivekananda used to frequent sex-workers.
Even the opponent of Hindusim who has studied about Swami Vivekananda will see this is mental abnormality of the author.
Please administrator of “holybooks.com” do not distribute such books, as anyone who want to turn toward spiritualism will learn all untrue fables by this irresponsible author.
There is no need to think of ‘Gurus’ as different from the common man. The only difference is that one of them [who knows which one] may have realised their true nature. This great occasion does not automatically, nor inevitably rid the person of their desire. In some cases it may just isolate and concentrate those desires further, leading to the type of behaviour referenced in this book. You are correct, in the sense that the book should not be used as an argument against Vedanta, or any religion for that matter. The highest truth is sacrosanct however human frailty intertwines with that highest truth creating reality as we know it. Namaste
This book is a must have for the normal indian public , who mostly have a blind-faith towards religion and the so called saints and their miracles which are nothing but tricks to fool and loot us.
I’m not saying that all saints are frauds , but in todays dark age (kali yuga) 90% are.