The Guru Looked Good: An Impious Memoir
By Marta Szabo
3.5/5
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About this ebook
The Guru Looked Good tells the real-life story of a young woman leaving her Manhattan life and lover to join an internationally known yoga movement headed by a glamorous female guru -- the same organization and guru featured in the bestseller, Eat, Pray, Love.
Like a fast-paced novel, The Guru Looked Good follows its narrator as she moves up the hierarchy of this international yoga movement to become secretary to Gurumayi – a woman revered as God by hundreds of thousands of people around the globe. Against a lush background of marble fountains, chandeliers, carpeted meditation halls and landscaped gardens from New York to India, we get an inside look at a cult-like world.
Set within a culture where it is impossible to speak – or even think – one’s mind for fear of being disloyal, The Guru Looked Good is the story of a person unable to give up forever what she wants and who she is.
Eat, Pray, Love from the other side of the sticky mat...clear-sighted and true to the bone...
-- Chronogram magazine
Fascinating!...This writing enriched my life.
-- Alphie McCourt, A Long Stone's Throw
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 deeply insightful writing shares the gifts and trappings of guru culture with such careful and compelling detail that we recognize ourselves at every turn... Her journey is a page- turning triumph of discipline, self-exploration, and following the calling of her own creative heart.
-- Carla Goldstein, director of the Women’s Institute at Omega
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
Should be required reading for memoir writers.
-- Brenda Mantz, writer
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
Marta Szabo
Marta Szabo is the co-director of Authentic Writing, a studio for writers, based in upstate New York and Manhattan, and founded in 1993 by her husband, the writer Fred Poole. Marta and Fred created the first Woodstock Memoir Festival in 2009, and have curated and hosted three subsequent Memoir Festivals at Omega Institute in Rhinebec, NY.Marta was an editor in mass-market paperbacks then in magazines, interspersing these early careers with a serious pursuit of yoga and meditation. She lived in an ashram – a yogic monastery -- for over ten years, spending a year and a half in India.Marta posts her writing regularly at Experiments-in-Memoir.
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Reviews for The Guru Looked Good
3 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Subject itself was interesting with its insight over daily devotee, but I found the narrative annoyingly bad written. I did not enjoy reading this. In my personal opinion, the author turned herself unlikeable and shallow by highlighting constantly the she is isn't. Character felt also very distant and unable to express empathy towards people close to her. Of course feeling of being used, being mentally abused of any cult is a terrible thing and I'm glad the author has spoken her views. But as a book, I can not recommend this.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Okay. Here is a memoir of one woman’s 10 year experience of Siddha Yoga. Anyone conversant with this library will know that I either am or have been intimately involved in this path.Ahh, Siddha Yoga. I was involved with this spiritual practice from 1989 until about 2004. I got involved because of an experience I had during a Holotropic Breathing session. (This was a rather radical ‘shaktipat’ or “descent of grace,” as described in the “Pratyabhijnahrdayam” - in this library).Before the experience, the idea of becoming involved in ANOTHER organized religion (read ‘belief system’) was abhorrent. As a result of my involvement, the idea is even more abhorrent.So anyway, Marta’s memoir turned out to be a real page-turner for me. All the ‘inside dope’ is here: everything that was going on behind the scenes, all the politics, all the in-fighting a nosy-parker and arcanophile could ask for. It is my experience that there are no politics like church politics, and this memoir tends to bring out this point. Now, let me say here that I generally sympathize with Marta, and appreciate the courage it took to publish this. I also sympathize with her in regard to the vilifying insults and threats she was subjected to by many (delusional) defenders of SYDA. Personally, I saw very little that, on the face of it, I would find offensive. But then, I dislike belief systems so intensely that there is nothing anyone could say or do that would threaten any of my cherished beliefs (since I try not to have any). And if I do feel threatened, then I know it’s time for introspection (unlike Marta's detractors). Read Karen Horney, ‘Neurosis and Human Growth’ (in this lib).Marta got to be in the second or third circle of Gurumayi’s assistants, and while in this position had many close interactions with her. I have to say, I would have thought someone who got to the place Marta did would be a little more self-aware. This aspect of her interactions gave me some good belly-laughs: 1. She was walking in the garden at Ganeshpuri Ashram (excuse me, GURUDEV SIDDHA PEETH), and the Guru came around a corner in the path. Marta stood to one side with her hands in prayer position. Gurumayi walked up to her and said “I’m not crazy you know.” What do you do when the guru walks up to you and says, “I’m not crazy”? I just about fell out of the chair.2. Gurumayi gave Marta two pieces of clothing (more detail in the book - read it yourself). Marta thought they were an indication that GM thought she wasn’t dressing appropriately. She wore one even though it was a couple sizes too small and when GM said “you don’t have to wear them, you know,” She got rid of them. Heh. Where did Marta think these items came from? Did she think GM sent someone down to the local version of K-mart to get them?3. GM sent her one of HER hair brushes, and she had the same reaction. Fortunately this time her roommate told her what it was.See, when the guru gives you something that she has personally used, that is considered a GREAT HONOR (it’s in the Gurugita).This is the kind of comedy that ensues when beliefs are taken too seriously (in my experience). What most people don’t understand is that spiritual practice is NOT about beliefs. It is beliefs that are the primary delusions of spiritual practitioners, and if they can’t let go of these, they have no business to be involved and will only cause trouble for themselves and everyone they come in contact with. And speaking of GURUS -This book dances around some intractable problems with top-down authoritarian spiritual systems. (Marta seems to be ignorant of these - this does not mean everyone in SYDA is....) To wit:1. Church politics is always with us. If a given group isn’t overtly a cult, one can be sure that there are members who will undertake to make it one as quickly as they can.2. What can be done with all the passive aggressives, the neurotics and the crazies? Since they can’t just be shown the door (often they are hard to detect until they start causing trouble), how can they be handled? There used to be special rooms at SY ashrams for people who made alot of noise during programs (shouting, barking like dogs, howling, etc.) The crazies are allowed in until they do something too over the top, and then they are ‘asked to leave.’ For instance, become an in-the-flesh avatar of Gurumayi and see how far you get.3. Inevitably, it seems, enemies will be made, people will become corrupted by exposure to absolute power, and what can be done?4. This one applies particularly to Americans and refers to various sexual pecadillos that have been reported: If you do bad things and don’t get caught, you are seen to be pretty cool, a sharp operator, someone to emulate, etc. The minute you get caught, you are a no good SOB. And these days, no one has to prove a thing to take you down. Rumor and innuendo work just fine. Understand that I am not taking sides here (I’m not accusing anyone of lying or anything else like that). I’m just saying....5. There are many, many rules and moral precepts that are taught, promoted and insisted upon. How can one perform this practice without getting tangled up in dualistic beliefs and similar delusions? (Understand that Siddha Yoga and Kashmir Shaivism are monistic). How can one be ‘on the inside,’ (one of the cogs in the machine, as Marta was) and still do spiritual practices? It’s just about impossible not to take sides in all the church politics, blaming, neurotic fearmongering and mental warfare that go on constantly in the ashram community. And if one has attained a certain level of self-awareness - better not let it show! It was these aspects of the SYDA experience that led me to back off.6. There is the problem surrounding the idea of Gurus, who they are and what they do. Here I recommend Joel Kramer & Diana Alstad, ‘The Guru Papers,’ (in this lib). One might also take a look at Boudon’s ‘The Art of Self-Persuasion.’One of the best things I ever read regarding all the above points is found in Feuerstein’s ‘Holy Madness’: “Belief is not an appropriate response to the words or the actions of the guru.”Finally, I reiterate, enlightenment is not about belief. This is a really hard thing to get. The universe does not conform itself to the belief systems of human beings. Enlightenment is not about belief.sgmkj
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