Delving ever deeper into the nether rungs of the hell-text, Eat Pray Love, I come upon the passage in which our hero decides that she needs a guru. And that’s when it hits me: being a guru is a pretty good gig. No need to freeze your robe off on a frosty mountain top. Just set up shop in a New Delhi ashram, and let the wealthy Westerners come to you. Speak in horoscopic platitudes, nod as if you harbor oceans of understanding, and dispense wisdom so broad that it applies to nothing and everything at once. Keep it vague enough and you can’t be wrong.
Your clientele will range from palatable celebrities (George Harrison, say) to obscure weirdos (like, every other divorcee from Marin County, California). Every now and then, some cynical wanker will exploit you for a book. But mostly it’s a good life, there in the tranquility of your surroundings, meditating on your mantras. Your acolytes adore you. And on the odd chance you sense that their worshipfulness is waning, gently raise the prospect of a suicide pact.
I’ve never had a guru. But I used to see a shrink, and she was something like a guru, only with a shorter beard. Getting to her office, through cross-town rush hour traffic, was more difficult than summiting an alpine peak. She carried herself like a spiritual teacher, sitting in her throne-like chair, answering my questions with more questions. When my bank account ran dry, I decided I was cured.
Not everyone’s a quack. But a sucker is born every day, and two to buy a book like Eat Pray Love. It reminds me of those days, in my early 20s, when I bought into all kinds of packaged self-improvement: seminars, books-on-tape, Sanskrit chants before sweaty yoga. I had a girlfriend then, who was too sharp and mature to date a guy like me. One night, I showed up at her pad with my latest purchase: a bottle of dried herbs that some snake oil salesman told me would give me peace of mind and heighten my IQ.
I believed him.
“Well,” said my girlfriend in a non-judgmental tone. “If you never buy another bottle, you’ll know it worked.”
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