Fitter Stoke:
Have you guys seen
Kumaré?
Basically this Indian-American guy puts on robes, grows a beard, adopts an Indian accent, and pretends to be a spiritual guru. He makes up a philosophy and gets a small following/cult going out in Arizona.
Parts of the movie are hysterically funny. Other parts are serious and deep.
It's worth watching.
I just saw this last week at Eberfest in Champaign/Urbana IL. Director and star Vikram Gandhi was there, as was the producer Brendan Colthurst, and they talked about the film, and answered questions [which was really fascinating]. At one point, someone in the audience asked if Vikram could do the Kumare chant. He agreed, but ended up leading all 1,500 people in the audience through the "blue light meditation" [in his Kumare voice], and concluded the meditation by having Brendan lead us through the Kumare chant.
Weirdly, the film begins by trying to debunk gurus, but it seems that the majority of the people Kumare taught mostly had positive experiences. I'm not sure what that did for the film's thesis. Also, I wish he'd discussed whether he was ever tempted to exploit his students [say, sex or money]: He never really explored the dark side of such power, as it manifested in himself [during Q+A he said he never accepted money for any of his teachings]. Lastly, I thought his philosophy was really actually quite American pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps self-reliance stuff. Not much different than what might have been taught at an EST seminar, for example. In the end, what he did was ethically questionable, to say the least, but, despite it all, I found the film really entertaining, and yes, in parts very moving and compelling. I can't quite get it out of my head.
