I’ve written enough about my Guru so that most people familiar with my story probably know how I absolutely revere the guy. For me, Guruji was the end all, be all of mastery and I’ve modeled my way after his. In fact, I recall one fine day sitting in the hermitage garden, sharing time over tea and a good smoke, I happened to find myself deep in imagination over the precise level of his mastery. I understood the valley to be full of sages, the hills to be full of sadhu, the entire country to be so full of wise men and masters that there was actually a council of the wise and a duly elected leader to sit at the head of the council. They called him Shankaracharya, and I honestly wondered why Guruji had not been elected to that position. But rather than ask Him that, instead I asked Him this.

“Babaji – what’s the difference between the masters?” I asked. He answered me, characteristically, with equal simplicity.

“The clarity of the teachings,” he said, offering nothing more, leaving me to chew on the words if they hadn’t struck the chord immediately, or to research further if I needed to.

In this case, I would dive deep into the sects of Shaivism, the politics of Vedanta, and the mighty forums playing host to the widely divergent opinions on Sanatana Dharma. In the end, though, I found the truth to be exactly as my master described it. The clarity of the teaching is indeed what differentiates one master from another.

And all this is by way of teeing up the answer to the question: Are Gurus and Spiritual Teachers Full of Bliss or Full of Shit? Well, I’ll tell you.

It’s difficult to speak to weather he was, in fact, happy. After all, a smile doesn’t tell the whole story, and happiness, while being relative, is also quite the judgment call. But neither is this particular piece an exposition on an Aghori’s relationship with duality either.

What I can tell you, beyond a doubt, was that my Master was absolutely, certifiably, 100% full of shit. A god-blessed, cosmic entertainer he was, and it is precisely at the point at which I determined this, that I fell completely in love with him, and knew him to be the Master I always wanted to be.

I remember the moment vividly. It was the first time I’d ever been to the hermitage, way back in ’95. After days of just watching him, listening to him, the certainty I felt when his simple words of his discourse permeated me and nested. It was just another lazy evening sitting around his foyer, watching him when I finally understood. The group was in awe, of this or that, none could see the drama he was masterfully creating and playing at for our benefit, to teach us something about the machinations of life and Nature Herself. But I caught it, there like Venus at midnight—the most obvious twinkle in his eye mid-story that told me immediately that this guy was more full of shit than anybody I’d ever been blessed to meet in my life. And He caught me back and whispered into the wind at that moment. “Yes, Mama. This boy has understood something.”

You see, on the backdrop of the eternal one finds the blank screen of awareness, and on this screen we are able to project absolutely anything at all. This is the right of every human being. Unfortunately only a very few understand this poignantly enough to really have fun. To really make a life of it. 

Anything you project upon the screen is only going to be a projection, and the more conscious you are that you are projecting, the more full of shit you become. Because you are acting. In any and every case, you are acting. Only acting. Ever.

Being full of shit, for most people, is just another of the harsher judgments, when actually owning one’s full-of-shitness might just be the happiest state one could ever find themselves in at all.