.
Once upon a time,
in a land not far away,
there lived a teacher.
He was young, charismatic,
had presence and shakti—
could pull those in his aura
into the thrill of their own selves.
He soon acquired a following.
But he came to believe
he was the perfected being—
had completed the path,
all the way to Buddhahood.
He had surpassed his teachers
and looked down from on high
as they succumbed to temptation
and, one by one, fell from grace.
His perfected sense of self
could bear no criticism—
especially from peers
who dared reflect back
his catalogue of imperfections.
He could never doubt his exalted nature.
So everything he did was ultimate truth:
non-negotiable, never to be questioned.
In his eyes, his students could never attain
the glorious spiritual heights he dwelt in.
So he berated them. He tortured them.
He gloried in the pain of their egos burning.
And when anyone rose up,
he would trip them—
plunging them back
into the hell of self-doubt.
He became unapproachable in his perfection—
unless on bended knee, forehead to the ground.
Students prostrated to his image,
showered him with flowers
to appease their transgressions.
Looking back, he claimed
he could see no trace—
no karmic trail that might suggest error.
Yet those of us with eyes to see
witnessed the mounting carnage:
broken souls,
tormented beings who left convinced
they’d missed their one shot at heaven.
But inside,
he was a frightened little man
who had never been forced to face himself—
unable to accept his own fallibility.
The mask of glory was gripped so tightly
his knuckles were white with the tension.
Inevitably, cracks appeared.
Illusions are made to fracture, then vanish.
His fall came rapidly,
like a house of cards collapsing in on itself.
Just as the Wizard of Oz was exposed
as the charade he paraded,
the curtain was torn from his face—
and a frail shadow of a man emerged,
naked, covered in ashes,
lost and bewildered.
His empire shattered in ruins at his feet.
This could have been a turning point—
a reckoning.
An opportunity to gaze in the mirror
and truly see himself.
A phoenix might have risen from the ashes.
We are all broken for a reason.
We must be shattered to uncover
our long-defended hearts.
To find the hidden strength in vulnerability.
To realise that in transparency,
there is nothing left to defend
and nothing left to explain.
But he did his penance
as quickly as looked reasonable.
He made a stab at an apology tour—
lacking honesty, lacking context—
and then, like the T-1000 Terminator,
he reformed into a new perfection.
The irony?
He once accused us
of that same relentless reassembly of ego
during the period he called The Holocaust.
The new image:
a “truly humble” teacher,
lessons learned,
ready to take the fight back to ego—
and write yet another autobiography about it.
(The fourth in the quartet.)
What a missed opportunity.
For true humility.
For a radical new approach to relating.
For abandoning the need for narrative—
the messianic identity,
the dream of being Maitreya reborn.
He could have emerged,
simply,
into the new light of day.
He could have become a healing source
for his damaged students.
But he could not bear to face them.
To acknowledge the band of extraordinary individuals
who gathered like moths to his flame—
who found their own authenticity.
Who discovered they could stand alone in truth,
and be the shining lights
he never let them become.
R.I.P.