Seeing this, the teacher became convinced that he had some tremendous power of which he was not aware. He tried to walk on water. He said to himself, “I am the teacher, the great teacher of Marpa, and I want to go to the other shore!” And he had to be saved because he was drowning. He could not believe his eyes! But from that moment, Marpa’s own miracles disappeared. Seeing the master drowning in the water, the power that he had created through trust evaporated.
It happens many times through teachers that many people start experiencing spiritual revelations. But if the teacher becomes deceived, auto-hypnotized, then he is only a teacher, a very ordinary person.
Vedant and Kamal have just come from the West. They had a great desire to travel to the West, and they have come with many experiences. Particularly in California, California-land. They were thought to be great masters, and things started happening to people. They themselves have not done a single group here, and they became great group leaders there, Tantra masters! And people were worshipping them and begging them to stay there.
That’s what has happened to people like Muktananda; it is not different. Kamal and Vedant have far more intelligence than Muktananda. Kamal was surprised when for the first time it started happening. In one of our centers they were leading a group and Kamal just went there and sat. A few people’s kundalini started arising and they started swaying, and of course, the only visible cause was Kamal’s presence. They must have fallen at his feet: “A great master has come from the East!”
I have heard that Yogi Bhajan, who is a very famous teacher in America, was just a porter at Delhi Airport. Seeing Muktananda coming with seven hundred American disciples to Delhi Airport and looking at Muktananda, he thought, “Why am I wasting my life here, carrying luggage and people’s bags?” And certainly Yogi Bhajan has a far more beautiful personality: he is a Sikh, tall, healthy, looking beautiful, impressive, presentable. Muktananda is just ugly, a duckling! Yogi Bhajan resigned from his post immediately and went to America. His name was Sardar Bhajan Singh; there he became Yogi Bhajan. And now he is the suprememost commander of the Sikh religion in the Western hemisphere and he has thousands of followers.
When others become convinced – and there are gullible people everywhere who are ready to believe, who are really desperately in need to believe, who cannot stand on their own feet, who want a father figure so that they can throw all their responsibility on his shoulders, so that they can be unburdened…They are ready to believe. Then of course the law of economics works: wherever there is demand there is supply.