At this point in my spiritual journey, and following my previous post on Britney Spears - and the abstinence there from - I have decided to head in the complete opposite direction (of Britney Spears) and actively commence a search for a guru. It seems a particularly appropriate move, given the diametrically opposing ideas of what my ideal spiritual guru should be, and well, Britney Spears.
Let me explain.
As any self-respecting Canadian / human being does, I have a television. I also have a computer, and my computer has this thing called the Internet. And then there are these other things called magazines and newspapers. And in all of these, and more or less owning all of these, is a woman named Oprah. And Oprah has this handy-dandy thing called a book club that I am nowhere close to being a part of, but due to the existence of all of the aforementioned things it's more or less impossible to not know exactly what is being read in Oprah's Book Club at any given time.
Which brings me to Eat, Pray, Love. I caved. I bought. I read. And, after thoroughly enjoying the Italy (eating!) section, I've started in on the India section (ashrams!). An ashram. The very concept is new to me. I mean, I've heard the word, but the whole idea seems a little cultish. And so far the book, to be honest, is not completely dispelling that notion.
But, anyway, while I'm not fervently throwing myself into the application-to-the-ashram process, I have definitely been a little bit wowed by some of the ideas she sets forth. In particular, and back to my point, the GURU! Since I've more or less stumbled through my spirituality journey, getting repeatedly sidetracked and / or distracted by my tendency to embrace the cynical, it makes sense that I would need a guru.
Now, I'm new to the guru world, and prone to instinctively dismissing the idea offhand as a little too "out there." I'm not about to shave my head, move to an ashram, or pretend that I could actually attain spiritual enlightenment. The blue light of euphoric godliness is not really my goal, and nor should it be. I like to set achievable goals, and celebrate raucously when I reach them.
But that isn't to say I'm a complete guru virgin. Sister Wendy was a nice start and really, she set the bar high, but unfortunately her whole vow of silence thing means that she has a tendency to go radio silent on me, which is not so helpful when one is on a journey such as mine. Thus, I decided to start again and begin my guru search anew. Now comes the hard part - where does one actually get a guru? My natural instinct is to search Craigslist, but I'm not sure that that is going to reap the kind of results I'm looking for.
So let's start with my ideal spiritual guru. Well, according to Wikipedia, the word guru is composed of the two syllables "gu", signifying darkness, and "ru", signifying "the destroyer of that darkness". So, a guru is someone "who dispels spiritual ignorance (darkness) with spiritual illumination (light)." Or, in other words and / or a moment of circular logic: Oprah.
Yes, you heard me, Oprah. But before the commenter frenzy begins, hear me out. Oprah won't ever be my guru. Firstly, because how could that even happen? What, I'm just supposed to call up the Harpo offices and ask?
"Hi, you've reached the offices of Oprah Winfrey, how may I help you?"
"Hi. Well, I'm on this spiritual journey thing, and I'd Iike to ask Oprah to be my guru."
[click.]
And secondly, because, well, see the first reason. It's not going to happen.
But that brings me back to Oprah again, because according to her other book club book, The Secret (which I've already mentioned once before) - apparently if I really want and truly seek a guru, the universe will provide me with one.
So: I hereby really want and truly seek a guru.
(And this is the part where if any of you actually do know Oprah / think she'd be interested in being my spiritual guru, by all means, and please, I beg of you, pass her my way!)
On that note, I'm out. Destination: Guru, here I come. And here's hoping for good guru news next week, otherwise, I'll just have to regale you with tales of East Village yoga classes, and a more in depth summary of Eat, Pray, Love.