Disbelieve your gurus.
They are no more enlightened
than you.
The monsters haunting their closets
are the same
that torture your nights.
They are just as addicted to fear,
just as prone
to peddling tired platitudes
for weary coin,
just as recklessly controlling
and un(w)holy.

They will gesture towards justice with one hand
and grab your ass with the other.
Their lips will adorn peace and equity one minute
and spew fetid hatred the next.
They will perform calm and virtue
while secretly gnawing off their own hands
with vice.
They are just as afflicted as we
by the virus of decline
and narrow self-preservation—
their ability to name it
doesn’t make them
immune.

Disbelieve your gurus.
Placing faith and power
in an external god
—whether human or deity—
is an old-world custom
gasping its last.
Divinity and Wisdom
have always resided in you.
Stop questing for that
which was always waiting patiently
at home.
Stop searching and listen
within.

© S. Rinderle, June 2021

Image: https://www.hinduwebsite.com