Dear Aspiring Godman,
Let me begin by extending my heartiest congratulations to you on your excellent choice of career. To become a godman is the most lucrative pathway to fame that a person of your limited scruples and morality could ever have hoped to embark on.
May I also congratulate you on your immaculate sense of timing! This is the best possible time to follow your chosen profession. Economic distress is at an all-time high and employment at an all-time low. Social media proliferation is soaring, and collective scientific temper and rationality have crashed. The masses are in despair and ripe and ready to follow anyone who can create the illusion of comfort and succour.
Above all, we have a vishwaguru at the helm of affairs, who, despite his best attempts to sound scientific and modern, has succeeded in creating the perfect atmosphere for blind devotion and superstition to truly flourish. With his proclivity for temple inaugurations, meditation retreats, and frequent dips in holy rivers (and some prolonged ones in the ocean with diver suit and helmet), he has unwittingly or otherwise prepared the ground for us to do our thing.
As someone who has been in the business for a while, let me share some quick tips or ‘guru hacks’ if you will, to speed you along on your journey as a godman:
Tip No. 1: Focus on Branding: All godmen and godwomen (including you) basically preach the same sort of message, which can be summed up in roughly six words:
Put Rationality Aside And Follow Me.
So how can you differentiate yourself from all the others? Focus on branding! Use buzzwords, one-liners, colours, tropes and catch phrases that are uniquely you. As a smart godman, you will need to create an image of yourself in the minds of the masses in a way that creates instant brand recall! Think about how the best in our business do it. Some do ‘inner engineering’, while others promote ‘the art of living’; some dress in red and want to be carried around, while others offer citizenship to mythical countries. Develop your own unique persona and stick to it.
Tip No. 2: Don’t worry about making sense – In fact, the less sense you make, the better. The godman business is all about faith in the irrational. Sound profound and keep a straight face while you say absolutely any gibberish that comes to mind. You will be delighted to see how sagely most people will wisely nod along. Almost no one will challenge you. (In the rare instance that someone does, your bouncers can escort them out and make sure they never set foot in your satsang again)
Tip No. 3: Do satsangs often – There is nothing quite as seductively comforting as being in the company of like-minded gullibles. It gives one a sense of community – however short-lived – and people will often easily believe in a group what they wouldn’t dream of believing on their own. Make sure you video these well. Hire the professionals with cranes and jimmy jibs to catch the crowd shots. And then push the satsangs far and wide on your social media channels.
Tip No. 4: Use both carrot and stick – Use the ‘carrot’ of moksh, miracles and mann ki shanti, and the ‘stick’ of fear and “something will bad happen to you and/or your family if you don’t do exactly what I say”. That old marketing mantra – “Fantasy and fear can sell anything” – has never been truer than it is in the godman business!
Tip No. 5: Never be too accessible to the aam janta (hoi polloi) – Seek out and cater to the rich first. Everything else will follow. The rich patrons will build you your ashram, let you use their mansions for exclusive darshans (thereby elevating their own social status amongst their peers) and let you drive around in their BMWs and Mercs, till such a time as you make enough money to get your own flotilla. (Oh, and make it very easy for your outfit to receive large sums of money, so the well-heeled can launder… I mean… give you generous donations, and reap all manner of benefits – tax-related and otherwise).
I wish you all the best in your new endeavour.
Godman Sr.
P.S. The above advice works equally well for godwomen too.
By Rohit Kumar
Rohit Kumar is an educator, author and independent journalist and can be reached at letsempathize@gmail.com
