In 2011, an Indian spiritual teacher named Sri Kumare set up a new practice in Phoenix, Arizona.
Kumare had a couple of women in tow — one Indian, who acted as his personal assistant, and the other white, who guided Kumare’s meditation and yoga sessions.
These women helped Kumare build up a following in Phoenix quickly. But it’s not clear he really needed their help.
After all, Kumare looked like the perfect embodiment of an Indian guru.
He was tall, gaunt, and had long black hair and a long black beard. He wore flowing robes, held onto a wooden walking stick, and walked with a strange stumbling gait.
And of course, then you heard him speak.
Kumare had a thick Indian accent when he dropped his mystical wisdom such as, “All this… the world… is an illusion,” and, “The guru is inside YOU.”
Plus he stared really intensely at people when he spoke.
One time, a five-year-old boy who had just met Kumare confessed, “I like to play! All the time!”
Kumare stared at the boy. And then he smiled and said shyly in his thick accent, “I like to play… also!”
One of the women who became Kumare’s disciple was a death penalty attorney named Toby.
She fought for the rights of people who had been sentenced to the death penalty and who had lost all their appeals. It was a very stressful and emotionally draining job.
Kumare stared intensely at Toby. “Why… do you want to help those people?” he asked, with no judgment in his voice.
Toby explained how these death row inmates have lost the support of everybody, including their families. They needed somebody to fight for them.
Kumare nodded while continuing to stare at Toby. Later, Toby explained why she started looking to Kumare as her guru:
“When somebody shows interest in what you’re interested in, it makes you want to get to know them better. It makes you want to learn as much as you can.”
This made me think of something I found in my notes from the past month. “The biggest thing you can do for others,” I wrote, “is to like and accept them.”
Now I don’t know if that’s really true. I think we are all a bundle of different needs. At different times, those different needs take turns being uppermost.
But the need to be liked and accepted is definitely up there, and it’s up there a lot of the time.
Anyways, if you know the story of Kumare, then you know how it ends.
But if you do not know the story of Kumare, then I highly recommend watching a documentary made about the man. And I recommend you do it without reading any reviews first.
Because there’s a lot in this movie, and it’s best if you come to it with an open mind.
In fact, there’s so much in this movie that it should be required viewing for anybody interested in persuasion of any kind.
One day, if I ever create the curriculum for my mythical AIDA School, this movie will be part of the first semester, along with Guthy-Renker’s Personal Power infomercial and Chip and Dan Heath’s Made To Stick.
I bet you can find Kumare the documentary on your favorite streaming service. But if you don’t want to search around for it, or if you just want to watch a couple minutes to see if it’s really worth your time, then here’s a grainy copy that somebody posted to YouTube: