Selling Salvation

The mystery man came over
And he said, “I’m out of sight”
He said, “For a nominal service charge
I could reach Nirvana tonight”
If I was ready, willing and able
To pay him his regular fee
He would drop all the rest of his pressing affairs
And devote his attention to me

Frank Zappa — Cosmik Debris

In any time of crisis (like now), there is no shortage of people (usually men) who step forward with seeming solutions to your woes. Sometimes they are true snake oil salesmen, and sometimes they are well-meaning, but dangerous purveyors of a kind of certainty that offers us temporary relief from our exhaustion, but no real sense of ourselves. These people are usually charismatic interpreters rather than regulating elders. Their goal is to keep you, whether they know it or not, dysregulated and dependent on their output.

The word guru is from the Sanskrit, meaning remover of darkness.

What’s often missed is that the “darkness” here was never just ignorance. It was confusion, disorientation, fear, and the feeling of not knowing where to stand in yourself or in the world.

A real guru—by function, not by title—is someone whose presence reduces that confusion rather than feeding it.

People like Ramana Maharshi or Anandamayi Ma were not interpreters of the world. They did not keep people oriented around them through constant explanation. In many cases, they barely spoke. People didn’t leave their presence charged up or convinced. They left quieter, slower, and less confused. That effect was physiological, not intellectual. Their goal was to set you free, not keep you around, dependent on their pearls of wisdom. In my opinion, this is what any good teacher, spiritual or not, would do.

Contrast that with modern figures like Sadhguru or Deepak Chopra, whose influence depends on constant output—talks, books, interviews, programs, institutions. Whatever their intentions, the nervous-system effect is usually stimulation rather than regulation. People feel energized, reassured, even inspired…but rarely settled. Calm is always just around the corner, delivered in the next clip, the next concept, or the next purchase.

The same pattern shows up outside explicitly spiritual spaces.

Figures like Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson don’t claim spiritual authority, but they function as orienting figures for millions of people. They offer interpretation, certainty, and a sense of coherence in a chaotic world. For exhausted nervous systems, that can feel like relief.

But again, the question isn’t sincerity. It’s impact.

Do you slow down after sustained contact? Or do you stay alert, keyed up, ready for the next explanation?

A regulating elder decentralizes authority. Over time, you need them less.
A charismatic interpreter recenters authority. Over time, you need them more.

This is the nervous-system difference between regulation and activation.

A real remover of darkness doesn’t replace your capacity to orient. They restore it. They leave you more capable of standing inside your own experience without immediately reaching for another voice to tell you what it means.

If someone’s presence consistently makes you more certain but less settled, that’s not enlightenment. That’s stimulation dressed up as clarity.

Frank Zappa saw this decades ago. The technology has changed. The platforms are bigger. The lighting is better.

But Cosmik Debris is still Cosmik Debris.