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	Ask the Religion Experts: How Can You Distinguish Real Holy Men from Charlatans? Ottawa Citizen November 13, 2011 www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Experts/5703878/story.html KEVIN SMITH is on the board of directors for the Centre of Inquiry, Canada's premier venue for humanists, skeptics and freethinkers. The charlatans are easy to find. They're usually spotted on television, their names emblazoned on the marquee, or on occasion, they'll unwittingly headline the nightly news. Most of them are of the puffed-up hairpiece culture and tend to smile — a lot. Not a normal you or I smile, but one that is fixed in a way that must become painful. They specialize in knocking people over — to make them feel better, of course — and sometimes they'll scream in deaf people's ears — because that will make their hearing improve. They're high-def prophets for profit, peddling holy sand from the holy land or miracle water that'll quench a sucker's thirst for salvation. It's a theatre of the absurd, where the audience is pure tragic. While these charlatans are, unfortunately, very real, holy men, by definition, are not. I have yet to meet another person whom I would describe as having "a wholeness, religious completeness or perfection." Humans are imperfect, warts and all. The term "holy men" is archaic, bound into the religious privilege of male power. The phrase is an insult to the life of Isabella Baumfree, a devout Christian, born into slavery, who became a leading figure in the abolitionist movement and fought for the equality of women. It is also an affront to the work of William Sloane Coffin, whose dedication to religion was as strong as his passion for women's rights and who spoke against the brutality of war. More than their religious conviction guided these two incredibly selfless mere mortals. They were driven by something that we all share regardless of what deity we pray to, if any. It's our universal morality based on the commonality of being human. So if anyone ever calls themselves holy, call them a charlatan and don't drink their water. Rabbi REUVEN BULKA is head of Congregation Machzikei Hadas in Ottawa and host of Sunday night with Rabbi Bulka on 580 CFRA. In your question, you focus on men. I will presume that this is just an innocent use of gender specifics. As to the question itself, the first and maybe not so obvious way to distinguish real holy persons from charlatans is that anyone who claims to be holy is almost guaranteed to be a fraud. Holy people are modest people, more inclined to think of themselves as sinners than as holy. The second point, partially derivative of the first point, is that the more "in your face" the person is, the less likely is that person to be holy. Holy people are more than just modest and humble; they are also more likely to be off the radar screen, almost unknown. Those who insist that others follow them are great at sales but poor when it comes to delivery. Another alarm bell is if the person at issue claims that though there are rules, they do not apply to him/her. Those who claim special status have an agenda that is assuredly inconsistent with holiness. In the Bible, wherein the issue of false prophets is discussed, the test of authenticity is that the prophet's predictions are 100-per-cent accurate. Otherwise they are condemned as charlatans who happened to make lucky guesses. So, those "holy people" who claimed to know exactly when the world would come to an end and who were obviously wrong are at the very least false prophets. Excuses to explain away the false prophecy do not change this. Generally, unless and until a person has an unblemished record of prophecy, it is best that such person be ignored. Additionally, if the prediction or the advice seems to be of the "hard to believe" variety, it is best to be skeptical and therefore best to stay away. More important is the matter of why anyone would be concerned about who is holy. If it is in order to be guided in life, one is better off seeking a knowledgeable and reputable teacher. Charisma inspires but can also mislead. Solid, time-honoured wisdom rarely disappoints. RADHIKA SEKAR holds a PhD in religious studies and taught Hinduism courses at Carleton and University of Ottawa. An aspiring Vedantin, she is a devotee of the Sri Ramakrishna Mission. In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna asks Lord Krishna to describe the personality of a holy person. Lord Krishna refers to such persons as sthita-prajna (sthitha means "standing," prajna means "wisdom") who are ever focused on the Brahman (God). They see the presence of God in all and live "neither agitated by grief or hankering after pleasure, free from lust, fear and anger!" (56-74). It is fairly obvious that only those in the category of a Buddha, Jesus, Sri Ramakrishna or a Sri Ramana qualify. Even Mahatma Gandhi admitted that he was not a saint but "a politician trying to be a saint." But in this New Age we have many contenders both from the East and West. While some are genuinely spiritual, others unfortunately are self-appointed gurus who are little more than good businessmen or worse, charlatans who prey on the gullible and emotionally and psychologically vulnerable. Realization is a private experience and there is no perfect way to gauge a person's spirituality. However there are signs; spirituality is reflected in a person's actions, habits and character. But again many of these signs can be faked. So one must be wary. There are several websites that offer tips on how to recognize a false guru. These include being wary of those who proclaim their own enlightenment, claim to be incarnations of particular deities, explain away their outrageous and often abusive behaviour as intended to help followers grow, present meditative or healing techniques as uniquely their own, encourage adoration and are not available to followers. In many organizations followers who gain accreditation by taking the organization's teachers training courses supervise initiates. Lastly, but most crucially, real gurus do not engage in sexual affairs with followers. This amounts to abuse. Character must be the foremost quality of a guru. Rev. RICK REED is senior pastor at the Metropolitan Bible Church in Ottawa. Jesus anticipated the problem of religious charlatans when He warned, "many will come in My name, claiming, 'I am he,' and will deceive many" (Mark 13:6). In order to distinguish the faithful from the phoney, Jesus said we'd need to become fruit inspectors. Jesus talks about fruit inspecting in His famous Sermon on the Mount: "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them" (Matthew 7:15-16). When it comes to fruit inspecting, we are to look at two kinds of fruit: the fruit of lips and the fruit of life. The fruit of lips refers to the content of a religious leader's teaching. Christians hold the Bible as the gold standard for truth. So we are to make sure our teachers stay true to the truth of God's Word. The apostle Paul praised those who "examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true" (Acts 17:11). Paul knew that teachers who deviate from the truth of Scripture were bad apples peddling rotten spiritual fruit. In addition to inspecting the fruit of a religious teacher's lips, Christians are also told to inspect the fruit of the teacher's life. One of the marks of charlatans is the incongruence between what they say and how they live. Jesus came down severely on religious teachers who fail to "practise what they preach" (Matthew 23:3). While faithful teachers are not perfect people, they will show a commitment to living out the message they are giving out. Jesus put it succinctly when He said, "every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit" (Matthew 7:17). So when it comes to distinguishing real holy men from spiritual hucksters, look at the fruit. Rev. RAY INNEN PARCHELO is a novice Tendai priest and founder of the Red Maple Sangha, the first lay Buddhist community in Eastern Ontario. A Middle Eastern proverb advises: "If beards were a sign of wisdom, every goat would be a Socrates." And, we are just as likely/unlikely to find a holy woman as a holy man, gender is no guarantee. From Eckhart Tolle to Pema Chödrön, from the Dalai Lama to Oprah Winfrey, many are touted as wise or saintly. Charlatans are of two types — tricksters and criminals. With tricksters, we are dealing with those who, for their own reasons, want to fool us into seeing them as wise. I have met so-called self-taught Zen masters, those capable of transforming themselves into birds, reincarnations of everyone from Cleopatra to Jesus and intimates of interstellar visitors. Usually, their personal histories include mental illness or drug abuse. It's simpler to avoid them than to argue. Debates with the deluded or those whose primary purpose is to prove me wrong no longer hold much fascination. Ultimately, they are little more than annoyance. The second and more dangerous type claim to be extraordinary to defraud for gain. These criminals seek to separate me from my money, and tend to be as obvious as Nigerian Bank scammers. In fact, they are all well documented on religious scam-buster websites. The scariest ones, from Papa Doc Duvalier to Charles Manson, further exploit the vulnerable into doing their bidding, using alleged spiritual prowess to acquire and exert social or political power. Buddhists rely on three criteria to filter claims. First, the Buddha himself encourages us to be sceptical and never take anyone at their word. Secret knowledge is just a Visa-card swipe away. The test of any teaching and practice is its power to end suffering in the world, to speak for compassion, not power. The second filter is whether they have legitimacy in an authorized lineage. Buddha-wisdom is transmitted and approved from master to student, so claims outside this line are usually spurious. Thirdly, our precepts require us to teach without financial gain. The Dharma is not for sale and those who require money to teach or authorize us should be doubted. JACK MCLEAN is a Bahà'i scholar, teacher, essayist and poet published in the fields of spirituality, Bahà'i theology and poetry The question carries a supposition and begs a question. It supposes that a faculty of discernment exists. If discernment is absent, then we can expect the charlatan — a euphemism for the hypocrite — to fool some of the people some of the time. The second point is this: what is the definition of holiness? One person's holiness may not be another's. In the life of faith, everything depends upon credibility; credibility depends upon example. Professed religious persons know that they must strive sincerely to be a living example of their chosen spirituality. Faith in our day must be translated into active service to society. To be true, holiness must be tried and tested in adversity. The simplest answer is, of course, that the charlatan does not walk the walk. He or she seriously betrays some cardinal virtue(s) befitting the religious life: a violation of chastity; greed; the love of luxury; illegal or immoral business practices; intemperance and so forth. Charlatans prey on the weak, the innocent and the naïve, using their religion for self-satisfaction. Bahá'ís are fortunate in having 'Abdu'l-Bahá (1844-1921), the son and successor of the Prophet-Founder Bahá'u'lláh (1817-1892), as the ideal model of every spiritual virtue. Let some of the 10,000 souls who attended his funeral on Nov. 28, 1921 in Haifa speak for themselves. Nine speakers from the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, all the notables of the British administration and foreign delegations, gathered on Mount Carmel to lay 'Abdu'l-Bahá to rest. It was an interfaith funeral, quite unlike any other ever held in the Holy Land. Salomon Bouzaglo, one of the leading figures of the Jewish community in Haifa, described 'Abdu'l-Bahá as having been "the living example of self-sacrifice"; a Christian writer declared that he lived "the life of the Messenger and Apostles of God"; the Mufti of Haifa spoke of "the beautiful and wondrous story of his life, spent in doing that which is right and good." Real holy men are distinguished by their deeds — whatever their religion. Rev. KEVIN FLYNN is an Anglican priest and director of the Anglican studies program at Saint Paul University. The Christian will discern holiness in another (it's much too risky to try to do so in yourself!) by observing the fruits of the other's life. St. Paul says that the fruit of the Spirit is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Galatians 5:22). Or we might recall Jesus' message of love that calls us to love other people in the way one takes care of oneself (see Mark 12:30; Matthew 22:39). Jesus' own life was a demonstration of the holiness that flows out of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12). This is the morality of being happy with less instead of always wanting more, of being gentle rather than aggressive, of being compassionate rather than cold-hearted, of being fair-minded rather than prejudiced, of being merciful rather than vengeful, of having pure rather than mixed motives, of making peace rather than seeking victory, of risking persecution rather than playing it safe. The holy women and men of Christian history have understood faith to be not so much a matter of belief but of trusting that this way of life is the way God wants us to live. This is living the paschal mystery, the way of dying in order to rise to newness of life. Most of us do not live this way of life very well. The distinction between the saint and the charlatan is less a matter of moral perfection than of the recognition and acceptance of our weaknesses, and the searing contrition that follows. What makes for trouble in the spiritual life is not weakness, but rationalization, denial, lying and the hardening of our hearts in the face of truth. Anyone who purports to be a person of holiness but cannot acknowledge honestly his or her shortcomings is not likely to be the real thing. Rev. GEOFFREY KERSLAKE is a priest of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Ottawa. St. Anthony Mary Claret once observed: "Our Lord has created persons for all states in life, and in all of them we see people who achieved sanctity by fulfilling their obligations well." One way we can determine whether a person is genuine is by looking at their behaviour — is it consistent with the message that they teach? Jesus warned his disciples about listening to charlatans and he gave them some advice for detecting "phonies": "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit." (Matthew 7: 15-18) The example of the saints, like Paul, Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Therese the Little Flower, Edith Stein and countless others teach us that holy people don't stop being real people with the struggles, personality quirks and failings that we have too. But they make a conscious effort, with the help of God's grace, to live a Christ-like life and the consistency of their desire for holiness and their actions are in harmony. In my experience I know when I have met a genuinely holy person by the sense of humility, peace and genuine joy that they exude. They consistently behave in a Christ-like way. Perhaps this observation might help in telling real holiness apart from an act. Someone once remarked that "our reputation is how we behave when others are watching; our character is how we behave when no one else can see us" (except God who always has His loving gaze directed toward us!).
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