"Mark how my fame rings out from zone to zone:

A thousand critics shouting: "He's unknown!"

Ambrose Bierce

     The Main Pattern outlined in this book is the Modern Guru building a modest but lucrative practice. But suppose you want to Make it Big as a Guru? Here's how.

      Set aside a week for preparation. Begin a total fast, drinking no more than one brandy-glass of water a day. Isolate yourself in your bedroom, meditating on bigtime Guruship. If after a week some weird Phantasy hasn't appeared to tell you how to make it big as a Guru, then you'll have to read this chapter.

      Don't be forced into the Bigger Guru trip just because your friends poke fun at your diminutive practice and your non-existent fame. There are definite disadvantages to Going Big. You have enough people condemning and mocking you, even in a small guru practice. Think of how the number of your enemies will swell when your world-wide fame and millions of devoted followers create uncontrollable envy and hatred in your multitudinous detractors.

      If that doesn't deter you, and you're consumed by obsessive greed to see your name in lights and headlines, to hear it shouted and lisped by devoted lips, then plunge ahead into the oblivion of Notoriety.

      As a Celebrity of some note myself, I can tell you that Fame isn't what it's cracked up to be. It's even more wonderful! It gives you a completely unique feeling of Pride when your child comes home from school to report: "Johnny's dad says everyone thinks you're a fraud. What's a fraud, Daddy?" Overlooking the neurotic element of envy in the statement, it does tell you that Everyone is thinking about you. And that's fame, whatever anyone says.

      Today there is still only one major way to make it Big as a Guru: the Religious Evangelist Route. Taste is the Key--give people whatever they have a taste for. Though you use the title of Evangelist with the public, remind yourself (and your trusted inner-circle of followers) that you are actually a Proselytizer. That is, you're not so much leading people to something as away from someone - their previous guru. Your preaching is to deliver them from their believing in and paying a priest or parson or prelate. But they're not fully "saved" until they actually begin to believe in and pay an Authentic Guru - you.

      Now, how about achieving Bigness? There is one infallible way that very often succeeds: the Spiritual Warfare Method. Find something that everyone takes for granted but doesn't feel quite non-guilty about. Drinking used to be a good target - forty-five years ago. Smoking was a useful pitch for a couple of years. I used to print up placards such as these.

Tobacco is a filthy weed, That from the devil does proceed; It drains your purse, it burns your clothes, And makes a chimney of your nose. B. Waterhouse

     Until some enemy-guru started printing up counter-posters:

Tobacco is a dirty weed. I like it. It satisfies a normal need. I like it. It makes you thin, it makes you lean, It takes the hair right off your bean. It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen. I like it. G. L. Hemminger

     But then the Surgeon General took over the smoking racket. So the Modern Guru has to be thinking ahead, reading the Signs of his Times, and using whatever works.

           The New Hell-Fire Evangelism I recommend is the Anti-Dishwasher Campaign. With the World-Wide Energy Crisis Fast Approaching, our nation is going to be Stampeded into paroxysms of Excessive Self-Denial. We'll try to see who can do without the most.

      Jump ahead. What totally unnecessary kitchen appliance do women feel guiltiest about? What does the average American's image of a housewife see her doing in the kitchen? Right!

      Condemn the Dishwasher as the Tool of the Devil, as leading women into the lascivious extremes of leisure, of passion for "liberation," and talking back to their husbands. Your Campaign motto:

A WOMAN'S PLACE IS WITH HER HANDS IN THE SINK.

      Buy several old junk dishwashers and send out public announcements of a Dishwasher-Busting Rally. Midst the blaze of flood-lights, the cheers of the rabble, and the lock-step cadence of the police line coming to break up the anti-rally demonstrators, take out your brand new sledge hammer (painted Red, White, and Blue) and pound one of the dishwashers to smithereens.

      Save one for the mayor or president of the League of Women's Voters to smash. Then lead the torch-light parade through the city streets, seeking out some unsuspecting housewife who is still Daring to use her dishwasher.

      "Here, Reverend," a sniveling husband will softly yell out an upstairs window. "My wife's downstairs using her dishwasher." Leading the mindless procession, break into the house, drag out the hapless victim, and destroy her dishwasher (which she scrubbed floors for while her husband drank them into destitution).

      With this kind of campaign you'll soon be on the Talk Shows. Then you're assured of Infamy and Notoriety.

      And that, my friend, is Bigness.