Twenty-some years ago, on The Tonight Show (when Johnny was still hosting), comedian Bill Maher did a few minutes of insightful political humor, and then stopped and added this joke: “Ahhh, who am I to think I can change the world? I mean, I’m no folk singer.”

There was more to that joke than a good laugh at uber-serious guys and gals with acoustic guitars who could use a shower.

Contrary to the idea that laughing at someone or something can diminish their/its power, I think that when we laugh at something it lessens our charge about the issue. I think the more we laugh about it the more we dismiss it as unimportant.

Which is why Mike Myers (yes, “Austin Powers” Mike Myers) is the root of all evil.

Mike’s upcoming movie is The Love Guru where he plays an American boy who was raised by gurus in India (similar to being raised by wolves in Alaska, but with better food and more dirt), and then “comes back to seek fame and fortune in the world of self-help and spirituality” as Guru Pitka.

The good news is that his motives are, at least, transparent and honest, unlike many of those whose footsteps he follows.

The better news is that if the movie is half as funny as the material they’ve put out to advertise the movie, it’ll be HYSTERICAL.

And now you might be getting the hint about why, once again, Mike Myers is the root of all evil.

By getting everyone to laugh at the techniques that “gurus” (self-help, spiritual and business) have used for decades to help us become detached from our egos wallets, in the name of some nebulous thing called “growth,” we may become even LESS critical of people who make untenable promises of “personal advancement” with the help of meaningless acronyms (e.g. they say “fear” = false evidence appearing real… but I think should be: “F*%k! ‘ere are rattlesnakes!”) and dopey aphorisms turned into playing cards, screen savers, and needlepoint wall hangings (Like: “Enjoy the journey and not the goal”… something you would only think to tell yourself if you’re having a crappy trip and aren’t near a rest stop, let alone Disney World).

So, even with Guru Pitka’s melodious voice (which is a better Deepak Chopra impression than Deepak Chopra does!), and his more useful teachings (rather than Sanskrit, his mantra is Hungarian: Mariska Hargitay, which, if you repeat it often enough will land you a part in an NBC crime drama), he may help make New Age nonsense seem even more meaningful!

In fact, I’m willing to bet, right now, that after this movie comes out, the average “spiritual” reviewer will completely miss that Myers is skewering the self-help and spiritual biz and, instead, they’ll say things like, “Not only is Mike Myers funny, but he’s teaching the TRUTH!” Non-dual fans will drool over themselves (wait, have we just discovered a new teaching — non-drool-ism?) with the idea that Guru Pitka is introducing Ramana Maharshi’s “Who am I?” teaching to a whole new generation!

There could, though, be a silver-ish lining to the (hopeful-if-hysterical) popularity of The Love Guru. Let me explain:

Back when I would host comedy shows, I would sometimes open the show by doing every “hack” old joke I could think of (e.g. Here’s one that was told in Vaudeville houses and still shows up in comedy clubs: A bear and a rabbit are taking a dump in the woods. The bear asks the rabbit, “Hey, rabbit, do you have trouble with poo sticking to your fur?” “Never,” answers the rabbit. So the bear wipes his butt with the rabbit).

I’d do this to punish the comics who would come on later and who relied on these old jokes rather than writing their own material. They’d tell the joke and instead of a laugh, they’d have the entire audience just staring at them, wondering why the guy was stealing material from the host (full disclosure: I stopped doing this technique because I didn’t want anyone who didn’t understand satire to think *I* was just another hack comic who relied on 80 year-old material).

Well, Guru Pitka seems to be a walking Best Of… Old Trite Spiritual Teaching Stories. He has more “borrowed” material than the Chicken Soup books (which, btw, are ALL borrowed material). If we’re lucky, Pitka/Myers’ telling these stories will force the gang on the self-help circuit to write some new (I’m not too naive to hope for true) stories. But, if the gang proves to be as creative as they have been for 100+ years (did you know that the “teachings” from The Secret came from a book that’s almost 100 years old?), instead we’ll have a gaggle of gurus introducing their stupid stories with, “And as Guru Pitka said in The Love Guru…”

All that said, I can’t wait to see the movie and nothing I said above will stop me from laughing — even at times where I’m the only one, no doubt — and thanks to The Love Guru, my new spiritual practice will be doing prostrations to Justin Timberlake, who is… well, go here to see for yourself.

A recent survey revealed that a LARGE percentage of Americans don’t think of themselves as religious, but do identify themselves as “spiritual.”

When I heard this, my first question was, “What’s the diff?”

Okay, if you’re spiritual you don’t go to a mainstream church or synagogue or mosque… though, ironically, you may spend as much time as you want in a Buddhist temple without having to call the polling company and change your answer.

And, if you’re spiritual you typically still believe that there’s someone or something that made everything come into being and controls or, at least actively guides, whatever happens on the Earth and in the cosmos.

I’ve seen the word “spiritual” used in interesting places, like “Spiritual Marketing,” in which the word “spiritual” is a synonym for “metaphysical” which is a synonym for “some theory that we have no actual proof for so, instead, we’ll use personal stories and anecdotal tales in lieu of proof, even though we know this is the least reliable evidence ever created.” Similarly, believing you can control the molecules in the universe with your uncontrollable thoughts is often referred to as “spiritual.”

The other question that popped into my head (and if I believed in channeling, I could say that I was receiving this question from a highly advanced spiritual — read: imaginary — being) was:

“What’s the point of being spiritual?”

Seriously, what’s the value, what does one get out of it?

Years ago, I used the word “spiritual” to describe myself. But I think my justification for using that label was that I did a lot of meditation.

I also noticed that when I, and other people I met who called themselves “spiritual”, would say, “Oh, I’m not religious, but I am spiritual,” there was an air of superiority and arrogance that came with the statement. Okay, not an “air”, but an overwhelming putrid odor that could knock out a cow. Clearly, being “spiritual” was so much more evolved and intelligent than being religious.

But is it?

Buddhist art is spiritual, but Warhol isn’t?

Sedona is spiritual, but the noxious fume-spewing ports of New Jersey aren’t?

Eckart Tolle (or the Dalai Lama or Matthew Fox or — insert your favorite person here) is spiritual, but George Bush isn’t?

If a person makes those distinctions, how is that any different than some mainstream religion’s teachings about good vs. evil?

Spiritual people might argue that they don’t believe in “good vs. evil” but, how is “higher vs. lower” or “clear vs. confused” or “this vibration vs. that vibration” or “meditating vs. playnig pinball” really any different?

Come on, a judgment is a judgment.

Spiritual, more often than not, it seems, is just religious without the silly clothes and paid holidays. Oh, and you have more than one book to read for guidance. For many spiritual people, the hotel room for a weekend workshop has replaced the temple.

But, again, what’s the point? Why be spiritual?

If it’s to find some sort of happiness or contentment or calming explanation for our existence, then guess what? You can be happy, be content, and not feel any need to explain why we’re here without having to believe in, well, anything, let alone that you’ll be a better person if you listen to Enya instead of the Bay City Rollers (I hope you’re now unable to NOT think: S-A-TUR-DAY-NIGHT!).

Of course, the real joke is that you can’t even use a word to describe “having lost the urge or need to divide things into spiritual vs. mundane” since:

a) If you called yourself by that word, you would just be another arrogant, obnoxious whatever-that-word-is, and;

b) If you said that’s how you lived, people would just accuse you of being REALLY spiritual!

Harrumph.