Regardless of your religious background, scalping tickets to see a well respected holy man can’t be good for your spiritual health.

Eric Owens of The Daily Caller has the story.

Dalai Lama ticket scalpers attract bad karma says Oregon prof

How much would you pay to see the 14th and current Dalai Lama himself? The flowing robes, the grace, bald…

Well, the Tibetan Buddhist leader will be speaking in several American cities in May, including a sold-out stop at the University of Oregon on Friday, May 10.

His speaking contract stipulates that the event remain noncommercial in nature, The Register-Guard of Eugene reports. The University of Oregon readily abided by the stipulation, pricing tickets at a mere $20 and limiting sales.

“We limited the number of tickets that any individual could buy to two so that we would avoid the situation where someone could buy up a large block of tickets and resell them,” university spokesman Phil Weiler said.

Selling a ticket to an event for more than you paid for it is not illegal in Oregon, though, and the Dalai Lama was unable to control basic market forces. One ticket broker — Ticket Liquidator — is reselling the $20 tickets for upwards of $280 per seat.

The Connecticut-based ticket broker has its hands on tickets for the spiritual leader’s 2013 American tour in other locales, too. Prices are over $300 in Madison, Wis. You can apparently expect to pay nearly $500 in Louisville.

Jim Blumenthal, an associate professor at Oregon State University who specializes in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, warned that all manner of negative energy could be in store for anyone who tries to get a little something for the effort of selling tickets to one of the Dalai Lama’s speeches.

“If the motivation behind scalping, in this example, is really selfish and self-centered, then the effect that has on one’s own mind, one’s karmic predisposition, would be negative,” Blumenthal told The Register-Guard.