Why I'll Never Be a Guru

When I was a teenager, I started having strange experiences I couldn’t understand. I later learned that those experiences were the kundalini energy waking up inside me. Those experiences were the birth of what became Kundalini Mediumship.

Because the energy is primal and energetic and works at levels beyond everyday consciousness, its necessary to have a structure or framework for processing it. When I first experienced it, I had no idea what was happening! No teachers or mentors had an explanation. I desperately wanted to construct meaning, purpose and clarity around it. Much of that structure I learned (at least initially) from Siddha Yoga— the organization started by my guru Swami Mutktanada. I can’t stress how important it was for me to have that organization and his teachings. I was able to find a lot of clarity and guidance around something that was incredibly powerful but also very unstable.

I also can’t stress enough how destroyed I was when I learned about his abuse of power (along with the organization’s cover-ups). Its pretty easy to read accounts of both Muktananda’s intense spiritual power and his horrific abuse. If you’re so inclined I encourage you to read about it. There’s lots of info online.

Muktananda’s teachings are rooted in Kashmir Shaivism and Tantra— two intertwined spiritual sects of what most people in our country simply refer to as Hinduism. The traditions, knowledge and spirit within these traditions run very very deep! I’m not going to try to explain much beyond a tiny fragment of them. Again, if you want to learn, much of the info is available online.

The one piece I do want to address is the guru-disciple relationship. In this tradition, the disciple is encouraged to surrender his ego and his being to the guru, so that the guru can aid the disciple in transforming his karma— all the patterns of behavior and thought that prevent him from fulfilling the goal of liberation from the cosmic wheel of suffering.

In this model, the disciple is limited by his lack of self-knowledge. He doesn’t know what is holding him back. He is trapped repeating karmic patterns like a hamster on a wheel. The guru, who is more advanced spiritually, understands the disciple’s limitations far better. To follow the guru’s command to the letter is the highest, most pure act a disciple can perform. It’s somewhat analogous to the precepts of Alcoholics Anonymous. First, the alcoholic (or disciple) has to recognize they are powerless to change their situation, then they have to surrender to a higher power. In this case, the higher power is the guru.

It doesn’t take a genius to see what happened when the guru movement came to America in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Watch the netflix doc Wild Wild Country and you can get a taste of it. That show is about Osho, not my guru Muktananda, but there are similar themes.

When I encountered Muktananda’s teachings I jumped in 100%. I bought the whole package. I was in! His teachings explained everything that was happening to me. It gave me a structure to process the kundalini energy and it gave me a roadmap for how to move forward. A huge part of that was my surrender and devotion to the guru.

When I heard about his abuses I was destroyed. I felt abandoned. It took me years to reconcile all the good I had received with all the bad I knew what was happening. A part of reconciling those two things was that I gave up the guru model. I kept the devotion and surrender— but for me it is a devotion and surrender to Spirit or God rather than a human.

So it was surprising to me that I recently became intrigued with a guru within that tradition! He spoke very eloquently about deeper things within that tradition that I felt I had missed or only skimmed my first time through. He seemed open to questions. I was hooked! I wanted to learn more. And yet the guru issue still nagged at me, and I felt an internal conflict.

One thing that I have encountered over and over again is that no matter how clear a teacher is, no matter how open a vessel for spirit they are, they are still bound by their own perceptions and biases. There have been many times when a teacher corrected me about something and I knew inside that they were right. It felt like they blasted through my walls and connected me to an internal truth I was hiding from myself.

But here have been many other times when I felt that their “truth” about my issues was twisted up around their own wound or belief system— what Carl Jung would call a shadow projection. I can’t tell you how many times I have internalized someone else’s truth as my own when it wasn’t. When we are disconnected from our own truth it is so easy to accept someone else’s words as true especially when they are in a position of power over us. It can be hard to evaluate what is our thought and what is theirs. At this level our cords, energies, thoughts and beliefs are entangled with another’s.

When I encountered this guru from the Tantric/Shaivite tradition, I brought up my issues with the guru model and he did the same things I’m now familiar with when I bring up issues to a guru. He didn’t really answer my questions— instead turning them back on me and pointing to my issues. This is the classic response from someone in that model. There is no issue within the guru, it is only in the disciple. To them there is no entanglement.

I wholeheartedly believe that at other times and other places this model worked. But in my heart I know it doesn’t work (at least for me) and a different model is emerging.

A fundamental premise of Kundalini Mediumship is that we are all interwoven. When I teach Kundalini Mediumship bodywork and tracking I start with the premise that any issue a client brings up has to be felt and understood inside the practitioner. We have to see other people as reflections of ourselves. We have to listen with an open heart— ready to speak uncomfortable things as much as listen to uncomfortable things. And above all, we have to approach each person from this place of interwoven cords.

Swami Muktananda

The proper attitude of a disciple to his Guru

Our shadow is a distorted projection of our internal wounds and beliefs