"Be a lamp unto yourself." Last words of the Buddha
Today is the Indian festival of Guru Purnima, observed by Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs, as a day of gratitude for spiritual teachers. Guru means “dispeller of darkness or ignorance” and Purnima refers to the full moon.
Along your spiritual journey, I wonder who are those who have helped you dispel the darkness? Gurus or spiritual teachers may be people we are used to thinking of as spiritual masters, whose followers built religious and spiritual systems around their teachers, like Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed (peace be upon him), Guru Nanak. They may be well known contemporary spiritual teachers, like Marianne Williamson, Adyashanti, Byron Katie, Rupert Spira, Joanna Macy, Richard Rohr, to name just a few. They may also be people in our circle of family and friends who have been shining lights for us. They may be our animal companions. They may be other beings, like trees. They may be beings in the spirit world – perhaps you work with angels or ascended masters or animal spirit guides. Anyone and anything can be a spiritual teacher for us if we are open to receiving their wisdom.
Among those who are well known as such, what makes for a genuine spiritual teacher? Jonathan Robinson, author of The Enlightenment Project, has conducted interviews with over 100 popular spiritual teachers, who shared several characteristics, such as kindness, humour, humility and presence. He wrote, “Although each of the spiritual leaders I got to know were very sincere and displayed great kindness, humor, humility, and presence, they also had very human faults. Many people assume that spiritual leaders and people who are “enlightened” should be perfect human beings. They are not. For better or worse, they are very much human. For example, I noticed that Mother Teresa seemed sad and disorganized, Ram Dass didn’t seem to take good care of his body (which eventually led to a stroke) … seeing that many teachers were flawed human beings with messy lives actually inspired me. After all, if they could display such wisdom and lofty behavior while being highly imperfect, then maybe so could I.”
What happens when our guru's faults turn out to be more serious? When does a spiritual community become a cult? There are many instances of spiritual abuse – when people in a position of power abuse their power to cause harm to others. One of my main spiritual practices is Kundalini Yoga, a form of yoga that combines movement with breath meditations and devotional mantras from the Sikh tradition. It was brought from India to the West by a Sikh man known as Yogi Bhajan, in the 1960s. He established ashrams and teaching programmes in Canada and the US, and Kundalini Yoga spread from there to various countries around the world.
In 2019, some 15 years after his death, it came to light that Yogi Bhajan had sexually abused and exerted disturbing psychological control over some of his followers. 3HO (also known as Happy, Healthy, Holy), the organisation founded by Yogi Bhajan, commissioned an independent report into the allegations of abuse, which found that other members in positions of authority within the community were also perpetrators. 3HO then set up an Independent Healing and Reparations Program to offer counselling and financial compensation to the victims of abuse. Some healing happened, but some lives remain scarred.
Although I have had no personal contact with Yogi Bhajan himself or with any one of the perpetrators or victims of abuse, these revelations shocked me and caused me to re-evaluate my involvement with the Kundalini Yoga community. My first reaction was to completely disassociate from everything to do with it, in horror and disgust. But, I had to admit, I found the practices spiritually nourishing, and my local yoga community supportive and uplifting, and our yoga teacher kind and wise. So I had to ask myself, could I separate the founder, Yogi Bhajan, from his teachings? Should I? Is it ethical to do so?
After much soul-searching, I decided to continue practising Kundalini Yoga, and I continue to be spiritually nourished by practising in my local community. I hope that you have not had to make such a difficult decision and that you do not encounter abuse in your spiritual journey.
We all exercise discretion and discernment, using both reason and intuition, to evaluate whether teachers are genuine and whether their teachings resonate with us. Above all, we are all our own teachers, and our own lives, reflected on and learned from, are our best teachings. Teachers can point the way for us, but we have to move from darkness to light ourselves. And just as the earth moves from darkness to light to darkness again as it rotates, so we are always moving between darkness and light – 'enlightenment' is not a one-time occurrence or linear journey for most people.
Perhaps somewhat ironically, Kundalini Yoga emphasises being your own teacher. We 'tune in' before practising using the mantra ONG NAMO GURU DEV NAMO - I bow to the Creative Wisdom, I bow to the Divine Teacher within.
How much emphasis we put on having a guru or spiritual teacher that we follow may depend on which spiritual tradition we are following. For example, within the Sufi tradition, one is initiated by a Pir or Master, whose teachings are passed down in a lineage, from the founder of the Sufi order, who in turn traced their lineage back to the Prophet Muhammad. In the Quaker tradition, by contrast, there are no gurus or spiritual teachers, and each person is absolutely their own authority in spiritual matters. Similarly, in Unitarianism, we are each free to pursue our own individual spiritual path, without having to follow any particular person. Of course, we all learn from each other in spiritual community. “We are all the guru and we are all the student, many times every day,” as my friend from the Unitarian Hindu Connections group, Suresh Rajpura, says.
As Unitarians, we are blessed to be part of a spiritual community in which we all learn from one another. Our radical dissenting forebears laid great emphasis on the 'priesthood of all believers.' I have learned from the wisdom of those who have gone before us in the Unitarian movement, particularly for me the Transcendentalists of the nineteenth century. They pushed the boundaries of Unitarian sources of wisdom beyond the Bible, to embrace wisdom from the East and from Nature, and laid emphasis on the individual conscience as the 'seat of authority in religion,' to quote Unitarian theologian James Martineau.
And while I appreciate our Unitarian heritage, I have learned the most in my spiritual journey from what other Unitarians have shared from their hearts in our gatherings. The divine light within me and you, which we share in the light of our chalice flame, is what most moves me from darkness to light.
I leave you with the words of Sufi poet and favourite of many Unitarians, Rumi,
"Let your heart's light guide you to my house. Let your heart's light show you that we are one."
