illegal and unethical business and labor
practices, such as smuggling gold and US
dollars in and out of India, and exploiting
workers without providing adequate housing,
food, health care, or social security. I was aware
that, for many years, Gurumayi and her
predecessor, Swami Muktananda, had been
using spies, hidden cameras, and microphones to
gather information about followers in the
ashram, which they then used to embarrass
them, often publicly. All of these behaviors
were well known to those of us on the staff of
the organization, but they were much less
familiar to the thousands of followers who did
not live and work there in direct contact with
Gurumayi. The Eat, Pray, Love author
Elizabeth Gilbert was one of those people who
did not, during her ashram visit, become aware
of the sordid history of sexual abuse in SYDA
Yoga, or the emotional battering and financial
exploitation suffered by those who worked more
closely with Gurumayi. Staff members such as
myself considered ourselves privileged to be
exposed to the more private persona of
Gurumayi, whose typical cruelty to her
followers, and whose expectation that no amount
of money was too much to be spent on her, was
always understood as crazy wisdom, a term that
refers to and celebrates the eccentric, mind-
blowing and paradoxical behaviors of spiritual
leaders in various Eastern traditions.
Aggression, greed, sexual predation, and other
forms of cruelty are often among these behaviors
in the stories of such leaders, who are
understood to be, contrary to appearances,
benignly breaking down the boundaries and
defenses of followers, “liberating” them from
their small, petty, unenlightened egos. It was
only later, after I had left SYDA Yoga, was
reflecting on my own experience, and was
learning a great deal about the experiences of
others in cultic groups that I developed the
concept of “the relational system of the
traumatizing narcissist” (as outlined in this
monograph). No longer under the mesmerizing
spell of the guru, I was able to recognize her
behavior for what it was—the cruelty and
selfishness that is characteristic of a particular
sort of narcissist—one who traumatizes others
by persuading them that they are hopelessly
inferior, and that redemption is only possible
through submission to the narcissist.
The relational psychoanalyst Emanuel Ghent
(1990) made an astute distinction between
surrender and submission. He conceptualized
surrender as a letting go of defenses, and an
opening to the possibility of the sublime, both as
internal state and as interpersonal experience
whereas he understood submission as the
dehumanizing, sadomasochistic perversion of
surrender. Although I was not aware of Ghent’s
work until some time after I had left SYDA
Yoga, I was beginning to formulate similar
ideas. I began to become aware that I had been
deceived—and that I had deceived myself—in a
classic bait-and-switch operation, the bait being
surrender, the switch being masochistic
submission to a cruel and controlling, yet
idealized leader.
Most shamefully of all the dissociating I had
been doing was that, in order to continue to
convince myself that I was making the best
possible choices by devoting myself to SYDA
Yoga, I had suppressed my awareness of stories
of sexual abuse in the ashram, stories it would
be absolutely heretical to even mention to
another follower. I had heard rumors that,
contrary to his claims of celibacy and
renunciation, the predecessor guru, Swami
Muktananda, called Baba by his followers, had,
up until his death in his seventies, been
relentless in sexually preying upon female
followers, many of them girls who were not of
legal age. When some followers exposed him
publicly, he lied and attempted to cover up the
scandal with threats of violence to the
whistleblowers, threats made both by
Muktananda himself and by deputies he
appointed and dispatched—one a former
professional football player the other, a former
Vietnam combat veteran.
I had deliberately chosen to disbelieve and deny
this information, although a deeply buried part
of me had kept mental notes on many whispers
and hints. Later, after I had severed all ties with
SYDA Yoga in 1994, I came to learn of far more
extensive sexual abuse of both young girls and
adult women, several of whom I met and spoke
with. Without knowing each other, the women
54 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 5, 2014
practices, such as smuggling gold and US
dollars in and out of India, and exploiting
workers without providing adequate housing,
food, health care, or social security. I was aware
that, for many years, Gurumayi and her
predecessor, Swami Muktananda, had been
using spies, hidden cameras, and microphones to
gather information about followers in the
ashram, which they then used to embarrass
them, often publicly. All of these behaviors
were well known to those of us on the staff of
the organization, but they were much less
familiar to the thousands of followers who did
not live and work there in direct contact with
Gurumayi. The Eat, Pray, Love author
Elizabeth Gilbert was one of those people who
did not, during her ashram visit, become aware
of the sordid history of sexual abuse in SYDA
Yoga, or the emotional battering and financial
exploitation suffered by those who worked more
closely with Gurumayi. Staff members such as
myself considered ourselves privileged to be
exposed to the more private persona of
Gurumayi, whose typical cruelty to her
followers, and whose expectation that no amount
of money was too much to be spent on her, was
always understood as crazy wisdom, a term that
refers to and celebrates the eccentric, mind-
blowing and paradoxical behaviors of spiritual
leaders in various Eastern traditions.
Aggression, greed, sexual predation, and other
forms of cruelty are often among these behaviors
in the stories of such leaders, who are
understood to be, contrary to appearances,
benignly breaking down the boundaries and
defenses of followers, “liberating” them from
their small, petty, unenlightened egos. It was
only later, after I had left SYDA Yoga, was
reflecting on my own experience, and was
learning a great deal about the experiences of
others in cultic groups that I developed the
concept of “the relational system of the
traumatizing narcissist” (as outlined in this
monograph). No longer under the mesmerizing
spell of the guru, I was able to recognize her
behavior for what it was—the cruelty and
selfishness that is characteristic of a particular
sort of narcissist—one who traumatizes others
by persuading them that they are hopelessly
inferior, and that redemption is only possible
through submission to the narcissist.
The relational psychoanalyst Emanuel Ghent
(1990) made an astute distinction between
surrender and submission. He conceptualized
surrender as a letting go of defenses, and an
opening to the possibility of the sublime, both as
internal state and as interpersonal experience
whereas he understood submission as the
dehumanizing, sadomasochistic perversion of
surrender. Although I was not aware of Ghent’s
work until some time after I had left SYDA
Yoga, I was beginning to formulate similar
ideas. I began to become aware that I had been
deceived—and that I had deceived myself—in a
classic bait-and-switch operation, the bait being
surrender, the switch being masochistic
submission to a cruel and controlling, yet
idealized leader.
Most shamefully of all the dissociating I had
been doing was that, in order to continue to
convince myself that I was making the best
possible choices by devoting myself to SYDA
Yoga, I had suppressed my awareness of stories
of sexual abuse in the ashram, stories it would
be absolutely heretical to even mention to
another follower. I had heard rumors that,
contrary to his claims of celibacy and
renunciation, the predecessor guru, Swami
Muktananda, called Baba by his followers, had,
up until his death in his seventies, been
relentless in sexually preying upon female
followers, many of them girls who were not of
legal age. When some followers exposed him
publicly, he lied and attempted to cover up the
scandal with threats of violence to the
whistleblowers, threats made both by
Muktananda himself and by deputies he
appointed and dispatched—one a former
professional football player the other, a former
Vietnam combat veteran.
I had deliberately chosen to disbelieve and deny
this information, although a deeply buried part
of me had kept mental notes on many whispers
and hints. Later, after I had severed all ties with
SYDA Yoga in 1994, I came to learn of far more
extensive sexual abuse of both young girls and
adult women, several of whom I met and spoke
with. Without knowing each other, the women
54 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 5, 2014
