Inside Sadhguru's Cult Empire
Over a dozen former members are speaking out against Sadhguru's misconduct.
- A teacher at Sadhguru's school speaks out, alleging he required young girls to be topless during their initiation ceremony and that he touched their backs.
- Two former devotees allege Sadhguru recruited them to try and kill rival guru Nithyananda in 2010.
- Women accuse him of coercing them into sexual acts and requiring them to be topless during special ceremonies.
- Sadhguru requires male and female monks to be nude during initiation rituals.
- He claims to be an enlightened master who has come to fulfill an ancient prophecy of being a "perfect" world teacher.
- Over a dozen former senior staff members and devotees of many years are speaking out against Sadhguru's misconduct.
Be Scofield is a prominent cult reporter behind the hit HBO series Love Has Won. Her work is cited by the NY Times, Rolling Stone, People, Netflix, and more. Be is the author of Hunting Lucifer: One Reporter's Search for Cults and Demons.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Sources have been granted anonymity out of fear of their physical safety. If any source is threatened, harmed or killed as a result of this article it will only substantiate the allegations.
By BE SCOFIELD
3/4/25
“Daniel, do you know there are people who will kill for me?” Sadhguru said to his devotee of over ten years in 2010. “Yes, I’m not one of them,” he replied. “Nithyananda is a blight on humanity,” Sadhguru said. “He is doing more harm to spirituality than you can imagine. Being a fake guru when there is a real guru around is one of the biggest crimes. He needs to be done away with.”
“Why don’t you just do something occult?” Daniel (alias) asked. “The karma would be much worse,” Sadhguru replied. “I know you won’t kill for me but can you help me in arranging this?” he asked Daniel. “Maybe. What do you mean?” Daniel said. During an interview Daniel told me he still fully trusted Sadhguru at the time.
“Sangam owns Karma bar and he told me he could get me a gun,” Sadhguru told him. “I’ve also spoken to Sean about this. Maybe he could help me find an assassin. Sangam said he’ll get a gun and he’ll meet Mira and Olivia in a hotel room and give it to them.”
Sangam never delivered the weapons, however. Sadhguru expressed his frustration to Daniel. “Can you believe that guy never showed up?" he said to him. "How could he do that? How could he let those women sit there and wait for him and never show up?"
“In the meantime I’m wondering are Olivia and Mira just gonna go kill Nithyananda?” Daniel told me. “Mira says to me, ‘You can tell him no, I can’t tell him no.' I said you open your mouth and you say the word no. What’s he gonna do, fire you? Mira says, ‘No, no you don’t understand. I can’t even look at him without bursting into tears. I’ve had such big spiritual experiences because of him. I can’t tell him no. You don’t understand what a crime it is when there is a fake guru taking the opportunity away from a real guru.’”
At one point Sadhguru ordered Olivia and another woman named Leah (alias) to hide a gun in a statue and ship it to India. "The gun came from Leah's father's collection," Daniel told me. Sadhguru had it shipped to his brother but never told him there was a gun inside. The police scanned the statue and discovered the weapon. Upon delivery the brother was arrested and put in jail.
To his knowledge Nithyananda was never planning on killing Sadhguru, Daniel says. “Sadhguru doesn’t want competitors around,” Daniel told me.
Another close follower of Sadhguru's for years named Sean (alias) was also propositioned to help kill Nithyananda. "Sadhguru invites me over and we have dinner," Sean told me. "He starts telling me this story of this up and coming guru who wants to kill him. He asks if I would I kill this person for him before he got killed."
"I was shocked," Sean told me. "You claim in one of the seminars that you have these metaphysical powers and could kill somebody at the snap of your fingers halfway across the world," he said to Sadhguru. "Why don't you just do that instead of asking me to murder somebody?" Sadhguru started laughing and replied, "I wouldn't want that karma on me."
"Internally I was like, 'But you're like totally ok with me murdering some guy and having karma on me? What the fuck?'" Sean didn't know the guru's name but it was Nithyananda. "I can't kill anyone," he told him. "Do you know anyone that can?" Sadhguru asked. "I can't imagine that I do," Sean replied. "Can you get guns from the US to me in India?" Sadhguru asked. "I have no idea," he replied.
A few weeks later Sadhguru's right-hand man called him asking about the guns. "Were you able to get the packages for Sadhguru?" he asked. "No! I was not able to get the packages for Sadhguru!" Sean replied. "I'm not sure I can get the packages for Sadhguru." The right-hand man called a second time days later pressing the issue. "I've been avoiding Sadhguru and his people since."
Suspicious Deaths
The man who had agreed to get Sadhguru guns to kill Nithyananda was Sangam Pande. Three months after he failed to meet Mira and Olivia in the hotel he died during Sadhguru's 2010 summer yoga retreat in Tennessee. He was 46. "If I remember correctly they said it was pneumonia," Daniel told me. He was on the retreat as well. A staff member later told Daniel they took his clothing to a few different thrift shops. Pande's obituary mentioned his time at Sadhguru's center, saying that he was noted for, "most recently achieving levels of higher consciousness at the Isha Yoga Center in McMinnville, TN."
Pande's death at Sadhguru's Tennessee compound is just one of many mysterious deaths that have occurred over the last several decades. In that time frame Sadhguru has risen from a local yoga teacher in the mid-1980s to arguably the most famous celebrity guru in the world. Between Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube he has over 40 million followers and his books have sold millions of copies. He has nearly four billion views on YouTube. Sadhguru regularly speaks to crowds of tens of thousands around the world.
Around 2000 a monk named Somu was sent to the Himalayas with two of Sadhguru's senior aides, one of which, Swami Nandikesha, was described to me as his "main henchman" by a former monk named Drew (alias). "Not many have access to Sadhguru like Nandikesha," he told me. Somu never came back, however, but the two men did. When his girlfriend Sri Devi expressed her frustration to Sadhguru she was found dead at his doorstep. "They told us they had injected her that morning with some kind of drug," a woman named Karishma (alias) told me. She spent 20 years following him and lived near the ashram. "And then they claimed she passed out and was killed by a snake bite." She said Sadhguru was diabetic and knew how to inject medicine. He and his director would inject people in the ashram when they deemed they needed to be calmed down.
"Somu and Sri Devi were planning on leaving the ashram to start their own spiritual group," Karishma said. "Sadhguru didn't like competition." She described how upset Sadhguru was when another monk left and garnered a following. "Sadhguru was also furious about Somu's relationship." She said anything that took focus from him and his efforts was frowned upon. “I said 'let them go' but Sadhguru said 'he’ll immediately start up another organization.'”
"Do you know there are people who will kill for me?”
The main accountant for the ashram in 2012 was Dilip Rajaratnam. He left upset and frustrated according to Karishma. Dilip knew the financial inner workings of Sadhguru's empire more than anyone. “Dilip knew about the money," a former staff member of many years told me. "He saw how it was going into personal bank accounts for Jaggi and his daughter.”
According to Karishma, a close associate of Sadhguru named Venky was instructed to fake "leave" the ashram and befriend Dilip. They bonded over their supposed frustrations with Sadhguru. And then one afternoon Venky picked up Dilip in a car and took him for a drive. Dilip's seatbelt was not working. On a remote stretch of road the car crashed and Dilip was killed. Dilip also knew of Sadhguru's failed effort to ship the gun in the statue from the U.S., as he was trying to get Sadhguru's brother out of jail. “He knew where the bodies are buried financially and otherwise," a former staff member told me.
Did Sadhguru Kill His Wife?
In October 1997 the Indian Express published an article titled, "Godman charged with wife's murder" about Sadhguru. He was never formally charged with her murder but the article reported he was being investigated by the police. Ever since, there have been countless articles and videos suggesting that Sadhguru got away with murder. He's even addressed the subject in interviews.
Sadhguru claims that his wife Vijji died by achieving a state of enlightenment called Mahasamadhi on January 23rd, 1997. This feat is reserved for the most evolved saints, however. Vijji was an ordinary woman who worked at a local bank. Yet he's told news reporters that "thousands" of people have left their body as she did.
"Vijji never talked about Mahasamadhi," Karishma told me. Vijji had dinner at Karishma's house on the 22nd, the night before she died. "She asked me to keep my schedule open on the 24th to go shopping and was hoping to travel to the US soon," Karishma told me. "She didn't talk about meditation. She didn't have an intense practice or anything." Vijji also had a young daughter she deeply cared for.
Vijji and Sadhguru were in their home alone the evening that she died. Karishma arrived around 11 p.m. that night. She told me there were around 80 people there by that time. "Vijji was laying on her back on the floor with with crossed legs," Karishma said. "People were worried the situation may put Sadhguru in trouble," she said. "One person said she died of a heart attack." Karishma noted that it was very dark and that people were tripping as they walked around. Sadhguru refused to turn on any lights despite repeated requests.
One of Sadhguru's aides phoned Vijji's parents and told them she had died. The parents told them they would arrive within hours. As they drove they called again. They made several requests to not move or cremate the body as Sadhguru had said he was going to do. Karishma told me that Sadhguru "absolutely" knew the parents were on the way and had requested to not cremate the body. However, by the time the family arrived at 8 a.m. Sadhguru had burned his wife's body. "It happened around 6:30 a.m.," Karishma said. "The parents were very unhappy and may have slapped him," she said. "There was a shouting match."
Despite repeated pleas from the family to wait, Sadhguru burned his wife's body just hours after she died.
"Suguntha told us Vijji was propped up against the wall and that Sadhguru was pacing back and forth," Karishma said. She was one of the first people to see Vijji. "She said there was a sheet with vomit as well, and they had cleaned the place." Suguntha and another woman were then instructed by Sadhguru to get two saris from the cupboard and wrap Vijji in them. "One of the ladies who wrapped the sari was suspicious that he beat her up," Karishma told me. There was a large black bruise on Vijji's abdomen above the belly button where the ribs meet. "Sadhguru claims she left her body through the heart chakra."
"We knew there were many strifes and disagreements," Karishma told me of the relationship between Sadhguru and Vijji. A man who alleges to have worked with Sadhguru establishing yoga centers around India in the early days said Vijji was physically abused. "I remember once around 1996 when one of the hosts with whom they were staying approaching me in a very concerned, worried manner," he writes. "[Vijji] was found bruised with strangle marks and cried for hours loudly saying she did not want to take sleeping pills and she didn't want to die. I consoled the host saying it is their private matter and not to interfere, and I confronted him directly instead. He brushed the matter aside and we had a really rough conversation that day."
"A few months later [Vijji] was placed in house arrest by him in the ashram, with nobody allowed to meet her," the man writes. "One fine day I get a call from another host who was a mutual friend and [Sadhguru's] long time associate that his wife had ran away and come seeking refuge. The biggest burden of guilt I have is that I advised the person to contact [Sadhguru]. Little did I know that a year later she would wind up dead."
In the police report Vijji's father stated that Sadhguru was having affairs with other women in the ashram. "My daughter used to say quite repeatedly about the illicit relationship of [Sadhguru] with other women. Also in 1995 some 4 persons from Coimbatore took my daughter to Banglore in an un-conscious state (suspected drugs injected) to our house. When asked, no explanation was given to me. When we asked our daughter she complained that she was given sleeping pills forcibly and they left her during the night." He concludes by saying, "We believe that my daughter had been killed and then burnt in pretext of some benefit or reason."
Karishma told me that Sadhguru and his team created a narrative soon after Vijji's death. “This is what we are going to say so there won’t be any problems,” they said. "Say we were all meditating and that’s how she died." Thus a story was floating around that there were many people in the home meditating at the time, yet Sadhguru and his wife were home alone at the time of her death. And Vijji's legs were forced into the lotus meditation posture after she died according to someone there on scene. The police report concludes by saying they were unable to determine cause of death due to the body having been burnt.
Sexual Abuse
A former devotee named Rebecca (alias) told me Sadhguru conned her into various compromising situations. "Under the guise of it being a 'sacred process,' where the body is 'simply a tool' I was asked to remove my blouse and given a sacred thread to tie around my waist to help facilitate an energy transmission," she told me. She was topless in front of him as part of the energetic ritutal. "He said it allows you to connect up with him better."
"He is a predator," Rebecca told me. "He has patterns that are very well established with women. If you are useful, intelligent, have connections or power, or if he is attracted to you, then he lays out all these traps. He calls it 'wooing.'" She described the gradual process of grooming women he'd use. "He'll set up a special process that will start with energy work, one on one sessions to uplift the kundalini, and then later he will ask for foot massages, back massages, or to draw a bath for him. I've seen this pattern unfold repeatedly. For me, once that trust and connection was established, it was exploited to perform various tantric processes, including performing oral sex. All of this was done so I could 'improve my receptivity' and help enhance human consciousness."
"It was exploited to perform various tantric processes, including performing oral sex."
Daniel, one of the people whom Sadhguru asked to help him kill Nithyananda, said Sadhguru pressured a woman into sex. "Samantha said you pushed her to have sex and she didn't want to," Daniel said to Sadhguru. "What do you mean she didn't want to?" Sadhguru replied to him. "They all want to." Daniel also knew Sadhguru was using a string around women's waists because he witnessed a woman wearing one in his presence after being in the bedroom with him. Karishma said Sadhguru told her, "American women spread their legs easy," when she asked him about a woman who had been raped by an Isha teacher.
Karishma described a type of secret society group of female temple caretakers who were instructed to masturbate in the temple. “It was an early morning offering to the goddess,” she told me. “Olivia was teaching them how to do it. Sadhguru told them, ‘I’m there with you; it’s not your fingers' and they would cum.” Karishma told me they would save the "juices" and would put them on the Linga Bhairavi idol in the temple as an offering.
A woman named Diana (alias) told me she may have been sexually assaulted by Sadhguru. She was meeting with him in a room at the Tennessee ashram. "They told me to drink a cup of something, told me to shower, put on a red sari," she told me. "After that I was unconscious. When I woke up I was in the bed next to the room. I'm thinking I might have gotten raped." Her account aligns with another woman's. She was also told to take a shower, wear only a robe, and have wet hair. She was standing naked in front of Sadhguru and asked her to come close to him. At one point he was hugging her.
Three women told me they were required to be topless in an initiation called the Anaadhi ceremony. "The room was dimly lit," a woman named Kerry (alias) said. "The group was selected by Sadhguru because they were the most devoted to him." Another woman who experienced the same event but was in a different section of the group also said that they asked everyone to take their tops off. She said that Sadhguru then tapped their spines. A third woman who experienced this topless initiation also described the event to me. "He put his hand on my spine and there was some tapping," she told me.
"American women spread their legs easy," Sadhguru said to her.
Drew, the former monk, told me that both the men and women monks were required to be naked for Sadhguru during the initiation process in the Dhyanalinga Temple. “You take a dip in the theerthakund with your clothes on, Sadhguru places his hands on your head, then go into the changing room and we are told to shave the area between the belly button and pubic area," he said. “We then put our wet clothes back on and walk to the Dhyanalinga temple. We stop just before the entrance inside the inner sanctum of the temple and are told to remove all our clothes. They didn't tell us beforehand it was going to happen." Drew said they went inside and were instructed to lay down with their heads facing the center. "Sadhguru was clapping his hands while the Swami was pressing on our chakra point just above the genitals." After this initiation they were told to get up and get out of the temple where they were given their monks clothes. Drew told me the same process occurred with the female monks during their initiation.
"A hub of child sexual abusers"
Chandra (alias) worked as a teacher for several years at Sadhguru's Samskriti school in India. She told me students were punished severely. They were put on “starvation diets” consisting of saltless gruel, forced into silence and isolation, required to do hundreds of Surya Namaskar yoga sequences, or beaten up. “An 11-year old girl was badly beaten with a stick by the monks,” Chandra told me during an interview. “She still has marks from the beating.” Kids were forced to wake up at 3 a.m, making it "extremely challenging" for them to stay awake during yoga and other practices.
Chandra also told me Sadhguru required the young girls around age 13 to be topless during their initiation ceremony. “Sadhguru was there,” she told me. “He comes up to them and runs his hand up and down their spine and touches them on the back. He says it does things to their consciousness.” She told me he was so worried about the girls saying something that they were forbidden from contacting their families for an entire year. “Everyone was told to say that Sadhguru was not present at the ceremonies,” Chandra said. She reiterated that he definitely was and was running his hand up and down their backs.
Sadhguru required the young girls to be topless during their initiation ceremony.
An email dated May 2017 from a school staff member named Maa Pradyuta to Sadhguru confirms that young girls were forced to be topless. "During initiation, the girls are asked to remove the upper cloth so the spine is fully exposed," Maa Pradyuta writes to him. "As I have expressed earlier, I have some reservations about this and feel this needs to be revisited keeping in mind that they are minor girls and however overwhelmed and obedient they may be at that time, we cannot expect all of them to keep it confidential or not to discuss it at all." Sadhguru responds to the email saying that yes, they can stop doing this practice for the minor girls.
In October, 2024 South First newspaper reported that two former employees of Sadhguru's Isha Foundation school had alleged it was a "hub of child sexual abusers." Their allegations are supported by several accounts of the organization failing to take action against sexual abuse and rape.
One of the people who came forward is Yamini Ragani. She went public in a news conference alleging her son had been sexually abused by another boy at the Isha Home school. "From 2017-19 he was molested in the school multiple times by another student," she told me. "We raised a number of complaints with the management and they refused to accept that it happened." She threatened to go to the police but the school ignored her.
"They eventually promised us that this kid is never going to come back," she told me. "But they brought him back the next semester. They gave an explanation that he has gay orientation.” She said she had no problem with his orientation. "There were a lot of children who complained about this boy. How can you allow a child who is preying on other children with no punishment?" She threatened again to go to the police and finally he was removed.
A young woman told me she was raped by a P.E. teacher at the school when she was eight years old. The same teacher went on to sexually abuse several other girls there. She told me she has been unable to date and was suicidal for a time.
Yamini began volunteering as a teacher in the school system to get to the root of the problem. She quickly realized it was due to the fact that 80% of the teachers were volunteers. "They come for 2-3 months, they are not vetted and there is no accountability," she told me. "After I came out I heard of stories of horrible accounts of sexual abuse by these volunteers. Most of them are living with the students and there is a high possibility of molestation. We do not know which broken houses they come from."
In October 2024 she told South First that she "noticed that the children were mentally and verbally abused" among many other issues. "The school lacked qualified teachers, and they weren’t following board rules or having clear guidelines for running the school. There was no complaints committee in place. They established one on October 9th, only after going to the Supreme Court. Before that, there was no committee for the ashram or any of the schools they operated.”
While the poorly vetted volunteer workforce endangers the students, Sadhguru profits handsomely from the free labor. Parents pay around $10,000 U.S. dollars per year for each student while the organization profits tens of millions each year.
Be Scofield
Exploiting Labor and Other Abuses
“He was incredibly mean and condescending as a person," former staff member Kerry told me. "He would show it when he knew he could get away with it. He was very nice to the newbies because they just got in but he would call people names like idiot all the time."
Rebecca told me Sadhguru was "exceedingly demanding" and said "nothing was ever good enough" for him. "You are trying to please him constantly. Everyone is running around like a chicken with their head cut off. You are expected to suppress yourself, your needs, your wants, your thoughts. The more you do that the better tool you are." A former staff member told me, "People abandoned their careers, wealth, properties and families to serve Sadhguru." Some gave hundreds of thousands of dollars or built homes and buildings for him.
Sadhguru built his cult empire by exploiting the free labor of millions. Isha Foundation has 4,600 full-time unpaid volunteers and nine-million part-time volunteers working in every aspect of his businesses and projects. "We worked for no money every single day," Drew told me. Sadhguru convinced his followers that that if they worked for him they'd save the world. He also had convinced them he was awakened. Sadhguru would tell them he was a "living master" and also claims to be enlightened.
Drew described an incident in 2021 when Sadhguru berated a monk in front of the group. The man was in his fifties and had very bad knees due to carrying heavy equipment to teach Isha Yoga classes around India. "My knees are killing me, I just want to commit suicide," he had written to Sadhguru. “What kind of a monk are you?" Sadhguru said in a chastising tone in front of everyone. "You haven’t taken care of yourself? You need to fix yourself. What kind of a yogi are you?” Sadhguru had revealed his very personal letter to the group and was publicly tearing him down.
When a monk named Swami Ekagra committed suicide Drew partially blamed Sadhguru. "He told us that if we left the ashram we would not have a spiritual life for 500 lifetimes," Drew told me. "It was worse than hell." He said the monk "did not seem to enjoy being there" but "because of all the indoctrination" he probably feared what would happen if he left the ashram.
Several former staff members told me Sadhguru would berate and verbally abuse them. “What kind of idiot are you?" he would yell. There was name calling, yelling, manipulation, and more. Another person witnessed Sadhguru spit a mouthful of water on a young girl who refused to play volleyball with them.
Sadhguru has tampered with and broken up many relationships, former staff told me. "It’s pretty common practice for Sadhguru to arrange marriages," a former Isha Yoga teacher named Nicole (alias) told me. "Other times he’d break up relationships that were inconvenient for him." Daniel told me Sadhguru has "broken up families." He's also engaged in immigration fraud through fake marriages according to the staff. On one occasion dozens of people dressed up for staged wedding photos between a staff member and a monk. Sadhguru arranging the marriage and doing immigration fraud meant he could continue exploiting their labor in the U.S.
Nicole experienced a miscarriage and consulted with Sadhguru. Her husband asked Sadhguru during a public talk which Nicole was at why it happened. “Well if the mother is doing the right kind of yoga then those things won’t happen," he told him. "Sadhguru told me that it's best for me to not have children and live in the ashram," Nicole said. "He told me to rededicate myself to the practice. It was another ten years before we decided to forget his advice and have kids." She said the "official Isha line" is that none of his close followers should have kids because they are a "hindrance to your growth."
The free and unpaid labor has led to tens of millions in profits each year. According to the Isha Foundation's U.S. financial statements they took in 48 million in revenue in 2023 with only 17 million in expenses for a net profit of over 30 million U.S. dollars. Their total assets are listed as 154 million. These numbers are for only the U.S. Sadhguru's empire is headquartered in India and he has hundreds of temples and organizations around the world.
The Isha Foundation was one of the many companies exposed in the Panama Papers money laundering scheme. Records show from 2003-2008 Isha held accounts with Mossack Fonseca, the law firm who helped politicians and companies around the world evade taxes.
Newslaundry in India published a three-part investigative series into Sadhguru in 2021. They found he avoided paying taxes by giving donation receipts to people who purchased items from the store. "I bought their product for Rs 14,000 and they sent a donation receipt for a random sum of Rs 1,242," a man told the outlet. "The receipt said I had donated to Isha Outreach which was exempted under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act. This is cheating. They want to save tax on all the money they make by showing it as coming from donations.”
Like Amma, Sadhguru has built an extensive wellness and spiritual product line with many things "blessed" by his sacred energy. In 2024, the internet buzzed after Sadhguru began selling photos of his feet for $36 U.S. dollars. He sells everything from eco-friendly moisturizing cream and key chains to glow-in-the-dark Shiva t-shirts, sacred ash and jewelry.
Sadhguru also promotes himself as an environmentalist with initiatives to save the soil and water and plant trees. However, the investigative series found that he illegally built his 150-acre spiritual empire in India without permits and that he built over sensitive elephant corridors. Newslaundry also revealed a scheme by Sadhguru to fundraise to plant trees by falsely claiming it was a government-backed project. "No private organisation can collect money in the name of river rejuvenation without the approval of the state government," a man who sued over the project stated. "And here Isha was collecting enormous sums of money for a project that was not even registered."
The non-profit status appears to be used as a front to cover a massive profit-making empire similar to how Amma runs her organization. Both have also formed close ties with the ruling political establishment in India. "A major reason that Sadhguru built that massive Adiyogi statue was to get Prime Minister Modi to come to ashram because he is a devotee of Shiva," Drew told me. "What we pieced together is really just the same old story of greed, corruption, and abuse of socio-religio-cultural sentiment for material enrichment," the Newslaundry investigation into Sadhguru states.
Be Scofield
Mythical Origin Story
"September 23rd marks Sadhguru’s Enlightenment Day," his official Facebook page posted in 2021. "This day, thirty-nine years ago, on Chamundi Hill in Mysore, an experience beyond words unfolded within Sadhguru - one of such intense beauty and ecstasy that he drew up a plan to make it available to all humanity." Drew told me that Sadhguru claims he’s “one of the most evolved yogi’s to ever walk the planet.”
Sadhguru claims to be the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. He claims there was a yogi named Sunira who took on a project to create a Shiva-like being, a perfect teacher for the world. He failed but prophesied that “One day, the perfect being will exist. He will take shape amid the green hills of the south.” Thousands of years later the yogis of the south tried to create such a spiritual guide, not in human form but as an energy force. "They called this form the Dhyanalinga," Sadhguru states.
"If God comes I will not listen to him because I know better than him."
After three previous lifetimes attempting to create the Dhyanalinga, Sadhguru has finally done it. He claims to be the perfect world teacher that has fulfilled the ancient prophecy. The accuracy of his previous lifetimes has been questioned, however. Moreso he claims to have consecrated this Dhyanalinga energy force into a 15-ft tall granite ellipsoid that sits inside a large spherical meditation hall. "It was consecrated by creating a certain vortex, which drew in enormous amounts of energy," he states. "There is no difference," between himself and this Dhyanalinga. "The Dhyanalinga is the highest possible being sitting there all the time."
Sadhguru built his cult empire as a yoga teacher. His Isha Yoga is purportedly designed by him, yet according to ex-devotees he stole the system from his teacher Rishi Prabhakar. Sadhguru never lists him in his lineage or refers to this part of his past. Prabhakar taught something called Siddha Samadhi Yoga. Sadhguru spent years setting up yoga centers around India until he broke away and repackaged the tradition as his own under Isha Yoga. Newslaundry spoke with a man who was in the same training with Sadhguru. "Jaggi and I learned Siddha Samadhi Yoga from Rishi Prabhakar together at Gommatagiri...in 1984," he told them. "He met his wife [Vijji] there." He said that prior to this training Sadhguru had no previous yoga training. Another man who was in the training said Sadhguru was among the "finest teachers" of the style before he broke away and rebranded it.
Rishi Prabhakar combined aspects of Landmark Forum, Robert Fritz’s Creating, and Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation to form Siddha Samadhi Yoga. Sadhguru turned it into Sahaja Sthithi Yoga before renaming it Isha Yoga. Aspects of Sadhguru's Inner Engineering programs can be traced back to the Werner Erhard seminar training which was the precursor to Landmark forum. Sadhguru claims to not be connected to Maharishi but uses his identical guru pooja chants. Their shoonya meditation is also taken from TM. Shoonya is a 15 minute process of “non doing” using a mantra and TM is a 20 minute process of non-doing using a mantra. Sadhguru was also apparently obsessed with Osho and borrowed heavily from his teachings.
A few examples of Sadhguru's "enlightened" yogic wisdom include: each breast of a mother who has twins will produce different types of milk, eating food during a lunar eclipse depletes the body's energy, scientists got their concept of atoms wrong, the molecular structure of water can be changed by thoughts or a touch, and recommending and using mercury despite it being banned for its toxicity. Drew said Sadhguru told the monks to drink their urine everyday because it was good for their health.
When it comes to living the yoga system he preaches his followers say he is a hypocrite. "Everything he would tell people not to do he would do himself from food to whatever else," Molly told me. He gives talks about the importance of eating healthy food but doesn't follow it himself. He's known to regularly eat junk food. Sadhguru is also diabetic and has a condition called diabetic belly. "So many things he says are an absolute lie."
