Insights Into Where We Find Our True Power.
Michelle Bartolo challenges the word ‘Guru’ and offers insight into where we find true inner power.
The Guru Syndrome in Western culture is unfortunately a reality. What do you think when you hear the word ‘Guru? How does it make you feel? Let’s dig in shall we?
Over my 20-year history of teaching in the Yogic Arts, this word has been used and highly abused. I’ve met students with stories of their Gurus, those who have handed their lives over to a ‘Guru’ and those who hail themselves the ‘enlightened’ ones and demand they are treated like a ‘Guru’.
‘The guru is a perfect being, who cannot behave unethically. He can accumulate millions of dollars, own 93 Rolls Royces, have his own armed security team, and regularly humiliate his followers, but they will always find some excuse for this appalling behaviour, in the same way, that children will refuse to believe that their parents can do wrong. The disciples will claim that the guru’s abuse and cruelty is a form of “divine play” or a way of testing their followers.’ Psychology Today
Through my years of education, practice & study in Yoga I have observed how the word ‘guru’ has been misconstrued. In my teachings, a ‘guru’ was never meant as a person you hand your life over to. If Yogas’s objective is to build the power within you so you can feel free, would handing your life over to a guru provide that?
I’ve learned the word ‘guru’ represents anything that moves us from the dark into the light. A guide can show you the light. Yet to remain there the ‘guru’ in you has to do the internal ongoing work. NO ONE can do that work for you.
Fact check on the word GURU:
When we say the word GURU it affects the vagus nerve (cranial nerve). When the tongue hits the roof of the mouth (where we home some 84 meridians) it vibrates in your neural chemistry to create an EXPANSION of your OWN self-limiting belief patterns. That is the SOUND SCIENCE behind the term GURU. The tongue hits on the area of the roof of the mouth that stimulates the area of the brain that believes you CAN.
The GURU is in you!
All the ways in which people give their POWER away to a Guru only keeps you small. You BIG up someone else to make yourself small. Does that give you inner freedom?
Some of the ways people choose to treat their ‘GURU’ varies from worshipping a teacher and doing whatever they say and ask to asking the ‘Guru’ to give you the answers you seek, or the ‘Guru’ asking you to renunciate your life and all your belongings to them, to bow at their feet, or to have their photo on an altar are just some of the manipulative ways those who are in vulnerable states get taken for granted.
It’s a shame this happens in the spiritual realm of these practices but humans are humans and we all come with our egos. Some egos are more balanced than others.
When someone is creating a CULTure and not allowing you to seek other forms or teachers – you are simply giving your power away. This is not guiding you to freedom.
‘There are so many cases of “gurus gone wrong” that it is not easy to find examples of “good gurus” who have avoided excess and immorality.’
Psychology Today
Remember, YOU ARE FREE. The answers you seek are in you. A good Guide or Teacher can lead you to those answers but cannot answer for you. You are in there, no one knows you, like you do.
In fact, the best thing a spiritual teacher can do is to avoid guru worship. And the best thing a spiritual seeker can do is to avoid gurus – Steve Taylor, Ph.D., is a Swnior Lecturer in Psychology at Leeds Beckett University. He is the author of several best-selling books, including The Leap and Spiritual Science.
Reclaim your precious power and give yourself the credit you deserve.
Michelle. X
Michelle Bartolo Yoga Offerings 2023: KriyaAsana LIVE Classes in Gharb Mondays & Wednesdays 18.30 CET KriyaAsana Classes LIVE ONLINE Tuesdays 18.30 Sounds into Silence LIVE & ONLINE (chanting, mantras & meditation) Fridays 8.30 - 9.30am 40 Day New Year Sadhana LIVE ONLINE January 30th - March 10th KriyaAsana 200 hr RYT | HYBRID Spring & Fall 2023 | Live in Gozo & Live Online
Author: Michelle Bartolo
Michelle Bartolo is a Yoga Guide based in Gozo. Blending the styles of Vinyasa and Kundalini with Pranayama Practices, Mindful Meditation, and Quantum Physics, she offers holistic classes, private sessions, retreats, and teacher training using yoga tools to heal the emotional, mental, and physical bodies.
