Kate M.
The Start
I gave up my Catholic faith when I was in my late teens, not for any particular reason. The church door was open, so I walked out to see what would happen. Nothing happened, so I stayed out.
Some years later, in the early 1970s, it became cool to explore the exotic religions of the East. Through friends I came to know of an Indian guru, who had started a new Hindu-based religious movement which was now spreading into Europe. I went to see him when he visited. I had a beautiful, moving meditation with him and after a few months I wrote to him saying I would like to become his disciple. He accepted me.
The main spiritual/religious practice was meditation. He also encouraged daily reading of his spiritual writings, singing songs he had composed, running at least 2 miles every day, and doing a minimum of 2 hours a day unpaid work for his mission. He also required that his followers must, like himself, avoid meat, alcohol, recreational drugs and that they live celibate lives. In many ways it was like a monastic existence with young single disciples often living together, while families and married couples lived in their own family homes.
The central belief in the group was that the guru was a divine incarnation, like Jesus, only he was the last and greatest divine incarnation ever. Given this divine status, most of his followers also believed he had powers ordinary men did not have. He could read your mind, he could cure illnesses (if it was God’s will), he could control the weather and he had many other supernatural or occult powers.
We believed the purpose of life was to achieve ‘God Realization’, a state of permanent union with God. As a Divine Incarnation, it was his role to bring us to that state. It was the disciple’s role to help him in his divine manifestation on earth.
The Early Years
I must admit that the first few years in the group were among the happiest of my life. For most of that time I was living in a golden bubble of joy and inspiration.
When I joined the movement was small, with only a few hundred members, so it was not structured like a typical church. There were ‘Centers’ in the major cities with ‘Center Leaders’ who ran things in accordance with the guru’s wishes. The leaders were unpaid, and each center was self-supporting. Over the years it grew. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the group moved into Eastern Europe, and with the arrival of Gorbachev on the international stage, the group started opening centers in Russia. By the time I left there were several thousand members.
A few years before I left, I was asked to become a center leader and to open a new center in a new city. As an obedient disciple I did this. I moved away from home, held meditation classes and concerts to recruit new members, ran the center, was the middleman in communications between the new members and the guru. I led group meetings and advised the members of the new group in matters regarding the path to God realization and their spiritual journeys. I funded it all myself. I was carrying out the role that might be called ‘pastor’ or ‘minister’ in a Christian denomination.
The Later Years
After the golden period at the start of my involvement, gradually things became less glowing, and the bubble started to deflate. At the start the guru had given me a lot of attention. There was the perception in the group that the more attention you received from him, the higher your spiritual status. But as the years went by, I was often side-lined, and I did not know why. Perhaps I was not making sufficient spiritual progress. I redoubled my efforts: the sincerity of my meditation; the daily spiritual practices; my efforts to attract new disciples. Nothing seemed to make any difference. It appeared to me that two tracks had emerged in the group. Some people were on the fast track where they were given attention, invited to his home for special events and other privileges. They seemed to be party to some spiritual secrets that were hidden from me. When I looked at the women who were on the fast track, I could not understand why they were there. They did not work harder or more sincerely than those on the slow track. My heart was broken that I had lost my status in the group. Eventually I accepted that things were not going to change. The only way I could put an end to my pain was to leave the group. I started to plan my exit, but it took me about 5 years to leave. I did not tell anyone of my plan, but when the day arrived, I phoned a few friends to say goodbye and left a message saying I had left.
Around that time I heard that some ex-disciples had started a website where they revealed all the hidden scandals that I had known nothing about. The most serious was that for years the self-proclaimed celibate guru had been sexually exploiting many women in the group. They were sworn to secrecy, but a few brave souls were now telling their story on the internet. It was these women who had been on what I thought was the ‘fast-track’. Their lives had been hell.
Reintegrating
I had left for emotional rather than rational reasons. After reading the women’s testimonials it took me a while to fully appreciate how disgracefully our leader had behaved, and the turmoil he had created in the lives of so many young women. However, I was still open to the idea of the existence of benign spiritual or supernatural forces.
One of the few things I missed about my time as a disciple was the community. There were many truly beautiful people in that group. All the friends I had made over the preceding decades now considered me a ‘hostile force’ and they were not allowed to talk to me. I had to start rebuilding a social life – not an easy task for a woman over 50 who had no job and had not socialized with ‘ordinary people’ for so long. I wanted to find a group that was not centred around religion, so I went along to a Humanist group.
Initially I found their emphasis on rationality rather than emotion to be abrasive. The open hostility to religion of most of the members was something I could not identify with. However, I did start to read up on various atheist texts, and they made more and more sense.
I returned to higher education, first for a Master’s in Psychology of Religion, and I am now studying for a PhD in the same subject. The more I learned, the less religious I became, until I can now say that I do not believe in the supernatural at all. At the same time, I have a soft spot for some aspects of religion. I think it can provide a supportive community for people, and I acknowledge all the benefits deriving from that. I have zero tolerance for corrupt religious leaders. I would love to see communities with the strong bonds you find in religious groups, but without the delusions, manipulations, and exploitations, but I am not convinced that such communities are possible.