Is Sadhguru a Charlatan?

[Jirh]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

This is a no true scotsman fallacy.

Sadhguru is a real yogi. Yogis have a wide range of views and beliefs.

The only reason we even know about Sadhguru is because he jumped on the self-help train. His affiliation with self-help made him famous.

More traditional yogis haven't done that because they don't care about market reach. All they care about is tradition preservation and achieving total oneness through the yoga practices they inherited.

He may be a real yogi, but he's also New Age without doubts.

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, Jirh said:

The only reason we even know about Sadhguru is because he jumped on the self-help train. His affiliation with self-help made him famous.

1) Plenty of yogis become famous.

2) Religion has always been about self-help. Self-help and spirituality are very connected. Separating them makes little sense.

[Jirh]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

1) Plenty of yogis become famous.

Yes, but they don't achieve fame through affiliation with self-help. They achieve it through loyalty to tradition and religionmaxxing lol. That's the difference.

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

2) Religion has always been about self-help. Self-help and spirituality are very connected. Separating them makes little sense.

I agree 👍🏻

[Sugarcoat]

4 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

He is definitely New Age but his Hindu aesthetic makes it a bit less obvious. He has a standard atheistic take on traditional religions. "It's just beliefs, dogma, you have to go inwards".

Why you say aesthetics in way as if it’s not legitimately Hindu teachings themselves, not all of it but some originate from there? 
 

I feel Sadghuru caters a lot to audience when he speaks, maybe that’s why he doesn’t speak so “non dual”, because he takes into consideration how oeople are operating and what could actually have effect/be digestible to them. Yes I agree that take on religion is simplistic, but many people’s religiosity works like so for major part of it. It’s a teaching style when he is speaking to the masses ig.

Edited 7 hours ago by Sugarcoat

[Vido]

Sadguru in my opinion is like a Hindu Yogi. As a guy born in Hindu culture, you have a lot of beliefs that he carries like about temples, doing puja to remove like negative stuff caused by planets, etc.

I lost trust in him when he claims like he's trying to revive shiva and was born multiple times to do that. And all the drama that comes from it. He never in the interviews just gives the answer, he just kind of beats around and tells to join his yoga stuff.

You should watch his interview with Dr.K whos a smart guy and also studied yoga. When Sadguru gets called out for his stuff, he gets annoyed and ends the interview early. I was laughing so hard on how ridiculous his shit is. 

Guy is a great speaker tho, very captivating and has a hypnotic vibe. Could be a great cult leader if he chooses to HAHAHAHAH

[Sugarcoat]

7 hours ago, Jirh said:

@Sugarcoat He doesn't identify with any particular spiritual tradition, so he's automatically New Age by definition. Actualized.org is New Age too.

If you know a better category for them, let me know.

Maybe it’s the core definition. I looked it up and it seems to refer to the west in particular, what’s been growing here. I feel by the definition you wrote, too much can be included in that category so it looses the characteristics it has in society. One comparison I thought of is the word indie, it’s kinda like saying indie is simply independent, nothing more, is what I’m thinking. 
 

Regarding actualized.org I apply same logic.

Edited 6 hours ago by Sugarcoat

[Salvijus]

Sadhguru is a Hindu imo. But he would say Hinduism is not a belief/dogma based religion but a science. 

[Sugarcoat]

 

1 hour ago, Jirh said:

Maybe in part.

But he talks about so many topics, mostly from a self-help perspective.

A real yogi doesn't concern himself with self-help because he believes his culture already has all the answers for everything.

Maybe there is definition of a yogi that someone could deviate from, but it doesn’t make them less advanced, I’d say more rather in this case, including more in your spirituality. Self help is not devoid of spirituality, it doesn’t have to subtract from one’s spirituality 

Edited 6 hours ago by Sugarcoat

[Sugarcoat]

16 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Sadhguru is a Hindu imo. But he would say Hinduism is not a belief/dogma based religion but a science. 

The masses might hold it like a religion in their mind, but the most advanced yogis, take a different approach, focused on direct experience with the Hindu framework in mind, I’m thinking. 
 

So it’s fair imo to categorize as you wrote he did, despite how masses might treat something, because they don’t have to define it, there are different angles from which to look at it. Same goes for Christianity! And the other major ones. You can be religious without being dogmatic, for example. There is nuance. 

Edited 6 hours ago by Sugarcoat

[LastThursday]

Is Sadhguru a charlatan? I don't know it depends on how you want to see it. It's hard to tell anything much about someone you've never met and just seen on the internet. Do you get something positive from what he says? If so then you may as well give him the benefit of the doubt.

There's a kind of obsession people have about someone being "legitimate" because then that gets you off the hook for using your own discernment and allows you to follow them blindly. No. Everyone's full of BS one way or the other, you just have to learn to pick out the good bits for yourself.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Sugarcoat said:

Why you say aesthetics in way as if it’s not legitimately Hindu teachings themselves, not all of it but some originate from there? 

Because he is not literally a Hindu "bible-thumper", a literalist traditionalist. He is like a weird thing: a New Age Hindu/India supremacist or something like that, like I tried to explain above. He has contemporary non-dual / New Age background / cognition and lingo but he uses a lot of Hindu stuff, and he makes the claim that Hinduism is "spirituality" rather than religion. That's simply it. Take an Indian atheist from the 1980s/90s, make him have an awakening, and what you'll get is a Sadhguru-kind-of-guy.

Had he called himself religious (which he doesn't), he would be like a Rupert Sheldrake. He has a soft-spot for Christianity, he calls himself a Christian, he calls himself religious, but he has New Age roots and cognition. There is like a "dumb" kind of New Ager (the one who thinks New Age is not a religion) and the ones who think it is a religion. The dumbness just makes it obvious that they are New Age, but if your background is obviously postmodern, post-rational, atheist, individualist, even hippie, you'll also be New Age.

Edited 5 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

14 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Because he is not literally a Hindu "bible-thumper", a literalist traditionalist.

No serious yogi would be that way. That is a cartoon caricature.

Hinduism is eclectic and tolerant of religious diversity.

[Jirh]

2 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

Maybe it’s the core definition. I looked it up and it seems to refer to the west in particular, what’s been growing here. I feel by the definition you wrote, too much can be included in that category so it looses the characteristics it has in society. One comparison I thought of is the word indie, it’s kinda like saying indie is simply independent, nothing more, is what I’m thinking. 

Regarding actualized.org I apply same logic.

That's interesting. I never thought about Indie as a category in this case because it's not widely used for spiritual paths.

However, I don't really see the point in making a distinction between East and West in this context, because the internet is global and Sadhguru's audience is not exclusively eastern. He can't use the advantages and benefits of New Age without being New Age.

2 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

Maybe there is definition of a yogi that someone could deviate from, but it doesn’t make them less advanced, I’d say more rather in this case, including more in your spirituality. Self help is not devoid of spirituality, it doesn’t have to subtract from one’s spirituality 

I didn't make any assertions regarding the spiritual depth of self-help. I just made an observation about how most traditional yogis actually move in the world. They don't go around learning new things with an open mind. Often, they just follow a very strict and narrow path directly under one master/yogi. Basically, they close their minds to any other perspective, even from another yogi. And the yogi himself doesn't always even share what he knows unless he decides the student is worthy.

Obviously, Sadhguru doesn't follow that pattern. So he's not a traditional yogi. He could be someone who studied yoga under some master and decided it's not enough, which is fine. But then that makes him yogi+, and the '+' in this case is self-help which is in many ways related to New Age.

[Jirh]

2 hours ago, Salvijus said:

Sadhguru is a Hindu imo. But he would say Hinduism is not a belief/dogma based religion but a science. 

He said in the video that he doesn't identify with any religion.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

No serious yogi would be that way. That is a cartoon caricature.

Hinduism is eclectic and tolerant of religious diversity.

Ok fuck it, Hinduism is a wacky religion and a culture, so Sadhguru can be a Hindu AND New Age.

Edited 3 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Jirh]

Quote

In classical Indian traditions, yoga is not treated as theoretical knowledge (like reading a textbook), but as direct experiential transformation (Sadhana). Trying to mix techniques from five different masters was viewed like taking five different medical prescriptions simultaneously—it creates internal confusion and ruins the methodology.

Single-minded focus, not closed-mindedness: The commitment to one master was meant to prevent intellectual tourism (jumping from idea to idea without mastering any). The goal was depth over breadth.

From AI.

[Sugarcoat]

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Because he is not literally a Hindu "bible-thumper", a literalist traditionalist. He is like a weird thing: a New Age Hindu/India supremacist or something like that, like I tried to explain above. He has contemporary non-dual / New Age background / cognition and lingo but he uses a lot of Hindu stuff, and he makes the claim that Hinduism is "spirituality" rather than religion. That's simply it. Take an Indian atheist from the 1980s/90s, make him have an awakening, and what you'll get is a Sadhguru-kind-of-guy.

Had he called himself religious (which he doesn't), he would be like a Rupert Sheldrake. He has a soft-spot for Christianity, he calls himself a Christian, he calls himself religious, but he has New Age roots and cognition. There is like a "dumb" kind of New Ager (the one who thinks New Age is not a religion) and the ones who think it is a religion. The dumbness just makes it obvious that they are New Age, but if your background is obviously postmodern, post-rational, atheist, individualist, even hippie, you'll also be New Age.

I bet your observations have some accuracy to them, but it can sound like Sadghuru's level of advancement is being downplayed when trying to categorize like such. He is his own thing in a way, is how I see it.

Sure you could call New Age religion (so anything involving some non-confirmed beliefs and dogma is religion now?). Some overly "vibey" people can come off as lacking intellectualism, could be connected to what you're saying there hahahah have thought of it too.....

The last sentence, I don't know the meaning of first two terms really, but it feels a bit too overly broad categorization. You mean that background + typical new age beliefs/practices = New Age?

Btw. Maybe you already agree with this, but you can be both religious and spiritual at the same time. Not conventionally so tho. It is rare tho, I would say. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Sugarcoat

[Carl-Richard]

Let's see what wikipedia says:

Quote

Sadhguru

Jagadish "Jaggi" Vasudev (born 3 September 1957), widely known as Sadhguru, is an Indian guru and founder of the Isha Foundation, based in Coimbatore, India. The foundation, established in 1992, operates an ashram and yoga centre that carries out educational and spiritual activities. Sadhguru has been teaching yoga since 1982. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy and Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny, and a frequent speaker at international forums.

 

I think the best description for Sadhguru is ironically just "Indian guru".

Edited 3 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

From what I have seen of it, Sadhguru is doing God's work.

He is more legit than most teachers.

Edited 3 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Jirh]

Quote

The concept of Adhikara: Traditional yoga operates on Adhikara (qualification/eligibility). Powerful pranayama, kundalini, or mudra techniques were considered dangerous if practiced by someone lacking physical, mental, or moral stability.

Testing the student: A master would deliberately withhold instruction—sometimes for years—to test a student's patience, ego, and sincerity. The teachings weren't hidden out of pettiness, but out of respect for the power and potential harm of the practices.

@Vido This is an excerpt from AI. But it might address why he doesn't answer some questions when asked.