Is Sadhguru a Charlatan?

[iamlite]

You can call Osho New Age

Sadghuru is much more traditional

[Breakingthewall]

4 hours ago, hyruga said:

Sadhguru said before he's not interested in being a politician and he may not make a good politician.

Sadhguru was hospitalized twice for brain surgery in 2024 and he had a near-fatal inflammatory reaction during his recovery in 2025. Why are you bothered about his power when he may die any time soon?

I'm not saying that sadhguru is bad, just questioning his motivation. He says too many weird assessments, it's very difficult to interpret him. He's hermetic, an enigma 

[Grateful Dead]

I think Sadhguru is one of the most positive forces in this world. What fascinates me about him is that he has attained spiritual mastery and also is extremely extroverted and active in the world.

Some of his statements are questionable, but then again, it is inherently very difficult to communicate such metaphysical, spiritual insights.

A quote that I apply to all spiritual teachers walking the earth is: "Even the Buddha is only halfway there." In my view, Sadhguru is enlightened, and his perception is exceptionally clear. Also, beyond enlightenment, he possesses extraordinary spiritual attainments on an energetic level. Nevertheless, he too could potentially be self-deceived, and he does not have the perfectly correct answer to every question, even if he makes it appear as though he does.

[Kalki Avatar]

@Raze No, most of those enlightened people forgot game and how skillfull you need to be to be effective on raising consciousness worldwide and do the impact he does globally. The thing is that he is a mystic, has a lot of esoteric game which means that he contacts spirits/gods for powers and alliances, while also influencing environments through energy, reading minds, does magic (how do you think he is still alive this along while being in the public eye sharing the truth?) and has somehow manifested a personality through some magic freezing to use as a platform to carry all that knowledge he uses to navigate the world, etc. While also having a lot of psychological game to influence people of low level consciousness which is the majority. Who else does what Sadhguru does? The guy is a mastermind. Only 1% will understand him. He doesn’t seem enlightened because if he showed his real light and self transparently, most people will not follow him. Unconscious people will get scared and not respect him. The guy knows alooooot of tricks on how to perform to be effective in the world.

Edited Thursday at 08:15 PM by Kalki Avatar

[Joseph Maynor]

What is a charlatan?

[kavaris]

People think we are in a spiritual fight, but like... If reality is not grounded in any substrate, and if reality is the substrate (im using Leos phrasing, cause i like it) Then that spiritual fight is a lot more different than yous think... its like...

Like first you have to ask "What even am i" cause reality is predicated on that, first and foremost. The "others" part ofthat depends on what you mean by other... Technically your body is *other, too.

[Lyubov]

I don't understand how anyone can not like this guy. He is a guru who has taken Hindu spirituality and made it palatable for the west. He is pretty chill and cute. I like hearing him talk. He doesn't really say anything deep or profound to me but he is just nice to listen to and have on in the background sometimes. I tried his yoga once and it didn't suit me. I prefer Qi Gong. I only see a wise man who has helped a lot of people, not perfectly but he has done a good job. The last time I checked he doesn't run the same kinda cult or whatever that's around him getting sex from his followers or them staging poisonings. He's mature enough to at least keep some integrity in his organization. 

Edited 8 hours ago by Lyubov

[LoneWonderer]

Just now, Lyubov said:

I don't understand how anyone can not like this guy. He is a guru who has taken Hindu spirituality and made it palatable for the west. He is pretty chill and cute. I like hearing him talk. He doesn't really say anything deep or profound to me but he is just nice to listen to and have on in the background sometimes. I tried his yoga once and it didn't suit me. I prefer Qi Gong. I only see a wise man who has helped a lot of people, not perfectly but he has done a good job. 

yes I am of this opinion too

[Hojo]

I listened to everything sadhguru said then I listened to everything osho said. Sadhguru is copying osho and hinduism while claiming to never have read them. When he clearly has.

He also does and says many things to seem superior to you. Which i dont like. He also dosent follow his own advice and contradicts himself many times.

It is dangerous for your mind to listen to guru so much they can take over your mind.

 

Edited 7 hours ago by Hojo

[Leo Gura]

38 minutes ago, Hojo said:

When he clearly has.

Truth is accessible to all. Osho didn't invent it.

Edited 6 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Joseph Maynor]

Sadhguru is funny like Adyashanti which makes him sometimes a pleasure to watch or listen to.  
 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Joseph Maynor

[eos_nyxia]

On 2026-11-11 at 4:29 AM, Carl-Richard said:

I don't treat is a perjorative. I use it to mean a small group with weird/divergent (usually religious) beliefs relative to the larger society. It's Leo who picked up the perjorative definition from sensationalist authors who found a niche for selling books that people think are interesting "those scary and dangerous cults that manipulate you and steal your life".

Cults in my and the academics who taught it to me 's definition don't identify with a larger mainstream religion; they don't treat themselves as a denomination or "the real take" on a certain World religion. They're more idiosyncratic and syncretic, because they're usually New Age, usually the product of a single charismatic individual and their machinations. And if they do, they're a sect.

I mean now that I think about it, this use is legit as well -- I am familiar with the usage of "sect" vs. "cult" outside of the specific academic bubble I was in. It seems like there was also a concurrent splitting off of sorts during the 20th century, where the word "sect" came to have primarily neutral connotations while the word "cult" was assigned sinister ones.  

Quote

That's an interesting historical interpretation. Where did you learn about it? I guess the "New Age proper" is a magnified version of this process because the Death of God was widespread as a cultural phenomena and the religious critique became more severe and widespread.

It's a bit of everything I've hodge-podged and cooked in my mind over a lifetime of accumulated reading and thinking (but moreso casually these days, like an occasional hobby). I used to take academia very seriously as a student and I have academic parents, but among the many issues I had with academia, the lifestyle is not for me.  

The earlier parts of my interpretation are strongly influenced by the cult (?) classic, Joseph Tainter's "The Collapse of Complex Societies" (1988)  which I did not read while I was in uni -- I read it after. The author is an archeologist and that was on the very fringes of what I studied -- very early human civilization and especially interpreting ancient findings from digs really was never what I did, but I knew a few people who went in this direction. His concept of "the big man" in simpler societies (before kings and despotic rulers) was a huge influence on how I started to think about how tribal societies would have worked structurally, and while I myself had already noticed that simpler societies (what SD people call lower on the SD spiral) did rely more on the charisma and often genorosity of specific individuals rather than hereditary power, I didn't have much in the way to help me understand the transition between tribal to chiefdoms, specifically WHY and HOW.

Choosing to frame it through the lens of orthodoxy and splintering is probably a product of reading anything I could find at the time on the history of science, especially Thomas Kuhn's classic "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" as well as other academics who were strongly influenced by his work. Choosing to take one element, like the Classical and Ancient Studies use and understanding of the word "cult", and then tracking that specific pattern across large spans of time and many cultures is very much a "world history" type of approach.

And yea... one way or another, it seems that the death of one god (whether it's the Death of God in CAPS :D) often necessitates the birth of another (whether it's atheism, agnosticism, or skepticism or something else). 

[Topspin715]

I am not that familiar with Sadhguru's teachings but if we weren't a fraud, what would he be teaching and accomplishing and where does he live up to that and where does he fall short?

He's said some pretty wacky things like how he has gotten angry at his students for using their powers to heal people and he seems to like media attention. Seeking attention isn't always a bad thing but the motivations and means by which attention is sought is often impure. Attention is a source of power.

[Hojo]

I do notice that when they speak, they speak from the perception of being reality. 

Like they do not speak as if they are their point of view they speak like they are your reality in front of you.

Edited 3 hours ago by Hojo

[Hojo]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Truth is accessible to all. Osho didn't invent it.

Yes but individuality exists. Unless Sadhguru choses to be the persona of hinduism and Osho. We can be merged with God and be different. Unless you are an adviata drone.

Sadhguru has one personality that dosent change. He is constantly saying the same things. These things suspiciously sound like osho and hinduism which are just both things you can input into your persona without bring awake.

His only quality that sets him aside is his own self invoked authority over you.

 

If you ask him to go deeper he refuses.

 

It could be he just didnt create an identity to begin with and then had to get something. He could be so high level that he was never tricked and never forgot which is what he says.

He seems to know a whole lot more than Osho in terms of hindu spirituality, but that can be learned. He makes it seem that he knows absolutely everything about the human body. None of this can be proven.

Osho dosent do this. But Sadhgurus persona outside of hinduism is Osho.

 

Spirituality should be no dogma but Sadhgurus got like 1000s of Dogmas if you want to follow him.

Edited 2 hours ago by Hojo

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, Hojo said:

His only quality that sets him aside is his own self invoked authority over you.

No.

Sadhguru is far more responsible of a leader than Osho. And Sadhguru teaches his own forms of yoga. You don't even know his most advanced programs and teachings.

[Hojo]

@Leo Gura He runs his business more responsibly.

Yoga make you feel better wont awaken you.

This gives him right to talk to me like hes directly God ordering me.

Edited 2 hours ago by Hojo

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, Hojo said:

Yoga make you feel better wont awaken you.

How do you know?

Obviously the entire point of yoga is Awakening.

If a yogi does not have direct consciousness of God, he is a failed yogi.

Edited 2 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Hojo]

@Leo Gura The point is to feel good so you can awaken I think.

If you dont do it your body start to feel bad, you have worse thinking.

If you do it your body feels really good and you can surrender into it easier.

When your body feels weak it gives negativity when it feels strong it gives positivity.

However yoga to awakening is the same as saying Jñāna Yoga is to awakening, there is a massive gap, imo. 

I could be wrong I havent done a whole lot of yoga.

You can do Jñāna Yoga yoga your whole life and get nowhere.

Even you doing Jñāna Yoga your whole life needed psychedelics to stop your default network to understand.

Without them you could still be spinning.

Edited 2 hours ago by Hojo

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, Hojo said:

You can do Jñāna Yoga yoga your whole life and get nowhere.

You can do anything your whole life and get nowhere.

Yoga is inherently rare and hardcore, so few people will ever do it all the way. Most people are dabblers in everything, spirituality or otherwise.

The point of yoga is union with God. Sadhguru knows this.

Edited 2 hours ago by Leo Gura