Advice to Spiritual Teachers & Aspirants

Jun 10, 2025

They trace tantra’s secrecy: why some teachings stay hidden and how secrecy can be abused for profit or superstition. Practical warnings about sex, money and power in spiritual communities are explored. Readings from Vivekananda highlight integrity, selfless service and earning character before teaching. Concrete rules on boundaries, donations, and safeguarding sangha life are offered.

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INSIGHT

Secrecy Enables Commercialization Of Spirituality

Secrecy can be weaponized to create artificial scarcity and sell access, turning sacred knowledge into a commercial product.
Nishanth notes holders with little real content become stingy and invent fluff to justify paywalls and fees.

ANECDOTE

Temple Ritual Turned Into Extortion In Varanasi

In Varanasi a temple attendant smacked Nishanth with a broom, chanted Kal Bhairav Ashtakam, then demanded 2,000 rupees and threatened a curse when refused.
Nishanth laughed and walked away, using the story to show how superstition can be weaponized for extortion.

INSIGHT

Vivekananda Chose Principles Over Personalities

Swami Vivekananda emphasized teaching universal principles, not personalities, to avoid sectarianism and empower people within their own religions.
Nishanth recounts Vivekananda avoiding public praise of Sri Ramakrishna to present Vedanta as universal at the 1893 Parliament.

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These past few weeks, we've been reflecting a lot on where we've been as a lineage, on our roots and origins. We discussed all of this in talks like Where Did Kālī Come From? | A Brief Herstory, What's Our Lineage? and Our Tantrik Lineage. And of course, while it is important to discuss where we're going (which we'll cover in the next talk), it is equally important to ask where we are now!

As such, I want to reflect a little bit on our ideals and values as a spiritual community.

To do this, I thought it would be good to read from Swami Vivekananda's reflections on his guru, Sri Ramakrishna (which appear in Volume IV of the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda under the title "My Master") since our lineage (and necessarily also our community) is founded upon the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and because we aspire to live up to the ideals we saw embodied in his example!

In reading this reflection, we can come to understand a lot about the perils of spiritual communities not just in the new age context but throughout time. These perils mainly revolve around sex, money and power and in this talk, we explain why that should be so.

This talk was first given on Monday night but since the internet gave out towards the end, I wasn't able to complete the last bit of the reading I wanted to share or to make some concluding remarks. So I picked up the thread from where we left off at our Friday evening satsangh and then just tagged that unto the back of the first recording. The result is a rather long video! Forgive me! And thank you for your patience while I develop some of these ideas throughout the talk!

May we always inspire one another to live up to the highest ideals of spiritual life always.

Jai Swamiji! Jai Thakur! Jai Ma!

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