• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS GLOBAL
    • TESTIMONIES GLOBAL
    • OP-EDS GLOBAL
    • FEATURED GLOBAL
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
    • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / From the World / Op-eds Global

In Defense of the Gurus: Why Spiritual Masters Are Persecuted

10/12/2022Massimo Introvigne |

“Guru” has become a derogatory word in a world that does not understand what a spiritual master is, as the Tai Ji Men case demonstrates.

by Massimo Introvigne*

*Conclusions of the hybrid seminar “Persecuting Spiritual Masters: The Tai Ji Men Case,” co-organized by CESNUR and Human Rights Without Frontiers in Walnut, California, on October 8, 2022, after the World Teacher’s Day

“Beware of gurus, with or without a white dress.” A lecture by the former president of the French governmental anti-cult mission MIVILUDES, Georges Fenech. Screenshot.
“Beware of gurus, with or without a white dress.” A lecture by the former president of the French governmental anti-cult mission MIVILUDES, Georges Fenech. Screenshot.

For reasons I and other scholars have discussed elsewhere, France has a particularly aggressive and government-sponsored system to fight against “cults,” called in French “sectes.” One of its most bizarre features is the use of the word “guru” as if it was a synonym of a criminal religious leader brainwashing and exploiting his or her followers for money, sex, and power. This use is now common in French-language media but is, if you would pardon my French, idiotic.

Not only is “guru” used outside the original context of spiritual masters in the tradition of the Indian religions, but the meaning of the word is totally misunderstood. “Guru” is a word used in the Indian tradition to indicate the best of all human beings. It is an ancient Sanskrit term with a variety of etymologies, which are complementary rather than alternative. A “guru” is first of all a “dispeller of ignorance,” as “gu” means “ignorance” and “ru” means “one who dispels.” A guru is one who has received a special call from the divine and calls others to enlightenment, from the Sanskrit root “giri,” “one who calls.” “Guru” also means one who “has weight,” figuratively but also physically: hence the representations of the Buddha as a fat man and the popular Indian legend that a guru on a scale has a weight much higher than an ordinary man or woman with similar features.

“Guru and Disciple,” 18th-century Indian painting. Credits.
“Guru and Disciple,” 18th-century Indian painting. Credits.

In his recent book “Global Tantra,” Julian Strube tells the extraordinary story how the early leaders of the Theosophical Society, who originally shared the prejudices against Tantrism of some rationalist Hindu reformers, were taught by their Bengali members that it is impossible to understand the Tantra from books. You need a living guru, and the most authoritative of them would firmly refuse to put their secret Tantric teachings in writing.

That to be enlightened you need a guru is already mentioned in the most ancient among the Hindu sacred texts, the Vedas, but it is in the later Vedas, the Upanishads, that the role of the guru becomes central, and this teaching is present in all the different Hindu schools. We are taught that even the gods need a guru. The ancient “Vishnu Smriti” claims that we have three parents: father, mother, and guru. “By honoring the father, we gain the earthly world; by honoring the mother, we gain the world of the gods; by paying strict obedience to the guru, we gain the world of ultimate reality.” “Strict obedience” in the early Hindu texts meant that we should serve the guru by providing him with money, personal services, and firewood for several years before he (or she) starts teaching us.

In the “Brhan-Naradiya Purana,” we read that once we have submitted to a guru, it does not even make sense to challenge one of his or her teachings as not true, since “there is no truth higher than the guru.” The great 17th-century Hindu philosopher Samarth Ramdas wrote in his masterpiece “Dasbodha” that “he who regards God as superior to the guru is a fool […]. Before the greatness of the guru the greatness of God is as nothing.”

Massimo Introvigne interviewing one of the thousands of gurus (looking on his cellphone for addresses of his Italian disciples) gathering at the 2019 Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India.
Massimo Introvigne interviewing one of the thousands of gurus (looking on his cellphone for addresses of his Italian disciples) gathering at the 2019 Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India.

Surely these are peculiarities of the Hindu tradition non-Hindus may regard as exaggerations, but there are parallels elsewhere. In the “Spiritual Exercises” by Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Catholic religious order of the Jesuits (of which the present Pope is a member), we read the famous sentence that “the white that I see I would believe to be black” if so taught by the Catholic Church’s hierarchy.

Obviously the obedience to the spiritual master includes the risk of abuse. However, charges of abuse should be evaluated within the context of the religious tradition. Gurus who kill or rape their followers may not hide under pretexts of religious freedom. On the other hand, “being a guru” or establishing with the disciples a special relationship of trust and obedience is not illegal. It should not be evaluated through individualist and rationalist standards by media, or even by secular courts of law who do not understand the century-old religious principle of surrendering a great part of the disciple’s liberty to a spiritual master.

Indeed, as we heard in this and previous webinars, freedom of religion or belief is at risk when spiritual teachers are regarded with suspect and malevolence simply because they are teachers, and when politicians and bureaucrats try to break the master-disciple relationship simply because they do not understand it. Or perhaps because the only aspect of it they understand is that it creates a way of living and thinking different from the one they want to impose to everybody.

Tai Ji Men protests in Taipei.
Tai Ji Men protests in Taipei.

A textbook example of this malevolence is the attempt by Prosecutor Hou Kuan-Jen and others, starting in 1996, to break the relationship between Shifu (Grand Master) and dizi (disciples) of Tai Ji Men. It is also an example of how these attempts, while causing a considerable amount of unnecessary suffering, in most cases fail. Authentic spiritual masters can be put in jail, harassed, persecuted, but their disciples would not leave them. If anything, the persecution made the bond between Shifu and dizi of Tai Ji Men stronger. However, this is not a reason to tolerate ill-founded campaigns of harassment, including through taxes. Spiritual teachers should be honored, understood, and protected from persecution. This is where World Teachers Day meets freedom of religion or belief.

Tagged With: Brainwashing, Religious Liberty, Tai Ji Men

Massimo Introvigne
Massimo Introvigne

Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio.  From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.

www.cesnur.org/

Related articles

  • Taxes as a Weapon of Mass Persecution: The Tai Ji Men Case

    Taxes as a Weapon of Mass Persecution: The Tai Ji Men Case

  • “Religious Abuse of Children”: Another Assault Against Religious Liberty in Japan. 2. “Psychological abuse”

    “Religious Abuse of Children”: Another Assault Against Religious Liberty in Japan. 2. “Psychological abuse”

  • A Tale of Two COVIDs: Zero Discrimination, Religious Liberty, and Tai Ji Men

    A Tale of Two COVIDs: Zero Discrimination, Religious Liberty, and Tai Ji Men

  • Discriminating Against Evil: Zero Discrimination and the Tai Ji Men Case

    Discriminating Against Evil: Zero Discrimination and the Tai Ji Men Case

Keep Reading

  • A Second Letter by 80+ Ukrainian Academics Urges President Macron to Stop French Support to the Anti-Cult Federation FECRIS
    A Second Letter by 80+ Ukrainian Academics Urges President Macron to Stop French Support to the Anti-Cult Federation FECRIS

    The Ukrainian scholars also denounce the presence in the governmental anti-cult agency MIVILUDES of a politician who supported the Russian occupation of Crimea.

  • Francis of Assisi, Fraternity, and Tai Ji Men
    Francis of Assisi, Fraternity, and Tai Ji Men

    One of the origins of the International Day of Human Fraternity is the Italian mystic’s visit to Sultan al-Kamil in 1219. Its message is valid for the Tai Ji Men case, too.

  • “Religious Abuse of Children”: Another Assault Against Freedom of Religion in Japan. 1. A New Notion of “Abuse”
    “Religious Abuse of Children”: Another Assault Against Freedom of Religion in Japan. 1. A New Notion of “Abuse”

    Guidelines by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare substantially limit parents’ rights to pass religious faith to their children.

  • “Paideia” and Tai Ji Men
    “Paideia” and Tai Ji Men

    Human rights activists should be educated to the ideal of civilization that the Greek concept of “paideia” conveyed. It will also help them to understand the Tai Ji Men case.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • Blaming the Victims: The Hamburg Shooting and the Jehovah’s Witnesses by Massimo Introvigne
  • More Uyghur Criticism of Donnie Yen: Wasn’t He More Guilty than Will Smith? by Kok Bayraq
  • The Suicide of the Pink-Haired Girl: How the CCP Exploited a Tragedy by Zhou Kexin
  • Censorship Frenzy: Do Not Search for “2952” in China or You Will Get Into Trouble  by Tan Liwei
  • Empowering the Next Generation of Uyghurs to Challenge China’s Genocide by Marco Respinti
  • Russia: Pastor Moskvitin Sentenced to 1.5 Years in Penal Colony for “Brainwashing” by Massimo Introvigne
  • China’s New Crackdown Targets “Self-Media” by Zhou Kexin

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY