Comments on Sri Chinmoy. by Joseph Szimhart, 12-13-96
Sri Chinmoy devotees whom I have interviewed all agree that marriage and raising children are not recommended by the guru if the devotee wants to achieve “enlightenment” or “self-realization.” The latter terms are indicative of the Hindu concept of “Samadhi:”
(see definition from Harper’s Dictionary of World Religions attached).
The Chinmoy meditation techniques are not as rigorous as classical Samadhi rituals (see Harper’s again), but the trance state (sometimes non-distinguishable from sleep) is indicative of someone approaching Samadhi. Meditation and self-hypnosis are related psychomental processes, i.e., they both involve a person in a focused state of awareness on something while all peripheral awareness is considerably diminished or is even unconscious. Chinmoy meditation techniques are simple: focus on a candle, a mantra
(like the word ‘Supreme’), or on a particular, overexposed Sri Chinmoy’s photo-image, also called the “transcendental.” Most devotees choose the latter image and believe it to be the most “powerful.” Devotees (known as “boys” and “girls” in the group) regard meditation in the physical presence of the guru the highest blessing.
Meditation is not useful to everyone who practices it. Long term meditators have developed chronic problems as a direct result of “too much” altered state concentration. These problems include hallucinations, panic attacks, sleep disorders, depression, uncontrollable body twitches, and a never-ending, often capricious presence of the “guru” in one’s awareness. Studies of this phenomenon have been done by the German government (they found that up to 40% of meditators develop disorders), and by Michael A. Persinger, Ph.D. (TM and Cult Mania. Christopher Publishing, 1980). Persinger continues his research on neurophysiology in Canada. But not only does neuroscience warn of certain dangers to some people who practice meditation, the ancient Vedic (Hindu) also warns of dangers to the inner, psychic being when one enters the path of yoga meditation. Again in Harper’s under “kundalini” (the spiritual energy released
during meditation in Tantric yoga) Swami Agehananda Bharati, Ph.D. states: “Since partial arousal of kundalini is dangerous, kundalini yoga must not be undertaken without the guidance of a qualified guru.” Sri Chinmoy discusses kundalini and “Tantric yoga” in many of his books (e.g., Samadhi and Siddhi, 1974) and clearly encourages its “awakening” through meditation.
Unlike Professor Swami A. Bharati who was a qualified yogi and teacher (he taught for many years in Indian villages, at a university in Japan, and, until his death several years ago, at Syracuse University in New York), Sri Chinmoy has never been qualified by any viable tradition from his native India. Chinmoy became an essentially self-proclaimed guru in the mid 60s in the west after living at the highly experimental and controversial ashram founded by Sri Aurobindo Ghose (died 1950) in Pondicherry, India. Swami Bharati’s autobiography The Ochre Robe (Ross-Erickson, 1980) is a tour de force in Hindu spiritual philosophy and experience. All by itself, I believe, it is far more insightful than Sri Chinmoy’s hundreds of self-aggrandizing volumes.
Although many authors like Bharati have warned of the dangers associated with kundalini meditation, most people who meditate have few dramatic side effects. One pervasive trait, however, is the increase in suggestibility to the environment of influence. This means that devotees will tend to accept suggestions uncritically if it comes from their guru while “experiencing” seeming truthful feelings about these suggestions. Such devotees strive to maintain an inner harmony which stresses (strains) their personality. The striving for inner perfection and guru connection can make a devotee very sensitive to “outside” disturbances. Thus, marriage and children can become extreme distractions from the “path” and cause irritation that is often suppressed. The suppression naturally erupt in angry reactions that are often irrational, and can approach a childish tantrum. I speak from experience (I once practiced meditiation) as well as from dozens of interviews with meditators over the last decade.
In the articles that I included, there is a 1990 San Francisco Examiner story about Robyn Kliger (“One Who Got Away”). Robyn had been one of Chinmoy’s top female disciples for nearly a decade when her parents finally intervened in 1989. I helped to exit counsel Robyn. She now admits that she was under a kind of hypnotic “spell” or, if it exists, she was “brainwashed” by Chinmoy. The key to understanding this “spell” is in the neurophysiology of the suggestible state brought on by meditation. Today, after years of reflection on her experience as one of Chinmoy’s “girls,” she clearly states that Chinmoy is a charlatan.