THE GURU CRISIS: Navigating Trust Amidst Betrayal - December 19th, 2023

Bhakti is relational. At the center of the center of everything is our relationship with Krishna. In the context of that relationship, there is the relationship between the guru and disciple. Ideally, the guru-disciple connection affords one of the most beautiful possibilities of deep affectionate loving friendship, yet, all too often the actualization of such an ideal falls short and sometimes even into the realm of abuse. And as beautiful as the guru-disciple relationship can be when both guru and disciple are working together, honoring their own responsibilities to nourish the ideal of divine love, it can be just as powerfully painful when that sacred bond is betrayed.

Before speaking about healing—healing trauma, healing abuse, healing pain, healing whatever may need to be healed—we first need to acknowledge what it is that actually needs to be healed. In other words, before solving the problem, we have to understand the problem and the misconceptions that support and even nourish the problems.

Join Swami Padmanabha as he navigates through the foundational truths of the guru-disciple relationship as understood and presented in scriptures and how contemporary misconceptions and misapplications of those truths have manifested as dysfunctional and abusive templates in the guise of something holy, and how each of those misconceptions can be redeemed by reconceiving our approach, by changing our angle of vision.

▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/live/QXBtzvRUJvs

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RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion.