No more Gurus anymore*
A story of liberation from unethical gurus, and a practice to support your own liberation
*Yes this is meant to a comical take on the Stranglers song No More Heroes Anymore.
I remember the moment very well. The moment where I realised the age of the Guru is over, and that the truth lay inside my own body – it lay in my womb.
I was about to qualify as a kundalini yoga teacher. It was early 2020, and stories were emerging of a new, deadly virus that was going to shake humanity and our very survival to the core.
At the same time, stories were also emerging of multiple instances of abuse – including rape – committed by the self-proclaimed founder of the kundalini tradition I was soon to complete my training in. Yogi Bhajan had been worshipped as a guru by many within the kundalini yoga movement long after his death in 2004. Now he and other gurus were being exposed – not only for their corruption and abuse of women, but of the spiritual traditions and ancient lineages from where yoga first originated. Many forms of yoga have been appropriated, diminished and monetised by gurus and their followers, more for status and profit than for collective healing and spiritual enlightenment.
In early 2020, not only was I a victim of this deceit, I was also going through my own personal crisis. After a series of unhealthy sexual encounters that left me feeling disrespected, unseen and diminished, as well as a pregnancy and miscarriage 18 months earlier, my body had gone into a state of trauma – although I wouldn’t have understood it as such at the time. All I knew was that my pelvic area felt numb and closed off, and it was having an impact on sexual intimacy and relationships with men.
These set of circumstances conspired to me having a healing crisis - or to be more accurate, a healing awakening. I realised that I was not going to find the emotional and physical support I needed through kundalini yoga alone, as much as this had been a portal to greater clarity, and indeed greater bliss at times. I did not feel fully seen or heard within a community whose founders were guilty of multiple abuses, and many of whose members were still denying this and the voices of dozens of survivors.
And so I turned to a yoga that had the experiences of women at its heart. A yoga which moves beyond asana that ignores women’s experiences – including menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause. A yoga that respects lineage whilst also respecting that we each have our own inner guidance and truth that we can tap into. A yoga which challenges abuse – and the system of patriarchy in which this abuse is repeated over and over – by honouring women’s magical and creative source: their womb space, from which so much wisdom is naturally held.
This practice is womb yoga. I feel truly blessed to have been trained by Uma Dinsmore-Tuli in Yoni Shakti, a practice that channels the Divine Feminine and reconnects our bodies to the rhythms and cycles of nature. These practices challenge the rigidity that is inherent in many yoga traditions; rather than trying to attain the perfect pose, womb yoga celebrates fluidity and diversity in the body, honours and supports our changing levels of energy at different phases of our cycles and lives, and helps us to drop back into the inner wisdom and truth that lies in our hearts and in our wombs.
Intrigued to find out more? In the video here I help you get acquainted with one of the core practices to support you in connecting with your heart and womb, and to heaven and earth in order to ground you in your body and deepen into your connection with the natural world of which we are all a part.
The age of the guru is behind us. The truth you seek is within you. I hope you enjoy the practice to support you on your journey of awakening.
If you are in the Brighton and Hove area, I will be offering a 4-week course in Womb Yoga: Embodying the Wisdom of Seasons and Cycles, starting 12 March 2025.