Finding A Meditation Group/Guru - What To Look For & What To Avoid

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- Ch: 10 of Mindfulness, A Guidebook to the Present Moment -

‘When you know how to listen, everyone is the Guru. – Ram Das

For some people, their meditation practice is greatly enhanced in the presence of others. Getting together with a group of like-minded people to practice can be quite rewarding. A good meditation group will be motivating and help keep you accountable. It is one thing to skip a session when you are alone, but quite another when you have agreed to meet up with a group. This is a form of positive social pressure and is a great tool to harness the positive effects of peer pressure. What is more, when you are meditating with others, you will have a wealth of experiences and resources to draw upon should any questions or concerns arise.

Some people also benefit from the tutelage of a guru or meditation instructor. These are people who have practiced mindfulness meditation for years and are recognized as experts; either through a formal and organizational based acceptance to the level of instructor, or due to their apparent level of attainment and ability to impart that level of attainment upon their students.

As with all teacher-student relationships, it is important to understand who and what you are signing up to. Most meditation instructors are legitimate and capable instructors who will gently guide you on your meditation journey. A good instructor will assess your level and provide teaching, guidance, and resources appropriate to it. They may suggest new or novel techniques, as well as retreats or other interventions that may boost your practice.

Unfortunately, there are some instructors and gurus that abuse the trust of their students and use their position for personal gain. Given the deeply personal nature of meditation, some vulnerable students have fallen victim to con-artists and abusers under the guise of a meditation master. This can be as simple as financial exploitation, or as extreme as an induction into a spiritual sex cult. Either way, this is something we want to avoid at all costs.

Before you take on any instructor, do a search online, relating to the instructor, their followers, the organization, and the meditation practices they are offering. Include words like ‘controversy’ and ‘abuse’ and ‘reviews’ in your search, and be sure to read the websites that were not created by the instructor. Where possible, speak to a collection of the current students, and do a couple of trial sessions before signing up. If you get a bad feeling, or something seems off, trust that feeling and move on. Make sure to try a few different instructors before settling on one, that way you will have a baseline of comparison.

I am speaking here from personal experience. Years ago, I was a casual attendant at a local ‘Ashram’, a meditation and spiritual community headed by a guru of sorts. I found the environment and teachings to be beneficial, so for a while there I was attending a session once or twice a month. This all stopped when it was revealed that the guru was manipulating his core students to give up excessive amounts of their personal wealth to his organization, as well as sexually coercing some of his young and attractive female devotees, while simultaneously encouraging their partners to practice abstinence. The media storm that followed tore the community to shreds, leaving many practitioners confused about both themselves and their practice. Years later, many are still financially, socially, and emotionally crippled.

Thankfully for me, I was never that involved in the community. I was able to leave unscathed, merely being disgusted by the guru’s actions, and saddened that the community was no longer viable. Since then I have been far more attuned to the warning signs of a potentially bad instructor.

Some warning signs include:

  • Demands of exclusivity: You should not be banned or discouraged from reading about, experimenting with, or practicing with other people or types of meditation.

  • No questioning: You should feel comfortable questioning a practice and be free to ask why you are doing things in a certain way.

  • No alterations: You should feel comfortable expressing distress, confusion, or other negative emotions at an instruction or practice, and where appropriate, every effort should be made to accommodate your needs.

  • Abuse: In no way should you be physically or emotionally abused or coerced. This includes yelling, hitting or anything of a sexual nature.

  • Excess costs or tithing: All services and premises cost money, and your instructor needs to make an income. But make sure that the financial demands are not excessive. You should be expected to pay fairly for the time given, resources used and the space, but no more. You should not be asked, and it shouldn’t be implied, that you should give away your possessions or tithe a percentage of your income to the instructor or organization.

I do not want this to scare you away from meditation groups and instructors, but merely make you aware of some of the potential pitfalls that can be involved. It is easy to assume that because someone meditates that they are of good moral and ethical standing, but this is simply not the case, and as such it is worth being on guard in some capacity.

I have now found a community of like-minded practitioners and an instructor who is competent, qualified, ethical, and reasonably priced. With a little searching, you will be able to find something similar should you desire it. The good news is that the internet enables access to a far larger collection of instructors and resources, so there will certainly be something out there for you.