A closer look at Sadhguru’s Yashoda controversy

I noticed a curious controversy that broke out recently on Sadhguru’s words regarding Lord Krishna’s mother Yashoda. The controversy itself is based on a misunderstanding of Sadhguru’s intent (caused by a poor choice of the words he used, as I will show) and may have been triggered by vested interests. But what interested me more were the parts of Sadhguru’s speech that many people did not pay much attention to. I believe those are a lot more damaging to Sadhguru’s credibility than the words that caused the trouble. I have also seen how some Isha volunteers have blindly defended Sadhguru and tried to shut down valid criticism. Their act triggered me to write this post. 

The controversy

The controversy arose when an excerpt from a 2005 video of Sadhguru was posted on Twitter. This excerpt was taken from a talk in an event called “Leela” that Sadhguru designed to explore Krishna’s consciousness and his teachings. He was talking about 2 women in Krishna’s life (his mother Yashoda and a demon called Putana) and how they were transformed in their love of Krishna. What became controversial are his remarks on Yashoda that “Her motherhood fell off somewhere by the time he (Krishna) was five or six. After that, she couldn’t really be his mother. She became his lover”. After the controversy, Isha issued a clarification (which they seem to have removed from their website now for some reason, see an archive here) and Sadhguru himself clarified twice (here & here) that he did not intend any sexual love. He said – “Krishna is an embodiment of love. How can anybody be without being in Love? His mother, grandmother, friends, man, woman, child, cows, everybody loves him. That is the only way to be. If you love someone, you are his lover”. Further, he apologized to those who got genuinely hurt. 

A case of bad choice of words

One can definitely believe Sadhguru’s clarification. Leela was created as a tribute to Krishna and many people find those videos quite profound and touching. He would not attribute anything sinful in such an event. However, as he himself came close to admitting in his 2nd clarification, he could have used better words to describe what he wanted to say. In fact, when Isha reproduced the content of the talk back in 2014 on their website here, their editors recognized this problem and made edits (For those wondering, these edits were not done after the controversy, they were present in the 2020 August snapshot on archive.org too)

Original version from the speech:

“Starting with Yashoda, his foster mother. She was deeply in love with the boy. Not just as her son, much more than that. Even when he was just an infant, it was all about the beautiful child she had. But he grew too rapidly. His growth was phenomenal. No mother can adjust her motherhood to that kind of growth. So her motherhood fell off somewhere by the time he was five or six. After that, she couldn’t really be his mother. She became more of his lover. She just loved him.”

Edited version on Isha’s website: (Strikethrough indicates deletions, Bold indicates inserts)

“Starting with Yashoda, his foster mother. She was deeply in love with the boy who loved the boy deeply.  Not just as her son, much more than that. Even when he was just an infant, it was all about the beautiful child she had. But he grew too rapidly. His growth was phenomenal. No mother can adjust her motherhood to that kind of growth. So her motherhood fell off  disappeared somewhere by the time he was five or six. After that, she couldn’t really be his mother. She became more of his lover. She just loved him.”

One can easily see that these edits were not mere grammatical corrections or removing redundant words. The editors also removed/corrected sentences that can provide the wrong connotations. Thus, if someone tries to argue that Sadhguru spoke perfectly fine and it was only “dirty minded” and “evil” people who misunderstood him, they should just look at Isha’s own website. If Isha itself couldn’t carry Sadhguru’s exact words on their website, doesn’t it clearly indicate that his language was problematic, even if his intentions were pure?

Profundity mixed with ignorance

Sadhguru is known for his profound statements on life, consciousness, spirituality and other topics. He has superb talent to convey complex ideas in a simple, clear, attractive and convincing matter. He also has great charisma and is considered by many as an enlightened mystic. All these create a powerful effect that explains why many people get touched and even transformed by his words. But with great power comes great responsibility and one expects Sadhguru to be accurate in what he says. Instead, he repeatedly keeps making basic (and sometimes serious) errors in many things he speaks about (I explained some of them here). One can pardon Sadhguru’s mistakes in explaining science concepts or political issues. But as a spiritual Guru, there is no excuse for his repeated mistakes in explaining spiritual concepts, Sanskrit meanings or scriptural stories. 

Sadhguru made several statements in his talk which were incorrect and misleading. Several people pointed out these mistakes – including @kaundabhatta on Twitter & Lila Prabhu on Youtube (I was particularly impressed with Lila Prabhu who showed a lot of respect to Sadhguru even while pointing out his mistakes). I will summarize them here but do check the links above for more details along with proofs.   

1. Yashoda’s motherly love got transformed into a spiritual love as Krishna’s divinity is revealed – This is not true. Sadhguru is right in saying that everyone fell in love with Krishna but everyone loved him in their own way. Yashoda, in particular, always retained her motherly love even after she witnessed Krishna’s divine play. Krishna himself ensured this through his Maya. Sadhguru completely misses this nuance. 
   
2. Yashoda became a Gopi and attended the Raas Leela along with others – Sadhguru rightly clarified that Raas Leela (in its widest meaning) is an expression of divine love and not a sexual affair. But there is no mention anywhere that Yashoda attended the Raas Leela events along with other Gopis.
   
3. Yashoda did not like Radha and became jealous of her – Not sure where Sadhguru picked up this information but Yashoda fully approved Radha. As clarified above, Yashoda always had only motherly love for Krishna and so there is no scope for any jealousy. 
   
4. Krishna did not return to Vrindavan after he left to Mathura – This is incorrect and Krishna did continue to visit Vrindavan even after he left to Mathura.
   
5. Putana, sent to poison Krishna, got transformed by her love for Krishna and offered her life willingly – This is quite strange! If Putana got fascinated by Krishna and love oozed out of her, why would she offer him milk when she knew that her breasts are poisoned? In contrast to what Sadhguru says, the Bhagavata says (translation by Prabhupada) –
   
   “On that very spot, the fiercely dangerous Rākṣasī took Kṛṣṇa on her lap and pushed her breast into His mouth. The nipple of her breast was smeared with a dangerous, immediately effective poison, but the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, becoming very angry at her, took hold of her breast, squeezed it very hard with both hands, and sucked out both the poison and her life.”

So many mistakes in a small talk, the major one being a misrepresentation of Yashoda’s love towards Krishna, a misrepresentation that he repeats in the latest 2 clarifications that he provided. Shouldn’t Sadhguru be better prepared when he was conducting an event on Krishna? Of course, everyone makes mistakes occasionally but Sadhguru has a habit of making ignorant and misleading remarks in the guise of mastery. He seems to be confident that people would listen to anything he says.

Blind devotion and blind defence

In December 2020, someone on Twitter pointed out Sadhguru’s mistake about average food consumption by humans in their life time and made fun of it. In response, Isha officially gave a strong reply which several people (including me) found impolite. 

Instead of 14k kilograms Sadhguru misspoke and said 14 hundred tons. It was a mistake from a video from many years ago where the content is not about the volume of food anyway. But the amount of filth in your head you must be eating more than 14 hundred tons for sure and what??? https://t.co/sbS6Ofgvmr

— Isha Foundation (@ishafoundation) December 19, 2020

Responding to a question on this, Sadhguru praised the Maa who made the Tweet and said that Lord Rama did not carry bow & arrows just for decoration! He said that several vested interests are spewing venom on Isha and should be given a fitting reply. But no one said that Isha should not defend itself. The question is – do you stoop down to the level of your enemy or do you maintain your dignity? Rama did kill Ravana but he did it in a way that is fitting of Rama. 

Encouraging his followers on social media to become trolls when required but be nice otherwise is a very bad advice. Social media often behaves like a war zone where your side is fighting with the “people on the other side”. There are no nuances and even well intentioned people are regularly marked as an “enemy” and a target for attack. This is a very convenient way to insulate against all criticism. If someone makes a valid criticism, just mark him as an enemy and if an enemy makes a valid criticism he need not be answered! 

Taking a leaf out of Sadhguru’s book is the Twitter user StringReveals, whose Youtube channel String seems to be quite popular. I happened to watch his recent 3 part series addressing several criticisms against Sadhguru. In part 2, he decides to expose one of Sadhguru’s critics who goes by the name Vaibhav. Vaibhav posted a thread on Twitter in response to Sadhguru’s comments on Yashoda where he pointed out several things including Sadhguru’s lack of knowledge in Sanskrit and Hindu Scriptures, how he mixes Hindu concepts with Buddhism and how he misrepresents several traditional concepts. Some of his criticism is definitely valid and some of it seems baseless but he did not appear abusive (My impression is just based on this thread. I did not read his entire Twitter posts on Sadhguru). He even starts the thread by saying – “I will not abuse neither I support anyone abusing him (Sadhguru), he is an old man”. 

But StringReveals decides that he is an enemy who must be silenced. His anger seems to come from Vaibhav’s rejection of Sadhguru because Sadhguru never read scriptures and Vedas! He asks with a smirk on his face – “Can you tell me what percentage of Hindus know scriptures and Vedas?”. This kind of reasoning may win applauds with Sadhguru fans but it is entirely flawed. An average Hindu may not know anything about scriptures but that is not an excuse for Sadhguru to not know anything when he goes around commenting on Krishna, Mahabharata, Gita, Yoga, Vedanta and other traditional topics as if he is a scholar. StringReveals then calls Vaibhav and records the conversation. It does not appear like a pre-arranged meeting and I am not sure if StringReveals took Vaibhav’s permission before recording. He starts by asking a rude question – “Anna (Brother), are you on drugs or something?” and from then on the conversation goes downhill with StringReveals constantly interrupting, mocking and abusing Vaibhav. Among other things, he calls Vaibhav “bloody idiot” & “mentally retarded”, strong words that would have possibly made Sadhguru proud! When Vaibhav tries to say that he has attached proofs for his criticism StringReveals discards them saying “You have attached all the proofs of your stinking mind”. Yes, Yes! Only what Sadhguru’s mind conceives of is the absolute truth even when scriptures don’t agree with him! Vaibhav provides a very common and valid definition of Hinduism which StringReveals strongly objects to, because, well, it doesn’t align with what Sadhguru said! You see, Sadhguru is the ultimate authority, the great mystic, the divine incarnation and no one should question him. 

I was angered and shocked to see how StringReveals treated Vaibhav. To StringReveals, I want to say this: You behaved like a troll and did not show basic human courtesy when talking to someone. And now you are proud of it? There are any number of powerful people who spew venom on Sadhguru but you do not dare to attack them like this in a conversation. Instead, you choose one harmless and hapless guy, pounce upon him and celebrate victory? What cowardice is this? If you are really brave, have the courage to go beyond your deeply held feelings for Sadhguru and start to get inquisitive and investigate/verify what he is saying. You will see for yourself that he is full of inconsistencies and is taking everyone for a ride!

Conclusion

When I left Isha in 2017, I had my disagreements and doubts about Isha and Sadhguru but I had confidence in the overall health of the organization. 3 years later, as I keep learning more things about them, I am not so sure. I see that Sadhguru is more blatantly defending his actions and his followers are more blindly supporting him. Sadhguru becomes their God, his words the sacred scriptures and doing whatever he says their blessed duty. Any “red flags” they see can be easily explained or ignored or discarded as false. And if their logical mind troubles them sometimes they can easily take satisfaction in Sadhguru’s teaching to go beyond the logical mind. Anyone opposing Sadhguru must be in ignorance because Sadhguru is faultless. There is only one cardinal sin – to question or doubt Sadhguru. This is the new world spirituality of Sadhguru and something about it doesn’t seem right. Not right at all! It worries me but none of the Isha devotees seem to bother or even notice this. The show goes on!

P.S: For those interested, all my previous articles on Isha and Sadhguru are here.