KATHERINE TINGLEY TIMELINE

1847 (July 6):  Katherine Tingley was born Catherine Augusta Westcott in Newbury, Massachusetts.

1850s:  As a child Tingley was greatly influenced by nature, New England Transcendentalism and the Masonic background of her grandfather Nathan Chase.

1861:  Tingley attended to those wounded in the Civil War while her family was in Virginia

1862–1865:  Horrified at her response to the suffering soldiers, Tingley’s father sent her to Villa Marie Convent in Montreal, Quebec, over objections from her grandfather.

1867:  Tingley briefly married Richard Henry Cook, a printer.

1866–1887:  There is little or no documentation for this period, but Tingley had two unsuccessful, childless marriages. During part of this time, she was in Europe working in a travelling stage/drama group.

1880:  Tingley married George W. Parent, an investigator for New York Elevated. The marriage ended by 1886.

1880s:  Tingley adopted and raised two children, from her former husband, Richard Henry Cook’s, second marriage.

1887:  Tingley formed the Ladies Society of Mercy to visit hospitals and prisons.

1888:  Tingley married Philo B. Tingley in the spring. Philo B. Tingley joined the Manhattan, New York City Masonic group that year, where William Q. Judge was the almoner.

1888–1889:  Katherine Tingley met William Q. Judge during a cloakmakers strike, somewhere between fall of 1888 and winter of 1889. Judge investigated her work for the Manhattan Masonic Lodge. The Lodge provided funding for some of Tingley’s Do Good Mission efforts.

1890 (April):  W. Q. Judge was ill with gradually progressing tuberculosis and Chagres fever. He sent Tingley to Sweden on secret mission to meet King Oscar II, arranged through Masonic connections.

1888–1891:  Tingley established various social work outreach projects, which included the Do Good Mission and the Women’s Emergency Relief Association, which arranged and provided a soup kitchen, clothing and medical needs in New York City for the Upper Eastside and for striking immigrant garment workers.

March 1896:  William Q. Judge died.

April 1896:  At the second annual convention of the Theosophical Society in America an announcement was made of the prospective founding by Tingley of the School for the Revival of the Lost Mysteries of Antiquity (SLRMA), generally referred to later as the School of Antiquity. Tingley was elected as head for life of Theosophical Society in America.

1896 (June 7):  A ten-month World Theosophical Crusade was inaugurated to visit Theosophical centers, form new branches, and hold Brotherhood Suppers for the poor.

1896 (June 13):  World Theosophical Crusade sailed from New York City, landed in England and then went to Ireland, Continental Europe, Greece (stopping to feed hundreds of Armenian refugees), then to Egypt (October), India (November/December), Australia (January 1897), New Zealand and Samoa. While on board the ship Tingley gave Theosophical talks for the steerage underclass passengers; while at various stops in Great Britain and Europe she held Brotherhood Suppers for the poor,

1896 (September):  While in Switzerland, Tingley received information that the Point Loma, California location, which appeared to her in a vision, was available. She met Gottfried de Purucker (who would become her successor) who drew a map of Point Loma. Tingley sent the cable to purchase the land at Point Loma.

1896 (October/November):  Tingley described her meeting with Helena P. Blavatsky’s young Tibetan “Teacher” in Darjeeling.

1897 (January):  Tingley purchased 132 acres on Point Loma in San Diego, with option to buy an additional forty acres.

1897 (February 13):  Tingley arrived at Point Loma.

1897 (February 23):  Tingley officially laid the cornerstone for the future School for the Revival of the Lost Mysteries of Antiquity. More than 1,000 people attended the ceremony.

1898:  Tingley formally changed the name of her group from The Theosophical Society to The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society.

1898 (November 19):  Tingley produced a benefit performance in New York City of the Greek tragedy by Aeschylus, The Eumenides, for American soldiers and Spanish and Cuban sufferers in the Spanish American War. The New York Tribune reviewed the performance favorably.

1899 (February):  Tingley met with large group from all over Cuba upon her arrival in Santiago, Cuba. She encountered Emilio Bacardi Moreau, the mayor of Santiago, Cuba and grandmaster of Masonic lodges in Cuba.

1899 (April 13):  The first Universal Brotherhood Congress convened at Point Loma, with two performances of the Eumenides featuring a cast of two hundred.

1899 (September 13):  The second Universal Brotherhood Congress convened in Stockholm, Sweden, with a reception attended by King Oscar II. There was another large gathering in Brighton, England, on October 6.

1899–1900:  Extensive remodeling of the preexisting large sanatorium building into the Academy and Temple of Peace, along with extensive development of the Point Loma site, began.

1900:  Raja Yoga school founded at Point Loma with first five students at Point Loma, including Iverson Harris Jr. and four daughters of Walter T. Hanson from Georgia: Coralee, Margaret, Estelle, and Kate.

1900:  Tingley held a debate with Christians at the Fisher Opera House in San Diego. The Christians, who verbally attacked her and the Theosophists, declined to participate, and so Tingley presented both sides at the debate. She then purchased the Fisher Opera House and renamed it the Isis Theater after the Egyptian goddess.

1901:  Tingley built the first Greek-style theater in America at Point Loma.

1901:  Tingley produced a Greek symposium, The Wisdom of Hypatia, performed at the renamed Isis Theater. That same year saw dramatic productions of The Conquest of Death and a children’s drama Rainbow Fairy Play.

1901 (October 28):  The Los Angeles Times headlined a sensationalized column: “Outrages at Point Loma: Women and Children Starved and Treated like Convicts. Thrilling Rescue.” Tingley’s subsequent suit for libel against the publisher Otis Gray, one of the most powerful people in California at that time, was successful and she was awarded $7,500.

1902:  One hundred students were now enrolled at the Raja Yoga school. Two-thirds were Cuban, including children of Emilio Bacardi Moreau.

1903:  Twenty-five Raja Yoga students were sent to Cuba to help launch schools there. Three schools were established. Nan Ino Herbert was the principal.

1903:  Tingley journeyed to Japan with Gottfried de Purucker. She was impressed with Japanese discipline and ethic and invited Japanese educators to visit Point Loma.

1907:  A Midsummer Night’s Dream was produced at Point Loma and performed in the Greek Theater, featuring original music, costumes, and set. Dozens of plays, mostly from Shakespeare and Aeschylus were produced at Point Loma over the next thirty years.

1907:  Tingley had a private visit and meeting with King Oscar II of Sweden, who died a few weeks later. She purchased government land to establish a Raja Yoga school on Visingso Island in Sweden.

1909:  The Raja Yoga schools were closed in Cuba due to financial strain. Tingley had been diverting Point Loma funds there, which was not sustainable.

1909:  Kenneth Morris, Welsh poet and fantasist, moved to Point Loma.

1911:  The first issue of The Theosophical Path appeared, with Gottfried de Purucker as acting editor. This journal was issued monthly in the same format from 1911 until 1929.

1911:  Pageant and symposium, The Aroma of Athens, was written and performed by the Theosophists as a dramatic production at Isis Theater.

1911 (November):  After a very moving visit to San Quentin, Tingley began to publish The New Way, an eight-page newsletter directed at prisoners and edited by Herbert Coryn. The newsletter stated that it was published by “The International Theosophical League of Humanity for Gratuitous Distribution in Prisons.”

1913 (Midsummer):  1913 (Midsummer): Tingley organized, with Swedish members, and attended with a group of Raja Yoga students from Point Loma, the Theosophical Peace Congress at Visingso Island.

1913–1920s:  Tingley’s anti-war peace activities were pervasive from this time through the 1920s with many events and activities organized in San Diego and in Europe.

1914:  Tingley inaugurated the Peace Day of Nations. Telegrams peace and anti-war messages were sent to President Woodrow Wilson.

1914–1915:  Tingley lost part of an inheritance from A. B. Spaulding in a lawsuit brought by his heirs.

1915:  Tingley suggested to plein air impressionist artist Maurice Braun, who had come to join the Theosophists in 1909, that he establish his art focus in San Diego, rather than at Point Loma. Braun became one of the founders of the San Diego Art Guild, which later became the San Diego Art Institute.

1914–1917:  Tingley successfully campaigned against capital punishment in Arizona, supporting and collaborating with then-Governor George W. P. Hunt.

1917–1920:  Tingley headed anti-vivisection animal rights efforts.

1919 (January):  The Spanish Influenza, which raged throughout the nation, saw only a single case at Point Loma.

1920:  Through a large publicity campaign Tingley successfully influenced the California governor to commute the sentence of Roy Wolff, who was seventeen at the time he killed a taxi driver.

1920s:  At its height, Point Loma had residents from twenty-six nations.

1922:  Katherine Tingley’s talk on Theosophy: The Path of the Mystic was printed and published at Point Loma.

1923:  Adventure novelist Talbot Mundy took up residence at Point Loma, and there wrote his most mystical adventure story, Om the Secret of Ahbor Valley, in which the Lama protagonist is patterned after Tingley.

1923:  Tingley met Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Anthroposophical Society, in Germany and proposed that the two groups merge. Tingley’s stroke later that year and Steiner’s death precluded this potential merger.

1923:  Tingley lost a lawsuit that relatives brought in the Mohn family inheritance.

1925:  Katherine Tingley’s talk on The Wine of Life, which outlined the ideal of the Theosophical home life, was printed and published at Point Loma.

1926:  Katherine Tingley’s talk on The Gods Await was printed and published at Point Loma.

1927:  Katherine Tingley’s talk on The Travail of the Soul was printed and published at Point Loma.

1929:  Tingley had premonitions of her impending death, described by Elsie Savage Benjamin.

1929 (July 11):  Katherine Tingley died in Sweden while on a European tour, following an auto accident in Germany.

BIOGRAPHY

Katherine Augusta Westcott was born in Newbury, Massachusetts on 6 July 1847. She grew up in New England, her childhood spent wandering along the banks of the Merrimac River near Newbury. The first years through her mid-teens appear to have been idyllic. She found the companionship of her grandfather, Nathan Chase, to be inspiring. She observed that she was drawn to the outdoors and described a nature-loving, interior, and more spiritualized orientation from early childhood. She portrayed her childhood experience and wonderment with the natural world, writing that “in my love of Nature and in my love of the true and the beautiful, in my love of this Eternal Supreme Power, my views broadened and I felt there is still greater knowledge and more wonderful meaning to human life” (Tingley 1925:286). Additionally, she was also drawn to the visitors and friends of her family, who were participants in the New England Transcendentalist movement. She wrote that she tried many philosophies, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and though they stirred her, they “did not quite satisfy.”

The first major transition in her life came in 1861 during the American Civil War. Her father was a regiment captain, stationed with the Union Army in Virginia, and there she witnessed the suffering and wounded soldiers. After the second battle of Bull Run, she saw “the ambulances returning with the dead and dying, followed by the files of Confederate soldiers, ragged and half starving” (Tingley 1926:36–37). Unable to bear the sight, Tingley and her African American servant went out among the soldiers and tended their wounds late into the night. However, her father’s reaction to Katherine’s impulse to aid the suffering and wounded was not a positive one. Out of concern for Katherine’s well-being he quickly sent her off, over the protests of her grandfather, a member of the Masons, to a Catholic boarding school administered by nuns at Villa Marie Convent in Montreal, Quebec. This was a highly regimented and structured environment, a drastic change from the free-spirited life in New England. She appears to have lived there until she was eighteen, and upon completing school, for reasons not clear, she did not return to her parents’ home.

From 1865 until 1880, there is almost no information on Tingley’s life, although she was briefly married to Richard Henry Cook, a printer, in 1867. From 1880 to 1888 all that is known is that she married a second time: George W. Parent was an investigator for New York Elevated. The marriage ended by 1886. By the mid-1880s, for a short time, she adopted and raised two children who were from her first husband’s second marriage. Tingley gave little information about these marriages other than that they were times of great suffering for her.

Living in New York City brought her into contact with the horrible conditions of those living on the East Side, and in 1887 she established a women’s group to visit prisons and hospitals, called the Ladies Society of Mercy. In 1888, she married Philo B. Tingley, a steamship employee and inventor, who would be Katherine’s connection to what would become the most world-changing event in her life, namely meeting William Q. Judge (1851–1896), president of the American Section of the Theosophical Society. The same year he married Katherine, Philo Tingley had joined the Manhattan Masonic Lodge, where Judge was the bursar. Katherine’s work with the poor and particularly with the plight of striking garment workers and their working conditions was suggested as a charitable project. Judge, as the Masonic Lodge treasurer, was sent to check on it, view the project in action and determine if it was worth supporting. Historical documents discovered in 2015 clearly indicate that Judge first saw Katherine in late 1888 at her “Do Good” outreach mission, when, as she would describe later, she saw an unusual gentleman within the crowd of the downtrodden, “strikingly noble of expression, with a look of grave sadness and of sickness too” (Tingley 1926:79). They met in person for the first time in early 1889. “It was then, when I came to know him, that I realized that I had found my place. I was face to face with a new type of human nature: with something akin to that which my inner consciousness had told me a perfect human being might be” (Tingley 1926:79–80). It is remarkable that both Judge and Tingley kept her connection with him and the Theosophical Society totally secret until 1894, even though revealing it would have greatly benefited her position with those Theosophists who were critical of her.

During 1894 and possibly earlier, Katherine took Judge to warmer weather and hot springs in Texas and Arkansas for rest and recuperation from his progressing tuberculosis and Chagres fever. At the same time, she formally joined the Theosophical Society and a month later Judge admitted her to the private Esoteric Section. As it became clearer that Judge’s chronic illness was more serious, Tingley [Image at right] was introduced to a few Theosophists in 1895. Tensions and differences had been building between William Q. Judge and both Annie Besant (1847–1933) and Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907), who had remained with the parent Theosophical Society headquartered in Adyar, India. There were a complex and contentious series of events, which turned acrimonious at times. This finally came to a head when Judge led the American Section to secede from the Theosophical Society in 1895. Declaring autonomy, the Theosophical Society in America was established and William Q. Judge was elected president for life (Ryan 1975). At that time, Katherine Tingley rapidly moved to the center of governance as Judge’s health declined further.

Upon Judge’s death in 1896, Tingley was elected president for life. Conflicts and schisms followed, but Tingley forged ahead. She quickly shifted the direction of the Theosophical Society in America to create an educational and living community where Theosophy could be practiced in daily life and not only for abstract study of metaphysics or the exploring of visionary realms. It was her aim to make Theosophy “intensely practical” and rooted in a deep altruistic ethic. At the January 13, 1898 convention, she would rename it the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society (UBTS). For the direct application of her philanthropic work she also established the International Brotherhood League, which carried on a very large relief effort in Cuba in 1898 after the Spanish-American War, and also served the sick and wounded soldiers returning from the war. President William McKinley authorized the use of U.S. Government transport to take Tingley, her physicians and other workers to Cuba with large supplies of food, clothing, and medicines (Ryan 1975:348).

In 1896, she gathered together a few supporters for a Theosophical Crusade and headed off around the world, beginning in Europe. In Switzerland she met a young Theosophical Society member, Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) for the first time. He had joined the Theosophical Society and met Judge who admitted him to the Esoteric Section without the usual probationary period. De Purucker had been to California a few years before and lived in San Diego in 1893, working on a ranch and leading study groups in the Secret Doctrine by the co-founder of the original Theosophical Society, Helena P. Blavatsky (1831–1891). De Purucker helped Tingley identify the land at Point Loma in San Diego for purchase for the UBTS project (PLST Archive). Meanwhile, the Theosophical “crusaders” traveled through the Middle East and sailed on to India. [Image at right] Early one morning near Darjeeling, Tingley evaded her companions and slipped off up into the foothills. She would return a day or so later, stating she had visited one of Blavatsky’s “Teachers” referring to the encounter as “life transforming” (Tingley 1926:155–162; and Tingley 1928). Some years later Tingley would reflect that her encounter with Blavatsky’s young Tibetan “Teacher” in India had given her the courage to continue with establishing and developing the Point Loma community and the gradual alleviation and reversal of symptoms of her chronic Addison’s kidney/adrenal disease. For Katherine Tingley this was a much needed and spiritually life-changing experience, that brought her the energy and motivation to bring her vision of a “White City in the West” into manifestation.

The Point Loma community began in 1897 with Tingley’s arrival. Great enthusiasm and energy accompanied construction and transformation of the grounds, which were called Lomaland. By 1899, the first five students were enrolled in the Raja Yoga school, and by 1902 there were a hundred, of whom about seventy-five were from Cuba. Collaborating with Emilio Bacardi Moreau (1844–1923), mayor of Santiago, Cuba, she began a mission to build schools in Cuba and to bring Cuban students to the Raja Yoga School at Point Loma. By 1915, the school in San Diego reached its peak with 500 students (Greenwalt 1978). The Raja Yoga curriculum evolved quickly, with its emphasis on the creative arts: the classics, music, drama, art, and literature, as well as science, sports and agriculture. The overarching view that the Point Loma community manifested was what Tingley called the School of Antiquity. According to Tingley’s secretary, Joseph H. Fussell, the purpose of the School of Antiquity was to revive a knowledge of the Sacred Mysteries of Antiquity by promoting the physical, mental, moral and spiritual education and welfare of the people of all countries, irrespective of creed, sex, caste or color; by instructing them in an understanding of the laws of universal nature and justice and particularly the laws governing their own being: the teaching them the wisdom of mutual helpfulness, such being the science of Raja Yoga. (qtg Tingley, Fussell 1917:12).

The School of Antiquity and the entire vision and form of the Point Loma community was patterned after Tingley’s conception of an ancient mystery school, drawing a great deal of her inspiration from Plato and Pythagorean ideas. Elsie Benjamin described the mission as being to replicate an ancient Mystery-School:

In the ancient Mystery-Schools, the pupils were more like children: they have instinct, they have intuition, but they didn’t have full self-consciousness. . . . Because Judge had told K.T., that it is not your mission to teach them technical Theosophy. Your mission is to teach them morals, ethics, universal brotherhood, humanity and self-discipline (Benjamin).

Tingley’s vision of “practical Theosophy” encompassed all of the arts, and much more. For her, the architecture of Lomaland needed to express the sacredness of home and place, as both receptacle and expression of a higher divine source. Her inspiration culturally was, at least in part, Greek and Pythagorean harmonics. Of the unique buildings designed and built at Lomaland, the Greek Theater remains as the single purely classically Greek structure. Other structures, such as the Temple of Peace or the home of Elizabeth Mayer Spaulding, wife of sporting goods magnate Albert G. Spaulding, reflected influences from India and Persia.

Drama played a significant role, not only to develop community esprit d’corps, but for the individual transformational elements involved. From 1903 into the 1930s, the Point Loma Theosophical community produced scores of plays. Tingley chose Greek tragedy and Shakespeare’s dramas for what she viewed as their philosophical perennialism and universal Theosophic ideas, combined with the participatory opportunity that drama has for inner psychological and spiritual development. There were also productions of their own plays, including one based on Socrates’ dialogues in Plato, called The Aroma of Athens. Another, based on the life of the fourth-century Alexandrian neo-Platonist woman philosopher Hypatia, featured Katherine Tingley in the lead role. Reviews in the San Diego Union reflected the central role that the Theosophical productions played in San Diego’s cultural life.

Well-known artists from the U.S. and abroad came to live and work at Lomaland and there developed a unique mystical style. The late 1890s view of art held by Reginald Willoughby Machell (1854–1927), presaged a later twentieth-century phenomenological view found in philosophers like Kitaro Nishida, Maurice Merleau-Ponty or Ananda Coomaraswamy, where an understanding of how the awareness of observer and object are experienced as highly interdependent with the art object and its creation. Said Machell:

Beauty is really a state of mind. The senses only register vibrations, which are translated by the mind into colour, form, sound. . . . It would be more true perhaps to say that beauty is in both observer and observed, but not in one apart from the other (Machell 1892:4).

Another artist who developed a Theosophical style was Maurice Braun (1877–1941). According to Emmett Greenwalt, “Braun was not hesitant in crediting Theosophy with sharpening his insight into nature. To him art was for ‘the service of the divine powers in man,’ or as he otherwise phrased it, ‘art for humanities sake,’ and he saw in Theosophy ‘the champion and inspirer or all that is noble and true and genuine in art’” (Greenwalt 1978: 129–31).

In addition to her devotion to the arts, Katherine Tingley worked for social justice and peace throughout her life. She had been involved in a prison ministry project which involved corresponding with prisoners. She was engaged in movements to abolish capital punishment in California and Arizona. She also organized an anti-vivisection program to protect animal welfare.

In 1922 or 1923, Tingley, around age seventy-six, [Image at right] suffered a minor stroke. It did not cause any noticeable physical debility, but from then until her death, she suffered a kind of emotional agitation at times when under stress. When it became severe, her office staff would call for Gottfried de Purucker to come, given his very calming influence on her in general, and his presence would usually resolve Tingley’s anxieties.

The last seven years of her life can be seen as a gradual decline of the Point Loma experiment, after the dynamic growth and successes of the 1910–1922 period. Her important financial backers of the earlier period had almost all died, and the expenses for maintaining Lomaland had stayed the same. Over this time, significant debt was incurred, even to mortgaging part of the property to maintain the community. The drama, art, music and Raja Yoga school continued, but the income was less. Some long-time residents also left Point Loma at this time, including Hildor and Margueite Barton, Montegue Machell and his wife Coralee (one of the Hanson sisters), and E. August Neresheimer and his wife Emily Lemke. Tingley expressed her dismay and felt that she had not lived up to supporting her committed residents and partisans, especially Reginald Machell.

By late spring of 1929, and approaching the age of eighty-two, Tingley was ready to travel to Europe yet again. Elsie Savage Benjamin, then her secretary, was helping with preparations and sharing her concerns with Tingley about the European trip. She was especially concerned about driving with an inexperienced young man whom Tingley had chosen to be her chauffeur for the tour. Tingley, with her darting, penetrating eyes rapidly responded to Elsie with extraordinary prescience: “Don’t you know, he’s going to be in a car crash and kill someone” (Benjamin n.d.). On May 31, 1929, driving in the fog near dawn on a winding road in Germany about fifty miles from the Dutch border, the chauffeur crashed the car into a concrete bridge pier (Greenwalt 1955:192). Tingley had a double fracture of her right leg and much bruising. Others in the car were also injured. Tingley insisted on being taken to Visingso Island in Sweden rather than to a hospital. Staying in command until the last, and in considerable pain, she even dismissed her doctor rather than be moved to where she could receive better medical care. Katherine Tingley died on Visingso Island, what she considered sacred land, July 11, 1929.

TEACHINGS/DOCTRINES

Tingley saw Theosophy, “not so much as a body of philosophic or other teaching, but as the highest law of conduct, which is the enacted expression of divine love or compassion” (Tingley The Theosophical Path :3). This divine love could be realized only in a communal setting in which people lived and worked together to express their best selves.

For Tingley, educating children’s minds so that they recognized the Immortal Self was “the truest and grandest thing of all as regards education” (Tingley The Theosophical Path:175). Toward this end she founded the Raja Yoga system in order to develop children’s character so that their true nature would emerge from within. “The real secret of the Raja Yoga system is rather to evolve the child’s character than to overtax the child’s mind; it is to bring out rather than to bring to the faculties of the child. The grander part is from within” (Tingley The Theosophical Path:174). The essential divinity of humanity served as the foundation for this kind of education, with a curriculum integrating body, mind, and spirit, in which all participated. Physical cultivation along with intellectual training were required, so that the intellect would be “the servant, not the master.” Thus, the Raja Yoga system, which Tingley called a “science of the soul,” would pervade all life and activity, becoming “the true expression of soul-ideals” so that art would no longer be extraneous to life, but rather an integral part of the environment (Tingley The Theosophical Path: 159–75). This view toward the arts as the means to develop the whole person helps explain Tingley’s passion for theater, since drama, in her view, reached the heart of everyone.

Clearly influenced by Blavatsky’s writings on education, Tingley nevertheless created a practical program not envisaged by her predecessor. She outlined it as follows:

The basis of this education is the essential divinity of man, and the necessity for transmuting everything in his nature which is not divine. To do this no part must be neglected, and the physical nature must share to the full in the care and attention which are required. Neither can the most assiduous training of the intellect be passed over; it must be made subservient to the forces of the heart. The intellect must be the servant, not the master, if order and equilibrium are to be attained (Emmett W. Small n.d.:93–94).

RITUALS/PRACTICES

While there was no group liturgy at Lomaland, there were daily community practices. Tingley spoke of “the sacredness of the moment and the day” and sought to make Theosophy intensely practical as “the enacted expression of divine love or compassion” (Tingley 1922:3) According to her, “The ideal must no longer be left remote from life, but made divinely human, close and intimate, as of old. NOW is the day of resurrection” (Tingley 1922:94). The daily life practice at Lomaland could be compared to the group spiritual practice in the monastic traditions of east and west, yet with unique differences. The Lomaland practice was based on the creative arts within the context of the wisdom traditions of East and West. Daily group activity was ritualized in common endeavors that were creative, contemplative and inspirational, encapsulated within an altruistic ethic. As she expressed it, “Intellectualism has no lasting power without the practice of the highest morality” (Tingley 1922:98). It was a community, the center of which was the education of children.

The entire community gathered together daily at sunrise at the Greek Theater or in the Temple of Peace. Inspirational phrases were read from literature such as the Bhagavad Gita, the Buddha’s life story in Edwin Arnold’s poetic rendition in The Light of Asia, from Theosophical sources, including Light on the Path by Mabel Collins (1885) and the Voice of the Silence by Blavatsky (1889). This was followed by silent contemplation. Meals were eaten in a group setting and in silence, with a brief recitation before each meal and upon entering the refectory eating area; men and women were grouped together. Idle talk was discouraged and the overall quality of the community was to “do well the smallest duty . . . then joy will come” (Tingley 1927:274–75).

The following invocation, given to the students by Katherine Tingley, was recited in unison primarily at meetings held in the Temple, but also on many occasions elsewhere.

Oh my Divinity! Thou dost blend with the
earth and fashion for thyself Temples of mighty power.

Oh my Divinity! thou livest in the heart-life
of all things and dost radiate a Golden Light
that shineth forever and doth illumine even the
darkest comers of the earth.

Oh my Divinity! blend thou with me that
from the corruptible I may become Incorruptible;
that from imperfection I may become Perfection;
that from darkness I may go forth in
Light.

In addition to the morning gatherings in silence and meditation with devotional readings, there was also community music, both instrumental and choral. Everyone sang in the chorus and played a musical instrument. Tingley considered music to be of central value for inner transformation and life harmony: “The soul power which is called forth by a harmony well delivered and well received does not die away with the conclusion of the piece” (Tingley 1922:178). She would attract to Point Loma the renowned director of the Amsterdam Conservatory of music, Daniël de Lange (de Lange 2003), from 1910 to 1915, who transformed the Raja Yoga orchestra into a symphonic quality musical group.

There were frequent gatherings on cultural and Theosophical subjects for presentations in the Temple of Peace. Regular Point Loma visitors, like art historian Osvald Siren (1879–1966), would give lectures in the Temple illustrated by lantern slides of photos from his recent journeys in China or Asian or European art history (Carmen Small n.d.). Lomaland was an oasis of sophistication in the cultural wasteland that was San Diego at the turn of the twentieth century.

LEADERSHIP

Katherine Tingley’s leadership began in 1896, when she was elected amidst some controversy to succeed William Q. Judge as leader for life of the Theosophical Society in America. This resulted in a number of outer changes, including the change of name to the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society and also the shift of primary focus from lodges to the establishment of the community at Lomaland. These alterations also provided a shift in the internal culture within Tingley’s Theosophical movement at the time, which could be described as a shift from discursive metaphysics to Theosophy in daily activity. There was the practical work for Universal Brotherhood, e.g. promoting global peace, prison outreach, capital punishment abolition and so on, but there was also a new modality, where cultivating an inner ethic of altruistic motivation and awareness was primary. This change opened the door, to what could be described as contemplative Theosophy. As Tingley declared:

Wisdom comes not from the multiplication of spoken or written instructions; what you have is enough to last you a thousand years. Wisdom comes from the performance of duty, and in the silence, and only the silence expresses it (Tingley 1925:343).

As a self-proclaimed dictator, Tingley appeared to wield the primary power in the organization, but as the Point Loma community developed, that control was progressively counterbalanced by her delegating responsibilities to others. There was a complex of interconnected departments and committees at Lomaland, which managed everything from maintaining the extensive agricultural gardens with fruit orchards, to supervising school curriculum, Theosophical programs and running a large communal endeavor. The one area in which Tingley immersed herself was her personal direction and management of the dramatic productions in the Greek Theater at Lomaland and at the Isis Theater in San Diego. She felt most at home in the role of guide to the students’ inner development of character and spirituality when she was absorbed in the dramatic productions. In this context, she would exclaim to one student, “I work best in utter chaos” (Harris n.d.).

Tingley was definitely not a micromanager. This is evidenced, for example, by her giving a free hand to Gottfried de Purucker in 1911 in the editorship of The Theosophical Path. She never read or indicated what or what not to print in it and would read the issues, as time permitted, only after they were published (Emmett W. Small n.d.). When she requested a couple of the resident artists to make some Christmas cards by hand for her, it was left to their creativity to work out the design and quotes used (Lester n.d.). Clearly the rapid development and success in establishing the Point Loma community and Raja Yoga school with all its activities of art, music, drama etc., was the result of her delegating and giving others the reins. In addition, she was away travelling almost every summer for a few months, though she made use of letters, cards and telegrams daily while away, keeping a close connection with everyone, including young students and administrators.

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

Throughout the Lomaland period of her life, Tingley faced several lawsuits and filed one of her own against the Los Angeles Times for libel, which she won. There was more than one attempt on her life. On one occasion, a man with a loaded pistol attempted to reach where she was seated at the Isis Theater, but was stopped by a quick acting police guard (Harris n.d.). In the later 1920s, Tingley mortgaged part of the Lomaland property, over de Purucker’s pleas not to do so (Emmett W. Small n.d.; Harris n.d.). Most of the long-term residents had given everything they had when arriving at Lomaland in exchange for lifetime residency. Yet their contributions were spent on either maintaining the community or on Raja Yoga School projects in Cuba and Europe, especially since the income from the Raja Yoga School was insufficient to maintain expenses.

After Tingley’s death, the financial condition of Lomaland was precarious, but under the leadership of her successor, Gottfried de Purucker, and thanks to frugal cutbacks and voluntary reduction of residents to around 125, the overwhelming debt had been paid off by the mid-1930s. From 1929 through the 1930s, more than half of the donations received to support Lomaland were coming from Europe. By 1938, while the political conditions in Germany were rapidly deteriorating, donations from European members dried up. De Purucker sent out an urgent letter asking everyone to eliminate any expense possible to save on the monthly outlay (PLST Archive).

During de Purucker’s period, dramatic productions had continued with creative success under the direction of Florence Collison, though the dramas were reduced in pageantry compared to the Tingley era. Also, the Raja Yoga School still had significant numbers of children from San Diego residents, but the entire scope of both community activities and outreach, compared to the peak around 1920, was greatly diminished. There was insufficient income without the outside donations.

By the end of 1941, the community was hard pressed financially, with additional stress nearby when the U.S. government placed large military bunkers with artillery both north and south of the property and out on Point Loma itself. Tension was heightened with the U.S. declaration of war with Japan over the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. De Purucker had already sent out individuals scouting California for a smaller less encumbered property and developed a plan to shrink the number of residents yet again. He had found a property in Cupertino that he preferred, but it could only accommodate a small staff of fifteen or so. In January 1942, the decision was made to sell the property and move to Covina, east of Los Angeles, where a boys’ school facility was purchased. The move in spring of 1942 was followed by de Purucker’s sudden death from a heart attack at Covina on September 27. De Purucker left no indications of a designated heir, but he did write out a letter giving advice and direction for interim governance and recommendations for the cabinet to follow for electing a president for the society (PLST Archive).

Internal conflict within the group amidst questions and assertions of spiritual authoritative power would break out in 1945 over the cabinet’s election of a new leader. As Yeats expressed it poetically, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” and amidst dissension the magic of Point Loma had ceased and withdrawn, leaving antagonists with varying assertions and claims to inheriting the earlier holy grail. Despite the hopeful move to Covina, the qualities nurtured and grown at Point Loma could not endure. The sacred architecture was gone, music and the arts had faded, and the daily community group activities were radically reduced.

IMAGES
Image #1: Photograph of Katherine Tingley in the in the early 1900s.
Image #2: Photograph of Katherine Tingley on the way to meeting with one of Helena P. Blavatsky’s teachers in India.
Image #3: Photograph of Katherine Tingley in the mid-1920s.

REFERENCES

De Lange, Daniël. 2003. Thoughts on Music: Musical Art as Explained as One of the Most Important Means of Building up Man’s Character. The Hague: International Study Centre for Independent Search for Truth; reprinted from The Theosophical Path where it was published in ten installments between November 1916 and May 1918.

Fussell, Joseph H. 1917. The School of Antiquity: Its Meaning, Purpose and Scope. Point Loma, CA: Aryan Philosophical Press.

Greenwalt, Emmett. 1955, revised 1978. California Utopia: The Point Loma Community in California, 1897–1942. San Diego: Point Loma Publications.

Machell, Reginald. 1892. Theosophical Siftings. Volume 5.

Ryan, Charles. 1937, revised 1975. H. P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Movement. Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Writings by Katherine Tingley

1922. Theosophy. The Path of the Mystic. With Grace Frances Knoche. Point Loma, CA: Woman’s International Theosophical League.

1925. The Wine of Life. With preface by Talbot Mundy. Point Loma, CA: Woman’s International Theosophical League.

1926. The Gods Await. Point Loma, CA: Woman’s International Theosophical League.

1928. The Voice of the Soul. Point Loma, CA: Woman’s International Theosophical League.

1978. The Wisdom of the Heart: Katherine Tingley Speaks. Edited by W. Emmett Small. San Diego: Point Loma Publications.

Tingley, Katherine, ed. 1911–1929. The Theosophical Path [Theosophy periodical].

Primary Archival References

Point Loma School of Theosophy Archive. Accessed from http://www.pointlomaschool.com on 5 March 2017. (PLST Archive in text).

Recorded Interviews, Oral Histories, and Personal Writings.

Benjamin, Elsie Savage. n.d. Recorded Interviews. [Secretary to Katherine Tingley].

Harris, Helen. n.d. Notebooks. [Lomaland Resident].

Harris, Iverson L., Jr. n.d. Oral History. [Lomaland Resident].

Lester, Marian Plummer. n.d. Oral History. [Lomaland Resident].

Small, Carmen H. n.d. Oral history. [Lomaland Resident].

Small, W. Emmett. n.d. Oral History. [Lomaland Resident].

Post Date:
8 March 2017

GURUMAYI TIMELINE

1955 (June 24):  Gurumayi was born as Malti Shetty in Bombay (Mumbai), India.

1982 (April 26):  She was formally initiated by the then-guru of Siddha Yoga, Swami Muktananda, as an ascetic in the tradition and renamed Swami Chidvilasananda (the Sanskrit title translates to “the religious teacher [swami] who is the bliss of the play of consciousness”); Gurumayi, “immersed in the guru,” is an honorific that is used less formally.

1982 (May 3):  She was co-consecrated with her brother Swami Nityananada by Swami Muktananda to be his successors as gurus of Siddha Yoga.

1982 (October 2):  Swami Muktananda died and Swami Chidvilasananda and her brother became the gurus of Siddha Yoga

1985 (November 10):  Swami Chidvilasananda was installed as the sole guru of Siddha Yoga; she has held this status continuously to the present day.

BIOGRAPHY

Malti Shetty, born June 24, 1955, was the oldest child of a Bombay restaurateur and his wife. The very next year, Swami Muktananda (1908–1982), whose Sanskrit name means “the bliss of liberation,” in the culmination of decades of spiritual practice (sadhana), received permission to establish an ashram at Ganeshpuri, near Bombay (Mumbai) and to teach from his guru, Bhagavan Nityananda (“the venerable one who is eternally joyful”). The charismatic Swami Muktananda named his teaching “Siddha Yoga” and instituted weekend programs for the transmission of spiritual energy from guru to disciple, shaktipat or shaktipat-diksha (shaktipat initiation), a format that was distinctive from the classical full-time residence model of guru-disciple and that allowed for the participation of diverse devotees in ashram events. Shetty’s parents became disciples, and by 1960 they were bringing her, her sister and two brothers to the ashram on weekends.

The guru bestowed formal shaktipat initiation on Malti in 1969, when she was fourteen years old (Durgananda 1997:64), and she began to reside at the ashram by the time she was eighteen. Swami Muktananda “concerned himself with every detail of Malti’s diet and schedule, making sure that she ate food that fostered meditation” (Durgananda 1997:65). Malti was both like and unlike other devotees: Along with other devotees, she furthered her spiritual progress by her own devotional commitment to the guru as well as her engagement in intensive spiritual practices (sadhana) such as meditation. Yet to Swami Muktananda she stood out as special, as in his 1969 prediction that one day she would serve as a global beacon: “‘You know,’ he said, ‘that girl Malti is a blazing fire. One day she will light up the entire world’” (Durgananda 1997:65).

Swami Muktananda instituted world tours to spread the teachings of Siddha Yoga in what he envisioned to be a worldwide “meditation revolution.” In 1975, he appointed Malti as his translator during his second world tour in Oakland, California. During the years 1974–1975, Muktananda established many of the features of Siddha Yoga practice that were to remain core elements of the path for the next quarter century, including the guru personally bestowing shaktipat on devotees at weekend Intensive programs, establishing ashrams globally, and creating guidelines for teaching courses on aspects of Siddha Yoga practice and theology. Grooming Malti as a leader was part of these developments. In 1980, Muktananda decreed that Malti would deliver the public talks at the ashram on Sunday nights, and in 1981 she was made executive vice-president of SYDA Foundation, the non-profit organizational structure supporting the teaching program (Pechilis 2004b:224–29).

In April 1982, at the age of twenty-six, Malti was formally initiated into the ascetic lifestyle (sannyasa) by her guru and given the formal name of Swami Chidvilasananda (“the bliss of the play of consciousness”). Ten years later, she wrote of her transformative experience of identity with the universal divinity (expressed as He and as Brahman in the passage) during that ceremony:

At one point during the pattābhisheka, the ceremony during which Baba Muktananda passed on to me the power of his lineage, he whispered So’ham [I am He] and aham Brahmāsmi [I am of Brahman] in my ear. I experienced the mantra as an immensely powerful force which rocketed at lightning speed throughout my bloodstream and created an upheaval in my entire system. I instantly transcended body-consciousness and became aware that all distinctions such as inner and outer were false and artificial. Everything was the same; what was within me was also without. My mind became completely blank. There was only the pulsating awareness “I am That,” accompanied by great bliss and light.

When my mind again began to function, all I could think was, “What is Baba? Who is this being who looks so ordinary, yet has the capacity to transmit such an experience at will?”

I knew beyond a doubt that the mantra was God. I had never experienced a force so mighty, yet at the same time so soothing (Swami Chidvilasananda 1992:xxiii).

Two weeks later, Swami Muktananda consecrated as his successors both Swami Chidvilasananda and her brother Swami Nityananda (b. 1962). Formerly Subash Shetty, Nityananda had been resident at the ashram and initiated into sannyasa in 1980. This consecration of the two siblings surprised people because of their youthfulness, their familiarity to devotees since they had grown up at the ashram, and the fact that Siddha Yoga taught that one should devote oneself to a single guru (Williamson 2010:119). Five months later, the two actually became the gurus of Siddha Yoga, at Muktananda’s samadhi (“immersion in enlightened consciousness,” often used as in this case to indicate the death of a spiritual leader) on October 2, 1982.

Swami Chidvilasananda, who is more commonly referred to as Gurumayi (“immersed in the guru”), which expresses her continuing dedication to Muktananda, became the sole guru of Siddha Yoga on November 10, 1985. Gurumayi led the Siddha Yoga movement through a number of scandals, including that of her brother Nityananda leaving and then wanting to reassume the co-guruship ( “Former SYDA Co-guru Explains” 1986; Thursby 1991; Harris 1994:93–94, 101–04; Durgananda 1997:126–34; Healy 2010; Williamson 2010:118–21); and through allegations which emerged shortly after the guru’s death and have intensified over the years that Muktananda had sexually abused female devotees (Rodarmor 1983; Caldwell 2001; Radha 2002; Shah 2010; Salon Staff 2010; Williamson 2010:114–17).

Gurumayi persevered in her leadership of Siddha Yoga through her close following of traditions and practices that her guru Muktananda had put in place (ashrams, shaktipat, weekend Intensive programs, also known as Intensives), as well as her own star power, with disciples eager to catch a glimpse of her at the ashram and vying for seats close to her at official programs or Intensives (Williamson 2010:124). Gurumayi also established innovative programs, for instance a talk on New Year’s Eve that revealed the Yearly Message for contemplation throughout the coming year; such annual messages consist of short phrases that emphasize purity of mind, belief in love, and knowledge of the truth (“Gurumayi’s Messages and Message Artwork” 1991–2017). During the late 1980s, the ashram in South Fallsburg, New York more than tripled in size, and this period into the early 1990s has been called the Golden Era of the Siddha Yoga Movement (Williamson 2010:121). (For more about Siddha Yoga ashrams see below.) In 1997, Gurumayi established the Muktabodha Indological Research Institute (“About Muktabodha” 2017) in New Delhi, India, for the study and preservation of classical scriptures of India. There are many publications by the gurus, swamis, and scholars of Siddha Yoga on spiritual teachings and theology.

TEACHINGS/DOCTRINES

 The teachings that Swami Muktananda designated as Siddha Yoga are understood by the organization to have deep roots in Hindu theology. The term “siddha” has been used for many centuries in Indian religions to refer to a “perfected being,” and it is often associated with secret teachings. South Indian Tamil tradition recognizes a remote lineage of siddhas (siddhars) who are distinguished by their achievement of powers of immortality and healing (Weiss 2009). The first guru in the Siddha Yoga lineage, Bhagavan Nityananda (1900–1961), is remembered as a great yogi who possessed miraculous powers of healing, and who had no need of ceremonial events because he could transmit shaktipat to a worthy disciple through the light of his gaze (Durgananda 1997:11–22, esp. 19). Drawing in part on formulations in the classical Hindu philosophical treatises, the Upanishads, Swami Muktananda’s understanding of the term “siddha” emphasized the power of meditation to effect the realization of the identity between the human spirit and the divine.

The true Siddha has realized his own true nature through meditation and knowledge and has obliterated his ego and become one with the Universal Spirit. He unites with Shiva and becomes Shiva Himself. He is a true Siddha, a genuine Siddha. Such a Siddha was Ramakrishna, such a one was Sai Baba of Shirdi, and such a Siddha was Nityananda Baba [Bhagavan Nityananda]; they all became one with Shiva and became Shiva (Muktananda 1974:173, cited in Muller-Ortega 1997:169).

In Siddha Yoga, there is a lineage of three gurus: Bhagavan Nityananda, Swami Muktananda, and Swami Chidvilasananda, and each are understood to be perfectly self-realized beings.

Inherent to the definition of “guru” is that she or he transmits the power of true self-realization to the disciple. This transmission is effected in multilayered ways, including: the transmission of shaktipat from guru to disciple, which is an expression of the guru’s intention (sankalpa) that often serves as an initial awakening; the guru’s bestowal of a mantra or sacred oral formula; the guru’s grace; the guru’s oral and written teachings; and the guru’s visual presence as beheld (darshan) by the disciple (Mahoney 1997). Through these practices, the disciple comes to recognize through the example of the guru that the divine is actually within him or herself.

The guru serves as a funnel for the disciple to encounter and understand teachings from the voluminous Hindu scriptures that point to the divine within—from revealed texts such as the Vedas (of which the Upanishads are part) to remembered texts such as the Bhagavad Gita, to treatises from the philosophical schools of Advaita Vedanta and Kashmiri Shaivism, to songs and oral teachings (Brooks 1997). In their publications and talks, Swami Muktananda and Gurumayi freely draw from this vast spiritual heritage: “Since the Siddha Yoga gurus are not proponents of any one form of doctrinal worship (siddhānta), they are not committed to traditionalist ‘schools’ of thought or particular philosophical identities” (Brooks 1997:291). Siddha Yoga devotees access the texts in several ways, including talks by the guru, study at retreats, and the Siddha Yoga Home Study Course.

One text in particular, the Guru Gita (“Song of the Guru”), features centrally since it is the text that Siddha Yoga practitioners recite daily. As described by Muktananda:

If anyone were to ask me which is the one indispensable text, I would answer, “The Guru Gītā.” This is so supremely holy that it makes the ignorant learned, the destitute wealthy and the scholarly fully realized. The Guru Gītā is a supreme song of Shiva, of salvation. It is a veritable ocean of bliss in this world. It encompasses the science of the absolute, the yoga of the Self. It gives vitality to life. It is a harmonious composition; its 182 stanzas in varied verse patterns beautifully describe the importance of devotion to the Guru, his role, his nature and his distinguishing characteristics. If a person who is devoted to the Guru sings this song, he easily attains all powers, realizations and knowledge, fulfilling the aim of yoga (Muktananda 1983:xiv).

The Guru Gita text as printed in The Nectar of Chanting may be eclectic itself; the origin of its 182 verses is to date unknown: “Said to be within either the Skanda Purāṇa, or, more rarely, the Padma Purāṇa. . .certain verses appear also in the Kulārṇava Tantra and other Tantric sources. . . .This status is similarly not unusual for sources belonging to traditions of mystical yoga. . .” (Brooks 1997:291). This key text that is the basis of daily practice in Siddha Yoga may have been compiled in this form by Muktananda himself.

Swami Muktananda influentially fashioned lasting features of the Siddha Yoga path. Motivated by a global vision, he established institutions and instructional procedures to effect the processes of transmission from guru to disciple in a “radical” making of shaktipat initiation accessible to a global audience (Jain 2014:199); his successor, Gurumayi, has maintained and enhanced these institutions and methods of spiritual instruction. The most prominent Siddha Yoga ashrams are large physical campuses founded by Swami Muktananda, including the first Siddha Yoga ashram, Gurudev Siddha Peeth, near the town of Ganeshpuri in the state of Maharashtra, India (est. 1956); the Siddha Yoga Ashram in Oakland, California (est. April 28, 1975); and the Shree Muktananda Ashram in South Fallsburg, New York (est. 1978–1979). He also created the weekend Intensive program, in which devotees gather in residence at an ashram to perform collective chanting, listen to teachings by the guru or credentialed Siddha Yoga teachers, hear testimonials by other devotees, engage in service (seva), and participate in workshops on the teachings; depending on the participant, these activities may inspire an experience of shaktipat. Although clearly rooted in Hindu tradition and actively deploying Hindu sources (for example, the Guru Gita is chanted in Sanskrit) Muktananda envisioned Siddha Yoga to be a universal path and Gurumayi has continued that approach. The Siddha Yoga vision statement describes the path as:

For everyone, everywhere,
to realize the presence of divinity
in themselves and creation,
the cessation of all miseries and suffering,
and the attainment of supreme bliss
(“Siddha Yoga Vision Statement” 2016).

In Siddha Yoga, the universality of accessibility frames the specificity of tradition: “Hindu-inspired” is thus a more apt characterization of the Siddha Yoga path than “Hinduism.”

Gurumayi has maintained the teachings and practices of Muktananda, including the centerpiece that is now known as the Shaktipat Intensive (“Questions and Answers” 2016). However, she has brought her own emphases and personal style to the established framework. Scholarly observers have suggested several ways to characterize her teachings; for example, service through unselfish action: “If one overall ethical teaching could be said to characterize her ministry, it is the teaching of unselfish action. The years since 1982 have seen an increasingly conscious attempt to mold the Siddha Yoga movement into a fusion of individuals and institutions that embody that message.” Gurumayi herself has said, “My message is ‘do it!’” (Durgananda 1997:136, 138). She has put increased emphasis on disciples performing practices (sadhana) on a daily basis on their own as guided by the teachings, as well as outreach services (“PRASAD Project” 2016; “The Prison Project” 2016).

Gurumayi’s focus can be contrasted with that of her guru Muktananda, drawing on a distinction made by Richard Gombrich: Muktananda was “soteriological” in focus while Gurumayi is “communal”:

Soteriological religions emphasize the practices and beliefs that are necessary for attaining salvation—and attaining it quickly. Communal religions emphasize practices and beliefs that ensure the continuity of social life. . . . Much of [Gurumayi’s] teaching is directed toward practical, everyday matters of living in the world. . . . Although the Hindu-based practices of chanting Sanskrit texts and performing worship (puja) still occur in Siddha Yoga, Gurumayi’s emphasis is discovering one’s own inner wisdom through contemplating ordinary daily experiences within the context of scriptural texts or Gurumayi’s or Muktananda’s words (Williamson 2005:154, 155, 156).

The practical, “communal” nature of the Siddha Yoga path today brings together spiritual knowledge and personal experience in the world, grounding the former and enhancing the meaning of the latter. One aspect of this emphasis on applying the teachings to practical, everyday living in the world is the Siddha Yoga Home Study Course program, which is “four courses designed to invigorate and support your sadhana” to “engage in active study and application of Siddha Yoga teachings” (“SIDDHA YOGA® Home Study Course” 2017).

What makes the Home Study Course possible is Gurumayi’s expansive use of technology (Pechilis 2004b: 233–36). Today it is a given that gurus have a website through which to explain and promote their teachings, but Gurumayi was a pioneer in the use of technology as a global medium, beginning in 1989, “when the first ‘satellite’ Intensives were broadcast around the world, [and] the term ‘global shaktipat’ began to take on literal meaning” (Durgananda 1997:150). As Swami Durgananda explains:

In 1994, an Intensive was broadcast by audio hookup to the tiny Siddha Yoga center in St. Petersburg, Russia. The next year, a French student took a trip to Russia and, toward the end of his trip, spent some time in a Russian Orthodox monastery there. The abbot there noticed the student’s photograph of Gurumayi. “Oh, you’re with Gurumayi,” the abbott said. Surprised, the student asked, “How do you know Gurumayi?” “Everyone knows Gurumayi,” replied the abbot, explaining that her name and photograph were widely circulated in the Russian spiritual community—no doubt by students who had taken that Intensive (Durgananda 1997:150–51).

By 2002, a visually-based global satellite broadcast was used for Intensives, the unveiling of the Siddha Yoga Yearly Message and the “first ever year-long global curriculum focused on the Siddha Yoga Message,” the Siddha Yoga Message Course. These were described as opportunities to “participate together as a global sangham [community]” (Pechilis 2004b:236). Through the satellite, the guru can be both in one place and in many places at the same time. It was and is a postmodern enactment of the simultaneity of the universal and the particular that pervades Siddha Yoga: The path as both Hindu and universally accessible; the guru as both personal and universal consciousness; the guru as both present and absent. The context is the very large role that images of the guru play in Siddha Yoga’s representation of access to the guru. “At South Fallsburg [ashram], photographs of the guru—with her thousand-watt smile, wide eyes, and elegantly chiselled cheekbones—adorn nearly every wall, cash register, shop counter, and shelf, as well as her devotees’ private meditation altars and many of their car dashboards” (Harris 1994:92). They saturate the ashram walls, they are for sale in the ashram’s physical and online bookshops, and they are tightly controlled as vehicles of contact with the guru. Live images of the guru during an Intensive or the unveiling of the Yearly Message, as situated in this larger context of the importance of the guru’s image, constitute an assertion of technological connection as intimacy (Pechilis 2004b). That images are increasingly tightly controlled is demonstrated by the discontinuation in 2013 of public access online to Gurumayi’s Yearly Message with accompanying artwork (“Gurumayi’s Messages and Message Artwork” 1991–2017). Now a devotee must log in to be able to view (“to have darshan ”) of Gurumayi’s Message Artwork (“Darshan of Gurumayi’s Message Artwork for 2016” 2016).

RITUALS/PRACTICES

Currently, Siddha Yoga recognizes six ashrams and a host of meditation and chanting groups worldwide (“Siddha Yoga Ashrams” 2016). The ashrams have a special status, since they are a powerful “body” of the guru (Gold 1995), and they are expansive, often architecturally specific spaces for practice of the path; some of the ashrams have been constructed according to the norms of Hindu science of architecture (vastu shastra or vāstu śāstra). The six ashrams are in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia; Ganeshpuri, India; Oakland, California; Boston, Massachusetts; and South Fallsburg, New York. Meditation centers are designated organizational spaces, often in major cities. Chanting and meditation groups are held within a Siddha Yoga student’s home.

Online information from the Siddha Yoga website about the ashrams reveals several different models of ongoing practice apart from holidays. The Australian ashrams in Sydney and Melbourne routinely have community gatherings (satsang, enlightened company) and recitation of the Guru Gita on Saturdays and Sundays, seemingly an accommodation to the devotees’ work week. Also prioritizing weekends, the schedule at the Oakland, California ashram has a more elaborate ongoing program of chanting, welcome orientations for people new to the Siddha Yoga path, meditation and study gatherings. The Ganeshpuri ashram and the South Fallsburg ashram are both accessible only to committed members of Siddha Yoga, by application, for long-term daily service activities; and the Boston ashram is a retreat center. Long-term seva (devotional service) practitioners who reside at the ashrams would typically follow a daily schedule such as: Early morning meditation and chanting session at 3:00 in the morning, followed by another session at 4:30 in the morning, in which the Guru Gita is chanted; then breakfast; followed by a morning session of seva, during which one might help clean the ashram or perform outdoor work; noontime chanting; afternoon seva; and finally dinner, evening chanting, and lights out by 10:00 in the evening. Vegetarian meals are taken by sevites, and there is segregation between male and female staff in terms of accommodation and seating for chanting and meditation.

Such long-term residents are joined by residential participants in the Siddha Yoga Intensive, during which the guru bestows shakti (spiritual power or energy) on the devotees. Baba Muktananda held many one- or two-day Intensives during a given calendar year, and until 2005, Gurumayi did so as well. In 2006, she declared that there would be one Global Siddha Yoga Shaktipat Intensive per year, in October, to coincide with Baba Muktananda’s mahasamadhi or act of consciously and intentionally leaving his body (resulting in death). As explained by Siddha Yoga: “After mahasamadhi, the shakti of an enlightened being continues to be ever-present and all-pervasive, uplifting the world illuminating the lives of devotees. . . . [A] sacred occasion enhances the power of one’s practices” (“Questions and Answers” 2016).

The yearly calendar of holidays, when members of the community are expected to gather in large numbers, is constituted by such days of “sacred occasion,” the majority focused on the Siddha Yoga gurus, which provide an enhanced context for practice. The dates in 2017 were:

January 1: New Year’s Day (when Gurumayi releases her Yearly Message).

February 24: Mahashivaratri (the Great Night of Shiva, occurring in February/March).

May 10 :Baba Muktananda’s Lunar Birthday.

June 24: Gurumayi Chidvilasananda’s Birthday.

July 8 :Gurupurnima (the full moon day in the month of Ashadha (July-August); day to honor one’s guru).

August 8: Bhagavan Nityananda’s Solar Punyatithi (death anniversary).

August 15: Baba Muktananda’s Divya Diksha (the day Baba received divine initiation from his Guru, Bhagavan Nityananda).

October 5: Baba Muktananda’s Lunar Mahasamadhi (act of consciously and intentionally leaving one’s body).

“In addition to these holidays, Pitru Paksha is a Siddha Yoga observance. This sacred time from the Indian tradition is devoted to remembrance of one’s ancestors. In 2017, Pitru Paksha is September 6–19” (“Siddha Yoga Holidays and Celebrations 2017” 2017).

LEADERSHIP

Discussion of whether female gurus today, and specifically Gurumayi, may be considered feminist has yielded different assessments for and against (Wessinger 1993; Sered 1994; Puttick 1997; Pechilis 2011). Much recent scholarship has illuminated the specific ways in which female Hindu or Hindu-inspired leaders change the historically male-defined categories of guru and sannyasin (ascetic), which may provide more concrete information for such assessments. A major issue is the ways in which the guru is set apart from ordinary social life. Traditionally, a significant element in women’s rise to religious authority has been their renunciation of marriage. Renunciation of marriage was a factor in the construction of male spiritual authority, which was based on renunciation of ordinary social occupations and concerns; however, male gurus were often married and a male renouncer could live with his wife in the forest, although the category of sannyasin was defined as an unmarried male wandering ascetic. For women, in particular, the expectation of marriage and child-bearing has been pronounced in the Indian context. As Meena Khandelwal explains, for a variety of cultural reasons the pressures on women are greater:

Given the importance of heterosexual marriage and procreation in South Asian cultures generally, a man’s decision to renounce householder life is likely to be met by opposition from family and society; this is especially true if he is either young and unmarried or married with dependents at home. Even so, there are scriptural, historical, and contemporary precedents for male renunciation at any age, and so it is considered a legitimate path for men even if discouraged by kin. Marriage is even more compulsory for women, and for this reason most research on South Asian women has focused on their domestic lives. While most women in South Asia aspire to obtain a good husband, kind in-laws, and healthy children, those who do not are likely to face intense pressure to conform” (Khandelwal 2009:1005).

What Sondra Hausner and Meena Khandelwal say about female ascetics applies to female gurus as well: “All have wondered whether to marry, remarry, or stay married, and have struggled with how to negotiate the unquestioned South Asian social value of having a husband and being a wife” (Hausner and Khandelwal 2006:3). Medieval stories of female gurus in Hindu tradition situate them as wives; in modern times, female gurus exhibit a range of stances on the issue (Pechilis 2004a:7, 15, 28–29, 34), including being married, being separated from a husband, or rejecting demands that they marry. For some, including Gurumayi, the issue of marriage does not come up in biographical accounts.

An emphasis on personal experience is another hallmark of female gurus in history and today (Pechilis 2011; Pechilis 2012), and can be seen in Gurumayi’s emphasis on sadhana (spiritual practice). Although it is clear that her guru Baba Muktananda saw something special in her, what Gurumayi emphasizes in her own accounts of the years before she became guru is that her intensive practice gradually attuned her mind to her guru’s (Pechilis 2004b:226–27). In terms of devotees’ sadhana, in the late 1990s Gurumayi effected an important shift away from her guru Swami Muktananda’s and her own practice of personally interacting with devotees, especially at weekend Intensive programs. The Intensives had been famous for always having the guru in residence, and devotees could approach the guru and receive a graceful touch with a peacock feather wand on their bowed heads. Instead, the guru began to be absent from Intensives; if she appeared, it was by satellite video transmission. Discussion of the change in Siddha Yoga publications encouraged the view that by her absence, the guru sought to encourage devotees to focus on their practice of the teachings rather than on her presence (Pechilis 2004b:229–33).

Gurumayi’s shifting presence and absence suggests an interesting dynamic between intimacy and distance in the paths of female gurus (Pechilis 2015). In terms of interaction with the guru, one model is an “event intimacy” cultivated through defined moments of the guru’s presence at scheduled gatherings, which often deploy technology to widen the reach; however, much of the spiritual work of the disciples is done away from the guru’s embodied presence, in contrast to the traditional gurukula system in which the students live with the guru. This event intimacy characterizes Gurumayi’s leadership. A different model is that many female guru-ascetics operate on a more local level, where they have personal experience with their followers on a daily basis; they offer opportunities for “everyday intimacy.” For example, a contemporary guru-ascetic in north India holds frequent small-gathering meetings with her devotees in which she narrates stories of everyday encounters that illustrate themes of duty, destiny, and devotion, which create a gendered “rhetoric of renunciation” that has at its center a concept of engaged, devotional asceticism (DeNapoli 2014). Of course, the number of devotees and organizational structure are factors here: Siddha Yoga is a global movement that has become a highly systematized, vertical organization constructed of hierarchies to manage various aspects of the institution, including spiritual instruction, finance, and research. It has made recent efforts to focus more directly on those who commit to the path, and to exclude others; for example, closing the Shree Muktananda Ashram in South Fallsburg to all but long-term students; enhancing the status of regional centers by holding more, including “global,” activities at them; promoting the home-study course; holding retreats for up to twenty-five students; and making some information on the Siddha Yoga website accessible only by sign in.

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

The most prominent issue in understanding the nature of the guru in a Western context is the deep-seated cultural suspicion of the category, based on the lack of a concept of a “perfected being” in Western tradition. Traditions that originated in South Asia have long histories of thinking about and asserting the reality of a perfected being, with the historical Buddha probably the most well-known example across the globe. Adoration of a living person can read as a “cult” in the Western contextalthough the culture of celebrity so prominent in the West displays many similarities. Traditionally in South Asia, surrender and loyalty are due to the guru, which amplifies the vulnerability of the devotee within a relationship that is in many ways comparable to a relatively common power differential (parent-child, teacher-student, employer-worker). Many female gurus offset this vulnerability of the devotee by embodying the nurturing persona of mother, evident in their titles (ma, amma) and behavior (such as Ammachi ‘s hugging), as well as by the public dimension they cultivate, such as visibility, accessibility, service, and teachings on their websites. Controversial aspects of the paths of the male gurus popular in the West in the 1960s, such as a closed and secretive residential campus, are outmoded. Still, to what extent a specific guru operates in an authoritarian mode and a specific devotee’s response to a guru renders the guru authoritarian for her or for him does need to be assessed, since there remains the potential for the devotee to be overwhelmed by the relationship (Cornille 1991:23–30; Kramer and Alstad 1993; Storr 1997). Even a cursory internet search reveals that there are vocal groups of ex-Siddha Yoga devotees who feel betrayed by Siddha Yoga gurus.

Significantly, there has been a healthy skepticism of the guru in Indian tradition, especially on the issues of the acquisition of money and sexual exploitation (Narayan 1989; Kang 2016). Also, it is worth remembering that, in the traditional model, study with the guru prepared a man to move into a healthy, socially meaningful life of work and marriage; it was not generally speaking an end in itself. These nuances, coupled with female gurus’ emphasis on life experiences, are now beginning to inform Western reflections on experiences of the guru path. What we see emerging are personal critical reflections that more calmly and less polemically reflect on areas of disappointment in or perceived limitations of the guru, written by former devotees who reflect on their experiences with the guru in the context of a longer view of their own evolving life experiences; I have called these a “discourse of constructive disappointment” (Pechilis 2012:127). Such reflections have emerged mainly around female gurus, including Gurumayi of Siddha Yoga (Caldwell 2001; Szabo 2009). It remains to be seen if the guru-disciple relationship, even in its breakdown, can lead to generative modern discussion of interdependence and human spiritual growth.

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Post Date:
7 March 2017