“Spiritual But Not Religious” Is Not Enough
Too many are falling prey to conspirituality
Ram Dass, famed author of Be Here Now, fell for a con-artist.
It was the early 1970s, and Dass longed for a new spiritual instructor after his former guru named Maharaj-ji passed away.
One day a friend took him to the basement of her Brooklyn home to meet a woman named Joya. When Dass entered the room, Joya sat in perfect stillness, eyes closed. Dass was told that she was in a deep meditative state and was even encouraged to try to disrupt her stillness to no avail.
After some time, Joya opened her eyes and began to say things to him that, according to Dass, only his former guru could have known. It seemed like a sign that the Universe had chosen Joya to teach him, and he decided to join her collective known as The Teaching.
It soon became clear, however, that something wasn’t quite right. Joya frequently lied to and verbally abused her students. She also demanded that they buy her pricey gold bracelets to improve her spiritual health and got angry whenever anyone didn’t comply with her wishes. Her followers rationalized such patterns by claiming that Joya was channeling the Hindu god Kali — a god who, as they understood things, embodies the wrath of the Divine Mother. Dass bought into this same…
