Part Two: Stanford PhD: The Instant Spiritual Awakening That Healed Her Trauma (Science Can’t Explain) & How Humanity Wakes Up | Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati

Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to part two of our conversation with Sadhvi Bhagavati Saraswati. She is a global spiritual leader and bestselling author, the author of Come Home to Yourself, Simple Answers to Life's Essential Questions. In part one of our conversation with Sadhvi J., we talked about Hollywood to the Himalayas, her journey from growing up in a privileged home in Los Angeles, and how her studies at Stanford University eventually led her to what was a spontaneous spiritual awakening in the Ganga River in India, where she has stayed for 30 years. We cover how that spiritual awakening impacted her experience of bulimia, addiction, and helped her overcome her trauma. In part two of our conversation, we're going to talk about what it really looks like to let go of anger, of trauma, of resentment. We're also going to talk about what kind of relationship she formed with her guru and how do you distinguish a charismatic leader from a true leader? We also discuss the global spiritual awakening that is happening right now and what will it take for the world to tip towards a larger spiritual awakening. We can't wait for you to hear part two of our conversation with Sadhviji. Break it down. come home to yourself is sort of that next level of teaching with with much more specifics. What are the actual tools? What's the actual practice look like? Because like, oh, this is all fine and good. But the question that I have, you know, is somewhat of a cynical one. But I think it's one that I'd love for you to speak to. You know, we can't guarantee that everyone's going to have a spiritual awakening. Like you could take a million people, you could put them in the same water that you stood in it's not like that's the formula right like if it was we would have figured it out thousands of years ago and that would have been importing the water we'd all be we'd be importing the water and people would be selling it it would be fake it would be a whole thing i also want you to help us understand you know are there those of us who do not have that dharma to have that spiritual awakening? And are we just sort of left to find the people who have and go to them? You know, it's there's a there's a bit of envy, you know, that that I have, because I kind of feel like, gosh, if there's a solution, I want it. Like, it's not even like they found a pill for you. You know, you you changed your consciousness and it changed your life, right? Or God, you know, grace, right? The crack, which is how the light gets in, right? Allowed grace in. What is it about other people's experience or for those of us who may not be on track to have a spiritual awakening? How do we get there? I do believe it's available for everybody. Absolutely. However, as I mentioned, we do believe in many lifetimes. And so one of the things that I share a lot is the universe is infinitely patient. There's a beautiful metaphor that I've heard many different speakers and teachers give that says, imagine that there is a mountain that is a mile long and a mile high. And once every hundred years, a bird flies by the mountain with a silk scarf in its beak, and it rubs the silk scarf against the side of the mountain once every hundred years, the amount of time that it's going to take that bird with that silk scarf to erode the mountain is how long we've been coming back over and over and doing this. So the universe is infinitely patient. You're not going to have the awakening. this life, no problem. However, I mean, and that's speaking from the universe perspective. Easy to say, you've had a spiritual awakening. But that's where it's available for everybody. But what you have to realize is the universe isn't impatient. If we're impatient, fantastic, because it's actually about letting go. from what I've seen in my life and what I've seen in the life of so many people is that standing between us and a spiritual awakening experience is not what we don't have, but what we're holding on to. We have to be prepared to let go of anger, of grudges. If I was not prepared to walk into the river and let go of the anger and the pain that had identified me, I would not be here today. There is a surrender. I talk about it as a trust fall into the universe. We hold on to our stories because they're all we know. Yes, I'm this neurotic being. Yes, I'm this depressed being. Yes, I'm the one in this bad relationship. Yes, I'm the one with this awful job. Yes. And we hold on to it because to let it go, well, who would I be then? And whether it's how I identify in my body, whether it's my color, whether it's my race, whether it's what's happened to me, my history, whether it's my beauty or lack thereof, whatever it may be, or whether it's my relationships, my career, my bank account, we identify as all of that. That which is standing between us and the awakening is that identification. What's required is a willingness to be open to the possibility that that's not who you are and that that is just where your physical body is at this intersection of time and space. If you're driving down the road and I call you and I say, who are you? And you say, I'm exit 51. I'm going to say, no, no, I didn't say, where are you? I said, who are you? And if then you say, oh, I'm exit 52. I'm going to think that either you can't hear me or you've lost your marbles. Because we know intuitively I'm not where my car has reached on the freeway. But for me to say I am a 54-year-old female American-born monk in India is like saying I'm exit 51. That's where this body has gotten to at this intersection of time and space. the letting go of that and the trust falling into, I don't know who I would be. But holding on to these identities is causing me suffering. And I am prepared to let go of my anger, of my grudges, of my unfulfilled expectations, of my attachments, of my visions of how things should be, of who I am, of what the universe is, of what my role in the universe is. And then we step into the river, either the literal river of Ganga or any sacred place. You know, there is something, it's worth a moment of caveat here. there is something about sacred places. And no, it doesn't have to be only Ganga. And there is a reason why for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, that is a place to which rishis and sages and yogis have gone and have meditated and have done their yoga and have attained enlightenment. And every religion has sacred, holy energy places. Nature is a sacred energy place. But I do think that there is something really powerful about being in a holy, sacred place. We are energetic beings. We think that we're very solid, but if you look at us under an electron microscope, suddenly all of that would disappear. We are impacted very deeply by the energy around us, whether it's something as simple as heat or sunshine or something much more subtle. And being in a sacred place, I think, allows the energy of us to align in a way that gives us, I think, a courage to see beyond what we're used to seeing. So I think that's an important piece. But it doesn't have to happen there, of course. It doesn't have to start in Hollywood. It doesn't have to end in the Himalayas. It's what I speak about as a mindset shift. And it's that mindset shift from I am this body, I am this story, to, oh, I have a body. It's not a denigration of the body. It's not a denial of the body. But it's an awareness that I'm not it. What I am is soul, spirit, cosmic intelligence, source, consciousness, whatever word we use. So everyone can have it in this life. It is absolutely available to everyone. I believe that. But we're coming into this world with different karmic packages. And so it's going to be easier for some than others. I was given an experience that made something that otherwise I think would have been very difficult, if not impossible, suddenly very, very possible. But it's something that's available for everybody. And again, you know, the universe is very patient. So I'd say, if it's not happening yet, ask yourself, what is it I'm holding on to that's keeping me from seeing truth? And do whatever you can to put yourself in places where the energy is aligned. I mean, if you wanted to get a suntan, you'd be much more likely to get a fast suntan at the top of a mountain than at the base of a mountain. We understand that the sun's rays are stronger at the top of the mountain than the base of the mountain. In the same way, if you want to have that energy to the extent that you can be in places where the energy aligns, fantastic. And we have so many stories throughout history of people having spontaneous divine experiences everywhere. So there's no rule that it has to be there. On the top of a lot of mountains, maybe they were trying to get suntans. I want to talk about the actual physical process of letting go because a lot of people listening to this are going to hear this notion of you just have to let go and you know they are trauma informed they've had these experiences they've been told well my nervous system reacts like this because of this pattern and they understand the science that goes beyond it so it's like they may be listening and saying i can't just let go because i have this physiological response it's not so easy and so that's the first part of the question the second part of the question is really about place, which I want to circle back to. But before that, can you talk about the process of what it was like? Because you had profound experiences that not only had shaped your narrative, but you were having really intense physical reactions to those pieces of your history as well. An important piece of the story that I mentioned, but it's, I think, really worthy of reiterating is I had done a lot of psychological work prior to this moment. And that's important to reiterate and to really emphasize because otherwise you end up with a spiritual bypassing situation. Or you end up with people simply saying, I can't do it because I've experienced trauma. I had spent years in a variety of different forms of therapy, working with the trauma, working with the way the trauma had manifested in me through the eating disorder, through depression, through so many different aspects of my life. And therefore, 2004, by the time I came to India, I was at a point where I understood it all. Cognitively. Cognitively, exactly. Had gone into it, even emotionally. Had gone deep into it, had relived it, had seen it. But you were still carrying it. But I was definitely still carrying it, for sure. And I used to laugh and joke that I could write a book about why I was bulimic. But I couldn't stop myself from doing it. I had all of the awareness, but that didn't shift the behavior. And you talk about 12-step programs, which basically say the only power that can relieve you of this is God. Because on our own, we can't. And yet, staying in the conversation around Dharma, at that time when I was in the 12-step programs, I wasn't able to access the presence of the divine. I was an utter failure at the 12-step programs because I would just keep throwing up saying, oh, well, my higher power didn't come to me today. And anyway, I've already admitted that I have no power. And so it's up to my higher power. And he didn't show up. So here we are. So I kind of got essentially kicked out of the 12-step programs because it wasn't working for me. So you have to be at a point in your life where you are open to that presence of the divine, which at the height of my addiction, I was not. And just to clarify, if the program's not working for you, that doesn't mean that you get kicked out. I was clarifying the previous point. I don't want people to hear that and think like, oh, if you don't, plenty of people don't have a higher power, keep struggling, come to meetings drunk, as it were. So just wanted to clarify. Yes, good. Thank you. Absolutely. My Embalix Breakdown is supported by OneSkin. Let me tell you about OneSkin, the skincare company on a mission to redefine aging. First of all, my favorite thing about them is they are rooted in rigorous science and research. Their products are put through the ringer with their lab and clinical trials, and we love so many of their skincare products. They basically have one for every need. I love their Lip Restore mask and full body moisturizer. That's been really saving my skin this winter and my lips. Honestly, I've never been softer. At the core of OneSkin is their patented OS1 peptide, the first ingredient proven to target senescent cells, a key driver of wrinkles, fine lines, and loss of elasticity, all key signs of skin aging. These results have been validated in four different peer-reviewed clinical studies. Certified safe for sensitive skin, which I appreciate. Their products are free from over 1,500 harsh or irritating ingredients. They're dermatologists tested. They've been awarded the National Eczema Association Seal of Acceptance by the NEA, delivering powerful results without harsh side effects. All of OneSkin's products are designed to layer seamlessly or replace multiple steps in your routine, making skin health easier and smarter at every age. Founded by an all-woman team of longevity scientists with PhDs in stem cell biology, skin regeneration, and tissue engineering, OneSkin is rooted in real science and expert research. Born from over a decade of longevity research, OneSkin's OS1 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age. For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code BREAK at oneskin.co slash BREAK. That's 15% off, oneskin.co with the code BREAK. And after you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show. Tell them we sent you. My MB Ox Breakdown is supported by Branch Basics. 2026 is all about building healthier routines, more greens, more steps, less stress. But the shift to non-toxic living can feel like a lot, but it doesn't have to. You can start small, swap synthetic air fresheners for essential oils, reuse glass jars instead of buying more plastic. But there's one swap that most people forget, and it might be the most important one of all, your cleaning products. In the U.S., cleaning companies aren't even required to list every ingredient on the label. You could be spraying and wiping your home with chemicals around kids, pets, food. That's why we love Branch Basics. It was founded by three women who, after years of research and trial and error, discovered that when they removed harmful chemicals from their homes, their health improved. Branch Basics is human-safe, plant- and mineral-based, and made-safe certified, meaning it's been vetted for harmful toxins. It's built around one single concentrate formula that has endless uses, and it works. You just dilute it into reusable bottles, and that cleans your bathroom, your kitchen, your floors, your windows, and even your laundry. I've even been able to use it to wash produce, clean makeup brushes, which really blows my mind. We love their laundry detergent and their dishwasher tablets. They have earned permanent spots in my cleaning cupboard. And that gives us peace of mind that we're creating a safe and clean environment for the whole family. And here's the good news. Branch Basics is now available everywhere you shop. At Target, Target.com, Amazon, and of course, BranchBasics.com. Tossing the toxins has never been more convenient. And for anyone grabbing the premium starter kit, you can get 15% off at branchbasics.com with our code BREAK. Just use the code BREAK for 15% off the premium starter kit at branchbasics.com. And after you purchase, when they ask where you heard about them, please make sure to mention our show. MindBalox Breakdown is supported by BiOptimizer. As I have been reflecting on the past year, I realized that one of the best discoveries of last year was magnesium breakthrough and how it's had a really, really positive impact on sleep. Jonathan and I discovered it a while ago, and it's kind of become a non-negotiable in our nighttime ritual. Better sleep sounds simple, but the difference is real. You can fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up feeling rested. Those are the biggies. Not groggy, not drowsy, genuinely rested. And here's why it works. Most supplements use cheap single form magnesium that your body just can't use. But this one has seven essential forms of magnesium with the passport delivery system designed to help support magnesium absorption The ripple effects are huge I mean less stress during the day better muscle recovery from workouts even digestion has improved And the real win is deep restorative sleep That's the foundation that everything else builds on. Go to bioptimizers.com slash breaker. Use our exclusive code breaker for 15% off. If deep sleep has been on your upgrade list, this is it. Trust us. I had done years and years and years of that psychological work. So when you talk about people who are listening, who are trauma-informed, who are experiencing that, who say, I can't just let go. So what I would say is Western psychology is fantastic at helping us understand our patterns, helping us understand our triggers, helping us understand why we are the way we are, understand our neuroses. And if there has been trauma in your life, to look at that, to acknowledge that, to understand it, to see how you get triggered, how it impacts your life today, is of a huge amount of importance. Letting go does not mean that we deny that, that we suppress it, that we repress it. However, many, many, many people get to the place where I was, which is, I've done all that. I've seen this trauma. I have relived this trauma umpteen times. In everything ranging from basic therapy to holotropic breath work to, you know, people were not using psychedelics, or at least nobody I knew was at that time, but holotropic breath work and a whole variety of different forms of therapy. Seen it, understand it, know it, relived it, working with it, but not free of it. Still my mind, my thoughts, and my behaviors were still governed by the trauma and the reaction to the trauma. And what spirituality did was allow me to become free. So the letting go was saying, that happened. That was awful. That should not have happened. And it didn't actually happen to me. And that's tricky because that could be co-opted in a spiritual bypass sort of situation. But what I mean by it is the me who presented to my guru at 25 did not share one cell of her body with the me who was abused or abandoned. If he had said to me, show me, when he sent me into that river to let go, it had begun with a conversation that's in Hollywood to the Himalayas, but I didn't share it here, which is worth mentioning for a moment, in which I had asked him. The reason I got sent into the river to let go was I had asked him about fear. And he said, you fear because you don't trust. And I then told him my story. This is why I don't trust. This is why I don't trust. Hey, here's all the awful things that have happened to me. You wouldn't trust either if you had been through what I went through. Exactly. Here's why I know the universe is untrustworthy. And he looked at me and he said, are you going to take that to the grave? He also said, how long are you going to keep talking about it? Yeah, that was about a year and a half later, which was another step. But that was also so important because it was this slap in the face of, oh, I thought I was done. Because it was still part of your nomenclature. It was still part of who you were. Yeah, absolutely. So in that first moment, he says, are you going to take this to the grave? And I say, no. And he says, so are you going to let it go on your deathbed? My God, no. I was 25. And he says, so are you going to let it go a month before you die? maybe a week before you die. And I say, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm in process. This is a process. You know, there's a process to these things. And he looks at me and he says, you're waiting for someone to come in and draw the line. You're waiting for someone to come in and tell you that you can be done. He said, no one will. You can carry this story to your grave. You can let it go on your deathbed or you can let it go tonight. I was like, tonight? Tonight? And he said, yes, I want you to go and stand in the river after our sacred lighting ceremony, the Arati. And I want you to stand in the river, the sacred Ganga River, the mother goddess Ganga. And I want you to offer all of your anger, all of your pain to her, to the river. Let her take it and forgive him. And I walked out of there thinking, thank God I live somewhere where we understand process. And that we don't have to rely on a river to sweep away our problems. because in the 25-year-old, over-educated, over-indoctrinated, super arrogant, academically arrogant me, I thought, there is no way. You don't just give it away. Of course. It's not like a thing. No, there's a process. There's a process. So you don't believe it's going to work. I do not believe it's going to work. But you're going to go and you're going to give it your best shot. Open heart vow. Open heart vow. and a second vow built on that later that afternoon, which was a very simple vow of sincerity. And it was remembering my open-hearted vow that took me to that. I was like, okay, if you're just gonna sit here and be smug and arrogant and obnoxious about the whole thing, you need to go back to America because this is not an open heart. And I then made a commitment that I would be sincere. I knew it wasn't going to work because I knew, of course, rivers don't sweep away this kind of stuff. But I would be sincere. I would be open. I would be willing. And that was all I committed to. And I walked in that river and I prayed and cried and tried to find within me every memory every vision, every experience that brought about anger and pain. And I held water from the river in my hands and I offered it into the water in my hands. And I then offered the water like this back into the river. And I did that until I could actually see his face and say, I forgive you. and see a man who was not the monster of my childhood memories, but a haunted man who was, you know, I wouldn't have used these words at that time, but in retrospect, walking his own karmic journey with his own karmic package in this lifetime. And just to clarify, this is the man who created you. Yeah, this was my biological father. This was my biological father. Absolutely. I hesitate in short form to say that only because I was given the most amazingly wonderful dad afterwards. And so everyone who knows me knows Frank as my dad. And I never would want anybody missing a moment to think that he was the one. But yes, this was my biological father, Manny. and I stood there until I could see his face and forgive him. And that's the letting go that I speak about, is it's a willingness, an openness, a sincerity to let go and see what happens. And what was it in that moment? Was there another profound change like the first spiritual awakening or was it more like a lightning that you noticed hours, days after? It was not like the first moment at all. It was deeply profound. It was an emptying. It was definitely an emptying. Did you realize it worked in the moment? Was that skeptical young woman changed? Both. I definitely felt empty. I felt free as I walked out of the river. and as I walked out, a voice was like, well, that didn't really happen. My heart knew it, but there was still this overeducated part of my brain that thought, there's no way that just happened. Because rivers don't do that. Rivers don't do that. And I then did something very funny, as I mentioned, which is I kept looking for it. I spent the next few months trying to trigger myself. And you were like, there's this part of myself that's missing that I'm used to having. Exactly. And it was also a question of like, what if I look at a hostess cupcake? Like, what if, what if I, you know, I mean, insert the thing, right? Insert the drug, drive by the bar, pour the drink, smell the drink, look at the porn. Like, what is going to activate you? Yep. What is going to cause that level of suffering in me? And that the bulimia had been a way of not feeling. And what I found was the memories were all still there. I could remember everything. But the attachment between the memory and the emotional response of needing to get out of that moment was no longer there. This is the definition of what EMDR does, which is a trauma therapy. That's literally what it says on the label of EMDR. When you do EMDR, you know, trauma processing, that's the goal, right? So science is trying to find what is it that happens when we can uncouple the cognitive and literal experience of trauma, the words, the thoughts, and we can uncouple them from the response, which is a compensatory response. It's a survival response. When we uncouple them, which is what, you know, again, science is trying to match, that is the goal, that it no longer has that power. It's not that it doesn't exist. it's that it no longer holds that charge it's kind of like you know when you see an ex that you've recently broken up with and it still hurts and you still have longing and there comes a point when you have some realization like they weren't good for me and when you see them you don't want it anymore or if you give up sugar right like i've lost my taste for soda which you know it it doesn't taste right anymore right we're uncoupling that when we say let go and as you mentioned that you have a lot of people who listen who are trauma-informed. So I just want to really clarify this. The letting go is not a denial of what's happened. It's not a belittling of what has happened. It's not in any way, shape, or form saying that was okay. And the same for forgiveness. Of course. What it's saying is, and forgiveness is a critical part. They're interlinked in a huge huge way, is what it's saying is that happened. It was awful. And yet you deserve to be free. And in order to be free, you need to let go of that as the identification of self. And one of the ways of thinking about it on a physical level is if the trauma happened more than seven or eight years ago, there's literally not a cell of your being today that existed then. So if in that moment, Swamiji had said to me, oh, you were sexually abused? Who was sexually abused? Show it to me. Oh, you were abandoned? Who was abandoned? Show her to me. There's not a cell of my 25-year-old body that was in existence then. Every cell of our body constantly is regenerating. Skin cells are every few days, internal organs every seven, eight years. But within seven, eight, nine years, every cell of our body has regenerated. So if we are carrying this happened to me, it's a really interesting pathway to stop and say to whom should never have happened. There should be lots of love and tender compassion for the being to whom it happened. We are not negating her, forgetting her, abandoning her, telling her it's her fault. We're doing none of that. But we're simply saying, she's not me. So that's on one level. The other level of the letting go is on the deep level of soul. So it's not just she's not me on a physical level, but it's that happened as part of a karmic journey of this, my soul in this lifetime. It was awful. And it isn't the core truth of who I am, which is soul and has this experience and that experience and this experience, but ultimately the truth is that which is unchanging, like that experience that I was mentioning earlier. You think about when you were two or three, then when you're in your teens, then in your twenties, that through line, that's the unchanged part. And so the letting go is an awareness that there is a me who was never touched, never traumatized, never harmed, both on a physical level now, but even deeper on the level of soul, spirit, consciousness, and tapping into that. And also the notion of a higher self. Yes. Even when you, and that's sort of the psychology, right, internal family systems concepts, that even if you are revisiting abuse, trauma there's a part of you that always knew even if you can't consciously access it there's always a part of you that knew you don't deserve this you didn't do anything wrong you're not bad it's the part that is closest and i'm pointing to the crown of my head because this is the closest place that connects right it's the closest place to the divine is the one that knows it can't touch you you know and especially like when you can remove yourself from that timeline it can't touch you anymore. MyMVLX Breakdown is supported by Odoo. So much of what we talk about here on MyMVLX Breakdown is about alignment, making sure the systems in your life actually support your authentic self and the life that you're trying to live. That includes how you run your business. Luckily, Odoo's here to help you in that journey. Odoo's an all-in-one management software designed to help entrepreneurs and small businesses focus on what actually matters instead of getting buried in admin work. They offer a range of applications for managing customer relations, marketing, point of sales, even custom websites. All that plus your sales, accounting, inventory, and operations all fully integrated on one simple and very easy to use, but also very intuitive platform with Odoo. When something happens in one part of your business, everything else gets updated automatically. Fewer errors, less duplication, and way more clarity is what comes from that. We also love that Odoo is scalable. As you grow, you just add what you need. No bloated software, no unnecessary complexity. Invite your whole team, keep everyone in lockstep with notifications and chat and their plans include all their apps. Odoo is also affordable. They offer several pricing plans, your first apps free for life with unlimited hosting and support included and a custom domain name for the first year. Then starting at $24.90 per month, you gain access to all available applications. Plus, it's tailored to where you live, which is amazing. Taxes, currency and regulations are built in. Takes another huge thing off your plate. If you're ready to build a business that actually supports your well-being, you can start a free 15-day trial with Odoo or book a meeting with one of their experts to explore your ideas by visiting the link in our show notes. It's a very thoughtful platform designed to grow with you, not overwhelm you. Use our links in the episode description for the best deals possible and get started with Odoo today. There are obviously many possibilities for the way people might analyze what happened. We talked about is this schizophrenia? I think we ruled that out. and you know many materialists would say and I this is not my perspective nor I think Jonathan's or anyone in this room or probably even listening but some people some cynics might say you had some sort of delusional experience which the DSM has not yet decided what it is you know it's some sort of like you know religious I mean again I'm using harsh words some sort of like religious fanaticism psychosis and delusional and we don't know we're gonna set that aside right and and we can't quantify. I can't tell you what that voice was any more than you can tell me what that voice was, right, that told you you must stay here. But a very large component, and I think this has been sensationalized significantly in our current culture, is the notion of cults, the notion of guru, the notion of a charismatic spiritual leader who in many cases, and it's how kind of we all got here, is charismatic religious and spiritual leaders who I believe their words have been twisted in many ways, but they have carried people through hard times, complicated wars, poverty, you know, all these things. This is like how we get here. Religion exists, right? And I believe that there's just sort of one and there's different cultural understandings of what that one is, but there's just kind of a one. But when we think of all the documentaries, right, about the abuse of power, and in particular, there's been recent documentaries specifically about, you know, some of the communities surrounding yogic practices and things like this. It's a very deep spiritual connection. I'm not saying there's anything specific about yogic traditions or Eastern traditions, but there is something to a practice that is so intimate. And so, especially when you get into Kundalini Yoga, it is so rooted in these core, you know, primal needs we have for connection that I think in many ways can make us susceptible right even more than other practices And I never heard anyone speak as frankly as you do about the deep love that you felt and received from your guru. And you even go so far as to say, I would have done anything that he asked. to what level can you help us understand, you know, the proportion of that love, that spiritual love you have for a leader versus I'm a disciple of a tradition that I'm going to pass on. And I'm asking you, you know, especially because you were born and raised in a culture that is so confused about love, about sex, about desire. What can you tell us about the love for a guru? First of all, on a general level, as we are in the midst of so many scandalous stories, and I've been, as you can imagine, approached by so many people in different communities that have been rocked with scandal, who are bereft and devastated and shattered and prepared to give up the teachings because of what has been unveiled about the teacher, the guru from whom they learned it. And what I've told every one of them is, you know what, the universe can send perfect teachings through an imperfect vessel. And I think that's a really important piece to remember is that the vessels are human. Some of them are at a much higher level than others, and therefore are what we could consider safe vessels. Some of them are not. And it's not that they intended to bring harm. But I think a lot of these masters who may have had spontaneous spiritual experiences, who may have developed spontaneously a system that they've been able to pass on or some wisdom they've passed on, but who haven't come from a powerful guru themselves, can find themselves in a situation surrounded by adoring, doting disciples of a culture that doesn't think there's anything wrong with having sex with the guru and suddenly be in a situation of temptation that they may never have even imagined. So I think, A, it's important to remember. And that's an abuse of power. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But I'm just beginning with the idea that I don't think the majority of them went into this plotting, planning, calculating to be a guru so that they could abuse the power they get and molest people for sex. I think that in most cases, what began as a sincere desire to share a teaching that they had, but in which they didn't have the foundation of maybe a very deep spiritual practice personally or a guru who could say to them, hey, you know, you're off track. have gotten tempted and triggered into abusing power, into taking advantage, because, you know, desire is a super difficult experience to withstand. So in any case, I just want to begin by saying I think it's important to realize that just because we have unveiled several teachers who were not nearly as perfect as they would have had us believe and who did abuse power and did abuse people and were absolutely acting out of integrity, out of dharma. That shouldn't make the disciples doubt the teachings themselves. And this is a place that I was hoping you'd speak to because many people say, see, religion's bullshit because look what happens when people in power. But I think the idea is you want to be able to separate that. I think that's a very important distinction. Otherwise, we'd never send our kids to school, right? I mean, there are stories of teachers who molest kids. There are stories of doctors who molest patients on operating tables. We have every system that we can think of has abuse because every system that is populated by humans is going to be impacted by human nature. And so we have teachers, principals, coaches, doctors who have taken advantage of students, patients, but we would never say, forget education, forget the practice of medicine, forget surgery. We understand there is a value that transcends the harm brought by those individuals. Obviously, those individuals need to be dealt with separately. Obviously, we need to increase our screening processes. But you would not throw the entire system of medicine or education out the window. I want you to speak to celibacy because you you dedicate a certain portion of Hollywood to the Himalayas to explaining, you know, that in true practice. There is a shift in chemistry and there's a shift in biology that can be instated. I always thought that celibate people were walking around like freaking out. But the idea and many of them are right. But you talk about what it's like. Yeah. And you talk about, you know, that there are three places energy can go. Right. Talk a little bit about what that means. And, you know, I'm not asking for lascivious purposes. I'm asking because I think it's a fascinating component of a practice that is focused on what does it look like to not be attached. Right. to those desires. Absolutely. And for me, I never would have dreamed in a million years that I was going to become celibate. I was not someone you would have anticipated would be celibate. I was not someone who was raised in a family, a culture, a society that valued really abstinence at all from anything that one might want. So there was nothing in my life that would have indicated that I was going to take a path of renunciation at all, and certainly not of sex or pleasure in that way. And also for a woman, it implies you will not biologically of course, squeeze a watermelon through a garden hose. Yes, exactly. Right. So what happened for me was also really a piece of grace. I do not believe that I would have been able from the beginning to be celibate if I was still flooded with sexual urges. Remember, I had never meditated. I had never done any spiritual practices. I was not walking into this as a powerful student of abstinence or working with your mind in any way. But what happened was really amazing. Not long after I had the very first experience of awakening on the banks of Ganga, And it felt very much like the divine came through me with a dust buster or one of those vacuum cleaners with the attachments, the long attachments that get into your corners and literally sucked out of me the attachment to anything that was no longer going to be a part of my life. And whether it was bagels or avocados or sex. I mean, it literally was this spectrum of here are the things I enjoy. Here are the things I'm no longer going to have. Okay. Why can't you have a bagel? Well, they just didn't have them. I mean, now there may be places that have bagels. Now there are places that sell. I'd be importing them. It's the water. The water in New York. It's a different kind of holy water. So, so many things. I mean, if I looked at the things that I used to consume on every level, salad bars. As a woman, makeup, like, you know, all the the niceties of Western culture for women, right? Any of it. It was no longer going to be part of my life. Bagels, avocado, sex were kind of the three big things for me. But the list was obviously a lot longer. And because of the power of that experience, it literally felt like I was out that attachment to them. Otherwise, if I was living that life, dreaming about sex, I don't think that I would have stayed because it would not have felt right. It wouldn't have felt in alignment. From that moment, the desire disappeared. You were free. I was free. It wasn't that I didn't have beautiful memories, but the desire just lifted. And so it became actually quite easy for me. But has it ever been difficult? Well, so it returned, as I do share in the book, a few years later in a moment with a very attractive Bollywood actor who mentioned that he was very attracted to me. And it was the first time in probably five, six years I had been there by that time that I even remembered I had the body of a woman. when I had just not thought of myself in that way for all of those years. And suddenly here was this super attractive guy in front of me saying, I'm attracted to you. And what it did, although I completely deflected the comment in that moment, What it did was it opened that which had been closed in my mind, in my hormones, in everything. And I suddenly found myself flooded with desire. Fortunately, I come from a culture in which I didn't think there was something wrong with that. I didn't feel ashamed. I knew that I didn't want to give into it, that I had taken vows that I wouldn't. But I wasn't ashamed. There was no sense in me of like, oh, bad person, wrong person. And so I went to Swamiji saying, I got this problem here. And he gave me a series of practices of working with the energy. And again, fortunately, I have a guru who himself is so open in thought, although he's been a lifelong celibate, but is so open in thought that he would never say, this is wrong, this is bad, nothing like that. And he told me a very funny, very funny story from our scriptures, though I won't go into the whole story, but a story of a sage who's a celibate, nutted moony, who's a very, very renowned sage who at one point in his life gets completely intoxicated by desire for this princess and how the divine basically saves him from going astray by giving him a monkey face. and not letting the princess be attracted to him because he's been given a monkey face. And so Swamiji tells me this story, kiddingly saying, you know, am I going to have to turn your face into a monkey? But then he gives me some very powerful yogic practices of working with the energy and carrying it up within you. That later, interestingly, my yoga teacher from here explained that the practices that young boys are given in the ancient traditions, when they take boys at a prepubescent age, that a lot of the practices are given to actually biochemically make that energy flow upward rather than downward. But he gave me practices of working with the energy, not pushing it away, not denying it, not hating it, but also not living in this idea of, oh, it has to be released. But it can actually be transmuted and rise in the being. And working with what I later learned were called chakras and energy centers and using that sacred energy. So, yeah, fortunately, it has not been a major obstacle or even a minor obstacle. It's been something that has arisen a few times over the years. But these practices are so powerful. And by the way, another important caveat for your listeners is there is nothing in the scriptures that says thou shalt be celibate. Unless you've taken vows for it, of course. but there's nothing that says a celibate path is the highest path. A celibate path is the only path. You can only be enlightened if you're a monk. Nothing says that. I came to realize in the first couple of years of being there that my dharma was going to be to take these monastic vows, to become a monk, to follow this path, this lineage of my guru. But there's nothing that says that you have to do that. And in fact, interestingly, in the scriptures, the vast majority of sages, of rishis, of yogis are living householder married lives, as are the divine incarnations. Krishna comes on earth. Ram comes on earth. They're householders. They're married people. so that's a very important emphasis that no one should think oh this experience this healing this awakening is not available to me because i'm married or i don't want to be celibate no problem and can you speak a little bit to the devotion in particular that you felt and have with your guru kind of separate from the sexual conversation, but I know that I grouped those in one. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, some people saying maybe she's just so taken with whoever the guru is, and this would hold for men as well. You know, I think it's more about what kind of devotion do you grow and what kind of love grows, you know, and how do you separate that from the other kinds of love? Yeah, you know, the word guru, it's very beautiful. The Sanskrit word guru literally means the one who removes our darkness and brings light. That's a lot of words for one little word. Isn't it? So gu is darkness. Ru is the remover of darkness. So guru is the one who removes that darkness. But I always give the extra piece that the darkness is ignorance, because those of us coming from a Judeo-Christian tradition, take darkness to basically mean who I really am. If you only knew my true core self, original sin, in the Vedic tradition, the darkness just means ignorance. That the core of who we are is light, is divinity, is purity, is one with that divine. but we forget. We identify with the body, with the story. And so we live in a darkness of ignorance. The guru is the one who removes that darkness. Now, you mentioned charisma. One of the tragedies in the world is that charisma does not always mean goodness. there have been many charismatic leaders, political leaders, religious leaders of every religion, who are fantastically charismatic and are most definitely not people we should be following. In the world of religion, the gurus far too often are beings who are incredibly charismatic and we mistake a spotlight of charisma as light of the self. And what I always remind people is the light that the guru shines is the light on you. If the guru is just shining the light on themselves and the goal is look at me, run as fast as you can in the other direction. the way to know it's a real guru is do you feel that there is a light with which you can see yourself does the guru show you the truth the light of you and so when that happens when he showed me, you are not broken. You are not damaged. You are divine. That was the light of me. That was not about, hey, look how charismatic I am. Follow me. That was, look at you. And so the devotion is a devotion to truth It devotion to a path I speak about it frequently like being a lump of clay on a potter wheel Not always easy There are metaphoric slaps He got physical slaps from his guru Sometimes I think a physical slap would be easier than the ego slap, but I guess with Western disciples, you can't actually raise a hand and hit them. But so yeah, we only get metaphoric ones, but there are slaps to the ego. And then you get thrown in the fire and you get, you know, the ego gets burned. But it's a, it's a devotion to truth. And a real guru is going to be the one who's going to constantly remind you, it's not about me. You know, the very first book I ever wrote is called By God's Grace, and it's his biography. And I titled it By God's Grace, because when I first met him, that was all he would say, when I would say, you're so amazing, he would say, it's all God's grace. And I would say, well, yeah, but. And he just kept coming back to it. And it actually used to drive me crazy because I was thinking, take credit here, like say, thanks. Exactly. Exactly. It's that's true humility. That it's true humility. And that's exactly his felt sense experience. And I realized he was not just being humble. He was giving me the truest experience. But you're describing falling in love with someone like you are. And I make me feel things that I never felt before. You fell. I totally fell in love with him. And I talk about it in the book, which is why. Not only if he had wanted me to give him more, but in my mind, I was like, well, the natural place that this is going to go is, of course, it's going to become a physical sexual relationship because when you love someone and you're that close, and they make you feel so good, like that's where this goes. Which is also a bit of trauma response. Of course, absolutely. I mean, with all due respect, like with all the respect. Of course it is. For many of us, oh, you like me? Let's get married. Absolutely. Or you're paying me attention? We must be in love. And it could be the dude at Trader Joe's. Like it could be, you know, it could be anyone, right? Because it's my need, right? It's my God-shaped hole. And it's how we identify our value. Sure. When I wrote about this in Hollywood to the Himalayas, I actually had several people prior to manuscript going to print saying, are you really sure you want to put this all in? and I thought, you know what, if I take away truth based on just what people are going to think about me, I wouldn't even know the woman who occupied my body. And I think it's a really important piece of the story because I was a 25-year-old, sexually active, married woman whose husband had just left her and who came from a world in which there was nothing wrong with it anyway. I mean, I didn't come in with any baggage around sex. This was what you did when you loved someone. Especially if someone amazing likes you. I better have sex with that person. It means I'm really worthy. Exactly. And how are you going to keep them otherwise? And it was an incredible experience because I went from feeling like this is just going to be a matter of time because he's never done it before or had a relationship like this before, to a very interesting trauma-informed panic experience. Oh my God. On the one hand, he's saying, you're wonderful, you're divine. His actions are showing me that he wants me to be near him. He's calling me. He's giving me work to do every day. I've been granted access to him. And yet he, no matter how much I try to flirt, make myself available, insinuate that, hey, this would be a good thing. He doesn't even understand, like he cannot pick up on a signal. He has no idea where I'm trying to go and clearly is totally uninterested and sees me just as soul and keeps directing my vision back toward soul. and it was incredibly frustrating and incredibly anxiety producing for quite a while of what do I have to offer if not this and that is as you said that is the trauma response of that's how I identify so many women do even if you aren't traumatized if yeah exactly and if you if you don't want to have sex with me, why are you keeping me around? And my whole sense of self had to shift and grow around worthiness and value in being in this type of relationship with someone who looked at me and saw soul rather than body. And even when the body was offered, had no interest, didn't understand the question, you know, just was on a completely different plane of existence. Like literally? Literally. What can people find in Come Home to Yourself? So Come Home to Yourself was a really fun book to do because it's questions and answers. Hollywood of the Himalayas, or Himalayas, as we say here, reads, as I've been told, which to me feels so happy, like a novel. As you said, a soap opera. Your life is like a great novel. Well, and I love that because what it means is that people get engaged in the story. And as you said, it's like a huge soap opera. I didn't want it to end. I mean, yeah. Well, fortunately, it hasn't. Just the book has. But the story is ongoing and it was wonderful to write and to share the story along with the lessons as I learned them. So in Hollywood to the Himalayas, the lessons are woven into the story. Come Home to Yourself is transcripts of actual answers that I have given to actual questions in the satsang, the question-answer session that I lead every evening there in Rishikesh. And we have people come from all over the world. And it's satsang literally means in the presence of truth. and people ask everything ranging from the nature of the soul what happens to the soul after death I've lost a loved one how do I access them find them deal with grief to how do I deal with my mother-in-law to do I have to get married my parents say I have to get married do I have to get married to how do I work with my negativity my habits why meditate if I'm a good person why do I need a spiritual practice to literally everything in between. And we went through and we chose the ones that are the most universally important. So across regions, across religions, across life paths, what are the things that as souls and human bodies having human experiences that we struggle with, our relationships, our minds, our jobs, our deep questions. And that's what it is. So it's literally questions and answers. And hopefully everyone who reads it is going to find answers to the questions that they struggle with. And hopefully through those answers, that which keeps people from living as the very highest, truest self of them, freest expression of them, that those barriers can be removed. A lot of people have little moments and glimpses of these spiritual experiences. And as you talked about the idea of a half-life, they wonder how to integrate it, right? They may experience it in an energy session or a meditation or on a retreat, and they come back to their lives. your life took you up to the other side of the world to an ashram where you've built a community and you're a part of something that supports this path that you're on can it work if you're not amongst community in that way singing with your meals and meditating with others yes i've spent some time living part-time in an ashram in san francisco and it was different when there's a group of people sitting. Absolutely. Every morning, every night. Talk to the people who may be listening, who are living a suburban life or living in a city. How do they navigate and try to hold on to some of this on a regular basis? These teachings are actually meant for what we call householders, meaning people who are living everyday lives, married, kids, jobs in society. They're not teachings that are given to monastics living in caves. If you go through the Vedic tradition, the wisdom, you take the Bhagavad Gita, for example, it is spoken on a battlefield to a man, a father, a husband who is about to fight a battle. So they are meant for people in exactly the circumstances that you've described, living these lives in societies with jobs. And it's hard. It's much easier, absolutely, to remember, to access when you are in a community that's doing it, partly because when most of us go to those communities, it's as a vacation from our life. So there's two aspects. One is I don't have to deal with errands or punching a time card or getting my kids to school. Exactly. Because I'm on vacation for three days or three weeks or however long I may be there. So one is just the nitty gritty annoyances of my daily life are not there. But then the other is I'm in a place where the energy is focused on remembering. And that's hugely powerful and hugely important. However, it's absolutely doable even without that. These days, the internet has become such a wonderful tool because even if you don't have a community on your street, you can have an online community. People are gathering online, meditating together, coming together in satsang, whether they're just watching it, you know, like our satsang streams live every day. But people are also coming together and sharing and talking online in community. Where most people live also, there really are these days other people on the path. LA obviously is super easy. Almost every corner has people who are meditating, people who are singing kirtan, people who are engaged in some spiritual practice. It may not necessarily be exactly the same. But as you mentioned in the beginning, it's all one. They're all going to the same place. So it's not that it has to be a Bhagavad Gita study group. It could be people coming together across different spiritual beautiful books and lineages and traditions and sharing how we access the divine and how we remember in our traditions. So I'd say open your eyes and look for it where you are. And nicely, technology also gives us ways of not only connecting online, but it actually helps people find other people offline, use online communities as not something that you're hooked up to too frequently because that does then just kind of pull you out of here we are right now. But it is good if you're not able to find a community where you live. And there are a select few people for whom that's true. But I have found these days that even in obscure little villages of random countries all over the world, people are meditating. People are coming together to chant, to talk about the presence of God. People are looking for spirituality these days. There is violence. There's war. There's oppression. There's division and polarization and othering and fear and destruction of our environment. And people are looking. to come together in something that is united, that is deeper, that's higher. So find the community. And remember that there also is a reason, as beautiful and ecstatic as it is to sing and chant and meditate in community, there is a reason that traditionally, again, across religions, that you've got monks in caves. and that there is something very powerful about an individual practice. It just requires a different level of discipline than when you're somewhere where the bell rings at 4 a.m. every day and, you know, everybody's got to get up and we're sitting in 15 minutes. And so it just requires a different level of discipline. But setting reminders is for me one of the most beautiful things in my life. And I just, I set, for example, every time I drink something or eat something, a moment, just a moment. And if you're somebody who drives the car a lot, you could tie it into turning on the ignition. If you're somebody who sends a lot of emails, you could tie it into hitting send. A moment, 30 seconds of just dropping in. Ah, yes. here we are just a moment and you re-remember and you come back now that works when you have a practice to which it is referring so you've got to have an actual longer practice of meditation morning evening whatever works for you then you're touching it throughout the day exactly it's like you know my guru says when you first wire a home it takes a long time but once the home is wired and you want to just turn on a lamp all you have to do is flip the switch so the practice is the practice of kind of wiring our homes and then throughout the day we're just reconnecting, reconnecting, re-remembering. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. And as the time goes by, the meditative practice itself almost becomes just like flipping a switch because that wiring has been laid so deeply that you close your eyes and it's literally almost a switch that is turning on. So yeah, it is hard on your own, absolutely. And it's what is being called upon us these days. And I heard somebody recently speak about the fact they had done all kinds of research around consciousness shift and in order to create a massive change in the globe on a practical level. We don't actually need 100% of the people on earth to become conscious. We just need 10%. And they did this beautiful presentation on how if we just get 10% of people to actually become conscious, that the entire world would shift, that that would be the 100th monkey, the tipping point situation. So yeah, there is a reason to bring the practice into your life. Sadhiji, thank you so, so much. I highly recommend Hollywood to the Himalayas if you want the kind of intro and come home to yourself. Simple answers to life's essential questions. Thank you so much for your wisdom and your teaching. We really, it's just been a fantastic conversation. So thank you so much. It's been so wonderful to be with you and thank you so much for what you're doing, bringing this depth into the world because that's what we need and helping people re-remember. That was an incredible conversation. I had so many more questions I wanted to ask. But the one thing I wanted to clarify, I totally get the point about the cells and the turnover and all that stuff. And not a biological part of you exists. And it's a way to separate yourself from the timeline of being trapped in abuse. But it also is true that cells communicate systems and the body has mechanisms that are put in place because of the functioning of certain systems that do need to be deprogrammed, you know, reprogrammed. programmed or updated. So I don't think she was saying that there's no such thing as intergenerational trauma or anything like that. It was a different point she was making that I wanted to distinguish. So much great stuff over on Substack and really eager for people to head over to Substack for more on this conversation. Where on Substack do they go? Well, you can go to bialikbreakdown.substack.com or you can just open the Substack app and you can search my Bialik's Breakdown and there we are with content you will not and cannot get anywhere else. I'm excited to be there. we're excited that you're there from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.