(Excerpt from my next book: Confession of an Ex-Hindu Nun)
There is a beautiful myth in the Hindu tradition about Lord Krishna and characters called gopis. They are female milk maidens who worship Lord Krishna in the form of a child. My ex-cult abused this deep, mystic teaching story to run its secret sex cult.
Before I even discovered the secret sex cult, I knew about Krishna and the gopis. The story featured heavily in the teachings delivered by the two gurus and preachers of my ex-cult. The gist of their public teachings was that we, ordinary devotees, should strive to become gopis in the divine world and live there with Lord Krishna forever.
As I write in my book, Sex, Lies, and Two Hindu Gurus:
“The hallmark of Radha-Krishna is the countless divine loving activities they engage in with each other and with their playmates, the young cow-herding maidens called gopis. Their divine actions are called leelas and include everything from dancing, to eating, to performing loving actions in worship of God.
“In our cult, becoming a gopi was the most coveted of all divine states that a human could achieve. Living eternally in the divine world in this form gives souls the opportunity to participate in many ‘intimate divine activities’ with Krishna, such as the mystical divine dance called maharas in which it appears that He is dancing with each gopi individually.
“We were instructed to meditate on leelas in satsang — even to envision ourselves participating in leelas. As my ex-guru wrote in one of his books: ‘Radha-Krishna descend on the Earth planet to Grace everyone. They Grace souls by revealing Their love and leelas for them, which are even beyond the understanding and reach of the creator Brahma and Maha Lakshmi.’”
The Gopi Dilemma for Male Devotees
This story was such as major part of the belief system the gurus created that the male devotees began to wonder how they were supposed to imagine themselves as females in the divine world. One man was even brave enough to ask one of the gurus about this issue.
“It’s easy for female devotees to imagine themselves as gopis, but how are the men supposed to do that?”
The guru did not give a crystal-clear answer for the men followers. He replied something to the effect: “Imagine yourself as the male version of gopis.”
However, the male version was not at all the same as the female version. For one thing, the normal story of the gopis and Krishna implies a deep union. In fact, taken out of context (which they did), it is a sexually charged union, implying that Krishna and the gopis have a sexual union.
In fact, it’s a story that is similar to the bridal chamber mythology in esoteric Christianity. The meaning of these ancient mythologic stories is that we are supposed to have a spiritual union with the divine, not a gross materialistic sexual union.
Abusing the Krishna-Gopi Mythology
Adding a sexual connotation to the mythological story can be easily used for nefarious purposes by those with selfish intent. And this is exactly how it was used in my ex-cult.
I figured this out after learning that there was a secret sex cult running out of the sight of many of the cult leaders’ followers. It was all happening in the gurus’ bedrooms. It was a secret sex cult only known by some of the women in the organization. And it operate all day, every day, as I describe in Sex, Lies, and Two Hindu Gurus.
In fact, when the secret sex cult was finally exposed, I tried to figure out what the hell was going on in the gurus’ bedroom. At one point, I had a conversation with one of the senior preachers about a young girl who was uncomfortably close to the head guru.
The way she explained their relationship to me was like this:
“You see, she is a very high soul. She loves Maharaji the same way the gopis loved Krishna.”
Later I learned from one woman that this particular young girl told her what she did with Kripalu in his bedroom. The answer was oral sex and intercourse. The girl said she believed she was a gopi sharing intimate divine activities with Krishna.
Then I heard more stories.
The Cult’s Corrupted Maharas Sex Leela
To participation in the gurus’ sexually charged “maharas leela,” new female recruits were given precise instructions and prepped for their first experience by the guru’s helpers, female preachers and devotees. Women and young girls were told to “consider the guru as Krishna and yourself as a gopi performing divine-love acts.”
Typically, the women who brought young girls to Kripalu the first time would wait outside his bedroom door. When the girls emerged, confused and frightened, the women would instruct them.
“This is a very special experience between you and Maharaji. He is Krishna and you are a gopi. Consider him as your husband. Don’t tell anyone, including your parents.”
When the gurus’ sex cult was exposed, many devotees who didn’t already know about it assimilated this new information into their existing belief system. Their belief process went like this: Just as Krishna “makes love” to the gopis in the divine world, Maharaji behaves lustily with women on Earth.
The Real Story of Krishna and the Gopis
My ex-cult’s abuse of the Krishna-gopi fable was a gross corruption of a beautiful mythology. The truth of the story is that it is a very deep and high teaching myth. It is filled with symbolism that inspires and guides us toward the ultimate goal of every human life — to return to the divine world from which we came.
You won’t even hear the real story from the vast majority of gurus in India, because they are not divine. Most so-called gurus are truly worldly — like my two ex-gurus.
Here’s what the deep mystical teaching story really means. It’s a symbolic story about elevating our own inner consciousness back to the divine level from which we fell. We achieve this goal through the power of meditation.
To return to our spiritual essence, we need to spend more time meditating. Our intention should be to reach higher a level of consciousness — Krishna consciousness. It is analogous with Christ consciousness in esoteric Christianity and Buddha consciousness in esoteric Buddhism.
The Symbology of the Krishna-Gopi Myth
In this mythical story, Krishna is a child because it represents the pureness of God. He is always a bluish-black figure because that color represents the meditation we must enter into to achieve higher levels of consciousness.
The maharas leela dance with the gopis occurs by moonlight, which represents breaking through the darkness of our lower consciousness and into the divine light of our higher conscious.
Gopis are a symbolic device representing the buddhic spirit guides within each of us. Our inner buddhic spirits transform that which is worldly into that which is divine through meditation.
They are part of our conscious and, as pure powers, heal us and then elevate us to higher levels of consciousness. They are female, because symbolically the feminine is our spiritual aspect.
The gopis were asleep when they heard Krishna’s flute. This represents how we are asleep in the world, not realizing that we are supposed to be working toward awakening our higher levels of consciousness.
The sound of the flute is the music of our soul. It helps to awaken us and represents the harmony within our spirit. The melody that arises from the flute awakens our higher Krishna consciousness.
It’s a beautiful mystical teaching story that contains the power, not only to raise us into higher consciousness, but also to drown out the wicked of the world — including the wicked misuse of this myth by corrupt fake gurus.
