RLGN1322 Introduction to Eastern Religions - respond to one of the 3 following prompts. It should be approximately 1500 words in length.It will be double spaced, 12 point font.It should follow a cons

Despite all differences of appearance and philosophy, at their core, gurus must by definition be teachers, and teachers must speak in language that their students will understand and appreciate (Aravamudan 2006). The global gurus who emerge from Indic Hindu traditions are highly adaptive religious leaders who tailor their messages to particular times, circum- stances, and populations. They spread their religious sentiments around the globe by combining Hindu elements with personal adaptations, actively developing what Thomas J. Csordas describes as the two primary features necessary for the dissemination of a religion into a new environment: a “portable practice” and a “transposable message” (2009: 4). 1 In order to develop a following of disciples, gurus must present something to the public that is not available elsewhere, something unique. In many cases, this uniqueness—whether it is expressed through a particular method, product, philosophy, appearance, sanctity, or charisma of the guru— translates into something entirely new. With this in mind, this paper suggests that contemporary global gurus are some of the most vibrant innovators in the field of Hindu religiosity. 222 / Amanda Lucia The guru’s skillful means, or upåya, is his or her ability to attract fol- lowers by “adapting one’s message to the particular time and circum- stance” (Forsthoefel and Humes 2005: 7). In order to become successful, they must brand and market themselves as distinct, with specialized approaches and products. As a result they tend to innovate and modify old forms to fit their particular styles and messages. In a sense, the guru is the quintessential progenitor of Hinduism in modernity, a figure who actively ushers in what we might describe as a form of “Hindu modern- ism,” a term that echoes David L. McMahan’s seminal work on Buddhist modernism. McMahan explains that The line demarcating a modernist from a traditionalist is often blurry and uneven. Modernists may openly refute certain elements of tradition or claim to be going back to the true, original tradition. Modernist move- ments often do not set out to establish something new but on the contrary may claim to be casting off the new and reviving the old. Such revival, however, is deeply and inevitably conditioned by the language, social forms, practices, and worldviews of the present. Whether self-consciously conservative or innovative, traditions must reconfigure themselves in ways that allow them to participate in the conversations of the day.

This may involve radical accommodation or radical challenge, but it always means novelty (2008: 28; emphasis added).

Similarly, as guru movements increasingly develop new forms of religious discourses and practices derived from Hinduism, they shape their messages to a variety of modern contexts and articulate Hindu mores in a variety of modern idioms. As E. Burke Rochford puts it succinctly, “To promote social change in accordance with its ideological prescriptions, every social movement must act on the environment in which it operates” (2004: 273).

Thus gurus must act on—and I would add, adapt to—their particular contexts in our globalized world of late capitalist modernity.

But noting the novelty produced by modern guru movements should not imply that all gurus develop their styles and messages in wholly unprecedented and unconventional ways. There are many gurus who actively reinvent the wheels of tradition, reasserting the relevance of traditional discourses and practices in a language that resonates with modernity. In fact, gurus often find the assertion of tradition to be a Innovative Gurus / 223 productive component of their movements because it provides an index of presumed authenticity. Even the most innovative gurus rely on tradi- tion to some extent in order to garner recognizability and authority. The danger is that if they stray too far away from recognizable tradition, they may be too radical or too unorthodox to gain and maintain a following. 2 Also, as McMahan suggests, “Modernity, then, carries with it a nostalgia for the premodern and a hope that ancient traditions can help in reen- chanting the world, through, ironically, their own kind of ‘sciences’ and ‘technologies’—those of the spirit” (2008: 13). When thinking of this in the Hindu context, we might look to the ways in which a variety of modern guru movements have purported to represent their own versions of ancient and “authentic” Vedic tradition as a solution to the crises of modernity.

This nostalgia for the pristine premodern rears its head among both pro- ducers and consumers in guru communities: guru organizations often present their messages as solutions to the disenchantment of modernity, and audiences eager for reenchantment actively promote a nostalgia- based return to imagined forms of tradition.

But all religions change according to circumstance and environment, so then what makes modern gurus distinct as particularly influential inno- vators of Hindu traditions? Here I suggest that there are three primary modern developments that have centralized the role of the innovative guru. First, modern Hinduism accentuates a variety of characteristics that are markedly novel in response to colonialism, modernity, and a newfound role as a proselytizing religion outside of the boundaries of India. Certainly, this is a large topic that warrants the detailed treatment that McMahan has issued defending the category “Buddhist modernism” (2008), or Donald S. Lopez in suggesting “modern Buddhism” (2002), or Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere in demonstrating “Protestant Bud- dhism” in Sri Lanka (1988). But scholars in Hinduism have also pointed to similar trends (Aravamudan 2006; Hatcher 2008; Kurien 2007; Smith 2003; Van der Veer 2001; Williamson 2010), and such parallels suggest that there is something distinct and innovative occurring in the modern expansions of Hinduism and Buddhism into global arenas while remaining in dialogue with the colonial context. Also, the guru-led proselytizing forms of Hinduism are relatively new when compared with the Buddhist example, and as such, we might expect rapid change and innovation within modern Hinduism as gurus engage globally with various cultural contexts. 224 / Amanda Lucia Second, since the mid-twentieth century, gurus have taken active, public roles that are increasingly influential on both the attitudes of the general populace and public representations of Hinduism in India and abroad. As Jacob Copeman and Aya Ikegame (2012) have aptly shown, gurus are active leaders in a variety of overlapping fields, such as medicine, politics, higher education, and judiciary courts, not to mention religion. In moder- nity, the guru’s influence has expanded well beyond that of the village forum or the remote locations available only to the religious seeker. Svåm > Vivekånanda ushered in a new age of the guru as a public figure with his American debut in1893 and his subsequent founding of the Ramakrishna Order in 1897 and its sister organization in diaspora: the Vedanta Societies.

Similarly, Svåm > Cinmayånanda encouraged gurus to become engaged social and political activists and followed this path himself, founding the Chinmaya Mission in India in 1953 (the Chinmaya Mission West in 1976) and cofounding the Vishva Hindu Parishad in 1964. In the modern period, gurus have taken active and influential leadership roles not only in shap- ing contemporary Hinduism, but also in expanding their networks beyond India’s boundaries to audiences around the globe. Today there are hundreds of gurus actively proselytizing a variety of forms of Hinduism globally, competing with each other to make their voices heard above the din. This era of aggressive marketing and vocifer- ous competition leads directly to the third aspect of accelerated guru inno- vation due to modernity. It is because of this heavy competition in the public sphere that even gurus who rely on established tradition must become innovators in the manner by which they represent themselves to audiences. Gurus must mark themselves with social distinction in a sea of competing voices. They must present and represent a publicly visible uniqueness that sets them apart from established tradition, a uniqueness that inherently includes novelty and innovation.

While a variety of circumstances have the potential to serve as catalysts for innovation, charismatic leaders are one of the principal sources that generate challenges, reforms, and sometimes outright rejections of extant tradition. Max Weber suggests that the bearer of charisma enjoys loyalty and authority by virtue of a mission believed to be embodied in him; this mission has not necessarily and not always been revolutionary, but in its most charismatic forms it has Innovative Gurus / 225 inverted all value hierarchies and overthrown custom, law and tradition (1978: 1117).

More recently, Copeman and Ikegame argue that the guru is “uncontain- able” because she or he serves as a “vector between domains,” meaning that the figure of the guru operates in multiple spheres simultaneously, effecting change in multifarious and difficult to compartmentalize valences.

They elaborate that an aspect of gurus’ uncontainability is their unusual capacity to key into the momentum of given situations and “harvest” them so as to generate a sense of “carrying forward,” and that this is possible, at least in part, because of the polyvalent meanings of gurus themselves (2012:

19).

Both of these strains of analysis suggest that contemporary gurus creatively adapt to the fluctuations of modernity and that their social status is in some sense dependent upon this effective harvesting of the fluid momen- tum of what Zygmunt Bauman (2000) calls “liquid modernity.” More than other facets of Hindu religion, gurus must become fluid responders “key[ing] into the [shifting] momentum of given situations” because they must continually market themselves effectively to maintain and develop their followings of disciples. The overarching task of this paper will be to critically analyze contemporary gurus’ innovative contributions to Hindu traditions and the manner in which they insert themselves as vectors between the shifting domains of modernity.

What is Tradition in Hindu Religious Contexts?

Before entering the tumultuous waters of precisely what is meant by upholding the dichotomy between innovation and tradition, I rely on Edward Shils to provide a functionalist definition of tradition for the purposes of this paper. Shils explains:

Tradition is thus far more than the statistically frequent recurrence over a succession of generations of similar beliefs, practices, institutions, and works. The recurrence is a consequence of the normative consequences— 226 / Amanda Lucia sometimes the normative intention—of presentation and of the accep- tance of the tradition as normative. It is this normative transmission which links the generations of the dead with the generations of the living in the constitution of a society.…The normativeness of tradition is the inertial force which holds society in a given form over time (1981:

24–25).

Tradition is thus based in the public presentation and acceptance of repeated structures, forms, and events over time that produces normative conse- quences. It connects the living and the dead. It provides the superstructures that develop into the common sense understandings of “this is what we do, and this is how we do it.” Pierre Bourdieu’s work follows along Shils’ thinking when he argues that religion can effectively be considered a “structuring structure,” as that which simultaneously presents a social formation and normativizes that formation so that the possible presentations of future forms fall into a similar alignment. He writes:

Considering religion as a language, that is as both an instrument of communication and an instrument of knowledge or, more precisely, as a symbolic medium at once structured (therefore receptive to structural analysis) and structuring, as a condition of possibility of the primordial form of consensus that is the agreement on the meaning of signs and on the meaning of the world that they permit one to construct (Bourdieu 1991: 2; emphasis in original). In religious traditions, authorized actors present a model that becomes instructional and authoritative for the presentation of future models. Like the grooving of the brain from repeated patterns of neural circuit connec- tivity, social behavioral patterns proceed in normative trajectories. These “normative consequences” are the product of the repeated actions of tradi- tion, and they set expectations for that which society, or a given religious community, deems traditional. Thus, with a keen eye toward the structuring structures of tradition, we can closer define innovation as those social breeches that rupture these normative consequences, the inertial force of repetitive actions transmitted across generations. If we imagine tradition as a river slowly carving out a singular path, then innovations would be Innovative Gurus / 227 the obstructions or reversals that divert the flow of water and create alternatives to its routine course established by repetition over time. But what is “tradition” in the Hindu context? As is well known, attempt- ing to identify a central core of Hindu tradition presents a problem because of its tremendous diversity. Bråhma~ical Hinduism has been highly influ- ential in constructing accepted authoritative tradition and defining dharma (righteous action) for Hindus, but the textual contributions and the struc- tures therein comprise only one facet of the whole of Hindu religion. One might instead focus on the practices of lived religion among Hindus rather than defining one particular theological strain as the core of the tradition:

p¨jå (ritual worship), darçana (seeing and being seen by divinity), homa (Vedic fire sacrifice), or bodily rituals guarding purity from pollution. As Gavin Flood asserts, “One striking feature of Hinduism is that practice takes precedence over belief. What a Hindu does is more important than what a Hindu believes (1996: 12). In a similar vein, Fritz Staal suggests that a Hindu “may be a theist, pantheist, atheist, communist and believe whatever he likes, but what makes him into a Hindu are the ritual practices he performs and the rules to which he adheres, in short, what he does (1989: 389; emphasis in original). But what of classically Hindu concepts:

karma (action) or sa såra (the cycle of life, death, and rebirth)? Should these core tenets fall by the wayside in favor of a strictly sociological, practice-oriented approach?

To compound this dilemma, Hinduism is so internally diverse that one can often find justifications for all sorts of beliefs and practices within its voluminous scriptures. Innovations and reforms are often recoded as tradition and justified with scriptural references. As Vasudha Narayanan suggests, “The reform itself is not understood as anything new or innova- tive; there are ample narratives in the more than three millennia of texts which provide precedents. These stories are retrieved, valorized and used as precedents for current changes” (2005: 30). How, then, can we identify innovation in the face of such overwhelming claims to the authority of tradition? Where can we draw the boundaries of Hindu tradition to support assertions that this or that innovation is, in fact, beyond these contentious and nebulous boundaries, and thereby new?

In such treacherous territories, we are often left with the default position wherein only that which is explicitly forbidden by socially accepted nor- mative conventions can be rightly described as nontraditional or innova- 228 / Amanda Lucia tive. Because scholars are wont to define the boundaries of Hindu tradi- tion, often the most significant sites of innovation are clearly linked to overt violations of dharmic conventions as they are asserted in histori- cally accepted traditional Hindu scriptures and normalized in conven- tional Hindu practices. It is for this reason that the thwarting of gender and caste hierarchies appears to be one of the most vibrant sites of Hindu innovations in the modern period. This is not to say that these are the only sites of innovation, certainly this is not the case. But rather, restric- tive proscriptions with regard to caste and gender are somewhat stable ground, certainly within Dharmaçåstric literature, which makes their subversion appear all the more radical. Gender, Caste, and Guru Innovations Of course, the Dharmaçåstric literature wherein one finds religious prohibi- tions delimiting gender and caste boundaries must be coded as textual Bråhma~ical assertions, not practical guidebooks for the lived religion of everyday Hindus. Certainly the British handling and implementation of Manusm®ti provides evidence for the catastrophic consequences of such a policy that privileges ancient Dharmaçåstric texts as wholly applicable to modern society. Furthermore, as Sheldon Pollock points out, drawing on Çabara, one of the leading commentators on the M =må :så of perhaps the fourth century, “It makes no sense to prohibit something no one does” (2006: 43). Thus the traditional restrictions against women and non- Bråhma~as performing Vedic ritual (independent of Bråhma~ical priestly authorities) or against female asceticism or guru-dom in general likely signify that there were multiple transgressions against such prohibitions even during the premodern period. Still the fact that so many of the modern innovations to Hindu traditions challenge these textual restrictions related to gender and caste means that they must be recognized as one of the primary sources of innovation in Hindu traditions in modernity.

The traditional sources of dharma in the Hindu context are divided into three categories: çruti (that which is heard or revealed texts), sm®ti (that which is remembered or traditional texts), and sadåcåra (the learned, to whom appeals may be made when a çåstric solution is not evident). One might imagine then that the provision of the dharmic authority of the sadåcåra would give considerable leeway for the guru to become a figure Innovative Gurus / 229 of çåstric authority. For certainly the guru would be conceived from a traditionalist perspective as one who is well versed in çåstra. But the Purå~as suggest that the sadåcåra does not refer to just any person who is well versed in the çåstras, rather they restrict the category of the learned to “ ‘Manu, the seven sages, and other similar great ®‚is in each aeon…who settle the rules of conduct for succeeding ages’ ” (Matsya Purå~a 145.34–36 and Våyu Purå~a 1.59.33–35, cited in Kane 1960–75:

972, and in turn cited in Pollock 1985: 506). Are contemporary gurus the “great ®‚is” of this aeon, and thus Dharma- çåstric authorities? If so, their innovations would be subsumed within the overarching context of Dharmaçåstric tradition, and thus not marked as innovations at all. With this caveat it would seem that the çåstric tradition demands a recapitulation and reverence for the past that thwarts any poten- tial for innovations in practice. Is it as Pollock contends that there can be no conception of progress, of the forward “movement from worse to better,” on the basis of innovations in practice.…If any sort of amelioration is to occur, this can only be in the form of a “regress,” a backward movement aiming at a closer and more faithful approxima- tion to the divine pattern.…Logically excluded from epistemological meaningfulness are likewise experience, experiment, invention, discov- ery, innovation (1985: 515)?

Certainly, if we focus solely on the Bråhma~ical Dharmaçåstric tradition, it appears that even the key potential innovators, in this case sadåcåras/ gurus, become subsumed within the broad boundaries of tradition.

But if we move from scripture to practice or what we might call the lived religion in the Hindu traditions, then there are broad historical moments that explicitly develop new territories, ideas, and innovations.

Even a cursory glance at the bhakti movement, which guaranteed access to the experience of the divine for all persons, suggests a radically demo- cratic upheaval of traditional restrictions of religious authority. Beginning with the Vai‚~ava ÅÏvårs in the sixth century and continuing through the eighteenth century of the common era, bhakti not only challenged tradi- tional gender hierarchies, but caste hierarchies as well. Both low castes and women found solace in the circumvention of Bråhma~ical orthodoxies that restricted their access to holy texts, rituals, practices, and experiences. 230 / Amanda Lucia Kumkum Sangari defines bhakti, explaining:

It is a structure of personal devotion which enters into the formation of new groups or classes, into the protests against elite hegemonic groups as well as into the redefining of dominant classes, and is also central to the production of a syncretic vocabulary in accessible vernacular lan- guages (1990: 1464). Viewed in this light, protest forms the very core of bhakti, and not only a generalized sense of protest, but rather active protest against elite hege- monic groups, that is, those who hold firmly the boundaries of tradition.

The list would be extensive and likely beyond measure if one were to tally the religious exemplars that emerged from and actively proselytized to classes of low castes and women as a result of the democratic impulses of the bhakti movement. Even those bhakti saints who emerged from high-caste backgrounds actively preached that the experience of the divine is accessible to all persons without the need of Bråhma~ical intermediaries. M Aråbå A, the medieval K®‚~a bhakta, had a “disturbing appeal for women and espe- cially for men and women of lower social classes” (Sangari 1990: 1465), and she is believed to have accepted the Banåras A leatherworker poet Ravidås, an “Untouchable,” as her guru (Hawley 1998: 311). Caitanya was known to be a “Baidik Bråhma~a,” and in 1902 E. A. Gait reported that “A peculiarity of Chaitanya’s cult is that the post of spiritual guide or Gosáin is not confined to Bráhmans, and several of those best known belong to the Baidya caste” (182). The egalitarian impulses of medieval bhakti devotionalism retain linkages between women and those of low- caste status by attempting to subvert Bråhma~ical restrictions against both categories of people. Auvaiyår, a twelfth/thirteenth-century low- caste female saint (v raçaivite) says:

There are no castes but two if you want me to tell The good men who help the poor in distress The other, that will not so help These are the low born. 3 Similarly, Mahådêviyakka, a twelfth-century female saint says: Innovative Gurus / 231 O brothers, why do you talk to me who has given up her caste and sex having united with Chenna Mallikårjuna. 4 Uttiranall¨r Na gai, a fifteenth-century female saint says, “The revealed Vedas are lies, body and soul are lies. Are not all castes one?” 5 Drawing on the democratic ethos of the bhakti movement, many contemporary gurus similarly open their doors to all persons, regardless of gender and caste position, and rely on the indigenous Hindu tradition of bhakti to justify their actions and inclusions.

In fact, many modern gurus also come from low-caste backgrounds, and growing populations of gurus are female. As a result, many of these populations of gurus tend to support the upheaval of restrictions of relig- ious authority based on caste and gender status because such prohibitions would undermine their own status as gurus. But it is not as simple as the presumption that gurus who are female or who emerge from the low castes support the upheaval of caste and gender restrictions as found in Dharma- çåstric scriptures, that is, Manusm®ti, Gautama Dharmas¨tra, Baudhåyana Dharmas¨tra, and Vasi‚†ha Dharmas¨tra (Jamison 1996: 15). For example, Satya SåÒ Båbå’s caste is somewhat ambiguous in his hagiographies, but he does little to upset conventional norms of caste hierarchies in Hindu society. With regard to gender, he explicitly advocates for hierarchical gender norms according to Hindu tradition (S. Srinivas 2008; T. Srinivas 2010; Urban 2003). In fact, Satya SåÒ Båbå’s critiques of the West intri- cately interlace with his traditional position on the validity of the caste system and the appropriately subordinate position of women. As Hugh B.

Urban suggests, “Sai Baba’s highly conservative attitude toward social hierarchy is paralleled in his attitude toward women. By no means a liberal or progressive in the realm of women’s rights, he warns his devotees against the evils of Western-style sexual freedom” (2003: 89).

6 Thus, although Satya SåÒ Båbå’s message may be theologically ecumenical and universalistic to the extent that many would distance it from Hinduism (Srinivas 2010), in terms of gender and caste restrictions, his message reflects highly traditional Hindu values.

Similarly, the famed Bengali female guru Ånandamay D Må was born to a pious Bråhma~a family, and she maintained strict caste restrictions within her åçramas throughout her life. Hagiographical accounts relate how her 232 / Amanda Lucia åçramas followed strict laws of purity that relegated foreigners to separate rooms in which they ate from disposable plates so as not to pollute her åçrama kitchens. But with regard to gender restrictions, Ånandamay 9 Må developed a cadre of brahmacåri~ s (female celibate renunciates), who quite radically conducted Vedic rituals independent of male supervision (Hallstrom 1999). In this case, Ånandamay 9 Må publicly rejected dharmic stipulations that prohibit women from acting as independent ritual actors.

But she actively upheld other çåstric injunctions related to caste, and she was eager to be perceived as upholding çåstric tradition throughout her lifetime (Srivastava 1995). So although she transgressed the mores of tradition in one instance (when it suited her needs), she upheld them in another. From each of these examples, it becomes apparent that these gurus cannot be classified as wholly innovative or wholly traditional.

Instead, like other social actors, their actions fluctuate between multiple permutations in response to various stimuli, contexts, and pressures.

Also, there are a significant number of religious leaders who are female and/or emerge from low castes, but do not incite others to follow their path. In these cases, the religious exemplars present themselves as excep- tional, and they often preach to their followers to “do as I say, not as I do.” In fact, when we closely analyze the rhetoric of many female religious exemplars (including female Hindu nationalist leaders like Sådhv 9 ¸tam- bharå and Uma Bharati), many of them advocate for traditional roles for women, those that support their roles as wives and mothers, instead of the independent guru roles that the female religious leaders have chosen for themselves (see Bacchetta 2002). 7 For some of these female gurus, their exalted position in society is so tenuous that they reinforce traditional values as a means to secure their own positions and assuage criticism of their leadership. It might be the case then that instead of low-caste and female religious adepts paving the way for others to overthrow traditional restrictions, that in fact those in marginalized positions of authority often assert the rules of the dominant elite more vigorously than those who occupy secure positions due to age, class, caste, and/or gender. Looking back to Ånandamay 9 Må’s orthodox caste restrictions, it may have been because of her controversial position as an independent female religious adept in a time of male religious dominance that she actively sought to abide by çåstric injunctions so thoroughly. She followed traditional man- dates and restrictions in an appeal to social conventions because she was Innovative Gurus / 233 constantly striving to maintain her own transgressive authority.

But there were many women and low-caste religious exemplars who drew their inspiration from the bhakti movement and supported an egali- tarian vision of the accessibility of God and divine experience that was immediately accessible to every person regardless of gender and caste.

Many of the contemporary gurus who draw from the bhakti traditions actively transgress the norms of Dharmaçåstric conventions and encourage their devotees to do the same. Both Osho (Bhagvån Çr < Rajneesh) and Amma (Måtå Am®tånandamay <) have developed their global personas through the deliberate upsetting of traditional norms of gender and caste hierarchies. These two contemporary gurus developed followings of afflu- ent (or middle-class), urban devotees for whom their politics of democracy, individualism, and personal freedom coincided with the rejection of traditional Hindu hierarchies and restrictions of gender and caste. They drew significant populations of female devotees, at home and abroad, and both revised notions of gender, femininity and masculinity, and sexual traditionalism, albeit in radically different directions (Lucia 2014; Urban 2005; Warrier 2003a, 2005). Both developed nontraditional amal- gamated theologies that distanced them from Hinduism by incorporating extra-Hindu elements. Osho incorporated Tantra, Western psychology, and Zen into his amal- gamated Hindu-derived spirituality. Amma incorporates into her Hindu theological roots a highly universalized and somewhat generalized under- standing of spirituality based in maternal love, compassion, and selfless service. Both radically innovated traditional gender norms of Hinduism because each, in his or her own way, celebrated the resurgence of an idealized feminine model as the beacon of hope for the future of humanity.

Osho bifurcated the masculine and the feminine in radical terms as he explains:

Beauty is feminine, honesty is feminine, sincerity is feminine; all that is great within your consciousness is feminine.…The man of love and compassion starts having a feminine beauty and a feminine grace. The male is a little barbarous. His qualities are that of a warrior, fighter, egoist, chauvinist, fanatic, fascist. The male qualities are qualities of a Nazi. 8 Amma, too, suggests that the world has become hypermasculinized, wherein 234 / Amanda Lucia the masculine dominates and subordinates the feminine. She sees this as the primary cause of ecological, economic, political, and spiritual crises in the modern world. She calls for all of her devotees to embody the quali- ties of universal motherhood, meaning that they should cultivate maternal qualities of love, compassion, and self-sacrifice in their behaviors toward others. This formulation depends on her culturally embedded essentializa- tion of masculine and feminine qualities: masculine qualities are egoism, ambition, aggression, stagnation, and reactivity; feminine qualities are compassion, nurturing, love, selflessness, sacrifice, and virtue (see Lucia 2014: 107–45). Although Osho and Amma are somewhat unique in their overt privileging of the feminine, many gurus who are more modest in their claims have demonstrated through their actions that they view women as viable religious leaders (contra Dharmaçåstric prohibitions). For exam- ple, in addition to the fact that Osho’s primary administrative associate in the America was a woman (the infamous Må Ånanda Sheela), and Amma actively appoints women to serve as priests (p¨jårin ), both Svåm J Muktånanda and Paramaha Esa Yogånanda assigned women to be their successors in the United States (Gurumay J and Çr J Dayå Måtå, respec- tively). Moving West: Creating a “De-Ethnicized” Hinduism Notably, both Osho and Amma used distancing tactics to dislocate their movements from their Hindu beginnings, a move that perhaps provides the space for their innovative privileging of the feminine and female religious leadership. Furthermore, Paramaha Esa Yogånanda, Satya SåÒ Båbå, and even to some extent Svåm J Vivekånanda also distanced their theologies from conventional traditionalist forms of Hinduism as they expanded their audiences and attempted to attract Western followers. It is primarily the “headline-stealing hyper gurus” (Copeman and Ikegame 2012: 5), meaning those who transmit their messages to global audiences, who attempt to insert distance between their movements and traditional Hinduism. They often speak in universalistic language, embrace general- ized theologies of “spirituality,” and place minimal requirements on their followers (Aravamudan 2006; Huffer [Lucia] 2011; S. Srinivas 2008; T.

Srinivas 2010; Urban 2003, 2005; Warrier 2005). With this in mind, then it is not that they intend to be radically innovative by overturning tradi- Innovative Gurus / 235 tional Hindu caste and gender restrictions only within the Hindu sphere.

Instead, they attempt to speak to global audiences for whom the tradi- tional Hindu gender and caste restrictions simply have no palatability or purchase value. As these gurus transmit their messages to largely upper class and upper- middle-class Western audiences, they must contend with the predominance of liberal, democratic, and so-called progressive beliefs. In America and Europe, those who have a propensity toward Eastern religions often par- ticipate in these alternative modes of religiosity in contradistinction to traditional Christian denominations. These populations of “metaphysicals” 9 tend to reject conservative and traditional gender and class hierarchies in favor of universalistic appeals to the accessibility of the divine for all persons. They largely reject ecclesiastical hierarchies and the institutional structures of religion that support them. In general, they are liberally minded and have sought out Eastern religious traditions to supplement or replace religion in the name of an ecumenical form of spirituality (see Albanese 2007; Bender 2010; Heelas 1996; Lucia 2014: 155–57). Thus gurus cannot represent the hierarchical and exclusionary ideologies that are so often connected with conservative modes of Hindu traditionalism if they aim to effectively appeal to these populations. It is for this reason that the ecumenical and egalitarian impulses of the bhakti movement have continued to be a primary resource and a popular export as gurus proselytize outside of Indic environments and into the West.

The most globally successful gurus appear to be those who maintain a core of traditionalism while innovating to incorporate the popular liberal ideals of Western late capitalism: democratic values, gender equality, individualism, and ecumenism. Ecumenism easily elides with traditional Hindu values—that is, “Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names” (¸g Veda 1.164.46). 10 Since Vivekananda made this aphorism famous in the West, many contemporary hyper-gurus have employed this and other forms of ecumenical language and ideology. Tulasi Srinivas suggests that Satya SåÒ Båbå presents an innovative form of “engaged cosmopolitanism,” wherein the movement draws seamlessly from several great strands of religion in the subcontinent—Sufi mysticism and popular Hinduism in its Vedanta form, contemporary Christian teachings and indigenous healing rituals— 236 / Amanda Lucia to weave a constantly evolving Indic urban syncretism in which the problems of dogma, creed, and literature appear to magically fade into the background as also problems of divisions of caste, class, nationality, and religion (2010: 9).

Amma, Satya SåÒ Båbå, and for that matter the majority of modern gurus who draw on bhakti sensibilities (Kab Br, Çr B Aurobindo, Rama~a Mahar‚i, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi), each propounded aversion of universalized ecumenical spirituality based in a variety of Hindu philosophical roots.

In categorizing Hinduism within the American context, Joanne Punzo Waghorne suggests that it has been the gurus, in particular, who have intro- duced “de-ethnicized” Hinduism into the fold and that they have actively promoted “the ‘spiritual’ mode of Hindu consciousness and yogic practices as open to worldwide participation” (2010: 129).

Because of this tendency toward ecumenical universalism, very few modern Hindu gurus demand any sort of conversion experience from their devotees. The majority allow their followers freedom to choose the form of God that most appeals to them personally, but encourage them to be wholeheartedly devoted to that form which they choose. Their messages are often a juxtaposition of popular strains of Advaita Vedånta and bhakti, often iterated in some form of “Love God, whatever you conceive him to be, and know that all paths are ultimately one.” As Srinivas Aravamudan explains, the modern register that he calls “Guru English” produces a situation wherein, “despite very specific doctrines and particular circum- stances that are unique to individual religious teachers, there seems to be a nebulous system of valuation and transcoding that interanimates many of them for the religious consumer” (2006: 268). Maya Warrier supports this conclusion, suggesting that many (or even the majority of) devotees are not monogamous in their relations with one guru, but are instead “travelers” among a variety of gurus. She argues that devotees are best seen not as members of any one guru organization but as travelers along various and diverse paths of spiritual questing.

Their attachment to a guru or gurus at any given point in time may then best be seen as “stops” on this spiritual journey, where they secure a temporary anchor at the feet of the chosen guru before they move on to other gurus and guru organizations (Warrier 2003a: 33). Innovative Gurus / 237 Outside of a core group of committed longstanding devotees, the majority of those who find respite in a particular guru’s teachings do so in dia- logue with a number of other contemporary global gurus and their mes- sages.

This common practice of traveling between gurus also leads to high attrition rates, as many other devotees drop out altogether. Susan J. Palmer highlights the fact that NRMs [New Religious Movements] exhibit high rates of voluntary defection and that the average length of membership is less than two years (Barker 1984; Judah 1974; Ofshe 1976; Skonovd 1983; Wright 1988).…In ISKCON [the International Society for Krishna Conscious- ness] less than 600 disciples out of the original 10,000 11 initiated under Swami Prabhupada have remained in the movement. The Rajneesh Foundation International [Osho] claimed 250,000 members in 1985, but [Sally] Belfrage (1981) described a common pattern of defection by Poona visitors, following their impulsive decision to ‘take sannyas’ (initiation) (1993: 349).

Those who seek within guru movements are just that—seekers. Man y engage in transient patterns of movement, engaging then retreating, migrating between various charismatic gurus, whose ecumenism facili- tates their easy transitions between them.

Perhaps it was in acknowledgment of these transient patterns of seeking and the fear of devotee attrition that A. C. Bhaktivedånta Svåm F Prabhu- påda, the guru who founded ISKCON, made no qualms about demanding conversion from his followers. He established ISKCON as a new religious movement from within the boundaries of traditional Hinduism. He incor- porated traditional Hindu practices, texts, aesthetics, clothing, and social relations, but put them together to form a distinct religious identity. It is somewhat ironic that while Svåm F Prabhupåda recognized that he was developing something new, his later followers worked diligently to ensure that the movement was identified with traditional Hinduism. This transi- tion is evident in the manner in which the movement appealed initially to American converts, but then over time became a religious home for many immigrant Indian Hindus in search of “traditional Hinduism” in diasporic environments (Shinn 2004). Svåm F Prabhupåda also encouraged tradi- 238 / Amanda Lucia tional gender relations, wherein women were expected to be wives and maintain subordinate roles to their husbands. Women rarely found oppor- tunities to become religious leaders within ISKCON, and until relatively recently, they were wholly barred from guru-hood. In a similarly tradi- tional Hindu vein, Svåm K Prabhupåda maintained caste-derived prejudices, praising the myth of Åryan bloodlines and deriding darker races as similar to Ǩdras, and thus inferior to their lighter-complexioned fellow humans (Lorenz 2004). 12 Notably, although many embraced these traditional norms as comforting secure boundaries, these hierarchies also incited internal tensions, controversies, and fissures within the organization as certain groups pushed against them in favor of more liberal policies (Rochford 2007: 115–60).

In fact, some of these moments of resistance within ISKCON may shed some light on the boundaries of innovation. For example, the post-Prabhu- påda leader of New Vrindaban in West Virginia, K Krtanånanda Svåm K (also known as Svåm K Bhaktipåda; born Keith Gordon Ham), initiated controversial changes that many believed were in direct conflict with Svåm K Prabhupåda’s teachings and vision for ISKCON. While the challenges and scandals that embroiled K Krtanånanda and New Vrindaban are beyond the scope of this paper, it is highly relevant that in 1986 (in the wake of conflict, scandal, and increasing skepticism about his capacity for leader- ship), K Krtanånanda initiated significant changes to the Hare K®‚~a culture of New Vrindaban. He introduced Western literature and music, Christian practices, English (instead of Sanskrit) chanting, and generally attempted to “de-Indianize” ISKCON culture. Devotees began to wear Franciscan style robes instead of dhot \bs, an image of Jesus was placed next to that of K®‚~a, and K Krtanånanda incorporated a variety of religious traditions in efforts to create a community styled on interfaith community values. While some devotees appreciated the turn toward interfaith exchanges, largely they were a colossal failure. Between the years of 1986 and 1991, New Vrindaban lost 65 percent of its population, the majority of which defected to other ISKCON temple communities. In 1994, K Krtanånanda terminated his failed experiment with interfaith due to a petition of sixty-seven devo- tees and effectively relinquished his authority and leadership role at New Vrindaban. 13 In this case, devotees revolted against K Krtanånanda’s inno- vations claiming that the innovations went against Svåm K Prabhupåda’s teachings and vision for ISKCON. Innovative Gurus / 239 There is an interesting parallel here to the controversies surrounding the contemporary movement, Krishna West, a branch of ISKCON that is also attempting to “de-Indianize” ISKCON so as to better proselytize in the West. Krishna West founder, H®dayånanda Dåsa Gosvåm D (born Howard J. Resnick), has recently been embroiled in a similar internal conflict with his parent organization. Most recently, the Governing Body Commission of ISKCON actively suppressed Krishna West’s innovations, fearing that such radical rebranding would challenge its religious identity and its market share for prospective devotees. 14 In these cases, the ruling of the parent religious tradition thwarted poten- tial innovations. Might it also be the case that when Hindus reject a particular guru movement as non-Hindu, then it should be established as a new religion rather than being housed within the confines of tradi- tional Hinduism? Certainly the matter can be much clearer in the case of ISKCON, where there is an administrative Governing Body Commission as opposed to Hinduism in general, which boasts no singular central gov- erning authority. In conclusion I will return to this central question of how we can locate the precise tipping point when innovation ruptures tradition so completely that it can no longer identify with the parent religion.

Despite ISKCON’s widespread popularity, its traditionalist policies make it an outlier group when considered in the context of globally proselytizing guru movements. Instead, the hyper-gurus who proselytize globally tend to spread messages of egalitarianism, forms of universalistic spirituality, and increasingly advocate for a focus on humanitarian activities. Some of these gurus actively travel the globe spreading their messages, while others transpose their messages through the efforts of their devotees. For example, Karu~åmay D Må travels the globe and has established åçramas in many countries, while Rama~a Mahar‚i remained local to South India.

The latter case often presents another complex situation of innovation, which is when devotees spread the guru’s message, claim to represent the guru’s teachings, or present their own unique messages as inspired by the guru. In the case of Rama~a Mahar‚i, Philip Charles Lucas (2013: 164) claims that in North America alone, there are seventy-seven teachers and organizations that claim the influence of Rama~a Mahar‚i or of his promi- nent followers such as the late H. W. L. Poonja (also known as Påpåj D).

While Rama~a Mahar‚i’s Advaita Vedåntic teachings and ascetic lifestyle would certainly locate him within the fold of Hinduism, some of the teach- 240 / Amanda Lucia ers who claim his influence are much more difficult to identify as Hindu.

Lucas shows how the famous personality of Eckhart Tolle claims Jiddu Krishnamurti and Rama~a Mahar‚i as teachers with whom he feels “a strong connection,” but the message Tolle has developed from their teach- ings resonates very little with that which emerged within their Indian Hindu contexts. In this case, the relationship between Rama~a Mahar‚i and Tolle cannot be described as that of a traditional guru-disciple, and while both are necessarily innovative, Rama~a Mahar‚i’s innovations retain their Hindu character while Tolle’s operate without any self-identification within the field of Hindu religiosity, even broadly conceived. A similar case would be that of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose one-time disciple Deepak Chopra has rendered a much more general valuation of spiritua- lity. Notably both Tolle and Chopra have been featured by Oprah Winfrey in a variety of media forums, and both direct their messages toward the general, primarily North American populace that is interested in spiritu- ality and wellness, but not necessarily in Hinduism. 15 In other cases, innovations occur in the personal lives of devotees as the guru-disciple relationship enables them to design their own person- alized spiritualities within the broad confines of guru devotion. Many Western devotees find outlets for their preferences for personalized spirituality within guru movements that often privilege individualistic paths to spiritual development, such as individualized forms of worship, meditation, a personal soteriological path (the individual åtman travers- ing through sa såra according to its own karmic effects), and minimal demands for congregational worship. Svåm ; Muktånanda recognized this keenly when he provided devotees with the primary service of “shaktipat” (individual initiation), and many contemporary hyper-gurus maintain the Hindu tradition of giving personalized mantras to individual devotees.

Through these central Hindu practices (individualized mantra recitation, personal initiation, and a personal relationship with the guru), Western devotees readily find support for their desire for an individualized and personalized spiritual path from within a variety of contemporary global guru movements. Thus, while the guru may be characterized as an inno- vator still housed within the broad confines of Hinduism, the variety of bricolage religious practices that their devotees incorporate into their amalgamated spiritualities may have very little to do with traditional Hinduism. Innovative Gurus / 241 Branding and the Religious Economy: Innovation Without Innovation Gurus by definition are charismatic religious figures who aim to transmit their ideals through teaching others. In order to acquire followers to teach, gurus must proselytize their theologies, methods, and movements as unique and specialized products for public consumption. The guru is one who has traversed the path of enlightenment or self-realization, variously conceived, and then serves as a guide for others teaching them the means by which to traverse that same path. True there are many guru lineages, primarily in the Indic context, wherein the guru derives authority more from inherited lines of authority than from charismatic ones. But in this paper I focus particularly on gurus who are primarily independent charis- matic leaders who develop their followers and movements based in their own claims to religious authority. As is the case with charismatic religious authorities more generally, they are often in competition with priestly authorities who may persecute them in efforts to eliminate competition for the attentions of the laity (Bourdieu 2010).

There are few superstructures of authority and lineage among the most popular guru movements in the world that derive from Hindu contexts.

Because of this, the majority of hyper-gurus operate with great autonomy in designing and promoting their particular soteriological means and methods. In the global economy of the variety of gurus who compete for audiences’ attention, gurus must brand their messages and modalities in order to render them distinct from other religious leaders. The guru as a charismatic leader fundamentally differs from the priest who upholds and maintains tradition through the reenactment and reinforcement of ritual structures. Instead, the guru, very much like Weber’s prophet, innovates and overthrows custom, law, and tradition in efforts to demonstrate a new and alternative means by which to attain the goal of salvation or release. On the most basic level, in order to distinguish him or herself from other gurus, the guru must present something new. Thus the proc- esses of innovation inhere within the qualities of gurus themselves.

On a material level as well, gurus must garner distinction (in the Bour- dieuian sense) in order to differentiate their movements to audiences. Thus, Satya SåÒ Båbå has his miracles, Amma has her hugs, Paramaha 2sa Yogånanda has a unique Hindu-Christian hybrid, and Svåm 4 Muktånanda 242 / Amanda Lucia had his unique version of “shaktipat.” Some trademarks refer neither to practices nor theologies, but rather to personal characteristics that simply help to distinguish one guru from another; for example, one of the gurus who has become particularly popular among foreigners at the Kumbh Melå (the largest gathering of Hindu ascetics and gurus in the world), Pilot Båbå, presents himself to the public through his life history of being an ex-pilot. 16 Are these innovations or merely keenly designed marketing techniques? Regardless of whether one validates the authenticity of these brands of signification, surely each guru has introduced something new into the religious field by distinguishing his or her own persona, method, and teachings in a particular and innovative way. These innovations can be largescale theological innovations, as in the case of Paramaha @sa Yogånanda who bridges Hinduism and Christianity or Shir D SåÒ Båbå whose popular image signifies Hindu-Muslim accord. 17 Or they can be more personal markers of guru-identity, as in the case of Satya SåÒ Båbå who is distinguished by his distinctive appearance and his performance of miracles or Pilot Båbå who is distinguished by an ex-profession. One might also look to the way in which many, perhaps even the majority of contemporary gurus are attempting to distinguish their movements through their exceptional humanitarian contributions (Copeman 2009; Dyahadroy 2009; Lucia 2014; S. Srinivas 2008; T. Srinivas 2010; Warrier 2003b).

Most frequently, contemporary gurus distinguish themselves by pro- viding a particular spiritual methodology. When they present a new and distinct method to attain perennial goals, they not only innovate, but they brand themselves and their method as distinct in the sea of competing religious figures. Some of these methods derive from immediate contact with the guru him or herself, as in Amma’s innovative transformation of the darçana experience into a hug or Svåm D Muktånanda’s innovative transmission of “shaktipat” (and now his successor Gurumay D’s further innovations wherein she provides “shaktipat” in global intensives over the Internet). Other gurus patent a distinct method of meditation that they present to potential devotees as a new and improved means to attain the goal (self-realization, enlightenment, tranquility, mental clarity, and so on). These gurus compete not as much in the sphere of identity politics, that is to say, who has more charisma, as in the practical dimension of whose methods work best. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his patented Transcendental Meditation technique, Çr D Çr D Ravi Shankar and his Art of Innovative Gurus / 243 Living courses, Paramaha Esa Yogånanda’s Kriyå Yoga, and even Deepak Chopra and his Åyurvedic and alternative medicine remedies are all exam- ples of gurus who became internationally famous because of their innova- tive techniques and methods. In these modes as well, their productive implementation of technology and media used for sales, interaction, com- munion, and proselytization reveal vibrant forms of innovation with regard to the means of disseminating their particular method to the public.

Other gurus less savvy in international markets still gain particularized global identities as they intersect with specific devotional communities and renowned individuals. For example Neem Karoli Baba became wildly famous because of his interactions with Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert) and Bhagavan Das (Kermit Michael Riggs) in the late 1960s (see Charet 2013) and later as the guru of Hollywood icon Julia Roberts. 18 Similarly, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi catapulted into Western markets after his inter- lude with the Beatles in Rishikesh, India in 1968 when they came to learn his distinctive meditation practice soon to be known globally as TM (Transcendental Meditation). Svåm I Prabhupåda’s message of K®‚~a consciousness and the måhåmantra of “Hare K®‚~a Hare K®‚~a, K®‚~a K®‚~a Hare Hare, Hare Råma Hare Råma, Råma Råma Hare Hare” pro- liferated in youth pop culture once George Harrison made it “an inter- national smash hit” when he chanted on his album in 1969 (Goldberg 2010: 180). In these cases, it appears to be the powers of circumstance and the guru’s interaction with internationally famous figures that helped to define the guru and brand him or her at the global level. Even at the national level, gurus have often become significant leaders with particular messages and clientele that distinguish them from other religious leaders. M. K. Gandhi, Svåm I Vivekånanda, and Çr I Aurobindo were all defined as gurus through their engagement with nationalism. More recently, Båbå Råmdev has become a famous guru not only for his popular yogic teachings, but also as a defender of the nation through his public campaigns against Indian government corruption. 19 Even Ånandamay I Må, who eschewed politics and advocated instead for a focus on personal spiritual development, gained considerable éclat when Keshub Chandra Sen, Indira Gandhi, and even Mahåtmå Gandhi visited her åçrama (Hallstrom 1999). Other gurus become infamous rather than famous because of one type of scandal or another.

Ironically, such international scandals often bolster the commitment of 244 / Amanda Lucia the most devout who further entrench their support for the guru even in the face of critical onslaught, of which Svåm > Nityånanda, Åsåråm Båp¨, and Osho are seminal examples.

But what is the relation to innovation here? Is the branding of a par- ticular persona, identity, method, technique, or following innovation?

Must innovation radically change the course of tradition, or is it merely adding something new? Certainly gurus are key innovators if we imagine that innovations simply signify the fact that something new has been intro- duced into the tradition, broadening its umbrella to encompass an increas- ing number of techniques, methods, and ideologies. Each of these gurus presented something new to the public sphere for which they received wide acclaim and garnered followers who saw their particular methods and personages as unique and distinctive within the variety of choices of gurus available to them. Each of these gurus presents a particular and distinctive skillful means, what I have called the demonstration of upåya, meaning his or her ability to gain followers by “adapting one’s message to the particular time and circumstance” (Forsthoefel and Humes 2005:

7). This branding can be intentional in efforts to become palatable to increasingly diverse and global audiences or to release a newly patented technique that provides an innovative means to attain a traditional goal.

Or conversely, it can be somewhat conveniently circumstantial wherein those who follow him or those populations with whom he consorts define the guru. Regardless, these gurus are oftentimes the leading forces in developing new modalities that push the boundaries of tradition into arenas of innovation. As the spiritual economy becomes increasingly diverse, such innovations increase exponentially in tandem because gurus are under pressure to distinguish themselves from other gurus. This pressure becomes highly acute as they operate within a competitive market of an ever-increasing number of available choices of gurus and attempt to proselytize to followers prone to seek and fluctuate between multiple guru organizations.

Given Hinduism’s already broad umbrella of sectarian affiliations, prac- tices, and competing soteriologies, are there practices and ideas that gurus espouse that are so innovative as to eliminate them from claiming their Hindu roots? There is no administrative or ecclesiastical authority that administers and regulates the boundaries of Hindu tradition, but certainly one can argue that this or that practice or belief is not çastric, dharmic, or Innovative Gurus / 245 Vedic and one can prove using scriptural evidence that this or that practice cannot be verified in the texts. In fact, this is largely the means by which even contemporary religious leaders attempt to discern the dharmic nature of a variety of processes, rituals, ideals, and behaviors. But the territory becomes all the more difficult if one attempts to engage the lived religion of Hindus, wherein the multiplicity and diversity overwhelms a unified sense of continuity across space and time. In many cases, innovations consist of transposing traditional Hindu values into the liberal modes of individualism, equality, and ecumenism. The majority of contemporary proselytizing gurus are actively rephrasing tradition, echoing the ninth- century Kashmiri logician Jayantabha††a who claimed that all innovation is merely the “rephrasing the older truths of the ancients in modern ter- minology” (Nyåyamañjar , Introduction, verse 8, cited in Matilal 1977:

93, and in turn cited in Pollock 1985: 515).

Furthermore, Hindus have been famous throughout history for includ- ing other religious worldviews within the Hindu fold, even when the teachings appear to be in contrast to the most traditional of Hindu mores.

As is widely known, in the Purå~ic account the Buddha himself becomes an avatåra of Vi‚~u. In many ecumenical Hindu temples, Mahåv @ra, the Buddha, and even Jesus take their places as m¨rtis (divine effigies) and are readied for Hindu worship. Often united under the Advaita Vedåntic rubric of the singularity of universal divine essence, these disparate and often contradictory religious leaders and their respective theologies are often included and absorbed in what Paul Hacker has famously termed “hierarchical inclusivism.” 20 So if Hinduism as a tradition is so malleable as to be able to incorporate Jainism, Buddhism, and Christianity within its parameters without wholly altering its course, then what demonstrable alterations can truly be expected from guru innovations like “shaktipat” via the Internet, darçana in the form of hugs, miracles, or specialized meditation techniques? Individually these gurus may not have enough influence to alter the course of tradition, but collectively, they very well may—particularly if they continue to shift their foci to adopt “modern terminology” in similar patterns. Guru Movements as New Religious Movements However, if global guru movements continue to “de-ethnicize” their mes- 246 / Amanda Lucia sages and create distance between themselves and their root tradition of Indic Hinduism, then they may be considered not as the most innovative forces within Hinduism, but rather as independent new religious move- ments. In her recent book, Lola Williamson very nearly reaches this precise conclusion suggesting that despite their claims to be “spiritual but not relig- ious,” Paramaha @sa Yogånanda’s Self-Realization Fellowship, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation, and Svåm D Muktånanda’s SYDA Foundation are three of many such movements that, taken together, comprise a new hybrid form of religion. This new religion combines aspects of Hinduism with Western values, institutional forms, modes of teaching, and religious sensibilities. Lying at the conjunction of two worldviews, this phenomenon could be called “Hindu-inspired meditation move- ments,” or HIMMs (2010: ix).

Williamson effectively draws attention to some of the primary guru-led movements that became seminal in developing Hindu forms of spirituality in America among “adopter” populations. 21 But what are the continuities between the other “many such movements” that we might take together under the umbrella category of HIMMs? Most global gurus teach some specialized patented form of meditation, but many of these guru move- ments would not fit within this category. For example, some contempo- rary global guru movements encourage followers in particular forms of meditation techniques, but they also maintain significant continuity with Hindu religious ideas and practices. For example, Svåm D Prabhupåda’s ISKCON movement and Amma’s movement comprise two internation- ally famous guru-led organizations that developed specialized meditation techniques while simultaneously heavily emphasizing p¨jå (ritual worship), mantra recitation, Vedic rituals, and the study of traditional Hindu scrip- tures. Their continued focus on Hindu tradition leads Daniel Gold (2005:

223) to categorize them as sagu~a guru movements, meaning those that retain their “cultural specifics” and Hindu expressions and practices of relating to the divine.

Perhaps Williamson’s HIMM category would then signify those that Gold calls the nirgu~a guru movements, meaning those movements in which not only divinity but also the essential means to attain the ultimate Innovative Gurus / 247 metaphysical goal are taken to be formless. Gold explains, “To the extent that the essential means are taken to be formless, the more detachable they seem to be from the externals of Indian culture” (2005: 223). In these nirgu~a guru movements, for example, one might participate without experimenting with Indian food, dress, or other cultural markers. But Gold admits that the waters quickly become murky in such characteriza- tions: what to do with Osho or Adi Da (born Franklin Albert Jones), who seem to have both sagu~a and nirgu~a qualities? Could the nirgu~a category contain radical innovators such as K Ertanånanda Svåm E and Eckhart Tolle? Furthermore, even though Williamson’s HIMMs (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Svåm E Muktånanda, and Paramaha Asa Yogånanda) focus on medi- tation, they also express other discourses and practices that appear to have few commonalities, and each of these movements has shifted its focus over time. For example, when Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was attempting to institute Transcendental Meditation into North American public schools and the U.S. military, he proposed a method that was very nirgu~a (form- less) indeed. But when those attempts failed after the Malnak v. Yogi case in 1979, he redirected his efforts to Vedic sciences and Hindu practices, which very much embodied sagu~a qualities.

More importantly, why would each of these guru movements not stand alone as independent new religious movements, instead of being catego- rized together? Certainly the founders of these movements would not imagine themselves to be united together within the same domain or field.

In fact, independently considered, many guru movements might fit nicely within the rubric of that which comprises independent new religious movements. The term “new religious movement” is frequently used to define religious groups who have distilled innovation into an entirely new religious product of some sort. Like guru movements, they are frequently founded by a singular charismatic leader, and they are sometimes marked by their violent demises or fleeting existences. In addition, both guru movements and new religious movements tend to redesign the boundaries of traditional roles with regard to gender and class. They are also frequently sites for experimentation and innovation with regard to communitarianism, traditional family structures, gender roles, and sexual relations. The very nature of new religious movements presents members with opportunities for experimentation in secluded safe 248 / Amanda Lucia havens removed from the critical gaze of secular society and nonmembers.

As Palmer (1994: 262) notes, new religious movements become “super- vised group experiments” that create confined utopias challenging secular norms of family structures, gender roles, and sexual relations. Devotees (often mostly in their twenties and thirties) experiment with celibacy, polyamory, plural marriage, and so on, for a limited period of time in a closely supervised environment before returning to secular society and conventional forms of family structure, gender roles, and sexual relations after they have left the movement (Palmer 1994: 262). The history of many contemporary global guru movements certainly appears to elide within this pattern in some cases, as even a cursory glance at Osho’s movement or ISKCON suggests.

The reasoning for this type of alternate experimentation, which often creates scandal when it is related to sexual practices, has often been placed at the feet of the guru. But if we broaden our field and analyze guru movements through the lens of new religious movements more generally, then the two fields may learn from each other. For example, scholars of new religious movements have considered the demographic reality that new religious movements attract more women than men.

Elizabeth Puttick (2003: 230) argues that encased within such a menial social position in world religions, women often supply the primary demographic for new religious movements, wherein traditional gender roles and women’s relation to divinity are often revised, reconstructed, and innovated. It is no coincidence then that they also often appeal to women as potential sites for reenvisioning their predominately subordinate roles in traditional forms of religion.

Historically, Indic gurus who attract large numbers of female devotees have also been analyzed in terms of the individual charisma of the guru.

Recall the reports on Svåm ? Vivekånanda who appeared at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions where he was described as a “large, well-built man, with the superb carriage of the Hindustanis” who spoke to an auditorium filled with “ladies, ladies everywhere.” 22 As gurus became more famous in the West, so also grew the negative trope of the hypersexualized male Indian guru who attracted loose and gullible women to his fold. The common assumption was often that if women flocked toward a male Indian guru, this was due to a particular characteristic of the guru himself. But here again, the study of guru movements has much Innovative Gurus / 249 to gain by destabilizing these conventional analytics and looking to broader sociological patterns, which show that new religious movements attract a greater proportion of women in general. Scholars may gain significant insights by locating guru movements within the field of new religious movements.

But one objection may be that scholars see even more significant conti- nuities between guru movements and the Hindu religious traditions from which they derive. Whether in method, sectarian tradition, or theology, most guru movements are contiguous with some aspects of Hindu tradi- tions. Furthermore, the majority of gurus also claim to be abiding by tradition, despite their innovations. This is a pattern identified by David L. McMahan with regard to Buddhist modernism, and scholars of modern Hinduism may also recognize this pattern among modern gurus and their nineteenth- and twentieth-century predecessors who justified their mod- ernist innovations with claims to Vedic and Upani‚adic authority (that is, Årya Samåj, Brahmo Samåj, Ramakrishna Mission, Swaminarayan Hinduism, and so on).

However, the impulse to recode the new as ancient is not a tendency confined to modern Hindu religiosity; rather, it is often a defining char- acteristic of new religious movements in general. In fact, new religious movements often attempt to mask their newness with appeals to tradition despite the fact that newness may define their core characteristics. In their edited collection, Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (1983) have effectively demonstrated how many supposedly “traditional” facets of religion and culture are often much newer and much more innovative than is often assumed or purported. As Robert S. Ellwood explains, new religious movements are united by the subjective experience that what they are participating in is not rightly understood by emphasizing the smallness, recentness, and marginality of the group.…They will… insist that their group is older and deeper than the more visible churches.

Thus Spiritualism…calls itself “the oldest religion in the world.” The- osophy speaks of its lore as “the Ancient Wisdom.” Zen claims to be the essential but unspoken message of the Buddha, if not something even older than the Enlightened One (1979: 19).

Thus it is a liability to be considered “new” in the religious field that is 250 / Amanda Lucia so heavily dominated by authoritative claims to ancient tradition.

So where is the impetus to define guru movements as new religious movements if scholars see considerable continuity between gurus and their root tradition of Hinduism, gurus do not want to own the newness of the category of new religious movements, and there is little connective tissue that unites various guru movements together under a singular category (sagu~a, nirgu~a, or HIMMs)? I suggest that it lies within the nagging protest that there is considerable innovation occurring in these guru movements, and sometimes these are innovations that rest uncom- fortably with tradition. Thus, in conclusion, I must address this question:

when can we determine that a guru movement has strayed far enough from Hinduism to become something entirely new? Here we might recall the examples of Mormonism, Christian Science, Seventh Day Adventism, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, each of which innovatively sprouted from Chris- tianity, developed into a new religious movement, but then eventually became an independent standalone religion. Notably, their charismatic leaders and their followers developed isolationist communities in reaction to persecution by members of the parent tradition. In the nineteenth century, mainline Christians clearly demarcated these groups as different and in many cases violently denounced their innovations as dangerous abomina- tions of Christianity.

Similarly, there are also many instances in which those whom we might call traditional Hindus have protested or critiqued guru movements for bending the boundaries of tradition too far. In fact, considering the trans- position of Indic guru movements into the diasporic context, the central question arises repeatedly, that is: does adaptation to the host environ- ment shape the import religion into an entirely new tradition? Is there an American Hinduism that is distinct from Hinduism (on the model of Chinese Buddhism and Buddhism)? Speaking of the North American context, historian Mark A. Noll explains, “The worrisome question for the future is always the same—whether America’s liberal, democratic, commercial, mobile, and individualistic values inevitably erode the par- ticular structures of inherited religious tradition” (2002: 236). As guru movements innovate in efforts to adapt and transpose their messages out- side of India, there is a risk, and for many a “worrisome” one, that they are “erod[ing] the particular structures” of Hinduism. Still, because Hinduism is an inclusivistic religion, it has traditionally been defined by broad and Innovative Gurus / 251 porous parameters. For now, the factions within modern Hinduism who are attempting to control Hindu identity, history, and representations of Hindu culture have largely focused on chastising gurus for exceeding boundaries and breaking rules only when explicit scandals have arisen. In fact, the recent scandal related to Amma presents an interesting case.

In October 2013, a white Australian woman, Gail Tredwell (previously Svåmin > Am®taprå~a), published an exposé of her twenty years as Amma’s servant in a scandalous account tellingly entitled Holy Hell: A Memoir of Faith, Devotion, and Pure Madness (2013). As I have discussed, Amma includes aspects of Hindu discourses and rituals in her movement, but she prefers to promote her organization as one focused on the universals of love, compassion, humanitarianism, and spirituality. Despite this, in the Indian popular media, Tredwell’s exposé has been frequently charac- terized as a Western outsider’s attack on Hinduism. This framing draws attention to two key points. First, the framing of a guru organization as Hindu or non-Hindu is a shifting and politically informed rhetorical choice.

Amma calls her organization spiritual, and Indian Hindus recognize that she does so to resonate with global audiences, but still she cannot fully obfuscate her Indian Hindu heritage. Thus, when she was attacked, many Indian Hindus (including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) rallied to support Amma as an exemplar of Hinduism and framed Tredwell’s exposé as a Westerner’s attack on Hinduism. Second, this example brings into sharp relief that Hinduism at its core is a religioethnic category. Those who are born Indian Hindus operate under the protection of the category of Hinduism, while those who are non-Indians operate under scrutiny even if they claim to be Hindus. 23 This division between Indian Hindus and non-Indian Hindus may be one of the most distinctively identifiable lines between those who are accepted as Hindus despite their innovations and those who are ostracized as non-Hindus because of their innovations. Popular audiences are much more likely to claim Osho as a Hindu, because he was born Chandra Mohan Jain in Kuchwada, Madhya Pradesh, India, and Adi Da as non- Hindu, because he was born Franklin Albert Jones in Queens, New York, USA, despite the fact that their teachings are equally transgressive with regard to traditional Hinduism. This modern demonstration of Hinduism as a religioethnic category operates in India among Indian Hindus and on a global scale as well. The recent documentary film K¨måré (2011) tell- 252 / Amanda Lucia ingly reveals the extent to which ethnic stereotypes continue to inform our categories of precisely who is best situated to be a guru within tradi- tional Hinduism. K¨måré follows the story of a young professional Indian Hindu engineer as he pretends to be a Hindu guru and attracts gullible Westerners because of their racialized assumptions about the inherent spiritual superiority of Indian Hindus.

Conclusion Very few scholarly publications discuss gurus or their innovations in general terms, and certainly I have taken a risk in attempting to do so here.

Within the field of study, most scholars tend to focus on particular guru figures embedded within their distinct social and historical contexts. With that said, at times it is beneficial to take a step back and survey more generally, in efforts to develop theory, typologies, assessments, and direc- tions of the field. Now, of course, there are those who would question the unity of the field, as it is so broad and diverse. There are local gurus who have never left their small villages, lineage gurus who marry and pass their titles to their sons, independent gurus, charismatic gurus, large and small gurus, male and female gurus, gurus of all ages, castes and ethnic- ities, gurus operating in India, in many other nations, and those who oper- ate massive global organizations. In assessing gurus and their proclivities toward innovation, this paper makes no attempt to minimize this intense diversity. Instead, my aim has been to engage the diffuse field of gurus while narrowing my focus to devote particular consideration to those gurus who have garnered worldwide attention. Herein, I have analyzed particularly the hyper-gurus, those who often lead transnational organizations, rou- tinely make media headlines, and gather followers from a variety of coun- tries around the world. Even delimiting the field in this manner, there are certainly some contemporary hyper-gurus to whom I might have paid more attention, and there are surely readers who will notice these slights.

Such variations in coverage relate not to the various gurus’ priority, nor their importance, nor their fame, but rather to the extent of my own famili- arity with the various characters that collectively comprise the field. And while I have omitted some, I remain convinced that after assessing those whom this brief paper surveys and those whom I have not had space to Innovative Gurus / 253 mention, contemporary hyper-gurus are some of the most vibrant innova- tors who derive from the Hindu religious field.

At the most basic level, even those contemporary hyper-gurus who advocate for traditional Hindu ideologies and practices must create them- selves as distinct personas in the field in order to build and maintain a following. Or conversely, in Weberian terms they are given the gift of unusual charisma, which enables others to recognize them as special or distinct. In either view, the guru develops as someone who stands apart, one who presents something different from recognized tradition, and from that position of power he or she has the potential to develop innova- tive methods, means, and ideas. As these gurus grow more famous and begin to speak to diverse global audiences, they also must translate their discourses and practices into rhetoric that even non-Indian Hindus will recognize and understand. It is for this pragmatic reason that the majority of contemporary hyper-gurus who interface with audiences around the globe tend to expand their messages to resonate with universalism, ecu- menism, and egalitarianism and develop that which Waghorne calls “de- ethnicized Hinduism,” Aravamudan calls “Guru English,” and that which may even suggest an emergent “Hindu modernism.” 24 But the modern-day gurus who operate on the global stage vary in the extent to which they divorce themselves from their parent tradition of Hinduism. With such diversity in the field, there can be no unqualified judgment as to whether all contemporary guru movements should be cate- gorized as new religious movements or whether they should be understood as nodes within the multifaceted tradition of Hinduism. Instead, it is a matter of a spectrum of innovations, wherein at one end some innova- tions reside within the root tradition while those at the other end become the catalyst for a complete rupture with tradition. Hinduism shelters most of its innovative gurus under its wide umbrella of inclusivistic tradition, and innovative gurus are often happy to stand under it—especially in the midst of a political thunderstorm.

Notes 1. For a particular application of Csordas’ terminology, see Lucas (2013). 2. As sociologist Chaves suggests, “Religious movements and religious entrepreneurs partly innovate, but they also partly seek continuity with 254 / Amanda Lucia major existing traditions in their cultural field” (2004: 155).

3. Rajagopalachari (1971: 9), cited in Ramaswamy (1992: 144).

4. Tipperudrasvami (1982: 163), cited in Ramaswamy (1992: 144).

5. Arunachalam (1969: 361), cited in Ramaswamy (1992: 145).

6. SåÒ Båbå explains: “Women are the bulwarks of spiritual culture.

But, as is evident from the attitude and behavior of educated women of today, they are fast succumbing to the flimsy attractions of froth and frippery, shoddy literature and sensual films.…The ideal for women is the status of Sati, the faithful wife and loving mother, willing to sacrifice herself totally for her husband.…That is the true sign of a Hindu house- wife—that no matter what her talents, she would continue to cook in the kitchen for her husband and manage the household” (Kasturi 1977: 3.55, 5.194–95, cited in Urban 2003: 89).

7. There are also many examples of this pattern within the Evangelical Christian context wherein many female religious leaders are either paired as evangelical partners with their husbands and thus conforming to tradi- tional gender roles of wife, that is, Tammy Faye Baker, or more unusually they advocate for their followers to maintain traditional, subordinate roles despite their independent status (see Griffith 2000).

8. Cited from the online version of Osho’s The Razor’s Edge (chapter 11): http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-qualities-feminine-hitler- a6ae3166-a04.aspx (accessed July 3, 2014).

9. Bender uses the term “metaphysicals” to refer to the population of “spiritual but not religious” Americans, who “participate within recogniz- able, historically meaningful definitions of experience and mysticism, and engage in practices that give these concepts social heft and religious validity” (2010: 7; see also Albanese 2007).

10. This idea has gained considerable purchase value for its ecumenical spirit in contemporary spiritual discourses, to the extent that it even sup- ports its own Facebook page. See: https://www.facebook.com/PathsAre ManyTruthIsOne (accessed July 3, 2014).

11. ISKCON maintains that only 5,000 disciples were initiated directly by Prabhupada. See: http://prabhupadamemories.com/prabhupada.html (accessed July 3, 2014).

12. For a similar discussion in contemporary popular media, see also Ghosh (2013).

13. This is a summation of events drawn from Rochford and Doktorski’s Innovative Gurus / 255 lengthier account “Guru Authority, Religious Innovation, and the Decline of New Vrindaban” (2013).

14. Unfortunately, the Governing Body Commission did not publish an account of the proceedings during the Mayapura meetings in March 2014.

However, K®‚~a West’s response to the Commission’s decision is avail- able online; see: http://pandavas.wordpress.com (accessed July 3, 2014).

A variety of online forums have also discussed the Commission’s deci- sion, for example Pratyatosa’s online comment where he paraphrases the Commission: “The ISKCON GBC: ‘A “guru” who allows a more liberal dress code is “unfair competition.” Therefore, let’s attack him.’ This is yet another case of the ISKCON ‘guru’ franchise fighting against what they consider to be unfair competition”; see: https://groups.google.com/ forum/#!topic/istagosthi/qRkQpLkxH5Q (accessed July 3, 2014). Cyril Wohrer has also written effectively on this currently unfolding topic in an unpublished paper, “Krishna West vs. India Hybrid: An Analysis of Howard Resnick’s Attempt at the Westernization of ISKCON” (2014).

15. For an acute analysis of Oprah-style spirituality and wellness, see Lofton (2011).

16. See: http://www.pilotbaba.org/home.php (accessed July 3, 2014).

17. For more on the productive role of Shir P SåÒ Båbå imagery in Mumbai, see Elison (2014) 18. See also “Julia Roberts Talks about Neem Karoli Baba”: http://www.

youtube.com/watch?v=rYrzMzn4N6I (accessed July 3, 2014).

19. See, for example, Ashok Sharma’s “Baba Ramdev: Yoga Guru Leads Protest Against Indian Corruption”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/ 08/12/yoga-guru-leads-protest-a_0_n_1769723.html: (accessed July 3, 2014).

20. Hacker famously coined the term “inclusivism” to designate Hindu forms of incorporation of external ideas that were often incorporated within a system of hierarchies that subordinated some to others. For a detailed description of Hacker’s argument, see Halbfass (1988: Chapter 22). See also discussions of inclusivism and tolerance in Nicholson (2010: 185– 90); and with regard to Indian secularism and discourses of tolerance, see Adcock (2014).

21. The term “adopter” (as opposed to “inheritor”) signifies the behav- ioral differences between groups of people who exhibit aspects of Asian religious traditions. While these categories relate to race, ethnicity, cultural 256 / Amanda Lucia heritage, and geography, importantly they are not defined solely through any of these lenses. Inheritors are those who were born into environments in which there were strong religious ties to Asian religions. Adopters are those who were not and only later adopted various religious behaviors, ideas, material environments, and habits of Asian cultural traditions. See Lucia 2014: 149–52.

22. Chicago Transcript, 30 September 1893, and The Daily Inter Ocean, 20 September 1983, cited in Seager (1993: 337).

23. See, for example, the racialized identity politics of Deepak Sarma’s “White Hindu Converts: Mimicry or Mockery?”: http://www.huffington post.com/deepak-sarma/mimicry-or-mockery-white-_b_2131329.html (accessed July 3, 2014). For John Brittas’ television interview with Gail Tredwell on Kairali People TV, March 7, 2014, wherein she is accused of making an attack on Hinduism, see: Part I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2a0MIZ7XNI, and Part II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_ 3313729485&feature=iv&src_vid=r2a0MIZ7XNI&v=k_FStKXdTD0 (accessed July 3, 2014). For media references to Tredwell’s criticism depicted as an attack on Hindus and Hinduism, see: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india- others/attack-on-amrithanandanmayi-mutt-is-attack-on-hindus-rss-ideologue, and http://booksy.in/2014/04/02/dc-books-attacked-for-publishing-book- critical-of-spiritual-leader-mata-amritanandamayi (accessed July 3, 2014).

24. As previously mentioned, this term signifies a parallel to “Buddhist modernism,” see McMahan (2008).

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AMANDA LUCIA is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside.

[email protected] R epro duce d w ith p erm is sio n o f th e c o pyrig ht o w ner. F urth er r e pro ductio n p ro hib ite d w ith out p erm is sio n.