🧘 When Spirituality Becomes a Mask: On Fear, Manipulation, and the Forgotten Courage of Transformation
For several years, I lived in an ashram – a place that promised spiritual growth, community, and the teachings of yoga in their purity. It was supposed to be a refuge, a school of truth, a sanctuary where the values of love, service, and authenticity were lived every single day.
And yet, over time, I witnessed something else. Behind the rituals and the chanting, behind the marketing and the smiling, there was fear. Fear of what people might think. Fear of mistakes being seen. Fear of change, fear of loss, fear of letting go.
I saw how practices could turn into performances. How devotion could become a façade. How the fear of judgment could create climates of control, manipulation, and silence. And I realized: when spirituality is used as an image rather than a living truth, it becomes its own contradiction.
❤️🩹 From Personal Experience to Universal Lessons
This article is born out of that experience. It is not about shaming or condemning. It is about asking uncomfortable questions. About holding up a mirror. Because if we truly care about spirituality, if we truly honor the tradition of yoga, then we cannot afford to cover cracks with pretty pictures or repeat mantras without living their meaning.
This is not only about one community, one ashram, one place. It is about a pattern that exists wherever fear tries to hide behind spirituality. My words may sting – but they come from love, from a longing for authenticity, and from the fire of transformation itself. So these are not accusations. They are reminders. Words that sting because they touch a wound that has long been festering.
And I know: not every sangha is like this. There are communities that live authenticity, where humility and compassion guide daily life, where practice is not performance but presence. Everything has its reason, and I know I was not placed in such a sangha by accident. I was meant to be here, to learn from what I saw – the light and the shadow, the truth and the illusion.
🎭 When Devotion Becomes Performance and Fear Reigns
The ashram where I lived followed the tradition of Swami Sivananda. Pictures of him hung above every altar, in every room, and in every hallway. They also repeatedly referred to one of his most significant quotes: Serve, love, give, purify, meditate, realize.
I was allowed to take a closer look at this community, the system, the internal structures – at what lies behind the façade.
And what did I actually see?
Demands instead of care
Control instead of trust
Silence instead of true stillness
The system is cracking – yet leaders desperately try to hold it together with more rules, more pressure, more appearances. Survival mode has become the baseline, not a passing storm.
And here lies the paradox: outwardly, there is practice, ritual, discipline, devotion. Inwardly, there is exhaustion, fear, and a drying heart.
I know: what I see is also in me. And I am grateful that I can see it, because only then can I name it. And yes, it hurts like hell. I reject it. I cannot accept it, I cannot abide it, I cannot bear it…
Yet remaining silent or sugarcoating it would mean ignoring the shadow that is slowly but surely drying out places like this from within. And I know that this is not unique to this ashram – many other spiritual communities, religious groups, and intentional circles face similar challenges.
But the very reason these places exist is because they are meant to resist the harshness of a society built on fear and control. They exist to offer refuge for those who are weary of the system and seek a space where care, trust, and presence can truly flourish. That is why it pains me deeply and compels me to share this story.
📿 The Cost of Masks: Practice Without Transformation
Yes, there is meditation. Yes, there is asana, pranayama, chanting, ritual.
👉 But
... when practice becomes a mask, it can hide burnout instead of healing it.
... when devotion is used to impress others, it loses its essence.
... when the goal is to be seen as “disciplined” or “advanced,” one may stand on the mat every day – and yet still stand at the very beginning.
Because the truth is simple: no amount of repetition brings wisdom if the heart stays closed.
Bhakti – devotion – without humility is just another performance.
Yoga without authenticity is just gymnastics.
Meditation without honesty is just daydreaming.
A Community of Fear, Not of Love
And what kind of community grows out of this climate?
A community where people observe one another instead of carrying one another.
Where rule-breaking is reported while one’s own shadows stay hidden.
Where practice is used as an ego façade instead of a tool for liberation.
Where fake smiling is easier than speaking truth.
Where it’s safer to please than to question.
Where manipulation replaces authenticity, and silence replaces awakening.
This is not a sangha. It is a performance. Not a circle of truth – but of fear. And fear has never brought freedom.
🐚 The Absurdity of Spiritual Marketing
Some communities now cry for visibility. They want likes, shares, higher rankings. They optimize algorithms, ask followers to polish the outer image.
But what happens when people come closer and find hypocrisy instead of truth?
This is not weaved from foresight, integrity, or courage – but from short-term panic and lack of backbone.
A spiritual place can stumble. It can fail. But it cannot lie.
The moment image becomes more important than essence, the soul of the place is lost.
😮💨 When the Yamas Are Left Behind
The tragedy is this: the very foundations of yoga – the yamas – are broken in the name of upholding tradition.
Ahimsa (non-violence): broken by controlling, shaming, excluding
Satya (truthfulness): broken by manipulation, hidden agendas, fake smiles, forced silence
Asteya (non-stealing): broken by stealing people’s trust for the sake of image
Brahmacharya (integrity of energy): broken by chasing visibility instead of guarding sacred focus
Aparigraha (non-clinging): broken by clinging desperately to systems that no longer breathe
I saw how the Yamas were spoken, but not lived. Is there a greater hypocrisy than teaching what one refuses to live?
🔥 Shiva and Durga: The Invitation Ignored
Communities chant mantras to Shiva and Durga, call their names, decorate their altars with images of transformation and fierce compassion. They celebrate the great festivals in their honor.
But here is the contradiction:
They invite these divine transformative powers – and when the invitation arrives, they slam the door.
🙏 They pray to Shiva, who destroys what no longer serves – and then tremble at the very thought of change.
🗣️ They call upon Durga, the mother who slays demons – and then protect the very demons of fear, control, and ego that she comes to dissolve.
In the ancient verses of the Devimahatmya, Durga rises with her lion, carrying her weapons not to destroy life but to cut through illusion, arrogance, and fear. Her sword severs the ties that keep beings enslaved to ignorance. And yet – what greater irony than calling her name while clinging to the very shadows she was invoked to liberate us from?
The Devimahatmya is not a tale of comfort – it is a hymn to fierce compassion.
The Goddess does not decorate altars; she breaks chains. She does not flatter egos; she exposes and dismantles them. ⛓️💥
True devotion would mean daring to welcome her sword into our own lives – to let her cut away our fear of being truly seen for what we are, our clinging to image. Because the fear is never of being seen – it is of being seen without the mask, without the staging, without the safety of illusion.
When we call the Divine without honesty, we are betraying our own soul. We remove ourselves from grace when we cling to fear while chanting mantras of courage. We lose our own truth when we decorate the altar but refuse to open the heart.
Today is Vijayadashami, the day that marks the victory of goddess Durga over the demons – the culmination of the nine nights of Navaratri. It is not only a festival of light over darkness, but a reminder that the demons Durga slays are not distant figures. They are the fear of transparency, the addiction to control, the ego’s desperate clinging. Her triumph is a call for us to let these forces die within ourselves, so that truth may live.
🪷 A Call Back to Truth
Swami Sivananda’s vision, his unwavering dedication to truth, his courage to question, evolve, and follow the heart, has always inspired me deeply. I believe that if more of the world embraced this spirit, the way he lived his teachings, there would be far more authenticity, compassion, and freedom in every corner of life.
So let us remember:
Swami Sivananda’s name was not “Retainananda.”
It was not “Influencananda.”
Not “Imageananda.”
It was Sivananda Saraswati.
Shiva – the destroyer of illusions.
Ananda – the bliss that comes only when truth is lived, not performed.
Saraswati – the wisdom to discern what must change.
His path was never about comfort. Never about image. Never about survival strategies.
It was about living truth – fiercely, humbly, lovingly.
Heart and Claws
I love and cherish that time in the ashram – and the place itself – deeply. I am profoundly grateful for everything I learned there. And it is precisely for this reason that I cannot remain silent while such spaces are slowly eroded by fear of truth, fear of change, and the clinging to appearances.
And therefore, this is not written in hatred. It is written in love – a love with claws.
A love that refuses to look away.
A love that burns for authenticity, for a return to integrity, for the courage to finally stop pretending.
If spirituality is real, then it cannot be afraid of transparency.
If devotion is real, then it cannot be used as a mask.
If faith is real, then it must face the fire of transformation – not hide from it.
Shiva, Durga, Saraswati, Swami Sivananda – they are still here. Their invitation has not expired. But the question is:
Will we accept it?
Or will we keep praying for change while fearing its arrival?
The choice is ours.
And the time is now.
❤️💛💚
Yours and mine,
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