Woman labored for a yoga guru accused of operating a ‘CULT’

A girl has candidly revealed how she was swept up into working for yoga guru who was accused of operating a ‘cult’ after the unique founder was flooded with accusations of sexual assault.

Charlotte Medlock appeared on a latest episode of the Cults to Consciousness podcast to debate her expertise of the kundalini yoga apply.

Yogi Bhajan, who was born Harbhajan Singh Khalsa, introduced kundalini yoga — a mix of repetitive motion, chanting and respiration — to the western world when he immigrated from India to the US within the late Sixties. 

He was in the end accused of rape, sexual misconduct, and monetary wrongdoing in allegations spanning years – however was controversially defended by many.

Among them was Katie Griggs, who assumed the title Guru Jagat, having arrange her personal institute based mostly on his teachings after experiencing the ‘life-changing’ apply within the early 2000s. But that too would show to have a complete host of its personal flaws.

Charlotte started by speaking host Shelise Ann Sola via the origins of the kundalini yoga apply launched by Yogi Bhajan.

She defined: ‘He was a customs officer in India on the Delhi Airport and he saw loads of these burnt-out hippies coming via in search of a guru.

‘He thought “maybe I should go to the United States and teach yoga” so that is what he did.

‘It took off proper away. He got here to Los Angeles, he planted the seeds and it took off from there.’

But the entrepreneur’s scheme appeared to have a way more sinister underbelly.

Bhajan was accused of sexual assault and sexual misconduct earlier than and after his dying, however the allegations had been largely ignored for years. 

However, in early 2020, his former secretary Pamela Saharah Dyson shined new gentle on his alleged sexual misconduct when she self-published her tell-all memoir titled Premka: White Bird in a Golden Cage: My Life with Yogi Bhajan.

Her account emboldened others to come back ahead with their very own claims of sexual abuse by the hands of the religious instructor and an impartial third social gathering launched a report that discovered the abuse ‘extra seemingly than not occurred,’ Phelan reported.

Charlotte shared that he established a ranch in Espanola, New Mexico, the place she claimed ‘a lot of the abuse occurred.’

‘I am unable to consider he received away with it,’ Charlotte added.

Nonetheless, Griggs, who defended Bhajan and discredited his former secretary following the e-book launch, determined to department off on her personal based mostly on his teachings.

The self-proclaimed Guru rapidly recognized what she believed was a spot out there as Charlotte defined: ‘She claimed Yogi Bhajan advised her to go to LA and educate at Yoga West – and that is what she did.’

In the years that adopted, Charlotte occurred to maneuver to the realm and was ‘exploring’ several types of lessons when she got here throughout one in all Griggs’ teams.

‘The class was packed. It was the primary class I ever went to and the room was electrical. She was working the room. She was cracking jokes.’

But she was additionally stunned to see that every one attendees had been dressed head-to-toe in white. 

‘I undoubtedly thought it was tremendous bizarre. I felt it was very off-putting to me in a means. I used to be like, “What? Who are these people? This is very strange.”

‘But within the class we’re doing we’re chanting loads, we’re doing actions that I’ve by no means completed earlier than, I’m respiration actually heavily and I left these first lessons utterly blissed out.’

Griggs opened her first Ra Ma Institute yoga studio in Venice, California, in 2013, attracting a lot of celeb followers, together with Alicia Keys and Kate Hudson. 

She additionally went onto to create a profitable on-line platform and open extra areas in New York City and Mallorca with the Ra Ma Institute’s web site that includes an internet store that includes crystals, jewellery, and white attire from Jagat’s eponymous clothes line.  

In her mid 20s, Charlotte turned burnt out at her workplace job and commenced battling emotions of disgrace, self-doubt and hopelessness.

It was presently that she sought growing consolation in Griggs’ teachings which might solely set her on a unbroken downward spiral.

She started training with out fail and was provided the possibility to change into a kundalini yoga instructor.

Charlotte signed as much as a $3,000 coaching course ‘with the final of what was in her checking account’ however admitted: ‘That is the place the type indoctrination began.’

‘I was so desperate I used to be like “if I just do this, then I think all my dreams will come true and my destiny will get activated and I’m going to get so much money” – very delusional.’

However, half means via the course Charlotte determined to alter tact and took a job working immediately for Griggs as a substitute of changing into a course instructor.

‘I began out as an intern. They provided a $300 a month stipend and straight away I used to be working full-time as a result of Guru Jagat had a e-book popping out…

‘I simply received sucked in straight away,’ she stated.

Charlotte finally secured a everlasting job at $1,800 monthly which she described as being ‘insane from the beginning.’

She was anticipated to get up each morning at 4am, was bombarded with texts itemizing out duties and would work always via the night time, including: ‘It was all hours, on a regular basis.’

But the operation quickly started raging uncontrolled.

Griggs labored to construct up her celeb consumer base however Charlotte dished: ‘She spent cash like water. 

‘The chaos with the cash was all the time a factor. There was by no means sufficient cash coming in.’

She continued: ‘Right after I started working for her she was simply as charismatic, humorous and enjoyable to be aspherical as she was on stage.

‘I had a lot pleasure and enthusiasm and hope within the beginning I actually thought that we had been do doing one thing good for the world.

‘I wish to say six months into it I noticed her scream at an worker in a gathering till the worker cried and that was very uncomfortable for me to look at.

‘I’d by no means seen Guru Jagat pop off like that on someone. I simply sort of excused myself and like went to go get a espresso.

‘As I’m like going out the door Guru Jagat stated, “Oh Charlotte doesn’t like it when I yell” and sort of laughed and [made me feel stupid] for taking it too critically or one thing.

‘I used to be uncomfortable. It was very uncomfortable to look at. She simply laughed it off and so I brushed it off prefer it was no large deal.’

But this might show to solely be the start.

Charlotte defined that a short while later she too was ‘screamed at for making a typo in an electronic mail.’

‘I made excuses for it at first I used to be like “oh well I I did f**k, it’s it’s my fault, I deserved that…”

‘I by no means appreciated getting yelled at and I by no means thought it was a blessing. I simply took it for a very long time till I could not take it anymore.’

Charlotte, who gave up ingesting and went vegetarian after becoming a member of the group, stated she initially felt good in her change of way of life.

‘After a yr of that, it simply turned this hamster wheel that I could not get off of the place I used to be always obsessing…

‘With the dynamic of being within the “inner circle” of this cult I used to be simply always oscillating between concern and being good which despatched me into hyperdrive.’

She stated that she labored always and, though she knew she was sad, the apply of kundalini yoga ‘makes you disassociated out of your emotions’ in what she branded as ‘poisonous positivity.’

Charlotte admitted that the tumultuous surroundings received worse when the workforce started to activate one another.

‘We did throw one another beneath the bus always because we had been so frightened of Guru Jagat and we did not wish to be the one to get put within the scorching seat.

‘It was full chaos. There had been balls dropping on a regular basis. Things had been altering always and on the finish of the day there was all the time someone getting yelled at.’

Describing what Guru Jagat anticipated, Charlotte defined: ‘We had been imagined to be good. We had been imagined to be constantly fascinated by her, working to make her cash, if she was on the town we had been anticipated to spend time together with her and be round her always.

‘I believe she really fed off of our vitality, she needed to be worshiped always.’

Griggs reportedly advised Charlotte she ‘didn’t want’ her household any longer as she turned more and more reduce off.

‘I undoubtedly turned extra remoted in my relationships and from my household.

‘In Kundalini Yoga there is a instructing in case you keep beneath the identical roof together with your mother and father for greater than 72 hours you revert again to your seven-year-old self…

‘It was implied that is your new household now.’

In 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic, Charlotte stated ‘s**t was hitting the fan’ because of the launch of the memoir documenting allegations of Yogi Bhajan’s college students.

‘When this e-book got here out, it was just like the floodgates opened all of a sudden. 

‘All of those different ladies and folks had been coming ahead with tinheritor tales of abuse by Yogi Bhajan and our shoppers had been like, “When are you going to make a statement? What do you guys have to say about this?”

‘For a very very long time Guru Jagat was like “we’re not going to say anything, if anyone comments anything on our social media just delete and block.” 

‘She thought it was simply going to go away and it wasn’t going away.’

Tensions turned more and more fraught so Guru Jagat employed a ‘household constellation therapist’ for all staff.

Charlotte claims she labored with the instructor to ‘gaslight’ the group, including: ‘She is like “you all need to stop talking about Guru Jagat. It’s draining her energy.

‘”She ought to get an Oscar for performing like a human being. She shouldn’t be from this planet. When she shouldn’t be in enterprise conferences she is speaking to Saturn and Mars.”‘

Most of her colleagues seemed to buy into the message but Charlotte said: ‘I was like this is just pure f**king propaganda. I was p**sed. I was like this is so f**ked up.

‘I was just seeing the writing on the wall at that point but I was still too scared to leave.’

Four years into her tenure, Charlotte, who was becoming increasingly ‘distressed,’ finally concluded that ‘nothing is ever going to change’ and she handed in her notice.

‘It‘s really funny because I didn’t even realize it was a cult when I quit. I thought I was just quitting a bad job.

‘The reason I was so scared to quit was because they would tell stories about bad things happening to people that left – people getting in car accidents, people getting cancer, that kind of thing…

‘I realized this thing I devoted four years of my life to was a lie. Those first few months after I quit I felt like a war veteran or something coming back from a war because it was just so intense.’

Charlotte, who went on a ‘spiritual detox,’ concluded: ‘It probably took me a year of just processing everything and making sense of it all to to feel normal again.’

Guru Jagat died of a pulmonary embolism following ankle surgery at age 41.

In the months before her death, she was interviewed for Vanity Fair and brushed off any accusations of wrongdoing.

‘I’m a controversial figure,’ she said at the time. ‘This goes with the territory. I’m not, like, love-and-light Suzie. I’m very direct and I talk about s**t people don’t want to talk about.’