Interrogating Power Dynamics in Yoga and Spiritual Spaces (Part 1)

Why Power Matters in Spiritual Spaces

Power is at the center of so many conversations right now. We’re seeing it in high-profile abuse cases such as the Epstein Files, Gisèle Pelicot’s case, and the recent investigative reporting by CNN on drug-facilitated sexual assault. We also see it in broader cultural patterns of harm that continue to surface across industries and institutions.

Yoga and spiritual practice are not exceptions. From Jeffrey Epstein’s proximity to self-proclaimed wellness guru Deepak Chopra, to Satchidānanda Saraswati’s Yogaville scandal and cover-up, to the findings of the Australian Royal Commission on abuse within Satyānanda Saraswati’s Bihar School of Yoga, spiritual spaces have repeatedly been sites where harm occurs under the protection of authority and reverence.

Individual cases make this even more visible.

Bikram Choudhury, founder of hot yoga, has faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape. K. Pattabhi Jois, founder of Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, was accused by numerous students after his death in 2009 of sexual assault during adjustments.

Other accused yogis include Pierre Arnold Bernard, Muktananda, T. K. V. Desikachar, John Friend, Yogi Bhajan, Amrit Desai, and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

The pattern is not subtle. Yoga is saturated with accounts of gurus abusing students or misusing power. Across these cases, a consistent dynamic appears: men in positions of authority using that authority to cause harm.

Public conversations about abuse of power often center around outrage or morality. Of course, as a survivor of sexual violence, I understand this intimately. The harm is real, and it needs to be named so accountability can occur. Exploitation, coercion, and abuse have long-lasting consequences in people’s lives. There is no excuse.

But here is the thing: if we stop the conversation at outrage, we fail to investigate why these patterns repeat with such consistency, regardless of time, geography, or lineage. Outrage does not explain why communities defend abusers, why students override their own instincts, nor does it explain why institutions fail to intervene even when harm is happening out in the open. Without examining how power actually operates in these spaces, the conditions that enable abuse remain intact.

If these dynamics are not understood, they are difficult to identify before harm occurs. Sooner or later, a new abuser will rise, protected by existing structures and structural silence; enabled by the same patterns that allowed harm to occur before.

The cycle continues, not because people do not care, but because the underlying mechanisms of power remain unexamined. This series examines the dynamics of power within the context of Yoga and Spiritual Practice.

Power Isn’t the Problem. Uncontained Power Is, and the Buddha Understood This

Looking at history helps bring nuance.

Throughout much of South and Southeast Asian history, Hindu, and by extension Buddhist monastic traditions held substantial influence over the social behaviours of both royalty and common folk, though the mechanism and degree of influence varied a lot depending on era.

In the context of Hinduism, influence came through the caste system: Primarily Brahmin scholars, who were responsible for maintaining temple institutions and legal-religious texts. Kings often relied on Brahmins for legitimacy: they oversaw rituals that upheld law and cosmological order. So, while the Brahmins didn’t rule kingdoms directly, their hands were steady on the levers that shaped society, especially when it came to caste, duty, and who stood where in the society.

Enter Buddhism. Siddhartha Gautama (who we now call the Buddha) is traditionally understood to have been born into a family of the Kshatriya caste of the Shakya clan in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, sometime between the 5th and 6th century BCE. The Kshatriya caste was predominantly rulers, warriors, and aristocracy. He lived in relative luxury and seclusion under his father, King Suddhodana and Queen Mayadevi in Kapilavastu. He would have been well educated and familiar with the religious and philosophical ideas of his time, including Vedic traditions.

Siddhartha had spent his life sheltered from the harsh realities of the world; but when he left the palace one day, he encountered a feeble, vulnerable old man, a person who was gravely ill, a dead body, and a calm ascetic, all of which sparked a deep existential crisis in him known as saṃvega.

He decided to renounce his royal life. He abandoned his wife and child to become a wandering seeker. After years of extreme ascetic practice proved ineffective in ending suffering, he came to understand that neither indulgence nor severe deprivation leads to awakening. He sat beneath a Bodhi tree and committed to meditation until he found the middle path.

Accounts of his return to Kapilavastu vary across traditions, but most include an encounter with his previously abandoned wife, Yashodhara. She laid into him and made clear to him just how badly his actions had harmed her and their son. This part of the story is usually not cut from the teachings because they emphasize the cost of his renunciation and the ethical weight of his actions when they came from a place of non-awareness.

This is where critical analysis is important. Awakening, in the Buddhist framing, did not erase the reality that his earlier choices caused harm.

The Buddha understood something intimately: Insight alone does not make someone safe with power. So once people started to gather around him to hear his teachings and a sangha (a community of ordained monastics) formed, he began to put structures in place to prevent himself and others in positions of power from harming others. He was quick to decentralize power from the hands of individual Brahmins, who had historically held dominion over the land’s laws. He institutionalized these structures, and they were codified in the Vinaya (a regulatory framework and ethical foundation for Buddhist monks and nuns).

The Vinaya outlines relational boundaries and communal processes for accountability. Since monastics held social power and influence over society, they were required to undertake brahmachariya – a disciplined life that included celibacy and renunciation of household obligations.

In the Vinaya, sexual misconduct falls under the Pārājika rules, which stipulate that the perpetrator is immediately stripped of all systemic power over others, and they are permanently expelled from the monastic order for the remainder of their life. And not just sexual violence, even consensual sex is not permitted because of the power difference between a lay person and a monk. The Vinaya places the blame entirely on the monk who has engaged in sex, consensual or not (with the exception being if the monk was sexually assaulted).

There is no question about what she was wearing or whether he was seduced, because it is the monk who took the vow of celibacy and holds the social influence and power. In the event of an assault by a monk, the larger Sangha is instructed to offer compassion and support to the victim and to investigate the incident to protect others. Interestingly enough, while the perpetrator loses power, they are not immediately cast out of the Sangha; rather, it becomes the Sangha's responsibility to hold that person accountable.

Other missteps, such as lewd speech or inappropriate touch, are handled in steps: a confession from the offending party, a probationary period (temporary loss of power), and the larger sangha gets to weigh in on the whole situation.

The Aniyata rules address more ambiguous situations, such as he-said-she-said, particularly involving interactions between monks and lay people in private settings. They require that a lay person’s account be taken seriously and investigated. The responsibility of sexual conduct always falls on the monastic, because it is the monk/nun who has taken vows and holds institutional power within the Sangha.

Taken together, these frameworks place responsibility on the person with power and create mechanisms, however imperfect, for community-based accountability. I argue that this framework contains early elements of what we now call prison abolition, restorative, and transformative justice. Of course, it’s not identical, but they all place emphasis on communal responsibility and provide some guidance on how to repair when harm occurs.

The Buddha also decentralized authority in another important way:

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