ALL GURUS ARE SALESMEN — INCLUDING SADHGURU
- Madhukar Dama
- 22 hours ago
- 7 min read
They sell certainty to the confused.
They sell spiritual vocabulary to the emotionally broken.
They sell purpose to the hollow.
They sell hope to the desperate.
They sell meaningful suffering to people who are already suffering meaninglessly.
And like every good salesman, they create a problem first—
then offer the product that solves it.
---
WHAT ARE THEY SELLING?
Branded truth, merchandised calm, curated enlightenment.
Courses, retreats, organic products, clothing lines, apps.
Even silence is now patented — packaged in 3-day Vipassana programs.
---
AND WHAT MAKES THEM SO SUCCESSFUL?
Authoritative tone mixed with ancient symbols.
Mass marketing disguised as mysticism.
Spiritual capitalism wrapped in cultural legitimacy.
Outfits and accents that make them look neither poor nor rich — just mysterious.
Followers who do the sales for them — for free.
---
SADHGURU?
Yes, him too.
Bikes across continents.
Speaks in riddles that seem deep until you pause.
Flirts with corporate boardrooms and international think tanks.
Has a product line that could rival a startup.
And yet tells you to drop the material world.
He’s not the disease.
He’s the symptom of a society that abandoned inner guidance and now rents external authority.
---
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Because every time you follow a guru blindly,
you delay your own arrival.
You become a customer instead of a seeker.
---
REAL SPIRITUALITY?
Doesn’t have a face.
Doesn’t trend.
Doesn’t teach in auditoriums.
Doesn’t beg for followers.
It dismantles you, not comforts you.
And it never asks for your money — just your lies.
---
GOD WANTS YOU TO BUY THE T-SHIRT
(a long, slow-burning, brutal laugh at the holy market)
---
he wore white robes
stitched in China
sold in Coimbatore
blessed in bulk.
his beard was the product.
his silence —
a paid ringtone for your soul.
---
they said he was born enlightened.
but he launched a line of bottled water
because apparently
enlightenment makes you dehydrated.
---
he rode a motorcycle
faster than your grief.
and spoke of karma
like a stock market analyst
explaining why your poverty
was your own fault.
---
his wisdom?
a TED Talk dressed in Sanskrit.
a PowerPoint soul.
he used words like
“consciousness,” “inner engineering,” “cosmic intelligence.”
but never once said
“sit under a tree and shut up.”
that doesn’t sell.
---
his followers bowed.
they bought the cushion.
the copper tongue scraper.
the guru-approved underpants.
a daily reminder
that god is also a brand now.
---
and what did he say?
“Let go of material attachments…
after you register for the platinum retreat
in the Himalayas.”
(No children. No menstruating women. No pets.
Peace is allergic to distraction.)
---
he didn’t preach.
he pitched.
like a TEDx CEO in saffron.
every word crafted
to hit your algorithm
and your insecurity.
---
he knew.
he knew that urban loneliness
is the goldmine of the century.
he sold silence
to people who never knew noise
was inside them.
he sold stillness
to men who hadn’t walked barefoot in decades.
he sold surrender
to women exhausted by managing everything.
he sold god
to those abandoned by families
and used by systems.
---
he said:
“no judgment”
but judged every doubter as
“unconscious.”
he said:
“no ego”
but put his face on every wall
like god’s authorized dealer.
he said:
“truth is beyond logic”
whenever he ran out of answers.
---
and when a child asked,
“what is god?”
he replied:
“buy the book.”
---
meanwhile, the real guru
sat shirtless under a neem tree,
digging potatoes with his wife,
and teaching children
to spit out lies
before breakfast.
he didn’t sell hope.
he didn’t sell despair.
he didn’t sell anything.
he just stared at you
until your false self
cracked
like cheap clay.
---
but you won’t follow him.
he has no app.
no mic.
no discounts.
no curated playlist.
no comment section.
no motivational quote reels.
he’ll never say,
“you’re special.”
he’ll say:
“you’ve been bought.”
---
and that’s why
you’ll go back
to the guru
with the logo.
because it’s easier
to be a customer
than a human.
---
end of lesson. now available as a limited-edition incense stick.
buy fast. god has a waiting list.
---
---
HEALING DIALOGUE
Title: “THE GURU WHO COULDN’T SLEEP”
A long, slow-burning dialogue between Sadhguru (now old, disillusioned) and Madhukar the Hermit.
Setting: A silent forest hut 2 km from the last road. A lantern burns low. A mat on the floor. No cameras. No followers.
---
Characters:
Sadhguru – 78 years old. White beard. Eyes tired. Empire vast. Sleepless.
Madhukar – 43 years old. Former scientist, now lives in mud house with wife and daughters.
No one else. No audience. No assistants.
---
[Scene opens: Sadhguru enters the hut alone, barefoot. He carries no bag, no phone. Only a water flask. He bows slightly. Madhukar nods, not as reverence but recognition.]
---
Sadhguru (quietly):
I’ve built everything a guru can build.
Ashrams across continents.
Millions chanting my name.
And yet I cannot sleep.
---
Madhukar:
Sleep doesn’t obey admiration.
It obeys truth.
---
Sadhguru (sitting down):
I started with fire inside.
Wanted to wake people up.
Show them silence.
But somewhere… somewhere I began to enjoy the claps.
---
Madhukar:
You didn’t begin it.
The world began it for you.
You just accepted the throne they offered.
---
Sadhguru:
Yes.
The interviews.
The celebrities.
The bikes.
They started asking for more.
And I became a product.
The robe wasn’t mine anymore — it belonged to the brand.
---
Madhukar:
So you became God’s salesman.
Packaging stillness for distracted people.
And the sad part?
It worked.
---
Sadhguru (sighing):
Yes.
But now…
when a child cries, I don’t know if I can help.
When a man says he is lost, I wonder—
do I even know the way back?
---
Madhukar:
Because you never left the road.
You built hotels on it.
You hired tour guides.
But you never sat on the forest floor where the path disappears.
---
Sadhguru (his voice cracks):
I haven’t held mud in my bare hands in years.
Haven’t cooked a meal without someone photographing it.
Haven’t spoken without expecting applause.
Tell me…
have I done any good?
---
Madhukar (gently):
You’ve distracted a billion people from their pain.
Sometimes distraction is a mercy.
But healing?
Healing needs nakedness.
And you wore too many costumes.
---
Sadhguru (whispers):
I want to die naked.
Not in silk.
Not in fame.
Not in branding.
Just… human.
---
Madhukar (after a long silence):
Then stay here.
No announcements.
No one will know.
We will not write a book about it.
Tomorrow, you fetch water.
You sweep the cowshed.
You eat only after the others.
And you do not speak unless spoken to.
---
Sadhguru (soft laugh):
A reverse initiation?
---
Madhukar:
No.
Your first real one.
---
Sadhguru:
But what of all I’ve built?
Will it collapse?
---
Madhukar:
It should.
Because peace does not need temples.
Truth does not need logos.
And God has never asked for a foundation trust.
---
Sadhguru:
And if they call me a fraud?
---
Madhukar (pouring tea):
Better to die a known fraud
than live as a branded illusion.
---
[Silence. A long one. Sadhguru sips the tea. It’s bitter. He doesn't flinch.]
---
Sadhguru:
I remember once, 40 years ago,
I sat under a tamarind tree and wept.
There was no audience.
I think that was the only true moment I had.
---
Madhukar:
Then your path is simple.
Return.
One weep at a time.
One bowl at a time.
One breath without followers.
---
Sadhguru:
And who will I be?
---
Madhukar:
Maybe… finally… just Jagadish.
The man before the myth.
---
[They sit. No chant. No music. Only night sounds. No camera captures the moment. The guru begins to sleep. For the first time in 30 years.]
---
ONE-YEAR FOLLOW-UP
Title: “THE DEATH OF SADHGURU — AND THE REBIRTH OF JAGADISH”
A slow, quiet dissolution of a spiritual empire. No drama. No media. Just silence, soil, and surrender.
---
Month 1–3: THE UNLEARNING
The man once called Sadhguru was now just Jagadish Anna in the forest.
No one bowed. No one clicked. No one cared who he had been.
He slept on a coir mat beside Madhukar’s goats.
He fetched water from the stream every morning.
He washed his own undergarments with ash.
His soft hands began to crack.
---
He didn’t speak for the first 40 days.
Madhukar said:
> “You’ve spoken enough for ten lifetimes. Now, listen to wind.”
Jagadish spent hours sitting beside Adhya and Anju, Madhukar’s daughters,
learning how to soak rice, compost kitchen waste, and spin thread.
He cried the first time the younger one touched his feet,
not out of reverence,
but to remove a thorn.
---
At night, he whispered:
> “I didn’t know real life was this small, this slow… this sacred.”
---
Month 4–6: THE DISMANTLING
He sent word to a trusted aide:
> “Stop selling my image.
Close the online store.
Dissolve the trust.
Use the funds to free farmland from corporate debt.
No new temples.
Just seeds.
Tell the world I’m gone. Don’t explain.”
Many followers were outraged.
Some claimed betrayal.
Some said he had been poisoned or kidnapped.
Some declared him reborn in another country.
He chuckled when he heard.
> “Even disappearance becomes a product.”
---
Month 7–9: THE BODY RETURNS
His hands grew dark and calloused.
He harvested millets with tribal women who never heard of "inner engineering."
He dug latrines.
He shaved his head completely.
He carried manure without complaint.
He told Madhukar once:
> “If I had lived like this from the beginning… I wouldn’t have needed to speak at all.”
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Month 10–12: THE RETURN TO NAMELESSNESS
The word "Sadhguru" became forbidden in the home.
Even the children stopped asking.
He had become a man again.
Not a brand.
Not a mystic.
Not a product.
Just Jagadish.
One morning, he sat under a guava tree, carving spoons from neem branches.
He handed one to Madhukar and said:
> “This… is my last teaching.”
“It has no syllabus, no donation, no logo.
Just something useful, made slowly, with my hands.”
---
Madhukar looked at him and replied:
> “Now you’re worthy of being forgotten.”
And Jagadish smiled —
because for the first time in his life,
he finally agreed.
---
