Susan Shumsky, a former devotee of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation, describes her experiences with the guru. Shumsky details how she found the Maharishi, emphasizing the profound impact he had on her life. She recounts her intensive six-year experience as part of the Maharishi’s personal staff and his twenty-two-year influence on her spiritual journey. Shumsky explains the Guru-disciple relationship as a process of spiritual awakening, involving intense challenges, ego-dissolving tests, and moments of both intense love and disdain. Ultimately, she describes the process of reaching “oneness,” a state of perfect wholeness and boundless awareness, which she achieved after leaving the Maharishi and finding guidance from another spiritual master. The source concludes with Shumsky promoting her upcoming workshop on “finding your inner guru,” a process she believes can guide individuals on their own spiritual journeys.
The video describe several specific techniques the Maharishi employed to challenge Shumsky’s ego, which she believes are representative of traditional practices used by spiritual masters in India and other parts of the East to help disciples on their spiritual journeys.
Challenging Through Artistic Endeavors
One of the key examples Shumsky provides of the Maharishi challenging her ego is the story of the painting he commissioned. While in India, Shumsky was asked by the Maharishi to paint a picture of some trees. This seemingly straightforward request kicked off a decade-long project in which Shumsky would repeatedly bring the painting to the Maharishi, only for him to instruct her to make changes to it. Shumsky recounts that he never seemed to be satisfied with her work, asking her to adjust things like the positioning of figures, their clarity, and whether he was sitting or lying down. Shumsky states that this back and forth went on for ten years before the Maharishi finally told her the painting should be included in a book, alongside a written commentary.
Shumsky believes that this interaction exemplifies the way in which the Maharishi would use “tests” and “trials” to help his disciples work through their “negative karma.” She compares the Maharishi’s approach to that of Marpa, a guru who repeatedly gave his disciple Milarepa seemingly arbitrary tasks, such as building and then deconstructing elaborate structures, forcing Milarepa to confront and overcome past negativity. In Shumsky’s view, by repeatedly asking her to rework the painting, the Maharishi was similarly pushing her to improve her artistic abilities and to push past her creative limitations. She states that, in retrospect, she sees that this process made her a better artist, helping her to become “more focused,” “flexible,” and “expanded.”
Challenging Through Disdain and Scorn
Shumsky does not explicitly state that she believes these looks were intentionally designed by the Maharishi to provoke a reaction from her or to help her work through past negativity in the way that the painting was. However, she does state that everyone around the Maharishi experienced similar treatment, which she refers to as “open ego surgery.” Additionally, Shumsky compares the Maharishi’s behavior to that of Krishna, who intentionally provoked his disciple Arjuna into a state of panic and fear, leading Arjuna to surrender himself to Krishna’s guidance. This comparison suggests that Shumsky may have believed that the Maharishi’s behavior towards her, while hurtful, was ultimately intended to break her down and make her more receptive to his teachings.
In addition to challenging Shumsky through assigned tasks, the Maharishi also challenged her directly, through his behavior towards her. Shumsky recounts that being around the Maharishi was “a combination of heaven and hell.” Sometimes, he would look at her “with pure love,” which she describes as an experience unlike any other kind of love, likening it to “a bolt of divine,” filled with “grace and blessings.” Other times, however, his look was one of “disdain,” “scorn,” or “similar.” Shumsky says that the Maharishi’s disdain would make her feel completely “rejected” and like “nothing,” and that these looks did not seem to correlate to anything she had done.
The above video review was created by Raja Numan using NotebookLM