Hi there,

With deep sadness and regret I am holding space on this page for the posts I published in 2017 when leaving the spiritual community that had been my home and place of work for over 6.5 years. Since at the time there was not a lot of public information on Swami Chetanananda and the community at the Movement Center, and how problematic his behavior towards young women is, it felt important to keep this information accessible for anyone who may need it. If it can save one life from having to go through a fraction of what I’ve been through, then it’s done its intended protection.

In addition to the harm caused by SC, who is an extremely skilled, persuasive, and powerful man without the capacity to hold himself back, the lack of concern displayed by his inner circle is of tremendous concern, as they are each overwhelmingly aware of the multi-dimentional problems and grave danger facing any person who naively chooses to completely trust their guru with abandon within the space of intimate and sexual contact.

PART 1:

Hi friends, I have tried so many times to speak up about the abuse I have undergone during my time at The Movement Center.... the amount of mental fuckery that I have undergone in the past 6.5 years living there, living with a teacher that completely abused my trust in him, beating up on myself for not being "perfect" there, for not having an open enough heart... for not being a devoted enough student...

I kept being told and made to believe that the falling out that my teacher and I were going through was all due to my lacks as a student... - rather than admitting his constant misguidance of me from the start and complete ABUSE of trust and POWER.

but I will not be manipulated anymore, I am hurt beyond words time or space... and no, I was not able to recover from the pain of waking up a little over a year ago to the realization that it had all been a lie and that my teacher had no love for me and was just mocking me and pulling me back to the ashram because of his own personal agenda and entitlement....

the realization that my teacher did not love me and was not trying to help me broke me... it broke in me something very very fundamental.. that which, as a student makes you effort yourself for your teacher... that part of me broke when I realized he was not holding a loving space for me but rather just pretending, and he had anger and resentment towards me rather than faith ... If my life was spiraling before this moment, it started spiraling triple time after this when he too realized I was not making any efforts (because I had reached my breaking point)... but how can you, lift your heart every day, and offer it to the man who has abused you endlessly, mocked you constantly, destroyed your self-esteem and confidence through sex, drugs and mind-games... all the while making you believe that it is because you are not a devoted enough..... and continues on a daily basis to misguide you, mock you and abuse the trust that you place on him.

for those wondering why Swami Chetanananda is no longer on facebook... this is your answer.... he knew his name was going to come up in non-positive ways.... he's been mocking the #metoo movement for months now... probably out of the knowing that it was soon coming knocking on his door.

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and I guess the reason I kept hesitating to do this, is that a part of me still believed that my teacher loved me - not as a woman - but that divine love that we are led to believe that our Guru has for us, his/her children…. I kept telling myself he was being sincere in telling me we could heal, I could heal, that I could trust him… so I would return to the ashram… and be betrayed and mocked again…

I know I have gone back and forth on sharing about this matter - and yet it is just a reflection of the intense state of self-doubt and insecurity that that man’s mental games with me have brought me to.

The trust that a true spiritual aspirant places upon a teacher is sacred, and it is my saddest and most painful experience that Swami holds no respect or appreciation for that extremely vulnerable aspect of his students.

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A few notes:

1. It gives me no joy and only sadness to speak up about my experience at The Movement Center. If you know me from before TMC you know how passionate I have always been about yoga, the cultivation and honoring of the sacred, and about living a life of truth, love, open-heartedness, open-mindedness and curiosity. If you know me from TMC you know how much love Ive poured into that space, and you know my love for swamiji that has been strong and quiet and not-flashy in any way but rather honest, and a struggle.. and that ive been willing to make a fool of myself for that man again and again for years with not half a complaint or call for attention. And you also know that i have never ever ever spoken about my private relationship with him in any capacity, as it is something i deemed as sacred -

2. I assume SC will be responding with all kinds of nonsense about me to make fun of me within the walls of TMC and to anyone who reaches out to me... and as a way to portray himself as the victim here,”poor me”, “why does this always happen to me?”. Im not sure what he will say but maybe that i have some kind of desire for public recognition or bullshit like that, or that im unhappy with not getting what i wanted, or some other thing his very gifted speech will create to make fun of me and discredit me (remember he is a politician and frat boy first before ever being a yogi). All nonsense, everyone knows that if i wanted public recognition for my gifts as a teacher of yoga i could have had that long ago and I basically walked away from that path years ago when i moved into the cave that is TMC and decided to dedicating myself to serving my teacher and my community there instead.

3. Whatever other nonsense that can be said about me is honestly just pain speaking... and a strong inability within the TMC students and community to hold the paradox that yes your teacher has real power to awaken something very beautiful inside of you, and yes he also abuses that power and privilegie notoriously by becoming sexually engaged with young women and calling it “giving them an opportunity” rather than what it actually is: lies upon lies, manipulation, abuse of power, and an attempt to ameliorate his great discomfort from taking on way too much in his life to prove a point, and then having to “burn it off” with the girl du jour. and of course isn’t so much more fun to deal with a fun and flirty relationship than it is to deal with your actual problems and life? Who wouldn’t prefer that? Totally justifiable except that it keeps ending badly for the woman in question and he - absurdly - keeps painting himself a victim! “Why does this always happen to me?” Boo hoo.

4. To all the middle aged people saying “he never hit on me, i never witnessed anything like that in my 200years studying with him” well no, because you were not an attractive young woman when you met him - or no because you are not part of the “inner circle”

5. “Natasha how can you be so ungrateful to your guru?” - first of all. I am grateful for the experiences i have had of my innermost Self awakening and the wisdom that arose from that awakening, and the experience of my Kundalini energy becoming alive and on fire within me... AND all of these experiences occurred for me PRIOR to moving into the ashram and i became pretty much completely disconnected from it when i became involved with SC personally and became completely mind-controlled and focused on serving him, attending to his every insecurity and working overtime to pacify it, and burning the candle at both ends while running a yoga studio, contributing in the yoga teacher trainings, teaching the only growing yoga classes in the studio, managing the front desk until a new student came along who gratefully took that over, and managing SCs personal life and needs. Work that by the way, i have yet to be aknowledged for by the TMC staff who rather than becoming a support to me and helping me find a better way and a deeper truth, shunned me from the beginning and made me feel rejected, isolated and alone with no one to go to or talk to - because they knew of my relationship with SC and did not approve of it, yet they are powerless to say anything or do anything for fear of being rejected by their guru.

6. Thank you to everyone who has written me personally to say #metoo. Mostly young women, my age, some of them my students (im horrified!!)- who on the very first private meeting with SC found themselves being hit on by him. Which of course he will laugh at and deny... and yet, women know. And truth is, TMC students do know. “But he didn’t have sexual relations with all of them” - no but he tested the waters, and he tried.

7. “Ive had a bdsm relationship with SC and its only been wonderful” - hey good for you! Bet you weren’t a sexually inexperienced young girl in your twenties when he engaged you but rather older, more rooted in yourself and more experienced? So you were able to just open up to it and take it in rather than dealing with multiple layers at the same time including your compete awkwardness with feeling your body breathing and feeling another at the same time - AND being made to feel like shit about it constantly for your inability to “open up”. Honestly, had he given me a year to get situated in myself and the practice and being around him and his really big energy, we might all today be in a vastly different place... i believe the practice given by Rudi and taught by SC resolves the blockages within a person in their own... but getting, pardon my language, fucked 5 times a day to get me to “open and relax” only had the opposite effect for me and spun me out rather than grounded me in my own Self, my capacity, and my innate beauty, wisdom and power. It tanked my self-esteem and my confidence and made me feel like a really inadequate human.

8. “But you must open and become Unconditionally Loving to your guru natasha” - first of all, i have opened my heart to that man way more than anyone within or outside the ashram walls will ever understand and ive loved him through some really dark shit and received a lot mockery in response. Secondly, do you really feel that a man who is still telling the tales of when his students “screwed him over” back in the 70s and 80s is unconditionally loving?. The number of people who he shit talks and black-lists is in the hundreds and yet this man claims to be an example of unconditional love and respect? Stop lying to yourself and HOLD THE PARADOX: He has real light, and he has a lot of real darkness - and it devoured a really special girl, and has devoured many... and its all good and games till that pendulum lands on YOU.

9. Lastly, the lovely Isa Raim who lives in Europe and has had some short but powerful stints at TMC and who i have a lot of respect for pointed out in the comment section that he has only seen SC be respectful towards me and so generous with his support of me through a really difficult time. Ive been told he deleted his comment but i want to share with you what i replied to him. YES AND. Yes i am grateful, that i am as healthy as i am today AND - i refer you to the last 16min of the Dave Chapelle show that i posted on my feed to speak to “what happened to me” and my feelings around the amazing care that i received. for which i reiterate, i am very grateful. And also, staying away and speaking out publicly for my safety and the safety of others. SC has a LOT of compensation patterns that he is not honest with himself about and this is a danger to real students who might make endless excuses for him and end up “in the drink” as he likes to say because he has no awareness and takes no thoughtful responsibility for his energy. This is crude, but its fucking real.

Thank you to everyone for your messages of love and support. You have no idea how much they mean to me and how grateful i am to be seen and heard rather than called crazy again and again as i have been within the ashram walls for years.

PART 2:

I can say so much about the abuse of power that occurs around SC. And it is indeed his undeniable power that surrounds him that makes one DOUBT ONESELF.. and this is the core of the abuse.

Within 4 months of having moved into the ashram, I received a mysterious invitation from Swami Chetanananda to attend dinner at his apartment. “Please don’t mention this to anyone as I am trying to keep it simple” he requested. I was nervous about this invitation and wondered who the other guests would be. As it would turn out, I was the only guest, there was no food when I arrived, the lights were off, and he soon picked me up and took me to his bedroom.

I was 28 yo, he was 65 at the time. I was completely inexperienced sexually, It had never occured to me to have a sexual relationship with this man, I saw him as my sacred Guru and I knew nothing at all about the place of sexual practices in the context of yoga and the goal of yoga - which is why I was there.

I a matter of 3 seconds I had to decide if I fully trusted this man as my teacher, to guide me to the place my heart and soul were committed to going - and I decided to trust.

"I love how submissive you are" - he whispered into my ear moments later... I KNOW this should have been a red flag - but I was an eager student and thought to myself that this was an INSTRUCTION from a teacher to his student.

I realize that most people reading this might react strongly and ask why on earth would I trust that? why on earth would I follow along with this, and stay in a clearly abusive situation for the years that followed?

the thing for me was that, apart from being a shy and soft person (the kind that probably screams out to predators that this will be an easy pray to manipulate and control).. I was so intensely passionate about the spiritual quest when I arrived at the ashram, and I was arriving at after a year of intense spiritual practice and experiences - and of fervently praying for a teacher that could guide me… and so I was too swift and eager to believe that Swamiji - rare and powerful as he is - was the answer to these intense prayers. And I arrived ready and eager to get to learn. I imagined and felt deeply that he recognized the passion and sincerity in my quest, and that this is why he had decided to give me teachings directly.

And the thing is that, anyone who has met Swami in person knows how persuasive he can be…. and I now recognize that his endless talking is less about actually illuminating the understanding of his students and their Self-knowledge, and more about dizzying and distracting them - and a constantly seeking reassurance about his own personal insecurities and decade-old wounds that he still to this day continues to hold on a pedestal.

I hope this is sounding like a big red alarm to you - because it is - to have a deeply insecure powerful spiritual teacher is an extreme danger to the vulnerable, eager and receptive student.

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what followed for the days, months and years following, was an introduction to the BDSM culture and dynamic in which there is a dominant and a submissive…. this dynamic, and especially the sexual component of the dynamic… exacerbated a deep shutting down within my system and my abilities to trust my own intuitions, feelings and instincts…… it also provided the platform for endless manipulations, mind games, intense insecurities on my part, and a complete misdirection of my awareness and energy away from my own inner pursuit of my Goal… in the belief and trust that he was taking and guiding me towards that goal in the work that we were doing one-on-one.

Although for me this was the most sacred series of events, and yes kept me in a state of joy - that ironically was completely disembodied since sexuality was still very new to me and the whole thing I realize now was making some key parts of myself shut down and freeze - for him I now realize it was just another girl who he was being grand enough to offer an “opportunity”.. and that all the words to characterize the specialness of my work with him were complete and blatant lies and manipulations…. even from within me, as I tried my very best to rise to his requests… this was not truly coming from the most natural place within me… I was forcing myself to be a “good student”… and honestly… It was the loneliest years of my life… and the saddest part is… I have become estranged from my own self from it all.

I have not even mentioned the drugs I was exposed countless times to… which I were told were to help me “open”… and which I figured my partaking in was part of my service to my guru.

(I followed like a gullible fool, when what was obviously required of me was less time with him and more time with myself, my heart, my feelings, my breath, my own awareness and my own practice - difficult because he would call on me at all hours of the day, text me at work, text me wherever I would go - mostly i believe because he is either bored with his life or does indeed have a difficult time being in silence by himself with no stimulus))

the truth is, not only that I was incredibly intimidated by him and scared of him - he would let me know that he knew what I was thinking at all times so I began to feel unsafe even in my own mind and block out my inner alarms and intuitions for the sake of “trusting and opening”…..

To make things worse… the story I kept being fed by him was about how he had prayed for my arrival for the 5 years prior, how deeply deeply in love with me he was, how hurt he had been by life and all his years of teaching, how much suffering his life has entailed, etc etc… this put me in an incredibly awkward position of having to reassure my teacher emotionally constantly… and attempt to force myself to “surrender” to this “love” that he told me was eons old…

and I think I really really even in the face of all the red flags kept telling myself… he is just trying to give me spiritual teachings, and I need to open my mind and my heart and trust.

Swami Chetanananda complains and laments endlessly "I give everything away for free and no one appreciates it"....

well, if you initiate folks who are not ready, have not proven themselves in the preliminaries, or you initiate them without them knowing at all what commitments and vows they are making, and how to honor and renew those commitments on a daily basis... if the student just goes by his words, and by the flood of texts and messages and bullshit condescending compliments (manipulation and mockery) messages full of mundane drama and distraction.... then yes, the student will be profoundly lost and confused, always feel inadequate, will not know how to keep and cultivate what is being given, and yes, will be angry in the end when they are then profoundly damaged beyond words all the while having bent over backwards for years to try to stay in step with a teacher that kept making them feel like shit about themselves.

(the ritual of initiation is not mentioned at all but rather he does, generously, without you ever knowing that it has happened - which is not grand at all, but rather profoundly disempowering to the student who has no idea how to now care for the commitments they have been given - and will become increasingly confused by SC's constant drama and texting and asking the student to "prove herself" while she continues to run around like a chicken with her head cut off attempting to do just that - in an anxious overstimulated state due to... ALL THE SEX AND DRUGS she stupidly partook in, believing that this teacher, this Guru, Swami Chetanananda, recognized an ancient bond between her and him, more precious than anything in the world - except of course to him, because he's bull-shitting this whole time)