Who’s Your Guru? Pedestals, Pedophiles, and Perfection

Be careful who you idolize.

(Originally published on Nov. 19, 2025 in Sacred Creative Soul Speaks)

“RIP Deepak Chopra. Not because he’s dead, but because his name appeared in the Epstein emails.”

That was the opening hook for a reel that left me feeling confused and disappointed.

While I would never refer to Deepak Chopra as my guru, I have been following him and his work for decades. I remember when he first appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in 1993, and when his book, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, was published. I bought the book and read it in a couple of sittings. My spiritual seeking heart gobbled up his teachings, which felt to me like a breath of fresh air, and I purchased several of the 83 books he has written over the years. One of his books, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, published in 1994, remained on The New York Times’ Bestseller’s List for 72 weeks.

This man has sold a ton of books.

Today, when I learned that his name appeared in that famous pedophile’s emails, it forced me to examine why I had such a visceral reaction to this news. It’s because I had somehow placed him on a pedestal. I looked up to him as someone who had attained the spiritual knowledge and understanding that I aspired to. I looked up to him as a writer who had published so many successful books.

It will be interesting to see whether his association with that pack of predators will tank his meteoric success or if he will be implicated further. As for me, his fall has taught me to keep my eyes on my own paper, so to speak– to not look to a teacher or guide to replace the wisdom that’s already within me.

I will admit that I have fallen into the trap of this culture, which idolizes certain people for their accomplishments. I did not know this man. I did not know what he was really like as a human being. After doing just a little bit of research into his background and the reporting on his life, I can see now that he was just another human being who found a lot of success in his industry and rose to an incredible amount of fame and recognition by becoming associated with people like Oprah Winfrey, whose popularity at the time helped catapult him to fame.

I imagine I had the idea that Chopra was a spiritual master who had done “the work” and somehow risen above the trappings of wealth and celebrity in this culture.

I was wrong.

Because what on earth is a spiritual teacher doing hanging out with the likes of Jeffrey Epstein, and corresponding with him via email? Let me be clear, he has not yet been linked to any criminal activity.

I am doing my best not to judge this man, and I sincerely hope he has a safe passage through my mind. His life choices are none of my business, and I forgive myself for ever thinking that he was in any way better than me. We’re both human beings trying to figure out this thing called life.

So, I am taking my pen to paper today to share my thought process about the spirituality industry and how we, as human beings, tend to look up to others whom we perceive to be on a higher level. What I want to remind you is that you, dear reader, have everything you need inside you right now. Whatever wisdom Deepak Chopra managed to tap into and fill 83 books with is also available to you, and it’s available to me. I need to keep reminding myself of this truth.

Holding another out to be a guru and looking up to them is a good way to shift our responsibility for uncovering the truth that lives within us. This man became so ridiculously successful because enough people believed he had something they needed and that it could be bought.

As a spiritual coach, teacher, minister, and prayer practitioner, I have always understood that I am here to work myself out of a job. What I mean by that is this: when I pray with and for someone, I am lending my consciousness and my knowledge of the truth of who they are. My work is to hold the space for their healing and transformation until they can hold this knowledge and belief for themselves.

I have never aspired to be anyone’s guru.

What I know is that the divine, the Creator, the Mother/Father God lives within you and is expressing itself through you and as your life. I never want anyone to ever “look up” to me for anything. I will always point them back to themselves. This is why I write about deconversion and deconstruction. Spirituality can become toxic and a crutch in the same way that religion can if handled inappropriately.

In closing, I’ll ask, Who is your guru?

Who do you look up to with a bit of awe? Who can do no wrong in your eyes? I would offer that you pull back some of the reverence in which you might be holding another human being and aim it at yourself.

Your Source, the Spirit of the Most High, the Creator, Great Spirit, All There Is–no matter what you call it, is living on the inside of you. So don’t look up or out, because there’s no out there. Look within. That’s where you’ll find your spiritual liberation.

You are perfect as you are. You don’t need salvation or Baptism or Communion, meditation, Yoga, crystals, sage, a sweat lodge, or plant medicine to be healed and whole. You need to trust that whoever/whatever created you has got you. The Creator of the universe is absolutely in love with you.

When you know that for sure, you won’t need a guru anyway.