A scandalous exposé that rocked the Kundalini yoga community, Premka White Bird in a Golden Cage: My life with Yogi Bhajan. Is the story of a 25-year-old seeker who, in the 1970s, was held hostage by a malignant guru who held indentured slaves for several decades of his tenure as a self-proclaimed spiritual master, a sexual predator, liar, and manipulator who played with his devotees lives like pieces on a chessboard.
An earlier version of me might have wrapped another cozy layer around my many layers of felt victimhood, dependency, and ultimate powerlessness that reflected the pain of my own self-judgment, recrimination, and rejection.
There is a different, possibly more mature, essence unfolding in her story.
Throughout her narrative, Premka is clear to present the seed of conflict within herself. In this #metoo era that often involves the lynching of the male transgressor, she walks an unusual line of self-authority, stating:
“I had given him the power to guide my choices and actions…I resolved to defy, to override, my rational mind, to disregard my own intuitive voice, to dedicate myself to following this spiritual teacher wherever he might lead me.”
There is no point where she points to her guru as the perpetrator, she tells her story and the reader is allowed to make her own decisions about how she feels about Yogi Bhajan.
The dyadic power dynamic of master/student, guru/follower is revealed for its potential corruption and limitations, and now we are left with the communities that gathered around the authority figure. Left to think for ourselves. To establish our own navigational system, and to learn, as Premka says:
“to sense a deeper and more spacious connection to my own True Nature. I learned to meditate in silence, in stillness, and to be guided by the inner compass that had always been there, quietly leading me through my entire life journey.”
Premka owns her participation in her life decisions and points to an understanding of her deep, ingrained childhood wounds that contributed to keeping the door closed on that golden cage. I wrote to Pamela Saharah Dyson to thank her for writing this book and inviting us all to contemplate our own. She took the time to respond and I am grateful that she took the step, the risk, the brave choice to overcame all to write and publish her story. It gives me hope and strengthens my own voice.