Sahaja Yoga: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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Cult expert [[Jean-Marie Abgrall]] has written that Sahaja Yoga exhibits the classic characteristics of a cult in the way it conditions its members.<ref name="jma">{{cite book |author=Abgrall, Jean-Marie |title=Soul Snatchers: The Mechanics of Cults |publisher=Algora Publishing |year=2000 |author-link=Jean-Marie Abgrall |pages=139–144}}</ref> These include having a god-like leader, disrupting existing relationships, and promising security and specific benefits while demanding loyalty and financial support.<ref name="jma" /> Abgrall writes that the true activities of the cult are hidden behind the projection of a positive image and an explicit statement that "Sahaja yoga is not a cult".<ref name="jma" />

Judith Coney has written that members "disguised some of their beliefs" from the outside worldnon-members.<ref name=coney1999/>{{rp|214}} Coney writes people who had left the movement welcomed the chance to talk to her as an independent researcher, but that some were fearful of reprisals if they did so, and others found their experiences too painful to revisit.<ref name=coney1999/>{{rp|214}} Most were unwilling to talk to her "on the record".<ref name=coney1999/>{{rp|214}}

An "A-Z of cults" in ''[[The Guardian]]'' reported that adherents of Sahaja Yoga found a cult designation "particularly offensive" but that the movement had been plagued by accounts of children being separated from their parents and of large financial donations made to Nirmala Srivastava.<ref name=az>{{cite news |newspaper=The Guardian |title=A-Z of cults |first=Robert |last=Cornelius |date=14 May 1995}}</ref>