Kriti Mehrotra
As a documentary series delving deep into the life, career, and death of Kundalini yoga teacher Guru Jagat, HBO’s ‘Breath of Fire’ is truly unlike any other. That’s because it comprises not just archival footage but also exclusive footage to really shine a light upon how the organization run by her and her mentors was essentially a cult owing to their extreme beliefs. We say extreme because they made this spiritual practice their life instead of a part of their life, which inadvertently ultimately sadly resulted in the young woman passing away at the age of 41 in 2021.
Guru Jagat Never Really Followed a Traditional Path
Although born on August 30, 1979, in Fort Collins, Colorado, as Katie Ann Griggs, Guru led an unabashedly open and spiritual life alongside her mother while growing up. After all, after her father left the family behind when she was just a year and a half old, her mother took on all the workload while also ensuring that compassion and empathy were instilled in her children. She actually brought them up surrounded by New Age techniques, especially as she worked as a farmer and a special-eds therapist before developing Parkinson’s in her 40s.
Nevertheless, according to Nansy Ann Steinhorn-Galloway’s own accounts, she and her daughter Katie (she doesn’t refer to her as Guru Jagat as she believed she never knew that person) remained close throughout the years. The fact she supported her earlier dreams of wanting to be a performer, whether as a poet, theatre kid, or activator and then provided unwavering care after she was sexually assaulted in college only brought them closer together. However, little did Nansy know that her Guru’s relocation to New York in the early 2000s would turn her entire world upside down.
Guru Jagat’s Journey With Kundalini Yoga Was Inspiring to Many
While Guru had been involved in all things astrology and spiritual from an early age, it wasn’t until she was in New York that she found Kundalini Yoga and became immersed in it. Her direct mentor was actually Harijiwan Khalsa, who many believe to be the unofficial successor of this yoga style’s creator Yogi Bhajan, who passed away in 2004 – that’s the same year she received her teaching certification. Nevertheless, despite her certification carrying the name Guru Jagat and her having claimed she received it from Yogi himself, she initially went by just Kundalini Katie.
Kundalini Katie reportedly started her career by teaching classes in her living room and having an informative and educational website, only to then spread her wings alongside Harijiwan. As per reports, it was the latter who pushed her to move ahead when he noticed her charm and stage presence, making it evident she was the new face of this yoga and its stance on women’s equality. Therefore, in 2013, she established the RA MA Institute for Applied Yogic Science and Technology in Los Angeles, California, just to open a second studio center for the same in Colorado in 2014.
This institution opened branches in New York and Mallorca, Spain, in another few years, following which Guru Jagat honed in on having members advance in paid courses. Alongside this, she also established a few other businesses, including digital platform RA MA TV, record label RA MA Records, clothing brand Guru Jagat Collection, and lifestyle brand Robotic Disaster, all the while penning a book in 2017. She actually did all this while also traveling the world to expand her and her late Guru Yogi Bhajan’s work, through which many were actually able to leave tough situations or their vices behind.
Guru Jagat’s Downfall Began in the Early 2020s
It was following the extreme sexual assault allegations against Yogi Bhajan in the early 2020s, long after he had passed, that people began questioning Guru Jagat as she backed her Guru. That’s despite her work at RA MA and her lessons often focusing on feminism and feminist aspects, with her being a survivor herself. Then came her denial of the COVID-19 pandemic and her views on several other conspiracy theories on her podcast ‘Reality Riffing with Guru Jagat,’ where she even interviewed Holocaust denier David Icke. People then also began questioning how she got the name Guru Jagat, to which she said she got it from Yogi Bhajan before he passed, but she never said she actually met him for long.
Nevertheless, Guru Jagat continued to work, only to sadly break her ankle in Germany while on a work-related tour in early 2021. However, instead of getting treatment there, she chose to fly to Los Angeles, California, and get surgery done on it, shortly after which she made it clear she was in pain and not doing very well. However, no one could have imagined that she’d be admitted to the hospital just a short while later owing to a cardiac arrest caused by a pulmonary embolism following surgery. She sadly passed away from complications related to the same on August 1, 2021, at the age of 41, leaving behind her mother, stepfather, brother, and husband, Teg Nam (married in 2019). As per records, she caused her fair share of pain as RA MA’s leader – fostering a negative work environment, nonpayment of salary, etc. – yet many believe she just got caught in a bad cycle and followed Harijiwan with full trust owing to her own daddy issues.
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