Kriti Mehrotra
Although born Katie Ann Griggs on August 30, 1979, in Fort Collins, Colorado, before being brought up around the area by a single mother, Guru Jagat was never just a small-town girl at heart. In fact, as expressed in HBO’s ‘Breath of Fire’ by those closest to her, she always had a spiritual side, which eventually helped her evolve into a global Kundalini Yoga Teacher and Entrepreneur. However, no one could have ever imagined she would actually essentially end up serving as a cult leader whose individual actions/lifestyle allegedly often contradicted what she preached.
How Did Guru Jagat Earn Her Money?
It was around the late 1990s or early 2000s that Guru Jagat reportedly decided to drop out of college and forgo the traditional path in exchange for spiritual inner peace. That’s because she was not only allegedly sexually assaulted while pursuing her higher education but had also fallen into a dark spiral of substance abuse while trying to find herself. She did receive incredible support and help from her mother around this, but she hated all the 12-step programs as she believed they had a victim mentality rather than a survivor one, which is when she gravitated towards yoga.
Kundalini Yoga is the particular form of this practice that she fell in love with, unaware her mentor Harbhajan Singh Khalsa (aka Yogi Bhajan) had been teaching his own unique brand of it in the US since the late 1960s. Nevertheless, it helped her overcome her issues to such an extent she soon decided to continue being involved in this community as a teacher, earning her qualifications in 2004. She initially started by teaching small groups in her living room and running a website with the title Kundalini Katie, only to gradually evolve under the tutelage of another guru, Harijiwan Khalsa.
According to records, Katie was so enamored by his teachings and all that he did that her lessons sounded like his too, which they realized was a great thing as the years passed by. After all, it helped them give Kundalini Yoga a new face, a role she gladly accepted, considering her own desire to teach and her childhood dream of being a performer of some kind one day. This former theater kid and aspiring poet hence established The RA MA Institute for Applied Yogic Science and Technology in Los Angeles, California, in 2013, with women being their core target customers.
Guru Jagat opened her second studio in Boulder, Colorado, a year later, shortly following which one in New York and another in Mallorca, Spain, were also launched. As if that’s not enough, she also realized the importance of technology and social media quite early on, making her gradually establish online accounts, the ‘Reality Riffing with Guru Jagat’ podcast, and digital platform RA MA TV. Moreover, by the time 2020 rolled around, she was also serving as the owner-operator of the RA MA record label, the clothing brand Guru Jagat Collection, and the lifestyle brand Robotic Disaster, all the while also having published a book titled ‘Invincible Living: The Power of Yoga, The Energy of Breath and Other Tools for a Radiant Life’ in 2017.
Guru Jagat’s Net Worth
Guru Jagat never made her income or earnings public, yet we do know she ran 7 businesses as well as one non-profit organization while also having a penchant for all things luxurious. The fact she was often embroiled in controversy, with several former employees claiming they were paid minimum wage, there was back pay, or they weren’t paid at all, also paints a clear picture of her financial standing. In fact, per a former RA MA bookkeeper in the aforementioned HBO documentary series, she spent money so carelessly that the Boulder studio’s investors pulled out within years. The fact she allegedly used credit cards didn’t help either, as it only seemingly resulted in her being in a lot of debt by the time she sadly passed on August 1, 2021.
This is actually despite Guru Jagat’s hefty charges for her services, even expressing on her platforms that spiritual peace is expensive and that in today’s world, such a path is bound to lead to prosperity. Per records, there were different levels of courses under her teachings, with the online Aquarian Women’s Leadership Society costing around $727/year, in-person courses costing $1,500/year, and The Graces retreats costing at least $2,000/year. However, per everyone close to her – whether her parents or employees, she never got this money to herself, used company resources whenever possible, and was in debt/nearly broke when she, unfortunately, died from complications from a cardiac arrest caused by a pulmonary embolism at the age of 41. Therefore, we believe that Guru Jagat’s net worth was around $500,000 when she passed in 2021.
Read More: Yogi Bhajan’s Net Worth: How Rich Was the Kundalini Yoga Guru at the Time of His Death?
