About the Guests

Hari-kirtana das is a yoga teacher, spiritual mentor, and author. He's been practicing devotional yoga and various other yogic disciplines for the better part of the last 50 years, has lived in yoga ashrams and intentional spiritual communities, and has a talent for making complex ideas about spiritual philosophy easy to understand. 

Kenneth Rose, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, and professor of philosophy and religion. As a scholar-practitioner, he specializes in comparative religion, comparative mysticism, and spirituality.

Trish Tillman is a history professor and yoga teacher in the Washington, DC area. She holds a Ph.D. in History from the Catholic University of America and teaches at the University of Maryland - Global Campus. Trish has been steadily involved in the study and practice of Bhakti yoga, via her teacher, Hari-kirtana das. 

Stephanie Corigliano is the editor for Tarka at Embodied Philosophy. She works as a lecturer in the Religious Studies department at Cal Poly, Humboldt. Stephanie holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Theology from Boston College University and an MA in Theology from Loyola Marymount University.

In this episode, we discuss:

1. The concept and role of the guru in present-day spheres of yoga and academia.
2. The overlaps and differences between guru and teacher.
3. What the yogic tradition has to say about the qualifications of a guru and misconceptions about the role.
4. The emergence of scholar-practitioners in academic religious studies and its impact.
5. Why the guru role is still relevant. 
6. The debate over female gurus within the Hare Krishnas in the West as a microcosm of the larger debate over female gurus and spiritual authorities.
7. How the guru role may evolve in our unbounded, modern time.