tia007:
You seem to going in circles and have not directly responded to the two points mad previously.
Are you in a guru group?
Does the group encourage you to meditate for hours every day?
These are two potential warning red flags to watch for; too much meditation time (hours a day) and meditation influenced by a gurur controlled authoritarian group led by some teacher without any meaningful accountability.
Teachers at colleges have educational requirements (accredited degrees) credentials and are accountable to a school administration--guru/teachers are not.
Most churches have democratic church government (i.e. Protestant churches), but guru groups are often little more than dictatorships. Unlike pastors at churches gurus cannot be fired, nor are they held accountable through elected boards.
Other than the red flags cited above it's important to know who you are dealing with and fortunately you can Google a teacher or guru and find out if there is anything negative about him or her on the Web.
To better understand how undue influence is achieved through coercive persuasion see the following links:
[
www.culteducation.com]
[
www.culteducation.com]
To understand the distinct differences between the persuasion of education, advertising, propaganda, indoctrination and thought reform (commonly called "brainwashing") see the chart composed by Psychologist Margaret Singer below.
See [
www.culteducation.com]
There are a lot of shady gurus and teachers out there these days running yoga and meditation groups and you cannot be too careful.