Breath of Fire is a four-part HBO docu-series that explores the rise and fall of Guru Jagat. The series is based on the 2021 Vanity Fair article titled The Second Coming of Guru Jagat by Haley Phelan.
Guru Jagat, born as Katie Griggs, was a Colorado native who went on to transform herself into a kundalini yoga instructor, claimed to be the direct disciple of controversial spiritual leader Yogi Bhajan, and owned an otherwise successful Yoga studio in Los Angeles before it all came crashing down and ended with her untimely death in August 2021.
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Kundalini yoga as a form of yoga practice was first popularized by Yogi Bhajan in the 1970s across America. However, experts have now come to believe that Bhajan's brand of kundalini yoga was a mixture of bits and pieces collected randomly from across the sacred texts.
Eventually, when allegations of sexual assault and financial malfeasance started surfacing against Yogi Bhajan, Guru Jagat tried to wield her influence to deny the allegations on his behalf and support Bhajan unconditionally, even making her employees do the same.
Who was Guru Jagat from Breath of Fire?
Guru Jagat's real name was Katie Griggs and she was born in 1979 in Colorado. The Vanity Fair report stated that Katie had hopes of making it big as an actress or a performer, as she liked being under the limelight. In her early 20s, Katie was a confused drifter and dropped out of college owing to her struggles with addiction. She finally got a degree from Antioch College in Ohio.
Breath of Fire further details Katie's life after she came out of rehab. She started modeling herself on spiritual lines and tried her hand at astrology on YouTube.
She then founded the RA MA Institute for Applied Yogic Sciences and Technology, which was a Los Angeles-based studio that propagated kundalini yoga, with Katie, who had by then started referring to herself as Guru Jagat, taking center stage and leading other staff members.
Guru Jagat's studio defined kundalini yoga as something:
"Characterized by intense breath work, repetitive poses, and alternative lifestyle choices, such as wearing white and eating mostly vegetarian."
Throughout the 2010s Jagat's studio empire steadily grew with branches popping up in several other metro cities such as New York. She was also operating ancillary e-commerce businesses and was among the first to use Instagram for marketing and revenue generation. At her peak, she had an elite clientele that included Orlando Bloom, Russell Brand, and Alicia Keys, among many others.
Who was Guru Bhajan?
Breath of Fire reveals that Guru Bhajan was an Indian customs inspector who immigrated to the United States in the '70s. Finding himself at the right place at the right time, Bhajan realized the existential need for spirituality among the population of that era, and quickly set up the 3HO Foundation in L.A. and fashioned himself as the leader of a cult of hundreds of followers.
Apart from his supposedly spiritual leanings, Guru Bhajan was a successful businessman who ran several profitable ventures. Although Jagat claimed that she was the direct disciple of Guru Bhajan, it was likely a lie since Bhajan passed away before Jagat had arrived, as detailed in Breath of Fire.
Breath of Fire airs new episodes exclusively on HBO.
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