When Surrender Becomes Exploitation: an psychological aspect

As a student, I entered spiritual life with the most sincere intentions. Initially, the responsibilities I was given seemed entirely manageable. But if you performed them sincerely, the amount of service kept increasing until studies, health, rest, and personal life were deeply compromised. Whenever I raised concerns about my academics suffering, I was met with the calculation that there are twenty-four hours in a day, leaving little room for rest, which was rarely viewed as a necessity. Relaxing, scrolling social media, or recovering from exhaustion was treated as wasted time that could have been used for more service.

When my professional goals or studies suffered, the explanation was always directed back at me. I was told I lacked discipline, consistency, surrender, seriousness, or proper sadhana. The system instinctively looked for flaws in the individual rather than flaws in the sheer volume of the workload. If I hesitated to accept even more responsibilities — having already been provided food, guidance, and accommodation — I was made to feel selfish, opportunistic, or ungrateful. Comparisons with other students were common, and pointing out structural problems resulted in being labeled emotional, immature, whimsical, undisciplined, or lacking humility. Over time, I even began feeling grateful for this crushing criticism, mistakenly believing that being humbled was a sign of genuine spiritual progress.

The Heartbreak of Misused Devotion

I invested thousands of hours into responsibilities that I believed were directly contributing to Krishna’s service and assisting in preaching work. What disturbed me later was the devastating realization that a non-trivial amount of those sacrifices may not have been serving the divine purpose I believed they were. My sincere desire to serve had, at times, been used to satisfy the personal ambitions, the need for recognition, and the unresolved anarthas of those in positions of authority. The hours, opportunities, and years were gone, and the realization that my pure intentions were misused to keep someone else in the spotlight hurt me to the deepest part of my heart.

This was compounded by a growing separation from the outside world, which was frequently portrayed as spiritually dangerous, materially contaminated, and fundamentally misguided. Furthermore, whenever I raised broader institutional concerns, I was told that senior authorities possessed far greater realization, knowledge, and spiritual standing, making my questioning a reflection of immaturity. It became increasingly difficult to distinguish between healthy humility and a reluctance to ask difficult questions.

Finding the Vocabulary of Control

For a long time, I struggled to explain why these experiences left me so uncomfortable, always assuming the problem was my own lack of sincerity, discipline, or surrender. That assumption remained unchallenged until I encountered a book titled Manipulation Techniques: How To Manipulate People With Persuasion, Dark Psychology And Mind Control by Dale J. Rucker. I was not looking for explanations about my spiritual life, but as I read, I found myself repeatedly pausing because the descriptions felt surprisingly familiar. For the first time, I had a vocabulary capable of describing what I had endured:

• Gaslighting: I was repeatedly taught that my perception and judgment were unreliable due to spiritual immaturity, leading me to distrust my own reasoning whenever it conflicted with authority.
• Blame-Shifting: When health declined or responsibilities became overwhelming, the explanation always returned to my personal shortcomings rather than the unrealistic workload.
• Weaponized Confessions: We were encouraged to reveal our struggles to receive help, but those private vulnerabilities often resurfaced later in criticisms, jokes, or indirect remarks, leaving me feeling exposed rather than supported.
• Intermittent Reinforcement & Trauma Bonding: Relationships fluctuated between overwhelming affection and sudden distance, silence, or neglect, leaving me working even harder to regain approval.
• Foot-in-the-Door & Moving the Goalposts: Small, reasonable responsibilities gradually consumed my life, and no matter how much was done, there was always another service, standard, or level of surrender to meet.
• Flaw-Bombing: The constant emphasis on my faults, impurities, and conditioning made me wonder if hearing only about my flaws for years was designed to make me dependent on the leaders claiming to help me.
• Silencing Concerns: Whenever concerns were raised about senior members, the discussion immediately shifted to Vaishnava aparadha (criticism) and the dangers of seeing faults, blurring the line between legitimate concerns and destructive fault-finding.

I did not conclude that every experience was manipulation, or that every concept applied perfectly. But for the first time, I found myself asking: what if these experiences were not isolated incidents, and what if similar patterns were being experienced by others?

This realization is why I wrote Perfect Answer, Perfect Question:Revisiting Foundations of Faith. It is a space to explore how devotion can be subtly exploited, how we can find the language to finally articulate our pain, and how we can reclaim our spiritual autonomy.

Read here https://souravuttarkabat.github.io/book-website/