 As a former spiritual teacher, I will talk to you about spiritual teachers speaking in a soft voice. Is it a coincidence that most of them do it? Is there some benefit to it? Or maybe it's just a conditioned habit that they're not even aware about. If you're interested to take a more critical look at spirituality, stay tuned. Hey, critical thinkers! As always, I invite you to grab a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage and let's sit down to talk about some critical stuff. For those of you who are here for the first time, my name is Rokas. I used to be a spiritual teacher, self-help guru, yoga instructor. I lived in a spiritual school for three years. I traveled to India. I even led my own professional meditation, yoga and martial arts school for more than seven years. I've been there all. Eventually I became dissolutioned with the whole culture and now I take a critical look at a culture which I was once part of. So do spiritual teachers have to talk in a soft voice? No. Is it natural for them to speak in a soft voice? I'd say maybe for a handful of them but definitely not the majority. I know that because I was that guy. I was that spiritual teacher who used to speak in a soft voice at certain occasions. I also had plenty of chances to hang out with spiritual teachers and they used to use that same voice and I know that it's a conditioned thing. The reason it is so, it is because spirituality and the New Age movement is a culture. It's a culture like any other. And when you are part of a culture, when you are part of a group, it is natural for us to try to fit in. It is quite natural for us to start to use the same words, the same mannerisms. But the question is, is it really for the best for the person and how far should that go? You see, the trouble that I personally see in spirituality is because it's all officially about freedom. It's all about liberation. It's all about being your true self. But if you are your true self, then why does everyone in a yoga studio or a spiritual school act the same way? They speak in a very similar way. They use the same phrases. They have the same mannerisms. They walk in the same way. And there's so many things they do the same way. And again, as I said, being part of a culture to some degree, it's natural that that's going to happen. But it's difficult to say that in spiritual schools or spiritual communities, that it's not taken to an even greater level. So if spirituality is supposed to make you into your true self, then why do you speak and act like everyone else? That applies even more so to spiritual teachers. And again, not only do they often have the same mannerisms, they also have that infamous soft speaking voice. Now, I'd like to point out that there is potentially a scientific reason behind it. I mean, behind the soft spoken voice. The best answer that I could give you in a more scientific way would be because spiritual teachers spend so much time in meditation, so much time trying to calm their mind, so much time sitting in a single place, a lot of spiritual teachers tend to be, you know, very static. And it does kind of make sense that, you know, if you're not very supportive, if you're not, you know, doing any physical training, if you're sitting there at one place and you're kind of trying to suppress your emotions, or you know, to keep the negative emotions out, then it would make sense that the testosterone levels go down. Logically thinking that could lead you to a softer voice. And the whole fact itself that you're in that Zen supposed calm state all the time, then that maybe also kind of releases the tension from your voice. And it's not like some scientific article that I read that I'm quoting here, I'm kind of reflecting in the best rational logical way that I can about an issue or phenomena that I experienced myself and I witnessed in others. But does that mean that all spiritual teachers speak in a soft way just because of those reasons? Yet again, I don't think so. You see, there's also a technical reason that we could look at. As a spiritual teacher, of course, you want to appear as calm as possible. You know, that's your whole gig. That's kind of what you're selling. You're selling peace and tranquility and potentially if you're going to talk out loud and be full of emotions, you know, there are rare cases when some spiritual teachers, I guess, are like that. But generally, they're not. And I think again, that's because whether consciously and most likely subconsciously, they're trying to sell you that sense of peace. So that voice adds into that selling package. Do they do it consciously? Again, I don't think they're mainly doing it consciously. I think it's just something they picked up along the way. Maybe those hardcore yogis, you know, the Indian ones from the past, maybe they did have that soft, broken voice. Maybe there were a few authentic ones who, you know, just naturally expressed themselves that way. But, you know, it's such a common mistake to look at the wrong things and to copy the wrong things. And that's what our subconscious does on its own. And so if you're a devoted spiritual student, then there is a natural tendency and desire for you to be as much as like your teacher as possible. You want to kind of imitate him. And you think like, okay, if I speak like him, and if I move like him, that will definitely make me more spiritual. People think that that's where spirituality is. And you know, that's nonsense. Spirituality, real spirituality in my opinion is not about how you softly speak or how you move. It's about other things. It's about more important things such as values and what you actually do with them. You know, if you're just being a self-spoken person and you move in a soft way, that does not make you better. And trust me, there are a lot of yogis and spiritual teachers who nailed the whole presentation really well, but they're assholes. You know, I met myself, some spiritual teachers who nailed that picture, you know, that way of speaking and that way of moving. But under that, if you get to know them more, they're like, you know, they're angry, they're bitter, they're egocentric. There's a lot of shit that you can hide behind that self-spoken voice and mannerism. Oh, and by the way, as I keep seeing spiritual teachers, you know, that kind of takes a long time. So let's save time and let's start calling them STs. You know, and I'm kind of conscious that it reminds of STDs, sexually transmitted diseases, but I kind of even like the term more now because STs, you know, the spiritual teachers, they are kind of contagious as well and, you know, they transmit their mannerisms and sometimes their twisted ideologies. So from now on, if I say STs, you know what I'm talking about. So now coming back to the main topic of the soft-spokenness, yet again, I don't think most spiritual teachers do it consciously. I think they just pick it up along the way. But the thing is they don't question it. And that's one of the big major flaws of spirituality, of New Age movement, and a lot of other movements. It's, there's a lack of critical thinking, or in other words, questioning. So see, most of the spiritual teachers, they don't question themselves and they don't ask themselves, so why do I speak in this soft-spoken voice? Or why do I move this way? Why do I use this phrase? Usually they just subconsciously pick it up and they just continue along the way because they think, you know, if I'm imitating my teacher, my spiritual teacher, even if I do it without conscious recognition, the more similar I will, I act and talk like him, that means definitely the more spiritual as I am. And again, I pointed out that that's not what spirituality is really about. But most people confuse these things. Interestingly, as I'm speaking right now, I remember that once when I was in a Buddhist camp, like a meditation camp for like five days or seven days, there was a famous Lama who came down and you know, and he's like everyone who's worshiping him and he's like, you know, amazing in their eyes. And I got to know a little bit about the ins and outs of that specific Buddhist culture of that specific movement. And I don't know that them in depth, but actually one of the things which I was taught or told by some of the participants in that big huge camp, apparently one of the techniques to become enlightened that they were suggesting to each other was to try to imitate the Lama as best as you can, that spiritual teacher. Like that was a legit teaching of them to copy the spiritual teacher and they thought that the more you will act like him, the more you will talk like him, the more you will move like him, that will make you more enlightened, which is mental, it's crazy, but that shows you know, how much that part of the culture is that copying of the spiritual teacher. Now when I look back at myself as a spiritual teacher, when I was leading my school, you know, when I was teaching classes, and I remember using myself that soft voice as well. I was especially using it when I was guiding meditations and when I was teaching yoga. I would actually notice sometimes that I would go into this kind of mode of spiritual teacher and my voice would shift, you know, my posture would shift, and I would recognize somewhere inside that I was trying to copy or imitate my teacher the way, you know, he led the class, the course, but I did it because I thought, you know, that that will help me, like I thought that that's necessary because that will make me more spiritual, I will communicate my message better, and with time I realized, you know, that's nonsense. As I mentioned in the beginning of the video, eventually I became disillusioned with the whole culture and you know, there's other videos on this channel where I talk more in depth on how that happened, but specifically looking at the soft spokeness, when I became disillusioned with spirituality and the whole thing, I started to question myself and I started to ask, so why am I doing this, and so many things were thrown out of the window, including the soft spokeness. I actually realized that spiritual mannerism and the soft spokeness was not really working for the benefit of my students. One of the reasons, because that mannerism is so clear, that spokeness is so specific, my students would get into falling into that trap of believing that they, that's what spirituality is, that they need to copy me in order to be more spiritual, and that's not the message I really wanted to give them. The message that I realized that I wanted to give was that you can be a regular normal person, you can be casual, you know, you can be flawed, we are all flawed, even the spiritual teachers trust me, they're flawed, some of them are more flawed than you think, I'm going to make more videos actually about that. But I think that's the beauty, if you can be flawed openly and if you can be, you know, not perfect and casual and natural, you can be just the regular human being and have super high values and be really incredible, can put more effort and be more caring than a regular person just authentically without those soft speaking phrases and spiritual sentences, but you're just a regular person who's really good, you know, you really care for people and you really put extra effort to be a good human being. Now that's much more inspiring and that's kind of what I started to aim for, I started to tone down my spiritual teacher mode, I became much more casual and some students didn't like it, some students were shocked, they're like, oh my god, Rokas is such a human being, what is this? But then as the new generation started to come in, they appreciated much more, they were like, they would see, you know, that I'm a hard worker, that you know, I meditate and I read books and I work on myself really hard, but I'm also a certain degree, I'm also a regular guy, like you can be great as you are yourself, you don't need to imitate me, you don't need to copy me, just do your best to be better and that's more than enough. And again, soft spokeness and spiritual mannerism is entirely not necessary in this case, it actually can work against that. One of the things which actually struck me most later in the years following after I became disillusioned was that after a break of being part of the spiritual community, sometimes spiritual teachers would rent my studio to give courses as they visited the city because, you know, my studio was well known, I had a spiritual teacher, like a well known locally spiritual teacher visiting, and you know, I thought maybe the spiritual teacher is not that bad, I knew of his spiritual teacher, which is Muji, it's like he's a famous spiritual teacher, a western spiritual teacher, I'm actually planning to make a video sharing some stories like that, he's mental, he's nuts, he's not all that great, but you know, but at the day I thought he's, you know, he's great, I read his book and I kind of liked it, and I thought, you know, this guy probably is nice too as well. And as I was sitting there listening to his spiritual talk, it wasn't like it was entirely bad or something, but the thing is, I could recognize myself in him, especially in the mannerism and the way he spoke, what things he spoke, it was not him, it was like a carbon copy of the spiritual teacher, one more out of a thousand. Because I was there, I could see that that was not his true self, you know, that was not his authentic expression, that was just him imitating his teacher and playing the spiritual teacher's role, because he as well thought, like, that's the way you go, you know, that's the real thing, and probably he didn't even realize it himself, but he was definitely playing a role. Again, when you look at that self-spokenness, do you think that spiritual teacher, you know, that was hanging out in my studio, do you think he spoke like that ever since he was born? Are you really certain that just somehow his testosterone levels perhaps just went so much down in a short period of time that he suddenly started to talk like that? I don't think so, you know, I think that some, again, gurus maybe had that natural expression in the soft voice, but I think most of the people, they're just carbon copies of those people and it's a bunch of bullshit. And yet again, spirituality is supposed to be liberating, it's supposed to make you into your true authentic self, but if everyone is acting in the same way, including the spiritual teacher and even sometimes suggesting to act like the spiritual teacher, like, what the heck is this? Where's the liberation? Where's the freedom? Where's the authenticity? It's actually the opposite. And as I said, it's natural for groups to kind of blend together and be similar, but if you're promoting authenticity, then what the fuck are you doing, spirituality? The more I realized this dissonance, the more I started to feel a distaste for spirituality. It became extremely clear, especially when I was in a spiritual lesson the last time, like, was like a spiritual event that I accidentally went to. I didn't realize where I was and I was like, the moment I realized I was like, shoot, where did I get myself in time? But then I stopped and I thought, you know what, I'll just have a critical look at the whole thing and I'll observe what's happening. It's gonna be like a scientific event for me. And then I observed the spiritual teacher who was the young lady. She was like 22, 25 most. And there it was, the same exact thing. She was soft spoken, her mannerism, slow motion movements, what she said. It was all like, I've seen it a hundred of times. I've been there myself. I saw it's a fake carbon copy, which she's convinced in that that's the way to do. I could see, you know, that's not her, especially at that age. It's like, no, it's not. It's a copy. It's a fake product that she's not even probably aware of herself. But still, you know, I tried to listen to her and I tried to see, maybe she's gonna make some sense. Maybe I'll hear something good. But then there was one moment, she was about to lead us through these crazy, you know, trans dancing and hit the towel to the ground and scream stuff, you know, like lunacy. And then before she started, she said, you know, if you don't feel comfortable about doing some of the exercises, don't worry, you can go to the kitchen, you know, you can have a cup of tea. That's not a problem. And as I was listening to her, I was like, Oh, this is great. You know, that was me as well. Like when I was teaching spirituality for the last couple of years before I dropped it entirely, I would all the time give those disclaimers. I would say, okay, you know, this, this practice is kind of weird. If you don't feel like doing it, don't worry about it. Most spiritual teachers won't give you that option. They're gonna tell you, you know, oh, you're not spiritual enough to do it. So initially I thought, oh, great that she said it, great that she gave that option. But then she elaborated by saying, don't worry about not doing it because some people are just not yet ready. And that just caught me. I became so pissed. That was the epithome of the spirituality bullshit. That phrase that encapsulated the notion of that superiority that most spiritual teachers and students have. You know, they talk about equality, but that soft spokenness and that mannerism, it's an in group thing. You start to feel like, okay, I'm spiritual and he's not. And you can, you know, skip these exercises, but that means you're not as spiritual as I am, and you're not ready. And I am ready. It's, it's so egocentric. It's so arrogant. And that was a whole representation of it, which is all over spirituality. And again, the soft spokenness is the same thing. I am soft spoken. I am superior because I have more calmness and I have more karma points and I'm, I'm more calm and meditated than you are. All of that is encompassed in that speaking mode, whether you realize it or not. It gives you a sense of superiority with your students and with everyone else. And that is a bunch of bullshit. As I already said, what I realized is much more important is to simply be a good person. You know, it's not about acting spiritual, it's not about talking spiritual, soft spoken, moist, anything. It's not even being a part of a spiritual group. Just try to be better, work on yourself, notice your mistakes, fix your mistakes, acknowledge your mistakes, and you're already going to be more spiritual than most spiritual people. If you want more videos, taking a critical look at spirituality, make sure to click the playlist right here. You'll find some more honest videos like this one. And there's also a story of how I used to be a spiritual teacher, what mistakes I did, and how I came to realize them. As always, thanks for hanging out, and let's keep creating a culture of critical thinking together.