Walk into an Indian bookshop anywhere, whether at an airport, in a mall, or in a standalone store, and visit the section labelled Philosophy. Read the titles and authors. Chances are, you will find shelves filled with books by Indian godmen, gurus, yoga masters, and spiritual teachers. This trend is not limited to bookshops. Modern-day gurus and spiritual preachers often choose to brand themselves as philosophers. Their followers refer to their master’s spiritual talks as philosophical discourses. There are even websites that describe interviews with gurus, where they converse with celebrities, as “philosophical debates."

Some gurus are acutely aware that spirituality appears deeper when it is marketed as philosophy. Yet, since they want their package to stand out from the thousands of similar products in the market, they claim that their teaching is not philosophy at all, but the opposite of it. This so-called “anti-philosophy" has nothing to do with Wittgenstein or Badiou. It is merely another rephrasing—a rhetoric—that grants importance to philosophy by rejecting it. And in doing so, they continue to frame their mystical teachings in relation to philosophy.

Why is Indian mysticism or spirituality so often described as philosophy? If you are to use a modern definition, how much of what these Gurus say can truly be called philosophy? In other words, how do the spiritual men define philosophy? And where do spirituality and philosophy part ways?

These questions, in fact, are not limited to Indian philosophy. In his classic work The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, Etienne Gilson contemplates similar issues in relation to Christianity as well. Although the expression Christian philosophy seems both natural and appropriate in the context of medieval thought, Gilson wonders “whether the very concept of Christian Philosophy has any real meaning." To examine the foundations, he poses another question: “What intellectual advantages were to be gained by turning to the Bible and the Gospel as sources of philosophic inspiration?"

Perhaps it is high time we reframed the question to suit our own circumstances and asked it aloud: What intellectual advantages are to be gained by turning to the new age gurus and their methods? If you are familiar with the field, you can probably guess the answer. It would be something like this: there is no intellectual advantage to be gained. For what we preach—our system—is not for the intellect. It is for the soul. It is for what lies beyond intellect. You cannot appreciate it, comprehend it, or even approach it with the expectation of an intellectual grasp.

Oh! The solace of vagueness! The comfort of ambiguity!

Most Indian gurus claim to show a path to enlightenment, a state in which one is free from worries, lives “in the moment," and experiences life “fully and completely" or “meditatively," existing in a constant state of inner bliss. If spiritual practice were presented only as a path of hardship, filled with intense meditation and numerous obstacles, it would hardly appeal to the modern seeker. Therefore, another dimension of the entire tradition is emphasised: Ananda, or blissfulness. Everlasting ultimate joy. Some form of this inner bliss is the unique selling point of almost all spiritual........

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