When I first found out about Jay, I would have never thought I would say these words. Jay Shetty is FAKE. As a Buddhist, it is upsetting in what he is doing. To the eye of someone who doesn’t follow the Buddha, it may seem that this man is a saint or the most Buddhist person on earth, but let’s break this down. First, let’s get to know Jay a little. Jay claims to be a man who chose being a monk over being a businessman in London. He studied at a very well-known London business school, and halfway through his degree, he chose to go to India and become a monk. Now, this all sounds great, but there are some things that don’t add up.
He claims to have learned a deep understanding of Buddha's teaching in just three years, and now it’s his job to teach everyone the Buddha's way and all the wisdom that comes along with it. Not to mention the fact that he charges thousands and thousands of dollars each year to learn this so-called wisdom. So, as mentioned, there are a few things that I think are wrong with Jay and his business. First of all, my Buddhist teacher has been a monk for over 25 years and still says he has only scratched the surface. This is because teachings are so in-depth, and as the Buddha always said, “once you stop learning, you might as well be dead.”
Second of all, the amount of money he charges to hear his wisdom. The Buddha had said in a number of scriptures, "do not sell this wisdom." He says that his teachings should be free to all living beings. The baseline of Buddhism is around not having materialistic things, e.g., money, to be happy, which is why real Buddhist monks live in monasteries for their whole life. Not just for three years, then come back to England and make a whole heap of money. According to trustworthy Google, his net worth is over $4.5 million. Now, I tried researching if there are any organizations that he donates that $4.5 million to; this is what most true Buddhist people would do. There is no evidence of him donating anything less than a couple of thousand dollars. Now I am not saying he needs to be broke and sleeping on the streets, but if you are teaching Buddhism, you should at least try to live by the 3 precepts.
So, for people who first start following Jay, he does seem like a genuinely nice person, and he does seem to have a great understanding of the Buddhist way of life, but once you start looking past all the fancy videos, the fancy marketing, and the nonsense that he talks about, and really focus on what the Buddha teaches, to put it bluntly, he’s full of shit and knows very little about the teaching.
Another thing from a business level that I find quite funny is he claims that his life coaching course, which costs $7500 thousand quid per term, is equivalent to doing a uni degree yet. It’s not recognized by any proper accredited training association or has any actual qualification that you leave the course with, so this means you pay $7500 quid per term for nothing. If you practice Buddhism, how can you rip so many people off thousands of dollars every day and still claim that you follow the Buddha even a little bit? As I said at the start of the blog, it’s just sad.
Thank you for reading,
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