From a lawyer to first female guru of Australia: Shakti Durga

She was once a Sydney lawyer named Sally. Today she is known as Shakti Durga, described in a 2013 Sydney Morning Herald profile as Australia's first female guru.

Born in Connecticut and raised in Sydney's eastern suburbs, Shakti Durga says she grew up in a family where talk of heaven and hell sat alongside dinner-table conversation. She studied law, married, had three children, and worked as a lawyer before turning to spiritual teaching full time. She founded the Shanti Mission, which runs retreats, meditation programs and study courses, and claims around 20,000 followers.

Her own account of her turning point involves illness: she says she suffered from chronic bronchitis for years until, during a trip to India in 2001, a man she describes as her guru performed what she calls energy healing — and that the condition eased afterward. That experience, she says, convinced her to dedicate her life to spiritual teaching.

The profile notes that female gurus remain rare in the Hindu tradition. Alyce Zeoli, an American woman initiated in 1988 as Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, is often cited as the Western world's first female guru. Shakti Durga's position — a Western woman teaching in the Hindu guru tradition, with a largely Western following — makes her an unusual figure in either world.

Whether the title of "guru" fits, she says, is for others to decide. "I'm not trying to be anybody's guru," she told the Herald. "I'm just trying to help people wake up."