Guru Diaries

A graphic novel by L. Levin

Fernanda and Neeru once shared a love so radiant it opened doorways of light—until the guru they trusted turned the sacred into terror.

Set in the grunge-soaked streets of 1990s Cambridge, Guru Diaries explores the terrifying intersection of spiritual abuse and psychotic depression.17-year-old Fernanda must fight to save her girlfriend, Neeru, from a devastation no amount of love can heal: Neeru’s own parents—and even a part of Neeru herself—believe her abuser is God Incarnate.The story flips the ascetic ideal on its head—romantic love isn't an obstacle to spiritual ecstasy—it is the portal. Guru Diaries taps into our innate yearning for a love more radiant than dreams, revealing that the highest peak of mystical experience isn't found in solitude, but in each other.

“We were scientists of surrender. Girls with pens and breath and theory, charting each other like living constellations.”

“The peril of teenage romance isn't its ignorance of love but its knowledge of it.”

L. Levin is a writer, musician, and humorist based in the Midwest. By trade, he is an entertainer for the elderly, using music and laughter to bring levity to life’s later chapters.Guru Diaries is rooted in Levin's lived history. A former resident of Cambridge and Boston, he studied Expressive Therapies at Lesley University and spent over twenty years in Eastern spiritual communities—including those that unraveled under predatory leadership.Drawing on this background and his experience as a primary caretaker for a loved one surviving psychotic depression, Levin writes to explore the collision of faith and madness. Guru Diaries is an act of witnessing—giving voice to the terrifying silence that falls when spirituality is weaponized, and the ecstatic freedom found in reclaiming one's own soul.

Join The Inner Circle