Rafie Faruq on the Spiritual Side of AI
When did your spiritual journey begin?
My spiritual journey began early, around six or seven years old. I remember doing breath and energy meditations before my primary school entrance exam, long before I had words for what those were. By ten, while most kids were playing football, I was deep in internal debates about the nature of God. I spent my teens reading everything I could get my hands on about esoteric phenomena- dream work, ghosts, psychic phenomena. Filling notebooks with dreams, some of which later appeared to come true. My parents used to joke I was from another planet. They might’ve been onto something.
How does spirituality play into your day-to day running of genie aI? and hoW do you maintain consistency of practice While navigating the intensity of a fast-groWth tech company?
Running a tech company like Genie is high-risk and high-speed. But my spiritual practices -whether it’s morning kriyas, breathwork, or mantra, create an inner stability. I don’t see it as separate from the business – it’s imbued throughout business. Spirituality keeps me sane, grounded, and clear. It makes space for intuition, which is where many of our best strategic decisions come from. We run regular wellbeing sessions for our company, from conscious connected breathwork to sound therapy. But I’m most interested in using principles such as those in sacred geometry to design teams, products and user interfaces, and actually using spirituality as a competitive advantage, not just defensively. Nature has all the answers, so we build in harmony with natural life.
You’ve described business and spirituality as “interconnected forms of creation” – What does that mean to you as a founder?
Spirituality is the music of creation and creation is the art of business – the two are inherently linked. In business, we are trying to create products and services that are of value to others. Spirituality is the music and the mathematics with which we do that creation. For example, Amazon are famous for creating the “two pizza rule”, where the optimal development team is roughly the size of the amount of people that can eat two pizzas, i.e. 7 people. But in spirituality and sacred geometry specifically, we already know that much of the universe is already organised around the rule of 7, be it in days of the week, colours of the rainbow, musical notes on the diatonic scale, etc. Furthermore, if you help your industry progress to a better place via your products, I would argue that is as much a spiritual mission as a platonic one!
How do your daily practices
help you stay grounded
and make clearer decisions
in those moments of
uncertainty or stress?
They help me pause. They create that vital second between stimulus and response. In the pause, I can feel into decisions rather than react. Whether it’s a tough hiring call or product direction, my practice gives me clarity. It also means I’m not making decisions from the wrong place, but from a place of presence and 360 degree vision.
Can you tell us about a time When a spiritual practice helped you solve a business challenge?
During a time when speed in the company was slowing down, I went to do a conscious connected breathwork session with my co-founder and our top engineer. During the session I received many downloads about an entirely new team structure, one that had never been conceived of before that would enable maximum autonomy but not forgo alignment. Within 1 week we restructured the whole company to this new structure with good results.
How do you bring mindfulness and compassion into leadership, especially When faced with difficult decisions or pressures?
I try to lead from the heart. That doesn’t mean being soft; it means being clear and kind at the same time. If someone’s not a fit, I’ll be honest, but with respect and empathy. Compassion also means holding space for people’s emotions, and for their potential. The term mindfulness is a mistake, as spirituality actually means to quieten the mind, not excite it. Instead we can think of “soulfulness” – this is the practice of presence, and leadership is really just presence in action. Honesty and congruence is the key – a true spiritual person will think, speak and act in alignment. This builds trust, regardless of whether you’re giving your team good news or bad news.
You haven’t taken a sick day in over eight years. What role do your spiritual practices play in your resilience?
Practices like kriya, energy healing, and conscious breathwork are practical systems that regulate the nervous system, detox the body, and build inner immunity. People get ill because they only recognise the physical part of the body, but not the importance of emotion, mind, energy and soul. When these are balanced, harmonised and managed using the specific tools required for each sheath of the body (as described in yoga), the holistic body is kept in optimal health, which enables optimal performance.
As AI begins to take on more analytical and knowledge-based tasks, do you think this frees us to reconnect with the emotional, creative and spiritual aspects of being human?
That’s the hope. AI can do the doing, but it can’t do the being. As machines take over the cognitive load, we’re invited back into presence, creativity, and heart. I see AI as a spiritual mirror – it’s forcing us to ask what makes us truly human.
You lead Workshops that blend spirituality and entrepreneurship. Why do you think it’s important for these two Worlds to learn from each other?
Business without soul becomes extractive. Spirituality without action becomes escapist. When you bring the two together, you get sustainable, purposeful creation. Companies, together, form perhaps the most powerful institutional segment of society. If we can ensure they are led by conscious people building things that actually serve the world, in a heart-centred way, then business can be a great conduit for societal progression.
How has your spiritual practice helped you redefine What high performance means?
High performance isn’t hustle. It’s alignment. It’s when you’re operating from your core frequency, not chasing external validation. My best work happens when I’m rested, connected, and internally still. That’s the paradox: the more I become aligned (which often comes with slowing down), the more I get done—and the better it is.
You’ve trained in a range of spiritual disciplines. How have these different paths shaped your practice, and Which are most supportive of your vision as a founder?
I’ve trained in Hatha yoga, Kundalini yoga, Bhakti yoga, clairvoyance, breathwork, sound healing… It’s all one system really. Different expressions of the same underlying truth. Kundalini helps for energy, resilience and alignment. Bhakti opens the heart. Psychic work helps with vision and clarity. The blend creates a multidimensional toolkit to lead from. It also helps in business meetings – I can usually be quite perceptive about what others are thinking or feeling, which doesn’t hurt during business negotiations.
You’ve meditated at some of the World’s most sacred sites. How have those experiences deepened your understanding of spirituality?
Sacred sites have an energetic signature and if you know how to tap into energy you can access those signatures to acquire the wisdom of those lands. Each land and location contains different knowledge, and all pieces are required to build the best picture of the puzzle. Meditating across time and geography helps me to fill the subtler colours of the rainbow of knowledge and wisdom.
How do you think the fast-moving tech industry could impact the future of yoga as a practice and teaching?
Tech will amplify whatever intention we program into it. If we use it to commodify yoga, we dilute it. But if we use it to spread authentic teachings, increase accessibility, and support teachers sustainably, it can be a force for good. The challenge will be to keep the soul of yoga alive in a world moving at machine speed. I think there should and always will be room for purely offline, physical, organic practice – and equally, using online tools to build communities and enable the physical connection is not a bad thing.
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