Guruphiliac: Satsang With Ammachi—Part II, Mommy Speaks



Thursday, June 30, 2005

Satsang With Ammachi—Part II, Mommy Speaks

File under: Satsang Reports and Amma All-Over-The-Planet

When Amma begins to speak, it’s in her native tongue. She goes on for about 10 minutes. We watch as people who don’t understand a single thing she is saying listen in rapture. When she stops, an Indian swami picks up with a “translation.” This goes for 3 rounds, Amma occasionally interrupting her swami with a clarification.

It starts out very psychological. The number one cause of our problems? Stress and tension. 80% of all disease is caused by tension. Tension is what makes you miserable. The solution? Unburden yourself in Amma.

This is brilliant psych ops and the primary reason people get something from an Amma hug. They believe they’ll get something, so they get something. It’s just like Benny Hinn. This isn’t to say there isn’t something good that comes out of a cathartic release of pain and sorrow. But it’s not by way of Amma’s magic shakti, it’s by way of the expectations of the devotee, conveniently set up by the swami just a moment ago. The "magic" is all in the suggestion.

What follows is essentially Hinduism Lite. Meditation will reduce your tension, but you need to make an effort to be successful. In other words, keep coming to us for instruction. He throws in an all-is-God’s-will and explains that grace completes effort, and that humility brings grace. Humility to the guru, of course.

Amma speaks a second time. The swami continues with a light critique of the modern world. Science is incomplete. We need spirituality in the world. Mental illness is caused by the lack of spirituality, neuro-psychology be damned.

He throws in a few digs at the world being the source of distraction from spirituality, and then the hard guru sell commences. It’s no different than any other hard guru sell we’ve heard. You can’t do it without the grace of a guru. The perfect master is necessary. The sat guru is like a booster rocket, etc.

The swami then insists that a true master makes us childlike, and that we must become children to come to spiritual understanding. Her children… We brace for the blast of astral breast milk we expect to pummel us any moment, but it doesn’t come! Kali has cut her off. We have saved North America from the loss of all adult maturity! Cool.

Amma speaks again. The swami rolls with a variation of the mind-body-spirit thing. This time it’s head, heart and hand. He continues by speaking about heart-to-heart communication. Thus begins the hippie portion of tonight’s talk. It’s all about love! People complain about their lives. What’s the problem? Not enough love. Got emotional problems? You can cure it with love! And guess what? Amma is love!

And then he says it. We didn’t get to write it down verbatim because we were utterly flabbergasted to hear it out loud. Amma’s love is just like milk! They’re completely out in the open with the conspiracy! The Ammabots just beam back at them, entirely oblivious to the machinations of their leaders!

A harmonium fires up, signaling the end of the talk. As we pull ourselves together after this jaw-dropping display of mind control prowess, we realize that Amma has omitted a huge portion of basic Indian religious hyperbole, that of the necessity of renunciation and asceticism on the spiritual path. This makes excellent marketing sense. We’re sure it comes a few lessons in if you decide to pursue your path at their center. But it’s way too off putting to tell first timers that they have to stop having sex if they aren’t married, and if they are, that they should only fuck for procreative purposes.

Next: Amma sings.

9 Comments:

At 6/30/2005 11:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Three to one, women to men? Astral breast milk? Do you think the astral breast milk would help out Yahweh, Prophet of Yahweh's (was he formerly Yahweh ben Yahweh?) indigestion? How bad can this really be?

I guess my question would be, if experience regression under Kali's would-be avatar allows for the relief of tension, stress, etc., something that most folks don't realize is putting a hurt on them, is there something necessarily wrong with psyops? Or is this just coercion--getting the first hit free--plain and simple?

 
At 7/01/2005 9:55 AM, Blogger guruphiliac said...

There's no doubt that some people get helped by Amma's hug. It's the mechanism and how it's presented that is false. The result is adults reduced to magical thinking when they'd never dream of doing so in other areas of their lives.

The more tragic result is that people are led to believe that self-realization comes packaged with magical powers. As most are wont to doubt their own magic powers—even while they'll allow themselves to believe Amma has them—they overlook their own self-realization—available to them at all times—because they can't conceive of being self-realized without the powers.

It's called occluding expectations. Most big time gurus flood their satsangs with them, because it's exactly the devotees belief in the gurus' magic powers that keeps them coming to satsang.

So, while a person may be blessed to get some temporary relief from their immediate emotional difficulties, they are thrust further away from their own self-realization by the ideas and concepts projected through and by the image of their "divine" guru.

 
At 7/02/2005 4:49 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great post and even better comment, Jody. I can't wait for the next installment.

I was just down in NM to see her last week. I even got a hug :) I didn't feel like stickin around for the entire psyops stuff, but I didn't find it to be as bad as say, sitting in some Christian church listening to those crazies.

The worst part about the whole experience were the uncoordinated idiots giving contradicting instructions on where to sit, how to bend, what to do, etc... before receiving darshan(sp?) Those people didn't have an ounce of grace or awareness and took thier stupid little jobs way too seriously. I'm sure the bliss they experienced from sitting around Amma was wonderful for them, but they should really consider coming back down to planet earth once in a while.

 
At 7/02/2005 1:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You haven't got a clue so you pontificate.

 
At 7/05/2005 7:30 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

There's no doubt that some people get helped by Amma's hug. It's the mechanism and how it's presented that is false.

Exactly. Same as with "modern" medicine, its practitioners claiming that the meds and surgeries, or the transplants and bypasses, or the diets and exercises, or the MRIs and mammograms, or whatever hoodoo voodoo they're selling this week, are keeping you alive, if not downright healthy. [snort]

 
At 7/05/2005 11:56 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello [snort]

Are you a qualified speculator ?

 
At 10/27/2007 11:32 AM, Blogger para ji said...

"Take my knowledge, take my ignorance and give me pure love for your Lotus Feet" -- Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

 
At 10/27/2007 2:08 PM, Blogger guruphiliac said...

give me pure love for your Lotus Feet

That's was Kali's Feet, not the imposter/actress called Ammachi.

 
At 4/13/2020 9:06 AM, Anonymous Portia said...

Thank you so much for the blog its too informative

 

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