Amma Goes Low-Key For 52
File under: Amma All-Over-The-Planet
Surprisingly enough, Ammachi is going low-key this year for her 52nd birthday. This is in stark contrast to the excessive grandiosity on display at her 50th birthday, which has it own website and pulled about 100,000 people a day for the 3-day bash.We weren't sure why Amma was scaling back so much, so we put the question to the Gal upstairs. She told us that She is sick and tired of Amma constantly trying to upstage Her, so She put a permanent governor on Amma's astral milk supply. The restricted flow is only sufficient to pull a couple thousand at best. Amma is on probation until Kali begins to receive the credit for the miracles Amma and her swamis have been attributing to Amma instead.
It would be a welcome improvement to hear her organization talking about God without invoking Amma's name every single time. Maybe her reduced milk quota will help Amma to catch a clue and persuade her to pay more than lip service to her own Creator and the whole reason she got into the guru business in the first place.
posted by guruphiliac @ 5:38 PM
18 Comments:
but amma is something
I agree. She is someone who knows who she is. In the terms of Vedanta, she is a jnani. But guess what? That's really no big deal. I know a number of jnanis, but they aren't surrounded by swamis calling them God all the time.
At the end of the day people generally leave amma with more peace and love in their hearts than they came with.
They also leave with a head full of occluding expectations about what self-realization is, all because they associate it with the pumped-up, grandiose pageantry and circus that is Amma's satsang.
this only increases the peace of the whole planet as we are connected quantum field
The "quantum field" as you call it has as much to do with who we really are, the Self, as my dog's ass.
Not that it's not nice that there's a little more peace in the world, just that it really doesn't change who we really are. That never changes, in peace or in conflict.
they are storm troopers not amma bots
Your much more fanciful characterization than mine is noted.
A tiny blog against the sacred conduit to self-realization as believed by more than 2 billion people in this planet!
I am against occluding ideas about self-realization. Big time gurus such as Amma and Prem Rawat surround themselves in this mystique to attract more followers, but the result of this is to prevent their self-realization.
After all, it makes good business sense. Why would a self-realized person need to continue with the satsang (satscam in Rawat's case)? Keep 'em coming by getting them to think they are coming to God. Who cares what they realize, as long as the money keeps flowing.
- any and all gurus are the same sh*t, tight? [sic]
Just the big time ones, although Prem Rawat seems a lot more corrupt than some of the others.
- That self-realization cannot be helped by anyone
Pretty much. A guru can give a mantra or a teaching, but the devotee has got to do their own thing. There is no such thing as realization by transmission, despite what many of the big time gurus want you to believe.
- That the concept of a teacher, master or guide is flawed
When that teacher is thought of as more divine and in possession of magic powers, then yes, absolutely.
- That is all related to money
Big time satsangs (satscam in Rawat's case) are expensive. That makes money a big part of it, especially when the guru has grandiose plans to build big temples and monuments to themselves, or has a fleet of aircraft to maintain as in Rawat's case.
I agree, Jody. You have the potential to be very funny...and you're obviously smart.
Please stop preaching about hating other people's preaching. I want to know more about your dog's ass!
:)
All in good fun...you know I love ya.
Jai Bhakti
I still can't get over the fact that you don't believe that the great seers of the world have exceptionally spiritual powers (which you refer to as 'magic'). Look at your own fav Shankaracharya (and one of mine, too, as you know). His beloved devotee Padmapada (Sanandana) wrote the "Panchapadika" and when it was lost by fire Shankara rewrote it word for word.
HHhhhhmmmm...spiritual omniscience, or photographic memory? I tend to believe the former, but that's just good ol Bhakti who LOVEs her guru as herself. (That's "Self" with a capital 'S')
jaibhakti
"we should cease to look at others faults with a magnifying glass and look at our own faults with a big mirror..." (-from Amma's 52nd Bday speech)
Not very original. Sri Sarada Devi said the same thing about 100 years ago. That's who Amma is trying to copy with her whole shtick.
And those 200,000? They were already milk-poisoned Ammabots.
HHhhhhmmmm...spiritual omniscience, or photographic memory?
Neither, Bhakti.
Hagiographic myth.
OPEN YOUR MIND!
Have you never had psychic experience? Being Pisces, I happen to be (cursed) with a psychic bent. Although I realize that the psychic bend is no more important or real than your dog's ass (or, rather, the hair on your dog's ass)I do believe in 'miracles' such as Shankarachara's ability to see 'everything'.
It's funny...speaking of pyschic, happenstance type of stuff...I first read the word 'hagiographic' while reading text on Master Mahasaya just last night! Is it happenstance, grace, or coincidence that caused this double manifestation of such a bizzare word to appear in my universe with such little time in between.
Does time exist?
Shoot--I'm late for my physical therapy--talk to ya later.
OPEN YOUR MIND!
Maybe you should try using yours.
Why are you angry at me? I don't charge people millions of dollars to sit at my feet. I just let them sit there for free! And I don't 'occlude' anyone from self-realization. People look at me and say, "Damn! There IS a God!"
p.s. Why haven't you visited my site yet? I have a listing on dogpile.com (I know how much you like your dog's ass, so I figured you might use the dogpile search engine)
In the terms of Vedanta? Is this not just subscribing to a different belief set.
It's employing a certain paradigm to attempt to contextualize the nondual.
Do these beliefs bring pure perception?
Of course not. But I've found that Shankara's Advaita Vedanta as commented on by Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda make the best context for a discussion of the nondual.
How can we speak of nonduality?
Ultimately, we cannot. But in the context of jnana, the nondual is known in a direct and ongoing recognition. Thus, we attempt to talk about it, and I've found Shankara's Vedanta to be the best conceptual container for the discussion.
You need to write a book.
If I do write a book, the readers of this blog will be among the first to know about it.
Thanks for the encouragement, username.
Hey--as happenstance would have it...just yesterday I stated that I never heard of Ammachi..and just yesterday I received the Daughters of the Goddess book in the mail (because I wanted to read about Anandamayi Ma). There was an article about Ammachi in the book.
Jody, you told me to start using my mind. I live from the heart...I use my mind and filter things through the heart to make heads or tales of it. I have a difficult time believing that anyone who is as angry as you could be self realized. Where's the love in your heart?
I want less anger and more humor!
(p.s.s I guess you don't give a rat's *ss since you stopped responding to my emails. So much for civil conversation. And, seriously, thank you for your blog. It's gotten me interested in blogs, and its good to see adverse points of view to keep everything in check. I respect your opinions, and I hope you do add more humor to your mission.)
;)
Hey--come on! Don't rag on Jody. He just doesn't believe in avatars and advadhuts and that people who live in uninterrupted union with God can exude the shakti through their pores. That's no need to attack him!
There's so much love in my heart that nothing anyone could say could dismantle that feeling (not even a three level fusion in my neck). However, we don't all have the same experiences.
How bout we try to respect each other's opinions and create peace, rather than OCCLUDE the presence of it in our lives.
Uh oh, I stole Jody's catch phrase/word.
If god can make hair grow on Jody's dog's *ss, surely he can make shakti exude out of the skin or his devotees.
What a pill!
That's exactly what my mother used to say, God rest her soul.
200,000 people with poisoned-minds?
Yes. Hagiopoisoned. That is, the accepting as fact the myths which constellate around gurus who are thought of as divine.
Sorry but you are loosing your credibility very fast.
I've never claimed any to begin with.
Heh. That's a good one.
So what if I'm a fag with a girl's name?
Your a fag with a girl's name?
Your poor dog...all the references to his ass are beginning to make sense...It can't be true...o lord...I have to go watch Ellen, I can't handle this fag with a girl's name stuff...It's 'occluding' my judgement of morality...
Acutally, repo, I'm not joking about my love of Jody and everyone else. The fact that my statements are being read as 'hostile' and not 'funny' are the reason why I have opted NOT to blog on this site anymore. I thought we were all having fun. Guess not.(See Tuesday, Sept. 27th blog for more info)
Goodbye
Whether Amma is contrived pagentry at it's best or birthed from the divine spark that gave us the universe
So is every other event that has ever occurred, including the unjust war in Iraq.
there is a tremendous amount of good and a remarkable amount of healing that comes directly from her and her organization
Actually, the healing happens by way of the devotee's faith, not in any "power" that Amma is supposed to have. Set up any old Indian lady on that dais and you'd get the same effect.
who have the lowest administration costs and the highest finanical relief output of any non-profit in the history of mankind
This is the one bright spot in her picture. Amma is clearly not a crook. I'm not so sure about all her swamis, however.
Goodness and love-in-action are not for us to judge.
When they prevent self-realization, they are eminently judge-able.
It's God's will to contrive any illusion for us to ponder as he/she sees fit.
Right. Like the war in Iraq. Is that something we shouldn't judge too?
Many illusions are not delusional, rather they are eternal forms that motivate and move those on this planet that are willing to grow in and yield to the spirit of the eternal creator.
Reliance on pure myth and superstition noted.
All of you have made good points, but there is too much harshness here. It's unnecessary and unproductive.
Harsh realities like occluding ideology pouring out of God ladies' satsangs like the bird flu require harsh counter-measures.
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