Worthy Of The Wall

File under: Notable Quotes

We are compelled to tell you that some of the people who leave comments here rock harder than Woodstock:

I think that Amma is a placebo which helps folks to marshal their own inner forces for psychological repair. In this way she is doing a lot of good. The downside is that folks believe it's by the power of Amma that the healing occurs. This is bad for two reasons. One, it's just not true, and two, it leaves people with the impression that self-realization comes with magic healing powers. That's where the occlusion arises

There is a third way in which this belief in Amma exacts a devastating cost. It further alienates people from their own inborn resources of love, which most of us have long experienced as diminished and insufficient (otherwise why go to Ammachi?) and about which we've succumbed to a lot of half-baked theories as to why that's the case. The blissful experiences in Amma's presence will then only ratify and reinforce the belief that one is indeed so benighted and deficient that only a miracle, grace or divine incarnation can deliver the lost or longed-for love. This is not true but we are deeply conditioned to believe in this particular lie, in this scarcity - and thus we hardly notice falling prey to all its logical sociopolitical consequences, nor notice how it entrenches even more deeply the disenfranchisement from our own divine resources.

We're not lying when we say we love the "love" angle, which hadn't occurred to our bitter little minds until now. We find it an excellent deconstruction of the artificiality of Amma's act and the definition of the term satsangtainment.

Update: Another brilliant reader outdoes us:

"Satsangtainment" or "sat-o-masochism"? This may be the single best description of the phenomenon (and pitfalls) of "guru feel ya" that I've ever read. Bravo, brava to whoever penned it.