Portrait Of An Ammabot
File under: Amma All-Over-The-Planet
Today is turning out to be all Amma, all the time. Next up, the San Francisco Chronicle interviews a full-time Ammabot, on tour following his mommy as she distributes a clarity-clogging, real-time hagiography about herself:
I have had many inner experiences over the years that convince me that she is who she says she is, sometimes during a darshan itself. [These experiences include] visions or other insights that might not mean anything to anyone else -- but they point me in the direction I need to go. I can see where she is directing me and how it can positively affect my life if I make certain internal or external changes.All that is required is the suggestion that she is God. At that point, the mind of a needy devotee fills in the blanks all on its own, all in the mistaken belief that Amma is doing it personally.
Thus, another hungry mouth comes to her breast to feed on a delusion that keeps them from their goal of self-realization rather than leading them to it.
Labels: Amma All-Over-The-Planet
posted by guruphiliac @ 1:23 PM
17 Comments:
This devotee is one lucky person. To be able to follow the likes of a self realized saint like Amma. I wish I was in his shoes.
I wish I was in his shoes.
Keep drinking that Kool-Aid. It's the surest way to prevent your own self-realization.
Amazingly, the day has arrived on which the critic of Ammachi makes more sense than the Ammachi devotees (self included). To my shock and disappointment, the day has arrived on which the critic is more honest than the entire Ammachi scene. I have been fooled for way too long. My eyes thank you for serving as somewhat of a catalyst for wool removal.
My eyes thank you for serving as somewhat of a catalyst for wool removal.
Er... and you are welcome if in fact you are being sincere.
I was. (being sincere)
i wish i was in her lovely presence. I wish i could follow her around like the lucky guy. I went to see gangaji once and met a lady who followed gangaji around from city to city. I was so jealous of her. What better way to grow spiritually than to hang around by saints and sages and realized beings. I am sorry to be so jealous, but I am. THey are just too lucky to have the money to be able to do that. Especially following Amma around. I cant even imagine the good karma and blessings that will bring him. He will probably be enlightened soon. Or at least have a good rebirth.
He will probably be enlightened soon.
Let's hope so. Then his eyes will be open to the thick haze of occlusion that hangs around Amma like L.A. smog.
Are you going to see Amma this year Jody? Are you had enough of her and are going to pass? I haven't seen Amma for years now and was hugged by her once. It was enough for me. I mean, come on, why in god's name would I want to wait around for hours to get a 20 second hug from her that I can get from anyone. I did not feel anything when she hugged me. Her program is okay, I like some of the chanting and the devotional stuff, but to wait around and scooch on my knees until I get to see her and wait for hours, is just not for me. I will let the other desperate spiritual people wait in line for hours for that 20 second hug. I dont need a mommy. I already have one.
Are you going to see Amma this year Jody?
No.
I will let the other desperate spiritual people wait in line for hours for that 20 second hug.
There's no doubt that many are helped by their faith in Amma. She is truly effective as an ishta devata.
I don't find her devotees desperate, just somewhat deluded if they can't see it's their own faith which manifests the miracles, not any special powers owned by Amma. You could say that God does it, but Amma is just the tool God uses to wake his power in the devotee. Amma herself is just a person who has come to self-realization. Amma's sin is allowing people to believe self-realization is something special, and that it will make them special. That is the occluding cloud which follows her everywhere she goes.
Amma's sin is allowing people to believe self-realization is something special, and that it will make them special. That is the occluding cloud which follows her everywhere she goes.
yeah, but maybe she sincerely believes that. After all she was born and brought up in a indian hindu context which encourages and promotes this kind of thinking.
This might be right for her at this stage in her spiritual development. Discrimination takes time to develop but there's a path for everybody at every stage.
Then again maybe not, who knows.
anon said...I am sorry to be so jealous, but I am. They are just too lucky to have the money to be able to do that.
..............
You should find out what you're talking about. I haven't seen Amma for 12 or so years now when the crowds were large but not so large you couldn’t stand to wait. I found her to be a lovely soul but the people serving her seemed very unhappy, exhausted and somewhat angry. People who live to follow saints around are often that way and feel trapped by their own "need" to be there. After years and years of it when they still have not developed much in consciousness they either pretend to be higher than they are or get discouraged and let their sullen sides start to show.
I remember seeing Amma in the Midwest in 1988. Their was a lunch served along with the Devi puja that everybody performed with individual candles, etc. They charged 10 or 12 dollars for that, including the candles. Some of the close staff were embarrassed and apologized for the need to charge, saying that it was against their belief and policy to do that. Imagine how those people must feel now? They are likely gone, if they developed enough internal courage to leave. Don’t envy people who serve saints. They are usually more neurotic and emotionally damaged than the average person.
I am not a follower of Ammachi, but love her very much. I don't love the huge organization around her. I don't believe the God part (that she is somehow "avatar"). However, I must report that the first time I saw her, I went with a friend because I thought she was a saint of some kind and I wanted to meet saints to hear them, experience whatever that might be. I found more than I anticipated (and not just the nonsense that is obvious when you go to her). It was very surprising to me when she hugged me (which I didn't want her to do actually, and felt weird about). I had no preconceived notions about her except that she was possibly (possibly, mind you) enlightened, and might show me some guidance, I didn't know what. The hugging part seemed useless to me. There were very few people there (less than 500). When she hugged me, I quite unexpectedly felt a rush of some kind of energy throughout my body, then a complete blankness in my mind. I remember she told me to sit down there, and I did, and closed my eyes. For some time, I don't know how long, I had no thoughts of any kind, but experienced something beyond words, and beyond experience. After some time, I realized where I was and felt grateful for the Peace that was now my mind. As I arose to leave the hall, I realized that a terrible, sometimes debilitating pain that had been in my back for 5 years, was just gone. I kept flexing my body in wonder about this. The relief lasted for many months, and the condition/pain returned. I did go back again and again to get a hug, attributing the relief from pain to this experience, without knowing how. The same thing happens every time she hugs me, and I'm grateful for it. I don't know anything else about it. I've seen some videos of her, visited her large ashram in Kerala for a few days, and done some light work on those occasions when asked by her people. Other than that, I don't have any connection to the Amma Organization.
What I've written above is simply an innocent experience that happened without any expectation. I went thinking I'd hear a nice lecture that might lead me in some good direction spiritually, brought by my friend. I don't believe in miracles, as such, nor in slavishly following any person.
My suspicion is that God/Energy/Spirit, whatever you wish to call IT can come through any empty vessel, and Amma may be one such vessel. It's possible, in my view, that just as Ramana Maharishi saw God in a mountain, that some people see God in some human like Amma. Maybe it leads them somewhere good, maybe not.
In my case, she has only helped me, and I have no clue how, and don't really care how. I really dislike her large organization and don't feel any affinity for the people gathered feverishly around her. But sitting with her when she comes, something that I consider important happens: my mind shuts off for some time, and when it "awakens" I am able to look deeply inside and enquire more effectively as to what and who I am, what this life is, where Truth might lie inside. For me, that is of great value.
It's happened to me elsewhere, in the presence of other people labeled as saints, whose behaviors were far less exemplarly (like Amma's helping the poor, etc.), but no matter how I think it might, it never happened at Arunachala Hill, nor in the presence of other inanimate objects in nature that other's have "received Grace" from. So I conclude that there are people out there that can help us along the way, and Amma, for me, is one of them. Maybe because I never got involved with the group? Who knows.
Anonymous said...
> What better way to grow
> spiritually than to hang around
> by saints and sages and realized
> beings.
Every day in your real life, you relate to real people. You don't pay much attention to them, because of these arbitrary ideas you got out of a book, ideas about who is or isn't a saint, sage, or realized beings, ideas about what spiritual growth means.
If you'd throw all these ideas into the garbage, then you could connect with each person you meet, every moment of every day. Then you wouldn't have to waste your time envying the Ammabots.
Stuart
http://home.comcast.net/~sresnick2/socalled.htm
http://stuart-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/
"...they point me in the direction I need to go..."
Interesting experiences could be distractions rather than proof of progress.
You never know until you get there!
You never know until you get there
How true, and I'd add: you'll never get there if you think you know.
Pl dont use green letters. It is not readable.
This is a commendable site.
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