This person posted the same thing in the Amma Free Speech Zone chat group
and someone posted the following response:
Dear Whoever:
Some post. There is a lot there and if I were able to parse it I would. I
will have to content myself with responding to what I can recall from having
read this post. I do not know your name, or even if this post was written by
one person, or is a pastiche of several writers, as the note at the bottom
seems to suggest. I do not know if it was written for this group or was
cross-posted here from another group. I do not know why the negative writers
don't like to say who they are, since their critiques are so personal and
they claim to have been almost in the inner circle. I will assume that this
is true for argument's sake.
There are many points in the article, and some of them sadly ring true, I am
afraid. There are some deep points about the role of the guru and the
teaching method, which would take great effort to discuss.
I disagree with the caustic tone of the writer on several points. With
regard to money, this is raised many times. The writer thinks that Amma's
family is on the griddle, and that She is taking luxuries for Herself. I
think the last one was that She gives it to objectionable political parties.
Let me say that I have seen Her sister's house, what with the shrubs and
all, and I wouldn't think it could be worth more than, say, thirty thousand
dollars, which is a pittance, so where would the rest be? Oh, the vehicles.
I suppose She should ride in a horse and buggy? I don't know the value of
said vehicles, or how She got them. I don't know why She would keep them if
She thought people would think this, that it is an unnecessary luxury. Why
not travel on the bus with the rest of them? I don't know. It may have to
do with reliable transport, and it might have been a gift. Should She give
it away? Then, couldn't someone criticize the next, much cheaper vehicle as
well? She does not live in a palace, nor does She wear fine clothes. Her
time is pretty well spoken for, don't you think, and Her privacy is nil. She
has never been said to have expensive tastes in food, nor have I heard the
She plays the stock market. She does not take vacations in the south of
France, and pretty much works every day of Her life, with little sleep.
But, I am not sure where the money goes. I thought it went to orphanages and
schools and subsidized medical care, soup kitchens, etc. I cannot believe
that it is for Her personal gain. But, yes, if She has gone mad, how would
one ever know, considering the situation. She has an Indian personality, at
some level. Her teaching seems less sophisticated than most others. Is it
because higher teachings only confuse most people, or because She is unable
to understand higher teachings? I think She sees that it only results in
speculation and useless knowledge for the most part. Is She just abusing
people, as retards, for their money and life energy, all for Her own gain?
That's a sick thought really. She would have to truly be diabolical to do
something like that: the very thought is abominable. The level of
back-stabbing contempt it would take would mean that She is a sociopath of
the worst kind, and I do not countenance that. Surely, there would be signs
of ill character, as there almost always is, as shown by bedding Her
disciples, physically abusing people, lying, and other signs. Other than a
few things which look odd, you have not made that case.
The lack of sanitation of India is a good observation. I agree. Burning
plastic, which they did at the ashram, and may still do, is poor for the
environment. But, what option is there? Should they bury it all in a huge
dump? If they don't use DDT, wouldn't the mosquitoes invade and spread
disease? Is this Her fault? Yes, it is bad, and it is something to be
concerned about, but it's Indian standards after all. Yes, that girl may
have gotten ill from just these toxins, which is a grave concern. I don't
know what to say. Did Amma show omniscience in this instance? Doesn't sound
like much, but what do we know about the event actually?
You like Krishnamurti, and the Guru Papers and the general anti-guru line,
OK. But, to take down the guru tradition entirely, as a cult, as
brainwashing is too extreme a position. A better critique might be, after
thirty odd years, what is the status of Her disciples, and why hasn't She
attracted better ones, given Her wide outreach? Even then, no one knows
much about spiritual progress, which makes this all problematic. But, one
would like to believe that there is a quiet group of quasi-realizers there,
some sign that some palpable spiritual good has come from thirty years of
shaktipat hugathons, no?
People are going to leave. Any group. So it is not clear how problematic it
is here. You called Her greedy and even petty. I just don't see that. Like
it's all an act, for Westerners who are gullible and rich. It's some act
when one can sit in a chair blessing all and sundry, consistently, day after
day, year after year, as you say, by being plied with lattes? You have the
gall to say that She can do marathon sessions daily, for three decades, by
caffeine? That might work for a short while, but we all know what happens.
First of all, one habituates to it, so one would need more and more. She
would have to urinate a lot and leave the podium. Oh, please! That just
takes away from your less absurd points. But, your more sinister point
remains; perhaps She is just a powerful siddha who uses Her powers to
control weaker beings, pretending universal love, even mistakenly and
confusedly. Perhaps I just don't see that. Scary thought really.
Does She show enough signs of undeveloped ego for me to consider that She's
half-baked, an overestimated charismatic village girl who learned to
bamboozle the West? She's not college-educated, that's for sure, and her
lectures don't impress much intellectually. But, I think, by now, we would
have seen obvious signs. No one can keep it up this well, this long. There
have been no stories of indulgences in sex or drugs or murder, which usually
there are by this time. She may be overplayed though; She may not now what
is best for all and sundry, knowing their thoughts and moods. That's a bit
much, really. The doomsday-saying is a genuine concern as it is a feature
of negative cults. But, with the world in the state it's in, can you really
deny it? Western culture may have run its course and the U.S. may too have
seen its best days, which were rather short, considering. If She is using
fear-mongering to keep people from leaving that would be most sad. Is She
unglued Herself perhaps, with a second-grade understanding of the world? Is
She idiotic in fact? Naive about the workings of the world? I don't think
She could be that stupid. But, I can't vouch for when things will collapse.
Perhaps there's a certain role you have to play in the situation She's in,
or perhaps She has become constrained by the organization She created. Is
She getting shrill, paranoid, giving messages of fear and doom to control
the inmates? I have not seen that, personally. Personally, if I were a
corrupt Guru, I would be living highly, like a King, why not? Or secretly
having my way. I just don't see any signs of that. She's a little weird,
perhaps. She doesn't fit the model of the perfect guru. But, are we in a
position to judge that the guru should do, outside of clear ethical
violation? Frankly, it does not look good for the world at all, as far as I
can see, and it is no exaggeration to say that Western powers are falling.
Or that could just be an Indian view, anti-Western with a passion, I don't
know what Her motivation is. I know that if She were a faker we would have
seen that by now, more clearly than these dubious statements suggest. I wish
I knew what enlightenment was; it would make this all a lot simpler. If we
knew we would be there. I don't know. You don't know. So, we can't act as if
we know, can we?
I think some of your views are slanted, as would be expected from having
decided to leave. And there is something oddly depressing about worshiping
someone as God and always wanting to be there. Another hug, another look,
another broken word spoken. It was so much more obvious with Mahesh Yogi,
with the thousand or million dollar courses, or with Rajneesh and his
breakdown. No one has lasted this long without major controversy and She
lives pretty much in public, all the time. Yes, compared to someone like
Ramana, who is at this point quite a comfort to think about, there is a lot
of seeming bullshit. He refused to be worshiped and that's a big difference,
isn't it? but, they did worship him anyway, and now they worship his tomb.
And his pictures and stories, etc. Hence the mystery. people gotta worship,
so why not worship Amma, given the alternatives? Yet, again, it seems there
remains signs of Her limitations, as an Indian girl in that society. What
would it look like to be totally unattached to any identity or culture? Did
Ramana approve of gayness? Would he not have criticized it too? I don't know
in what context a lot of the quotes you have about Her saying stupid things
about Japanese (?), obese, and others; She likes to make jokes and not
everything She says is to be taken humorlessly and literally. The
Japanese?? Why are Americans so fat? That's not inconsistent with love, to
me. It may sound that way. It seems inconsistent with omniscience though. I
mean, shouldn't She know why they are fat? She may have referred to Her
children as bastards, no doubt. That's part of colloquial Keralan speech,
and to extrapolate it outside of its context to make it sound like She is
calling Westerners (presumably) a bunch of bastards in a purely perjorative
sense, is to miss the mark. Anyway, in a sense we are bastards, in the
sense of being separate from God, don't you think? I don't expect the Guru
to be totally free of the culture in which they came; maybe the perfect one
would. Love does not mean no criticism, and always smiling and hugging. That
is an image She created to appeal to the West, I think. But, I am not
shocked that She uses rough language at times. Isn't that part of the
mystery of the God-man, that it's paradoxically God and man, not just God?
yes, I am waiting for the Perfect Guru, who is absolutely clearly God and
having absolutely no taint, emotionally, intellectually or culturally. Even
a slight slip would indicate it was all a ruse. Yes, I am waiting for that
one to come. Maybe Ramana was that one already? But, he's kinda dead right
now and I was hoping for one in the body. But, yes, he made fewer claims,
fewer questionable actions and deceits. He did not pose for cameras all the
time. But, maybe that was just his personality? Or maybe, for you, it's
better to just remember that whatever they found is in you.
Anyway, I wish you well and hope the best for you. This discussion is far
from easy for me.
Avram
