Part I
The year 2002, I was the only one watching in disgust as my beloved
mother and my Guru Ammachi, a self-realized Guru received an award named
for the so-called icons of peace and non-violence MLK and Gandhi.
Ammachi is an embodiment of love and she accepted the award with
humility but I mocked and ridiculed in disgust while everyone around me
applauded. Of course one could have asked me then the reason for my
derisive protest and I would have been at a loss for words other than
that this person was a Mahatma and the other two were just political
personalities, but now with my own spiritual awakening which resulted in
much maturity, balance and integration I think I can do a pretty job
addressing it.
But it seemed the people I considered as merely politicians seemed to
have a much higher admiration among the liberals that I seemed to love,
identify and lean towards. The personalities like MLK, Gandhi and Dalai
Lama seemed to be more than politicians and there was lot of adulation
for the values championed by these individuals. I have always been a
social liberal but I didn't share the same zeal for these individuals as
the majority of my spiritual liberal brethren. These liberals seem to
also have a lot of enthusiasm for social inequities and political
revolutions especially in far distant lands, the farther and the remote,
the more fashionable and admirable it seemed.
Please don't get me wrong, I think the values of peace, non-violence and
justice are good values to cultivate, my only objections is to associate
them with spirituality.
I cringed whenever a Q/A session at this Mahatma's retreats invariably
started with a question of the form - "Oh my dearest mother, what I can
do to help the suffering people in Sudan" (or substitute your favorite
farthest remotest country here). The answer would be typical of the
loving and compassionate manifestation of this Mahatma and would be
replete with numerous parables and would invariably hint at personal
transformation. Though I would internally scoff at the person for this
entire duration I would invariably enjoy the beautiful metaphors and at
times hilarious parables and stories Ammachi used in answering the
question.
I was absolutely positive that no one would ever ask her question about
world suffering again, but I was shocked repeatedly and the question
would get repeated always albeit with the latest country that was
suffering a crisis !!
It seems no one wanted to be enlightened like Amma but everyone wanted
to be a revolutionary, no one was interested in the individual
revolution but were more interested in the revolution of mobs.
I would like to illustrate the difference between enlightened masters
like Amma and the pseudo spiritual icons like MLK, Gandhi and Dalai
Lama; the differences between the revolution of the individual and the
revolution of the mob.
