Thanks Denise, sounds good !!!
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Denise Evans <dmevans365@...>
wrote:
>
> Touche (there is supposed to be an accent on that "e"). Â It is not
my intent to judge or criticize you...we all have the right to worship
the belief system and/or spiritual leader that resonates with us.
> I am glad that you take what you like and leave the rest...in the end,
so did I. Â That says that the ability to discern remains. Â I
didn't meet a single person or IAM teacher that did not acknowledge her
as the divine mother.  She was put forth as the divine mother in
the group lectures and meditations. Â She is acknowledged as the
divine mother all over the internet by devotees and amritapuri alike. It
doesn't matter to me...I was just calling a spade a spade. Perhaps the
semantic details have blurred with her increase in celebrity status.
Â
> It seemed to me that people were in a trance - but perhaps this was
bliss brought on in part by extended meditation and surround sound - I
was just curious about it. Â Â I mentioned in passing to a friend
of mine a couple of months ago that I had seen Amma. Â I was
surprised that she knew of her - turns out that she works with someone
who follows Amma around during her tour here, and she mentioned (with no
provocation from me) that this woman comes back very spaced out and it
takes her several days to be able to produce anything at work, which
worries her as, in addition, all of this woman's conversation revolves
around Amma.Â
> Re: the life force comment - after I wrote it and a few other posts, I
realized that I am no one to talk...I gave way too much of my physical,
mental, and emotional energetic self away to my work for years before I
finally hit the wall. I feel like I am in recovery and I am not
"bouncing back a day later". Â My stress level is still far too high
too often.
> I was able to get some discourse about Amma on this site and the other
(from you, for example). Â After our visit, it was recommended to me
that "I read her books" and "just follow the instructions"....no
questions asked.....for chanting the mantra and doing the IAM
meditation, both of which seemed quite prescriptive to me and therefore
spurred my innate rebellion and desire to ask why  "should" I pray
to this woman as god, and why "should" I support my teenager to do so,
no questions asked. Â
> I cannot dispute your observations re: Westerners and Indians and
cultish behavior. Â I agree. Â Westerners have no cultural or
time-tested context for Hinduism. Â I was definitely looking for an
answer and did no prior research on anything - so naive that I thought,
prior to our visit, that the presence of these saints in our midst was
some sort of "spiritual truth" I'd been missing out on all these years
:) that was independent of religion. Â I have asked...."Why do all
the enlightened gurus come out of India?" Â One person told me it was
simple population statistics. Hmmmmm.....ya think? Â
>
>
>
>
> --- On Tue, 7/26/11, Ravi Yogi raviyogi@... wrote:
>
> From: Ravi Yogi raviyogi@...
> Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Visit with Amma
> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Tuesday, July 26, 2011, 1:09 AM
>
>
> Denise,
> I will keep presenting my case as long as you and I are around. :-)
> "You do appear to "take what you like and leave the rest""Isn't this
what we do in any situation? I think most everyone take what they
like and leave the rest in the world and around Amma. We go to a coffee
shop and get what we like and leave the rest, I just can't agree with
your generalization, sure a higher percentage of them might consider her
as an avatar or divine mother but if you polled them there views will
dramatically differ as well. Initially some of them (like I did) might
be aping just trying to fit in and will change and fine tune their
practices.
> "Many of the devotees I met had some far off, spaced out look"Isn't
this again true for the outside world. I see spaced out drivers, spaced
out colleagues, space out shoppers everywhere. Sure we might remark at
their stupidity, laugh at them for a few minutes, but we move on. We
don't let these people distract us from our goal or what we need to
finish, we don't stop driving, stop working or shopping.
> "When people get confused and start giving their life force over to
someone else"Again is this unique to just spiritual groups? I see how
people are caught in a 24x7 rut trapped in the material world expecting
happiness from a million dollar house, a million dollar wife, kids and
other possessions. Some are caught in worshiping movie stars,
sport icons, some in various political, religious ideologies. Is this
not handing over life force to someone else? In fact spirituality
ultimately IS about not handing over life force to others and people
come there for that life purpose, now you can't make fun of someone for
their ignorance, most start from square one.
> "But then, in the Hindu tradition, one does subjugate oneself to one's
guru"When around Amma, keep an eye out for the differences between
Indians and Westerners. IME all cult-ish behavior is exhibited by
Western born, I'm sure the Judeo-Christian conditioning plays a strong
part. Regardless of your usage of subjugation Indians are conditioned
to separate the inner and outer worlds. Their goal is to
subjugate the ego, the shadow, you don't see them handing over all their
possessions to the spiritual Guru.  Occasionally one does does
but they have strong inclination of detachment, most have possessions,
family and majority don't relinquish worldly lives.
>
>
