Topic: The best of the biggest

I am a professional and respected in my field of expertise and have experienced her divinity first hand.

Your profession and the respect you believe it garners obviously have little impact on your ability to project your idea of divinity onto the character that Amma is presenting to the world. That's not surprising, seeing as that character is designed to foster just those kinds of projection. The entire Amma business-model runs on these superstitious notions you've so easily been duped into, despite your self-assessed modernity and that of other the "professionals" caught in her snare of delusion.

I have browsed through this forum and I have some objections I'd like to raise. First, I grew up in America, so I saw the whole show with Iskcon and Bhagwan and Swami Desai, etc. But I also saw the whole show with Jim Jones and David Koresh and the Catholic priest molestation scandals. I'd just like to say that a blog that focuses only on shortcomings or scandals of Indian Gurus is inherently biased against Eastern religion and people of Indian descent.

Second, there are a lot of things which are completely off in the understanding of many critics from a Vedantic perspective. For example the knowledge of advaita as a teaching in understanding God-consciousness, or the Guru-disciple relationship as valid spiritual teachings and reacting to these philosophies as "cultic" or violating the Judeo-Christian monotheism of the average American. For example, just because a Guru teaches that he/she has God-consciousness, why is that a warning sign of a cult? Just because a Guru teaches submission and obedience in chelas, why is that some warning sign of a cult? You don't have a history of Christian monasticism where people take vows of poverty, chastity and OBEDIENCE?

See, a lot of the criticisms are coming off as anti-Hindu, anti-Indian, and not necessarily as anti-fraud or cult. Not to mention that end-time prophecies are all over Marian apparitions, so why would Amma giving warnings about (Damn it's so obvious it doesn't need a prophecy) coming starvation in India seem like a "red-flag?" Have you heard of the decades long farmer suicides in India? There's like over 40,000 cases. You don't think this will impact the future? What about global climate change and how it will impact South Asia? What about the loss and toxic pollution of major tributaries and rivers? It doesn't even take a prophet to see catastrophe is looming. I saw a video on the Kumbha Mela and a naga baba was predicting the loss of the Ganges and scorching heat that would devastate India in the future.

So I just don't understand the psycho-babble about infantilism, fraud, fear-marketing and whatnot. It's really coming across as disrespect of Indic beliefs and traditions, of monasticism and authentic prediction with intent to preserve life as much as possible. As for Amma being a big-time business woman... you know, (and I'm not even a devotee) she sure has done a heck of a lot for the community. I think Bill Gates could learn a thing or two about humanitarianism, building homes, free kitchens, etc for the needy. I don't know about you, but I think she does more for the community than the Vatican.

Why aren't you guys bashing the Vatican? Or is it just brown Indian people with Hindu beliefs?

"Your ability to project your idea of divinity onto the character that Amma is presenting to the world."

So much hostility to traditional advaitic theology. Why? You realize even theoretical physicists study it to glean insights into the fundamental structure of conscious universe?

You know, I can totally accept that people raised in a dualistic monotheistic religion can't tolerate advaitic teaching. So just admit you don't personally accept or believe in Hindu religion. Don't accuse Hindu Guru's or betraying their own teaching, or of teaching something evil, wrong, cultic, psychologically regressive, when it is traditional, historical, and respected Vedantic philosophy. Stop coming across as intolerantly prejudice and grossly distorting Vedantic teaching by using only the most glaring failures as example of the religion. It is Kaliyuga. That means it's an age full of spiritual corruption. Expect to be disappointed.

According to advaita, everything is God. Nothing exists which is apart from the Oneness of God. The difference is, we perceive from the limitations of the dual world, from the illusions of Maya, from the sankalpas of the three gunas. The only difference between a God-Realized Soul and the rest of us? They have done the spiritual work attaining insight, awareness, God-consciousness. There is absolutely no bad, wrong, faulty, evil or cultic thing about this ancient and traditional teaching. The key for all seekers is, is it merely a Guru that you follow? Because no one can attain enlightenment without a Satguru. Now as to the question of whether someone is a Satguru... only time will truly tell. If someone's life changes for the better over time, if they are able to confront and clear their own kleshas, skandas, imprints, karmas, imaginings, illusionary thoughts and self-deception, then that person is on the right path.

One of the best books I can recommend to all of you is Jack Kornfields book, "A Path With Heart." It's all about bad experiences with half-baked spiritual masters who haven't yet attained true spiritual maturity. And it's not a book about bashing anyone. It's about inner self-healing, finding a true spiritual path, and learning to love what hurts in the heart of the world. Because most of our spiritual seeking is tainted with the obscurations and defilements of our own problems. We bring this to our path and often project it onto the teacher. Many teachers with good intentions fall into the projection of their students. As the Upanishads say, the three gates that bring hell into the world are 1. greed, 2. violence, and 3. self-justification. Almost every religious leader that has fallen into scandal fell because of abuses of sex, money and power. Like the Dalai Lama said when he was confronted with scandals of his top lamas... "How dark is the dark age when the teachers of light are filled with such darkness."

Finding an authentic Master is rare. But they do come into the world at pivotal junctures to remind us all to be better, less selfish people. A true Master coming to the world is actually a warning that something is terribly wrong with the dharma. I think that someone teaching us to give our money to the poor, to build free kitchens and housing for them is telling us something spiritually wise. And it just might be we ourselves who become poor and needy in the not too distant future. As advaitic philosophy says, "We are part of One Wholeness." And we can all shine a brighter light and get closer to that authentic holiness the world calls "love."

It's really prejudicial to go on about rationalism while defending rants against an established religious teaching. Believing in an established religion like Vedanta has nothing to do with following crowds. I hapen to believe there are many holy people and sages from this tradition just as I admire Catholic saints.

But to try and apply some sort of western rational skeptic philosophy to Hindu religion is not at all going to work. I do think sincere Western people have become involved with Hindu teachers, yoga and the like having no philosophical or cultural background for any of the teachings. And when they become disillusioned by this thing or that thing, they just trash everything in general. And if you people can't sort out the difference between a fake teacher and trashing Hindu religion, maybe you should attend cultural sensitivity classes.

I'm trying to bring to your attention, and perhaps you don't care, that some of the criticisms against certain Hindu teachers are finding fault with Hindu philosophy and religion without even studying what the sages wrote, or why it's an established and respected tradition. For example, I don't think anyone on this blog seems to have a clue what major schools of Vedantic thought actually teach about Guru-disciple relationships. Not can you discern the qualities of a false teacher from a true one by attacking the validity that Advaita (for example) teaches that everyone is Divinity. So going on about Judeo-Christian monotheism and infantile cult people is just racist hostility to Hindu religion.

The thing is, you are criticizing teachers of Advaitic schools of religion precisely because of some of the traditional advaitic teachings. Explore, examine, decide to your hearts content. But this is the ignorant equivalent of bashing Catholics for believing in the reality of Christ body-blood and divinity being consecrated in a host. It isn't evidence of a cult or psychological brainwashing, it's just their particular religious teaching. Anyone who starts attending a Catholic Church and then getting bent enough to create a blog griping about Catholic teaching is a little deficient in the logic capacity.

As I mentioned, in the evil era (Kaliyug) spiritual teaching is highly corrupted. Expect disappointments because true spiritual masters are rare and fakes abound. But I really wish non-Indians would stop publically trashing Indian spirituality when they don't even bother to study anything about it to even know the difference between things they may not philosophically accept and bashing it all as infantile cultism, fakery and abusiveness.

I hope you enjoy your ethnocentric western racist psychobabble alternative. People who have a bad experience don't have a right to trash minority cultures. Get some maturity is all I can say.

So much hostility to traditional advaitic theology.

My criticism is toward those who hijack advaita to present themselves as somehow more God than anyone else. Where in advaita is this presupposition raised?

when it is traditional, historical, and respected Vedantic philosophy.

It is traditional and historical superstition that has been grafted onto Vedanta.

According to advaita, everything is God.

Precisely. Divinity does not pool in concentration. It is dispersed, no more present in those who claim realization than any bug on the ground.

The only difference between a God-Realized Soul and the rest of us?

They have been blessed with a recognition of an ever-present, equally-shining truth in all.

Because no one can attain enlightenment without a Satguru.

Old-fashioned Hindu guru marketing ploy, a la a snake oil salesman, noted.

we can all shine a brighter light and get closer to that authentic holiness the world calls "love."

Love and Brahman have as much to do with one another as Brahman and my dog's ass.

I hope you enjoy your ethnocentric western racist psychobabble alternative.

I hope one day you truly understand Vedanta from the inside rather than as a collection of entrenched and superstitious beliefs.