Joining the Cult of the Hugging Saint is like joining the Eight-Trey Gangsta' Crips; you're in it for life, Cuzz. If you do decide to get out, you better be ready for some South-Central L.A., Boyz 'N The Hood-style drive-by character assassination:
I became an ex-Amma devotee over a year ago, and these people are still talking about me and trying to ruin my name. I was mortified when someone sent me a link to the group and suggested I take a look at the prayer list and there were the names of my partner and I. I posted that I would like to be removed from the prayer list, and this infuriated her devotees.So here we have another stellar example of Amma's love in action. Ourselves being the victim of an almost identical slander and libel campaign online, we can relate. Unfortunately, it appears that only lawyers billing hundreds of dollars to draft letters, motions and subpoenas seem to get anything done with the big context providers these days. Until you are willing to shell out those kind of shekels, you just have to learn to suck it up and take it.
Both my partner and I work with at-risk youth, most of whom have life threatening drug addictions. In most of our work (she is a clinical therapist and I am a volunteer) we still use our "spiritual" names and we are known within the community by these names. It recently was brought to my attention that in the Ammachi forum they were posting slanderous remarks that I am a drug addict. I don't even know who these people are, as I have never associated socially with devotees even when I was one. You can imagine the negative impact this type of libel could have on both of our work. If any of our clients happened to Google our names and read all of these false rumors of drug addiction, the end result would be a disaster. I have requested that these posts be removed immediately, but the moderator so far has refused to take action...
This type of behavior is also indicative of the way they try to malign people who leave the cult. This is why most ex-devotees leave silently with their tail between their legs and you never hear from them. I am not one of those people, and I plan to raise holy hell in any and every way possible for every minor and major issue that arises from the sickness that is Amma.
Ah, the joys of online living, brought to you this time by the Goddess of "Love" and her (not the funny kind of) hysterical minions.
