-- By Tom Phillips
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| Mother Teresa shrine, Kochi |
Forty years ago, when I first went to India, it was a poor country -- full of homeless beggars, subsistence farmers at the mercy of rains and floods, and enormous shantytowns on the edges of cities. Children died in the streets and the general attitude was -- there's nothing to be done, it's their karma. That was mainstream religious thought in India, but in this desperate environment appeared a saint, a high-powered woman who believed differently, and convinced India and the world to follow her. Mother Teresa from Albania brought her radical Christian mission of blessing the poor to a poor nation that actually takes religion seriously. It took her in and made her a national hero, a symbol of India's dynamism, creativity, and potential for miracles.
Forty years later, this fall, I went back to India and saw miracles. That wretchedly poor country has become a middle-class economic powerhouse, leaping ahead in communications and technology, catching up fast in infrastructure and amenities. In three weeks in India, I saw fewer beggars than I would have on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And I saw things undreamt of in 1978: Toyota cars, movie stars, 5-star hotels, Pepsi vs. Coke, subways, and a state-of-the art airport (Cochin) run entirely on solar power.
Material success hasn't killed religion, though. Here there is practically no separation between church and state, and very little between heaven and earth. Every morning before the rooster crows, temples, mosques and churches are broadcasting their calls to worship. Hindu gods are household icons, media celebrities, cult figures with chanting fans. And in this vibrant spiritual environment India has a new saint: for the poor, and for the middle classes too.
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| Amma on Tour |
The world knows her as Amma. She was born in a poor fishing village in India's western coastal state of Kerala, the site of her international ashram today. At the age of nine, it's said, she began giving hugs to strangers, prompting her father to throw her out of the house. To date she has hugged nearly 35 million people around the world, including me. Like Mother Teresa she runs a world-wide organization providing food, shelter, health care, and disaster relief to the poor. But her ministry of hugs also has a special appeal to the middle class.
