-- By Tom Phillips
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.
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.
I spent three days at the Amritapuri ashram last week. Among the three thousand-plus residents, followers and casual guests, nearly everyone looked and acted middle-class -- i.e. adequately fed and clothed, literate, washed. Mother Teresa was sent to the abandoned, starving masses of the poor. Amma is sent to the poor, but also to the new masses, with their middle-class woes: i.e. loneliness, alienation, anxiety, guilt.
These she confronts with the love of God. She has it, and transmits it to every pilgrim who comes to her. For two days each week at the ashram, she embraces them, one by one, for ten hours without a break -- body to body, heart to heart, soul to soul. Indian people go first -- ashram residents and visitors, families with babies, and busloads of uniformed teenage students. International guests are a minority and go last, but Amma seems fresh and alert even after eight hours of non-stop hugging. Everyone is special. You kneel and rest your head in the hollow of her shoulder, and then she holds you tight, cheek to cheek, speaking her message right into your ear.
I didn't get to hear her speak in public, but picked up bits of her teaching from written material and her followers. Amma distrusts radical practices like marathon meditations or long-term fasting. She runs a Hindu monastery with traditional rites and monastic rules, but a relaxed social atmosphere. She follows the Buddhist "middle way" of moderation, and the Christian principle of selfless giving. While at the ashram, you're encouraged to do an hour of meditation and an hour of volunteer service every day. Amma wants you to be happy. Among the yoga courses is one on therapeutic laughing.
Music is everywhere -- the hugging marathon accompanied all day by the silky sound of Indian instruments, and singers adept in the tripping polysyllables of Sanskrit chants. And last week, a guest appearance by the Brazilian singer/guitarist Gilberto Gil. He played two interludes, singing to Amma as she hugged.
The ashram is middle-class but not expensive. A spartan double room costs $7 a night. Food is free or cheap, high-quality used clothes are available daily at the rummage sale, the gift store is remarkably modest.
On the downside, security is supplied by Indian troops with automatic weapons, just as at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi. (Recall that Indira, like so many Indian leaders, was assassinated.) Surveillance is in effect. And a double loop of concertina wire surrounds Amma's residence in the middle of the ashram. As popular as the Beatles, she moves surrounded by trusted aides. One of her aides quit a few years ago and wrote a book called "Holy Hell," about how her life turned into virtual slavery under her tyrannical, mercurial boss.
It should come as no surprise that both saints, Amma and Mother Teresa, have also been sinners. Lacking the MBA minimally needed for running a global organization, both stand accused of autocratic rule, poor administration, wasteful practices, corruption and hypocrisy. Mother Teresa was criticized for seeking converts to the Catholic church. Amma is accused of sexual promiscuity, and diverting money to her own family.
Still, a saint is a saint -- someone who can represent the divine in human form. "For Mercy has a human heart,/ Pity a human face,/ and Love, the human form divine,/ and Peace the human dress" wrote the 19th Century English mystic William Blake.
India produces saints because it believes in them. I'll keep my hug from Amma, forever.
-- Copyright 2019 by Tom Phillips
 |
| Mother Teresa shrine, Kochi |
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.
 |
| Amma on Tour |
I spent three days at the Amritapuri ashram last week. Among the three thousand-plus residents, followers and casual guests, nearly everyone looked and acted middle-class -- i.e. adequately fed and clothed, literate, washed. Mother Teresa was sent to the abandoned, starving masses of the poor. Amma is sent to the poor, but also to the new masses, with their middle-class woes: i.e. loneliness, alienation, anxiety, guilt.
These she confronts with the love of God. She has it, and transmits it to every pilgrim who comes to her. For two days each week at the ashram, she embraces them, one by one, for ten hours without a break -- body to body, heart to heart, soul to soul. Indian people go first -- ashram residents and visitors, families with babies, and busloads of uniformed teenage students. International guests are a minority and go last, but Amma seems fresh and alert even after eight hours of non-stop hugging. Everyone is special. You kneel and rest your head in the hollow of her shoulder, and then she holds you tight, cheek to cheek, speaking her message right into your ear.
I didn't get to hear her speak in public, but picked up bits of her teaching from written material and her followers. Amma distrusts radical practices like marathon meditations or long-term fasting. She runs a Hindu monastery with traditional rites and monastic rules, but a relaxed social atmosphere. She follows the Buddhist "middle way" of moderation, and the Christian principle of selfless giving. While at the ashram, you're encouraged to do an hour of meditation and an hour of volunteer service every day. Amma wants you to be happy. Among the yoga courses is one on therapeutic laughing.
Music is everywhere -- the hugging marathon accompanied all day by the silky sound of Indian instruments, and singers adept in the tripping polysyllables of Sanskrit chants. And last week, a guest appearance by the Brazilian singer/guitarist Gilberto Gil. He played two interludes, singing to Amma as she hugged.
The ashram is middle-class but not expensive. A spartan double room costs $7 a night. Food is free or cheap, high-quality used clothes are available daily at the rummage sale, the gift store is remarkably modest.
On the downside, security is supplied by Indian troops with automatic weapons, just as at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi. (Recall that Indira, like so many Indian leaders, was assassinated.) Surveillance is in effect. And a double loop of concertina wire surrounds Amma's residence in the middle of the ashram. As popular as the Beatles, she moves surrounded by trusted aides. One of her aides quit a few years ago and wrote a book called "Holy Hell," about how her life turned into virtual slavery under her tyrannical, mercurial boss.
It should come as no surprise that both saints, Amma and Mother Teresa, have also been sinners. Lacking the MBA minimally needed for running a global organization, both stand accused of autocratic rule, poor administration, wasteful practices, corruption and hypocrisy. Mother Teresa was criticized for seeking converts to the Catholic church. Amma is accused of sexual promiscuity, and diverting money to her own family.
Still, a saint is a saint -- someone who can represent the divine in human form. "For Mercy has a human heart,/ Pity a human face,/ and Love, the human form divine,/ and Peace the human dress" wrote the 19th Century English mystic William Blake.
India produces saints because it believes in them. I'll keep my hug from Amma, forever.
-- Copyright 2019 by Tom Phillips
 |
| For the Prequel, click here |
No comments:
Post a Comment