stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

450 STRIPPING THE GURUS
And yet—
“The Mother of Immortal Bliss” [i.e., Amritanandamayi]
claims to be the living manifestation of all the divine goddesses
of the Hindu pantheon combined (Macdonald, 2003).
In presenting Amma with the Gandhi-King Award for Non-
Violence in 2002, the Jane Goodall further reportedly characterized
her as being “God’s love in a human body” (in Ammachi, 2004).
Understandably—or not—then,
Amritananda[mayi] went underground in 1983 when the police
confronted about twenty-six women who claimed to be
possessed by gods and goddesses (Premanand, 1994).
Sarah Macdonald’s (2003) clear-eyed experiences with Ammachi
in darshan leave one further wondering:
Amid the push, shove, knee-crunch and head-yank I concentrate
on my question.
“What is my purpose, what does God want from me?”
Again, the flash of the nose ring, the gentle hold of the
neck and the whisper in the ear. The answer, my purpose in
life is: “rootoongarootoongarootoongarootoongarootoongarootoonga.”
My shoulder nearly dislocated by the yank out of the
Mother’s midst, I wait for a vision. Is the purpose of my life
to root?
Well, you gotta have goals. Or at least a “special purpose.”
* * *
One can again always find apologists for whom allegedly abusive
gurus/teachers are only “a fraction of a percentage” (i.e., less than
1%) of the whole. To the same “compassionate experts,” students
attract to themselves the teachers and guru-figures they deserve:
In almost all cases, the sincere student is with a corrupt
teacher because he or she has areas of blindness that are either
getting fed or reflected by the teacher....
When I encounter someone who argues vehemently
against the student-teacher relationship, almost inevitably
they are unconsciously trying to heal something still unset-