These are typically lovely people—not a glassy eye in the bunch. I was not in search of a Guru or help of any kind. My friend was on her way to the ashram and the group had rented a car, but one of the passangers bailed. So she asked if I wanted to go to meditate. Well, my mother had partiipated in meditation when I was young and it gave her a lot of energy..
I did not know anything about Gugumayi.. I just wanted to meditate but I did not know how. I spent the next 12 years or so exploring my inner self. I have not been active in this path for more than 10 years or more…but the lessons I learned are about love…not hate. It is not a crime to be needy. In his world there is much hate, much envy, much greed. There is very little love and compassion. Gurumayi preached love and compassion in a way that was often new and surprising to people in the US because we are sheltered from the real world.
Unfortunately…or maybe fortunately we in the US are being shown how other people of the world are experiencing the horrors of their life. This could be the horrors of our life in this time of evil. Gurumayi says that to overcome this evil we need to believe in GOD. Somehow, along the way we have given up GOD in favor of? I do not know what. Somehow, I belive that GOD needs to be in the hearts of all people no matter what their religious beliefs they embrace.
Counting the moments for my guru to make one last appearance, IAM Rastamamakali. Gurumayi and siddha yoga helped me through a very dark place in my life. I spent a decent amount of time at the ashram in south falls burg, and my my opinion is that it was many of the devotees that ruined the whole experience for me. I spent one wknd doing seva in the kitchen and mostly everyone there were extremely uptight and stressed out as there was some special meal for the guru that weekend.
I tried to lighten up the place, suggested chanting as we worked, etc. To no avail… And not to judge, but… Most of them were some pretty unhappy unfriendly upper east siders. However, I had the amazing pleasure of meeting gurumayi personally and being touched by her. It was electric. She is pure love.. What a waste of time…. By the way, The movie version of eat pray love was not as bad as I had heard or had expected. It was gorgeous to watch and touched me deeply.
Julia Roberts was completely mis-cast. That was the main problem. And Billy crudup??? Who did the casting on this movie??? It was an experience to remember. I will always be thankful to gurumayi. She blessed me and two of my friends who attended with baby boys all born 7 day s apart the following summer.
I also learned to meditate and chant. SHE fawned over a visiting bigwig to get noticed, giving her massages?! Looking over the responses is interesting. I had no idea I was being pompous. I was trying to be meticulously honest. I assume I failed. I have merely the experience to rely upon.
I will never doubt it. Moreover, it is catalogued in many Eastern texts. I did not mean to offend. I simply wanted to tell what I perceive to be the Truth. And it comes in a variety of traditions. I might make the same observation about falling in love. How do you explain that to someone who has never had the experience? I did not mean to place myself in a rarified realm.
I was simply trying to convey the phenomenal experience. Obviously I failed. And perhaps I used poor verbiage. Pax Christi. Many situations a visit to an Indian ashram, attending a charismatic Christian revival, going to a Vegas hypnotist show, taking a walk in the redwoods, etc can result in big, special, temporary experiences. How one uses the experience in their lives may differ. Though the experience itself is fun and interesting, wrapping the experience in a belief-system can lead to fuzzy-headed arrogance.
Unexplainable coincidences. Unexplainable coincidences happen to everyone. The only difference is that people who seek the company of mystics are more likely to take those common coincidences and morph them into fuzzy-headed belief-systems. I believe that these Masters have the ability to manipulate the reality field around them to produce genuine profound experiences in their audience.
This does not make the Master a good, or a bad person. Simply a person who has this talent. Just like an actor who can capture and hold an audience spellbound, does not make the actor a good or a bad person.
Perhaps in a different kind of world we would all learn to develop the talent to manupulate the reality field around us. So, a person has a genuine profound mystical experience. What then? I feel that the negativity comes in when the person who has just had this empowering experience is encouraged to disempower themselves by worshipping, or surrendering to, the guru.
Possibly the guru then sucks up all this worshipful energy in order to blast it onto the next group of potential disciples. Kind of like a spiritual Ponzi scheme. So I believe that the experiences are genuine. The negativity comes in not from the experience, but from the intention behind the producing of this experience.
When follower is encouraged to think of the guru not as a flawed human being, but as a being to be worshipped, idolized, and surrendered to, what was supposed to be and empowering experience becomes a disempowering one.
On additional point regarding the book Eat, Pray, Love. We laughed and drank our champagne. I knew nothing about the content. When I arrived at the section about an ashram in India, I bolted up in my seat on the airplane and turned to my spouse and said, I think Gurumayi is a part of this amazing vacation.
To us, a pair of scum sucking yuppie pigs, Gurumayi was coming to Bora Bora in the form of Elizabeth Gilberts book. These types of coincideneces happen to people that seek the company of mystics. By the way….. I call myself a scum sucking yuppie pig because that tends to be the feedback I receive when I post anything about my positive experiences with Gurumayi.
Sorry to not have had a bad experience. She is a mystic to me. Please do not negate that people like me exist and that we limited our exposure to only the beneficial things Siddha Yoga and Gurumayi offered.
We walked away with something wonderful. I understand both sides of the on going debate. Be practical and forget that magic and mystics exist. Be sensible and understand the damage that a charlatan can cause. I understand this and yet I loved Siddha Yoga. Seriously loved the South Fallsburg ashram. I never stayed for longer than a weekend. I always walked away feeling happy with life and that divinity in all human beings is real.
One darshan with Gurumayi cured a family member of a very serious addiction. They continue to say this today. I however benefited from Siddha Yoga and my contact with Gurumayi. I have nothing bad to say about Gurumayi. I will say that I was cautious at the ashram. Many of the devotees seemed to throw their lives to the wind and expect Gurumayi to save, heal, support them in some way.
I came from a middle class European family that simply would not allow me to give up my life and live in an ashram. I loved my parents very much and therefore only experienced Siddha yoga from a distance.
I have been very fortunate in life and now travel the world staying in many amazing five star hotels and resorts. I have yet to find one property that had the same peace and tranquility that I experienced with Gurumayi and her swamis in South Fallsburg. It was an unexplainable experience. Every family member and friend that I introduced to Gurumayi and Siddha Yoga enjoyed the experience. I am so sorry to hear that people did not have a good experience.
I can only in fairness state the above for readers that wonder if modern mystics exist. I believe they do and that Gurumayi is one of them. I also believe that it is impossible to judge other people and their motives.
Anyone could judge me as a yuppie scum sucking idiot. I say to that ……why? How do you really honestly know why anyone does what they do? I would love for someone to honestly tell me why Gurumayi does what she does? Nothing on the internet, in a book, rumor, gossip, etc. Sorry guys ….. I am not trying to stir the pot. I respect Marta and her memoir …… really I do.
I just have to say that I had a good experience and nothing to date has proven that Gurumayi is not a modern mystic. I spent ten years at the Oakland and Catskills ashram. I left for poor reasons and regret it very much. The experience before, during, and after changed me permanently, cured my alcoholism, removed my anger from a dysfunctional upbringing and has brought me contentment.
Siddha Yoga continues to transform me on a daily basis. There are many people who come into the presence of a spiritual being who simply are not ready and they may leave feeling defrauded, unable to understand what is going on. You cannot judge a true Guru by their actions. They are constantly removing bad Karma and working it out for the devotee. You judge them by your inner transformation. I agree with Marta. Often cult, or even pop figures are very charasmatic, and people report an electrifying experience in their presence.
It means nothing other than the fact that they are charasmatic. Girls swoon over Justin Bieber, due to their own desires and expectations about what he is like. I left Eat, Pray, Love thinking how difficult it is for movies to capture the mystical realm which involves inner transformation and spirituality.
Liz Gilbert did a good job of this in her book. In my experience the peace that Gurumayi Chidvilasananda conveys IS life changing and indescribable — a vast inner space of of love. I spent many years in Siddha Yoga ashrams, learning how to go deeper into this experience. I am immensely grateful for it! In an ashram, as in life, what you get depends upon your intention and focus. If your intention is to unfold the love in your life, the teachings of Siddha Yoga bring this to many. If your intention is to make money by writing an expose, and to gather ill-wishers around you, then you have a life with negativity at its core.
Marta, I shall order your book forthwith. I lost my magical-thinking when I worked for Whole Life Expo in the 90s. My position allowed me to meet all my metaphysical heroes. Needless to say, they were mostly venal, egotistical, avaricious, delusional, deceptive or just plain greedy.
And as for being blown into inner space Ms. Morris, you did that yourself. It still happens to me, only now its usually watching the children in my life explore the life in a patch of garden or looking at the latest Hubble telescope photos.
To each their own. There goes Big Christian machine… Every other religion, philosophy is a cult or an Al Queda offshoot. Certainly, during my years in her ashrams I heard many stories. Gurumayi is also a complete charlatan. These types of experiences happen under a variety of circumstances. No biggie. Any spiritual professional can guarantee that there will be some people in the audience who will have some kind of out-of-body or whatever experience. Muller-Ortega, William K. Mahoney, Constantina Rhodes Bailly, S.
Caldwell, Sarah. Chidvilasananda, Swami. Cornille, Catherine. Leuven: Peeters. DeNapoli, Antoinette. New York: Oxford University Press. Durgananda, Swami. Gold, Daniel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hausner, Sondra L. Hausner, and Ann Grodzins Gold. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Healy, John Paul. Hinduism Today, January. Magazine web edition. Jain, Andrea R. Kang, Bhavdeep. New Delhi: Westland Ltd. Khandelwal, Meena.
Kramer, Joel, and Diana Alstad. Berkeley: Frog Books. Mahoney, William K. Muktananda, Swami. Muller-Ortega, Paul E. Narayan, Kirin. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Pechilis, Karen. London: Routledge. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Puttick, Elizabeth. New York: St. Leaving Siddha Yoga. Rodarmor, William. Salon Staff. Sered, Susan. Shah, Riddhi. Storr, Anthony. New York: Free Press. Thursby, Gene. Weiss, Richard S. Wessinger, Catherine.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Williamson, Lola. Forsthoefel and Cynthia Ann Humes. On May 3, , she was initiated as a sannyasin into the Saraswati order, taking vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience, and acquiring the title and monastic name of Swami Chidvilasananda, literally, "bliss of the play of consciousness".
At this time Muktananda formally designated her as one of his successors, along with her brother Subhash Shetty, now known by his monastic name of Mahamandaleshwar Nityananda. Muktananda died in October The two co-gurus disagreed in According to his interview in Hinduism Today, Nityananda left by his own choice, deciding to cease to be a Siddha Yoga Sannyasin but wishing his sister well as sole guru. In , Nityananda founded the Shanti Mandir 'Temple of Peace' , a separate organization which "continues the spiritual work of his Guru, the renowned sage Baba Muktananda, whom he succeeded in Chidvilasananda "is a superb singer", with a "deep, resonant contralto" voice which she uses to great effect when leading her devotees in chanting.
Gilbert has not identified by name the real-life ashram and guru featured in the book. The Telegraph states that Scottish pop singer Lulu met Gurumayi. In , Lis Harris noted that Gurumayi's ashram in New York State is "sleekly modernized, in country-club-glitz style" from three prewar Catskill hotels "in neatly landscaped grounds" of acres, and had "an estimated market value of fifteen to seventeen million dollars" in The ashram was able to earn "well over four million dollars" in selling books and other merchandise, and by running workshops called intensives.
Her critics believe that she associates with celebrities and runs opulent ashrams. They believe that behavior contradicts what is expected of a renunciate. Linda Johnsen observed the appearance of wealth at the ashram and took it positively. She noted that the ascetic traditions of yoga are only one type and that others exist. She quotes a brahmin priest who told her "The Goddess is beauty and wealth. Prosperity is a gift of the Mother. Kindle My Heart. Prentice Hall Press.
Chidvilasananda, Swami Ashes At My Guru's Feet. SYDA Foundation. Siddha Yoga Diksha in Hindi. Inner Treasures. Blaze The Trail Of Equipoise.
Resonate With Stillness. The Yoga Of Discipline. The Magic Of The Heart.
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