{"id":326,"date":"2007-07-28T16:06:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-28T10:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/326\/a-following-in-the-foothills\/"},"modified":"2014-12-31T11:30:52","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T06:00:52","slug":"a-following-in-the-foothills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/2007\/326\/","title":{"rendered":"A following in the foothills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">A following in the foothills<\/span><br \/>\n12:01 a.m. PT Jul 28, 2007<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">&#8220;I feel I have found my path in life and my purpose in life. My close friends see the change in me. It feels like coming home.&#8221; &#8211; Elyse Warner, devotee of Indian holy woman Amma<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 85%\"><span style=\"font-family: arial\">famous Indian religious figures have followers in Nevada County<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>BY SOUMITRO SEN<\/p>\n<p>Staff Writer<\/p>\n<p>When Elyse Warner first heard of the spiritual teacher known as Amma in 2000, she wasn&#8217;t into visiting such people.<\/p>\n<p>But a few weeks later, Warner stood in line to get her first audience with the 53-year-old Hindu holy woman in the Amma&#8217;s ashram in San Ramon, Calif. Seven years later, Warner recalls how she wept without knowing why.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was the most powerful experience I&#8217;ve felt,&#8221; Warner, 54, said. &#8220;It felt like the presence of a divinity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The transformative power of eastern religions has drawn a significant following in western Nevada County, where one devotee attributes the spirituality of area residents to the gold lacing the ground.<\/p>\n<p>Saintly people of 20th century India, in particular, draw many devotees from the region and around the world, including Amma, Sathya Sai Baba, Anandamayi Ma, Swami Yogananda and Swami Sivananda.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Devotees feel change in their lives<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Amma means &#8220;mother,&#8221; the name fondly given by devotees to Mata Amritanandamayi. Today, Warner is an ardent follower, and hosts gatherings of local devotees at her home once a month.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I believe Amma is an avatar &#8211; divinity in a human body,&#8221; Warner said. &#8220;When I am around her, I experience moments of real peace and joy that I can&#8217;t say I&#8217;ve felt very much before.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel like a different person,&#8221; Warner said. &#8220;I feel I have found my path in life and my purpose in life. My close friends see the change in me. It feels like coming home.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>ooo<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theunion.com\">TheUnion.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A following in the foothills 12:01 a.m. PT Jul 28, 2007 &#8220;I feel I have found my path in life and my purpose in life. My close friends see the change in me. It feels like coming home.&#8221; &#8211; Elyse Warner, devotee of Indian holy woman Amma famous Indian religious figures have followers in Nevada [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-darshan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}