{"id":268,"date":"2007-07-05T14:50:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-05T09:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/archives\/268"},"modified":"2014-12-29T23:31:54","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T18:01:54","slug":"an-appeal-for-some-catholics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/archives\/268","title":{"rendered":"An appeal for some Catholics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5083638149985000898\"<\/a>
An appeal for some Catholics<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some find Indian guru better for their souls than the Church<\/p>\n

In June, the Indian guru Mata Amritanandamayi visited California, touring the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and spending several days at a center dedicated to her teachings in Castro Valley. She is called the \u201cHugging Saint\u201d because, said the June 18 San Francisco Chronicle, for 35 years she \u201chas dedicated her life to giving people big hugs,\u201d embracing over 25 million people around the world<\/p>\n

By hugging, Amma (\u201cmother,\u201d as she is called), teaches selflessness, according to a web page dedicated to her. \u201cIf you want to learn about serving the world selflessly, sit by Her side one evening as She embraces 12,000 people,\u201d it says. (Pronouns referring to Amma are capitalized.) She teaches silence, beginning \u201cHer birth itself\u201d when \u201cShe entered this world in silence.\u201d She teaches \u201crenunciation, but only in the midst of a lifetime of refusing to consider Her own comfort.\u201d Amma\u2019s every breath bears \u201ctestament to Her inability to see any man, woman or child as different from Her own Self.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amma has an appeal for some Catholics. Musician Prashant Michael Rao is one of the former Catholics to take Amma as his guru. In California for Amma\u2019s tour of the state, Rao, 56, shared with the Chronicle his reasons for exchanging Holy Mother Church for the Hugging Saint\u2019s \u201cUniversal Motherhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rao, a native of Bangladesh, said as a Catholic he \u201cused to go to church every Sunday. I did everything that Catholics do until I went to boarding school when I was 13,\u201d he said, when he entered a Muslim school.<\/p>\n

As a teenager, Rao was \u201cinfluenced by the 1960s sort of philosophy that had nothing to do with religion — it was more to do with spirituality. And so I dropped my Catholicism. I like the path of yoga and meditation.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a follower of Amma, Rao said his goal is to transcend the ego and the body — as have \u201csaints\u201d like Amma, because \u201cthey live from their essence and know they are one with everything.\u201d One has to know himself completely, said Rao, by stopping \u201cthe chatter\u201d and stopping \u201cthinking.\u201d Masters like Amma \u201ctell us that there is nothing to find. There is only stuff to remove. There are clouds to remove so that you can see that the sun is shining. There are doors to open so that you can see that it’s daylight outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rao is not alone. According to a 2001 Reuters article, Catholic nuns in France went to see her. In 2004, Eric Perez, 33, a former Catholic, said he found in Amma a unique spirituality. \u201cShe\u2019s the feminine face of God,\u201d he told the New York Daily News. \u201cThis is the true meaning of religion.\u201d Another former Catholic, Bill Gasko, 65, told the Chronicle during Amma\u2019s 2005 visit to the Bay Area, Amma was \u201clike Christ becoming a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Amma does not claim such high honors for herself alone. \u201cEveryone is an avatar,\u201d she said in 2005. \u201cEveryone is self-realized. Everyone is enlightened. My god is people. My god is creation.\u201d<\/p>\n

California Catholic Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An appeal for some Catholics Some find Indian guru better for their souls than the Church In June, the Indian guru Mata Amritanandamayi visited California, touring the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and spending several days at a center dedicated to her teachings in Castro Valley. She is called the \u201cHugging Saint\u201d because, said the … Continue reading An appeal for some Catholics<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}