I’ve just found a new website devoted to interfaith dialogue and spirituality that looks very promising. Check it out: www.interfaithing.com

Seeking Common Ground between Muslims and Christians

By Ibrahim Kalin |  November 19, 2008 | Washington Post;

“Establishing religious and cultural accord is difficult anywhere in the world. This is especially true for the long and checkered relationship between Islam and Christianity. Islam’s rise to the stage of world history in the 7th century when Christianity was struggling both in Europe and in the East created a sense of rivalry and urgency among Western Christians. Islam’s claim of restoring Abrahamic monotheism and rejection of the Christian Trinity was received as a theological challenge. Its rapid expansion into areas that were once under the Byzantine rule led to a heightened sense of political and military threat. Finally, the dominance of Islamic culture and civilization after the 10th and 11th centuries was a cause of alarm to many Christians in Europe. Periods of peaceful co-existence in places like Andalusia, Baghdad and Istanbul have provided some brilliant examples of peaceful co-existence. Yet, the perceptions and attitudes of exclusion and hostility have survived and continue to shape the current views of Islam and Muslims from the pulpits across the US to media outlets and policy circles.

Riz Khan with Ingrid Mattson - A Christian-Muslim dialogue: ( July 31, 2008 ) Part 1:

“In addition to numerous interfaith initiatives, a large group of prominent Muslim scholars, intellectuals and community leaders has been working over the last two years to address some of these issues. In October 2007, an open letter called “A Common Word Between US and You,” signed by 138 Muslim signatories, was sent to Christian leaders and communities around the world to open up new lines of communication between Muslims and Christians. This was a follow up to “An Open Letter to the Pope” sent in response to Pope Benedict’s controversial Regensburg Speech in 2006. The open letter responded to the Regensburg’s two claims that Islam was unable to develop a rational discourse about its religious tenets and thus invited its followers to “submit” to God rather than to think about or love Him. Furthermore, Islam spread through violence, which is an extension of its irrational nature. On both counts, Christians, the Pope seemed to imply, cannot have theological dialogue with Muslims.

Taking its cue from the two commandments of the love of God and love of the neighbor, the Common Word asserted that there is a ground for theological engagement between Christians and Muslims (as well as Jews) while religious differences are to be admitted as part of a genuine dialogue and ethics of co-existence. At another level, this is a call for the acknowledgment of a Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. In addition to the intricacies of Christian and Muslim theology, there are also grounds for practical cooperation between the two largest religious and cultural communities of the world. After all, one does not have to have uniformity to seek common ground. The challenge is to create an ethics of co-existence and cultivate a sense of respectful difference.

So far, the Common Word led to three high-level meetings. The first was at the Yale Divinity School last July where Muslim and primarily Protestant theologians took up the two themes of the Common Word. A highly significant letter signed by three hundred prominent Protestant theologians and scholars was published in New York Times. The second meeting was hosted by Cambridge University in October ending with a meeting with Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at the Lambeth Palace. Prior to the October meeting, Dr. Williams wrote a detailed and profound response to the Common Word, reiterating its main points but also expanding on it to further the relations between Muslims and Christians. The third meeting took place at the Vatican in Rome on November 4-6, 2008 as the first Seminar of the Catholic-Muslim Forum with the participation of about 60 Muslim and Catholic religious leaders and scholars from around the world. (Go here for the texts of the Vatican meeting as well as the Common Word.) The fourth meeting will take place at Georgetown University next year.

Interfaith engagements raise the question of whether one should concentrate on practical issues and avoid theological debates. Many engaged in interfaith dialogue prefer to deal with practical issues with the hope that this would produce concrete results. Interreligious dialogue, however, cannot function in a “beyond-the-truth” kind of attitude because, for one, all religions lay a claim to the truth (regardless of how one understands it). One has to take these claims seriously. Secondly, one is expected to remain loyal to one’s tradition in broad outlines while reaching out to the other(s); otherwise a dialogue without a center would be without meaning and substance. Plus, it will have no representation and thus no impact on the larger community.

Riz Khan with Ingrid Mattson - A Christian-Muslim dialogue: ( July 31, 2008 ) Part 2:

Differences do not obviate serious intellectual engagement. The current global problems call for a dialogical conversation between Christians and Muslims as well as others. As religions have to learn to live in an increasingly pluralistic world, they are bound to listen to one another more attentively. Muslims and Christians need to mobilize their resources to address the spiritual crisis and social problems of our day and age. It is encouraging to see that the Catholic-Muslim Forum has agreed to “explore the possibility of establishing a permanent Catholic-Muslim committee to coordinate responses to conflicts and other emergency situations”. Such measures could prove to be vital to diffuse communal tension and misunderstanding. But much more work remains to be done in order to close the theological and historical gap between Christians and Muslims.”

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Christmas Essay by William Dalrymple (Complete Essay at http://www.newstatesman.com/200512190021):

“This unexpected Mughal enthusiasm for Christian devotions is a highly significant moment in the history of Islamo-Christian relations and one which has, of course, largely been forgotten today in the polarised world that has emerged from the Islamist attacks on America. For in the US the dominant narrative is that of Bernard Lewis, the guru of the neo-cons and America’s most influential commentator on matters Islamic, who believes that relations between the Muslim east and Christian west have always been entirely adversarial and who lectured the White House on this – and the dangers he believed to be posed by Islam – the week after 9/11. As Lewis wrote in a widely quoted essay, “The Roots of Muslim Rage”: “The struggle between these rival systems has now lasted some 14 centuries. It began with the advent of Islam, in the 7th century, and has continued virtually to the present day. It has consisted of a long series of attacks and counter-attacks, jihads and crusades, conquests and reconquests.” It was this essay that contained the phrase “the clash of civilisations”, later borrowed by Samuel Huntington for his controversial Foreign Affairs essay and book.”

[...] “I first came across the Mughals’ surprising veneration of Jesus and his mother 21 years ago. I remember climbing, on a bleak December morning in 1984, the great flight of steps leading to the Friday Mosque at Fatehpur Sikri in northern India.

I was an 18-year-old backpacker fresh out of school, and was enjoying the sensation of disorientation. It was just before Christmas, but not only was there not a Christmas tree in sight, there was nothing remotely Christian to be seen, or so I thought.

But when I reached the top of the steps that rose to the Buland Darwaza – the arched victory gateway leading into the principal mosque – I saw something that startled me. Here was one of the greatest pieces of Muslim architecture, but the Naskh calligraphy that lined the inside of the arch leading to the mosque read as follows: “Jesus, Son of Mary (on whom be peace) said: The World is a Bridge, pass over it, but build no houses upon it. He who hopes for a day, may hope for eternity; but the World endures but an hour. Spend it in prayer, for the rest is unseen.”

The inscription was doubly surprising: not only was I taken aback to find an apparently Christian quotation given centre stage in a Muslim monument, but the inscription itself was unfamiliar. It certainly sounded like the sort of thing Jesus might have said, but did Jesus really say that the world was like a bridge? And even if he had, why would a Muslim emperor want to place such a phrase on the entrance to the main mosque in his capital city?

It was only much later, after I had lived and travelled in India and the Middle East for several years, that I began to be able to answer some of these questions. The phrase emblazoned over the gateway was, I learned, one of several hundred sayings and stories of Jesus that fill Arabic and Islamic literature. Some of these derive from the four canonical Gospels, others from now rejected early Christian texts such as the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, others again from the wider oral Christian culture-compost of the Near East – possibly authentic sayings and stories, in other words, that Islam has retained but which western Christianity has lost.

These sayings of Jesus circulated around the Muslim world from Spain to China, and many are still familiar to educated Muslims today. They fill out and augment the profoundly reverential picture of Christ painted in the Koran where Jesus is called the Messiah, the Messenger, the Prophet, Word and Spirit of God, though – in common with some currents of heterodox Christian thought of the period – his outright divinity is questioned. There are also frequent mentions of his mother Mary who appears in no fewer than 13 surahs (chapters) and who is said to be exalted “above the women of the two [celestial and temporal] worlds” and, like Jesus, a “model” for Muslims. Mary is in fact the only woman mentioned by her proper name in the entire Koran, and appears more often in the Koran (34 times) than she does in the Gospels, where she is mentioned only 19 times.

This should not be a surprise. After all, both Islam and Christianity grew out of the same culture-compost of the late-antique Middle East, and Islam accepts much of the Old and New Testaments, and obeys the Mosaic laws about circumcision and ablutions. Indeed, the Koran goes as far as calling Christians the “nearest in love” to Muslims, whom it instructs in Surah 29 to “dispute not with the People of the Book [that is, Jews and Christians] save in the most courteous manner . . . and say, ‘We believe in what has been sent down to us and what has been sent down to you; our God and your God is one, and to him we have surrendered.’” As in the Gospels, the Jesus of Muslim tradition is seen as a healer and a miracle-worker, as well as a model of good conduct, gentleness and compassion. But he is also portrayed as the Lord of Nature, who can talk with animals and command the hills and stones to obey him. First and foremost, however, the Muslim Jesus is the patron saint of asceticism, who renounces the world, lives in abandoned ruins, identifies with the poor and champions the virtues of poverty, humility and patience.

“Jesus was a constant traveller in the land,” reads one saying, “never abiding in a house or a village. His clothing consisted of a cloak made of coarse hair or camel stub. Whenever night fell, his lamp was the moonlight, his shade the blackness of the night, his bed the earth, his pillow a stone, his food the plants of the fields.” “Jesus used to eat the leaves of the trees,” reads another, “dress in hair shirts, and sleep wherever night found him. He did not save his lunch for his dinner or his dinner for his lunch. He used to say, ‘Each day brings with it its own sustenance.’” In this ascetic role, he was seen across the Islamic world as a sort of Sufi grandmaster: understanding the mysteries of the heart beyond the reach of human intellect.

The emperor Akbar, who founded and built Fatehpur Sikri, was particularly fond of this tradition of the Sayings of Jesus. The emperor was a Sufi mystic and believed that all existence is one, a manifestation of the underlying divine reality. Love of God and one’s brethren, he believed, were more important than narrow religious affiliation. Guided by this enlightened philosophy, Akbar’s rule succeeded as much through conciliation as by war. His method, which he came to as much from religious conviction as realpolitik, was to make Mughal rule acceptable to the empire’s overwhelmingly non-Muslim population.

He issued an edict of sulh-i kul, or universal toleration, forbade the forcible conversion of prisoners to Islam and married a succession of Hindu wives – whose magnificent zenana (women’s) palaces I had seen at Fatehpur Sikri that cold December morning. He promoted Hindus at all levels of the administration: indeed, he even entrusted his army to a Hindu – his former enemy Raja Man Singh of Jaipur, whom he had defeated in battle – and filled his court with artists and intellectuals, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. He also ended the jizya tax levied only on non-Muslims, and ordered the translation of the Sanskrit classics into Persian.

I recently came across Akbar again in the pages of a remarkable collection of essays by Amartya Sen. Sen is a Nobel Prizewinner for economics, a former master of Trinity College Cambridge, and now a professor at Harvard. His new collection is entitled The Argumentative Indian, and in this he credits Akbar with laying part of the foundations of modern Indian secularism and democracy. It is an appropriately intriguing argument.

Sen takes issue with the commonplace that the west is the home of religious freedom and democracy: when George Bush talks of bringing these values to the Muslim world, he envisages exporting them from their home in the west to the east. But Sen argues that the east has its own traditions of public participation in decision-making, of government by discussion, and of religious tolerance. Indeed, at the same time as most of Catholic Europe – and Portuguese Goa – was given over to the Inquisition, and in Rome Giordano Bruno was being burned for heresy in the Campo dei Fiori, in Fatehpur Sikri Akbar was declaring that “no man should be interfered with on account of religion, and anyone is to be allowed to go over to a religion that pleases him”.”

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Related: The Clash of Civilizations?, La Convivencia – When the Moors Ruled in Spain, The Crusades – Crescent and the Cross

Islam has in my opinion helped Christians in the West to understand their faith better.  Do we really mean three when we speak of God and the doctrine of the Trinity?  Or have we in many ways confused what is important to the point of emphasizing doctrine over Scripture?

Islam points Christians back to their holy book to re-examine its pages (esp. in the original Hebrew and Greek) to see if and where we have gone astray, or where we’ve miscommunicated something or have fallen into speculation instead of emphasizing the more important parts of our revealed faith.

My own journey in this regard has led me to realize and affirm the oneness of God.  Allah (swt) does not have any partners, nor is He one of three, He does not have sons and daughters through procreation, nor does he share His place of highest authority with two other gods.   He is one and only one.

That however, does leave us with what to do with Messiah Jesus, Isa al-Masih (as).  Who is the Messiah?  What does the Bible say?  What does the Qur’an say?  Maybe this is a much better place to start than bickering over who are the “real” prophets or who are the “real” monotheists or even who gets to go to heaven and has the right ticket?

As I stated at the beginning, Islam has much to offer Christians, but might I be so bold as to ask, does Christianity (in its Biblical form) have anything to offer Islam?

Historically, when Biblical faith moved from a Jewish sphere into a Gentile sphere (Greek, non-Jewish) one of the things that occurred was that Gentile Christians struggled over which Scriptures to continue reading, which ones to “throw out”–Marcion is a good example.  He pretty much saw the God of the Old Testament (the Torat and Zabbur) as being a different God than the God of the New Testament (the Injil).  But he even was so bold as to reject certain Scriptures that were part of the New Testament, namely the book of James.

James is supposedly the brother of Jesus.  If you read the book of James you will find much in common with the words and teachings of Jesus.  Much is restated and applied to the early Jewish Church in Jerusalem (al-Quds).  Within James’ writing you will find a creed much like Jesus’ restatement of the Sh’ma–God is One, along with a summation of the Jewish Law to love God and love you neighbor. I wonder if James’ Jewishness was too much for Marcion…  James also emphasized right living, works if you will.  It is one thing for the founder of the Christian faith–Jesus to emphasize works–which he does.  But it’s another thing entirely for James to do so.  So largely, the Gentile faith was much more comfortable with the teachings of Paul–even though Jewish believers in Messiah continue to argue for the Jewishness of Paul as well.

Even in my own history of faith, there was an emphasis on the Injil devoid of the earlier “Jewish” books of the Torat and Zabbur–funny that I say this because it was almost all Jewish, including the Injil, yet there was a bias of what was “ours” for the taking and what was “theirs.”  The Old Testament was considered too confusing, too biased, too violent, too angry for our liking, compared with the love and forgiveness that was found in Messiah Jesus’ teaching.

So, although our Bible consisted of all the Scriptures, it’s interesting to note how similar our expression of faith was to Marcion’s own.  But, later in life I came to discover that there is a continuing thread that begins in Genesis (the beginning of the Torat) and finds its final fulfillment in Revelation (the last book of the New Testament).  This thread, which I will call God’s Story continues to this day and involves all of us.  How will we respond to this Story?  Will we join God in His activity to restore the earth and Creation to His intended designs or will we resist Him and insist on our own control and power, pleasure and enjoyment?

The God of Adam and Eve (as) is the same God of Messiah Jesus (as) and should be the same God of all those who are people of true faith today.  I know I haven’t said how Islam factors into this yet, but I wanted to get across that it is very easy to miss portions of the Story, when we discard the history that brought us to where we are at today.  I did that in my own expression of faith.   I lost all sense of the Semitic expression of faith that is spread throughout the pages of the Bible.  I had been following a Gentilized version of faith.  It wasn’t until encountering Islam that I would be forced to look back upon these Scriptures and see for myself whether I had missed something.

My question today for Muslims is, in what ways have Muslims, like myself, missed aspects of God’s Story from Genesis to Revelation up to the time of Prophet Muhammad (saw)?  Are there aspects that have been overlooked, missed and might a re-orientation to examine these earlier books in many ways help re-invigorate the faith that currently is being practiced? Especially if this took place through study of these books in Hebrew and Greek instead of the heavily interpreted English meanings?

As I have studied the Qur’an after my earlier journey of recapturing Biblical monotheism and its Semitic roots, I have begun to see so many parallels.  One of the main things I have discovered from this journey forward from the Bible to the Qur’an is that the Qur’an in my opinion is not meant to be read in isolation from the Bible.  Maybe that’s a bit presumptuous of me, but I say it nonetheless because so many stories that are alluded to in the Qur’an are not fully fleshed out, but rather are spoken of poetically, beautifully with a brush stroke of emphasized meaning and a continual theme of God’s merciful favor of sending prophets to re-orient mankind to His rule alone.

However, some of these stories that do find a fuller expression of detail within the Torat and Injil may help bring further understanding of what the Qur’an might mean, what the Qur’an might be intended to lead Muslims towards in God’s work within history.

So, I’ll leave it at that today.  But I welcome comments, suggestions, and of course disagreement.  Blessings as you seek the God of Ibrahim (as).

The Universe was pushing me along today, and I tried my best to let her take the wheel.

Maybe it was the hush of a Sunday morning, but I happened upon two blogs, Barefoot Toward the Light and Abbey of the Arts. Both offered wisdom about the Gospel reading of the day and reminded me that it is the first day of Advent.

At most, I can be described as a reluctant Catholic who takes small sips from the cup of her childhood religion. Googling the Mass readings is not something I ever thought I would do, but here I was today trying to track down this bit from Mark in which Jesus declares “Be watchful! Be alert!”

Both of the bloggers I mention above do more justice to these words that I can, especially Christine at Abbey of the Arts who gives us meaning of this short piece of scripture beyond its immediate warning to keep an eye out for the approach of God. She says:

In the invitation of Advent to prepare for the birth of God into the world, we are invited to awaken to the sacred possibilities deep within us, to shake off our slumber, open our eyes wide and discover the sacredness of everything we encounter.

I know that I have expressed similar sentiments many times, though not necessarily in the context of the birth of Christ.  Only by staying open to many masters, but never tying myself to any particular religious path have I felt the freedom to talk about how I have encountered the sacred.

In this same post, Christine at Abbey of the Arts also talks about the way that the perspective of Eastern religions inform the West, and vice versa and the power of inter-religious dialog to enrich all faiths. It is the same nurturing message I found in reading Joan Chittister’s words yesterday and that I have come to know as my own truth.

Again, I am stumbling across whispers of Oneness. The religion that was the foundation of my spirituality mixes with the explorations that have marked my adulthood and I learn once more that all roads to a great divine harmony – if only we keep our eyes open to see it.

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I created a makeshift Advent wreath and placed it before my altar tonight. All of my hopes for light in this darkening time before the sun returns at the solstice suddenly had a focus in a single flickering flame.

Always we seek relief from the darkness, and ever we find the light. Where will you find the light to guide your way?

Rajan Zed

It began in March. I started the campaign alone saying that “from the information available about the movie, it appears to be lampooning Hinduism and Hindus and using Hindu terms frivolously”. In order to have more information, I urged its presenter Paramount Pictures to pre-screen the movie for us and they promised in March, “It is our full intention to screen the film for Rajan Zed and other Hindu leaders in the U.S. once we have a finished print.”

More people joined me along the way. Besides Hindu leaders and organizations, various Catholic, Presbyterian, Jewish, Native American, Methodist, Buddhist, youth, film, spiritual/religious, music, yoga, civil rights, etc., leaders came out with statements in support of this cause espoused by me. A prominent Jewish Rabbi even called for boycott of “The Love Guru” because it “…lampoons Hinduism, mocks Ashram life and Hindu philosophy…” and asking “who laughs at religious practices”.

As the movie approached completion, Paramount started avoiding us and several attempts to reach Paramount executives to finalize details of the promised pre-screening proved futile.

Dismayed at Paramount backtracking on the promise of pre-screening, Catholic, Presbyterian, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist religious leaders came out in support of “Hindu brothers”, and in a joint signed appeal titled “Clergy’s appeal to Paramount Pictures”, said, “Going back on promise is u n-Christian, un-Hindu, un-Buddhist, un-Jewish, etc., besides being unethical.”

Despite lot of support and encouragement, we faced some criticism also: religion trying to censor free speech; Hinduism is not so weak that a small movie can damage it; why cannot Hindus take a joke; why are you protesting when you have not even seen the movie; pre-emptive attack; this movie is not about Hinduism and Hindus and is a mythical and completely made up system of teachings; who made you the representative of Hindus and speak for them; etc.

Hindus are for free speech as much as anybody else if not more. Hindu tradition encourages peaceful debates, won on their intellectual merit. But faith is something sacred and attempts at belittling it hurt the devotees. Filmmakers should be more sensitive while handling faith related subjects, as cinema is a very powerful medium.

Of course a small movie, which will be forgotten in few months, would not destroy the great tradition of Hinduism which has been around longer than any other established religion and has faced lot of onslaughts and came out stronger. But Hinduism is often misunderstood and wrongly portrayed outside India. Movies like this bring more confusion and create stereotypes in the minds of audience, many of whom may not have had any other exposure to its tenets.

Whatever information we had from trailers, website, etc., clearly gave appearance of lampooning. Repeated attempts to seek more information about the movie from Paramount by dialogue and pre-screening failed. Instead of participating in a mutual dialogue to arrive at an acceptable solution, Paramount just closed the doors like a pigeon that just shuts the eyes and feels contented that cat is not around anymore.

Humor is a part and parcel of Hindu society and our folk festivals, plays, stories, etc., are full of parody, satire, mimicry, buffoonery, etc. We are strong enough to take a joke or rather several jokes. But there are certain convictions in every tradition, which are venerable and not meant to be mocked at.

What would have been a small public relations exercise blew out of proportion because of stubbornness of Paramount or incompetence of their public relations team or something else in their minds that we do not know. From the information available, we felt that the movie seemed repugnant, and let Paramount know our feelings. Besides the initial promise of pre-screening (which they did not fulfill), Paramount made no efforts to convince us otherwise.

People associated with the film might claim that this film had nothing to do with Hinduism and portrays “completely made up system of teachings”. But terms such as guru, ashram, yoga, karma, etc., –all clearly pointed to Hinduism. Some people who have vested interest in the movie have been unsuccessfully trying to defend this apparent mockery and in the process creating more confusion.

The broader aim of worldwide Hindu protests against this movie was to protect the interests of various minorities and ethnicities of the world and save them from future ridicule. Everyone is a minority in some place and in some sense in this world and deserves to be respected. As fellow humans, is it not everybody’s duty to stand for the rights of minorities and speak for them when attempts are made at ridiculing them? Somebody has to make sacrifices so that others can live honorably.

I am very active in interfaith dialogue. Nevada Clergy Association honored me for my interfaith work sometime back. Not only Hinduism, I can very well feel the pain of devotees of various religions/denominations when their faiths are mocked at.

Guru is a highly revered spiritual teacher/master/preceptor in Hinduism who helps remove the ignorance of the seeker and who leads one from darkness to light. The guru-sishya (teacher-disciple) relationship lies at the heart of traditional Hinduism. Guru is often allied with the divine. Guru bestows spiritual knowledge totally free from selfish objectives. The antics of Guru Pitka of The Love Guru from the information available were a mockery of the esteemed institution of guru. Occupation of Guru Pitka on MySpace.com linked to the official site of the movie was listed as “Guru/life guide/Bikini inspector”.

Yoga is one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy. “The Love Guru” ridiculed yoga in a repugnant way and named some of the yoga poses as “no shoes, no shirt, no nirvana”, “ass, gas and grass”, etc., on the movie site.

The tagline of the movie was “His Karma is huge”. “Karma” is again a very serious term at the core of Hinduism not to be taken frivolously in double meaning taglines. Karma was reportedly first spelled out in Satpatha Brahmana around 600 BCE and forms one of the fundamental components of the Hindu system of philosophy. It is implanted in the idea of rita (universal order), which is the root of dharma. It forms part of the celestial/cosmic law enacted by the gods, and provides earnest testimony of the causation law. Philosophy of Ajivikas was based on this thesis. It finds mention in Bhagavad-Gita, one of the ancient scriptures of Hinduism. Because of significance attached to karmic law, the action is meticulously examined in Hindu philosophy.

With all the buffoonery of “His Holiness Guru Pitka” on the official movie site was shown the image of Lord Ganesh, who is one of the most widely worshipped deities in Hinduism as god of wisdom and remover of obstacles.

My stand throughout the protest has been “from the information available about the movie, it appears to be lampooning Hinduism and Hindus and using Hindu terms frivolously” and the only thing I asked for was pre-screening of the movie so that we can have the first hand information and a civilized dialogue.

Comedy should make everybody smile and should not come at the expense of ridiculing others’ faith and spreading misinformation. Hinduism is the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion followers and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken lightly. No faith, larger or smaller, should be ridiculed at.

Moreover, cinema is a forceful medium and it can create stereotypes in the minds of some audiences. So it should handle faith related subjects very carefully.

After seeing the movie, which we found even much more denigrating than we earlier perceived, we gave a worldwide boycott call for it. We urged all people of faith (in addition to Hindus) also to boycott the movie, because today it is Hinduism, tomorrow Hollywood might attempt to denigrate another religion/denomination. We strongly feel that our boycott call was one of the major factors of its blunt failure at the box office.

Guru in “The Love Guru” instigates a bar fight, repeatedly narrates penis jokes, mocks yoga, wears female jewelry, mocks the concept of third eye, makes disciple drink tea passed through his nose, orders alligator soup, induces elephant copulation in front of the crowd, introduces himself as “His H oliness”, lives in a lavish ashram staffed with scantily clad maids, and whose goal in life seems to appear on Oprah Winfrey show.

Going by the subject matter and scenes from the movie, here are my questions: When did Hindu gurus become available “for hire”? When and who started rating them? When did shishyas (disciples) started joining ashram for the sole purpose to make girls like them? Which Hindu ashram organizes fights of disciples with mops soaked in guru’s urine? Which guru urinates in the midst of disciples?

This is pure and blatant ridiculing and Paramount and its parent Viacom should issue a general public apology for denigration of Hinduism and Hindu concepts, utter disregard of the protesters, backtracking on promise to pre-screen the movie for me and other Hindu leaders, making no efforts to have an open civilized dialogue with protesters to arrive at an mutually acceptable solution, etc.

Meanwhile, signature campaign launched by Hindu groups against “The Love Guru” has crossed the 6,900 mark. We are thankful to the USA, Canadian, Australian, etc., (where the movie has been released) filmgoers for having a feel for the pain of Hindu brothers-sisters by rebuffing “The Love Guru”. Daisy Khan, Executive Director of American Society for Muslim Advancement, commented in Newsweek/washingtonpost.com, “I stand with many of my Hindu brothers and sisters. I will not watch this movie.”

On the other hand, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has declared “The Love Guru” “morally offensive” with its highest rating “O”. Harry Forbes, Director of USCCB Office of Film and Broadcasting responsible for reviewing and rating theatrical motion pictures, in his review of “The Love Guru”, said “…Unabashedly vulgar and tasteless, the film, which wallows in endless penis jokes and fairly yucky potty humor…”. “O” is the highest of the five classifications granted by USCCB.

We are very satisfied with the outcome of the protest, which has now become a worldwide movement. In the process, we have been able to create awareness and clarify the Hindu concepts among the populace who was not well aware of Hinduism and its beliefs. Moreover, with this awakening, we hope that future filmmakers will be more sensitive to the feelings of devotees when handling faith related topics. We are thankful to various Hindu and non-Hindu volunteers world over who helped us at different stages of protest.

Our doors are still open for Paramount/Viacom for dialogue.

Rajan Zed is a noted Hindu leader who spearheaded protests against the movie “The Love Guru”.

Love Guru Poster

“The Love Guru” (88 minutes), a comedy starring Mike Myers (of Austin Powers fame), opened June 20 in USA and Canada, and on July 10 in Australia, and is scheduled to be released (or already released) in different parts of the world in the near future. Viacom’s family of brands includes MTV, Paramount, DreamWorks, etc. Paramount Pictures Corporation is a global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment.

Reference

The other day I took a walk with a friend of mine, about my age, who is going through a spiritual transition. He was at one point a very devout Christian, going to seminary with the hope of becoming a missionary. But a crisis of faith cut that journey short, and launched him on an unexpected trajectory of criticism toward organized religion that has finally resulted in his declaring to me, just the other night, that he has begun to wonder if perhaps he is an atheist. It became clear from our conversation that for him atheism involved two problems, the problem of God and the problem of religion. He dealt with the problem of God by deciding that “God” is a psycholinguistic symbol that people use to signify ultimate concern or power. Meanwhile, religion was the real enemy, for while he acknowledged that much good has been done in the name of religion, he felt that a final balancing of the books suggested that religion, overall, does more harm than good.

I think my friend may be rather typical of persons who choose agnosticism or atheism over religious faith. He’s given me a lot to think about. Indeed, while chatting with Fran this morning, I had this thought: If you look at all the various arguments put forth by agnostics and atheists against God and religion, and you simply boiled them down, down to their essence, it seems to me that the atheist/agnostic critique of religion can be succinctly stated in four words:

“Religious people are nasty.”

From the crusades to the witch burnings to the arrest of Galileo to Pius X’s condemnation of modernism to the church-fueled hostility to gay and lesbian persons, atheists have plenty of fuel for their anti-religious fires. But whether they are taking aim at religion’s hatred of science, hatred of sexuality, hatred of free thought, or hatred of cultural diversity, the common element in all of this is that religious people hate. No wonder atheists find us so disgusting.

I know that we could circle the wagons in a smug dismissal of how hateful atheists themselves can be. But I’m not an atheist so I’d rather be going after the beam in my own eye than the mote in theirs. I think the reason atheists hate religious people so much is because they’re just aping the hateful behavior we’ve modeled for them over the years.

What would the world look like if Christians stopped hating so much? If we just became vulnerable when relating to those who reject our way of seeing things (or who don’t reject it simply because they have never accepted it in the first place)? I’m not saying Christians have to surrender our point of view. We can have opinions about the nature of truth, the “rules” of thinking and inquiry, the necessary principles of living a good life. All of that is fair game. What I’m arguing about here is the emotional fuel that powers how we relate to the world. Are we going to be like Christ and love those who are different from us, who ignore us, or even who actively oppose us, or will we remain as worldly as the church has always been, and continue to hate, attack, and even seek to hurt if not kill those who are not members of our “tribe”?

When atheists say “there is no God,” I think they are being just as dogmatic as the most basic of fundamentalists. When they say “there is not enough proof for me to accept that God exists,” I begin to think that much of what divides us is a different way of interpreting experience. After all, mysticism has a deep tradition of acknowledging God’s mystery, unknowability, unprovability, even the sheer absurdity of trying to capture God in mental categories such as “being” or “non-being.” A mystic understands that the statements “God exists” and “God does not exist” are equally absurd, because they represent attempts to mentally capture what is beyond the mind’s capacity to comprehend. Meanwhile, the religious dogmatists and the atheists become more and more entrenched in their particular position, each fueled by sheer opposition to the other. It’s like two children arguing over some insignificant proposition: “It is so!” “It is not!” “Is SO!” “Is NOT!”

So I can’t help but think that atheism is really little more than the shadow (in the Jungian sense) of dogmatic religion. In other words, statements like “God does not exist” or “We do not have enough proof that God exists” only make sense in a world where for so long statements like “God exists” or “God is rationally apprehensible” have been matters of widespread dogmatic certainty. In other words, if over the last two thousand years Christians could have been more humble about God’s mystery, perhaps atheists would have much less fuel for their fire. What I mean is this: it’s a short jump from “God exists and of this we are certain” to “If you don’t accept this as true, we are going to kill you.” Religious nastiness is perhaps an unavoidable consequence of dogmatic thinking. We would never have burned a single witch had we not been “certain” that she was consorting with the devil.

Such certainty, whether used to attack witches or Muslims or scientists or gays or the Rainbow family or whatever, is clearly idolatrous. It is an idol because it is an attempt to reduce God to a “graven image,” in other words the engraving of a rigidly held ideological image/concept of God, within a level of human consciousness that is more concerned about who is or is not a member of the tribe than with how to expansively and expressively give away the lavish love of the Divine unleashed by Christ.

To any atheist or agnostic or freethinker reading this, I want to go on record as one follower of Christ who is truly sorry for all the nastiness and hatred and violence perpetrated by Christians in the name of Christ, or by religious people in general in the name of God or the gods. I am sorry that so many people feel that they must armor their minds and ideas against the mystery that we religious people call “God.” But I recognize that, on a very real level, this is a problem that we religionists have created. And until we learn to relate to the world in terms of love and acceptance and forgiveness instead of judgment and condemnation and attacking, it is a problem that unfortunately will persist.

The Jakarta Post | National

Lovelli Ariesti, Jakarta

International experts on Christian and Muslim perspectives on religious freedoms have advised Indonesians to work together to show compassion for one another’s religions.

Prof. Hugh Goddard of the Nottingham University in the United Kingdom, said all religions had their own ideals on freedom.

“But local and international experiences show that no-one can maintain that ideal,” he said.

He was speaking at a seminar on Saturday organized by the Center for Dialogue and Cooperation among Civilizations (CDCC) and the British Embassy in Jakarta.

“Every person has the right to practice their religion without any pressure from any party,” Goddard said.

“The freedom of speech, however, has brought major changes in the practice.”

One member of the audience voiced a concern about Christians and their general ideology to help others in need, which he said was feared by the community as an effort to persuade Muslims to convert to the religion.

In response Goddard said, “I don’t see why Muslims and Christians can’t work together in distributing help for the needy”.

He further praised Indonesia’s healthy religious atmosphere, where he said people of different religions can live side-by-side in peace.

Prof. Seyyed Amir Akrami, a visiting research fellow at the University of Birmingham in the UK, said, “it is very clear the Islam religion couldn’t be a matter of compulsion and coercion”.

“However, it is true that Muslims all around the world are lacking the ability to express a basic compassion for others,” Seyyed said.

“Being compassionate is actually (a) criterion of being a good Muslim.

“Faith in Islam is happening within the heart, when one experiences the internal, emotional connection with God,” he said.

Syafi’i Anwar, executive director of the International Center for Islam and Pluralism, said the spirit of pluralism in Indonesia was clear and eloquent.

“However, the rise of the radical conservative Islam is a threat to religious freedoms in Indonesia,” Syafi’i said.

“There’s a tendency that Islam in Indonesia is interpreted as merely the shariah, with many conservatives Muslims demanding strict implementation of the law in diverse Indonesia.”

“Such textual interpretations, where texts and hadith (words and deeds of Prophet Muhammad) are seen only as text, is very subjective and undermines the context of modern Indonesia.”

Syafi’i said recent research showed radical conservative Islam had an anti-gender characteristic.

“The radical conservative Muslims also show a strong belief in the conspiracy theory — that the West has an agenda to destroy the Islamic tradition of the East.

“This paranoia of the West has been their justification in using violence against others of different beliefs.”

Syafi’i then called for more interfaith dialogs and cooperation to maintain a good relationship between religions in Indonesia.

I think I may have found an important feminine voice in the field of interfaith mysticism: Sara Grant, R.S.C.J. Look at this description of one of her books, from the University of Notre Dame Press Website:

Toward an Alternative Theology: Confessions of a Non-Dualist Christian
By Sara Grant, R.S.C.J. Introduction by Bradley J. Malkovsky

Toward an Alternative Theology: Confessions of a Non-Dualist Christian is the spiritual and intellectual autobiography of Sara Grant, a Roman Catholic Scottish nun, who, until her death in 2000, established herself as one of the leading twentieth-century figures in Indian Christian theology and the contemplative life. In this slim volume, Grant recounts her search not only for God, but for a right understanding of God, as well as for a way of rethinking Christian teachings on the mystery of God’s relation to the world that could overcome widespread popular dualisms. Appearing for the first time in the United States, this engrossing book eloquently shows how Christian theology and spirituality can be enriched by encountering the experiences and concepts of advaita. This updated edition includes a new introduction by Bradley J. Malkovsky, associate professor of comparative theology at the University of Notre Dame.

About the author: Sara Grant, R.S.C.J., was a member of the Jnana-Deepa-Vidyapeeth faculty in Pune, India and head of the Christa Prema Seva Ashram.

“This is a spiritual journey, reminding one of Augustine, Merton, or Hammarskjold . . . a perfect blend of spirituality, classical Christian and Hindu philosophy, and what contemporary theology could be.” —William Cenkner, Katharine Drexel Professor of Religion, The Catholic University of America

“Sara Grant bent her mind and heart to the theology of Sankara, whom she compares in an amazingly astute way to Thomas Aquinas in this book. Toward an Alternative Theology provides a readable and penetrating theological synthesis carried out in an interfaith atmosphere . . . It serves a great purpose to the community of philosophical theology.” —David Burrell, C.S.C., Theodore Hesburgh Professor in Philosophy and Theology, University of Notre Dame

Is anyone who is reading this blog familiar with Sara Grant? If so, please leave your comment here and/or get in touch with me via email. Thanks!

This August while visiting family on Prince Edward Island (the most beautiful place on earth) I read Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children, a novel about a passel of hyper-intellectual New Yorkers in the months before September 11. I had a backpack full of Rumi and Merton, but all I could do was tangle myself in the wreckage of these lives (and they were wrecked well before a tower fell).

I was restless because I was compelled to finish an inconsequential novel when I should have been contemplating the herons fishing in the marsh and the way the barley fields rolled into the sea; I should have been thinking deep thoughts about the soul and immortalizing them for the cold winter that would surely follow those exquisite summer days. This was one of the first pieces of fiction I had read since my spiritual studies had begun in earnest. The literary elite that I might so have wished to emulate once upon a time seemed to wage a constant assault on belief and believers, dismissing them as so many simple sheep, weaker minded fools to be pitied for needing such pablum. Because I was unable to find anything other than my own spinning mind in meditation and prayer just sounded like rhetoric that week, I felt vaguely assailed by their derision. Was it because the author cast these people as brilliant and famous and witty and worthy of recognition? Am I so susceptible to doubt? Did Messud hit such a sore spot that I was unable to sense the irony in her portrayals? The climate of this book, in which there really were no victors, made the option of relying strictly on education and reason seem more viable than anything else; the only “believers” were the sad and lonely types who seemed to find a comfort in a hard, cold pew, kneeling before an oblivious silence.

Why I began to think of this book today is unclear. Perhaps it surfaced in the course of one of the many inner dialogs in which I try to sort out what sort of person I am meant to be now that I declare my interest in matters of the spirit to be the most compelling of my life. Where do I fit in the country’s current religious continuum that seems to include only faddish atheism and cafeteria Catholicism (Judiasm/Presbyterianism/Unitarian Universalism/etc.) and religious zealots in the red states? I don’t chose to be counted with “New Agers” (a vaguely recognized footnote that doesn’t quite fit into the spectrum) even if my eclectic faith fits in best under that umbrella because such an affiliation invariably leads to collecting way too many paperbacks I’d never read and seems to call my own intellectualism into question.

Though I raise these questions, I do so with a pervading sense of optimism. I realize the solitary nature of my particular path at this moment, but proceed with the confidence that we will recover from the silliness that has infected the corners of society not preoccupied with body counts and global warming over the past few years. Certainly there will always be the naysayers and those who make a career of doubt, and surely we need to foster healthy conversation about the nature of both belief and disbelief. At the same time, I also trust that we will be able to move to a discussion of faith that does not draw exclusively on bestselling discourses on Godlessness and the predilections of specific voting blocks and embrace a constructive discussion based on passion and respect rather than sound bytes and judgment.

Psychiatry and Neurology News
ATLANTA DIARY | Meeta Chaitanya Bhatnagar
June 7, 2005

When you are ready, Swami, or the teacher appears – this is a maxim that has as many sources of origin as it has interpretations. Atlanta was ready for the appearance of (or as close to it as one could muster) Sri Sathya Sai Baba – Swami, Baba, Sai Ram to his followers and a humanitarian to all those who know about his life and works. The Atlanta chapter of ‘The Sri Sathya Sai Organization’, a non-profit, global, spiritual organisation devoted to practising the message of Sathya Sai, organised a public meeting on his exemplary life, teachings, and social endeavours in the fields of education, medicine and public
service on Saturday, June 04, 2005 at the prestigious Cobb Galleria.

The programme that was open to all and that specifically refrained from monetary solicitation of any kind was enthusiastically welcomed by the followers of Sathya Sai here in Atlanta as also others who espoused avid interest in learning more about this visionary leader and relentless ’servant of all humanity’ as he calls himself.

The two-hour long event included messages from two eminent speakers – Dr Samuel Sandweiss and Dr Philip Gosselin, and screening of a film which focuses on the humanitarian projects of Sathya Sai Baba in Andhra Pradesh. Dr Philip Gosselin, a psychologist in private practice and former Director of Behavioural Medicine at Franklin Medical Centre, MA, has been a member of the Sathya Sai Baba Central Council of the United States since its inception in 1975. He currently serves as its President.

Gosselin, who spent two years in Sathya Sai’s Ashram in the early 1970s, spoke about the compelling need of Sai’s devotees to spread his message of universal love. He spoke about the amazing grace of his Swami as he calls Sai, in encouraging people to become better individuals following the faith they choose to follow. He said, “Swami asks Christians to be better Christians, Hindus to be better Hindus…The only religion he says, is that of Love.”

Dr Samuel Sandweiss, the second speaker, is an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and has been a practicing psychiatrist for 35 years. Sandweiss is on the Sathya Sai Baba Council since 1975 as well. He is also the author of the book ‘Sai Baba: The Holy Man and the Psychiatrist’.

Sandweiss spoke of his own personal metamorphosis from an enquirer into a devotee and of the tangible, external works that have been conceived and overseen by the holy leader.

His talk was followed by the screening of the film, ‘His Work’. The meeting was organised with the precision and humility that comes from truly believing in what one does. Even though it was a quasi-spiritual gathering, it remained imbued with subtle dignity due to the conscientious lack of overt campaigning or canvassing. For the Diaspora, many of whom do believe in the saintliness of Sai, the meeting was indicative of honour bestowed upon an Indian teacher, leader, and guru if you will 10,000 miles away from home, by people who are not Indian by birth but by choice.

The meeting was more than a spiritual platform for the preaching of the faith fostered by the pious leader from Puttaparthy and even the most stoic of listeners was moved by the sheer simplicity and simultaneous poignancy of the message of this Swami (or teacher) – for that is the aspect that stands out most significantly about him – the fact that he can inspire millions of people across the world to the most fundamental of all positive human actions – service to all – without any didactic pretentiousness.

Many of us look for an elusive, complex, utterly fascinating and decidedly esoteric answer to the puzzle that life is. We look towards scriptures and sects, religion and ritual, Sanskrit and the Delphi for answers to questions that are beyond the physics of ordinary comprehension. Whether or not we find them in our own faith or lack of it – this man, who is all but 5-feet tall and who hails from a rudimentary village hundred miles off the outsourcing capital of the world has not only found his own centre but has also drawn many relentless believers in the creed of humanity towards and beyond himself.

In an age of prudential scientific questioning and enduring practicality, some say it is hard enough to find God – the omnipresent. To be smitten by a man – albeit an extraordinary man – is therefore perplexing and fascinating at once. Whether or not he is God incarnate is indeed debatable, but that he is godly is beyond question. To question as we do is human, to do what he does is divine – even for humans.

Reference

On Sunday next, on the day of the full moon, Hindus all over the world will be celebrating “Guru Purnima” in remembrance of all “Gurus” – spiritual teachers/preceptors – and specially in memory of the first and greatest Guru, Ved Vyasa. Hindus revere the Guru before God himself because it is he who initiates the disciple into the love of God. Guru is composed of two words, “gu” meaning darkness and “ru” meaning light. So, a real guru is one who removes the darkness of ignorance and replaces it by the light of knowledge and wisdom.

A guru must be somebody who is a real model, well-versed in spiritual matters and devoid of all negative qualities like lust, anger and greed and he should also have the necessary skills to light the path of his disciples and show them the way to liberation which should be the ultimate goal of every living being. Like Brahma, the Creator, the Guru creates his disciple’s character; like Vishnu, the Preserver, he protects his good qualities; and like Shiva, the Destroyer, he destroys his bad habits and qualities.

Who was Ved Vyasa? Ved Vyasa, born some 3500 years before Christ; he was the grandson of Vashista and the father of the famous sage, Sukdeva Goswami popularly known as Suka who helped king Parikshit to get his liberation. The author of the Mahabharata that includes the celestial song, the Bhagavad Gita is known as Ved Vyasa because he collected the four Vedas and classified the spiritual knowledge they contained into four different parts viz Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda. Ved Vyasa is also the author of the 18 Puranas that contain the stories of great saints and heroes. They are meant to instil spiritual and moral precepts in devotees.

A disciple who wants to win the grace of his guru must have complete faith in him and should acquire positive qualities like love, truth and righteousness. One cannot learn anything without a teacher. Whatever subject you want to study be it Art, Science, Music, Dance, Yoga, etc., you need a good teacher who can guide you and teach you the right skills for mastering those subjects.

Guru Purnima is a day on which we should revere our teachers and thank them for their guidance and the knowledge imparted to us. The Guru, like the sculptor who with his chisel and hammer turns a rough, worthless stone into something of beauty, moulds the character of his students so that it blossoms and spreads its fragrance all round. However a Guru has got to be tough at times. He may be compared to the dhobi who beats the dirty cloth on a rough surface to remove its dirt while ensuring that it does not get torn in the process.

Lights (Artee) are waved before the Guru and devotional songs sung in his praise. It’s only in the Hindu culture that a special day is set apart to honour the Guru. Hindus also consider as Guru anyone or anything that teaches them something beautiful, something that can be beneficial to society. Our parents are our first gurus but the tree that give shades ad provides fruits to others, the river whose water is used to quench thirst and water our garden, the laborious ant, the busy bee, the sun that never fails to rise everyday and provides us warmth are all teachers in their own ways.

Sai Baba whom many consider as their Guru has chosen the auspicious occasion of Guru Purnima to hold a World Youth Conference and over 5000 young men and women from over hundred countries that include USA and Latin America, Canada, Europe, Africa, Australia, Japan, China, etc., are at this moment at Prashanti Nilayam, his ashram in Puttaparthi, to participate in this conference. Swami refers to the youth as lions and He believes that the young have the power to change the world. That is why he showers great love on them and has opened many institutions — primary, secondary and tertiary — to impart to them the right type of education that will help shape their character. Mauritius has sent a 100-strong delegation to India to participate in this conference.

I would like to conclude this article with a very interesting story told by Sai Baba that has been sent to me by a friend from Souillac, Adiraj Pentiah. Once upon at time there was a hermit living in a forest. He had some disciples who were always quarrelling among themselves. Wishing to teach them how to live like friends and to love one another, he found no better way than to leave his hermitage for some time. Before leaving, he called all the disciples and told them that he would be absent for some time doing penance. He further told them that during his absence it would be their duty to look after the hermitage.

His meditation over, the hermit returned to a warm welcome by the disciples who wanted to know whether he had seen God. He answered in the positive and also told them that though God had blessed the ashram he was not at all pleased with the behaviour of the disciples. “However,” he told the group, “God has promised to come and stay with us for some time but he will be in disguise and will, each day, take the form of a different disciple so that each one gets the chance of representing him. He also informed me that he would be here some time before my arrival.”

Though they would not recognise him, the disciples were extremely glad to hear this piece of news and decided to be wary at all times and to practise their spiritual disciplines with greater fervour. One day, a disciple found that another one had taken his usual place. He was about to start a quarrel as was his habit but then controlled himself because he entertained some doubts about the true identity of his friend. “It may be that it is God in that disguise. I can’t ask him to move.” So saying, he went and sat silently at another place.

Thus, each time a disciple felt like quarrelling with another one, he thought that instead of his mate it could be God in disguise. So after some time all quarrelling stopped and the hermitage became a calm and peaceful place. This story teaches us that being children of the same God there is a spark of the divine in each of us. Once this truth is realised we will start loving and respecting everybody and will have no problem living in peace with all the citizens of the world.

–LECKRAM GUNNASAYA

Reference

By Soumitro Sen
12:01 a.m. PT Jul 28, 2007

When Elyse Warner first heard of the spiritual teacher known as Amma in 2000, she wasn’t into visiting such people.

But a few weeks later, Warner stood in line to get her first audience with the 53-year-old Hindu holy woman in Amma’s ashram in San Ramon, Calif. Seven years later, Warner recalls how she wept without knowing why.

“It was the most powerful experience I’ve felt,” Warner, 54, said. “It felt like the presence of a divinity.”

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.

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.

Two of them have ashrams in Nevada County. Ananda Village was established by Swami Yogananda’s disciple on the San Juan Ridge. The Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm was founded by Swami Sivananda’s followers off McCourtney Road, south of Grass Valley.

“A lot of young people come here to find answers,” said Swami Sitaramananda, senior teacher at Sivananda ashram. “They take shelter from the worries and anxieties of life and recharge their (spiritual) batteries. They come in search of alternatives to what society provides.”

Devotees feel change in their lives

Amma means “mother,” 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.

“I believe Amma is an avatar — divinity in a human body,” Warner said. “When I am around her, I experience moments of real peace and joy that I can’t say I’ve felt very much before.”

The Sivananda ashram has 20 permanent residents, Sitaramananda said. More visitors come for retreats, she added.

Jon Anderson, 57, of Grass Valley, follows the teachings of Sathya Sai Baba. He attributes the spiritual bent among Nevada County residents to “the high vibration caused by the gold underground” in the area.

Anderson first visited Sathya Sai Baba in his ashram in India in 1992. He said the 80-year-old guru’s teachings bring love to his life and teach human values.

“Baba is an incarnation of God,” Anderson said. “This is a time that’s special because an avatar has come to heal mankind.”

No amount of criticism can shake his faith in Baba, Anderson said. Warner, like Anderson, feels her life has taken a new direction after meeting her spiritual teacher.

“I feel like a different person,” Warner said. “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.”

Reference

In early August 2005, I was forwarded an email editorial that came from Barry Chamish. Chamish is a well known and controversial Israeli researcher (including UFO researcher), journalist and author. Chamish developed international notoriety with his coverage of the assassination conspiracy of Yitzhak Rabin. Chamish also sends out a number of editorials that deal with Isreali politics. Chamish archives his email editorials and although I expected the August 2005 email editorial to be published in his archives, it wasn’t. This was probably because I emailed Chamish about Barry Pittard’s defamations against Sathya Sai Baba and he was afraid of yet another legal suit. Chamish refused to discuss anything pertaining to Barry Pittard.

Although Chamish chose not to publish his August email editorial in his archives, Rense.com published the editorial in question. Rense.com is a site that celebrates Ernst Zundel (calling him a “modern day Galileo”). Ernst Zundel ran Samisdat Publishers, one of the largest distributors of Nazi and neo-Nazi propaganda and memorabilia in the world. Rense.com and Chamish’s site link to each other. Chamish (like Pittard) associates himself with Nexus and Duncan Roads (who have also been blamed of having Anti-Semitic ties). Click Here to view a site dedicated to exposing the ties between Barry Chamish and neo-Nazi organizations and websites.

Chamish has rightly been criticized for his questionable ties to Holocaust Revisionists. Click Here to view an excellent article, written by Daniel Pipes, that gives disturbing facts about Chamish’s questionable Holocaust Revisionist ties. It is important to point out that Chamish has clarified he is not a “Holocaust denier” (but does not seem to address the word “revisionist”). Chamish is also featured, numerous times, on the Adeliaide Institute’s website (which is considered Anti-Semitic and a hate group by the Israel Ministry of Home Affairs). Click Here to view 50+ articles, about Chamish, published on the Adelaide Institute website. Obviously, the Adelaide Institute feels that Chamish’s opinions are, in some manner, supportive to their cause and beliefs.

Click Here to view a recent email editorial from Barry Chamish that has a section contributed by Barry Pittard (who is referred to as one of Chamish’s “correspondents”). The passage reads:

“Another correspondent exposed the activities of David Zeller, one of ‘rabbi’ Melchior’s cohorts in Meimad: ‘You have referred (see below) to David Zeller. My interest in him is that he has waxed exceeding abundant before a huge audience at in Sathya Sai Baba’s ashram at Puttaparthi in south India. This latter is India’s most famous guru and, with India’s power brokers irrespective of Party affiliation, extremely influential. However, I once lectured for two years in one of his colleges and have since investigated at first hand worldwide allegations against Sai Baba of huge-scale, serial pedophilia, not to mention involvement in other terrible matters and cover-ups on quite the grand scale. I recently consulted to the BBC on its searing expose’ of Sai Baba, ‘The Secret Swami’, and have done so to many other leading media like Times of London, Daily Telegraph, etc., etc., and am an international coordinator in attempts to bring Sai Baba to justice.”

David Zeller is a well-known Rabbi who had spoken at several Sai Interfaith Conferences at Prashanti Nilayam. This article shows Barry Pittard’s deep involvement with Chamish (Mr. Pittard is referred to as a “correspondent” of Chamish). Not only does this further my original concerns about Mr. Pittard’s questional involvement with Holocaust Revisionists and the Adelaide Institute website, it also highlights the low and vidictive spirit of Mr. Pittard, who goes to great lengths to attack not only Sathya Sai Baba but anyone seen as supporting the Sai Movement (in this case, attacking a Jewish Rabbi simply because he had not been swayed by Anti-Sai propaganda).