One takes twenty years in an Ashram to find that there are repeated sexual assaults and physical violence against one !
That’s what an Australian says about Ma Amritanandamayi, Kerala, who is hailed as the ‘Hugging Guru’
Holy Hell, A Memoir of Faith, Devotion and Pure Madness,
As in the case of the Hindu by Wendy Doniger,where she was interviewed in the print Media, there was an interview with the author by a TV Channel .Nobody seems to verify the fats or listen to the other side of the story!
Long Live Secularism!
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In the recently published Holy Hell, A Memoir of Faith, Devotion and Pure Madness, Gail Tredwell alias Gayatri describes how she was sexually abused at the ashram, where, according to her, senior inmates had physical relations.
Ashram representative Sudeep Kumar confirmed that Gayatri had been with Amritanandamayi for two decades before quitting the ashram in 1999. However, Kumar said the contents of her book were absolutely baseless. “The allegations were surprising and defy common logic,’’ he said.
Tredwell, an Australian national, joined as a personal attendant to “the hugging saint’’ in 1978 at the age of 19, and witnessed how the young woman from a fishing village in Kerala grew into a towering spiritual leader, with followers across the world, and whose trusts now run a network of institutions in health and education sectors.
Tredwell said she wanted to know God and by working as Amma’s personal attendant, she thought she could achieve that goal. During her early days at the ashram, Tredwell said she was blessed with unforgettable spiritual experiences.
She alleged that in order to keep up her facade of innocence and purity, Amritanandamayi had a small team of trusted individuals doing her dirty work, and she (Tredwell) was one of them. “I was indeed uniquely privileged to witness Amma’s human side and her array of emotions — pretty standard ones, most of them, for non-gurus — that were highly contradictory to what she taught and displayed in public,’’ she wrote.
Tredwell alleged that one of the ashram colleagues had sexually exploited her and such repeated abuse eroded her faith. Her memoir contains details of alleged promiscuity among ashram members.”‘
The author is reported to be a great researcher and her books have been acclaimed by some Indian Scholars.
The Hindus An Alternative History, Krishna Fondling Breast.
My points.
1.The Lady in question seems to have Catherine Mayo Mentality.
The difference is that she has been clever enough to have her accepted as an author of some credibility by writing an Anthology of Rig Veda.
This, some have declared as very good, as if we have no other Books on Rig Veda.
There is nothing earth-shaking about this Book.
But to gain international Fame, most Indian authors do it, to sell their present or future Books abroad,though their grasp of the Subject is questionable.
This applies to the encomiums on this author.
Some foreign joker went to the extent of Psychoanalyzing the Hindus’ reaction by saying,
“a kind of lightning rod for the censure that these scholars receive from freelance critics and ‘watch-dog’ organizations that claim to represent the sentiments of Hindus.[13]”
2.Look at some among her Portfolio.
Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva;
The effort seems to portray Hinduism as a sort of Cheap erotic fiction.
As Karunanidhi did Tholkappiyam into an Erotic Book!
Penguin Books Board Minutes on The Hindus an alternative History
3.Insulting is know the insensitive interview in TIME with this author.
Excerpt.
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According to her book, whenRamrajya[an idyllic vision of state propounded by Mahatma Gandhi] comes to India, then Christians and Muslims will be driven out of India. We all know that Gandhiji’s vision was about unity; he dreamed of a state where there would be no discrimination based on religion or wealth. Her book will incite hatred among communities. Furthermore, Doniger says [in the book] that when Sanskrit scriptures were written, Indian society favored open sexuality. The jacket of her book shows Lord Krishna sitting on the buttocks of nude women. She equates theshivlingam,worshipped all over India by millions, with sex and calls it an erect penis. She calls Gandhiji strange and says he used to sleep with young girls.
So, it is primarily the juxtaposition of sex and Hinduism in the book that bothers you?
The entire book is objectionable, but yes, that is one of our main objections. She is insulting our gods and goddesses and religious leaders and texts and even our freedom fighters. I don’t have any objection to sex and neither does our religion, as long as it’s within the parameters of religion.
Why does it matter so much to you about what someone writes about Hinduism?
If someone makes a cartoon of the prophet Mohammad, Muslims are outraged around the world. So why should anyone write anything against Hinduism and get away with it? It matters because this book is hurting the sentiments of Hindus all over the world. I am a Hindu. When I read the book, I felt hurt. It hurt my sentiments.’
Who is to be concerned if Hinduism is denigrated?
4.Excerpts from the Book, as available now.
“The jacket of her book shows Lord Krishna sitting on the buttocks of nude women. She equates theshivlingam,worshipped all over India by millions, with sex and calls it an erect penis. She calls Gandhiji strange and says he used to sleep with young girls…
He finds it objectionable that Doniger writes in the book that independence hero Mahatma Gandhi had a “habit of sleeping beside girls young enough to be called jailbait in the United States”; and that 19th Century Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda “set himself against all forms of caste distinction and advised people to eat beef”.’
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Maps in front pages: Maps titled Indias Geographical Features and India from 600 CE to 1600 CE
COMMENT: In the first map, the Waziristan Hills area is marked erroneously as Kirthar Range. The Kirthar Range is at least 200 miles further south. In the third map, Janakpur, Nagarkot, Mandu and Haldighati are marked several hundred miles from their correct geographical location.
Pg. 67 – It is claimed that the entire Harappan culture had a population of 40,000!
COMMENT: This is estimated as the population of Mohenjo-Daro alone. The population of the entire culture is estimated around 500,000.
Pg 130 – The author claims that there are no Gods in the Vedas who are Shudras.
COMMENT: It is anachronistic to assign castes to Rigvedic deities, but nevertheless, Pushan, Vesmapati and others have been considered Shudra deities in later times.
Pg 450- It is claimed that Emperor Ala-ud-Din Khalji did not sack temples in Devagiri.
COMMENT: His contemporary Amir Khusro clearly mentions that the Emperor sacked numerous temples and raised mosques instead.
Pg 552 – The book claims that the Ramcharitmanas was written at Varanasi.
COMMENT: Both modern scholarship as well as tradition accept that the work (or at least most of it) was written in Ayodhya.
Pg 128 – The book likens the Vedic devotee worshipping different Vedic deities to a lying and a philandering boyfriend cheating on his girlfriend(s).
COMMENT: This is offensive and ignores that fact that in the Rigveda, the gods are said to be all united, born of one another, and from the same source.(India Today)
5.Why is it that writing on Islam, even a hint of Prophet’s Image.would hurt Religious sentiments ?
Satanic Verses by Rushdie was banned for much less and a booty was announced to kill the author.
6.The Da Vinci Code was initially banned for portraying History as found in Christianity.
7.Are these secularists prepared to publish a Book on Muhammad marrying a Widow with a child,
Or marrying a nine-year old,
or The practice of Thighing in Islam where children are raped as a practice?
Or Mary of Magdalene was the wife , to put it politely,of Jesus?
8.I have a good collection of Posts on the History of Islam, Christianity, American wiping out the Indians,Debauchery of the British Monarchy.
Any body there to publish them in the interest of Truth and History?
I have been receiving emails that I Publish some of my thoughts on some of the Subjects I have been writing about,
I have been receiving requests from ,I presume to be students, that I publish a book on English Grammar, as they have read my posts on English Grammar,
On looking at the profiles of my regular readers , I find them to be well-informed and very knowledgeable.
I like to receive your views on the Subjects I may publish, eBooks and printed version.
I have completed my manuscript for English Grammar.
The Book is different in two aspects.
It is aimed at all people, not making English Grammar only a Text book, for after all Grammar is useful for every one.
And I have tried to use simple language , devoid of jargon, as the purpose is to make people understand Grammar, not to prepare them for examinations.
Secondly I have found, in most of the English Grammar Books, the examples quoted are from the West and this, to me sounds irrelevant.
For example for a country starved of rains most of the time, what sense does it make to say ‘rain, Rain, Go Away’?
or what exactly is the purpose of saying jack and Jill tumbling after?
Would it not be better if we can provide examples from the Indian context, especially from the Ithihasas and Puranas so that children , and in my opinion most of the Adults in India, learn more of values than nonsense sentences?
I have attempted to provide examples from the Ithihasas , Puarans and from Indian Current affairs,
I would be grateful if my readers could spare some of their time and energy and let me know what topics would be of use in Hinduism/Indian Philosophy.
I welcome suggestions on other topics as well.
As I have mentioned in many of my posts I started writing for the pleasure of it.
Now as I find that is useful to some one, I am extremely happy.
Not that what I say is correct but it has made people think and read some of the Indian Original Texts,
This, I could find from their comments at the site and in personal communications.
The Internet is full of mysteries. Two of the more intriguing ones have been a Twitter account, @Horse_ebooks, and a YouTube channel, Pronunciation Book, which have been running for the past several years. Both have the hallmarks of automation, chugging along anonymously and churning out disjointed bits of text in a very spam-like fashion. At the same time, their output has seemed strangely knowing and even portentous. Horse_ebooks, in particular, has inspired fan fiction, Tumblr accounts, T-shirts, and tattoos with its weird zen-like sentence fragments, such as “Who Else Wants To Become A Golf Ball,” or “For The Highest Price Possible, No Matter How Much Time You Have Had To Prepare!,” or “Everything happens so much.” Both accounts have spawned speculation among the hundreds of thousands of people who have viewed them. Were they really spambots? Were they some slowly unfolding promotion for, say, a new phone or movie? Were they machines testing out a new kind of artificial intelligence? Were they Edward Snowden’s side projects?
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