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Wed, May 08, 2019
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A number of Indian holy men and women have visited Philadelphia for extended stays while touring various U.S. cities. One noted Avatar with a devoted following, Amma Sri Karunamayr, has been called the “embodiment of divinity” or the “incarnation of the divine” despite her insistence that she doesn’t see herself as separate from the rest of humanity. Born in 1958 in South India, as a young girl Amma loved to hear Sanskrit prayers. At 21 years of age in 1980 after reducing her intake of food, she traveled on foot to the Penusila Forest where Indians sages have gone to meditate for centuries. She spent years in the mountains, meditating, bathing in streams and eating wild herbs.”
When Amma left the mountains, she realized it was time to spring into action to help relieve suffering in the world. Contemplation and meditation without action is a useless endeavor, she teaches. Her message is generic and straightforward: One must be compassionate, merciful, and kind and be attentive to the plight of the poor.
Amma insists that she is not the head of a new religion and that anyone can come to her for blessings or guidance without giving up their spiritual traditions. The tenets of Hinduism teach that all religions are one and equal.
When Amma visited the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia at 2125 Chestnut Street sometime in the late 1990s her devotees were out in force.
Only in a Unitarian Church, or perhaps a Friends Meeting House, could you expect to find the carpet rolled out for a Hindu Avatar. Unitarian Universalists take great pride in describing themselves as unconventional Christians. Belief in the divinity of Christ for the average Unitarian is an option rather than a point of dogma. One can even be an atheist and be a Unitarian in good standing.
Noted for its extensive educational, cultural and civic activities, the Church at 21st and Chestnut has always been on the cutting edge of social justice programs. Founded in 1796 as the First Unitarian Society of Philadelphia, the present building was designed by Frank Furness for his father, Rev. Dr. William Furness. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited the church while a seminary student in Chester, Pennsylvania and it is said that actor Kevin Bacon, a Church member, had his acting debut there during a Christmas pageant. The Church has served as a meeting space for the Americans for Democratic Action, the Islamic Relief Day of Dignity, and aerobics and meditation classes.
It’s no wonder that Amma found her way to the church for a massive gathering of her Philadelphia devotees.
On the day that Amma visited 2125 Chestnut Street, I walked to the venue from my nearby Pine Street apartment, eager to discover for myself what the woman was all about. I had read that she could heal people from various ailments and that when she blessed you with sacred oil you came away changed in some way. I wanted to know if I would feel anything when Amma touched me, any tingling in my spine or any electrical impulses in my fingertips. I was also curious to see if Amma would say anything to me when it was my turn to receive her blessing. Her followers called her a “divine mother,” a rather ambiguous phrase that can be interrupted in a number of ways. Certainly, as a Christian, I could not entertain the thought that she was a replacement or a cosmic antecedent of the Virgin Mary. At most, I suspected that Amma had clairvoyant insight and “powers” comparable to the old Italian women psychics that used to populate the Italian Market area. When those old women put your hand in theirs, it was not unusual to feel a minor electrical shock as if something was running through your body. These old women taught me that clairvoyance and paranormal powers were real despite condemnations from professional skeptic-entertainers like James Randi.
As I entered the First Unitarian Church amid hundreds of Amma’s followers, the scent of flowers was overwhelming. The atmosphere was much like that in a Catholic or Orthodox Church at the visitation of some miraculous icon or reliquary. The sense of devotion I saw among Amma’s followers was startling.
Amma was seated in front of the Church in a throne like chair surrounded by garlands of flowers and attendants. It was a scene out of a movie by Cecil B. DeMille: a living, exotic goddess being venerated by hundreds. I agonized about whether I should go up and receive her blessing. Would that be some terrible, sacrilegious act? After all, Hinduism, according to classic Christian theology, was paganism in the extreme.
While deciding what I should do, I spotted someone I used to work with in the Curtis Building. “C” had been an avid professional and a very conscientious worker. She was also health conscious in the extreme and a fountain of information when it came to the best organic foods and drinkable spring water. A self described germophobe, I used to get a kick out of watching her scrubbing down her phone and head set at the calling center where we worked.
One day ‘C’ informed me that her mother was a great devotee of Padre Pio, the Catholic Franciscan saint who received the stigmata of Christ as a young monk in 1918. Padre Pio, who died in 1968, was famous the world over for his paranormal abilities. He was an adept at bi-location, levitation, and seeing the future. People who went to Padre Pio for confession were told of their sins before they opened their mouths, others were healed of terminal cancer, hearing loss, severe bone injuries and more.
After ‘C’ told me that she grew up in a household devoted to Padre Pio, I began to associate her with the saint. In my mind, I began calling her “Padre Pio’s blonde lady, the good worker.” Yet here she was at First Unitarian in full Amma mode, meaning that she was an official of sorts, one of the organizers perhaps. I watched her rush about talking to other organizers as everyone made ready for Amma’s receiving line to start moving.
I approached ‘C,’ reminding myself that I should not mention Padre Pio. That would be an acknowledgement of her past and what she had possibly left behind. Instead I greeted her with, “I’m surprised to see you here, but I read about this woman that I had to come.” ‘C’ smiled briefly and uttered something officious, saying the name Amma with special emphasis, as I had called her “this woman.” In that moment, I had to wonder if ‘C’ was keeping her new spiritual allegiance a secret given the devotional aspects of her Italian Christian family.
As I stood in line to receive Amma’s blessing—an anointing of oil plus the gift of a scented card with a picture of Amma on it--I noticed that ‘C’ was paying homage to Amma with the reverence of a cloistered nun kneeling in a great cathedral. I barely knew anything about Amma except the most banal superficialities and yet here I was about to face her and say a few words to her, but what those few words would be I had no idea. I did entertain the thought of asking Amma about Padre Pio but instead I asked her to bless the book I was working on. I was desperate for blessings in those days; I also entertained the thought that you never know who has the power.
The years passed and I kept the Amma’s card in old books. Often when I would pick up one of these old books the card would fall out and then I’d put it in another book, whereupon it would fall out later, and so on until the card had traveled the vast distance of my library. Sometimes I’d look at the card when it reappeared and put it to my nose to see if it had retained the scent of flowers but it was always as unscented as an old baseball card from childhood. I thought many times of throwing the card away but I somehow always managed to keep it. Whenever the card crossed my path, I would sometimes think of ‘C’ and wonder if she ever found her way back to Padre Pio.
The card emerged again right before I had resolved to write about Amma at the First Unitarian Church. When I spotted it, I went out of my way to put it in a special place so I wouldn’t lose it when it came time to do my research, but lose it I did, finally, after all these years.
I lost it the minute I knew I wanted to use it for a comparison of Amma to the Catholic saint named Padre Pio.
When Amma left the mountains, she realized it was time to spring into action to help relieve suffering in the world. Contemplation and meditation without action is a useless endeavor, she teaches. Her message is generic and straightforward: One must be compassionate, merciful, and kind and be attentive to the plight of the poor.
Amma insists that she is not the head of a new religion and that anyone can come to her for blessings or guidance without giving up their spiritual traditions. The tenets of Hinduism teach that all religions are one and equal.
When Amma visited the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia at 2125 Chestnut Street sometime in the late 1990s her devotees were out in force.
Only in a Unitarian Church, or perhaps a Friends Meeting House, could you expect to find the carpet rolled out for a Hindu Avatar. Unitarian Universalists take great pride in describing themselves as unconventional Christians. Belief in the divinity of Christ for the average Unitarian is an option rather than a point of dogma. One can even be an atheist and be a Unitarian in good standing.
Noted for its extensive educational, cultural and civic activities, the Church at 21st and Chestnut has always been on the cutting edge of social justice programs. Founded in 1796 as the First Unitarian Society of Philadelphia, the present building was designed by Frank Furness for his father, Rev. Dr. William Furness. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited the church while a seminary student in Chester, Pennsylvania and it is said that actor Kevin Bacon, a Church member, had his acting debut there during a Christmas pageant. The Church has served as a meeting space for the Americans for Democratic Action, the Islamic Relief Day of Dignity, and aerobics and meditation classes.
It’s no wonder that Amma found her way to the church for a massive gathering of her Philadelphia devotees.
On the day that Amma visited 2125 Chestnut Street, I walked to the venue from my nearby Pine Street apartment, eager to discover for myself what the woman was all about. I had read that she could heal people from various ailments and that when she blessed you with sacred oil you came away changed in some way. I wanted to know if I would feel anything when Amma touched me, any tingling in my spine or any electrical impulses in my fingertips. I was also curious to see if Amma would say anything to me when it was my turn to receive her blessing. Her followers called her a “divine mother,” a rather ambiguous phrase that can be interrupted in a number of ways. Certainly, as a Christian, I could not entertain the thought that she was a replacement or a cosmic antecedent of the Virgin Mary. At most, I suspected that Amma had clairvoyant insight and “powers” comparable to the old Italian women psychics that used to populate the Italian Market area. When those old women put your hand in theirs, it was not unusual to feel a minor electrical shock as if something was running through your body. These old women taught me that clairvoyance and paranormal powers were real despite condemnations from professional skeptic-entertainers like James Randi.
As I entered the First Unitarian Church amid hundreds of Amma’s followers, the scent of flowers was overwhelming. The atmosphere was much like that in a Catholic or Orthodox Church at the visitation of some miraculous icon or reliquary. The sense of devotion I saw among Amma’s followers was startling.
Amma was seated in front of the Church in a throne like chair surrounded by garlands of flowers and attendants. It was a scene out of a movie by Cecil B. DeMille: a living, exotic goddess being venerated by hundreds. I agonized about whether I should go up and receive her blessing. Would that be some terrible, sacrilegious act? After all, Hinduism, according to classic Christian theology, was paganism in the extreme.
While deciding what I should do, I spotted someone I used to work with in the Curtis Building. “C” had been an avid professional and a very conscientious worker. She was also health conscious in the extreme and a fountain of information when it came to the best organic foods and drinkable spring water. A self described germophobe, I used to get a kick out of watching her scrubbing down her phone and head set at the calling center where we worked.
One day ‘C’ informed me that her mother was a great devotee of Padre Pio, the Catholic Franciscan saint who received the stigmata of Christ as a young monk in 1918. Padre Pio, who died in 1968, was famous the world over for his paranormal abilities. He was an adept at bi-location, levitation, and seeing the future. People who went to Padre Pio for confession were told of their sins before they opened their mouths, others were healed of terminal cancer, hearing loss, severe bone injuries and more.
After ‘C’ told me that she grew up in a household devoted to Padre Pio, I began to associate her with the saint. In my mind, I began calling her “Padre Pio’s blonde lady, the good worker.” Yet here she was at First Unitarian in full Amma mode, meaning that she was an official of sorts, one of the organizers perhaps. I watched her rush about talking to other organizers as everyone made ready for Amma’s receiving line to start moving.
I approached ‘C,’ reminding myself that I should not mention Padre Pio. That would be an acknowledgement of her past and what she had possibly left behind. Instead I greeted her with, “I’m surprised to see you here, but I read about this woman that I had to come.” ‘C’ smiled briefly and uttered something officious, saying the name Amma with special emphasis, as I had called her “this woman.” In that moment, I had to wonder if ‘C’ was keeping her new spiritual allegiance a secret given the devotional aspects of her Italian Christian family.
As I stood in line to receive Amma’s blessing—an anointing of oil plus the gift of a scented card with a picture of Amma on it--I noticed that ‘C’ was paying homage to Amma with the reverence of a cloistered nun kneeling in a great cathedral. I barely knew anything about Amma except the most banal superficialities and yet here I was about to face her and say a few words to her, but what those few words would be I had no idea. I did entertain the thought of asking Amma about Padre Pio but instead I asked her to bless the book I was working on. I was desperate for blessings in those days; I also entertained the thought that you never know who has the power.
The years passed and I kept the Amma’s card in old books. Often when I would pick up one of these old books the card would fall out and then I’d put it in another book, whereupon it would fall out later, and so on until the card had traveled the vast distance of my library. Sometimes I’d look at the card when it reappeared and put it to my nose to see if it had retained the scent of flowers but it was always as unscented as an old baseball card from childhood. I thought many times of throwing the card away but I somehow always managed to keep it. Whenever the card crossed my path, I would sometimes think of ‘C’ and wonder if she ever found her way back to Padre Pio.
The card emerged again right before I had resolved to write about Amma at the First Unitarian Church. When I spotted it, I went out of my way to put it in a special place so I wouldn’t lose it when it came time to do my research, but lose it I did, finally, after all these years.
I lost it the minute I knew I wanted to use it for a comparison of Amma to the Catholic saint named Padre Pio.
