Next she's going to be smoking cigars with MMY,
drinking whiskey and playing craps. Come 7, come 11,
no snake eyes!
-Peter
--- luzalma1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> One of the best profit sources for the ashram is the
> ayurvedic
> center that offers a few weeks of pancha karma
> treatments (for about
> 2 hours a day) at a cost of around $1500. Unpaid
> Indian devotees do
> all the treatments so the overhead to the ashram for
> this service is
> practically non-existent. One Amma devotee who gets
> treated every
> year told me that Amma said to him that one round of
> pancha karma
> treatments is worth 10 years of sadhana. So he, in
> effect, expects
> to buy his way to heaven by having pancha karma
> treatments done
> every year
>
> The US and foreign tours are also very profitable
> for Amma owing to
> profits from retreat fees, donations, and the sale
> of high priced
> books, tapes, and other items. I once asked a man
> why he bought a
> tabla set from the ashram when he could have
> purchased the same kind
> of instrument at little more than half the cost
> outside the ashram.
> He told me that the ashram profits were going for a
> good cause. This
> is a common misconception perpetuated by the ashram
> itself. At all
> of Amma's programs there are announcements
> encouraging donations to
> Amma's so-called charitable activities and saying
> that the profit
> from selling books, tapes, and other items goes
> toward these
> charitable activities, which fall into 5 main areas:
> orphanages,
> schools, housing, and hospitals. I decided to look
> into all of these
> when I was in India. I visited her orphanage near
> the ashram and was
> disturbed to see how the children there were living.
> Four children
> shared each bunk bed, which was just a metal frame
> with no
> mattresses. The food was just watery rice with a
> little overcooked
> vegetable. I was told the children would have had no
> clothing to
> wear except for the generous donations of clothing
> from some local
> Indians. When I asked who was paying for the few
> caretakers I saw
> there, I was told the state was paying them, since
> they were the
> children's teachers.
>
> Amma's schools are also listed as one of her
> charitable activities,
> but they are a very lucrative business for the
> ashram. Only those
> who can pay to attend are welcome. This applies at
> all levels from
> grade school up to trade college. Devotees are
> sometimes recruited
> to teach at these schools for little or no pay, but
> students are
> always required to pay for the privledge of
> attending an Amma
> school. The engineering, management and computer
> colleges are
> particularly profitable for the ashram. As for
> housing for the poor,
> the costs and numbers of such units built have been
> grossly
> inflated. The ashram will not build a dwelling
> unless the people own
> the land on which it is to be put. Obviously, not
> many of the poor
> are land owners.
>
> Perhaps the most egregious misrepresentation of
> Amma's charitable
> activities occurs with respect to the AIMS specialty
> hospital in
> Cochin. This has been used as the center piece for
> Amma's money
> raising efforts. It is always touted as a charitable
> hospital meant
> to serve the poor and needy. Amma's websites and the
> hospital
> website have always maintained that over half the
> hospital's work is
> charitable in nature. But this is absolutely untrue.
> I know a man
> who went to India (a friend of soulcircle) to do
> some consulting at
> AIMS a few years back. He interviewed the management
> and doctors
> there and obtained copies of the hospital's
> financial statements. He
> was very surprised to find out that less than 5% of
> the hospital's
> resources were devoted to servicing the poor, and
> even that amount
> wouldn't have been there had it not been paid for by
> the government
> of India. Even the few poor people who were given
> medical care had
> to pay for their medications, which many could not
> do. This man was
> very disappointed to see poor people being turned
> away from AIMS and
> refused treatment. He approached Amma with this
> information and
> asked why monies were being raised adharmically
> under false
> pretenses. Amma, who knows and directs all these
> matters, told him
> that he was wrong and that 50% of the hospital's
> activities are
> charitable. He could hardly believe his ears and
> politely asked to
> be shown how this could be so. So Amma had the
> hospital's VP of
> Finance present their case, which went as follows:
> There are a few
> private hospitals for the wealthy in India that
> charge more than
> AIMS. Some might even charge twice as much as AIMS
> for the same
> procedures. Therefore, the difference between what
> they charge and
> what AIMS charges should be regarded as charitable..
> The fact that
> the poor cannot afford care at either place somehow
> got lost in
> their logic. Meanwhile, Amma's organization puts out
> false brochures
> with photos of suffering children saying that
> contributions to AIMS
> will go towards saving these poor children.
>
> The consultant mentioned above was also surprised to
> find out that
> many of Amma's devotees at AIMS or in her ashram
> were well aware of
> these misrepresentations and seemed able to
> rationalize them away.
> Amma herself told others that AIMS could not afford
> to give any more
> care to the poor at that time because the hospital
> was expected to
> pay its own way (where have we heard that before?),
> which
> contradicts all the messages given about sales
> revenue and donations
> being used for charitable purposes, with AIMS being
> the most
> prominent activity. Amma said she expected the
> charitable work at
> AIMS to pick up later. Since then, however, instead
> of using AIMS
> cash flow or ashram donations or sales profits to
> fund hospital care
> for the poor, AIMS has built a very large profit
> oriented medical
> college at AIMS that overshadows the hospital
> itself. Kerala, a
> state the size of California, already had 5 free
> medical colleges
> before this one, and wasn't in need of another. But
> Amma's medical
> college, like her other colleges, is using the
> goodwill of her name
> to attract paying students and create more and more
> profits for the
> organization. In fact, even at her ashram now they
> have established
> another college with paying students outnumbering
> paying devotees.
>
> It should be obvious now that empire building is the
> driving force
> behind Amma and her organization. This is similar to
> SRF, has spent
> outrageous sums of money on legal and accounting
> fees in order to
> solidify its organizational standing and stature.
>
>
>
>
>
> To subscribe, send a message to:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
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