COLUMBUS, OHIO, June 9, 2007: No matter your faith, you can learn something from the Dharma. That is the message of Sri Karunamayi Amma, a Hindu spiritual leader who was in Columbus this week. “Dharma does not belong to any religion,” Karunamayi Amma said during an interview. “It is a responsibility to all mankind to be peaceful.” Karunamayi stopped in the area for five days as part of her 2007 U.S. tour. Karunamayi Amma spends about four months in the United States each year. Her
influence has spread far beyond the shores of southern India where shewas born.
Karunamayi has been traveling internationally for more than 13 years and has organizations fundraising for her charities in the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom as well as India. Through donations to her charity organization, she has overseen the building of a hospital and school in rural southern India, and a large meditation center in Atlanta that serves as her U.S. base of operations.
During her stays in U.S. cities, Karunamayi leads a variety of programs aimed at promoting meditation. Karunamayi performed a homa in Columbus on Saturday. She says the intense positive vibrations produced during the ceremony help to destroy negative karma and cleanse the Earth.
“Let all the people in the total world speak always kind words,” she said. Columbus resident Debbie Hughes came to one of Karunamayi’s public lectures after hearing about her from a friend. The amma’s message was very similar to that of the Dalai Lama and Gandhi, she said. “It’s really necessary,” Hughes said, “the need for focusing on peace. By focusing on peace in your own family, that goes out into the greater world.”