Shakti's New Voice: Guru Devotion in a Woman-Led Spiritual Movement

(Hardback)

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Shaktis New Voice is the first comprehensive study of Anandmurti Gurumaa, a widely popular contemporary female guru from north India known for offering spiritual teachings and music on satellite television and the Internet. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and religious-historical researchas well as unexpected and unprecedented outsider contact with the guruAngela Rudert offers an intimate portrait of Gurumaa that will be of interest to the gurus admirers as well as to scholars. To examine Gurumaas innovation, Rudert turns to examples drawn from fieldwork research in the gurus ashram and from other locations in India and in the United States. These examples specifically discuss Gurumaas religious pluralism, her gender activism, and her embrace of new media, in order to illuminate elements of continuity and change within the time-honored South Asian tradition of guru-bhakti, devotion to the guru. Raised in a Sikh family, educated in a Catholic convent school and understood to have attained her enlightenment in Vrindavan, the famous Hindu pilgrimage site of Lord Krishnas divine play, Gurumaa refuses identification with any particular religious tradition, or ism, yet her teachings draw from many. She speaks strongly, often harshly, about contemporary issues of gender inequality, while calling for womens empowerment, and she has established a non-governmental organization called Shakti to promote girls education in India. In the case of Anandmurti Gurumaa and those spiritual seekers in her fold, innovations and re-interpretations of tradition come from within the pluralistic setting of Indian religiosity, while they exist and act within a global religious milieu.

Reviews

In Shaktis New Voice, Angela Rudert, a scholar working at the intersection of anthropology and the history of religions, fills a lacuna in the field with her in-depth and empathetic exploration of the transcultural guru movement centered on Anandmurti Gurumaa. Based on more than ten years of research with Gurumaa and her middle-class Indian (and a few non-Indian) devotees in India and the United States, Shaktis New Voice offers a critical ethno-historical examination of global guru devotion (bhakti) as it is performed on stage and through song, gender activism, and new media. This book will appeal to academics and non-academics interested in South Asia, religion, globalization, religious pluralism, and gender and womens religious leadership. Expertly written, its dialogical style makes the book highly accessible to undergraduates, and its delicate balancing of culturally specific and generalizable insights will be of much interest to scholars and graduate students working in these and related fields.... Ruderts book pushes against the old school dichotomies of insider and outsider in religious studies and other Humanistic disciplines. The book charts out a new modality for representing the (female) scholars voice and those of the people with whom she works and creates relationships, while casting a sobering glance on the ethics and politics of appropriating others worlds in the production and commodification of scholarship. * Reading Religion *
Angela Rudert has written a fascinating study of the contemporary Punjabi female spiritual leader Anandmurti Gurumaa, generally simply referred to as Gurumaa. This is a rich account of an important, but as yet little known Indian-derived spiritual movement. . . . Ruderts book is highly accessible and yet deals with some important and complex issues. It is relevant to anyone interested in the appeal of contemporary gurus, the globalisation of spirituality, and the increasing significance of new media platforms in spiritual movements. * Journal of Contemporary Religion *
The book manages to retain the apposite scholarly rigour demanded of a dissertation, while donning the relaxed and casual armchair readability expected by wider audiences. . . . There is much in this book that both a lay audience as well students and scholars of religion would enjoy. * Nidan: International Journal for Indian Studies *
Shakti's New Voice is a rich addition to studies on gurus, womens leadership in religion, and the tension of continuity and change in religious traditions. Rudert nimbly situates the modern and 'New Age eclecticism and cultural challenge of Gurumaa into broader historical patterns found in longstanding North Indian sant traditions while illuminating the innovations facilitated by twenty-first century technology. Creative, empathetic, and self-aware, Ruderts book makes a worthy contribution to on-going scholarly analyses of gurudom while also offering noteworthy and fascinating insights on method. Written with scholarly expertise along with a personal and approachable style, Shakti's New Voice should appeal both to professional academics and anyone intrigued by the magnetic pull of gurus and wisdom figures. -- Thomas A. Forsthoefel, Mercyhurst University, co-editor of Gurus in America
Ruderts remarkably rich and insightful ethnographic study of the contemporary Indian revolutionary mystic Swamiji Anandmurti Gurumaa reveals how the call of the Divine Beloved is played out in the lives of disciples in a globalized and transnational context, whether through her songs, or through digital, electronic or face-to-face encounters. Framed as an interplay between tradition and innovation, the book is essential reading for understanding how Gurumaas pluralism and gender activism are embodied within Indic spirituality even as they reformulate traditional understandings of the boundaries between religious faiths and the role of women. -- Zayn Kassam, Pomona College
Angela Ruderts fascinating book introduces the contemporary transnational female guru Anandmurti Gurumaa, a fresh, fiercely independent, feminine manifestation of Master who is poet, sant and activist. Central to the study is the theme of conversation across multiple registers. The authors special access to the guru enabled discussions that animate her ethnography and theorizing. Gurumaas emphasis on pluralism rejects labels in favor of listening to historical voices from a multiplicity of religions that are relevant to spirituality today. Through socially-informed activism, she empowers girls by her educational Shakti NGO, and by encouraging global communication through social media the guru engages her devotional community in discussion about her teachings. This fine study demonstrates that Gurumaa and gurus of today transform the received idea of the New Age to bring spirituality into potent contemporary dialogue with self and service. -- Karen Pechilis, Drew University

Author Bio

Angela Rudert is lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ithaca College.