A Monk's Journal

Oh mama !

2011-09-11T18:34:00.000+02:00

At the end of last week my Mom came to visit me, she was happy to be able to spend two very intense days in the Monastery.
On the left you can see her, moved and smiling, visiting the rooms where I usually meet the believers on Saturday afternoon who ask to deepen their spiritual thoughts of Anima Universale.
Consider this......my Mom has known Swami Roberto since the early 80’s, like I already told you in my testimony ("My meeting with Swami"), her heart is filled with many extraordinary souvenirs tied to multiple trips to Leini, her “Sacred Ground” for 30 years.
Her and I talked a little Saturday afternoon, while we were walking under the arches of the monastery, and she remembered many special moments which she experienced personally: the historical church...the “little chapel of origin”.. the “palatenda”...the new buildings realized in the last years.....
I saw her moved and content, she stopped to admire the foundations of the new temple, but she had a much greater emotion and joy several hours later, after dinner, thanks to the encounter that lit up her face with a radiant smile as you can see here in this picture.
"Each time I meet Swami” – she told me while moved - "I see again the same very strong emotions. It is always the same as the first time, like the day I was blessed, many years ago, when my life was born again”.

P.S. - During those two days, when my Mom was in the cloister of the monastery, many people went to her to say hello.

Here, my Mom is in the “zen room”,
seated on the chair where I usually sit Saturday
afternoon to guide the meetings
with the group of believers
who come from afar.

....I must tell you a precious story: the pilgrims addressed her in French, with words full of affection, I saw her respond contentedly, with big smiles.
Afterwards I asked her: "Mom did you understand what they said?”", she, who does not know French, responded: "Yes, yes...I understood".
Evidently the language of the heart does not need dictionairies.

Glimpse the Divine

2011-08-17T15:05:00.002+02:00

(by Ramia Riccardo, from facebook's site):

Divine moments during Swami Roberto's darshan in the Ashram of Anima Universale (Leini, Turin, Italy)

From the unreal to the Real

2011-08-03T11:31:00.000+02:00

Everybody knows, at least to have heard it said, that you can not be deceived by the appearance of things, but that you have to do everything possible to find the essence.... of your life and everything that you are a part of.
In the discourse of which I am talking today (From the Unreal to the Real, vol 2 While Listening to the Master, p 302), Swami Roberto explains that the aspects and traps of this existential challenge are very difficult for many people.

“Always remember – says the Master - that when you celebrate the prayer: “Lord, lead me from the unreal to the Real, you pronounce the words that practically signify: Lord, help me to enter into the essence and don’t let me stop at the appearance”.

It concerns a debate that touches all the aspects of the human life, but that gains a particular importance in the plan of the individual religious experience. Here the appearance suggests a great variety of insidious traps, in the form of illusory courses which promise easy to obtain conquests through awkward imitations of devotion.
Therefore, unreality succeeds in capturing crowds of believers who are little inclined to coherence and to courage which demands true spirituality.

“Many believers – says the Master – ask only for help for their problems and they are looking for a blessing. But they stop there, they don’t always go beyond, they don’t attain the plans of the conscience and the superior spiritual aims...and they risk nothing, if they don’t obtain the blessing for which they hoped, and lose what they thought to be faith”.

These believers, so to say, “pragmatics” have a utilitarian concept of God according to which they interpret their religious life as though it is an insurance policy against risk and disease. It is one of the great paths through which many warped forms of faith root themselves in the soul incapable to resist the flatteries of opportunism, the cunning inspiraton of the collective illusion of appearance.
In order to make this sort of enchantment disappear, one must be disposed to welcome the disagreeable Voice of Reality which denounces any form of spiritual ignorance while crushing the contradictions, the compromises and the common ties. This Voice is familiar to those who love to frequent the Centres of Anima Universale, the schools of the spirit where the words of the Master prevent the appearance of the unreal to usurp the Kingdom of the internal Truth.
"The spiritual Master - underlines Swami Roberto - is only indispensable and authentic when he teaches Knowledge, that is to say the Way that permits you to walk on your own two legs, without depending on a guru...to depend on the contrary on a mature faith in God and on your conscience finally mature and elevated.”.
That happens to those, at Anima Universale, who learn to drink from the Source of Reality.

A funny "coincidence"

2011-07-29T22:37:00.001+02:00

(Testimony of Sergio Gulino)

Dear ramia Massimo,
I want to tell you about a beautiful event that happened last Wednesday night...
I was talking to a lady who was depressed and going through a very difficult period and she was expressing her discomfort at this moment of her life.
Since she and her husband had already been twice to Leini to meet Swami Roberto, and noticing how discouraged she was, I asked her if by chance (but chance does not exist...) she had taken the book of the Mission of One.
She said she did not know why, but she had taken it.
So I urged her to pray from that night on and told her to seek help from the Master to solve her situation and added: “This evening the colour of the prayer is yellow and surely you need it.”.
Immediately there came a yellow balloon from the sky and the patient immediately went to take it. Turning it over she saw that it read “BEST WISHES”.
Great is THE GLORY os Swami...
Thanks for existing

Sergio from Rome

The joy of the pilgrim!

2011-07-26T22:24:00.000+02:00

(Testimony of Nadia Marrazzo)

In the HOUSE OF THE DIVINE MOTHER OF JOY, SWAMI's GRACE permeats every molecule that we breathe!
In its materialization, from the ESSENCE to the FORM there is a higher order that calms the chaos in which it is a must for everyone to relate, as it is inherent in the material choice of being a body in the physical world in which we are!
This order is the result of the fruit of LIGHT that SWAMI IS !
HIS GRACE is expressed in the FORM of which the HOUSE OF THE DIVINE MOTHER OF JOY is the REALISATION !
My first experience is sublime in every way!
The DIVINE FOOD, JOYFULLY shared with all the pilgrims was a food for the soul and... for the palate!
I thank all those who have offered their commitment, THANKS TO SWAMI'S LOVE, with the creation of moments of sharing that are always translated into lessons for the Soul and Spirit of which SWAMI ROBERTO IS THE SUPREME SOURCE!
Joy pervades my heart and it is impossible to translate the feeling of love that flows from it.
I thank my SPIRIT, and rejoice in the GRACE that is given to me and I make it the greatest treasure of my LIFE!
THANK YOU SWAMI, your LOVE is my BREATH!
THANK YOU TO YOU ALL VENERABLE RAMIAS, I thank you for every one of your gifts that always result in supreme love for all of us!

Nadia Marrazzo

The Christ welcomes us in the monastery of Anima Universale

2011-07-19T22:23:00.000+02:00

(From the facebook website of ramia Osvaldo Ristuccia)

"On July 18th 2011 the statue of Christ in majesty that was in our ashram was set at the entrance of the monastery to greet the devotees.
Those who will meet the powerful gaze of this truly Divine Christ will receive great blessings;
A buon intenditor, poche parole".

"Contagious" joy

2011-07-18T22:43:00.002+02:00

(Testimony of Patricia Devillers)

Dear Ramia Massimo,
I wish to share with all this “contagious” joy. God knows how much I was lacking in joy before I met Swami.
Now finally, after a daily battle, I sometimes feel it make all my cells smile!
Our DIVINA MADRE DELLA GIOIA touched my childlike heart.
It is a Magical Work by its beauty, full of sharing, of love and selflessness.

Thank you, a BIG THANK YOU to all those who work (my italian family) to fill us with joy at the weekend.
What a great joy to wake up HERE...
Thank you thank you again SWAMI ROBERTO, Thanks to you all Ramias and thanks also to all the volunteers who work tirelessly.
HIP HIP HIP HOORAY Divine Providence !

Patricia

* * * * * * * * *

For information and bookiings :

Casa Divina Madre della Gioia

tel. +39 011/9978928 on Tuesdays between 6:00 pm and 7:00 pm, and on Saturdays between 3:00 pm and 6:00 pm

The Grace to sleep here in this Holy Place

2011-07-17T22:34:00.000+02:00

(Testimony of Gabriella and Alberto Chitti)

Dear Ramia Massimo,
With the echo of the comforting words of Swami Roberto in our hearts, revealing words that have completed old Truths, real lights on the spiritual path of all Ramiric Christians, we wish to express our joy and gratitude for the graces we receive “here” and for the miracles that we are witnessing “here”. Being “here” is already a great blessing...

Being “here” today is even more “here”, thanks to your love, O Swami, which allows those who come from afar to be accomodated in the house of the “Divine Mother of Joy”, offering them the gift to wake up “here” in the holy place, as happened this morning for my wife Gabriella and I on the day of the official opening of the house of the “Divine Mother of Joy” (also the first birthday of the exposure of the Crucifix of San Damiano in the Chapel of Divine Love”).
Indeed, we are repeating many times the world “here”, but only because we have picked up its deep meaning and that derives from it...
The power of this “here” opens the doors to the Divine Manifestation so that it can act on all, really all those who come through the door of this holy place.
Use us, Lord, we are “here”!
A hug to you and to all the Venerable Ramia.

Gabriella and Alberto Chitti

The sun danced and throbbed, crowned with wonderful colours

2011-06-19T14:38:00.001+02:00

This morning... the Darshan of Swami Roberto on the angel of God who rules the fourth secret chakra was about to start and... suddenly... in the sky, a large sign attracted the attention of all towards the sun, which appeared crowned with wonderful colours as it danced and throbbed.
The emotion was overwhelming and a loud applause, in unison, and cries of amazement broke out.
A few moments later... the vision of Swami completed this extraordinary event.

Leinì, Sunday 19 june 2011

Leinì, 19 june 2011

(Foto scattate dal chiostro del monastero)

(Il video preso con un cellulare)

Thy will be done

2011-06-10T15:09:00.000+02:00

“Our Father who art in heaven, thy will be done”.
What good could ever happen to human beings outside the Will of God?
On the contrary, in its infinite expressions, the prayer of many faithfuls is far removed from this “basic” conscience and ends up beings closely intertwined with a myriad of complex and limited aspirations, the fruit of human will.
Too often what prevails is the biased interpretation of what is believed to be good... but in reality may not even be.
Indeed who can be certain that a subjective aspiration coincides with the will of God, which contains the highest Good for each?
Basically the most beautiful prayer is written in these few very simple words by which begins “Our Father”... words we know from our childhood, when we were little.
However, we must be really “big” to succeed in living them fully... without fatalism and encouraged by a confident serenity.

Faithful-Faithfuls

2011-05-30T14:58:00.000+02:00

To be faithfuls on the on the path of spiritual realization, we must be faithful-faithfuls. In fact, the Faith in God must be lived with Loyalty... otherwise it becomes a false faith, a sterile pastime for opportunists and/or gullible people.
The world of the Faith in God is now known to be in crises, against the proliferation of a materialistic mentality that renders the supernatural alien to the thoughts of many.

However, in some ways, it is even more a crisis of Loyalty, which is indigestible to most as it forces them to assume responsibility for their choices, imposing “hard” consistency.
Lack of loyalty is just the alarm bell that signals the anomaly of an unfaithful faith... which is no longer Faith.
You should also pay attention to the fact that loyalty is not a virtue in itself, and indeed it is easily found in many people who know how to be “faithful” to the things of the world, their own vices, the defects of their character, to their favorite sports team, or favorite restaurant...
What is usually missing is virtuous Loyalty, which becomes as such when what it aims at is high. This is the case of Loyalty “dedicated” to the Faith in God, with which it forms a combination of reality that are mutually enriching.
However, it may also happen that the two originals, Faith and Loyalty, unfortunately, are replaced by squalid fakes: the intolerant are those “believers” who practice “faithfully” bigoted and fanatical faith.
Unlike them, the genuine faithful-faithfuls cultivate a loyalty which is obviously noble because not only combined with faith in God, but also with those values that “certify its quality”, such as brotherhood, charity, respect of the different...
Only then will the synergy between loyalty and Faith elevate the mind to the contemplation of the Divine.

Darshan of May 1, 2011 - Leinì (Torino)

2011-05-01T17:54:00.000+02:00

«May The Almighty always help you to be the good news for those who do not know Anima Universale... for those who do not know your universal soul, capable of welcoming everyone, capable of really loving everyone.
If you do not have a universal soul, you can not love others, you can not love anyone.
You will only love yourself and so... that will not be love, but selfishness.
Tell everyone. “Look inside yourself for your UNIVERSAL SOUL to open your heart to humanity, to the needs of so many people who suffer. You are a citizen of the world and live immersed in the universe of God. “How could you, son of Eternity, reject your divine right to be a universal soul?”
(Swami Roberto)

«In difficult times, may your spirit remember me, remember this truth: Love is not what I expect from you, but what I give to you. Welcome It, if you wish! Love is the common ingredient of all my manifestations on earth from age to age. So immerse yourself in the huge ocean of divine love every day. Trust in Mercy and thus you will take the way towards the joy of peace».
(Swami Roberto)

Over dunes

2011-04-29T18:11:00.000+02:00

Experienced travelers know that when crossing the desert the direction of travel must be oriented on the stability of the heavens and not on the deceptive mutability of the dunes, which would inevitably lead to a wrong path.
Metaphorically, this basic principle of travel is also “portable” in the experience of every person struggling with the pitfalls of his existential journey.
Many are spiritually in difficulty because unable to find the right landmarks: as a consequence, they find themselves systematically misled by the alternation of emotions and human points of view that create the volatile profiles of the “dunes” of their lives.
Even if they run at breakneck speed, these disoriented traveleres get lost and so do not come close to the goal... until they find the Guide who helps them to raise their eyes towards heaven.

"I travel in your time,
I will light a guiding star for you,
and I will be the echo of your prayers"
(Swami Roberto)

There was nothing !!!!!!!!!

2011-04-15T15:45:00.001+02:00

(Testimony of Anne)

On January 19, I went to my doctor, after examination. That day, I told him I was short of breath, that my heart was racing.
In 1992, a cardiologist had diagnosed (after various tests in-depth) an aortic stricture to watch with menopause. During this visit on 19 January, the doctor said it was urgent to see a cardiologist, confirming a significant problem, his astonishment at my not having had an aftercare, and therefore there was a risk that could lead to open-heart surgery.
I did not talk to my family about this, keeping this concern for me...
The appointment was set for February 23. On February 22, the cardiologist's secretary called to postpone the appointment until March 24... I thought it was strange because my friend Christiane had called me to go to Leinì, she had spoken about the place for a long time and I forgot... always having this fear in my heart.
I went to Leinì on March 12 for the weekend.
On March 24, at 5:00pm, I saw the cardiologist. There was nothing !!!!!!!!!!!
I felt very disturbed all night. Disturbed but very happy.
Then my mind took over the top and I thought the doctors were wrong, that there was “necessarily” a rational explanation. The cardiologist reassured me but my heart was still beating very hard and very irregularly as it did for more than a year, wondering when it would stop.
The evening after the prayer of the Mission at 11:00pm, I spoke to Swami Roberto about my doubts: why would I have this “chance”?
I felt the “need” to “take” to me an energy that came from his picture. (I can not describe it), and attract It towards me. I put my hands crossed over my heart several times. Then I went to bed. Since I woke up this morning, my heart beats calmly and quietly.
Sinche then, when it swells and overflows: it is only because of the love and gratitude that fills it.
Swami... thank you with all my HEART.

Anne

The doctor was amazed

2011-03-31T23:08:00.000+02:00

(Testimony of C. Rino)

I've known Swami Roberto for a long time, and today I wish to speak of something that happened to me several years ago.
One Sunday morning I was at Leini, to attend the Darshan. In the evening when I returned home, in Venetia, my wife told me. “come and sit down, dinner is ready.”. While serving the meal she began to go from right to left and from left to right with eyes wide open, saying: “What perfume! You're all perfumed", and insisted so.
I told her: “But I don't smell anything.”
She said “well I can smell it, What perfume! What perfume!”...
The strange thing was that my wife had had an operation and, after that intervention all the perfumes were sickening to her.
So I said to her: “But you're not allergic to perfume?”
“Yes, but this is different. Who gave it to you?”.
I told her: “If you came to Leini to see Roberto, you would understand.”.
At that time, I was under medical supervision at the Hospital of Castelfranco Veneto, because of diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.. etc.. Several times the doctor had warned me about the danger I was running: “If you do not control your diabetes, you're going to end badly. We need to use insulin, and after we do the dialysis. Think about it... I hate to tell you but you're on a bad road.”
Until then, his words were vain, and every time I went to do a checkup, he reproached me. A few days after returning from a travel to Leinì, I went to the hospital for periodic visits. I did several tests in the morning until around noon and a half, it was time to go and talk to the doctor to know the outcome. When I heard my name called, I said to myself: “this time he throws me out”. I arrived at his office door, opened it and saw the doctor who looked at me with strange eyes. I thought to yself: “oh, oh, oh, now he's going to criticize me again, as usual.”. I looked back at me, holding in his hands all the documentation of the tests... and said: “I want to know everything.”.
I replied: “Doctor... what everything?>.
“All the results are good, I repeat, I want to know everything”.
As soon as I realized what it meant, I raised a finger towards the sky and said: “you have to go and ask Him”.
Then the doctor replied: “Tell me everything because I believe in all these things"
And I told him: “Doctor, look at all those people out there waiting, I wouldn't want them to waste time”.
He said: “Now you'll stay here until you have told me everything.”.
“It's like this... - And I told him I knew Swami Roberto for a long time, since he was a child, and that this young boy had worked many miracles... and gave him a general idea - “For now, Doctor, that's enough” - and then I added: “Look, if you need... touch wood!... just let me know, and I'll help you meet him.”.
He was amazed.

Rino C.

Differently equal

2011-03-21T21:12:00.000+01:00

At least since the French Revolution it is well known that equality is a principle essential to a humane society that wishes to call itself “civilized”, respectful of the same fundamental rights of every man and every woman.
Centuries later, however, it is clear there is very little equality in the world, given the enormous differences in opportunities and rights that still separate the wealthy nations from those of the third and fourth world.
Equal Opportunities for All: this should be a commitment to any policy worthy of the name, but unfortunately the facts do not correspond with the proclamations, and equality continues to be tragically absent.
Instead, what is unfortunately present is its deceptive imitation, levelling, a subtle and conformist doctrine oriented towards a civilization of “all are equal”, which bans all forms of diversity.
“In varietate concordia”... “There is armony in diversity” the ancients said, well aware of the importance of respecting social diversity, and this is the first “revolutionary” step to make the road to building genuine equality, which is not levelling, but rather the capacity to fully respect those who are different.
Only starting from this basic principle you can build a society of equality that is truly fraternal, enabling everyone to express his spiritual individuality, “differently-equal” to that of any other member of the one human family.

In the next life...

2011-03-03T14:29:00.002+01:00

(Testimonyof Sophie and Martine Cola)
Afew years ago I asked Swami Roberto if I could have a child in mylife (I had been hoping for more than ten years).

Swamisaid, “Not in this life unless a miracle”.

SoI mourned for that desire.

Atleast two years later, on the day of my baptism, I thoughtconstantly, “Today a new life begins”... and two weeks after themiracle happened... I was pregnant.

Myson is now ten months old and I am filled with joy.

Thankyou Swami

Sophie

Iwould like to share with you my immense happiness. First of all Iwant to tell you how things happened.

Mydaughter Sophie was unable to have children, despite medicalintervention.

Shehad asked Swami Roberto if one day she would have a child. Swami'sresponse was: “Not in this life, except for a miracle.”

Sowe turned the page!

Wewere delighted to be baptised on May 10, 2009. Sophie was radiantthat day.

Afterthe baptism they told us (Philip and I) “from now on I change mylife, another life begins,” she repeated several times during theday and a few weeks later she was pregnant!...

Itis the “miracle baby” Swami Roberto in his great goodness hasoffered us.

Sophieis radiant...

Forme, in my life, it is as if the horizon grew, widened...

Whatimmense love Swami gives us.

Everybeat of my heart is a thank you for Swami Roberto.

Martine

With Miryam's signature

2011-02-11T14:23:00.001+01:00

(From the facebook site of Ramia Osvaldo Ristuccia)

Click on the image below to enlarge

This is the translation of the words of Ramia Osvaldo :

"Today, February 11, 2011, this day so dear to Swami Roberto as the Immaculate Conception appeared in Lourdes, THE TOWN HALL GAVE US THE PLANNING PERMISSION TO BUILD OUR NEW TEMPLE IN LEINI.

The date of the stamp pn the permission is the 11-02-2011 which, “coincidence”, is also a palindrome, ie symmetric, we can read as well from the start as from the end.
Our temple is born today with the signature of Miryam. Alleluia!
Let us pray to thank the Divine Mother. Let us pray the Divine Providence now more than ever, and pray against the attacks of evil, which is doing everything to oppose that divine work.”

Here are the pictures you can enlarge by clicking on them:

Timorous faith

2010-10-25T17:10:00.000+02:00

As it is known, in the beings the perception of danger and thus fear are used “to activate” a whole series of instinctive reactions which cause extraordinary and unconscious behaviours of self defence.
The larger the danger is and stronger is the immediate reaction to avoid it and safeguard its integrity.
It is an involuntary mechanism so effective, that somebody even sought to make use of it for very low goals, by enlarging scarecrows of all kinds to influence the control of the other human beings.
The individual religious experiment also can finish in this swirl and indeed they are not rare the religions which make proselytes through a well ground system: while threatening of divine punishments and by presenting terrifying places of eternal damnation one can welcome heaps of faithful ones who, vis-a-vis the danger, run away in the opposite direction and seek refuge in a faith guaranteeing safety, which is basically daughter of terror.
But which faith can be a faith which is born from fear? And love... can one love somebody by fear?
Obviously not. However it is precisely on these bases that a very large number of people build their relation with God.

Extraordinary ordinary

2010-06-20T18:09:00.001+02:00

Leinì, 20.06.10

In the infinite horizons of the human existences, the extraordinary takes form in the most varied events, which astonish and move because of their exceptional character compared to the usual life.
But the most extraordinary facts that a person can test during his/her life are prone to a very common destiny: moving sands of the time which passes little by little wrap them and then absorb them until making them disappear in anonymity from the ordinary life.

It happens indeed that the human being is accustomed gradually also to the extraordinary situations which astonished him at the beginning and which then, by the only fact that they are repeated, undergo the law of the habit which breaks down every exceptional fact.
It is there the inexorable mechanism which produces a harsh contrast between the stupor filled with wonder of the children who face the adventure of life and the indifferent disillusion of many adults, from now on unable to be astonished by something.
To be able to escape this natural order of the things, one really needs “something” Supernatural like Swami Roberto's Darshan, thanks to which each Sunday many people can preserve their relation with God from the moving sands of ordinary life.

Three-dimensionality

2010-05-30T17:01:00.000+02:00

Charity, this unknown factor!

It is indeed obvious that the meeting with charity is very difficult in the egoistic and cynical world where we live.

But, charity is also unknown for another reason: the people who practice it – authentic “rare birds” which are a great blessing for humanity – are seldom in the situation to express it completely, by releasing its divine power thoroughly.

If you will pardon the comparison, charity is a little like a “three-dimensional” reality that many perceive in a limited way, so much so as “to flatten it” like an image without depth.

This happens when one traces its contours in terms of “height” and “width” (because one conceives it like disinterested love towards God and the fellow man, capable of embracing everyone without distinction) but that one does not explore the dimension of depth of it and that one is unaware of thus just this direction which transforms “the simple” altruism into divine Charity.

It is an omission caused by the difficulty of probing this dimension, the depth, accessible only to those which are able to understand the fellow man, by helping him in the manner which counts most of all: the spiritual manner.

To help the others on the spiritual level is the most sublime form and most powerful of charity and it is a “divine” task.

Well, among all that I could say to those who require of me to speak to them about Swami Roberto, today, I think of this aspect: Swami showed me charity in its “three-dimensional” reality, the most difficult to see.
By meeting him, I met the incarnation of charity, not only because, by the example of his life, he teaches generosity and the concrete solidarity towards those in need, but more especially because he at every moment shows me the love of he who knows the fellow man and who thus helps him in the field which counts most, the spirit.

Two Irreconcilable Laws

2010-05-02T15:30:00.000+02:00

Price” is the name of the earthly law founded on money according to which everything has to be paid for and nobody gives anything for nothing.

“Grace” on the contrary is the name of the Law of God’s Love that is GRATIS given (derived from the Latin, which means favour, kindness) without asking for anything in exchange.

The Law of Grace is a law that is unfamiliar to the inhabitants of this world who consider that they cannot practise it themselves or at most selfishly wish other people to be so stupid as to put it into practise.
According to this logic, what we give “as grace” does not even deserve as much as a thank you in return, that is, it does not deserve gratitude whereas it is only what has a high cost that is valuable.
Many people also lead God into this financial mechanism because the perfect “Grace” that is freely given is worthless from an economical point of view.
Many religions have been converted to the dictates of the world and have thought it right to charge for their rites (not only the indulgences dating from the Middle-Ages, but also the masses for the deceased, funerals, and so on) thus setting a price for God.

It is a question of desecration of the celestial Law that, however, thanks to God, is still practised… by a few rare people. One of them is Anima Universale (Universal Soul), a church “outside of this world” that does not have any charges and only lives on Providence.

Think about it: there are many followers of the earthly Law who snob Anima Universale, just for this reason: whatever is not paid for is not valuable, that is why it is thought it is better to look for “precious” rites and pay for a course.

Leinì, 02.05.2010

But there are some disciples of the celestial Law who have acknowledged Anima Universale as their Church. From their heart springs the gratitude of those who see the value of what is given by Grace, thus giving shape to the Providence that allows Anima Universale to realize miraculous solidarity works.

Mira...ges and Mira...cles

2010-04-25T15:31:00.000+02:00

Mirages and Miracles are two words that have a very different meaning.
However, almost to respect the common etymological root of both these words, many people now put them on the same level of equality, thinking that miracles are in fact mirages.

If for atheists it cannot be otherwise, in different cases this levelling is far from being understandable: I am referring to the many “believers” who consider miracles as being “stories for dreamers”.

Now, considering that having faith does not mean being credulous, what sort of faith could put limits to the Divine Omnipotence? Surely a paradoxical “faith” that has a real power in the life of many people: the power of changing possible miracles in… mirages!
Forbidding all space to any Divine intervention in fact means stopping the providential Love of God who requires nobody to make Him intercede.
However, those who do not believe in miracles do not have to make any effort to prove that they are right: God satisfy them at once to the point where He “camouflages” himself in order not to be intrusive, which is to divinely respect the “right” of man to be incredulous.

Leinì, april 25th 2010

During the first thirty years of my life I had the direct experience of this kind of “satisfaction” of my will that did not believe in the Supernatural, until I met Swami Roberto. This was the first miracle in my life that happened precisely when I decided to give up the mirage of my earthly objectives.

« Ecclesia » Church

2010-04-22T15:20:00.000+02:00

On Sunday I met a woman who showed her “allergy” to the word "church". During our short meeting, she told me how she had been disappointed with the different forms of “institutionalised” cults that she had known during her life that had provoked in her a sort of “dismissal reaction” from all form of religious “apparatus” that put itself between God and human beings.

So, referring to Anima Universale (Universal Soul), she asked me: But why another Church… since there are already many, too many of them?” ... She explained that she had always had faith in God of whom she perceives the presence in her heart, but that she could no longer reconcile the demands of the soul with any religious practice organised in an ecclesiastic manner.
While talking with that person I had to find my way through the jumble of her generalization… “All the churches are organizations of the politico-economical power, priests are the kind of people saying “do as I tell you, not as I do.”
It was not easy to explain to her that she could not just apply her prejudices against religion to Anima Universale. She finally understood that Anima Universale is a “Church” in the original sense of the word "ecclesia" , that is a congregation gathering to pray to God, far from the churches that assume a spiritual power organized according to a hierarchy and pretend to give away God to people.

I saw in that person the difficulties that I had noticed before with other people, especially youngsters who in the past had shown similar aversion to religion, and so had I before I met Swami Roberto.
I think this attitude is due to a religious environment where nowadays many “churches” are very far from what the primitive Christian communities meant with the word ecclesia. So it is not always easy to put across to some people that Anima Universale did not recede from the original meaning of the word.

A difference... that makes all the difference

2010-04-16T18:22:00.001+02:00

In the multicultural society of our present day, a topic that is much talked about is the defence of one’s own personal identity concerning one’s faith.
By the way, the main concern of some religions is to teach their congregation to keep distant from the beliefs of other creeds, according to the principle that to defend one’s religious identity, it is necessary to stress the line of "separation" from those who have a different faith.

Admittedly, the fact of cultivating and keeping one’s irreligious identity is an important principle that can be shared. However, wanting to realise it by a campaign of “separation” presupposes an equation that is completely wrong from the start by putting on the same level“separate” and “distinguish”
Though these two words seem to have a close meaning, there exists a difference between the two… that makes the whole difference.
Separate means divide... whereas distinguish means discern to be able to recognise the differentiation.

Religious institutions that are only concerned with separating, show that they have a very low opinion of their followers: since they believe them to be unable to distinguish, they prevent them from having any form of inter-religious dialogue for fear they may get confused. As a consequence, walls, divisions and counter oppositions increase.

On the contrary, the person who masters his religious identity cannot be afraid of having a dialogue with a believer of another religion, nor can he be afraid to hold his hand and pray the unique God, even if He is named differently.
Thus, the ramiric Christian does not separate because he knows how to distinguish and therefore he is not afraid of making confusion

That is why the message of Anima Universale (Universal Soul) always leads towards searching a dialogue on the basis of what unites to construct brotherhood also in its diversity.

Special humanity does exist

2010-04-12T18:06:00.005+02:00

(Testimony of Nadia Marrazzo, medical doctor)
Leinì, April 8th and 9th 2010

Dear Ramia Massimo,
I feel like writing about the Gratitude that springs from my heart. As Swami says, we are His very big heart!
These two days were very special for me, that is why I want to thank you not only with my heart that is always with You, but also with these thoughts.

Thursday afternoon, April 8th 2010 – At the end of the conference (contributors ramia Roberto Rodighiero and Ramia Massimo C.), joy becomes a voice that travels on the notes of the ramiric hymn

I want to thank you for the teachings that yourself and Ramia Roberto give us with pure Love and humble simplicity. I felt I was privileged because I was there listening to precious pearls of Knowledge that will make me understand ever more what a Grace it is to have met Swami!

Friday morning, April 9th 2010 – Darshan sun

Today, it was Swami’s birthday, and a wonderful day… I felt I belonged to a special humanity that sang, in glory, the Love for God and for everybody!

A particular thank for Ramia Paolo for … his gentleness, his poetry, his Love… happy notes for all of us blessed with Swami’s Love! My heart vibrates Swami’s Love and today I am born proud of belonging to this special humanity!
Thanks to you all, venerable Ramia: each of your actions is the expression of the Love that Swami teaches and gives endlessly.
Thank you Swami!!!

Nadia Marrazzo

After the Darshan, a friendly get together on a beautiful spring day

Think about it

2010-02-09T18:12:00.002+01:00

What a wonderful thing thought is, a very powerful and also bivalent faculty that man can address towards the highest summits of Love, but unfortunately also towards the abysses of nastiness and hatred.

Thought is energy bred by the mind that diffuses good vibrations or unfortunately bad ones, too, in subtle plans.
However, most of humanity shows that it is not conscious of this great potentiality.

Too many people behave as if thoughts did not have any effects, ignoring (or elucidating) the responsibility inherent to this typically human faculty.
How everything would be different … if only thought could have a smell!

Think about if prayers and thoughts of love… could have a nice fragrance ….and if bad thoughts stank!
It would not be possible to hide any longer; lies and hypocrisies would be blatantly disclosed!

Here we are. I may be describing a non existent fantasy world… when on the contrary, I am only talking about a subtle reality that exists and is obvious to God.
However…think: a number of people relate to God as if for Him too the dimension of thoughts was inaccessible to Him and they live in the illusion that they may hide something from Him. They think they can get away and believe that God is too busy to notice them.

We can get out of this hustle and bustle of the paradox of human beings when we remember that no secrets exists before God and when we act accordingly, trying to take on the responsibility for the stink that is the consequence of bad thoughts.

Personally, since I have become a Ramia I find it easier to keep all this in mind, also because living beside Swami has meant finding a dimension in situations that are his owns and that is linked to the disruptions that travel in subtle planes.

For instance, at the beginning when I came to some places, I could not understand his reactions that seemed inexplicable to me according to the context we were in. Inexplicable until I started to think what “breathing” meant and were opposed to the subtle energies that floated in the places where people moved.

When I thought about it, I understood that it is far from pleasant to come to some places and to smell foul whiffs left there by the wrong thoughts of the person who was in that place…

But … living next to Swami has enabled me to notice the other consequences of that point: thanks to Him, I have closely realized the importance of spreading the perfume of prayers and thoughts of Love in the ether… and I have understood that one of the first spiritual responsibilities of a person is indeed the content of her thoughts.

The Caresses of Love

2010-02-09T15:04:00.002+01:00

(Testimony of Nadia Marrazzo, medical doctor)

To be ramiric means to have a family that endlessly gives you its strength and teaches us to live in Love.
The tactfulness and the firmness, with which the INCARNATION of LOVE GIVES us His TEACHING, are the realisation of the dialogue that GOD has with each of us continuously.
Joy feels my whole being, the joy to be listened to and guided on this difficult path because of the limits in which this infinite restricts me.
Surprisingly I realise that each trip forces me to concretely put into practice the fruits of this wonderful journey where the GUIDE is the hinge/foundation of transformation, that is of evolution.
The way I am welcomed and listened to teaches me about the meaning of knowing how to welcome and listen, and then I always get back home stronger and richer of true Love!
The blessing that each of my cell breathes is the true wealth that enables me to nourish myself and thus to be nourishment for others.
Today I received another special CARESS of LOVE that helps my spiritual will to increase and to be sustained in all the moments where human nature tries to bring down the conquests of my Spirit.
It really makes sense to live and day after day master the opening of the Soul thanks to SWAMI ROBERTO’S LOVE who, through the venerable Ramia, guides us towards conquering the TRUTH present in each of us.
We live in a world where the main message is unfortunately the antithesis of Love, so the fact that I have conquered such an ambitious goal for my Spirit makes me feel happy and certain that I am an instrument of Love in the hands of God!
Thank you SWAMI because each time you remind me that I have a dignity!!!
Thank you to all of you, Venerable RAMIA: the greatness of what you do for us is a sign of GOD’s Mercy!!!

Nadia Marrazzo
Roma, February 9th, 2010

Francesco's questions

2010-02-02T19:41:00.000+01:00

Today I met a young man… who was puzzled about the concept of ramiric ecumenism.
Francesco asked me to better explain my thought on this issue.

Doesn’t ecumenism concern only Christian Churches?
Theecumene is the universal community of believers in God.
To restrict theecumene to the Christians would mean what God’s Love would never do, that is establish boundaries that would include some and exclude others.

But what kind of dialogue is possible with people who have no knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures?
Actually, the scriptures provide us with enlightening insights. I am thinking of Jesus in the synoptic Evangels who, when the Roman centurion asking for His help for his seriously sick servant, said: “Truly I tell you, even in Israel I have not found such great faith” ... He also said to the Canaanite woman who was requiring help for her daughter tormented by the devil: "Woman, great is your faith"...These two examples show that for Jesus there is no such a thing as “outsiders” whereas nowadays too many Christians treat people as outsiders.
Jesus did not ask a religious conversion from the centurion and the Canaanite woman who had expressed their faith; He blessed the faith of these people, even if they were not Jewish.
I wonder what would have happened if the present supporters of ecumenism limited to only Christian Churches had been with Jesus on these two occasions.
In your opinion, would they have expected such words from Jesus?

I do not know, but, Jesus spoke these words to two people who had recognised his greatness.
Yes, but not because they had recognised Him as the Messiah of Israel … since they were not Israelites. Moreover, they could not recognise Him as the One Raised from the Dead as Jesus was still alive. However, according to Jesus, even without knowing the Scriptures the centurion had shown greater faith than anyone else in Israel.

In any case, I can’t see how this example can be transposed to our present day…
Centurions and Canaanites can be identified today in the followers of non-Christian religions who are banned from too many “ecumenical” meetings.

Maybe, but I think limits have to be set. For instance, how is it possible, according to Anima Universale, to even consider a dialogue with atheists who do not believe in God?
When a Christian meets an atheist who believes in altruism, honesty, justice and respect of life… the points of agreement are there… and the “commandment of Love” announced by Jesus teaches us to always seek what unites rather than what divides.
This spiritual principle coincides perfectly with Swami Roberto’s teachings that have inspired the “ecumenical thought without borders” of Anima Universale.

Don’t you think that there is a risk of making a great soup?
Well… if you want to see that way, then the author of the great soup would be God. As a Catholic, don’t you think that God is the Creator?

Yes, I do.
Then you should ask yourself why God did not create all human beings as Christians but also Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and so on.
How could God who is Love create first category people (Catholics), second category people (non-Catholic Christians) and third category people (non-Christians)?
Unless you think that, being outside God’s plans, the other religions are invention of the devil. In this case, you would believe in a very small God since Christians are largely outnumbered compared to the number of other non-Christian believers. Therefore, the Omnipotent would be exceeded in a resounding way. Don’t you think so?

You see, I believe in a Christian God, One and Three and despite all your considerations I think that this is the Truth… and there are no others.
In that case, as a ramiric Christian I believe in the Father, Christ and the Holy Spirit, but I also believe that the Truth of God is Love that excludes no one.
So I think that God loves every human being, whatever his culture and beyond his subjective and limited understanding of the Truth, and that he can reach God through his goodness and rectitude. The concept of ramiric ecumenism is based on this.

Two ways

2010-01-26T18:08:00.001+01:00

The origin of so many petty human attitudes lies in the enormous difference that exists between the desire to excel ... and the wanting to give the best.

These two aspirations appear to us apparently equivalent, but instead they are profoundly different.
Anyone, driving along the road to excel, has to be compared to the other, trying to be better, and it is on this basis of comparison that he can trigger the fascinating role of envy, wicked inspiration that leads many to denigrate and bully others just to get its objective.
But, who cares "only" to give his best chooses the more difficult way, deprived of the gratification of feeling better than anyone...but also far from the blandishments of jealousy and envy.
This does not mean it is wrong to propose to be better than those who, for example, practice wickedness, the point is that spiritually we can aspire to much more.
Well have understood this who take the direction of "giving his best", people who focus solely on the exploitation of their talents, and so they put theirselves in the best conditions to express them fully.
They do not care about being first ... but they can be themselves ... realizing the unique record spiritually important, because it has not obtained at the expense of someone.

Christmas Lights in Leinì

2009-12-25T18:20:00.003+01:00

Yesterday evening, the great prayer of Saint Christmas Night:

This morning Ramia Roberto and I celebrated
the prayer "Venite Adoremus",

in which we gave Swami Roberto's Teachings about Christmas.

My meeting with Swami Roberto (part 6)

2009-11-03T18:06:00.001+01:00

The summer of 1996 began for me in a very hot way…not only in the climate sense. After the day I met again Roberto, I began regularly to travel the Vicenza-Leinì route to attend his prayer meetings. Only few months since the time that I had discovered the spiritual thought of Anima Universale, I realized that the passage of time invigorated more and more the vocation that I felt in my heart. I felt this call flow from my deep, with an unstoppable force, that literally “exploded” sweeping away all my previous projects.

God, who until then I had been plunged into a corner, became the focus of my life. Gradually I was experiencing Him more and more, through those spiritual teachings which responded promptly to my many questions.

The diverse range of expectations that had filled my life, they rapidly emptied of all meaning, and I found no sense even in the more attractive career prospects that I reached.

I saw clearly that my future was in a Christian Church that meets the aspirations kept in my mind and I decided to express to Ramias my will to become a priest of Anima Universale.

So I began a period of preparation for the church life, during which every weekend I went to Leinì to meet Ramias that follow me on my advancing’s path in the ramiric knowledge. In Leinì I had the opportunity to refresh my spirit thirsts, spending full days of discovery, inner reflection and surprises.

I was guided to explore lands unknown to me and the horizons of my understanding opened the wide.

In parallel, as my decision to change life became known to my friends…in the country, at work, in the circle of “friends”…the attitude towards me changed drastically.

“How you can do? You lost your mind? Do you give up everything to follow that guru of Leinì? “. I saw a total volte-face of people until the day before they had expressed respect and appreciation, and they began to look at me sideways, revealing embarrassment, annoyance, disapproval… sometimes even pity. At that time I lived on my skin the lash of blunt injuries.

Anyway…I understood a bit the discomfort of those people to me. Perhaps in their place I would have reacted the same way.

I thought, it’s no surprising that the new cause distrust in those who do nothing to overcome the prejudices…it is clear that it is always more comfortable to stand with the majority, for opportunism or to not feel excluded.

I realized that if I left everything to become a priest, the monk, or maybe even a Buddhist lama, I gathered praise in series for a brave and difficult choice. Instead, the “cause” that I wanted to hug was wrong on purpose in the eyes of those who had no information at 360 degrees.

In any case, beyond all, the situation that had arisen not moved anything in my projects.

I was certain that the truth was not told in bars, because the reality I had known it had nothing directly to do with what was said about Roberto by some pulpit or in certain newspapers of the province.

Since I started to deepen the spiritual reality of Roberto, I had already clearly understood that because of its innovative originality he could not collect the approval and applause of the world.

But that was the spiritual thought that I have always tried…a logical, new, coherent thought denouncing the contradictions and hypocrisies of the common mind and that I felt I wanted to live fully.

I had never tried just a theoretical doctrine, but I aspired to a spiritual teaching that tell me how to turn my findings into the inner life lived far from the cliches and appearances.
And it was just the thought of Roberto, who finally showed me a way to give a clear outline of a real concept of spirituality, which until then I had never managed to achieve in practice. Now that the spiritual dimension unfolds in front of me with such evidence, I simply wanted exist in it, not just as a spectator of my life. I wanted to do the utmost to serve the Lord in my next…to learn more and more to recognize the sanctity of life in all its forms…to grow in the ability to respect the equal dignity of every human being…to mature a commitment to put in daily practice God’s love and to help the others to discover what I had discovered.

On 11 January 1997 I attended my vocation, I consecrated my life to the mission in Anima Universale entering into the monastic community of Leinì.

Since then the Lord has filled my life with spiritual treasures in a much bigger than I could think and hope, and the words of Swami Roberto are the rays of sun that constantly guide me on the path of Love.

Everyone in life has its way…I’ve found mine… and for that I thank God.

The beats of the ramiric heart…

2009-11-01T17:58:00.000+01:00

…in two days full of Light and joy:

(Ramia Roberto Rodighiero and I, during saturday afternoon conference).

(Sunday morning: a faithful group is coming to the Ashram).

(Silvana Aliotta and Prof. Luciano Roccia: notes of joy and friendship).

(Swami Roberto's Benediction: Light that warms the hearts).

Flocks… and masses

2009-10-29T17:57:00.001+01:00

How many times have you heard the expression “shepherd of souls” to name the ministers of religion of various Christian denominations?
Ia have heard it very often.
Jesus described himself as such and consequentrly, Crhistianity adopted in its everyday language the concept of the good shepherd who guides the faithful.

But nowadays… a shepherd’s job, which used to represent the foundations of the agricultural world, has become obsolete… and almost as if it was meant to happen, the current use of this analogy in the religioius field… hase weakened considerably.
The faithful of quite a few churches are henceforth more prompted to be a mass… rather than a flock.
And what an enormous difference there ise betweek the sheep of the mass… and the lambs of the flock!
The first make the indistinct magma that the damagogue-priestes manipulate according to the logic of religius proselytism…
And, on the contrary, the second make the groups of followers in search of the shepeherd who knows how to guide them; a shepherd capable of recognising each individual… capable of watching over their necessities… capable of leading the way ofr them towards the kingdom of heaven of understanding.
But this difference… between the mass and the flock… may even appear as a piece of nonsense totally insignificant to the mind of those who are dazed by the fumes of conformism.
For many advocates and interpreters of the mass-faith it wuill be very difficult to really understand these words pronounced by Swami who wanrs us against the danger of the “faith of the sheep”:

Spiritual teachings must not be accepted blindly in the name of faith, but must be examined in the lithe of reason.
Faith and reason together! They are the wings of your spiritual elevation.
Questioning, reflection, confrontation, deepening, in shorto using the gift of the intellect, are not options.
Swami Roberto

The spirit… is it male or female?

2009-10-21T17:55:00.000+02:00

The “Prodigal Son” by Rembrandt: I still remmeber the surprise that painting aroused in me the frist time I saw it when I was only a child.
What struck me was the detail of the hands, one masculine and the other feminine, with which The Merciful Father embraced his son who came back to Him.

The religious culture I had then made what I consider now as normal look strange, in toher words that God, pure Spirit, can also be understuood as Father and Mother of the human bheing, and this is what can be deduced from the Dutch artist’s masterpiece.
Besides this image of God is still considered as unacceptable by most of the (religious) christian world… just as catholics consider unacceptable the idea that a woman may accomplish the sacerdotal ministry.
It is precisely the decision of the Anglican Church to ordain women to priesthood and espicopacy, which is one of the reasons why groups of priests, bishops and other Anglican followers “fled” from their Church: they are “emigrants” in the arms of the Magisterium Vatican that approved yesterday an appropriate consitution: “an apostolic Consitution to welcome the Anglicans”.
Thinking of God… the Unlimited… who obviously transcends the concepts of male and female, the idea occurs that humans make life complicated for themselves all by themselves.
Blest are we ramiric people… to alway bereminded of that by Swami.

A Darshan marked by Divine Providence

2009-10-18T17:52:00.001+02:00

In this picture on the right, Gabriella and Alberto Chitti tell about their participation, as representatives of Anima Universale, in the opening ceremony of the elementary school in Poggio Picenze, Abruzzo, which took place on October 3rd. Gabriella and Alberto have “transported” to Leinì the joy and the hope they saw revived again in the eyes of many children from the region of Abruzzo… and they have also transported with them the deep emotion of the families of Poggio Picenze, who thank the big family of Anima Universale for its contribution to this extraordinary work of solidarity achieved in two months.

Ramia Osvaldo tells to the persons who are present about the “games” of Divine Providence, those “games” that, as Swami mentioned afterwords… “have come true thanks to the prayers of all those who listened to me when I urged them to pray, pray, pray Divine Providence for Anima Unversale“.

Today has also been a providential day for Elsa and Tullio who received Swami Roberto’s blessing for their 55th wedding anniversary.
With their loved ones, they thanked Swami, without whom they wouldn’t have been able to live this so wonderful day.

“We are miraculous survivors!” they said with words full of emotion and gratefulness.

After prayers, I went to greet Elsa and Tullio who, filled with joy, wished to tell me their story…
“Nine years ago the doctors had ‘condemned’ me - says Tullio – and at the hospitals of Vercelli and Casale they had said that they could do nothing for me… to cure my very weak heart condition“.

It was meant to be… until they met Swami.

“One evening, here in Leini, there was a prayer with a procession outdoors… but I didn’t feel like walking and I remained seated in the palatenda. When Swami came in, leading the procession, he came straight at me to greet me“. After a while something very important happened: Tullio’s health conditions changed to the point that a surgical operation became possible, even if it was a very difficult one…
“I had to undergo three by-pass operations simultaneously in the carotid; I went to consult Ramia Mario and he told me: be confident that Swami will also be in the operating theater“.
The operation was a perfect success… “so much so that – adds Tullio – even though the doctors had said it was necessary to stimulate the heart after the operation to make it beat again… my heart started beating again immediately. My engine started on its own.
The doctors opened my sternum completely, but I never felt any pains, I never suffered because of that“.

“My father had a result different from all the other patients – said his daughter Silvia – who underwent the same operation with very strong pains… and today, unfortunately, these persons are no longer with us“.

Some time after, Elsa also had to face very serious health problems… “It was a tumour. Five years ago the doctros took everything away… and now I am well. And when we happen to have problems and we think at times that we won’t pull through… then the Master comes… and he helps us go in the right direction again. Thank you Swami Roberto for this festive day you have given us“.

Elsa, Tullio, their loved ones… and all the persons present: today also, in Leinì, many people have noticed che miracles of Divine Providence.

While reading here and there

2009-10-17T17:50:00.001+02:00

“Chatolics, Protestants, Orthodox… we are all assembled around the Bible. The bible closed unites us, but if we begin to flip through its pages, the Bible open separates us. We read it in different ways, we read in it different truths“.
These words from the orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov emphasize a terrible and well-known contradiction that tears most of the Christian world apart.

Evdokimov’s words bring forth a question we may ask ourselves: is the union between Christians only possible through a Bible kept closed?
Some will think so, with the prospect of still opening it to claim they are the only ones capable of understanding the Truth of God, and thus to increase the distances and separations.
No doubt about it, such a scenario is hopeless… but fortunately there are also the ramiric Christians who, on the contrary, open the Bible to perceive the rays of truth that radiate from the Sacred Text andh then, instead of worrying about converting, they worry about loving.
As always, the capacity to love your neighbour is the fruit that “certifies” the tree… and to be specific it is the evidence that shows you have really been able to understand the meaning of the Word of God, beyond all interpretative diatribes.
Indeed… I am firmly convinced that those who open the Bible to nourish their intolerance towards those who think differently… had better keep it closed.

My meeting with Swami Roberto (part 5)

2009-10-14T17:48:00.000+02:00

(A period never closed in my heart)
It was autumn 1996 and my father Vasco came home for a few days. There was no way the brain tumor could be cured, and the doctors from the hospital had accepted our request to bring him home to let him die in the ouse where he was born.

He almost not recognize anyone.
The sad glance, the vacant expression…from his mouth no more words came out with a concrete sense, but only incomprehensible sounds all times more feeble.
One evening I was returning early from work to help my mom to aid him, I approached his bed taking in my hands a photo of Roberto, and I said few words to my father knowing that I spoke to a person who now lives in a world all its own!
“Be quiet, you know that Roberto will help you.”
Several long seconds broke my breath…I was very surprised to hear him articulate clearly that name.
“Roberto”
The last weeks of my father’s life had been very different than what was expected; his case was one of those that normally require excruciating pain, but he had never complained particular pains and his quietness encouraged our serenity to look after.
We all were aware that the disease had a course quite different from that suggested by doctors, and it was not the first time this happened, because previously there had been unexpected developments after that my parents had called Roberto’s help.
The health problems of my father had begun many years before, when he suddenly accused of bladder problems that doctors indicated with cancerous origin.
In my family we were all very worried about it, but my parents had reacted with courage and confidence asking immediately the help of the young mystic of Turin.
I had not shared that momentum with my parents, but I found that shortly after the health of my father were significantly improved, so as to enable him to live his life normally.
Subsequently, Vasco had suffered an attack of a new serious disease, and this was the moment when I touched personally with the hand that I could not explain.
My father had, in fact, begun to have a persistent cough with a fever that did not want to go away, plus a general decline that left portends the worst.
The first medical controls evidenced the presence of a tumor not at the bladder but at the lungs, and we were all waiting with great concern the subsequent investigations to understand the true gravity of the disease.
I lived those moments with great difficulty, because suddenly I felt the crushing weight of the many things that I never could tell my father, for which may not suddenly have more time.
His death would irreparably torn part of me, leaving me victim of my regret.
Meanwhile, in the pain of that situation, it had happened that my mother had once asked for help to Roberto, and suddenly I saw her raised again thanks to what he said: “The doctor will tell you that there are no more hope, that the tumor has affected both lungs and it is not operable, that Vasco has no more than two or three months of life … but you do not give up! Come and join wit me my prayers, and you will see that he can return and resume his work in his fields. “
Initially I had received these words with diffidence, even if I tried to not show my doubts.
But when I went to the doctor to know the response of the examinations, it happened a fact did not expected. I heard say the exact words that Roberto had announced to my mother.
I found myself in a paradoxical situation, the more the doctor used the same unrelenting terms that left no escape “Cancer to both lungs…inoperable…can live two or at most three months” more I began to feel that strength that clearly already claimed my mother, because despite the confirmation of a very compromised position, I knew also that the last words of Roberto left an open door to hope: “he will return to work in his fields.”
In front of me, I saw clearly the astonishment of the doctor who did not understand the reaction of progressive reassured that he saw painting on my face. He did not understand how I could be comforted also with that indisputable sentence of death that he was communicating to me.
What happened in the days immediately after it was even more inexplicable: my father weared t-shirts blessed by Roberto, and suddenly he began to improve. It disappeared both unnerving cough, that had accompanied him for months, and fever. He started to regain his usual face color we know.
The change came so fast and clear that we would not even want to go and do the chemoterapy in the hospital (because for us it seemed unnecessary) but Roberto insisted that we had to follow doctors’ indications, and we did.
Needless to say, the therapy had no side effect, and a few months later my father came to work in his fields and he spent one of the best times in his life.
Even my relationship with him became more intense because the tragedy shaken me to the point that I could open myself to him in a way I never did in the previous three decades.
I finally told him what I had in my heart.
One year…yes…a year that we have considered a year of life given from Heaven to my father.
I repeat: the best, the most intense he has lived.
Then, unfortunately, the third tumor came, this time to the brain.
My father, in a supernatural way, hardly noticed what was happening to him.
He slipped quickly into a state of complete absence and, meanwhile, I found myself profoundly changed.
With my family, I could face the loss of my father with a sense of calm and deep gratitude…because he had not suffered, and because he had been allowed to live much longer than he should; not only…he lived this time given him from Heaven, with an inner peace that before it had never belonged.
We knew that this extraordinary grace was due to a discrete and constantly present character, who lived in Turin.
“Roberto” the name pronuonced by my father, had accompanied the last flash of light that I saw in his eyes…and, ultimately, that name had become very important also for me.
(My meeting with Swami Roberto – End of part 5. To be continued…)

My father Vasco with Swami Roberto

This photo tells me a lot. It was made when I did not yet knew Swami Roberto, but my father was just showing me the way...

« Coincidences » ...

2009-10-10T10:07:00.001+02:00

That day in April when Swami said he intended that the victims of the earthquake in the region of Abruzzo should have 250,000 Euros, I admit that for a few minutes I felt shivers of preoccupation. I have known Swami for a long time now and during all these years he has showed me several times that God's logic goes well beyond the logic and the plans of the world, but this amount of money, so great for us, could not leave me impassive.

I wondered how our church would manage to pay ofr the enormous building expenses of our monastery ...and I thought that divine Providence really ought to "do overtime hours" as Swami often says.

A few weekd later... a disastrous tempest hit the population of Riese Pio X and once again Anima Universale wished to show a tangible and immediate sign of solidarity: three Ramias who live in Poggiana put their flat at the disposal of a large family left homeless for free.

Well: last Saturday, the elementary school Anima Universale had promised to recounstruct in the region of Abruzzio was inaugurated in record time (click here to see the news of the website of Anima Universale - IT or FR only) which is marvellous news and that's an understatement.

But I also wish to share another piece of news with the ramiric people who have read the news on the websit of Anima Universale, but who have not read "in between the lines" yet:

Of all the towns that needed help in the region of Abruzzo, Don Pierino addressed our intervention to Poggio Picenze. So our act of solidarity has done to the poggiana people (this is how the inhyabitants of Poggio Picenze are called)... a word that is already in the heart of the ramiric people since our Venetian church is... Coincidence!!! in Poggiana.
Several companies from an Italian province also wished to partecipate in the reconstruction project and their intervention made it possibile to finish building the elementary schook while using only a part of the amount Anima Universale had given to Don Pierino and, by a unique coincidence, we were given back the money that had not been used.
Among all the Italian provinces, do you know from which province came the financial help that allows us to face at least the most urgent expenses? ...From Treviso, the province where... Coincidence!!! Poggiana is.

And yet... some will remember that, while announcing the agreement with Don Pierino to rebuild an elementary school in the region of Abruzzo, Swami said on April 19th: «At the financial level, Anima Universale has immersed itself - if that is possibile - even deeper into the arms of God. Therefore I invite you to pray everyday with power the mercy of Christ, so that it provides us with the possibility to achieve our projects...
Your faith and your engagement in prayer will oblige Divine Providence to help your, our Church to exist ».

How is it possible not to approve of Swami? Divine Providence has respected Its obligations like It always does!

Thank you Swami for reminding us all the time; we only ask you not to exaggerate with "coicidences", for the dictionary says they are fortuitous events... but when you intervene they happen objectively too often to continue considering them as such.

A kitten... that knows a lot

2009-10-08T00:43:00.000+02:00

Today my journal is enriched with a very beautiful page that Ramia Osvaldo wished to write after reading my post last Sunday.

Nobody can tell you better than he does how one day a cute little rascal in black and white entered our community, so... I leave you to his words.

“It was one morning in May last year, on Saturday 17 precisely.

In Italy, ford ordinary mortals, this number is supposed to bring bad luck, but I know on the contrary that according to the kabbala number 17 has quite another significance and refers to “a beneficial thing, situation or fact...” and indeed for me this is exactly how it turned out to be.

That day, I was walking with Swami Roberto along a path when suddenly we heard a loud mewing coming from a bush. It was such a sharp moan I thought it was an injured cat that needed help.

I came close to the shrubs cautiously, conscious that injured animals can be dangerous, but once near the foliage I couldn't hear him mewing any more.

I thought the cat kept silent for fear of being discovered.

The bush was enormous... a perfect place to hide into … but after I inspected it quickly I realized there was no trace of a cat.

I thought to myself: “But how could he have disappeared? ...We heard him loud and clear, he was there!”. So I turned towards Swami to ask for an explanation, and I was astounded and filled with wonder when I saw him with a little kitten in his arms.

He wasn't a fully-grown and injured cat!

He was a sweet kitten... black and white, but not thanks to sporting feats (no offence meant to the friends of the Juventus).

He was weak and poorly-fed, his little face begging for help ...and his little right eye injured buy a scratch.

There's no doubt about it, he was really very “dangerous” ...but only for my heart!

He had probably been abandoned by his mother for a few days and he had stayed on his own and defenceless to brave the traps of a rainy springtime.

We could see he was lively although skinny ...and it would certainly have been very difficult for me to catch hold of him. When I realized he had ignored me, running on his own initiative into the arms of Swami to seek comfort and protection, I remember I thought: “That cat knows a lot!”.

Swami cuddled him for a while and then handed him to me saying: “Keep him and take good care of him, I know it makes you happy”. It was indeed a present that filled me with joy. I immediately gave him his food and his little basket ...even if his favourite bed was immediately mine.

I took him immediately to the vet so his little eye could be examined and to get vaccinated; the doctor told me he was about two months old.

Now the only thing he needed was a name. The inspiration come strong and clear, but to let you also understand, I must tell you first what happened before that.

The day before Red Canzian, the famous bass guitarist of the “Pooh” had come to visit us; in the evening he had been the guest of honour of the music festival “Without label” that had taken place in Ciriè (Turin).

During the show Red had wanted Ramia Paolo to play with him a memorable guitar duet

at the end of which he congratulated our musician Ramia in flattering terms: “You play divinely”.

But ...I wished the name of this irresistible little rascal that bit my fingers as soon as he was in my arms could also remind me the emotions I felt these past few days... so I started looking for a name that had some connection with the Pooh.

It occurred to me that, many years ago, they had been inspired by the famous American comic strip: “Winnie the Pooh”, and since they had already taken the second part fo the name, I simply took the first.

“Winnie” sounded really great and I liked it a lot.

Yes... it's true that the comic is about a cute “little bear”, but in my opinion the name also suited a cat very well, all the more so since the little bear is as sweet as the little cat; but the affection Winnie never misses to show me as soon as he has the opportunity remains, if I may say so, unequalled!

But... I must also admit that you never forget a first love. And every time Winnie sees Swami, the love of the first encounter resurfaces, the love he felt that morning in spring when, trying to escape my attempts to find him, he had the cheek to quietly seek refuge in his arms.

Their relationship is so particular that from time to time I can see them talk to each other... yes, that's exactly the way it is... I have not suddenly gone mad!

It is not that Winnie talks like we do (at least not for the moment ), but it is Swami that must know the “kitten language” very well.

Sometimes I stay bewildered watching them while they exchange similar sounds for a few minutes. And that's not all! Not only do both of them get along when they talk “mewistically”, but also when they exchange knowing looks... through which they understand and answer each other.

It's useless... it demands a level I cannot reach at all, but I must say there are also many occasions I enjoy. This happens every time Winnie comes close to me revealing... the little dog that is in him.

He then starts following me everywhere with the obvious intention of associating me to his games. If by any chance he does not succeed, he then remembers he is always a cat: he climbs in his feline manner on everything that grows high and when he finally gets the “right” attention, he looks down at you prowdly waiting to receive the compliments that are the only way to bring him down again.

But when you look at him ...tell me... wouldn't you make him these compliments too?

The hero of my childhood

2009-10-04T19:04:00.000+02:00

Many among you alreday know that even if I am a Turiner by adoption, I grew up and lived many years in Monteviale, a small traditional village of farmers, on a hill in the surroundings of Vicenza, not yet invaded by tar or concrete.

I have therefore had the chance to spend my childhood outdoors and to often explore the field and the woods around my village.

About twenty years before the PlayStation era... my games, and those of my friend who went hiking with me, were in close contact with a marvellous nature: the one that saw the first foothills of the Venetian Pre-Alps.
Many domestic animals have always had a role of protagonists when I came out of school: a time when my "hero" was Francis of Assisi, the Saint who spoke with wolf and who preached to the birds. We children felt Francis very close to us because his story taught us how to love young she-goats, dogs... and dormice and squirrels too that we met on the woodland paths.

But, among them all, I particularly liked cats... and now I believe some witty students will say while reading this... "yes, to eat them", considering the reputation of the inhabitants of Vicenza called the "cat-hunters".

Joking apart, it was probably this popoular saying that shed for me a new and special light on these marvellous pets.

In primary school I had learnt that this legend about the "cat-eaters" of Vicenza had its historical origin: a few centuries before, the town of Vicenza had been hit bya a plague epidemic and its inhabitants had been forced to eat cats to survive.

When I learnt that I remember it made my flsh creep. I imagined the despair of these people forced to be reduced to this point to eat... and I thought about the cats that had been exterminated.

This is when these animals started to have a very special place in my child's heart; a place they still have today: indeed I share my days with a tender little family of cats.

When I meet these little friends, I can seee a whole combination of surprising expressions: the eyes of someone who must be forgiven... the eyes who ask for an extra dose of cuddles... the bold attitude of the one who exhibits a hunting trophee... the joy of the one who is going to eat his food with the sly movementsof a young mischief.

But they all give of their best when they are near Swami Roberto, so much so that sometimes it is difficult to understand whether they are cats or... kids.

I often see Swami establish with them a communication that, at the beginning, seemed to me "unnatural" too, until the momento when I understood on the contrary that... it is "simply" part of a different order, unknown to me... an order that enables Swami to communiate with the animal kingdom.

To give another example, I still have before my eyes the extraordinary event that happened on 16 June 2001 and coincided with the departure of the Ramia on a humanitarian mission in India (on this occasion we delivered 4.5 tons of essential foods/supplies given by the families of Anima Universale).

A kingfisher... (a very rare bird in Itali, but that is by a very curios coincidence very common in the region of Gujarat where the Ramia were going...) flew all of a sudden out of the sky to land in the hands of Swami Roberto. He stayed there as in a nest, long enough for Ramia Osvaldo to get his camera and take this memorable photograph.

Some time after this event... and also other similar events, I can truly say that my encounter with Swami has change completely the patterns my relationship with them in a divine way, like the Poor of Assisi had already taught.
Of course I often regret not having the eyes to recognize the subtle language that enables Swami to establish a relationship with the beings that have more simple life forms... like plants for example... but then my soul rejoices when I manage to sease at least a few relationships, the mosti evident ones when the trees sometimes answer him with their flowers and their scents.

Three weeks ago I lived an extraordinary experience in the town Francis came from and as I still think of Him, my heart continues to be filled with gratitude... for the extraordinary spiritual treasure He has given to mankind... and for His marvellous relationship with animals that had already made Him become, in my child's eyes, the saint hero whom I asked to help my little friends in difficulty.
Today many people still believe that animals are not worthy of Paradise or even less of a soul. According to you, what would the great Francis say to that?

In my opinion only men without humanity can consider animals without a soul.

Pictures tell you...

2009-09-21T08:40:00.000+02:00

...about two deep days lived in Leinì:

Yesterday, my conference with Ramia Roberto Rodighiero: “Mary of Magdala and her way towards Enlightenment”...

Today, Swami Roberto’s Darshan: the Light among us...

My meeting with Swami Roberto (part 4)

2009-09-18T23:29:00.000+02:00

I participated for the first time in a prayer celebrated by the Ramias at Arso, nearby Vicenza, the day that my father received the baptism in Anima Universale.
My decision to go with my father, caused him a great and very welcome surprise, even if my parents had noticed, since some month, that I was getting closer and closer to Roberto’s reality.

For me that day was incredibly special...not only because the baptism of my dad coincided with my return to participation in a religious function, but also because it happened during a celebration that made me feel naturally at ease from the first impact: instantly it crumbled the wall of reluctance caused by the memory of the many celebrations that I attended in my youth... only to make an appearance.
That day marked my reconciliation with religious practice. Since then, I started again to feel the need to participate in those "different" prayers, enriched by meditation and reflections made by the Ramias.
At the same time it began an impetuous process within me, which allowed me to revisit in a different key every aspect of being.
I soon discovered something that completely overturned my life: I felt growing within me the vocation of serving the Lord in my neighbour, and I saw clearly that I could achieve this goal embracing the priesthood in Anima Universale.
With this "revolution" in my heart, I went to Leinì, to re-meet Roberto in person.
It passed years from that day in Monteviale, where I had seen him without the intention to know him really, and finally it was time when I felt the desire to get close to him to meet him really.

I watched my first Swami's darshan in the summer of 1996.
I arrived very early in Leinì and I immediately entered the church (at that time there wasn't still the big prayer tent) to take place in the front row.
The large waiting time before the prayer, literally flew, consumed by thoughts already projected toward those moments that I was going to live.
When Roberto came in he looked at the people pausing occasionally to look more deeply towards somebody, until his eyes caught me.
I saw his clear and intense eyes...I felt myself into the deep quiet of every thought, feeling distinctly that at that radiant face I could not conceal any secret.
Swami smiled me sweetly and, after a few moments, he stopped that special silence to begin the prayer.
He spoke for several minutes to the large group of people who were listening, but my surprise was great when I realized that his words were exposing my way of being, in every detail.
He was talking to everyone, but in reality it was like if he were speaking only for myself. Of course people could not know that Swami was touching so precise aspects of my mind...he was talking about my inner life even if I had never told anyone those intimate spiritual aspects.
I left the church, at the end of the prayer, knowing that for me nothing would be as before.

(My meeting with Swami- End of part 4. To be continued…)

I participated for the first time in a prayer celebrated by the Ramias at Arso, nearby Vicenza, the day that my father received the baptism in Anima Universale.

My decision to go with my father, caused him a great and very welcome surprise, even if my parents had noticed, since some month, that I was getting closer and closer to Roberto’s reality.

For me that day was incredibly special...not only because the baptism of my dad coincided with my return to participation in a religious function, but also because it happened during a celebration that made me feel naturally at ease from the first impact: instantly it crumbled the wall of reluctance caused by the memory of the many celebrations that I attended in my youth... only to make an appearance.

That day marked my reconciliation with religious practice. Since then, I started again to feel the need to participate in those "different" prayers, enriched by meditation and reflections made by the Ramias.

At the same time it began an impetuous process within me, which allowed me to revisit in a different key every aspect of being.

I soon discovered something that completely overturned my life: I felt growing within me the vocation of serving the Lord in my neighbour, and I saw clearly that I could achieve this goal embracing the priesthood in Anima Universale.

With this "revolution" in my heart, I went to Leinì, to re-meet Roberto in person.

It passed years from that day in Monteviale, where I had seen him without the intention to know him really, and finally it was time when I felt the desire to get close to him to meet him really.

I watched my first Swami's darshan in the summer of 1996.

I arrived very early in Leinì and I immediately entered the church (at that time there wasn't still the big prayer tent) to take place in the front row.

The large waiting time before the prayer, literally flew, consumed by thoughts already projected toward those moments that I was going to live.

When Roberto came in he looked at the people pausing occasionally to look more deeply towards somebody, until his eyes caught me.

I saw his clear and intense eyes...I felt myself into the deep quiet of every thought, feeling distinctly that at that radiant face I could not conceal any secret.
Swami smiled me sweetly and, after a few moments, he stopped that special silence to begin the prayer.

He spoke for several minutes to the large group of people who were listening, but my surprise was great when I realized that his words were exposing my way of being, in every detail.

He was talking to everyone, but in reality it was like if he were speaking only for myself. Of course people could not know that Swami was touching so precise aspects of my mind...he was talking about my inner life even if I had never told anyone those intimate spiritual aspects.

I left the church, at the end of the prayer, knowing that for me nothing would be as before.

My meeting with Swami Roberto (part 3)

2009-09-04T01:23:00.000+02:00

After that one meeting at my parents, I never saw Roberto for many years.
Instinctively he did not gave me a bad impression …he was a good guy but I thought he was not able to satisfy my spiritual necessity to get answers .
Reluctantly, my parents had had to resign over the years that "their" Roberto was not my business.

But little by little he began to become mine...although the escalation of city's chattering.
My parents were subjected to many criticisms of any kind...sometimes overt but more often subtle...because their choice was unacceptable because upstream.
"They go to the guru...they have lost mind. Who knows how much money that impostor steals them...!?"

Click to enlarge the picture and read the article (in italian)

This obstinacy annoyed me a lot because the proliferation of any kind of "free slander" showed me the worst side of the mentality of the old school I had already wanted to leave behind when I left the parish environment.
Moreover, the charges against Roberto were increased over time, as a result of the failure of the "diplomatic" rigging with which some parishioners had tried to “bring back into the fold " the lost sheep.
Roberto was described as a monster and he had also earned the epithets of ruin-families, plagiarist, false prophet... histrionic... satanist... the hustlers of God...and certainly I have forgotten someone.
It struck me the fact that they were the people who either knew him to speak so.
Obviously in Monteviale, in the heart of Veneto, which continued to retain its character as "Sacristy of Italy", it was not acceptable that anyone would dream of having a differently religious idea.
Indeed it was this petty smear campaign to push me to see things more clearly.

While many considered him a monster, I realized that thanks to the attendance of Roberto, my parents continued to receive any kind of good.

Day after day I saw that their opposed choice brought undeniable fruits: they manifested a serenity never belonged before and they showed a strengthen faith in God, with no damage to the wallet. I started to "sympathize" to their "cause" because I was struck by the courage and consistency with which they had been able to continue in their way, driven by a determination that did not show signs of weakness even in the face of incredible hostility.
One day I opened a book about Roberto I saw lean on my mother's bedside table.
I still didn't know what Roberto teached exactly, but I remember that I thought: "I want to see why they are so much against him" .
I read those pages in one breath and, with a big surprise, I discovered a whole series of lucid and profound reflections related to the themes I was really interested, but in a way completely different from what, until then, I had known in my personal research, a pluri-annual spiritual-intellectual exploration that had left me fundamentally dissatisfied.
In some passages of that book, Roberto approached with clarity exactly the contradictions that were the cause of my departure from the Catholic religious practice; other thoughts putted the classic "finger in the wound" highlighting a few "painful" characteristics of my way of being.
I found insights and answers concentrated in that one book that years of previous readings had not been able to give me: it seemed a “magic book”.
I asked my mother if she had more material about Roberto and I was surprised to learn that she had only a few issues of a magazine and some audio tape recorded by her.
I red few numbers of the magazine "Cristo nell’uomo” (Christ inside man), who spoke of the Church that Roberto had founded and I listened recordings of some of his speeches in Lourdes, Leinì, in various locations of Triveneto...
That indefinable voice, that time, struck me.
I heared clear concepts, true words, inspired prayers speaking the language of the heart. I would have liked to see some video tapes...but my mother had no camera.
In short time, I realized that the spiritual teachings of the young man were exactly the treasure I had searched in vain for many years and that I never thought to found it in my home...thanks to two simple people like my parents.
My "searching travels” of a spiritual thought, that could give me clear and convincing answers, founded an unexpected and surprising landing place in the words of this boy that I had looked at the cover of the magazine "Gente" 13 years ago, and I had virtually ignored in that one occasion when I had seen him in person.

(My meeting with Swami- End of part 3. To be continued…)

From Pyrenees... to Leini

2009-09-03T05:59:00.001+02:00

Good morning ramia Massimo

For the first time, we have been to the Darshan of 30th August... We came back home, me and Claudine, my wife, thrilled about what we have discovered about Swami Roberto and Anima Universale.

Thanks to all and to you, for the informations that are in your blog.

It is formidable, to can to extend a day like the one we have lived... while writing we feel the power of this day...

Thank you...

We live... in the Atlantic Pyrenees.

Gabriel

From Australia, thank you... Swami Roberto

2009-09-03T03:29:00.000+02:00

Dear ramia MASSIMO

it is “super” this blog, that permits me, during my stay of two months in Australia, to be in contact with Leinì and you all.

I am in Sydney to meet my daughter and my little grandson LUCAS that... I do not forget it... he is with us thanks to Swami ROBERTO, whom I will never say THANKS enough.

The thought of the Day, and the translation of Darshans... are a brilliant idea, because I can take advantage of Swami’s teachings also if I am in the other part of the planet.

Thanks to this, the waiting of my returning in France, and then my returning in Italy, looks at me shorter than it really is.

I will be with you again in November.

I thank you for ALL, as I thank all other Ramias (with a special thought for Ramia MAGDA).

And a big THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to Swami ROBERTO and to the very precious Divine Mother.

Maria Chantal C.

Thank you to you, Ramias

2009-09-03T02:35:00.000+02:00

Thank you to you, Ramia Massimo, for your constant devotion to the necessities of French-speaking people, so that we all benefit from Swami Roberto’s teachings: precious food for our spiritual evolution and our spiritual salvation.

Thank you for your coherence and for your rectitude, these are for us examples of life.

Thanks also to you all, Ramias, without exception, for your equal devotion, everyone with his proper “specificity”, for your lightness and joyful presence, your help and your support...

Thank you for your living proof of the meaning of “to devote oneself”, of Love and Power in our human incarnation.
Thank you Swami.

Martine A.

My meeting with Swami Roberto (part 2)

2009-08-26T02:00:00.000+02:00

In my town the turmoil of the "case-Roberto" was started when a group of parishioners, including my family, had radically changed their spiritual life began to travel to various locations nearby Vicenza to participate in prayer meetings which referred the now famous youth of Turin.
In parish environments, as in families, bars and a little everywhere people was talking about Roberto who was presented as a figure of great importance to those who had met him, as at the same time he was regarded with suspicion and even denigrated by most of the other villagers.

For me, initially the matter was not interesting, because I had long since closed the "question-church."

Roberto, about whom my parents talked to me a lot, to me remained merely a different facet of a field, the religion, which disappointed me in my need to find the meaning of life.

In my personal view of things I could not explain to me how God could be imprisoned in the shackles of a religiosity in which participation in Sunday Mass had become a credential to be exhibited to show that we are “good people”, an opportunity to show off beautiful clothes, a talisman to ward off the wrath of Heaven, a way to do our duty as a believer in a small town where on knows everything about everybody.

My youth, passed by assiduously attending church groups, had left me many unanswered questions so that I had gradually drifted away from church until I started to let bygones be bygones.

Inwardly I believed in God, but I could not recognize Him in all these trappings, mechanisms and contradictions with which, the conservative Catholic upbringing, in which my parents had raised me, had presented me.

I seek God above all in the form of a Truth to which I could connect my rational beliefs, on which to build a spiritual path that didn't ask me only to join a faith that I could not feel mine.

It was not for me, an idea of God that did not give me concrete answers.
My search for Truth progressed a bit in all directions, especially through spiritual texts, philosophy and science which were the exploration grounds I preferred; from time my reference point were the volumes of my personal library, rich in editions of writers of different cultural backgrounds.

In fact, I looked for a thread that goes beyond the struggle between different faiths, each convinced that they have the truth and then the exclusivity of salvation at the expense of others, with all the ensuing consequences.

: * Click to enlarge the picture.

Meanwhile, despite the criticism of much of the
country that knew Roberto only by hearsay, my family went on his way.
In my eyes it was excessive the enthusiasm with which my parents spoke of that youth, but I still let them do, because I saw them calm.

Indeed, there was more harmony between them, and when my father began to suffer health problems, he and my mother turned to Roberto and things went a little better.
Sure, my reluctance to become interested in Roberto did not falter.

I could not even consider the possibility that this boy of Turin with just the eighth grade could give me what I was looking in my beloved books, and consequently I looked at my parents with a kind of “higher” understanding.

Moreover, their insistence in inviting me to know Roberto was the factor that had kept me away from their spiritual discoveries. For a long time I avoided the invitation, even when times were propitious.
During periods when Roberto came to Vicenza to receive the sick, happened that he came also to Monteviale, pausing even to my house because my parents were part of the group of families who offered him hospitality.

Every time I kept away and I was careful to not cancel those commitments that were really an excuse to avoid it.
I avoided him several times until the day came when, without intending to, I met him.

With great enthusiasm of my parents, Roberto arrived with a group of people who accompanied him.
I caught his appearance, even younger than his age, and two green eyes that seemed to see beyond what they watch but I was especially surprised by his disarming simplicity.
I exchanged a few words of circumstance and then I stayed on the sidelines.
He was surrounded by a small crowd of people who seem to want to do not miss any of his word; they did not want to waste any of those moments that they had to stay in his presence.
For my part, I still could not comprehend the attention that the boy had been subject and I thought to myself that, instead of him, I would not have tolerated a situation so asphyxiating. They looked all “bloodsuckers”.

When Roberto left, I crossed for a moment his eyes, and my impression was that the smile that sent me as a nod might mean "see you soon”.

(My meeting with Swami- End of part 2. To be continued…)

-

* The caption says:

«Roberto Casarin is praying.
The “new Father Pio” lives in the parsonage that prof. Pietro Zeglio offered to him.
To the youth boy a lot of miracles are attributed. But he says: «The important thing is the prayer»

From Swiss with love

2009-08-23T09:52:00.000+02:00

Monique Poitrenaud is a Swiss lady that lives near Lausanne. She is part of the “family of Anima Universale” for some years now. She has gave to me a letter in which she has sketched a her own Swami Roberto’s portrait.

I share with you her words.

Swami Roberto is a distinguished Master, nobody in the world is exactly like him.
There are so much beauty and so much goodness in Swami... a unique treasure in this time-space.
He is here with us to shining in his own particular and surprising way, to share with us his Love and his smile... and to remember us again and always that a little light, everywhere it is, contributes with all the light of the universe.
It is fantastic his capacity to donate his energy to all the people who are lucky enough to know him, and to be glad of his presence.
To my eyes, Swami has a boundless heart and a wonderful Soul, and he is an important Being, full of good thoughts, with a particular way to look at the reality and to transfer it to us.
I understand that his person and his actions may change all, and that the lost joys may be found again.
Swami Roberto is a Master with wonderful presence and inner power, and he has a lot of treasures to transfer to us. I will never forget the treasures that he gives to me, in my heart and in my soul.
Swami Roberto is a Master that it is important to listen, and in every wonderful Darshan to look at him is a magic joy... In Leinì the energy is very deep.
After Swami’s words, “I leave my shoes on the floor” and I find myself on a cloud... on which I come back in Swiss.

Missionary Monique

Thoughts from a penitentiary

2009-08-21T09:01:00.000+02:00

...in which I went with ramia Osvaldo Ristuccia for a meeting with a young man sentenced to life imprinsonment, that asked us to visit him.

"The coming in the secretarial office... the security procedures... and than a chill underground passage, covered with linoleum, before coming in the interview room.

The thought... insistent... what does a man with the future restrained between the walls of a cell feel?

The meeting... a sad smile of a tried face but with eyes still lighted by the Hope.

And than... his thoughts, his questions... looking for a sense, seeking for the understanding of his life... ...the same questions of every soul constrained to looking inside himself to try to get out of proprer interior prison.

My meeting with Swami Roberto (part 1)

2009-08-18T19:16:00.000+02:00

It was the summer of 1982 when I saw Roberto’s face for the very first time.
My mother had left on the table at home some pages of a weekly magazine speaking of the extraordinary facts attributed to the youth Roberto Casarin, and I started to skim through them.

For a few moments I looked at the ecstatic face looking slightly upwards in the photographs, but I did not read the articles even though it was apparent from the headlines that they narrated of striking facts.
I had different things on my mind with the lightheartedness of my 17 years and the euphoria of those days when all were celebrating the Italian soccer team, which had just won the Soccer World Championship.
For sure I didn’t want to hear of a boy whom my mother had been mentioning for several months—from when she read the journalistic inquiry by reporter Piero Capello on the weekly Gente (People).
She had told me that Roberto was an extraordinary youth, who met suffering people and through the prayer obtained healing for the sick as well as other spiritual graces and material aids, which benefited those speaking with him.
“He is a great mystic, – my mother insisted – and he is only two years older than you!”… but I found quite excessive all those praising of a boy who had such a strange appearance.
I continued to hear much talking about Roberto in the years to come. His name was associated with prayer meetings which drew huge crowds, with spiritual speeches that he was delivering in the most important Italian sanctuaries and with facts which were—and still are!—inexplicable by science.

: Click photograph for larger view.

In that period my parents went several times to Turin, together with friends from my town, by joining pilgrimages organized purposely to meet Roberto.
All times they returned full of enthusiasm, extolling the charismata of the young man of whom I began to learn the story, although being an almost “uninterested” spectator.
To tell the truth, I had noticed that some of the acquaintances living in my home town—who I knew were being afflicted by very serious illnesses, including some cases that physicians had diagnosed as hopeless—felt visibly better after their repetitive attendance to the prayer meetings lead by Roberto.
Anyway, in those years I had other things on my mind: girls, friends, sport—which I played at a competitive level— … moreover I devoured books and there were also the urgent engagements following my entrance in the labor market.
A meeting with Roberto was not in my agenda, not even when it could have been more comfortable to me, considering that he came often to Vicenza—a city near where I lived—and to other cities in the Venetian Region in order to meet the great number of people who were asking to speak with him.
I knew also that he often went to Loria—in the province of Treviso—to visit his grandparents.

(My meeting with Swami- End of part 1. To be continued…)

Today I have met...

2009-08-17T01:02:00.000+02:00

....a little ebony angel.
Two eyes like pearls set in the visage, and a sweetfull look.
The social worker that looks at him, at the end of the prayer came to me, holding with love the boy by hand.

«Today it has happened something miracolous» she exclaimed with enthusiasm...
«He is an autistic child, he does not speak... he does not kiss... he never shakes the hand to the strangers... But today, during Swami Roberto's Darshan, it has happened something miracolous!
At a certain moment, I saw him looking to Swami, and I heard his voice pronouncing "bravo"...
Later, he took my hand and he kissed it...
And now... he has took the hand of ramia Magda, also if he has never knew her before».

Today the ray of light of the Darshan has illumined the sky of a youth ebony angel, that I have seen walking happy toward home.

My new adventure...

2009-08-16T17:01:00.000+02:00

...begins with a welcome to those who wish to read the pages I will write about my religious life.
For over 12 years I am a Ramia of the monastic community of Anima Universale of Leinì (Turin).
I will share with you my thoughts and I will set in this "journal" the emotions that I keep in my heart.
I will write about some experiences from the daily contact with people who attend the Centers of Anima Universale, too...
I will also tell you something about my Spiritual Teacher, Swami Roberto, the source where, every day, I slake the thirst of my spirit with the water of Hope, Faith and Love.

My personal Photo shoots...

2009-01-01T18:13:00.000+01:00

I introduce you my dears:

I am between my brother Lino and my beautiful mummy Rina. I am gratefully for all the love and the support they give to me everytime.

10 years

A lot of Athletic:

Before the competition

Ready... go!

Award cerimony with my team-mates Luca, Roberto and Franco. ...Obviously I am the tallest!!!

Images from my ministry-life

2009-01-01T18:09:00.000+01:00

Monastery Library (Jan '03)

With ramia Ennio in Vesuna (Gr - Italy), meeting the friend Marco Columbro (Aug '03)

One conference of mine in Assisi (Sept '03)

With ramia Osvaldo, during the joyful opening of the school that Anima Universale donated to the "Village of Joy" in Tanzania. (Jan '04)

Veyula (Tanzania), on the Transafrican Road, with r. Maruo, r. Osvaldo and F. Fulgenzio (Jan '04)

Village of Joy (Tanzania) - With r.Mauro and the Masai (Jan '04)

Mulino Silla (Tr - Italy) - The headquartier of the "Comunità Incontro", with ramia Mirco, S.E.Mons. Battikha and ramia Carlo (Sept '04)

Preparing to sleep in the Monastery of Basella (Bg - Italy), before come with F. Fulgenzio in the Holy See (May '06)

With F. Fulgenzio, at the exit from the secretary offices of the Holy See (May '06)

Leinì, with F. Anthony Elenjimittam e F. Max Fesh, together with others ramias. (Nov '07)

My literary hard work

2009-01-01T18:07:00.000+01:00

I 70 anni di Baba Fulgenzio - Baba Fulgenzio's 70 years

It is a 288 pages book about the dear friend, Passionist missionary, Padre Fulgenzio Cortesi's life and works.

(I wrote this book with my brothers ramia Osvaldo and ramia Mauro).

Ascoltando il Maestro (1° volume) - Listening the Master (1st volume)

It is a 320 pages book in which are collected some of Swami Roberto's teachings.

(This book has been realized by a team of monks: me, ramia Mauro, ramia Paolo and ramia Riccardo)

Ascoltando il Maestro (2° volume) - Listening the Master (2nd volume)

It is a 320 pages book in which are collected some of Swami Roberto's teachings.

(This book has been realized by a team of monks: me, ramia Mauro, ramia Paolo, ramia Riccardo and ramia Roberto)

La Missione dell'Uno - The Mission of the One

It is a 32 pages prayer book. With ramia Riccardo I took care of the pagination and French translation.

Il Calcio a Monteviale, 20 anni di storia - Football in Monteviale, 20 years of story
It is a 152 pages little book, realized by me and my fellow-citizen Dino Caliero. It is my "youth work", that - as I have just told you - has been reported by Paolo Facchinetti, editor of "Guerin Spirito".

About me

2009-01-01T18:06:00.001+01:00

Hello everyone!
This is me, Massimo Corato... a lot of years ago!

From that day, when I was playing with a coconut, it has passed a lot of time and now surely I have more hairs!

When I was a child, I was an athlete. I remember with special joy the day when I became Italian Champion of junior relay race 4x400m, together with my team-mates: we had trained us for two hours every day. It was 1982, June 13th.

But the athletic is not my only “love”. A passion of mine is also the books: I have read a lot of them... and I have wrote someone!

: N.45 - nov. 7th, 1990

Think: when I was youth, together with my fellow-villager Dino Caliaro, I wrote a book about the football club of my village. Paolo Facchinetti, the editor of “Guerin Sportivo”, the italian most important sporting review spent for us this words:

«... “Thanks guys: often people says that Youth are adrift, but with your work you did justice to a generation»...

Sincerely I think that the editor has exaggerated. But years later I ordained myself minister of Anima Universale and my co-author Dino Caliaro became national counsellor of the “Azione Cattolica Ragazzi” (an Italian Catholic association for the Youth).
...With Dino I shared a lot of football adventures in my region. First I have been his coach, and than he collaborated with me in the training of youth teams in Monteviale (my town). We realized a few of Wins, but a lot of fun!

Coming back to me, after the graduation with honours at the Technical Institute “Fusinieri” in Vicenza, for a few years, I had been employee at the Banca Commerciale Italiana, and than I became management consultant.
[In this photo I take the scholarship, gift of the “Fondazione Corà” - Altavilla (VI)]

My life arrived to a turning point when, at the end of ‘80s, I met my Spiritual Teacher, Swami Roberto.
It was the 11th January 1997 when I crowned my religious vocation with my consacration to God. For 12 years I am a Ramia of the monastic community of Anima Universale.

: This is me, working at "A Monk's Journal"

My life is “ora et labora” and every day I do my ministry for everybody who God puts on my way.
Particularly I take care of the spiritual needs of the french-speaking pilgrims that come to our monastery in Leinì. For them I take care of the translations of Swami Roberto’s teachings.
Now I have decided to try the “English-adventure”, helped by a few of my monks-brothers, that knows English very well.

Ramia Massimo II

...I forgot a little anecdote: Monteviale is the small town of 1500 inhabitants, in where my parents live. It was May 1965 when, with a difference of three days, two children came to the light. Both the families, without the respective knowledge, named their baby in the same way: Massimo.
It is interesting to note that both the families have the same surname: Corato. A case of perfect homonymy.
From the moment that I am the second born of this two babies, since ever I am for all “Massimo the second”.
“Coincidence” ...the story repeated itself again when I became Ramia: in Anima Universale, there was already another Ramia Massimo. And what could be my name? Obviously: Ramia Massimo II!

Nothing particular: for all I am all along Massimo II! ...Do not forget: it is better to be second rather than non-qualified or disqualified!

If you want to know something else about me, give a look to this pages:

My literary hard work

Images from my ministry-life

My personal Photoshots… (only if you are a braveheart)