A Tale of Grace

Dearest Friends and Family,
There comes a point when one wonders whether keeping silent in the face of bad behavior is no longer a virtue, when done in the hope that those perpetuating it will reflect on themselves.
Some think that many are silent because they have been intimidated.  Other times, people mistake silence as an unspoken agreement or tacit approval of their behavior.
I know that for myself and for the vast majority of people, good at heart, our silence comes from a deeper seeing - that _respects_ the potential for the ‘humane-ity’ to come out of the wrong doing person, leadership or community.  We are silently aghast at the stupidity of those being violent, cunning, and crude.  We hope that they will review their actions in their minds, and alter their considerations.
But this doesn’t happen.  And in this expectation, we the good, the vast silent majority, are fools.  We sit while Governments and Generals declare senseless wars and kill our children and other people’s children.  We shake our heads, while corporations swallow the earth’s natural riches, and pollute every molecule on the planet, and media demoralizes us and our kids.  We don’t raise our voices for our children to have a genuinely meaningful education.  We go along with one that teaches them to fit in nicely into a corrupt and sick social and economic, planetary order.
The planet is in an ethical crises of the worst magnitude, and we, the silent good, have become morally weak.  We close our eyes to the slave treatment of “workers” and the poor.  We rationalize our selfishness before starving beggars, citing incidents of lauded newspaper accounts, written by people who feel assured of eating three times a day for the rest of their lives - newspaper stories of the beggar found to be holding on to one or two lakhs of rupees somewhere.  We then disengage ourselves from our responsibility to the suffering with our new smug understanding of how really, they are quite well off.
I have even heard esteemed people repeat such lies, undoubtably told to then until they were brainwashed: ‘The poor in Delhi don’t want a two rupee cup of tea if they can pay five for it.’
It is we who are to blame for the wretched condition human civilization now faces.  We have been silent in the face of injustice, cruelty, barbarianism, and perversity of all types.  We are confused, dis-united.  We the good, just want to enjoy our goodness with our own like-minded.  If at all we raise our voices - it is for a few moments only, and then we sink back into our comfortable reveries, our loving relations.
Yet in my observations, evil, the bad-behaved, has it’s root in self-aggrandizement in innumerable forms, which seeks power, fame, gain, position, which feeds itself in anger expressed, and can also act out of shame (and that one can be the worst) - this Evil never takes a break, never takes a vacation.  It is relentless.  We the good are mistaken in ever thinking that it will stop on this earth.  It is a force.
This is not to say that an evil-doing person is without good qualities.  But I think many people use the ‘grey area’ argument to avoid responsibility.  It seems that it is imperative now for the silent vast majority to get off our couches and become activists for what is righteous.  If we can’t become as relentless as evil, we can at least try.  We can start with breaks, instead of whole vacations from our vigilance.  We have been given voices, and the power of speech to stand up for righteousness.  To not exercise this precious human right and duty is where we sink into sloth.
At least, this is how I have always counselled Link and Anni, and tried to show them through my own example.  It’s not easy.  We walk alone.  A great strength comes, however, from leaning on the truth within.
Living in a community calls for a lot of compromises, and a lot of tolerance and patience.  However, there is a delicate line between the exercise of these virtues, and genuine personal sloth before unrighteousness, bad behavior, and brutality.
The nature of community life, no matter what kind, tends to flow towards gossip, conservatism, and superstition, which brings in its wake, an undercurrent of covert violence demanding conformity, which can sometimes (depending on the rigidity of the community, eg. as with cults) express itself in sudden bursts of overt violence and brutality to members and individuals who do not conform to group norms, despite their being non-violent, truthful, hardworking, helpful people.  This can include ostracisms, actual beating up of people, property destruction, and even violence and murder of innocent animals.  All this we have witnessed and experienced.  That this occurs at all demonstrates the deep level of sickness in the Community Soul that such conservatism fosters.
This has nothing to do with the _ideals_ that foster community life - ahimsa, truthfulness, selflessness, tolerance and patience.  It is the result of evil entering the minds of people through the desire of self aggrandisement - this we see in the wretched work of China’s policy towards the Tibetan people, this we see in communities, ashrams, and even families.  This is because community life in it’s conservative-mode fosters heirarchy.

An ashram, in it’s ideal, is a theocracy.  A satguru is the unquestioned leader.  They attain that position by virtue of their inner merit.  NO ONE can make anybody a SAT-GURU.  To even suggest such a thought is delusion itself.
That people then organise themselves under a Satguru into heirarchical positions in relation to each other, although they are all equal children of the Satguru, comes again from the conservative-mode operating in community life.
That this type of heirarchy did not occur in the past in the ancient gurukuls, we understand from the story of Krishna and his poor friend that brought him the parched rice who had been an equal member of the Gurukul with him in their student days.  That equality was internally felt, and externally expressed, which is why, when they finally met each other after many years, even though Krishna was a great king, and his friend an impovershed villager needing his assistance, they still met externally in acknowledgement of their internal equality.  One doesn’t read of His friend bowing, fawning, and scraping the ground in front of Him, kissing his feet, rubbing his ankles.  No.  They met as social equals as they had been in the days of the Gurukul.  True, his friend was a little shy to give his gift of parched rice to one who was now a king, but that had to do with his post-gurukul conditioning.  Just as Amma loves Channa, Krishna loved parched rice.
But those were ancient days, and this is now.  However, these stories serve as models to inspire us as to how to manifest the ideal in action.
The very second that structures of high and low, important or unimportant, somebody or nobody (I have actually heard people refer to others as ‘nobodies’ many times in community life) are accepted by the group, that second does power and its handmaidens of fear, intimidation, and their consorts - brutality and violence - come into being.
This is why I believe that a new political and social conciousness in all types of community life needs to replace these worn out patterns that enculture confusion or moral sloth on the part of good people, and the rise of the brute in the evil minded.  This heirarchal type of thinking is from Kali yuga, or feudal mindsets, and does not belong in practice if we are to usher in a better day for humanity and Nature.  If genuine democratic change does not start in institutions meant to foster an ethical life, where will it start?  And how will it influence the people?  It seems to me futile (if not downright hypocritical) for institutions or communities, living in countries bound by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 to spout about the equality of man, while following non democratic conservative mode patterns of political social structure.  In order for the Universal Declaration of Human rights to become the Norm, we need new political and social structures in all types of communities and institutions.  The Universal Declaration of Human rights does not leave religious groups out of its purview.  We should rise to its noble call. It is the Shastra for our time.
An ashram should be a pure theocracy while the Satguru is in form. In that, there is only one ‘Theos’.  More than one person in that position harms the role of the Satguru.  In order for the community to fulfill the loving family wishes of the Satguru, directly under his or her theocracy,  it is necessary for communities with larger than family size populations to embrace participatory democracy, everyone on socially equal footing as in the Gurukul that Lord Krishna was in.  Anything else brings the rise of powerful kings and petty tyrants as well as sickens the mind of the community as a whole.  That mind, is the community Soul.  If we truly love our communities, we will seek to ethically serve its Soul, for in doing so, we serve all.
These are just my observations, born of our experiences.  I share them because I want to raise my voice.  I for one, am getting very fed up with the violence and brutality, the harming and killing of innocent animals brought about by the conservative-mode in community life.  I seek it’s cessation.  God help me to go further, if need be.

Seeking your prayers for our safety and well being,
Loving you,
Kamala, Anni, and Link

Dearest Friends and Family,

In our recent travels in India, we have come across a cultural phenomenon that is, I think, unique to India.  The Rich Indian Family on Holiday.

Disclaimer: Realize that I speak by way of stereotypical generalization.

Rich Indians are tourists in their own country.  Carefully educated towards the echelons of corporate life, self-considered to have supremo status, used to the pampering of servile people around them who readily tolearate their obnoxious behaviours to see these people interacting with others is like watching a circus: when the stupid, foolish, and boorish clowns come in.
If these people represent educated and priviledged people in India, then India is in BIG TROUBLE.

They certainly exhibit a lack of personal culture.  The behavior one sees is so obnoxious as to be unbelievably absurd.

In my youth, I heard people decring the Rich fat Indians paddeling their boats, so to speak, in Indian contexts outside their normal circles.  Engrossed as I was with other things besides the ‘bazaar scene,’ like hiking in the himalayan countryside, I didn’t observe this much in my youth.
In college I saw it more, and was a little chilled in heart to observe how the rich stabilize their position in relation to others.  Then I was young, a single woman, foreigner, and I suppose attractive (although I prefer the reality-check that an Ashram Sister gave me: even a donkey is beautiful in it’s youth.) I had easy access to rich and poor alike.  The rich considered me one of their own, and when I was with them, included me in their conciousness of social positions, aspirations, etc.

Their lack of equal respect towards those they considered beneath them made my heart shrink inside.  I always felt as though I was choking around them.  Their circle of love was terribly conditioned and limited.  My being felt constricted.  Nature was my only respite.
Now, I am old.  I think I must look very old.  One person in his mid-forties, less than a decade younger than me, asked if I was around 75!  What to say.  My life has been very tough.  My heart and humane expectations of others have been broken again and again, ad nauseum.  What to do?  We have to go on, digging deeper, striving for some light of wisdom and understanding, inspite of it all.

Since Anni left her form, It is my wish to wear always the same style sari that she was cremated in.  I never want to forget for one second, the utter impermanence of this world in every aspect.  So, outwardly, the Rich foreigner is gone.  This removes me securely from the fold of the rich.  Appearing to be without funds, without much family, without possible influence, without personal decoration, I am now invisible to the rich on holiday.  It’s dryly amusing.
I watch, as some seek to teach me my position — I mean, one puts up with this to a sickening degree in the ashram, where many of Amma’s sons and daughters jockey for position over one another.  One even witnesses people putting themselves “under” others in gratuitous ways.  It’s all high drama; we observe with amazement.

But I had somehow hoped that such stupidity was the special purview of Amma’s work with these individuals in the Ashram and at her programs during the tours, which is all we have really seen of India in the last 10 years.

In the popular hill stations - Dalhousie, Simla, Mussorie, Almora, Dharamsala, Darjeeling, Jammu - the pre-monsoon summer brings out the rich Indian tourist in droves.  Tibetan people throng the hill stations where the climate is a little more bearable for them (now there’s a guest worthy of reverence: the spirituality of the Tibetan presence in Dharamsala, with it’s numerous monasteries and nunneries is palpable).  Link and I were in the middle of a Momo (Steamed tibetan vegtable dumpling) Transaction - 4 or 5 for Rs 10, when one late-twenties Rich Indian Tourist interrupted our quiet and orderly proceedings.  The momo lady, being poor and culturally acclimatised, gave way to the rich Indian.  I was also “poor,” so, I could wait while she attended to the demanding needs of the big-baby rich boy.  The Poor expect each other to have understanding, as they grapple with the self-centeredness of the rich.

First he demanded his plate of momos.  It was quickly delivered.

Next he said, “What am I to eat it with?”

Chilli sauce was added.  It was explained that he could eat it like that.

Then the lady said “Ten Rupees.”

Suddenly, Big-boy was quiet, and she was given time to finish with us.

These people are amazing.  They cruise the streets like they think they are movie stars, their big abdomens clearing the way before them; their eyes rotating in their sockets, as they scroll the scenes around them, looking to see who they think is who, who they think they should see and be seen by.  It’s pretty pathetic.  Add to this the fact that most Indians coming to the ashram and staying are from the upper stratas of society.  They can’t quite do the Rich-Tourist thing, as the ashram is an uncertain place, a new territory in which many are not sure who is who.  Some figure they know who’s who, and act accordingly.  Many of the very poor have told us that they are not welcome in my home-Amritapuri.  We have seen what happens to some of them.  It breaks our hearts.

Since all our answers are inside us, I have asked myself a few questions about the rich, Indian tourist - a shade above the bully.

I see that this gross, self-centered, uncultured display comes from the embrace of false and short-sighted ideals.  Their education, family life, and the appetites that money can create and temporarily satisfy, have geared them towards societies of physical enjoyments and their conceptions of lifestyles there: US, EU, AU, SA, etc…

This is combined with cultural ideals that they have picked up from movies 鈥?one outstanding ideal for men is the “Bachelor hero.” For women, it seems to be the “Wilting sexy sop.” Add to the filmy ideals extended family, generational influence, and numerous other factors, including the ideal of the “Big Man” (which I have yet to discuss).  Put it all together, and we have a fairly immature human being who is prone to short uprisings as the “Hero” ideal indicates, but in whom, generally, kindness, consideration, and Love exist only as paying policies.  And so many aspire to be like this.

Of course, I can be just as harsh on people from my own background of rich, majority-white countries.  And I am aghast at the behaviour of many.  Many western people mistake the patient and tolerant attitude of Indians towards their cultural ignorance, and the respectful attitude given to foreigners for being the Guest, to be an indication of some sort of recognition of their own personal superiority.  As we are neither/nor, all these attitudes we find silly and irksome.
In High School, I rebelled against my western peers, who placed Indians outside of themselves.  In the ashram, this is extreme.  Predominantly white people from rich countries have built their own enclave, the “Western Cafe”  Parents bring their children to India, and the children eat pizza, drink coke, and learn very little about India.  Fortunately, because it is the Ashram, they atleast can experience the joy of selfless service through their work at the western cafe.  However it’s beyond my understanding how parents don’t seek to utilize every moment of their children’s precious childhood for positive and ethical ends, but leave them to theirselves.  Anyhow.  There is a palpable antagonism between Indians and westerners in the ashram which doesn’t exist outside of it.  I have always ascribed this to Amma’s attempt to help Indians stop treating white skinned people in servile ways.  So, the pendulum hasn’t swung to the center of the simple “Human being” yet, and people have huge brainwashings towards each other, which have replaced other huge brainwashings and conditionings.
We only have one real duty outside of ourselves: to treat each other with kindness and respect.  Spirituality, I think, is really the art of unbrainwashing ourselves from all the false conditionings we have gotten and given to each other.
May we all strive to live, learn, and be, in the truth of our inescapable oneness.
Loving you, Kamala Aunty.

Dearest Friends and Family,

Yesterday, Tuesday, May 26, 2009, was Amma’s Father- Sugunanandan-Acchan’s 86^th birthday. It was so sweet. The bell rang around 10:45, the residents filled the Bhajan hall, where Amma sings evening Bhajans. A smaller area had been made within it, screened off with the palm thatch screens, which are simply beautiful.  There was a chair and table for Acchan to sit and speak at, with decorative religious cloths spread over. Amma’s large photo altar was nearby, festooned in flowers, with trays of flowers beneath it. It was a quietly elegant atmosphere.

First came Damayanti-Amma, she was brought in, in a chair, everyone stood-up. We have not gotten to see her for quite a few days, and it seems more decline is occuring. For a while, and at several points during the talk and event, it appeared she was cognizant of the crowd avidly watching her. At other moments, she seemed to snooze a little, at one point, everyone was quite on the edge of their seats, in fear that she would fall over, when Sajini, the youngest daughter and sister of Amma, went and sat on the floor near her.

Sugunanandan-Acchan was also brought in a wheelchair. The general decline in their physical health, was, I feel, hard for everyone to see.  Last year, he could walk over to his chair. Nonetheless, Sugunanandan-Acchan was able to get out of the wheelchair and into the other chair, and address the audience. Swami Turiyamrita, gave him a beautiful kavi (ochre-orange) shawl, which Acchan wore for the duration. It was obvious that despite physical limitations, his mind is completely clear. I realized watching them both sitting there, that Acchan has a great intellectual brilliance about him, he has Tejas, intellectual vitality. Owing to the poverty of his youth, other factors did not perhaps allow him to shine in the numerous ways that he might have otherwise. When one is busy striving to feed, clothe and educate those around you, there is not much time for other things….including wrong things and wrong thinkings.

It seems that material difficulties can in many ways be blessings. I remember during Anni’s leaving time, we were reading some teachings from Abdul Baha to her. In one of them, he was discussing the education of children, and noted how it was important to face certain trials, hardships and deprivations in youth. I believe this is so that our outlook in the future, towards all things, bears the Stamp of Reality with it. Only those with time on their hands can develop their perversions, including intellectual perversions that make us use our intellects for creating, sustaining, useless things, things harmful to the earth, manipulations and machinations against each other. When we just look at what the human intellect has done to the planet, we can see it has been wrongly applied. Hard work is a great moral sustainer, and cleanser. More and more, I appreciate Gandhi’s emphasis on Bread labour.

People who never experience physical want in anyway, have little patience, tolerance, wisdom or sense of duty. Poverty makes the priorities real, duty clearer. We see in the massive labor force in India, children under 16 year old, the fine and upright, dutiful sons of many a family. They leave their villages, and go out, far from their homes, far from people who speak their mother-tongues, to responsibly hold down a job, begining their life careers which hold little to no advancement, no retirement packages. They work as daily wage slaves, sending the money home so the rest of the family can eat, or get to school. I have not seen on a general level, this type of sense of duty and ability to assume responsibility in any western nation. Not that all the poor learn the lessons right, but, generally speaking, it is so.

Because of the material deprivations of her youth, Amma is fully aware of the real value of things.  Amma gives this description of both the educative and Reality Stamp value of material hardship in early youth:

“Amma grew up knowing hardship. She knows the value of each paisa. She has had to struggle just to get enough firewood to make tea. Because She knows the hardships of poverty, She doesn’t let even a speck go to waste. When She sees a piece of wood She thinks about its value and how it can be used. But if you children saw it lying in your path, you’d just kick it away. Or if you saw it lying in the rain, you’d never think of picking it up, drying it and saving it. Children, would we throw away a five paisa coin? No, because it’s five paisas. Without dry firewood, how can we cook anything? Even if we hold hundreds of rupees in our hands, we still need firewood to light a fire, don’t we? We should be aware of the value and possible use of everything. Then we won’t allow ourselves to waste anything.” (from Eternal Wisdom 2:176-177.)

This awareness is actually the experience of the majority of human beings. Most of the people on the planet are not having adequate food, clothing or shelter, as we all see, and the education we receive does not really inspire us to do anything about this situation.

I really don’t know what Sugunanandan-Acchan said, it was all in Malayalam with no translation. The entire time, a mynah bird was singing its heart out at the edge of the big hall, near the pillars. I think it was the same one that is actually singing during archana every morning in the small garden areas that surround Amma’s room. I’m sure the talk Acchan gave had charming and beautiful stories about Amma, Damayanti-Amma, and earlier life. Amma’s devotion to Damayanti-Amma in her childhood was unparalleled. At several points, the audience who could understand laughed. When he intially started speaking, Acchan’s voice was quite weak, but as his talk wore on, it became firmer and clearer.

In the end, we all came up to pay our respects to our beloved Parents, and were treated to ‘Unni-appam’ a kind of deep-fried sweet-bread, particular to Kerala. Like most Indian sweets, you have one, and you kind of crave another one. This kind is very oily. I remember once when Amma was offered one, she squoze the oil of it onto her arms, legs and hands, and rubbed it into her skin. I thought she was telling us all that the oil had better places than inside the body.

Its interesting. I remember a few years ago, say 20, in the US, there was a conscious and deliberate marketing shift to target 12 year olds. With this shift, which was designed to create a few more years of high consumption levels of diposable items, so a few people could amass more and more, the entire focus on people shifted also., 45 came to be viewed as ‘ old’. Now that the 1960 babies are all in their 50’s the marketing strategies have changed again, trying to psyche people into being sexy-sixty year olds, busy with self-gratuitous entertainments. Really, its a relentless pounding on the psyche in the media, buy! Covet! Get! Experience! Adventure!More!More! More! This is now going on in India, all over the world. Those exposed to it all are sick of it, but the new generations, just getting indoctrinated and conditioned, have yet to get sick of it. With the new marketing shift, it seems alot of people think there is nothing to see or gain in growing old, only to dread, and deny, with creams, dyes, cosmetic operations, and so forth.

In India, we see that Ayurveda holds that a person does not really begin to unfold their wisdom in its fullness, till around 60 years. There are age limits on how young a President can be in the US. (must be at least 45 years of age), regulations put in when society was not yet blinded to the genuine wisdom that a mature human being who has intelligently digested their life experience bears as a gift for the guidance of the rest of the society. The maturing process has so much to teach us personally, and society wis­e, That we should dread, rather than welcome it only shows our complete ignorance, the extent to which we have bought into all the lies crammed down our throats, and stuffed into our eyes, ears and nostrils. I personally, am grateful to be getting older, the distracting fascinations of youth fade away, and the crystal within becomes more clear.

Even the debilitations of age, although sometimes frustratin’ are nothing to fear, for we gain new eyes , new hands, a different mind, and new things to see, new perspectives. What is real, eternal, lasting, worthwhile, becomes more succinct.  We get wonderful lessons, whose import we understand. We see larger patterns, in the chaotic swirl around, the impenetrable screen between the I-mind and the universal mind becomes more porous. Who would want to deny all that? Those who are younger, or have not matured, cannot really understand the fruits of maturity in life…hence the long recognized need of respect and reverence towards the aged. Oftentimes, I have felt embarrassed for older people, watching younger people actually ‘baby-talk’ them. I have seen the older person take it all in good resignation, yet, it is clear that they are in an entirely different space from the person treating or communicating with them in that way. They are patient, tolerant, forgiving, in a very deep way, as with a child, which the glib younger is utterly unaware of.

Nobody, it seems really talks or thinks about these things.

Societies that sincerely honor the participation of the aged, gain the benefit of all of their digested maturity, and run smoothly, the children raised in peaceful harmony, raised well, with care and attention. They are the wise people, to whom all turn for advice on any course of action. This guidance, is ideally suited to its time and place through each aging person who has learned all the pitfalls and nuances of their clime and age, in their own unique way. It is an evolutionary way to keep humam society on ethical track. I guess that is what Amma meant, when she said once that we are all ‘Incarnations’ . Or at least, that’s one way to look at that teaching.

It was how all human society went on for milleniums, until the hell-hound of unbridled greed and marketing came, were everything and everyone tries to sell themselves. Now our aged, many of them, ruined by societies that value the material rather than the Real, the Eternal, the Reality, are confused, immature, unable to cope and unwanted, unvalued by society and family. For in denying their own natural maturing processes, they have become miserable within themselves, and many are not wise giving people filled with Love.

This is not the case with Amma’s parents. Damayanti-Amma literally exudes a beautiful fragrance of peace and Beauty. We see in her the fruit of the human being’s feminine maturity, despite the limitations and deprivations she materially experienced in much of her life. The experience of a mature human being is something very sweet and cherishable. Their presence in society literally helps others to recognise the value of the ethical ideal, over temporal distractions. Real human maturity faces truth, nakedly., and stays there, with its new eyes, hands, mind, perceptions, its new internal body, it doesn’t deny itself. It’s such a great light, that it reflects back into the society as ineffable sweetness.

It was a precious and rare event for the ashram as a whole. I honestly do not know if we will be so fortunate again. These are the Great Grand-Parents of the whole place. Here is a photo Sugunanandan Acchan gave to us to use. It was just a few years ago. In it, both Sugunandan Acchan and Damayanti-Amma have just been garlanded with huge lotus-bud malas, made by Japanese devotees who had come to see them.

All those of you who have aged parents, grandparents, relatives and friends, please enjoy them and learn from them, seek their advices while you can, and please give them our Pranaams, in honor of Sugunanandan-Acchan Jayanti.

Loving you,

Kamala Aunty

Sugunanandan Acchan and Damayanti Amma