Dearest Friends Reading Our Blog

March 12, 2007 Kamala Amma's Grace

We wanted to share this with you, it is in response to a friend who shared her concerns regarding Link and Anni and our life in the ashram, with me. Thank you so much for your email. You raised a point that I think it is important for us to address, for we are aware that our western brothers and sisters only want our happiness, and for this we are grateful. After discussing this with the children, we offer this understanding.

Some of you expressed that Anni and Link perhaps, deep down, have a longing to live in the West, to have the freedoms and enjoyments that many of us, now adults, experienced and feel to an extent to be a youthful ‘rite of passage’. In the west, we grow up rebelling in part against rules and an establishment that could make no sense to young minds in quest of ideals, of Truth and Love and Peace.. I feel that for most of us, our rebelliousness was borne of a deeper knowing in our hearts, that the patterns held out for us to follow, the role models, by and large, were empty. There was no real self-actualization at the end of the line. For myself, rebellion was a natural response to an unnatural imposition of values for living my life by that to me seemed meaningless – like valuing socio-economic status, intellectual attainments, money, physical form dimensions and looks, etc., etc. to name but a few.

In India, as you are aware, that need for self expression through rebellion is absent in youth. We have found that this is due to an inner recognition and awareness that the deeper role models of Indian culture and philosophy are guided by genuine wisdom. The culture in India, despite the onslaught of MTV type values as being ‘modern’, still values self restraint, renunciation, patience and humility. Children see that the actions of their parents and extended family are affected by ideals of dharma or duty, from their parents marriage, to the way they enact their roles in life, etc. Kids feel the Reality behind the society, behind their parents. Touching that reality, they seek to follow, there is no need to rebel. The existence of people of Self realization through out the country, of Amma, testifies to a reality that is knowable and is within us. We don’t have people of self realization influencing and leading society in the rest of the world, as we do in India.

My western brothers and sisters have often commented to me that Link and Anni are obedient. This is another comment that I have not really known how to respond to. I have only been able to say that I am grateful to be in India. But, really, I don’t see them as ‘obedient’ or that I want their ‘obedience’. We have been fortunate to be able to find things to do together, for our precious Lord, and otherwise. For all three of us, obedience has never been the issue, but accomplishing the task to the best of our ability, was, after all, it was for God. Our goal was the successful completion of a perceived task. We all pitched in. It was cooperative effort. What appeared as obedience was due only to the children’s recognition that I most often had a clearer idea of what the task entailed than they did. We always welcome all our inputs….I don’t know if this really explains it. But, it’s the best I can do at this time given time constraints. I guess it’s the difference from operating with one’s own children from a place of power to a place of beingness together.

You mentioned that Anni might feel some strain in having to be ‘spiritual’ in living at the ashram. Both children are aware that many of our Indian and Western brothers and sisters coming to live in the ashram, are to an extent, trying out a new lifestyle, that they now perceive to be ‘spiritual’ as compared to their old ones. For us though, we have made no attempt to be ‘spiritual’. I frankly feel that to attempt to be ‘spiritual’ would be insincere. We have only been ourselves. We haven’t succeeded in doing the outer things that most people consider to be spiritual – getting up early, doing archana, mantra, japa malas, bhajans, successfully keeping silence, studying scriptures, getting asana siddhis… memorizing the 16th chapter, etc. These are actually only spiritual practices and while they are helpful in directing the mind, we haven’t been that devoted to their implementation. Being spiritual is never something we have thought about…in truth, we don’t really understand the concept.

We feel deeply grateful for India. Gandhi-ji once said something like: It is not that India does not have the inherent brain power and intellectual capacity to develop into a technically advanced society, India has chosen to follow the teachings of the ancient and wise Rishi’s and great Beings who have dawned within Her. She has stressed metaphysics instead of physics. India has always stressed the superiority of eternal values over those merely material and physical, to the extent that people have kept their lives simple: people eat with their fingers, rather than a spoon, wear seamless clothing, etc. In our hearts, we bow eternally to that great consciousness that we feel to be India, God, and Amma.
-Kamala