Jataka tales

July 5, 2007 Kamala Amma's Grace

Dearest Friends and Family,

Link and I are back in Maryland, at Grandma’s house. Her health problems ( a serious bowel impaction ) seem to be clearing up with wholesome food, juices, exercise, and colonic cleansing. For us, time does not lessen anything. As we slog through the days, it seems as though through a nightmare. We often feel that it will be over soon, and we will be with our dearest sweetest Anni again. Often we are forced to be in situations where trivia and chatter are going on. With the hustle and bustle of the funeral, cleaning up the San Ramon Flat, etc., at times I felt Anni pushing into the modification of the mind, called, ‘memory’. We do not want our precious one to become a ‘memory’. Her way of being is too dear, sweet and vital. We are ever eager to meet her, anyhow, anywhere, to love her and serve her in anyway we can. My mind, tells me logically that Anni must still be with us. Amma tells us that life, like the electric current, flowing to the bulb of the body, does not end with the demise of the body instrument. The current is still there. She has said that in the book of life, death is life putting a period at the end of a sentence, the next sentence follows right along.

Regarding the continuity of the life principle, Paramhansa Yogananda said, “Those who want to prove for themselves the scientific truth of the doctrine of reincarnation, should first prove the principle of continuity of consciousness after death by learning the art of consciously separating the soul from the body.” ( pg. 215, Man’s Eternal Quest. 3rd. Indian Paperback edition)

But, will Anni reincarnate? Our feeling when Anni passed out of her body, was that of dissolving – ness. Like a drop going back into the ocean. When we are in nature, we experience her playing with us more. It seems also that when we connect to a heart in others, we feel she is with us, and we again have that joy and wonder that was the hallmark of our lives together. It seems that many others are experiencing her in similar ways. In talking with Karthu, he suggested that we mention these things here. How to describe it? The more I become aware of it, the more I see its interaction. Yesterday, I wished for a walk in a thunderstorm. When the children were small, we delighted to go out into the woods in blizzards, snow storms, rains and thunder. We were always shown tremendous beauty that thrilled our souls in the response of the natural creation to fiercer weather. It was a totality – the creation, the weather, the air, the earth, waters….one of our favorite family memories is a walk we took, late one night in a fierce snow storm. The winds blew the snow into our faces, nostrils, mouths and eyes in icy stinging bites and howled through lashing, clattering tree branches. The black night was entirely full of the storm. The roads were still, and the mounting snow made an increasing sound-proofing around us. We went about 2 miles up the road, until we found a beautiful pine – and we sat underneath it for some time, enjoying our arbor snow storm home….the fresh gusts, the totality of involvement through the ocean of air interacting with weather, water, ice, flora and fauna – the deep quiet, and our sense of freedom to love and enjoy a snow storm that most would seek to shelter themselves from – it was a beautiful experience we will always cherish…

So, to continue the thought, yesterday, I had a wish for a walk in a thunderstorm. After 6PM, Link and I set out, into the strip of woods alongside the river where Anni sat on her log, along the little man-made trails. Soon, rains began, then tremendous lightening and thunderclaps, less than 50 feet from us… we walked back, cold, soaking, and full of Anni-storm presence…we saw numerous huge toads hopping off the pathway….the close proximity of the lightening, the heaviness of the rains, made us feel somehow, our darling was with us. The day before, while walking, I suddenly had a desire to see if there were fish in a river pool. I found myself walking to the river bank, near a pool, and staring around it. Sure enough, I saw a fish, which made me happy, for it is an indicator of stream health and life. Later, I wished to know if the beaver I had seen the day before, would be cleaning himself on the bank further up. I said to Link – lets just see – and sure enough, there he was, cleaning himself out thoroughly. Link had a desire to love up a dog. After we left the beaver and began walking back, a beautiful bright-eyed chow-chow type dugger dragged his “owner” over to Link, and looked up expectantly and happily at him. Link immediately loved him up, then told me later, how the thought had come to him….as a trio, our thoughts and feelings were so intermeshed that we ceased to feel that any of us, as individuals were the ‘authors’ of a particular thought…so…in these small ways, we feel that the current that is Anni, which we knew through her beautiful form, is interacting with us. Before, I would have said, it is my Amma. The Infinite Amma. now, I feel, it is my darling child Anni, whom I feel is in Oneness. And perhaps, they are not at all different. For why we see it this way, I have to narrate certain happenings and phenonemons of her gestation and childhood.

I have never said these things, except to a very few people, whom I felt I could trust. But now, I feel, Anni is really no longer mine, in the sense of being my baby whom I need to protect. She belongs now to all hearts that claim her, and is, I feel there in someway that I do and do not understand, for anyone who calls upon her. I feel honoured that I was allowed to be her mother. I told her several times in the last 6 months, that I would always want to be her Mommy, and she answered agreeably, to my inner satisfaction. Who was and is my darling precious baby? We are still finding out. So. I mention these things now, not by way of boast, or desire for some sort of spiritual ecclecticism, but for the information of those who were not blessed as we were with her presence and company in their intimate lives. Anni is no longer mine in the personal sense, although she will always be ours, she is free of the limits and conditions of body.

Still, somehow, I am hesitant to say these things. They are sacred and precious. If they are not met with the right awareness and understanding, and even then, you may feel I am overly infatuated, and deluded. It may be so. But a mother’s heart is always given a deep knowing of her precious baby. Motherhood and being female has so many pluses in it, I should always want to be born a woman. So, then, I seek your kind effort at understanding, as well as any thoughts you may have regarding these revelations.

While carrying Anni, I had uncomfortable experiences of electricity at night. I would hear a type of AUM, then, I would feel almost thrown out of my body. Later on, someone told me that this was due to the soul of the baby being on a higher vibratory level than myself, I don’t know. In the later months, very often, I saw a tiger walking down a hill, coming towards me. It happened so regularly, that I began to develop uneasiness, then trepidation about this tiger that was always coming towards me. At a certain point, I began to run from the tiger and it began to chase me. In one dream it caught me, and bit my foot. After that, I was no longer afraid of it.

Anni was born at home. The birthing experiences with Link in the hospital, where my feet and arms were tied against my will, and a knife and forceps were used, also against my will, were so traumatic to me, that I did not want anyone to touch me during my pregnancy, and I wanted to have Anni in a place where no one could violate the natural process of birthing. Anni came out at 10:42 AM on April 20, 1988, Eastern Standard Time, USA. She was completely silent. The midwife later told me that she thought the baby was dead as she was so still and quiet. I knew she wasn’t, and was not at all worried. It may even have been the next day that I heard her sweet little call to me, thrilling my heart. From her birth, she kept her tiny hands in the posture that in India is known as Namaste, and in the West, as though in prayer. For many years, this was how she always went to sleep. It was not until I heard that both Amma and His Holiness the Dalai Lama were also silent after their births, that I felt this may be significant.

Until Anni met Amma again in 1996 (We had met Her in 1991), Anni had many experiences with Mother Mary. I had not been raised in the Catholic tradition, and early junior high and high school experiences with zealous missionary minded peers, unfortunately, had and has created a block in me, which prevents me from experiencing the sweetness of Jesus Christ and Mother Mary. There are times I can break through that block, and the love of Jesus overwhelms me, Christ in that Bhav. But, mostly, regrettably, I do not often have that. People who are convinced that their way is the only way should be aware of the potential spiritual damage they do to others in Christ’s name. When we do not respect the integrity of Christ Himself in every individual, we cannot be serving His interests. Anyhow, the point is, that I knew nothing about Mother Mary, and had felt no connection with Her, whatsoever. As a small baby, Anni made me aware of Mother Mary by her absorption with statues of Her in people’s lawns, as well as on the outside of Catholic Churches we passed in town. It is the custom in that area in many homes, to have a statue of Mother Mary on the lawn sheltered by an upturned bathtub half buried in the earth. At first I did not know what to make of my sweet baby Anni’s gasps of delight or concern ( if the statue was neglected or damaged).

One day, as we walked down a sooty city street, she saw a statue of Mother Mary in which the hand was broken. She began to cry. I felt I needed to know more about Mother Mary, and about Anni’s relationship to Her. Anni began to tell me how Mother Mary often came to her at night, would hold her, talk to her, and later tuck her lovingly back into her bed. She would describe in detail what She wore, how She looked, Her hair, etc. She always saw Mother Mary with a blue mantle, and has always loved that color. I found out later that the Mother Mary in Guadalupe has a blue mantle. Little Anni would often confidently tell me, when we saw pictures of Mother Mary – “That’s not what She looks like.” Her self confidence about Mother Mary convinced me that her experiences were real.

When Anni grew to be around 7, I met several Catholics, and once attended a mass with a priest named Father Babbitt, who was known for his healing powers.   Although we did not go seeking healing, at this time, Link was healed of asthma. From Catholic friends, we learned how people who were known to have Mother Mary experiences were treated. There were three children that had seen and spoken with Mother Mary in their youth, when it became public knowledge, there was alot of public commotion. They did not have private lives after that. Two of them died young. One is in a convent in Portugal, where she suffers all kinds of miserable tortures from her fellow nuns due to their jealousy levels. Seeing this, we all felt it better not to mention Anni’s experiences much. Sometime after we met Amma, I asked Anni if Mother Mary was still coming at night. She said, that Mother Mary stopped coming after she met Amma, and that when Amma held her, it was the same feeling she had when Mother Mary held her, that Amma was Mother Mary.

Then started our life with Amma and at Amma’s ashram.  As Anni’s suffering neared its end,  one day in San Ramon, Lakshmi, who lives with Amma told Link that years ago, Amma had told her Anni was an Angel and that Angels don’t usually live too long…..

About three weeks prior to discovering that Anni was sick, in December or Jan, all three of us became filled with a certainty that we were on the dawn of a fantastic good happening.   We commented on the feeling amongst ourselves, wondering, how, what…then came Anni’s illness, intense pain and death….we do not understand anything.

If this adds positively to anyones understanding of Anni, we are gratified. If you have comments or questions, we can try to answer them. If you have found ways to experience or ‘feel’ Anni, please tell us, we are ever interested in every way of knowing and loving her. We are striving to find her in us, around us, to serve all the true directions that her gentle presence in our lives caused us to seek.

M.K. Gandhi once told some people who had lost their precious child: “…I could not bear to see you crying when I was at Sodepur. It is good if God would let our dear ones be with us, nor is it bad if He takes them away. They belong to Him; and what is it to us if He takes away his own? Surely, He is going to take away everyone…Is it not better to dance in tune with him than the world?”[1] “Those who pass away in the full bloom of their youth or even at a tender age also obey Nature’s law. We are frightened because we do not know all her laws.”[2]

Amma has said: “You think there is infinite time for you to live. But the awareness is growing each moment, even without your knowledge. The final destiny for all souls is the dropping away of every obstruction to peace and contentment. When that moment comes, the ego is dropped, and you won’t struggle anymore. You will neither protest, nor will you even pause to think whether you should let go or not. You will just bow down and surrender. Deep within, every soul is waiting for this great letting go to happen. Most people do not feel this now because their awareness is so low, but that urgency will come one day.”[1]

Definitely, at Anni’s passing time, we saw this acceptance, and surrender….

Gandhi also understood the above, stating:“If there is anything in this world which faces man as a certainty, it is death. And yet we fear that inescapable certainty; that is the greatest wonder of life, that is real attachment and that is atheism. It is possible only for man to rise above it.”[1]

Somehow, we have to rise above it, enlarge our awareness. We need your love to do so.

Loving you,

Kamala

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[1] CWMG 51:41 September 11, 1932 Age 63. – Premabehn Kantak

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[1] AC 6:16

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[1] CWMG 33:20 Feb. 14, 1927 Age 58. – Hemaprabha Devi Das Gupta.

[2] CWMG 30:197 March 28, 1926 Age 57. – Kunvarji V. Mehta.