A Tale of Grace

Dearest Friends and Family,
We found this little list of “Aspirations” in Anni’s Diary that we wanted to share with you all. As a family, we often talked about what we thought were our shortcomings, the reactions or feelings we had that we did not feel we could honestly be proud of in front of Our Beloved Indweller. We also tried to look with naked eyes at the external things we were doing with our time to see if they were actually helpful or not to our higher purposes. If they were not, we took decisions to change them. We did not make vows with each area of lassitude, vows are for harder things…but, we aspired to change ourselves in small ways. This work still goes on, as we all try to battle negative thinking. The advantage of living in the ashram, is that there is a lot of support in thinking in these ways.
The date is not given. The next entry is dated September 2, 2005. She would have been 16. So it was before that. The entry has a few doodles of plants, Omkara, and suns and stars. Text is as given in her diary:

ASPIRATIONS:
*To think positive
*To meet everyone with love and kindness
*Not to say bad about anyone
*Not to gossip (I rarely do anyways)
*Count 3 good things about everyone who is repelling to look at (gonna need help w/this one)
*To remember that God is in everyone (me too)
*Keep this goal in mind
*Not find fault in others
*Don’t blame others for your own faults

Having reviewed this, we again take heart to try to instill these concepts, oft discussed, into our psyches.
Loving you,
Kamala Aunty, Anni and Link

Dearest Friends and Family,
I feel I need to say something about our ‘sweeping in the ashram’ as Anni is most often visually remembered here this way. This we did for over 6 years. When we first came to the ashram in 1999, we desperately wanted to help Amma. There was nothing that we could do. She obviously, crowded to the gills on all sides, had no need of us to be right near her, although we longed to be. We began to wait for her to come in and out of her house, as it was really the only time and way that we could see her without several hundred people stuck on her, or around her. As we began to wait we saw things that we felt should not be there – sharp pebbles, bits of garbage, pigeon poop, uncovered sputum globs, uneven ground surfaces, etc. – at that time, it was all dirt. Things that could actually harm Amma. And she has diabetes, so, any injury to her feet could be long suffering…
My children were very young, 10 and 12. I needed to keep a sharp eye on their activities, moral and mental development, and working together was a great blessing for us. Slowly, we began to observe more and more little things that we could do, to make her path clean for her. Love, after all, seeks to serve.
Initially, we were very shy to be around her or her house. We always picked up, and made orderly what we could, then stood casually by, as though having just arrived… At that time there was no place to keep our cleaning supplies, and we kept all the brooms, buckets, etc in our small flat, which consequently looked like a janitor’s closet. I remember that it was after several months, of hesitantly putting flowers on the sides of her steps, that one day, I had the courage to put the flowers all the way up to the top of the first set of steps. The next night, we broke through that reservation, and had flowers all the way around the landing, up to the top of all her stairs, then a few days later, to the door that enters her room….we were always acutely aware of sounds around her room, and knew she needed quiet and order below her room….we could never speak if we knew she was in her room…
Eventually, it became an extremely vigorous and rigorous cleaning seva, that included handrails, other visuals, which necessitated our involvement in gardening, and later mosaics, painting, etc., and surfaces all around the outside of her house. It started hours before she came in or out of her room. For a while it went from the bookstall to the main entrance by beach road. The Kalari soon picked up that side, and we didn’t have to do it. With the arrival of the elephants, and their visits, the night cleaning took on efforts to remove and reduce the amount of odor causing things below her room, as well as make a pleasant place for all her vip children to sit…. None of this did Amma ever ask us to do, and none of it, did she care for, it was really for our own satisfaction – we felt that as Amma is who she Is to Us, we did not want her to step out into a dirty ashram…we wanted her to see cleanliness and thankfulness that she is here with us, everywhere. I mean, if its really your house, you take care of it, and make it beautiful… especially for the one who heads the house… When she was not in the ashram, we often picked neglected areas and tried to straighten them up, and beautify them… for she had told us that the ashram is her body. Now, unfortunately, we cannot do these things anymore. My health does not permit it. As a team, we were all in perfect sync, there was no question of unwillingness or procrastination, nor was there any sense of position about it… Eventually, it expanded to the tours, etc.
The darshan hut had come into our care after we noticed during a translation that all the cushions that Amma would potentially be sitting on, were reeking with musty mold smell…without asking anyone, I put them all in the sun for airing…the next day, Lakshmi asked me to take care of the hut as the brahmacharis who had been in charge were apparently too busy to give it proper attention… we had great fun with all the projects, involving as many people as possible, who also yearned to be able to feel that they were in some way, of personal service to Amma…But, it was very clear, always, in our minds, that all the cleaning was for our satisfaction as to how we felt it should righteously be, for some one of Amma’s stature, in her ashram, in our hearts…from that position, we learned a tremendous amount about the nature of people…for no one feels that they have to give the sweeping lady, or her kids, especially one who appears to be a single mother in India, (and boy o’boy, can I say a lot about this one!) give any particular notice or ceremony, or often, human civility and respect. We were often dirty, sweaty, covered with dust and heavens knows what else, or soaking wet depending on the season. So, we got a real solid view of human nature here on earth, which Amma says is her goal…yep, by and large, it’s a small minded world…the children were definitely made to suffer what other’s perceptions of me, as an unmanned mother, were. In India, one of the most inauspicious things is a woman with children but no man.
We enjoyed what became ‘our seva’ despite its physically hard nature. Our hearts and minds were always on Amma’s feet, her hands, her eyes, her nose, what was above her head….Now, as with everything, it has now evolved into a ‘position’ around Amma. In fact it was not until the last year that we did it, that people began to ‘officially’ assist us. We are grateful, that at least the recognition is finally there in the ashram psyche that such labor is imperative, until such date that the entire ashram is spotless and loved up. Care should always be taken that where Amma’s feet, hands and eyes fall, there should be loving harmony and cleanliness in everything around her…to us, its just common sense….Disney land is the model of cleanliness that needs to be followed in the ashram. Has anyone ever observed how spotless Disney land is despite the thousands thronging the place? One never sees an overflowing garbage can, or a place smudged with countless grimy fingers, or a clogged up or stinking toilet… such cleanliness is mentally uplifting.
I remember, I had a landlord once, who told me if the toilet is dirty, you cannot pass the bowels or even urinate in full peace of mind, if the kitchen is dirty, you cannot eat peaceably…etc…I have always found dirt to be tamasic, to invite subtle and weird energies which are negative and have a downward pull on the mind….maybe its just me…but, that’s how we trained the children…
As the seva refined itself, Anni often took what was once the dirt path on the side of the large bhajan hall and the ramp. There she was probably often observed by others. Most days, our seva took 4-5 hours. On special darshan days, often 6 or more, on holidays, 8-10 hours depending on how may times Amma came in and out of her room…. Anni used to make beautiful patterns in the sand, with the coconut frond stick broom. Then, we would try to zealously guard her work, her own offering, until Amma came. There again, human nature revealed itself. Many people would walk though, simply unaware, others would go through, although aware, after all, who were we to have our offering respected? We never got upset, it was just part of the drama…with cleaning, you can not be attached. Its like diapers - Never ending. Clean one on, soon to be changed….When others came to work with us, they got upset. I began to think there was something wrong with us, that we did not get upset with what was often deliberate arrogance before…but, we didn’t want that energy on the path, in the atmosphere around her, to greet her…we were gratified when we were told that once Amma asked, who had prepared her path so beautifully, she was told the Westerners, (although we don’t consider ourselves westerners), and she said that it reminded her of when she was a child, she would sweep all around her home, and then imagine that the next footprints in the freshly swept sand would be God’s.
We are grateful that this is now an ‘ashram seva’ although, for us, it was a result of an increasingly deep inner listening, to our own sense of what was right and appropriate for who Amma is…the pathway, is for anyone who does it with heart, a delightful work that opens the heart in pure devotion. We learned tons, had great adventures. As one participant later said, “this seva is the Best, its’ got everything in it…obsession, tension, culminating in pure gratification…”
Its hard to recall the adventures of pathway cleaning to the uninitiated. It might sound ridiculous, or really weird. But, then, you have to understand our minds and hearts, and who Amma is to us, to know what we mean…not said to alienate in anyway, but, just to explain….those were the days of our highest joy, despite very real problems…it was a time of honing our team into a perfect cohesive machine of love and service, honesty and hard workingness…a time of cultivating virtues intensely, and we loved it. The endless outer humiliations only made us laugh…..those were the best days of our lives… and now, the one who really was the most exquisitely beautiful adornment of the ashram, of our family team, is no longer here….
I find now, that we created so many avenues for future work during those years, that if we can now finish what we have started, it will be good…at least we have all these directions to go that we started all together….

Well, I wanted to address this.
Loving you,
Kamala Aunty

Dearest Friends and Family,
We had the formal ashes ceremony on the night of August 20. I had hopes of pouring rain, but it was just a partly cloudy night. We sat on the side of the stage with the ashes pot in front of Amma during bhajans, then she carried it and another lady’s mother’s ashes on a tray, down the ramp. I was concerned that Anni’s ashes were too heavy for her, and wanted to take them, but she wanted to carry them. Most often, after the body is cremated here, a small handful of ashes are collected from the areas where the head, torso and feet were. Consequently, most of the ashes pots are quite small and light. In our case, we had the entire cremated remains. When they burned her body at the crematorium, they took all the remaining residues (bone, etc.) pulverized it and put it in a plastic bag inside another plastic box. At the bottom of the ramp, we squeezed in front of her, (the crowding around Amma is intense) and she blessed the ashes pot with flowers, gave us hugs, then we were all off to the ocean. I can’t comment on Amma’s mood, I was too much in my own. I wasn’t aware of that much. It seemed there was a large crowd with us, I don’t know. I know that I saw Anandi, her precioius son Gautam and Karuna out in front of us on either side. That seemed very right to me, for they both have loved the children fiercely since we came to the ashram.
Once by the dike before the ocean, in front of an ashram Ayurveda manufacturing building, the 108 names were chanted. Then the closing prayers. Then, we all clambered our way up on the dark, treacherous, tippy and slippy rocks of the dike. The lady whose mother had passed, threw her pot first. Then it was our turn, but a big wave was not forthcoming, so we had to wait some time, while everyone chanted ‘Om Amriteshwaryai Namah’. Finally a good sized wave came. Link heaved the opened pot and ashes in, and that was that. Then we all clambered off the rocks (to ‘make like a crab’ was the best means for getting back to sand land without falling and damaging limbs) really we need some sort of platform with steps out there…I will try to bring this to Amma’s attention, as nearly everyday there are 1-3 funerals from her millions of children.
Its interesting. Since Anni passed from this place of name and form, neither Link and I can be disturbed about anything. We feel no tension about anything. There is nothing, really to be tensed about. Before, I had lots of tension. I had this inner sense of timing, and crammed my schedule with must-do’s. Now, we feel, there is actually nothing really happening here, in this place of name and form. There is only a lot of distraction, and even then, is it distraction? Its just really the play of the unreal…In discussing it with Link, he said that at times, he feels a need to enact a show of tension, but there is nothing there. Perhaps it’s the never ending shock of it all, or maybe it’s a lesson in Reality.
The day was very hard in the sense that it was a final public acknowledgement of the greatest loss in our lives. So the whole day I felt that awareness – the last day with Anni’s ashes…these ceremonies perhaps serve to mark things in our minds, to allow us release points…or acceptance points….I don’t know. When in the US, on the 10th day after Anni’s departure, I felt I should ask Amma if there was something we should do, as it was the 10th day…. the reply I got was that we should follow whatever the family tradition was. This demonstrated to us, that all these ceremonies are only for those who remain, not those who go beyond name and form…every culture and creed has its own system… no one way for anything… its just for those of us that stay in the place of name and form… It was interesting to us, that on this day, Link felt the crows were calling him to notice their hunger. We ended up feeding the birds a substantial amount of leftover foods and slightly moldy breads. It really seemed they were thronging around to be fed… since then, we only see them nominally…
About the crows… I think I should mention that the crows are a very distinctive feature of this small island. In fact, it is known in ornithological terms as ‘crow island’. The crows here have replaced the seagulls. Crows, and pigeons who fear crows; are the majority birds, although many others also live here, as the lush wetland backwaters of Kerala are home to hosts of migratory fowl. Crows are very distinctive characters in the ashram. They harass on occasion, some of them steal shiny objects like keys, in general they have a very loud social life… they tend to be merciless to the weak and suffering. When Kaiser, our dear friend the ashram dog, was suffering for several months before his death the crows taunted him with low flybys, and raucous calls.
The human mind is always symbolizing. When we first came to the ashram, August 12, 1999, it was about 3 AM. As we approached in the taxi, I remember Anni said to me, ‘O, Mama!’ It was said so profoundly, such an exclamation, that all of us in the car were amazed. As the night turned to a grey and misty drizzling dawn, we first noticed the crows, swooping off the tall pink buildings in loud descending flights… it had a certain eeriness to it… I felt I had in fact, come to a house of death. And so it is, in many ways… a few weeks before all the diagnoses began happening with Anni in India, one day Anni and I were walking around the ashram grounds, looking for wild edible greens, as we were all craving spinaches for long… a crow swooped down and clutched at the top of my head – on the crown chakra area… I felt it meant that my soul would be snatched away from me… and so it was…
I am told that many people have been praying for Link and I… I am sure that is why we haven’t completely collapsed yet… there are times of tremendous weakness, where I feel I cannot go on, cannot take another breath, do not want to, feel that I can no longer walk, can only crawl to a collapse… somehow… we go on… must be due to the prayers…
I saw a photo in the newspaper of a man who had lost all his 5 sons at once in war. He was collapsed in between the coffins, a picture of total misery. How much more goes on before all parents decide to raise their children with the values of peace and no war? If all of us agree, or at least most of us, there can be no more war…
Nothing lasts in this world, not even great and noble works and deeds. Who now knows who William the Silent was, an active force for good in the massacre of 3 million Hollanders by the Holy Roman Church in the 15 or 1600’s? Goodness and badness are still involvement with the unreal… nothing lasts here… I suppose the wisest thing to do, if one knows how, when one finds that one is born in this place, of name and form, is to shut ones eyes and ears until the clarity comes… like the Rishi’s… I dunno… just musings…
Perhaps I am just getting chatty. I’m sitting in the recording studio with Anni’s Karthu Dada, who has flown down from Mumbai, just to work on the album for Amma and Anni. Working with him, is totally different from just working with his sound tracks… much of our recordings he has had us redo – he emphasizes the need for the songs to carry the feeling of the heart… its lovely work… so far, he’s been working on the vocal sound tracks of the girls for 3 songs… some are leaving in just 1 or 2 days, so in order to get their contributions, we have to record them first… he’s only here for one more week…w e thought we had one song completely done for the girls and the chorus, but appearently not… he hears lots of things that we don’t hear…
We took Karthu Dada out for a walk this AM outside the ashram in the beautiful Kerala countryside… On narrow sand paths past small homes, with carefully swept sand yards, surrounded by little groves of coconut tree and ponds with fish… cows, chickens, ducks and goats to greet us… the natural Kerala scenery reminds me much of the beauty of Kashmir, which also has its little homes, tucked away in lovely little niches, connected by narrow foot paths that wend their way though glades carpeted with grasses, mixed with wild oregano and thyme; surrounded by forests rich in Chir pine and deodar and rhododendron… both places show a similarity in indigenous management of the natural environment surrounding people. Both are gorgeous green.
But then those with money come in, and the scene changes. The house becomes huge, the glades around have no relationship to it, the animals are gone, or kept in high walled compounds tied up in sheds… things are imported from the town… so then, the environment takes on a ‘wasted look’… plastic bags and pieces scatter and become stuck here and there… the connecting foot paths becomes disused… even in the smaller homes now, the blue glow of the home-invader, the TV, is often there… and in those small places, the surrounding environment demonstrates the lack of precious relationship that it had before…
From when Link, Anni and I last walked through it 1 year ago, the amount of construction is intense… it was much harder to find that Kerala beauty that was so readily available in large swaths of land outside the ashram… a lot of it is our own construction activities: homes for those made homeless by the Tsunami, university construction projects…
Onam is happening… The ashram is crowded with 10’s of thousands of people. The children from Amma’s orphanage are here, it’s a major break for them. Its very sweet to see and feel their calm assurance that they are not orphans at all, they have a real mother in Amma… I remember when we first came to the ashram. I was keenly looking out for the orphanage children, whom, I was told had come. Finally someone pointed them out to me. I was amazed. Perhaps I had expected to see forlorn, insecure looking children, with hopeful eyes… Each girl was wearing a specially made and different traditional long skirt and blouse, all of them had bits of gold jewelry on that Amma has gifted to them on different occasions, each one looked like a daughter of the house, not an ‘orphan’. The boys were more scruffy, but that’s boys…
Onam is a 10 day festival in Kerala going back some centuries of centuries ago. It has it basis, like all Indian traditions, in a humble acknowledgement of the Supreme. In this tradition, Kerala was once ruled by a wonderous, loving and just King, named, Mahabali. Everyone enjoyed prosperity, literacy, equality, all people lived together happily and righteously. Stealing, poverty, exploitation of women and children was unheard of. Mahabali was proud of his Kingdom, and himself. He knew he was great and good. And he was. But I guess that knowledge was a bit egotistic, for it appears that he was actually willing to learn to be more humble. Amma has said that the ego, or sense of ‘I am the Doer’, is poison. And poison is poison, even if its just a little bit. During his rule, it is said that Earth was even better than Heaven. This made all the Gods jealous. They went to Vishnu and asked him to do something. Vishnu then incarnated on earth as a poor Brahmin dwarf called Vamanan. One day, Mahabali was holding a program where he was giving the poor people in his land anything they asked for. Vamanan came and asked for only three paces of land to sit and meditate upon. Mahabali, the epitomy of generosity, said, ‘Of course,” even against the advice of his guru. Then Vamanan grew to gigantic proportions. His first step covered all of the earth. The second step covered all of the heavens. He asked Mahabali where he should go for his third step. Mahabali bowed his head, and indicated the top of his head. That was the end of Mahabali, as he apparently entered a Kingdom of Bliss. Yet, he is still said to have had concern for his subjects, and thus once a year, comes and tours his beloved Kerala for 10 days. During this time, all Kerala dresses up in new cloths, everyone eats well, and presents are given. At least that’s the theory as I understand it. Times have changed however, and shopkeepers jack up the prices for Onam necessaries.
Rishi gave us a wonderful book to read, which has provided much solace and inspiration: Fynn, (1974) Mister God, this is Anna, Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, NY. ISBN#0-03-014716-6. It’s a true story of a little girl, whom Fynn found on the streets of London, when she was 4 years old. It must have been in the 1940’s, before everyone had a TV, car, toilet, etc. Before life was divorced from its natural sources…. At the time of meeting Anna, he was 19 years. She had been horribly abused, and had run away from home. Fynn and family took her in, she lived with them for 3 years until she died from injuries sustained by falling off a tree. The experience of life with Anna was so amazing for Fynn, that it was to be nearly 30 years before he could speak about Anna publically. The book is filled with Anna’s tremendous zeal to know and understand Mr. God, and what is Real. She used every moment at her disposal to help with her effort to understand. She was always pondering and contemplating the great Truth of her little being. She studied the natural world, evolved her own experiments with physics, etc. all of which always pointed her back to her Source.
“The difference from a person and an angel is easy. Most of an angel is in the inside and most of a person is on the outside.” – Anna, age. 6. pg. 1.
We are going to read the book again, then go through it one more time, and write down all the points that this dynamic little dynamo brought out. Link said he found it to be pure Sanatan Dharma (or Eternal Truth, the religion of India).
Anyhow, that’s what up here. Link will try to get up the photos of Satyabhama, the mosaics – there is one of a blue heart that Anni made…when she made it, she told me that she told the tile they had to make themselves into a really nice heart as they were in the position where Amma’s eye was likely to fall as they would be facing her when she turned the corner to go towards the stage…amazingly that heart came out with a ‘face and eyes’ look…Anni marveled about the occurance to me, feeling that the tile showed her the interconnectedness of all the energies, and the influence of Grace… to this list of photos Link now needs to add the pot and Anni’s Karthu Dada. Can’t say when Link’ll get to it…he is energetically conducting the singers through the window in the studio…we found a photo of Anni’s hands holding a baby bat taken Sept. 2006…seeing it now, her arm looks so very thin….will include it.
Loving you,
Kamala Aunty

Dearest Friends and Family,
I finally opened her diaries and journals – mostly two books, and found quite a few poems and songs. Link said we should put them on the blog, one at a time. Here is one, written January 1, 2006. It seems to refer to the description she had given me of Mother Mary, and is ineffably sweet and dear. I am just amazed that she left this for us to see:

One night, that love came to me.
Clad in light with blue over her head
Sweetly smiling.
She caught me, the child that I was
And held me in her arms.
Such a gentle touch
And whether She spoke,
I do not know
She held me, hugged me,
Showered her love upon me
She then layed me on the bed,
Tucked the quilt around me,
And glided away in that brilliant orb
Of white light
My mother with the
Sweetest hands and Gentlest touch
How could you leave me here
Then go to the place where we both belong
A place beyond the stars…
I long to hold you
To touch you
To have you beside me, in doing everything,
Everywhere.
But then you left
After giving me just a taste of that love
Have you left me to struggle all by myself?
I want to be with you again
When will you come?

–Anni

More later,
Loving you,
Kamala Aunty

Dearest Friends and Family,
Well, Link assures me that we now have an internet connection, but at this time it is not working and to date, we have not been able to check e-mails. I hope to be able to do so tonight or tomorrow morning. As I type, we are sitting in the music studio, while young (and very beautiful) Jasmin, a much loved friend of Anni, is recording “Green Grass Blue Skies”. By interesting coincidence, a very talented friend who sang with us 2 years ago, is here again, and now a professional singer, is able to skillfully coach the process along…Yesterday saw a chorus of 10 young female friends record “Become Love” in duet and then group forms. We still have to get male voices for “Become Love”…the masterminds behind it all, and the great Mastermind, at this time must remain uncredited… till the work is done…
The Album does help Link and I. Working with young people who do not have deep intellectual concepts of themselves is refreshing…we feel their love for Anni. Creating music is a ‘present moment’ activity…it keeps us here now…and in the present moment, we do not feel that she is gone from us. Except that I am not seeing her…
We got the pot for the ashes. Rishi and Link went into Vallicavu to get it….still we do not have the red satin-silky stuff that it is customarily wrapped in here…so, tomorrow, we will transfer the ashes from the box into the jar, and on Monday if Amma comes out, the pot will sit in front of Her during bhajans, and then we will take the mortal remains to the ocean.
I went through Anni’s clothes here today. Very difficult. I don’t know what to do with everything. I don’t want her things to go to the flea market. I want them to go to people who cherish her. She did not have many things. Her worldly possessions were few, very few. She never worked for money, had no interest in acquiring things like houses or cars, or degrees, or creating ‘collections’ of things…was not interested in fashion…Her interest in medicine was only to be able to help others… But people are a curious bunch…some may not want anything to do with her things…Anni, Link and I cherished the items and clothing of our dearest Judith, who died in a sudden car accident at 49 years of age…but we are sentimental bunch….
We did speak with Amma about Anni, it must have been about 10 days ago, or so it seems. In that meeting, she said that Anni’s life was a miracle. She grew up in the ashram, she swept the way clean for Amma each day, she had not an iota of interest in anything of the world, she planted a seed in the heart of everyone she met, she was intensely compassionate and loving to all animals and people, always rescuing and caring for sick and hurt animals and birds… her ability to give up the pain medications, as she did on April 2, showed tremendous mental strength, and was itself a miracle. Amma said that cancer patients have so much pain that every hair follicle in their body aches horribly…. Amma said Anni died consciously, with the awareness of where she was going. Her intense suffering was marked by total fearlessness and acceptance.
Regarding that suffering, Rishi, who saw Anni in some of that intensity of suffering, and knew and empathically felt much of it, remarked that Christ on the Cross did not suffer as much as Anni did. His was 2 days. Anni’s went on for months. In talking about Anni’s suffering, Amma said that many Mahatma’s have had to go through intense suffering and pain… Ramana Maharshi, Ramakrishna Paramahansa, both had painful, lingering cancers… Vivekananda died of something else, also painfully…
In June 2003, I had an experience where I heard my deceased father’s voice, telling me to leave the ashram, and continue my life and seek to be of service elsewhere…I asked Amma whether if I had obeyed that voice then (and I didn’t due to my total skepticism about the experience having any Reality), if our most precious and beautiful Anni would be with us now…She said, no use to think “what-if”s….it was Anni’s karma to leave….I still have lots of questions about this. If I could have found good medical care, that could have quickly and clearly diagnosed her, and found a sane treatment plan, geared towards life and health, she could have gotten better, and perhaps we would not be saying ‘it was karma” now. People used to die of measles and mumps before. It doesn’t happen anymore. I believe that human potential is a very great ‘stretching factor’ in karma, that our lives are not set for an ‘exact’ or ‘specific’ time…
I do feel that equilibrium can be upset, and accidents and sickness in the body can happen. Anni’s physical equilibrium was upset after the hepatitis in 2002…I see that upset as being at the root of the events that transpired, which may have reached their long and shadowy fingers into many levels of awareness in her – her mind, emotions, etc….I don’t feel that she came to this earth with a mission to die, but rather with a mission to live, and to love, and if anything, to overcome any tendency towards disease and imbalance in anyway….That this did not happen, I feel is a tragedy and an accident…
At present, many people have died on this small island by a scourging fever…we just learned of the loss of a young man, 24 years old who caught the fever and died in two days, less than 20 days ago. The family lives opposite a small shop where we go to get vegetables on occasion. They also had a small shop. The shop is closed, the house appears vacant, although there are people there. Blown away people…..
We asked Amma if Anni is happy… She said, she feels so. Nonetheless, I would like to know so from Anni. Because of our Last Blog, perhaps people feel that we are not interested in their dream-seeing things of Anni…not the case - we are - simply we hear everything with a certain level of skepticism…everything, everyone of us, is part of the puzzle, part of the reason, part of the being…we like to hear it all….
Maybe Link and I are only her family in this life, but we love her intensely, and pray that we will always be together, life after life, wending our way, with ever increasing awareness together, in God’s service to the entire creation.
Aum.
Kamala Aunty

Dearest Friends and Family,
 Om Namah Shivaya. We are back in Amritapuri. Initially, we planned to stay at the home of some dear, dear friends. Adjust back into the community here gradually, for the ashram is a large community of people – about 5000, in a very small space. We feared that the grieving would be overwhelming. And it is. I haven’t slept well since she passed, and type this now between 3:30 – 6:00 AM.
 Our plane landed in Kochi on the 4th. We got in at a bright and early seven AM.
After meeting other devotees, also with their beloved’s ashes, we sallied out into the intense humidity and heat, to find that there was a strike or ‘hartal’ going on, some vehicles were damaged due to violence on the roads. The city of Kochi had seen some violence and the ashram was reluctant to send the taxi on the road for fear of property damage. Airport personnel would not let us back into the air conditioned luxury of the terminal, and we had to stay outside. Early on in the day, we ordered a prepaid taxi, but the driver was afraid to take us to the nearest ashram port of AIMS – the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences due to recent reports of violence along the way. We then waited at the airport for the next 12 hours, in the rising temperatures. There was little to eat or drink besides strong tea and water and deep fried foods, which Link and I eschewed…we did have some egg curry and chapatti, but it felt like fossil fuel in the stomach.… Exhaustion was there, our clothes were sticky.
  The police were irritable and unwilling to accommodate questions or deviations from the ‘norm’ in anyway. For example, the few chairs under the shady eave of the airport were occupied. We then sat on the stone staircase, feeling some heat relief on contact with the cool granite slabs, careful to leave ample room for stair traffic. We were unceremoniously directed back to the chairs, in a way that indicated we were riff-raff. Of course, its good to know that you can and will be treated like this, without pause or reflection by those who have authority. We did not appear to be important people, and the police saw no need to be on any sort of ceremony with us. Our common human-hood was not enough. It was dryly humorous to me. As Amma has often said, she tries to show us the nature of the world here.
 We finally got to the ashram the following day at 3AM. The bus had brought us into the ashram itself, and we were unable to get to our friend’s home with our baggage. They themselves were at AIMS, dealing with health issues. We decided to spend the day, unpack, and go later. Previously, I thought it would be unbearable to be in our flat. But it isn’t. It is probably the only place on earth now, where we have spent a lot of time in loving communion together. It has that vibe, and it is somewhat comforting to us. At the same time, it is just another place. It’s strange to be here. There is an unnatural amount of empty space in our 12’ x 14’ room without Anni’s form. At dawn, we lay down and woke up at 3PM. Soon, caring ashram sisters began arriving, and we were essentially unable to either unpack or go to our friend’s home. This has been the situation since then. Now Amma has come back. There does not appear to be any time whatsoever to even finish the unpacking properly.
 Since Anni passed, there are changes in us that we notice. We feel we – Link, Anni and I, are and will always be One Soul. That 1/3 of us is in the state that Anni is in, is inconceivable to us. It is a nightmare, that doesn’t end, that gets worse as time goes by, as it is not ending. Another thing we see, is that for Link and I now, there are only two places – two countries in existence – the place of name and form, what we call life on earth, and the place of no name or form, where Anni is. I used to feel India was very different from the rest of the planet, and, in some ways it is - there is an awareness of this truth of the two places here that I perceive shining out of the eyes of many people…whereas, in other parts of this place, I do not see that awareness. For Link and I now, it doesn’t matter where we are, or where we go, its all in the same place, really. Have I conveyed this clearly at all?
 From this point, of there being only two real places, what goes on here is just a show of experiencing. We watch people’s involvement with the unreality of this place, and it’s a real wonder. For example, the lack of physical modesty in the west and among the rising “new India” used to irk me to some extent, I didn’t want the children getting into it. But, now, it seems irrelevant to me, its all part of the identification with name and form, its all quite unreal, no matter what extent one embraces it. However, that said, I still do not want to see the children get more enmeshed with the unreal. Link is turned off by individuals demonstrating a strong sense of body consciousness, particularly by evidence of pampering and preening of the body for display…but, for me, its as unreal as the whole place, however, no point encouraging more ignorance…
 So. We haven’t been able to really get out of the ashram. Even to get foods that are soothing to our health and stomach. Even to send this, check email, and re-establish phones. A slow and steady stream of consoling visitors is there. Finally, day 2, I went downstairs, out into the community, as Amma was returning. I steeled my mind and heart as best I could. At the bottom of the lift, we found dearest Satyabhama. She wanted to know where Anni was. When Link told her that Anni was dead, she jumped back. She kept querying. Later, others told her that Anni was coming later. She again came back to Link, and I told him to tell her that Anni was dead, but she is in Satyabhama’s heart. This, she understood well, for she genuinely feels her there…and her questioning stopped. I clung onto Satyabhama physically, as we made our way towards Amma’s house. There was a dense packed crowd of people below her room. It was very hard. Groups of dear sad sisters kept surrounding us…my nose was running horribly, I had not tissue, and kept breaking away to wash my face…I strictly avoided those who had expressed great love for the children in their life together…to see them is to break open the vats of searing pain…
 It’s very hard. We deeply appreciate all those hearts that love our precious Anni. With each one, we want to sit in our sacred love and loss and share our tears. But, whereas, for one person, it is one cry of their day, for us, it becomes, a never ending stream of touching that never ending pain…I find my mind sinks in it. It innervates and demobilizes us. It keeps us numb with the horror of it all.
 Yesterday, we went down for meditation. I brought a book, and planned silence. But it was impossible, so many dear and caring, weeping people kept coming. As stated, it’s a large population in a very small space. The situation becomes very unnatural. We don’t have time or space to move on, within ourselves. On the other hand, if there was no acknowledgement of the greatest loss in our lives, it would be terrible also…
Because of the large population, ever the part-time sociologist, I began to notice a pattern in the types of consolations that come. As one person said to me, people don’t know what to say. Out of their love, they want to console, so they come from where they are. We recognize this truth, and at the same time, really, there can never be any consolation, so all attempts, unfortunately have differing states of unbearability. I mention these types, as I am certain, that there are universal human phenomenons regardless of culture or clime – a truism of this place of name and form, in the human responses to those who grieve. I have located several types, and offer these observations here, for discussion, as well as for those who want to comfort the grieving heart.

1. The worldless response. Just a look, or touch. A few words, most often, ‘I don’t know what to say to you”. Wordlessness is really, the most comforting. For great grief is beyond words. This response allows the grieving and the comfortor to acknowledge the pain together. Its from the platform of respect and acceptance of what both are experiencing. This is what we receive from the majority of people. All over the earth there is a silent majority of basic goodness and common sense. It allows both to see the truth in each other, so, in this sense, is genuine communication.

From here, it goes down hill.
2. The avoiders. Some of these are because of the shared acknowledgement of deep pain, and as such, becomes a kind of communication. But, if kept up too long, it becomes part of -
3. The ignorers. These are those whom one always saw, and knew and interacted with, but who never seemed to see the griever as a full person with the same heart as themselves…for this type, I try to reach out, and open the door, but with all the intense emotion going on, am at times too overwhelmed to make the effort. However, even stony hearts can intellectually know that this is an unfathomable loss for us, so, we do not want to lose the opportunity to try to connect heart to heart…
4. The advisors. They tell what to do, and why, the benefits and importance of following their advice. We have to listen, because, after all, it’s apparently the best attempt they can make to acknowledge the pain inside them regarding the loss, and that effort, at least deserves our respect.
5. The dream weavers. This type of response is at least somewhat entertaining. It is hard to know the actual reality of it though. However, it provides an avenue for the mind to feel hope and communication with Anni through other people’s purported experiences of and with her. Whether or not any of it is true or real, is unknown by me. But imagination flies in fancy…and it is out of love that these phenomenons are happening…
6. The philosophers – here, the Vedantins. Often times, now, I actually tell people, ‘Please, no Vedanta.” But, this is a place where all are hearing satsangs, being trained to give satsangs, studying scriptures, and I suppose even this blog, is some form of our own satsang of some sort, so we all have to be patient with one another…I find this, and the advisors, the most irritating, as both stances dis-allow genuine respectful acknowledgement of the basic equality of the soul in either the Vedantin or advisor and the one who they seek to console. When someone comes at us from this stance, we become unable to break through to more genuine communication with them, as they spew their view. Most often we just sit miserably through the experience, hoping at least they will feel our love and acceptance of them, and that later on, more communication will come…this approach to this response, often does work, and in future encounters, there are less words…
7. Here in the ashram, there is another type: The Amma watchers. They want to know about our relationship to Amma, what she said or not…That is their first question. We have, unfortunately, nothing to say here, either. I have always felt that the relationship one has with Amma is a very personal affair, not really up for public view or discussion. It supposed to be the relationship between the jivatman and the paramatman, isn’t it? How can one dress that in words, or paint the picture or it?
8. The nyah – nyahs. Individuals that actually feel and express to us, that we have gotten what we deserve, God is teaching us a great lesson in humility and acceptance, as we, particularly me, have demonstrated ‘rebelliousness’ by ever daring to question the structure and actions of the perceived authority figures in the larger group here. This thinking holds onto a punishing, revengeful god, whom they obviously feel to be in power here. We find this to be unrighteous and undharmic. But, unfortunately or fortunately, I am one of those dense types of people, who even while being insulted to my face, often do not catch what has happened until much later, when it is too late to have given a proper response that could somehow crack open that mind or heart into seeing that like themselves, I too, have a feeling heart, like themselves, I too, feel pain, and like themselves, I too, am part of their self…I love what my friend Sylvia wrote in her book, ( Dancing in the eye of Transformation, 10 steps to Creative Consciousness) a quote from Lord Buddha, “Believe nothing, you have read, or been told, even if I have said it, unless it appeals to your common sense and reason.” I feel there is much too little questioning going on all over the planet, institutional health is not possible without the freedom and respect to question decisions and directions things seem to be going in…

It has only been in the worldless one, where we close our mouths to each other and open the ears of our hearts, that we both can hear each other….and that to us, is God comforting God….Thankfully, that is the majority of consolations. The others, much smaller in number, however have shock value, and hint at wider unexpressed opinions. Increasingly, Link and I watch ourselves going through the limited experiences of the land of name and form…..we too, will leave this place and travel to another, suddenly, someday, sooner than later…its inevitable….nothing really to do here….no home is possible here….Home is where our Anni is…when we melt back into the reality of our One Soul….
About the Album: it’s a-comin’, Karthu is working on it, people are here, hopefully today some practical progress will be made…we are locating singers….
About cell phones: please be careful….they give off microwave radiation… Watch out for your noggins…many people are telling us of severe ear pain they feel from cell phone use…and there is the fact of the effect on bee hives…as tests in Europe are indicating… We have to face the reality that just because an invention is allowed, doesn’t mean it is healthy for us…no one in authority, none of our elected leaders, surely, really gives a damn about our health, and manufacturers only care about profits…so please be careful…maybe get those head set thingy’s or decide to only use email, or take cell phone fast days…or restrict the times you use it each day….they are very dangerous….there are studies which suggest early senility approaching people who are now teenagers using them…
Anyhow, much love to all your dear and caring hearts, we will try to get some photos up of darling Satyabhama and the mosaics that Anni made near Amma’s house, up….
Loving You from our one soul,
Kamala Aunty

Dearest Friends and Family,
 Again we feel we need to set the record straight. Apparently, a lot of the blog is being put into personal emails, embellished, forwarded, etc. A lot of distortion is happening. I will only address one that we have heard here, although we are told there is much more. A few weeks before Anni died, Link was at San Ramon, Lakshmi, who lives with Amma spoke to him and said that, ‘Amma had said many years ago, that Anni is an angel and that Angels don’t live too long’. We mentioned this in the blog. This was taken, embellished, and even retold to us, that years ago we were all three working below Amma’s house, fixing up the darshan hut cot, and Amma looked out her window, called Lakshmi, and said that Anni is an angel and angels don’t live more than 18 years. Until we reached here, we didn’t know all these distortions were going on.
 When we were in Washington, DC, less than 3 weeks after Anni passed, Lakshmi sent word that she wanted to see us. In that visit, she mentioned the incident with Link in San Ramon. She had, in San Ramon, told us that “Amma had said many years ago, that Anni was an angel, and that angels don’t live very long.” Now, in DC, Lakshmi told us that actually, Amma had said it at that time itself, in San Ramon, June, 2007. The “many years ago” clause Amma had told Lakshmi to add in, even though Amma only said it last June. Lakshmi said that Amma had wanted to prepare our minds for the possibility of Anni passing. Hopefully this will clear up all the rumors.
 Now this may seem like a small or irrelevant thing to be concerned about. People perhaps prefer the fantasy to the fact. To us the truth is relevant, as it gives us insight into how Amma is dealing with us, how a person who is trying to bring the mind to light and truth is working. So, small, truthful details are important. For us, whatever Amma is, right now, the way she is, is fine. We don’t feel a need to see or present her in any other way than as she is. Why say she wears a sari, when it is a full long sleeved dress with a half sari? There is a relevance in the seemingly small truth of what she wears. It needs our understanding. Not making, or manufacturing her into something that she is not. Why embellish it into something that it isn’t? Why isn’t the way she is, the way she says things, just fine as it is? It really rankles our hearts to bear witness to the huge distortion of her physical image through photographs, her words, her values going on from so many sides…The goal is to understand. How can we really understand without knowing the truth, even in small things?
Now, we felt a small degree of comfort at the time in hearing the San Ramon statement… ‘years ago’. It was probably to give us that comfort that Amma said that, so we would feel that she was knowing, watching and observing Anni for a long time…It is, however, also helpful to us, in understanding our inner relations with Amma to know the truth of the matter as we heard in DC. I mean, she’s one busy mother, with billions of children… yet she knows each one of us in certain ways, to an amazing degree…we find truth to be very important in guiding our minds to the right understanding. If some prefer the fantasies, fine, OK, but we wanted to set the record straight, as far as we are able…
On we go, through the fog…
Loving you,
Kamala, Anni, Link