posted by Kamala on Aug 18
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