A Tale of Grace

Dearest Friends and Family,

Link has discussed some of the economic reasons for the situation in Leh that we both witnessed and were involved in. But the trip to Leh also showed us a lot. I wanted to discuss with you what we saw in Delhi, under the stairs that came down to the train platform from a street above. The last landing in the staircase was about 3 feet above the ground, then there were three or four more steps down to the train platform.

I cannot escape the feelings of human responsibility to each other. I know that I am not alone in this, but we don’t talk about it, how bad it makes us feel that we seem so helpless before the institutional machines we have created, that leave out the majority of human beings. Although we may try to ignore it, I know that in our hearts we all feel horrible inside when we see our fellow human beings in squalor, poverty, degradation. Some of us can see and pretend that we are unaffected by the seeing, that we are helpless or that it is philosophically justifiable. We all know we darken the light in our own hearts with these attitudes, its no use pretending that we who have are not responsible for those who have not. The current day doctrines of deliberate unconsciousness cannot mask the principles of universal oneness and responsibility that we know we all share.

Amma has been very clear that the work at hand is to create an atmosphere that will allow us to develop ourselves ethically, and that this will be genuine growth and development for human society and civilization. In her Dec. 1, 2009 Address at the Sw. Vivekananda Foundation in Delhi, she spoke about the way to create this atmosphere for real human progress and development.

“First we need to create the proper environment. This requires that we pay special attention to the starving and illiterate. For this, we need to go into society and act. Swami Vivekananda also stressed the importance of educating women and allowing them to take their proper place in society. In short, we need to be prepared to adjust our attitude with the changing times, cultivate a mind that is ready to act and then move forward on the path laid before us by Swami Vivekananda.” (From: Cultivating Strength and Vitality: 39-40. An Inaugural Address by Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi. Delivered on Dec. 1, 2009, New Delhi at the Vivekananda Foundation International Centre. )

I suppose everyone knows the Commonwealth Games are going to be held in Delhi in 2011 or some such time….frankly, none of it impresses me too much. I’ve not paid attention. Its nice that people can get together and celebrate without abusing one another, in a sense of shared unity. I think that these things all help us to expand our hearts and minds a little, and in that sense, I think these things are good for those who participate in them. In the ashram, and on Facebook,  in the news from around the world, I noticed during the World Cup the temporary unifying creation of mindsets across the planet –  enjoying a sense of bonding and feelings of having much ‘in common’, and that’s all to the good,  for we certainly do.

Anyhow, so now Delhi is ‘dressing up’ for the games. There are lots of jokes about how the capital looks like Afghanistan, because of all the building being torn down. Its a sad pointer to the fact that we all know what a miserable mess Afghanistan is in.

On our way to Chandigarh, the train stopped for a few moments at one of the stations in Delhi. My AC 2 Tier Bogey window was right opposite the stairs. The last landing of the staircase had a pile of construction dirt heaped underneath it.

In love with dogs and animals everywhere, I thought I saw a movement in the pile of dirt, and hoping to see a mother dog, who had found a nice little nest for her pups, and to get a photo of it, I asked Link to go to the door to catch the photo.

An empty bottle came flying out of the mud-nest, and I chuckled to myself, thinking the little family was getting rid of unwanted trash.

As it was an ‘under the staircase place’ men kept coming and urinating right on the sides of the mud pit and on the wall next to it. Within seconds, the ‘mud’ wall heaved a little near the top, and I realized to my total horror, that the puppy mud-nest, as I thought, was a human being. I now saw the matted hair. A thin arm with delicate fingers brought another bottle from the mud nest to the top edge of another part of it. The train moved. Link came and told me it was a woman in the mud-nest.

I can’t tell you how sick it makes me feel that a human being is living like this. In a place where dozens, if not hundreds of men are coming to urinate. In the less than 2 minutes the train bogey was there I saw 5 men urinate inches from her head. They also didn’t see, although I saw some looking at the mud-nest as they finished their business and left, so maybe they did. It seemed some of them were aware that there was something unusual about the mud-nest.

Undoubtedly, if it is a woman, she has probably been abused in unspeakable ways on top of it all.

The City clean-up means that while labour is wanted, to see the conditions that labour is forced to live in, are not wanted.   People have ideas about what modern development means, that seem to mostly related to things and not people.

I saw and could do nothing to help….my excuse was that the train was leaving, and I had to go. I can only pray to the Mother who holds us all:

O Mother! I saw You there,

and did not help You…

Make my life useful to You

Do not let me sin against You by

uncaring or indifference, by living uselessly

Please take care of Your dear Daughter there

Give me a place where I can bring her

and make sure she is treated with Love and Dignity

Until she is healed in mind and body again…

O Mother!

Make us useful to You!

OM….

I remember how once I had expressed to Anni that there were lots of problems for those who became doctors and misdiagnosed people, etc. and that I would not want her to suffer for trying to help someone and she snapped at me ( If I could say ’snap’ it was a delightful experience):

“I don’t care how much I have to suffer, if I could help someone!”

I was abashed in the face of her selflessness. I pray you now, my sweetest Anni, to help your dear sister, living in the mud-nest, ‘neath the stairs in the train station in Delhi….

O Lord, may all our lives be truly useful to You, and may we all set aside all our concepts and pick up the poor and needy, the screaming symptoms of our very false concepts of development.

Loving you,

Aunty Kamala