A Tale of Grace

Dearest Friends and Family,

The last few days have been very tough….I try to keep going, to keep my mind full of good thoughts, to at least be of some service to the creation someway…but…one can only bury the grief so far. My dear friend who is like a fellow sister came over….I knew it would not be good to talk with her when I saw her last August, ‘coz her pain about Anni was so strong…so, somehow, I avoided it…I have to keep walking and talking, after all…onward, through the nightmare that never ends….we have been through alot together in the ashram, our children getting into difficulties they didn’t cause, supporting each other when public opinion was against us both or our children in every way….sharing our griefs and concerns for our kids…it was her two daughters that really saved my life after the heart attack (of which there is no trace now, three years later, according to a cardiologist ) That’s another amazing story, maybe later….we were family….so….she was very sad, she held me, and I felt her Mother’s Love in my heart, and all the pain which I work on carefully managing moment by moment…came up…..and up….

So, it was some fairly terrible days. Couldn’t stop crying. At one point, I just cried out for God to at least send me a friend…God, to me, is greatest, as FRIEND. A Friend just selflessly helps for no other gain, that to be a friend….its a great thing…with others, basically, our Poustinia family, I scraped myself back into a bowl again…sat near Amma for some time….sitting near her, without her invitation or acknowledgment in anyway, is still a powerful experience…as she said once:

A true Master is a presence, the presence of Divine Consciousness. He does nothing. In his presence everything just happens, without any effort on his part. There can only be effort where there is an ego. A true Master is egoless. There is therefore no effort involved from his side. Even the situations that allow the seeker to dive into his own consciousness arise in the presence of the Master. That is simply how it is – it cannot be otherwise. The sun doesn’t make any effort to create its light, yet the sun cannot do anything but shine. A flower doesn’t make any effort to be fragrant; being fragrant is just part of its nature. A river doesn’t make any effort to flow, it simply flows. It is all so natural. Human beings create unnatural things, but nature can only be natural. Likewise, the perfect Master doesn’t do anything in particular to create a suitable situation for your progress. His very presence makes what is needed happen spontaneously. There is not effort involved on his part. His presence is the most conducive atmosphere for the opening of your heart to take place. That is how it is. From Awaken Children 8:155.

After sitting around for a few hours, things were a little better that evening, but not much…who can hold a dam on the Ocean of Pain?
Then, on Firday, Amma came out to see the ashram guests in the early afternoon. As I was hastening to the prayer hall, upon hearing the bell, I mentioned to someone, ‘I hope she will talk to us…’ When she came, after the guided meditation, she said she had no time to talk, to much to do, the birthday celebs are coming, she has tons of party details to take care of…for her its a chance to do something for the poor…and Amma has mass weddings planned, (in which she not only arranges the marriages, but also gives the bride all the gold jewelries that are tradtionally expected, etc…she doesn’t deviate far from the cherished archetypes in people’s minds) On her birthday, she gives out new Sari’s to many poor women, sewing machines, scholarships, pensions, homes, etc…its a massive undertaking, in which the masses feel their own participation….
Then she said, Anyhow, the real birthday is when you realize you have never been born.

Anni certainly realized this. We all realize it when we die. Amma knows it from her birth here itself. Death, does not exist in reality. So why do I cry? The Brhad Aranyaka translated by Swami Krishnananda of the Divine Life Society, who lost his eyesight before he could get to the problematic translation of the section mentioned in the last entry, says in his introduction to the Brhad Aranyaka,

The grief of the mind, the sorrow of the individual is not brought about by outer circumstances. This is a very important lesson we learn form the Upanishad. We do not suffer by incidents that take place outside. We suffer on account of a maladjustment of our personality with the conditions of life and the knowledge of this fact is supernatural and super-sensual….

The bondage of the self is intrinsically involved in the structure of the individual. We bring sorrow with us even when our birth takes place; and it is often said that we bring our death also together with our birth. The meaning is that all experiences - joys, sorrows including our last moment of life - all these are a fructification of circumstances with which we are born from the mother’s womb. We are born under certain conditions, and they are the seeds of what will follow later, so that the entire life of ours may be said to be an unfoldment of that which is present in a seed-form at the time of our birth. We do not pass through newer and newer experiences unexpectedly, as it were, but they are all expected things only. Every experience in life is expected, as a corollary is expected from a theorem in mathematics. It follows, it has to naturally follow, logically , from the principle enunciated. Likewise, the experiences of life are natural phenomena that follow logically from the circumstances under which we are born. And these circumstances which seem to be powerful enough to condition our future are again the consequence of certain antecedents, and so on. There is, thus, a vicious circle, as it were, in which we are caught up, so that we cannot know which is the cause and which is the effect of any event or experience.

This vicious circle of suffering is Samsara, the sorrow of the soul, and it cannot free itself from this sorrow by merely undergoing experiences though births and deaths, because the experiences in life, the sorrow and the joys, whatever they be, are powers which come out automatically from the nature of individual existence, and unless this character of existence as the individual is studied, its sorrow cannot be diagnosed, or eradicated. - from pps.18-21. Intro. to Brhad-Aranyaka

At night, in our nighttime reading, we are working our way through Paramahansa Yogananda’s The Bhagavad Gita: Royal Science of God-Realization. As a friend commented on the last blog, its a great blessing that the interpretations of a real Jnani exist on this scripture. I can’t find the Chapter or the verse that I want to share right now, but, in Edwin Arnold’s version of the Gita, called the Song Celestial, at one point, he states;

“Fire cannot burn you, water cannot wet you, weapons cannot harm you, wind cannot dry you, you are unborn, permanent, eternal…death is nothing to you.”

Really, this is what we need to know, and how we need to think. For us, it is crucial to get rid of all of our false conditioning that makes us see it otherwise….the false conditioning, the incorrect perception can literally kill us. It distorts our minds entirely, wastes our days… It was as clear as day to both Link and I, when Anni left her body, that she had left her body….we were left with her body, but, it was not Her….
I feel I must know these facts for certain, while yet in life, otherwise, my time here is simply that of a rat on a treadmill, in a cage…of delusion….
Anni is pure and true to her being, that is where we want and need to get to, if we would be with her, even now….it is our life’s goal….
As Amma said,

“The real birthday, is when you realize you have never been born”

We all will realise this, sooner or later. We want to know it NOW, for certain. Among other conditionings, we are American, from a culture of reasonably instant gratification. And we want to know, feel, and be certain, NOW, that we, KAL, have never been born! As her mother, I want to revel again, in the knowledge of our existence together. Thats all that matters to me.
Give us your prayers in this regard,
Loving you,
Kamala Aunty

Dearest Friends and Family,

Gandhi once said, “ I know the path, it is straight and narrow, like a razor’s edge. I rejoice to walk upon it. God’s word is, he who strives never perishes, therefore, though I fall a thousand times, I will not lose faith.”

Once we begin to consciously strive to awaken to our own ethical instincts, we become conscious of the ways in which we were leading ourselves astray from the purpose of our own lives, the ways in which we were distracting ourselves. Even in the effort to be conscious, to walk carefully, there are so many pitfalls. I tell you, I’m a done deal if I think about it. I am not even aware of my own unawareness. Its such a pathetic situation. I think that’s why Gandhi said ‘ it is straight and narrow, like the razor’s edge.” He had convincement. Anni had convincement. I never knew her to be uncertain in the least, in anyway, to be unselfconfident about that inner certainty of Truth within. Nonetheless, even in trying to be alert, we can fall. Then, it is only the Grace of God, through some means, in my case, my Jnanavatar, Amma, that we can catch ourselves, such as it is. Here is one experience we are having to illustrate this:

In my own way, with no real external guidance, I have been trying to understand the ocean of Hindu scriptural literature. There are classes in the ashram, when Amma is gone, but they are all in Malayalam, and when one asks for translations, its clear people don’t have time or think that there is not much point explaining. Also, when Amma is gone is the one time that the ashram is a little more quiet, and seclusion is nice. Over the years, I have just withdrawn to the books that are available.

There is Sankara (500 AD) also known as the Adi Shankaracharya,whom I have tried to examined a bit. One of his big works is the Brahma Sutra Bhashya, which is a huge commentary on the main points of the Upanishads, or Vedanta, (since the Upanishads come at the end – anta- of the Veda) which he also called Advaita philosophy or Absolute Monism. This work is now considered one of the three essential and authoritative works of Sanantana Dharma or what is called Hinduism. The three works are the collective Upanishads, Brahma Sutra, and Bhagavadgita. Shankara’s intellectual work throughout India quickened the absorption of Buddhism that had a stronghold in Indian culture at the time. back into the Hindu fold.

As a brief explanation, Buddhism is purported to start around 800 BC, and was very strong in India at 300 BC – 700 AD, largely due to the efforts of one of India’s great emperors, Ashok, (262 BC) who converted to Buddhism after massacring over 100,000 men, women and children of the Kalinga in what is now Andra Pradesh – he was fully sick to death of himself after the slaughter of the innocent and through his influence, vegetarianism became popular, but that’s another story.

Of course, I have only seen the English version of the translation of his exceedingly lengthy and exhaustive commentary. Yet, nonetheless, each page astounds the mind in intellectually marveling ways, that simultaneously go beyond mind. One can almost feel nerves and neural pathways forming in the brain to cope with the concepts. That work, is unbelievably astounding.

However, I have a thorn in my heart towards Shankara. This is because it was not until after he had established his ashrams in every corner of India, and gone arguing all over the place with all the religious pundits of his day, (there is one story where the wife of one of his debater opponents transcended his thought and defeated him in the debate which he had had ongoing with her husband for over a week – this indicates that here in Kerala, about 1500 years ago, women were perhaps having more of their rightful status, but this too, is another story) that he actually gained samabhava, or the certainty of equality. That teaching came to him in the form of a low-caste Chandala – whom Shankara had haughtily ordered out of his way. The man’s humble and patient response to the intellectual egotism, was, “Who is ordering who, out of who’s way” or something like that, which basically made the bulb light up in Shankara’s brain, and he recognized that the God he was arguing about everywhere, was in the Chandala too….

I frankly feel appalled that the man had set up his ashrams, that he had written extensively about the truths of the shruti or revelatory scriptures, without having Samabhava in his heart. This is where Amma’s example is so comforting. From what I can see, she has started with all the attitudes that one would expect of a true teacher of Truth and Love. The first and foremost to me is Equal Vision of the Creation. If we can’t get beyond silly ideas of status and VIP-ness, and exceptionality, I don’t think we can see the picture whole in the least. I have to tell you, I am so grateful that we are with the Jnanavatar who is Amma, Holy Mother Amritanandamayi Devi, the incarnation of wisdom and Love. Jnana is a Sanskrit word meaning genuine spiritual wisdom, knowledge of the Truth. A Jnanavatar is an incarnation of that knowledge. We have only to see the history of Amma’s life to recognize that she has been operating from the highest wisdom since birth itself.

A few years ago, I was introduced to Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s Sourcebook of Indian Philosophy, which really whets the appetite to learn more about Indian metaphysical research and thought. From Sarvepalli, who was also India’s second president, I read some of P.T. Raju, whom I found massively intellectual, yet with a keen insight on specific points, and some of Swami Satyananda Saraswati., whom, as I have understood, has now renounced his ashram and his disciples, claiming that his knowledge is as yet, imperfect. Hats off to the honest! Also, Swami Sivananda and Swami Chidananda, (who, I understand, passed last night) and Swami Paramahansa Yogananda, but these last four have not done much work on Sanskrit interpretation and commentary of sacred scriptures. I enjoyed Sarvepalli’s work because his English is very good, it appeared to take in lot of angles, although I felt some inner discrepancies with some of the interpretations… I had noticed this feeling in regard to his translation of the Isa Upanishad. The last three verses, as I understand it, are meant to be said to a person who is dying and facing the naked Truth. I felt some question within me, about the transition to the last three verses, as well as the way in which they were directing the soul…anyhow, reservations aside, I mean, what do I know? Certainly, regrettably, not Sanskrit!

Anyhow, so, wading through the shad darshana – the six schools of philosophical thought that examine the Veda, then the school of materialism – the Charkava – which one sees today in vogue, also in the Periyar or ‘rationalist’ movement found in South India, the Arthashastra of Kautilya, mostly through Sarvepalli, I found I had developed a faith in his interpretive capacities. I felt a measure of trust in him. It just goes to show how dangerous it is to rely upon the translator! We bought a copy of his interpretation of “The Principle Upanishads”, which, after a lengthy and edifying introduction, that thrums soft expansive notes in the heart, then starts on the Brhad-aranyaka Upanishad. This is Sarvapelli’s brief outline of the relevance of the Brhad-aranyaka Upanishad:

“The Brhad-aranyaka-Upanishad which is generally recognized to be the most important of the Upanisads forms part of the Satapatha Brahmana. It consists of three Kandas or sections, the Madu Kanda which expound the teaching of the basic identity of the individual and the Universal Self, the Yajnavalkya or the Muni Kanda which provides a philosophical justification of the teaching and the Khila Kanada which deals with certain modes of worship and mediation, upasana, answering roughly to the three stages of religious life, sravana, hearing the upadesa or the teaching, Mamana, logical reflection, upapatti and mididhyasana or contemplative meditation. Of the two rescensions of the Satapatha Brahmana, the Kanva and the Madhyuandina, Sankara follows the former, and the text adopted here is the same.” from The Principle Upanishads: 147.

So, back to Sarvepalli, - well, I have to consider the facts. He was the second president of India, a VIP in everyone’s mind. India is a place where, for those so inclined, the ‘morally highly esteemed’ pathway is well lit. To be high status, and morally highly esteemed – well, it’s a win-win combo….and Sarvepalli fit the bill. And rightly so, I believe he was a very well intentioned man. So, his books did well, and he has come to be viewed as an authority on Indian Philosophy. He was Indian to boot, which has given him a big one-up on German Max Mueller, who was one of the first English translator/commentators, since Schopenhauer of the Upanishads and other works. From this stance, hence came our dilemma.

I began wading into the Brhad-aranyaka Upanishad. Now, from his description above, one gains an understanding of this Upanishad as being incredibly profound in the textual nuances it offers. There is one section of Procreation. I believe it may be where Tantra misinterpretations gain fuel from, and where Shastras that are detrimental to human and gender equality seek to find a footing. Let it suffice to say, that in his interpretation of the Sanskrit, which he has transliterated above every section of commentary, he comes up with this sloka in Chapter 6. section 4. 9, entitled Procreation Ceremonies. This entire section, leaves one, such as myself, who sees an ideal of Truth in the Upanishads in utter misery. Here is his particular interpretation of the sloka: (6.4.9) The parentheses are also by Sarvepelli.

“If she does not grant him his desire, he should buy her (with presents). If she still does not grant him his desire he should beat her with a stick or his hand and overcome her (saying) with (manly) power and glory, ‘I take away your glory.’ Thus she becomes devoid of glory.”

This is rape. Having read this entire section, I went to sleep in a miserable state of heart and mind, entirely fearful. I have a love of the Upanishads as being of Truth. As being from my ideal. How could this be of truth? This only shows why Indian women are so unhappy with the obnoxious boors that many of them are tied to. His interpretation of this sloka denies Everything, everyone of my cherished ideals of India. For two nights this heavy, questioning misery in me persisted. Finally, Tuesday came round, and in desperation, I wrote out my question to Amma, asking her how I should understand this sloka.

Then came the problem of getting it translated. No one would translate it. It went against some peoples concepts of morality and propriety to translate it. Link wrote a one-liner on the top to Amma that no one would translate it, and tried to get it to her Peetham, before the satsang. Even that was difficult. The people around her feel they know what is appropriate and not for her to read. They did not want to show her the question. Mind you, this is from an Upanishad. A recognized holy scripture of India. Its not from a Purana, or an Itihasa. Its from Shruti, revealed teachings. It’s not a ‘worldly’ question! What is wrong with trying to understand it? I can’t go into my state of mind and internal blankness. I really feel sometimes, why should I try to ask her anything? Maybe once a week, or once a month, or twice a year, I can ask a question, if she has time, or inclination, if the people around her want her to see it and answer it, then, maybe, it will be answered. Then again, translation…. I sometimes seriously wonder what is the point. Why care, why be interested to understand. Better just read Amar Chita Katha comics, and absorb Indian spirituality through the bolllywood shows….There are many things in my mind that I wish I could discuss with Amma, and, it’s a joke to say that I can. Communication is a one way street, she’s a very busy lady. We have to find it in ourselves, etc. I operate in a vacuum…Fine. These were some of my thoughts. It wasn’t really despair or frustration. But, I’ve reached a place of no- expectation.

Then, Amma glanced around and around her peetham, until our letter which was now near the back of her chair got into her hands. Without the translation, Amma made the translator read it out. Then, she asked which sloka it was. I had Sarvepalli’s book with me, I gave it to her. She had the Brahmachari’s go out and find the Sanskrit text. First one volume was brought to her, then another. I cannot describe how beautiful her face looked, the light that was in it as she gazed at the holy words. It was the authority, peering at what has become a scriptural authority. Then, it was translated among other things, that Amma said that there are different commentators on the scriptures. Some are philosophers, some are Jnani’s. The philosophers do not have the spiritual understanding to portray the text in all truthfulness, as they are not having that vision themselves. Sarvepelli is a philosopher. So was Max Mueller, and their works suffer because of the lack of internal vision that they had. Better to read the works of a real Jnani.

She later said that she would translate the sloka and have it brought to my room. Within 10 seconds of the end of satsang and the shift into lunch serving, 4 women came up to me and said, please let me know what her translation of that sloka is. The rest of the afternoon, and time since then has been peppered with women coming and asking me to pass on Amma’s translation of the sloka when I receive it. There were Indian as well as western women. One Indian lady, highly educated, wealthy, told me, “that sloka that was read, that is our life. People don’t know how it is for Indian women. We are literally raped whenever our husbands want, we become dead inside ourselves, we become like machines.”

It is my prayer, that my Jnanavatar, Amma, will translate the whole of the Brhad-Aranyaka Upanishad, and put it before the eyes of human understanding again, dressed in her comments for our time and age. Please join me in this prayer, for if we are to truly understand what India’s Vedas have to offer, they need correct translation, that the billions can read and understand.

I hope also that she will do the Kundalini Tantra texts, which have become entirely confused. Everyone sits smugly, and says, ‘Oh, that’s not what is meant” but no one says what is. Amma knows, let us pray that the wisdom in her, will unveil itself and bring these teachings to the fore. For myself, I can have no expectations. But, I think it would help millions and millions of people. Those seeking self expression through sexuality are not able to gain Samabhava or equal vision of the Creation. Without Equal Vision, it is impossible to behold the Truth. It is because of his efforts to arrive at Equal Vision, that Gandhi was able to identify himself as well as carry the masses of the poor with him. It is because of her Equal Vision that Holy Mother Amma is able to give each person who receives her darshan the same intensity of personal attention that she does. It is because of Equal Vision, that Mother Theresa was out on the street, picking up the dying poor. Gandhi described the path as a ‘razors’ edge.’ We must avoid the trap of seeking to experience ourselves through feelings, emotions and ’supernatural experiences’. These are sidetracks to our great purpose. Amma gives us this light on Tantra:

“What is involved in Tantric worship is an offering. This fact is the principle behind the worship is what is to be offered. This offering is not external, it is internal. You offer our individuality, or your ego, to the Divine. Furthermore, the references to sexual union in the worship are not to be taken as something to be done by a male person and a female person. It is the final union, the union of the jivatman (individual self or consciousness) and the Paratman (Supreme Self or super-consciousness). It is symbolic. It symbolizes the union or the integration of the feminine and masculine qualities – the union of Purusha and Prakriti, the merging of the mind into the Supreme Reality. It is the attainment of a perfect balance between the inner and outer natures of the Sadhak. It is the experiencing of and becoming established in All-Pervasiveness, which ensues from the union of Shiva and Shakti.

In that state the Sadhak transcends everything and merges with the Supreme Principle. That Supreme Oneness is the meaning of sexual union in tantric puja. This union of the masculine and the feminine happens within you. It is not external. This union of Shiva (Supreme Consciousness and Shakti (Primordial Energy) happens when the sadhaks purified semen, which has transformed into ojas (pure vital energy) reaches the top of the head where the thousand-petaled lotus is located. The use of sexual imagery as symbolic imagery in tantric sadhana is an external figurative depiction of this inner transformation. Sexual union is the closest symbol that can give the idea about this eternal union of Shiva and Shakti. Both aspects, Supreme Consciousness and Primordial Energy are within us.

All human beings are sexual, and therefore, all are familiar with the experience of sexual desire, the longing for union with the opposite sex. Thus by employing something that everybody can understand, that is, the terms and symbols of sexual union, to express the essential quality and process of eternal union, the sages have tried to give us an idea of the process of inner union. But human minds are so crude and lowly that they misinterpret the whole thing and bring it all down to a vulgar level, misusing it or using it as an excuse for licentious behavior and illicit actions that can cause harm to others as well as themselves. Tantric sadhana must not be practiced with out the guidance of a Perfect Master.” From Awaken Children, Vol 4: 294-296.

At this time, children all over the world are being exposed to an incorrect understanding of sexuality that is taught them from their parents, society, schools, national governments and medical systems. We need to know how to direct this tremendous energy, given these circumstances…we need to know what kind of intervention can work now. Only a Jnanavatar would know. Lets hope she will tell.

In so many ways, our earth ship is on the wrong course….let us all start to ask the questions that will bring it to the right course, for our children, and the unborn creation. The hope of our planet and human civilization lies in our children. Let us not waste their time, let us not confuse them and condition them wrongly from their great purpose in the Creation. Om Namah Shivaya!

Loving you,

Kamala Aunty

Dearest Friends and Family,

More unfortunate news on Shiva.  About 2 weeks ago,  we got a desperate call from Amar Seva Sangham.  Shiva was behaving despicably.  They wanted him out at the earliest.  They were consulting us, as we had been providing funds, and so they wanted our input…I spoke to Shiva, he spoke as though he was entirely innocent and knew nothing of what was going on.  I told him I didn’t know what to do.

It is not possible to accomodate him here, he had blown his chances for  education….at least he picked up the skill of tailoring.  If he ever decides to carry on a simple decent life he has the means now to do so.  This is only due to the grace and efforts of those angels at Amar Seva Sangham.

Then, before he could be sent, he stole some things, and tried to hide them.  A cell phone.  He took a key and opened a locked place where money is kept, took the money.  Took some jewellries that they make there and a book, some cloth…he called some contact on the phone, then buried it behind a building….not good.  When he was confronted, he managed to run away.  A police search ensued, he was found near the Kerala border.  He was held for one day, while ASS consulted with us as to what to do.

Others in our group wanted him to be released and sent on his way.  Neither Link nor I think this is good.  If there had been repentance for stealing, OK, its over, go on your way, start a new life.  But, there was none.  Among other things, we wrote a letter back to them with this paragraph in it which explains our stance:

“While we admire your compassionate stance,  we truthfully are not sure if this type of compassion will help him to reform himself.  As of late, Amma has told some people to press charges against those who have done crimes against them.  It may be that , as a whole, the good people on this earth have been too compassionate with evil and mischief minded people.  We have only to see the state of the earth to see that this is true - senseless wars, bullies in offices….I am very concerned that without rehabilitation Shiva may go in a very wrong direction…young people are the hired gunmen of different political parties, etc.  I recall him saying one night that he had two sides…I do not know how he can be reformed, I am afraid to let someone loose who has no conscience when it comes to stealing, lying and disrespecting people…” from our email to them Aug. 9/08.

I found this quote from Abdul Baha ( I just LOVE Abdul Baha) regarding the use of compassion:

“O ye beloved of the Lord!  The Kingdom of God is founded upon equity and justice, and also upon mercy, compassion and kindness to every living soul.  Strive ye then with all your heart to treat compassionately all humankind - except for those who have some selfish, private motive or some disease of the soul.  Kindness cannot be shown to the tyrant, the deceiver, or the thief, because, far from awakening them to the error of their ways, it maketh them to continue in their perversity as before.l  No matter how much kindliness ye may expend upon the liar, he will but lie the more, for he believeth you to be deceived, while ye understand him but too well, and only remain silent out of your extreme compassion.” ( Paine, M.H. (compiler) (2006). The Divine Art of Living, Selections from the writings of Baha’u'llah, the Bab, and Abdu’l-Baha:76  Baha’i Publishing, Wilmette, Illinois.)

Well, there is not much more we can do.  We are not Amma, who has the capacity to tolerate theives, and take whatever good they do, and bless their souls with that.  Having no such capacity, we have had to distance ourselves from him entirely.  For those who are associating with him, we wanted to make our stance known.  We can have nothign more to do with Shiva, as there are too many innocent people around us whom he could violate.  They also need to be protected. OM.

Loving you,

Kamala Aunty

BLOG: GURU POORNIMA, Shiva Update, ACF

Dearest Friends and Family,

We had Guru Poornima here on Friday, July 18. It is a day of honoring the Guru with love and gratitude. Celebrated throughout India, and for that matter the world, I could not help but reflect that just as we were all sitting in our own understanding of who was the Guru, for all of us here – Amma, for millions of other people throughout the planet, it was somebody else. Yet, the celebration was being done. I looked around at Amma’s devotees, and saw their dear faces all aglow with happiness and intensity – that she is here with us, that we can do these types of things with her in mind. There was a sure confidence in everyone. It made me reflect how, what the Guru is, for everyone, is the ideal. If the Vedic architects had made this day, Amma Poornima, then we would all understand that it was specifically for Amma, but they made it, Guru Poornima, and all over, people celebrate it with their particular manifestation of the ideal in mind. Its such an interesting concept…the form of consciousness…

We continue our studies on our great brother Gandhi, the sadhak of sadhaks. Gandhi claimed never to have found an external Guru. That is to say, the purified form of his own consciousness outside of himself. I found a few sentences that Gandhi wrote when he was on the way back to South Africa from one of his failed negotiating trips to England in 1909. On the return ship, he wrote Hind Swaraj which is a remarkable treatise on the highest potentials, definitions and practice of what a refined democracy would look like in practice. What are also remarkable are the statements he makes about his state of mind. Here is the quote:

“My ideas about satyagraha had now matured and I had realized its universality as well as its excellence. I was therefore perfectly at ease. Hind Swaraj was written in order to demonstrate the sublimity of satyagraha and that book is a true measure of my faith in its efficacy. I was perfectly indifferent to the numerical strength of the fighters on our side.”[1]

For me, in my understanding, such as it is, the words; “perfectly at ease” and then ‘I was perfectly indifferent to the numerical strength of the fighters on our side” indicate that in his exposition of Satyagraha and Swaraj, he had come into contact with his inner Guru. That Guru within, the ethical ideal of Truth he beheld in his spiritual practice of Satyagraha, Truth Force, or Adherence or ‘holding on force’ to Truth. To be ‘perfectly indifferent’ is to have come into contact with Truth so firmly, that one is henceforth fearless. One is fearless, because one is convinced, convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt as to the Truth of the ideal within. He had certainty. For me, from what I can see, certainty and convincement is surrender.

Surrender is a term, which as an American, growing up in a weapons-producing society (with the constitutional right to bear arms), I have always felt uncomfortable with. In the US, we have a certain level of violence that is built into speech in the culture. We say things like, “I could have just died!” (meaning some sort of embarrassment) or, I could have killed him” (here, it doesn’t mean murder, only frustration of some sort) or “Go ahead, shoot,” (when we mean, go ahead and ask a question)…there are lots more, but those come quickly to mind. Surrender in such a culture is a thing that “yeller-bellied” (I think that one comes from bloated dead frogs) fear filled cowards do. Not brave people. “I surrender” is the cry the bad guys make when the cops get ‘em in the movies. It means they give up their own efforts, and will now meekly obey their new bosses. It doesn’t mean necessarily a change of heart. The words convincement and certainty, however, are terms that appeal to my mind and understanding, they point a direction of sureness, fearlessness and correspondent courage of heart and mind. So saying, I think that certainty is effortless.. Once we are certain of the ethical ideal within, nothing will change our course, we will be able to bear everything, as Anni did, without a single painkiller….we will be hitched to an unshakable reality…that allowed Anni to do all that she did, with such beauty and radiance, that allowed Jesus to be hung with all those horrid nails (our human barbarism has changed so little since then) and still seek forgiveness from his ideal for the ignorance around him. What he went through in three days…was terrible. But, I feel Anni had it much tougher. Much, much tougher. One who saw her suffering for days said, ‘What Christ went through, only took three days, What Anni is going through….”

Shiva. We got a call from Amar Seva Sangh, Shiva had been sent to the Dr. for a check-up, and they found he needed an operation, piles problem. Probably due to those circus tricks where he lived on a bike for 10 days without going to the toilet…drinking just enough to stay alive so he wouldn’t need to get off the bike and urinate….such tapas, for a few coins only…or from glass pieces when he broke the tube lights on his arms and ‘ate them’ collecting the slivers in his throat…So, we all rushed and sent Rs. 10,000 for the operation, which included Rs. 3000 for extra foods to build him up….Today, Lata came ‘round and said that unfortunately, his attitude has been rather unbearable for the people there. He has been verbally abusive…the upshot (that’s another US phrase) of it all is, after 5 months, he has burned his bridge there. Or shot himself in the foot (another phase, meaning, done his own chances there in) When he is given food, he throws it down, demanding chapatti (I think he is on a liquid diet or very soft foods, due to the operation…) and is generally rude…I don’t think he wants to stay there. I think he wants the freedom of the streets…The real problem is that Shiva doesn’t not want to be saved from such a life. If I could take an outside house, and devote my time and energy to loving him up and working with him, one on one, very intensely, I’m sure there could be progress. But, I do not have the resources and energy to do so, plus, Shiva has shifted in his outlook towards those of us trying to work with him here, from friend to a bit of the ‘con’. It takes skills, dedication, patience and undying love to alter these situations. I think having Hindi speaking people around as well as food that is more ‘northy’ will be positive for him…most of all, he needs love….I think nutrition is a big problem…if you don’t get enough of the right kind in the growth and development, some undesirable mental kinks can take place…please pray for him…Shiva….

Anyhow, as a result of all this, we have decided to keep Anni’s Care Fund open for those that want to donate to it. The money that was in it has been given, as we mentioned, per Amma’s advice to a scholarship fund that Amma has for poor children in the M.A.M. Mission Trust. Thats $2200. Two thousand, two hundred) We are keeping one hundred in the account to keep it open. From this point, any money that come will be used to enable us to help emergency situations in the lives of others that come across our path, or to provide interventions that can make a difference. We still want to get Anni’s album out, but those costs will come from elsewhere. Anni’s Care Fund will now be a gift from Anni via all who donate to it for the Care of others in some way. So, if you like, please pass the word….we’ll see what comes, and discuss it all with you as we go along.

Well, I don’t know about you, but those are some of my musings…

We are finally having a day of monsoons…one of the last days of the season, and finally, full rain for the day. I have really missed the monsoon this year – its interesting though, although we had so little of it often the air was cool…perhaps the rains elsewhere made it that way…I dunno, Mother Nature’s really messed up, thanks to all of us…

May we all become certain of the ethical ideals within us.

Loving you,

Kamala Aunty

Dearest Friends and Family,

The blog has been down for some time, but Anand, our genuis Whizz Kid, has managed to get it up again.  I’m posting the entry we wrote for Guru Poornima after this.  There was a pornography problem, then the site had crashed.   To those who want to destroy the efforts of others, please ask yourselves, What for?  I hope that you will find a more loving and positive use of what is left of your life.  The world is in such misery, people are suffering so much, why use the time here given to you in this way?  I hope God will give you some beautiful experiences that will expand the love in your hearts so that you won’t feel like doing these things to others.

God Bless you. PEACE.

KAL

Dearest Friends and Family,

We have to offer our apologies to your eyes and sensibilities. Apparently some brilliant but mischief oriented mind filled this blog with pornographic links. We trust that the problem is now over. One wonders at how people are spending their time on this earth – seeking to hurt or damage others in sick ways…it’s a very strange world. Such a mind that did this is one that has not been exposed to his ethical instinct. I regret to say, I’m quite sure it was a male who thought like this to do such a thing. As such, we see a person in living in their animal instincts – aggression, animality…it just amazes me how many people talk and do things just to hurt or damage others. All of our lives are running out like sand in an egg timer…but we keep ourselves distracted from our great purpose. None of us belong here. Soon we will all leave. Better not to take the whole experience too seriously…

That said, I need to add a bit to the story on Sabari. We subscribe to the newspaper The Hindu. The most worthwhile regular feature in it, is its “Religion’ and ’50 years ago today’ section. I have found a lot of interesting points in these sections. Today’s (July 14, 2008 page 9) was a brief overview of Sabari’s life before she met Lord Rama.

“The manner in which Sabari attained liberation was a testament to the efficacy of service to the Guru. Sabari belonged to the tribal community and hence she had no inkling about the persuit of liberation from rebirth through scriptural study. But her greatest assets was her unalloyed service to Sage Matanga and his disciples who were engaged in austerities and performance of Vedic sacrifices. She took upon herself to keep their hermitage and its environs spotlessly clean. She grew old in this sefless service and when the sage was to cast off his body, she was unable to think of a life without serving them and beseeched him and his pupils to take her along. It was then that Matanga assured her that she must stay on in the hermitage, and that she should await the arrival of Rama who would grace her.

With total trust in the Sage’s word, , Sabari continued to tend the hermitage with great care and gathered fresh fruits and flowers every day to offer them to the Lord awaiting His arrival with great expectation. And her faith was answered when Rama and Lakshmana arrived at her abode directed by Kebandha. With Great joy she extended her hospitality and showed them around. Sabari’s reply when Rama questioned her whether her attendance on her preceptor had been rewarded is a pointer to her spiritual maturity. ‘Today my birth has borne fruit. My asceticism too has become fruitful today and heaven too will definitely fall to my lot, now that You, the foremost of Gods, have been worshipped by me.’”

Indian Kathas are so amazing in this regard, they are all like an onion. You can go on peeling and peeling, each one reveals more connections, more stories, a multi layered and textured fabric of folklore, unbeatable in cultural complexity interconnectedness and the elucidation of different aspects of dharma. Fantastic Stuff…all children deserve to have this moral imprint upon their minds when small.

About Shiva, he’s OK and not OK. The years on the street, living in bus stations, the glory feeling of crowd adulation and management through circus life are making it hard for him to be stable in Amar Seva Sangh. However, the people there are very patient and loving, but I regret to say, our Shiva is not putting his best foot forward. However, while he has balked at studying, he has learned how to stitch tailor work well. He has not yet learned how to cut the cloth. Please give your prayers for him. We hope he will settle down, become peaceful and respectful, and recognize the wonderful opportunity being given to him. The situation for the very poor is one of cultural poverty also. One has to be educated to be considerate to handicapped people, educated, if it doesn’t come naturally, not to make fun of mentally challenged people. Educated not to laugh at someone when they get hurt…its an education – that which draws out of us - into our ethical instinct…and once we go that way, it becomes natural, for it is. But the very poor, faced with the constant oppressions and yellings from those above them, compounded with nutritional deficiencies, often have the natural way educated out of them. Here, educated means conditioned.

I submit that those who have, or consider themselves better than, or ‘bigger’ than, are mostly unaware of how they hurt those who don’t have. To ‘not see’ others who are poor and disadvantaged, is oppressing. To shout at them as though their poverty or physical handcaps has also made them deaf and dumb is oppressing. I was with a friend who was, the other day, getting coconuts. I don’t think she was even aware of it, but she waited until the person who was cutting the coconuts had bent down, cut off one for her – and then said, ‘not that one’, and indicated another. It’s a very small thing, so it seems. But if it were us who was bending down in the heat, preparing the coconut, it is a denial of our effort….and is a demeaning reminder that we are to ‘keep quiet’.

Like our darling angel Satybhama here. She has some spinal deformity, and as I said earlier, may have some form of autism, at any rate, it seems to be difficult for her to speak. Her voice is a whisper. While she doesn’t hold conversations, or make trivial speech, she is totally in the present moment…ask her anything practical, and if it concerns her, she will say the needful and no more. She has excellent control over the gift of speech. I have never heard her say anything unkind about anyone. She has great understanding, and from my close experiences with her, I can testify that she knows exactly what is going on. Yet, some people here feel free to shout at her, and shoo her away, as through she is an unwanted dog. It makes my blood boil. I don’t like it when I see it happening to dogs either. I really wish there were ethical emergency centers throughout the planet, and whenever we see someone abusing someone, we could go there, they would immediately send someone out in a uniform, to speak to the offender, to make them aware of the stupidity of their actions, and how it debases themselves their own soul, when they degrade someone so innocent.

My Satyabhama has no adult ego. She has the heart of a child. Yet, increasingly, I am finding that she is fearful of certain people who feel they are doing God’s work by shouting at her…She trembles when she sees them, and tries to hide behind me…..as her friends, when we stand up for her, immediately the sneering lordsmanship of those who yell at her and put her down is directed to us.

Yet these same people caught at another moment appear sane, balanced, pleasant, communicable…but somewhere along the line, in their educated conditioning, they got this other warp….not that we don’t have our own, but, we are saying this in the hope that it will be of some help.

Perhaps it is seeing this all over India, not just in Shiva, or the ‘educated people’, or children of the better off – I do feel India could benefit greatly from the study of sociology and anthropology. Such studies enable us to see ourselves objectively in our cultural, social and environmental experience. Once we can begin that intellectual separation from total identity with the behavioral patterns around us, we can begin our education into who and what we really are. If it were to happen, the imperialistically dominant stance of theses spheres of study would have to be examined also…studies of people who are the ‘natives being studies’, tend to be from rich, white countries. There are some studies that go the other way also.

I remember as a youth, I took an Anthro course called, ‘Monkeys, Apes and Humans’, with Dr. Jane Goodall. The course and Dr. Goodall, with her simple and modest bearing gave me much food for thought. During that semester, I used to spend a part of each day, sitting at a café, called ‘Peanuts Cafe’ observing human beings in light of the things I was learning and musing as to what Truth is.

One thing I learned in that course was how female monkeys present their bottoms to males when they are in estrus, or able to be impregnated. Prmates do numerous things to draw male primate attention to their bottoms. Not only is there the swaggle walk, but tail movements, lots of little cues to the male primate. They do this only when they want to be impregnated. Dr. Goodalls course was based upon her detailed research in the quiet forests of Africa on primate behaviors.

Sitting in the Café, watching the busy streets of San Jose California, it slowly dawned on me that I was seeing some humans acting like primates. Some ladies were wearing tight pants or jeans, high heels which cause the body to stick the bottom out more in order to gain postural balance, and swaggle walks… and some men with the corresponding aggressive walks of the male primates – arms out slightly from the sides, head down and forward a little…there is an undeniable connection between a lot of human behavior and primate behavior. This connection was my own mental association, I don’t recall if it came up in the course…I think not…as the study was so clinically oriented that it didn’t allow a lot of common sense connections….

India doesn’t realize how refined and civilized her culture was. Everything in India is geared to awaken the ethical man, to deny the animal man…the indigenous clothing for both males and females down plays the gross accentuation of bottoms and breasts… Men and Indian men don’t realize how ridiculous they look in their western pants when they could be in flowing robes which always look dignified, graceful and to an extent, princely. The Sari and Munda or Lungi or dhoti, even the Punjabis of yore, ensured that people minds, though their eyes were potentially lifted out of their animal instincts… – of course, I have seen people manage to stress their primate natures through whatever clothes they are wearing…And people who look dignified wearing practically nothing…its all in the mind. We often see photos of indigenous peoples who were virtually naked, but there was no sense of body consciousness as our media depicts. They exhibit great dignity. They are the human being, tied to their ethical sense. Its been so many generations now under globalized media madness that I don’t think people are even consciously aware of what they do or why they are doing it. Yet, subliminally, we are, we should not deceive ourselves. I wore jeans as a teenager, I grew up with them. Habituated to them, I was less aware of my body, but, definitely, the effects of the media and body consciousness are unescapable without mental isolation or social and cultural examination and reflection, which is why I think Anthro and Sociology are such a great idea. Once one mentally accepts tight clothing, it no longer feels awkward or constricting. I know that in 2003 when we were in the US, I felt like an average Joe when I put jeans on…it was part of social acceptance. Anni wore jeans in the US, but they were not tight. She always looked decently dressed no matter what she wore.

Its sad to see the changes in the student body attending institutions around . The girls, this year, - many of them came in tight jeans and T shirts. In India where it is so hot that close fitting clothes - well, its all a matter of the conditioning of the mind. Less than 6 months ago, there was respect for the association of the ashram…but, we are seeing that each new wave of students brings in minds that have been exposed for that much longer to the sick models of globalized media madness and its effects upon them.

Of course, one can’t change the world, but it sure would be nice to see India not lose her sense of social and ethical responsibility that her citizens adhered to just 40 years ago…dress is just a symptom of that eroding loss…really, whats going on here is worse than the Spanish inquisition. One can’t even yell though for those who are being dumbed down and denuded of their cultural beauty and dignity are willing for it to happen….and its considered a ‘right’. Their parents encourage them to ape the west…and its an aping….Its all very sad to see India shift from her ideals of duty.

I remember Anni telling me about 6 months after we came that she was relieved that hair was just hair here. Not something to show off to others, or flip around in the air, or make a statement of individualized self identity with, just something on the body to be kept orderly and neat (as in her case) and out of the way. She was glad not to have to devote her mind’s energy to it. I had always kept her hair in two neat braids, and didn’t realize that she had felt some pressure from her school environs in the US to do otherwise. Even here, some girls have told her to wear her hair loose…she never did. I think many children, given a chance to grow in ethical awareness would take to it like fish to water. But we aren’t giving our children the chance. They are accosted everywhere by the sick adult minds around them at work to get money, broadcasting into their homes, ears, eyes, magazines, through every conceivable avenue. Its an inundation that surpasses any military invasion…but no one bats an eye in protest….it astounds and dumbfounds….My dear dear India, precious heart of the world, where is your Soul going?

Some rumors we have been hearing that we want to correct:

1. Anni did not have Animal TB, Amma said no such thing, We never took care of sick animals, only injured; if they were sick, we kept them outside of the room, I am the one with the habit of kissing animals, neither Link nor I got sick.

2. Amma told us to go to the USA which is why we went. We did not want to go. The rest of that story is in the blog at that time.

3. The “Amma said Anni’s an angel many years ago “ rumor, we have already addressed. Amma did this in June 2007 itself only to prepare our minds. Not before. Yes, Amma has said our Beloved is an Angel. To some children who lost their pet dog, she once said, your dog was an angel, and angels don’t live too long. People have since made their own connections and associations.

4. The concept of Divine Revenge. This one I will take up with Amma. I don’t believe in this for one piece of a half second. In all, we find people are so fearful and keep themselves terrified when they are not, and oppress themselves with terrifying thoughts. Don’t any of you do this. Embrace fearlessness.

OM OM OM.

Loving you,

Kamala Aunty, Anni and Link

Dearest Friends and Family,

We find these words to be very inspiring for us right now, and wanted to share them all with you, so you can see how they are for you. It is meant to be a dialogue between Jesus, as the ideal, since he was no longer around physically, in the normative sense when Kempis wrote this, and the sadhak or spiritual aspirant or seeker. Enjoy!

From: Kempis, Thomas, A. The Imitation of Christ. Translated by Tylenda, J. Vintage Spritual Classics. Book 3, Chapter 53.

God’s Grace is not Granted to the Worldly Minded.

Jesus:

Son, My grace is precious and it allows no intermingling with worldy affairs or earthly comforts. If you desire this grace, you must remove very obstacle to receiving it.

Choose some quiet place for yourself and love to dwell there alone. Don’t look for occasions for idle conversation, but pour out your devout prayers to God so that you may continue to preserve contrition in your heart and maintain an unblemished conscience.

Look upon the whole world as nothing and prefer serving God to everything else. It is impossible for you to serve Me and at the same time take delight in ephereral things.

Withdraw from your acquaintances and close friends, and keep your mind detatched from all worldly comfort. This is what the apostle Peter meant when he instructed the followers of Christ to regard themselves as strangers and pilgrims in the world.

Great is the confidence of the man, who is about to die, when he knows that he has no attachment whatever to anything in this world. But a weak individual cannot bear to have his heart detached from everything, nor can the unspirutal man understand the liberty enjoyed by the spiritual man.

2. When a man sincerely desires to be spiritual he must renounce all his friends, those near and those far away, and must beware of himself most of all.

If you have completely conquered yourself, you will easily conquer all other things. The perfect victory is to triumph over one’s self. The man who has so conquered himself that his flesh in now subject to his reason, and his reason, in turn, is obedient to Me is all things, that man, I say, is master of himself and lord of the world.

3. If you wish to rise to this degree of perfection you must manfully begin to lay the axe to the root and dig out and destroy your hidden unregulated inclinations towards self-love and material advantage.

From this one vice of self -love proceed nearly all the other vices that need uprooting and as soon as self-love is eradicated, great peace and calm will follow.

Because there are only a few who strive to die perfectly to themselves and thus, rise far above themselves, countless others remain caught in their own webs and their spirits languish in their incapacity to soar on high.

Whoever wishes to walk freely with Me must put all evil passions and unregulated desires to death and must never cling to any creature through self-love or self-interest.

Thus did our Anni. And so we want to do.

Loving you,

Kamala Aunty, Anni and Link

Dearest Friends and Family,

            Today marks one solar year here, in this very heavy and dense world of awareness.  We can’t say Anni left.  We can’t think like that.  But, we know that we are very grateful to all of you who held her in your hearts and prayed for her.  It was indeed a miracle that she was able to go through such an experience without being dead to herself through drugging, morphine, etc.

            Br. Gurudas – the one mentioned in Anni’s jokes from her diary some months back - gave Link a copy of an article on the scientific evidence of the effectiveness of prayer.  We wanted to share some of its salient points with you.

            Dr. Randolph Byrd, a cardiologist, did a clinical study on the effects of prayer – it was something that would satisfy even Uncle Jeff’s tough standards for research; “it was randomized, prospective, double-blind experiment in which neither the patients, nurses, nor doctors know which group the patients were in.  He recruited Roman Catholic and Protestant groups around the country to pray for members of the designated group.  The prayer groups were given the names of their patients, something of their condition, and were asked to pray each day but were given no instructions on how to pray.  Each person prayed for many different patients, but each patient in the experiment had between five and seven people praying for him or her.

            The results were striking, The prayed-for patients differed from the others remarkably in several areas:

-         They were five times less likely than the unremembered group to require antibiotics (3 patients compared to 16)

-         They were 3 times less likely to develop pulmonary edema, a condition in which the lungs fill with fluid as a consequence of the failure of the heart to pump properly (6 compared to 18 patients)

-         None of the prayed-for group required endotracheal intubation, in which an artificial airway is inserted in the throat and attached to a mechanical ventilator, while twelve in the unremembered group required mechanical ventilatory support.

-         Fewer patients in the prayed-for group died (although the difference in this area was not statistically significant)”[1]

This last point is particularly interesting to us.  For, we really couldn’t understand how it was Anni did not get better with all the prayers that were going on for her from around the world and around the clock.  Besides the Ashram, she was put on prayer lists in numerous churches, convents, healing groups, throughout the US, EU, India…For myself, if I could put in words, I could only pray Please! Thy Will be done!  It was the only thing that would come to me.

           Anni was so strong willed…I am certain that prayer is what sustained her…I remember one afternoon, she was restless due to exhaustion and pain,  and then suddenly at 6:00, fell asleep for 45 minutes.  Later that evening, Priya Raji called and said that she had done an archana for Anni at 6 PM…for the length of the archana, Anni had relief….could rest….

           Some other things the study found were that proximity to the prayed for person appeared to be irrelevant.   There was no ‘energy’ transferred in scientific terms that are currently understood.

“In spite of the fact that many who pray think that they are ‘sending’ their prayers across space to the sick person, or that they are bouncing them off the Almighty back down to the sick person (God as communications satellite), we must not take these ways of thinking seriously because they do not fit with our observations.  That is not to say that God is not involved, only that distance is once again not a factor.  And on this fact, all the major theistic religions agree.  They have never confined God to a specific place.  He is everywhere.  He transcends spatial confinement and location. He is non-local, an attribute shared by our own minds.  Thus we can say without hesitation that something about us is divine.”[2]

All this is helpful to our understandings.

           While joy, as we knew it, will never return to our lives, we are facing the reality of our short lived existence here with more grim determination than before, if such a thing is qualifiable.  Our interest in lighthearted banter, food, everything, is pretty much gone.  It hasn’t returned.  We prefer to be more secluded.  There is nothing to talk about really to anyone.  Either people know they are in a house of cards, or not. Somewhat recognizing our own state, we have only one prayer – for Truth and Reality, for surely, there, we will know our Anni.  We don’t see this tragic event as any sort of assist to spiritual life.  We never felt we were not in that direction.  If anything, we are grimly more concentrated, and try to find times, as today, to make that concentration even deeper…

           After Anni passed, around the 10^th day, I had the idea to do some ceremony.  When my father, C.F.Willey had passed, I felt a tremendous push to do something around the 14^th day.  So I called our Pappu, who was near to Amma, and he asked her if there was anything I should do.  Her reply was that we should follow whatever traditions the family had.  The family had none.  We are all a pretty non-tradition hugging group.  From her answer, I realized that the ceremonies would be for those of us still in the house of cards, our ease of mind.  They had nothing to do with Anni, they would not change anything for her.  Love, will always reach her, ceremonies are for our solace, not much more.  I guess its like when people grab at Amma, and having pounded her body in someway, think they have gotten something for doing so, advanced themselves in the ‘punya’ credits bank…  Really, she is treated like some sort of Irish Blessing Stone.  I find it aggravating, but have to distance myself from all that now…Amma has even said (and I noted that for one full year, she kept on saying at the beginning of every ashram satsang) she doesn’t want to be touched, patted, grabbed at…it hurts her…that by touching her without her permission to bless ourselves, is only in our own minds…but that she would take the poundings it that is what it took for us to uplift ourselves…Such a statement shows that all that we need, in within us already, we just have to let it be (different from Leave it Be),  and trust in ourselves, somehow, to make it through the fog, to greater clarity.

           Nonetheless, Link and I are using the day for silence and more concentration.

           Gandhi was also a real practical person, not much bound to outer rituals.  I like this interpretation he gave of a Bhagavad Gita sloka

“May you propitiate the gods and may the gods propitiate you, and may you reach the highest good by this mutual propitiation,” says the Bhagavad Gita. There is no separate species called gods in the universe, but all, who have the power of production and will work for the community using that power, are gods – laborers no less than the capitalists.¹

            We like that.  Amma has often said, there is no separate heaven, everything, is right here.  We are the devas, the asuras, the human beings, depending upon our ideals and outlooks and what we are self identified with at the moment.

O!  we finally got a chance to ask Amma about Anni’s Care Fund during the room interview.  She said we could give it to the scholarship fund for poor children.  Will do.

I will ask Link to put up a photo of Anni taken when she was about 7 or 8.  I call it Anni of our Vows photo.

We finished the video, “How to Love a Bird” starring Joy-Joy.  Link will try to put it up on YouTube.

Ammu is in India, on break from school in IOWA, which, from what it sounds like, may be a lake state when she returns there.  We want to get her voice recording for Anni’s album, and Karthu and Nirali also want to be able to start work on the album again soon.  The more I see what’s out there, the more convinced I am, that the masses of people would be glad for Anni’s songs….people make a big mistake to go down to the lowest common denominator.  It just makes us all dumb-dumbs in the long run, and doesn’t pick up the ‘lowest common denominator’ in anyway.

Here, the monsoon is coming in very poorly.  Meterologists were hopeful that Saturday would see the restoration of normal monsoon vigor here in Kerala,  but, it hasn’t happened.  So, you can imagine, its very hot.  A type of heat that just sucks the bones into sappiness. Today started off with nice and glowering skies,  but, it was just spitty, and behind the clouds, a sense of lightness was there…it hardly rained, and now its blazing sun.  Normally monsoons are so delightful…this time, every day, we can dry our clothes.  There have only been about 3 good days altogether of rain, and we are half way through the season.  Its sad and a little scary to see how fast we are all approaching our planetary crisis…famine is in the offing – the unseasonal rains in spring and untimely government distribution of harvesting tractors ruined that whole crop of rice paddy – now its going under due to lack of rain…two seasons gone…somehow, we can rest assured, that the idols of the media, the rich will still eat well during human famines…. Meanwhile, in other parts of India, Bengal, UP, some 6 states, massive flooding is happening…

Kerala is home to birds that migrate all over the world.  As Kerala develops following western models and ideals, the wetlands are filled in, the migrating birds have no where to go, rest, eat….and now with drought, everything is going to get worse…I don’t know why our leaders, seeing the writing on the wall, can’t all agree to halt all production of unnecessary manufactures.  Make moratoriums on all vehicular travel, use tax dollars to fund alternatives to petroleum – and there are so many other alternatives out there, but the biggies haven’t figured how to make a buck off it yet -  instead of military spending…anyhow, we obviously live in painfully ridiculous times. 

Well, on this day, we want you all to know that we are eternally thankful to you all for all your heart prayers and love for our Anni.  In her memory, let us all pray for our earth, and the life of the Creation upon it.  May we all know and grow into truth and love.

Loving you,

Kamala Aunty, Link and Anni.

1 Harijan. June 25, 1938. Age 68.

[1] Dossey, L. M.D.Recovering the Soul: A Scientific and  Spritual Search. Bantam Books.

[2] Dossey, L. M.D.Recovering the Soul: A Scientific and  Spritual Search. Bantam Books.

Dearest Friends and Family.
I wanted to discuss Sabarimala and gender equality. Since coming to the Ashram we learned about Sabarimala. It’s a place of pilgrimage in Kerala– meant to be the hill that Lord Rama went to eons ago. Rama had an old lady devotee, named Sabari who was far outside his ‘inner circle’. She didn’t care for any of that, she just adored Rama. For her, he was the ideal, and nothing but. I think, frankly, although it may be said otherwise, that he probably never even knew about her. I mean, he was in a human form, after all, and if you read the literature, he seemed subject to a lot of human failings and delusions as well. Anyhow, as he approached the area she lived in, word spread among the gentle inhabitants of the thick woods, and people came up to him and told him about Sabari. She lived on the hill. She probably had the whole hill to herself, population being much sparser than today. My sympathies and frustrations are all with Sabari. This lady, by the time that Rama got there, was quite the old woman. She only had a few teeth left in the front. She had this ideal conception of Rama that wouldn’t quit. Every day of her life, she had cleaned the pathway to her hut, in the event that Lord Rama would come. She drew little designs on the side of the path, put flowers in harmonic little nooks…She had this idea, prayer, dream, expectation, hope, vision, (it was really a bunch of little knowings all rolled into one big knowing) that he would come. After sweeping and fixing the path for him, she would go and gather fruits, so that when he came she would be able to offer him something. That day, that Rama was hiking through with Lakshman, he actually came up the path to her hut.
You can just imagine Sabari’s state. As it was, it was mid afternoon, and Sabari was sitting on the tiny porch of her hut, looking out, down the path, half seeing, as she always did, Lord Rama walking up. Then, up he really comes. For a few moments, Sabari was still lost in her reverie, Rama could see the shift from reverie to Reality in her as he came close. In seconds, she was up on her spindly legs, laughing and gasping, all at once. With trembling hands, she led him into her hut, places him on her kitchen peetam, and washed his feet, his hands, and then, chuckling like a dervish, got the bowls of forest berries she had gathered that morning for him. As she pirouetted from the shelf in the wall where the bowl of berries had been kept, back to a kneeling position at Lord Rama’s side, she half glanced at the berries.
Doubt, and dark suspicions about the quality of the berries flushed into her mind. She looked at Lord Rama, the Rama of her heart, that had finally come, to be adored by her, who had walked up the path…his path,…, after so many years…and shook her head violently, shuddering slightly. No, she had to make sure the berries were sweet for him. Rama reached to pick out a berry… Kneeling by him, she smiled sweetly at him, and nodding in agreement with his desire, she held the bowl back, inspected the berries for the best one, bit it, to make sure the juice was sweet, and passed it approvingly to Lord Rama. For that visit, in the hut, Lord Rama went into his Omniscient consciousness. He and Sabari were one, it was a movement of complete harmony – Sabari biting each berry gently with the remaining front teeth, then putting them to Rama’s mouth, and Rama eating and nodding…
Anyhow…that’s why the place is called Sabarimala – Sabari’s hill. There is a statue of Lord Ayappa there. His story is also quite long and detailed, in a gist, he was a noble prince was from a dysfunctional rich and royal family. He was the first born, and the crown prince. There was deceit and cunning, his father’s second wife wanted him out of the picture. She plotted. He ends up volunteering nobly to go and get tiger’s milk to cure her. He goes off into the forest, and returns, riding on a tigeress. His fearlessness and friendship with the tigers blew everyone’s mind. Ayyappa then renounces the kingdom, then 16 years of age, since it means so much to these people that they would plot murder to gain it (experience is a great teacher of dispassion)…and heads to the forest. His father wants to commemorate him in some way, and so Ayyappa tells him that he will shoot an arrow, and where it lands, build a temple to him, with only 18 steps. So said, so done, and later with the assistance of really inspired architects, the temple is built on top of Sabari’s hill (Sabari by now, is long, long, long gone). After this, one of the minister who started the plot with the confused queen, falls sick and has a dream in which he is instructed to bathe in the river then go to the Ayyappa temple, and chant loudly “Swami Sharanam Ayyappa” as he climbs each step. This he does, and he is healed.
Tremendous faith in Lord Ayyappa is present all over India. He was a pure brahmachari. For centuries and centuries, people have trekked from all over India to go to Sabarimala.
Traditionally, only males are allowed to have the darshan of the idol. Many of the male students here take advantage of the pilgrimage season. There are a lot of restrictions that people going on the pilgrimage must observe. One must wear a black munda or lungi, travel barefoot, have no thoughts about women for at least 40 days before going…( I don’t know what thoughts men are having, but they are instructed to have no thoughts. This indicates that probably the general quality of their thoughts about women is not very refined) there are many more, I don’t know them all. During the pilgrimage season we often see many Sabarimala pilgrims coming through the ashram. Traditionally, the pilgrimage is done on foot. Nowadays, it seems that only the very last parts are done that way for many people.
Apparently, until the advent of faster transportation, the pilgrimage to Sabarimala was fraught with danger, as men made their way through lovely thick forests, that blanketed much of India, filled with tigers, leapords, bears, snakes and other hazards. Amma has suggested that as a result of this, women were not allowed to accompany them. To accomplish the pilgrimage with all the restrictions of diet, thought, speech, dress, etc., etc. was arduous, and required great devotion on behalf of its participants. Probably the biggest qualities needed were patience and endurance, qualities that Amma has said are naturally inherent in greater measure in those whose sense of Motherhood is awakened. Some family members would be gone for months at a time, even years, depending on where they lived accomplishing these arduous pilgrimages.
At some point, it became permissible for young girls before the age of menarche, and old ladies, after the age of menopause, to be able to accompany the men and boys.
Our point: Recently there has been a lot of agitation to have all the restrictions regarding women on the pilgrimage and at the temple removed.
I want to express my views on this.
Frankly, we have only to look, or listen , or touch what is around us, to see the applications of human intelligence in our lives. Children all over the world now, especially in ‘developed’ countries, live in fear of the bomb, other bombs, guns, other inventions of human intelligence. Our earth, waters and skies are massively polluted due to the devices and concoctions that human intelligence has created. Manhattan, NY, seen from the 30th floor of any building there, is, in my mind a clear example of ‘the mind of man’. Very little can grow, all tarred and cemented, huge buildings, security measures everywhere in evidence, it’s a reflection of the inner mind of its creators.
Mostly, the authors of all of these things, the inventors, creators, are men. We can see from the directions, and values, that human society is progressing in, that the authors are men. Women’s bodies are used to sell everything, even dog food. Aggressive selfishness and competition is economic law rather than ethics. Who authors most of this? Men…..the male mind.
We live in a world where undeniably, more than 98% of the violent, heinious crimes are committed by men. Raping. Killing. Stealing. Looting. Arson. Beating. Mugging. War. Most women on this earth are not comfortable with men. They may be able to handle them, they may trust their husbands, sons and brothers deeply, but with other men, there is a bit of an edge of doubt and mistrust. Its due to the conditioning and experience that women have with men. 99% of the time, it hasn’t been positive. Men are quick to use brute force.
Gandhi noted the facts plainly in his own life, and we shouldn’t let false concepts about openmindedness make us deceive ourselves now:

As I discuss this mattber, I feel ashamed of being a man. Is man, who was born of woman, whose mother carried him for nine months, for whom she suffered pain, who slept only after putting him to sleep and ate only after she had fed him – is man born an enemy of that mother’s kind that they should live in fear of him? A woman does not run away form a tiger; she runs away only from man’s lust. I have already pleaded with women. I wish to plead with men as well. Is not a man bound to remove the fears of women, of whom his mother was one? Should he not always pray: “Take my life before I cast lustful eyes upon any woman. If I ever incline to immorality, give me the strength to kill myself. Remove from me all uncleanness so that no woman will fear me but will feel safe with me as with a brother?” I pray to God that, as long as our men are incapable of protecting our women, he should keep us in slavery. If in a country the men do not protect the women, they are not men at all and are fit only to remain slaves.1

1 CWMG 22:187. Navajivan. January 15, 1922. Age 53.

I frankly feel, that if men want to take on specific restrictions, focus their minds on an ideal of truth and purity, for 40 or more days, it’s a blessing. Lets not stop them. It appears that they urgently need that time and focus. It may help them to behave better. For sure the ones who enjoy going because it is an all male bastion, need that succor more. As all consciousness is connected, maybe if masses of men undertake the pilgrimage with piety, keeping their thoughts clean, their actions clean, transcending for a few days the strong body identifications that make them so crazy for sex, it will help them and others. Cultivating patience and endurance, they develop the feminine strengths within themselves. I think all male pilgrimages are a great idea, and I would not want to deny or get in the way of anyone having that kind of need met. I fully respect their effort to improve themselves ethically. Go for it.
I would personally love it, if there were a few places on this planet where only women could go and delight in nature as the face of God. Where they would have an absolute guarantee of no intrusions or disturbance from male mindsets, a place where covert or overt sexuality was absent from other females as well. Places of deep prayer and adoration of God. I would personally enjoy the peace and security. There are some lovely spots left on this planet, in Kashmir, Kerala, Russia, Tasmania, - somehow, we should find all of Nature’s beautiful temples, and dedicate large sections of them as sanctuaries to the Goddess in all women.
I don’t want the equality I see many women pushing for – the equality that says we can also go and kill people in war, shoot animals, beat others up in Lathi charges, use jack hammers, I want to see a different type of equality for women. Definitely, women should be priests, teachers, airline pilots, doctors, scientists, sportswomen, politicians and numerous other fields of intelligent intellectual endeavor and capability. But I don’t want to see us seek to express the brute that is inherent in men, or cultivate it in ourselves. Its not helping the situation here. There is just too much brute going on. As women get into these other arenas of activity, we should seek to turn them slowly into more refined agencies for ethical qualities to be expressed. I am confident that women’s participation and contribution anywhere will lead to the expansion of meaning and definition of whatever field they enter into. For example, a woman priest would expand the notion of priest hood, to include several other aspects of ritualized care than is currently be availed of. Women’s influences in the sciences will bring harmony and confluence to those spheres, bringing strength through intellectual unity in multiple endeavors…in every sphere of activity, if women participate, the field is bound to become more stable, congruent and harmonious with its contextual reality.
I want women to be seen as having at the very least, equal value, not necessarily equal capacity to express brute strength. Women should be valued, highly valued, for what they are – or what they can be - a bit of grace and sanity here on this earth.
Amma has spoken extensively about this, from all that I have read, I must say, I totally agree with her. Here are some of her words from her speech at Geneva in 2002, when she received the Gandhi/King award:

“The rules and superstitious beliefs that degrade women continue to prevail in most countries. The primitive customs invented by men in the past to exploit and to subjugate women remain alive to this day. Women and their minds have become entangled in the cobweb of those customs. They have been hypnotized by their own minds. Women have to help themselves in order to extricate themselves from that magnetic field. This is the only way.
Look at an elephant. It can uproot huge trees with its trunk. When an elephant living in captivity is still a baby, it is tied to a tree with a strong rope or a chain. Because it is the nature of elephants to roam free, the baby elephant instinctively tries with all its might to break the rope. But it isn’t strong enough to do so. Realizing its efforts are of no use, it finally gives up and stops struggling. Later when the elephant is fully grown, it can be tied to a small tree with a thin rope….because its mind has been conditioned by its prior experiences it doesn’t make the slightest attempt to break free.
This is what is happening to women.
Society does not allow the strength of women to arise. We have created a blockage, preventing this great strength from pouring forth.
The infinite potential inherent in women and men is the same. If women really want to, it won’t be difficult to break the shackles – the rules and conditioning that society has imposed on them. The greatest strength of women lies in their innate motherhood, in their creative, life-giving power. And this power makes woman able to bring about at least as much change in society as men can accomplish…
Women were not created for the enjoyment of men….”
The essence of motherhood is not restricted to women who have given birth, it is a principle inherent in both women and men. It is an attitude of the mind. It is love – and that love is the very breath of life…for those in whom motherhood has awakened, love and compassion for everyone are as much part of their being as breathing. Amma feels that the forthcoming age should be dedicated to re-awakening the healing power of motherhood. This is the only way to realize our dream of peace and harmony for all. And it can be done! It is entirely up to us. Let us remember this and move forward.1

1 Amma (2002).The Awakening of Universal Motherhood:61.

Gandhi also made every effort during his lifetime for women to realize our great strength, to not compromise ourselves in light of the false ideals that are held out before us:
I am uncompromising in the matter of woman’s rights…As women begin to realize their strength, as they must in proportion to the education they receive, they will naturally resent the glaring inequalities to which they are subjected. But to remove legal inequalities will be a mere palliative. The root of the evil lies much deeper than most people realize. It lies in man’s greed of power and fame and deeper still in mutual lust [women as co-sharer’s of husbands power, fame]…That mutual lust too has played an important part in bringing about the disqualifications of the fair sex hardly needs any demonstration. Woman has circumvented man in a variety of ways in her unconsciously subtle ways, as man has vainly and equally unconsciously struggled to thwart woman in gaining ascendancy over him. The result is a stalemate. Thus viewed, it is a serious problem that enlightened daughters of Bharat Mata1 are called upon to solve. They may not ape the manner of the West which may be suited to its environment. They must apply methods suited to the Indian genius and Indian environment. Theirs must be the strong, controlling, purifying, steadying hand, conserving what is best in our culture and unhesitatingly rejecting what is base and degrading. This is the work of Sitas, Draupadis, Savitris and Damayantis2, not of amazons and prudes.3

1 Bharat Mata – Mother India.
2 Heroines from India’s itihasas, puranas, and other legends.
3 CWMG 42:4-5. Young India. October 17, 1929. Age 61.

Gandhi saw that women have to be educated as to their rights, and to the right to resist men. To resist the unspoken demands and media models of false ideals that we use our life, bodies and times for the enjoyment of, or to be pleasing to, men.

“Woman must cease to consider herself the object of man’s lust. The remedy is more in her hands than man’s. She must refuse to adorn herself for men, including her husband if she will be an equal partner with man. I cannot imagine Sita ever wasting a single moment on pleasing Rama by physical charms.”1

Without education of this caliber, Gandhi did not see how India or women could rise: “I can only say that until women establish their womanhood, the progress of India in all directions is impossible. When women who we call abala [weak] becomes sabala [strong], all those who are helpless will become powerful.”2
Refuse to be slaves of your own whims and fancies and the slaves of men. Refuse to decorate yourselves, so not go in for scents and lavender water. If you want to smell well, the scent must come out from your hearts and then you will captivate not man, but humanity. It is your birthright. Man is born of woman, he is flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone. Come to your own and deliver your message again.3
Lets let the boys have Sabarimala. Hope it helps. Let us come into our own selves, and make this world anew….
Our Anni was a tiger, there was nothing of the ‘femme fatale’ in her. She had the purest convincement in the power of Truth and Love within her. Her absolute fearlessness is our constant inspiration.
We hope you will all pray for her on the 22 of June.
Closing on these thoughts,
Loving you,
Kamala Aunty

1 Mohan Mala:105. Young India. July 21, 1921 Age 52.
2 CWMG 64:165. December 23, 1936. Age 68. – All India Women’s Conference.
3 My Gandhi:40.