A Tale of Grace

Dearest Friends and Family,

Yesterday our time, perhaps still today your time for some of you, marks the 23rd year since Anni began her life as Our Anni.  The life has not ended.

The day before, one member of our Japanese family, Vandana, had a dream about Anni.  In the dream, Vandana was taking a digital picture of her family, and after she took the snap, she reviewed it on the camera, and saw that Anni was in it, next to Neetha ( who is in the photo with Anni a few posts back and in the one below ).  She thought to herself, how can that be, Anni is dead.  Then, she took another photo, and again, Anni was in it, standing next to Neetha.  Then she saw Anni dancing and dancing joyously with Neetha…it was all so vivid and surprising, she woke up.  It was 3:00 AM, and she felt Anni’s presence palpably in the room.

The next day, Eiko came to me with tears, telling me, as they all felt Anni’s presence so strongly.

Yesterday, I woke up, there was some dream of Anni, somehow, she was in a parent role with me in some way.  I was gladly compliant.   Here is a photo of Neetha with all of us in 2004, having a `chakka party’ .  Chakka or jackfruit can weigh 5 and more kilos, and is delicious in all its phases.  Unripe, its called `vegetarian’s meat’ and is a nutritious curried vegetable.  Ripened, the seed pods are sweet fruit, the seeds fantastic bean types when cooked, a little like water chestnut.

Anni, Neetha, Amma, Link and Aunty Kamala 2004 Chakka party in flat at Amritapuri

Link and I felt her strongly with us all day, in our reflections, and then  working in the garden on the jetty.  It really feels as though both Amma and Anni want that garden to come together fast.  Materials keep coming up for us to work with as soon as we think of them.  The only problem is, that `moi’ is not as strong as before, and some days I end up spending most of the day recovering from the morning exertions…but touching and working with plants and the Earth is so invigorating….its very healing and integrating to the whole being.  We very much enjoy to do it, its a wonderful exercise, to make a garden.

I have to chuckle a little, when I hear of  Ashram kids going to the gym, or meeting to play sports in the mornings…if they could only feel the strength and inner joy that comes of making gardens, they would seek to get their exercise that way.  Poor dears, they can’t be blamed, its the problem of their `educations’ they have received.  India also is so very status oriented, that many feel to touch the Earth degrades or pollutes them or is beneath them in some way.  It has been my experience in this life, that this is one of the ways that God hides Himself from us. The Baha’i’s also call God, “the Concealing One”.   Picking up trash, cleaning the Earth for one another, making gardens,  helping baby plants to grow, taking care of the other Creatures in the Creation,  it is there that He is most easily touched…and to work with Him  thus keeps the heart and mind in simple focus.  I guess that’s why Amma has said,

God created Villages, man made cities.

And She has been advising everyone to grow vegetables, and make vegetable gardens.  Only in actually putting our hands on the Earth in love, do we give our love back to the Earth which has made our beings possible.  Simple, small and direct Laws.  I love something R. Tagore said, I don’t have the quote with me,  but it is about how Earth is waiting, with a dry, parching thirst, for the intelligence She gave us, to rain  back down upon HER and thereby, ourselves.  Those who become scientists are meant to use that intelligence to love and help the Earth…but what has happened with the intelligence of `scientists’?  It is very fragmented, and has resulted in great damage to all of us….science has become a totalitarian religion, that can do anything, sacrifice any amount of lives, pollute in any way conceivable, justified by its totally obscure goals.  The problem is that science has ceased to be guided by ethics.  Its a child,  that has become spoiled, gone mad.

The fact is, Earth will NEVER recover from Fukushima, unless somehow, we combine ourselves in unity and love, and with the force of Love, stabilize the atoms.  And that is going to take  a huge mindset away from where we are going now.  Vishu holiday here saw the ashram jetty covered with firecracker wastes.  I heard some people got injured as well, `playing’ with the crackers.  We have to understand the mentality that creates something  like a fire cracker, then encourages other minds to enjoy it.  While cleaning up the jetty I found this cover of a fire-cracker box.

firecracker box, media that encourages an Earth-destructive mindset

I think it says it all, what it is encouraging, the emotions, sentiments, and loss of humanity it inculcates.  What amazes me, is that with all the scientific evidence, with all that Amma has said, with all the scriptures in existence,  destructively conditioned people are unable to get beyond their training, to understand how detrimental fire-crackers are.  They produce misery and fear in the natural creation, the birds are scared witless, the trees and other plants suffer much searing damages, the atmosphere is polluted with sulphurs, gun-powders….and a small group of people stands and gloats joyously at each bang….I mean really, with all due respect,  can we not see how fragile the creation is that is left?  Can we not see how self-centered we are behaving?  In a few more years we may not have birds in the northern hemisphere, thanks to the massive radiation pollution covering the Earth from Fukushima now.

Its interesting how life is one  whole.  We can sometimes see it more clearly in retrospect, which is why I think in the past there was a recognition that aging brings about mature wisdom, if the inner  attunement to conscience and truth is there.  Around 30 years ago, I came across this poem in our local newspaper in CT.  I wasn’t married, had no children, and somehow had the idea that the poem was for a mother who lost her daughter.  It struck me deeply.  Later, when I was pregnant with Link I was in IIT Powai, walking, and I saw a very sick girl being assisted by two caring women holding her up with great concern on either side of her, as she walked along.  When I saw her, it flashed through my mind, “My Daughter.”  When Link was born, he was a healthy  young boy, and the whole incident dropped out of my mind until Anni got sick.

I wanted to give that beautiful poem to you, from Mary Elizabeth Frye:

Do not stand at my Grave and Weep
I am not there, I do not sleep
I am in a thousand winds that blow
I am the softly falling snow
I am the gentle shower of rain
I am the fields of ripening grain
I am in the morning hush
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight
I am the starshine of the night
I am in the flowers that bloom
I am in a quiet room
I am in the birds that sing
I am in each lovely thing
Do not stand at my Grave bereft
I am not there
I have not left.

Here is a photo of Anni’s last birthday in the physical plane.  Priya Raji of the CT satsang is passing the fruit cake to her.  The whole event was a brain child of Arun and Pappu Balakrishnan, our incredible helps and supports at the time.

Anni's 19th Birthday

Also, for those of you who are brave, here is a video that was taken of Anni wishing her friend Gunjan Gogia,  her classmate, a happy Birthday from Maryland, I think it was in April, before her b-day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNMzEkdZ0G4

May all of our actions, thoughts and speech cultivate a love for truth and for the members of the Creation.

Loving you,

Aunty Kamala

I long for a life of simplicity.
In which all beings follow complicity,
Nature’s laws of our inter-dependency.
A life free of needless complexity,
of statements and stances contradictory,
with respect and responsibility,
recognizing the innate equality,
of Life.

I work for a greater understanding,
trying to be always expanding.
For Peace and Love ever yearning,
new thoughts and ways ever learning,
ideas and cognitions combining,
theories and revelations realizing.
But taxes and tariffs are demanding
my Life.

I wish for a world of honesty.
The word to be honored with fidelity.
Hard work and true reliability,
sagacity, valor, tranquility.
Appearance inseparable from quality,
fine print - absent entirely,
transparent to any query,
for Life.

I pray for a planet of peace,
where people may gather and meet.
Local economy, global community,
Mother Nature pristine in her purity.
Everywhere, a birdsong sweet,
Love and prosperity increase.
I pray our planet will see
that Life.

A poem that has been gestating in my brain for the last few days.  I hope you enjoyed it!  Prayers for Japan…

With love, Link.

Dearest Friends and Family,

Our family from Japan has made it out. All four.   But they cannot have peace.   Their hearts and minds are burning for the horrific disaster worsening every second in Japan.

Its astounding, but can we see it?

Humanity has seen many horrors before, where the peoples were butchered, as is happening now in north Africa, middle east, - where the land and all buildings were destroyed, where it was polluted with oil…and I hear now depleted uranium is being spread in Libya, by beings who have lost their own humanity….Human history has seen places where people were chased off and out of the Earth that bore their baby steps… torn off the waters and breaths of air that connected them so deeply, in every cell, to the land that birthed their beings….

But this, now, in Japan?

Over 1000 lie dead in the first evacuation zone around Fukushima. Radiation ‘contaminated’ they cannot be buried. Their bodies will pollute the earth further. They cannot be burned. The bodies will pollute the air further. They cannot be ‘decontaminated’ as the corpses have disintegrated a little too much to bear ‘decontamination.’

Can we understand it? Here is a well informed article, just facts, no fiction:

Fukushima-Daiichi “As Serious As Chernobyl” By Chris Busby

www.countercurrents.org

Because these people are by and large, more cultured, cooperative and better behaved than the rest of the world, they have been other-ized in the past in my country, uprooted and put in concentration camps under FDR (Roosevelt, US Prez) , father of what is now the WTO.

The mayor of Minama-Soma City between the 20-30 km evacuation ring zone (see this link for his 11 minute video appeal with English subtitles) appeals for his starving citizens and recalls to us that the great tradition of the Samurai wrestler, is from his town area.

Message from the Mayor of Minami-Soma City 南相馬市長からのメッセージ (March 24, 2011)

www.youtube.com

A young boy shows a homemade video of the reality for 7 million people in Tokyo – no food. No water. No explanation. Silence. Don’t breathe too much…..keep your windows shut.

http://www.japanonline.jp/reporting-live-from-tokyo-japan-is-in-total-panic-no-lights-no-food-no-gasoline/

A Frenchman, with that flair of style attributable to the French gives this view of what its like to sit in Tokyo now:

http://wireofinformation.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/japan-nuclear-radiation-disaster-frenchman-in-tokyo-demands-the-truth/

What is really happening here?

A great and ancient civilization has been destroyed before our eyes.   Earth, water, groundwater and air, are poisoned.  The inhabitants of Japan are becoming radiation cooked.   The fauna there will die off,  born deformed. The flora – plants and trees will live, but they will be poisonous.

An evacuation zone that should include ALL of Japan,  is missing.

Look at Chernobyl’s evacuation zone, and the area that it actually severely affected. Now draw the circles around Japan, without even accounting for the fact that this is so far, 7 times WORSE than Chernobyl….

what do we get left?

I sent a message to Mercy Ships, begging them to get as many people out of Japan as possible.   No reply yet.  If any of you know any ships – or have friends and relatives in the cargo business, lets please use any and all connections to get the people who want to get out of Japan out, before it is too late for them.

My Japanese family,  I hugged them,  their hearts are numb,  they are in a state of unbelievable shock.   Its one thing to lose your family, your house, your property.    But your entire COUNTRY?    And Most of the PEOPLE in it?  Who will and are dying horrible suffering, starving and thirsting deaths?

Your history as a human being, a culture?   Lose in the sense of never being able to touch the Earth there again…for at least 500 years….

If you have Japanese friends, extend to them every kindness and consideration.   If they go out of their minds for a few minutes, don’t seek to incarcerate them in a psychiatric ward. Surround them with love, tea, human understanding…. beautiful music….keep them in a room, or get out into a garden and sit with them…hold their hands and pat their backs…wipe their tears…if they can cry…..

No country yet has undergone the horrendous test of Japan….our Earth Soul is shaking….this is a test for all humanity….

It is a soul damage that staggers the mind.

One young man lost it and drove into Fukushima Daiichi,  then out,  and down the road to Fukushima Daini – which has had smoke twice that I’m aware of from its ‘’shut down” reactors…..

They haven’t found any intention…why he did it….if we read his actions, we may see the cry of youth in Japan in them….suicidal desperation….

Honour, Respect, and love those who are able to get out and survive….don’t let one glance break their hearts any further….

and let us all begin the mourning,  for we are losing Japan,  precious Japan,  that has added so much to our world human culture and understanding.

Human civilization is going to go forward,  if we can,  without the gracious presence of Japan….

Think of all that Japan has given the world in term of real culture….

And you will see that the Earth Soul,  is in deep agony.

I am afraid to see Amma’s face….How will our Mother bear this?

Whereas before, we could look to a new day, we are entering a long dark night.

And with our mourning,  let us stand together as one,  and turn off the stupid education,  the stupid development,  the stupid energy use….

Lets turn off our stupidity.

Maybe there is a way we could sponsor air tickets on these bassid airlines that want to profit off of suffering? Email me at auntykamala@gmail.com if you have any ideas…

I feel to an extent helpless…but, something must happen,  lets stand together….

somehow….

Loving you,

Aunty Kamala

ps word: Bassid. My cuss word. Admittedly, its close. But sometimes there are no words fit enough.

Bassid, Bassids. Bassidized. Greedy Bassids.