A Tale of Grace

Dearest Friends and Family,

Many years ago, on a tour stop in Mumbai,  on top of the ashram roof in Nehrul, I think it was in 2000, Amma said that we could all make songs to sing as bhajans.  Many people composed music, and we came up with two songs then: Shivane, and Beautiful People.  From there, our family and friends began many more songs.  We felt all our songs were gifts to us, to return to the One who gave them.  They were filled with a high note of joy, that amazed us, and made us happy.  Over the years, with the help and inspiration and advises of many people, they refined themselves.

There are about 25 of them.  Amazingly, a few more have come since then.  Amazing, as I never thought songs could come to us again.

Before we departed for the USA from AIMS in Kochi with Anni on March 2, 2007,  Karthik  and Suresh flew down from Mumbai to see Anni 3 hours before we left.  It was a hot uncomfortable night,  dawn neared, and there was a knock at the door of our room in the guest house.  When we opened the door, they were both standing there, as thought they had been standing all night.

Anni had composed the song, “Green Grass Blue Sky” in her last day in Math classes while looking out the window, or wishing she could look out the window. ( I haven’t seen the classroom.  I suspect, wishing…)

She taught the song to Karthu, and he recorded her singing the first verse.

Our voices are so important.

While we were in the USA, Karthu took the song, and arranged it beautifully with guitar, chorus, bass, etc., and then sent it to Anni when we were in NIH the National Institute of Health hospital in Bethesda.  It was a video of him singing it.

She was very happy, and he sang it for Amma on the North India tour.  Months and months later, we were astounded to call a friend who lives in Trissur, and her phone message music was THAT song, which she had recorded as Karthu was playing it at Amma’s program.  The power of the song then, what it was calling into being, was overwhelming….

As many of you are aware, 2 months after Anni left her form we were back in Amritapuri.  Karthu came down and insisted that we make an album for Anni, of our family songs. Since then,  for the past 4 years, he has come twice a year, to the ashram, we have gathered singers, instrument artists together from our rich collection of talented inmates and visitors, and he would work 24 hours a day for the entire time he was here.  On the last day, he would take a short walk around the backwaters, always marvelling at the beauty of Kerala, as he never saw it…Near the end of the third year of recording, the studio suddenly disappeared, and we ended up recording one song and several parts here in our flat itself.

Karthu has been  a son,  a big brother, and an extension of our family.  He made us sing, at a time when we could not sing, but he made us sing.  He turned us to the music that we had loved to sing, and he celebrated each song with his particular genius that has the ability to reverence a mood, an instrument, a conception, a voice, all at once.

After much effort, and not to be excluded, a dramatic over-the-edge Leela with getting it to Amma, for we never do have any rights to the fruits of our actions,  Nishkama Karma, Desireless Action, and Amma is a supremely strict Guru….when it comes to righteousness, She doesn’t mince, ever… The offering must be pure, to the Lord of Love…and that’s a whole ‘nother story….the album is out, it has gone on the US tour with Amma.

The Album has 9 of our songs, and two in Hindi: one Bhajan from Karthu, and one joyous song by Nirali.  There is one in Malayalam also sung by Ammu… Aparna Ashok, the documentary film-maker, who sang a song to Anni two days before she left…  Because Anni’s voice is as a solo girl singer, we asked, and were fortunate to have Jasmine Jensch sing Green Grass Blue Sky for the album, so it has both versions.  Before Jassie sings it, Anni’s voice, singing it to Karthu comes on….the cast is huge, one-hundred and more artists alone.

You can hear her beautiful consciousness in her voice.

The title of the Album, Become Love, was inspired by a sentance Amma asked ashram inmates on one of her phone calls from the US on Guru Purnima in 2004.  She asked,  “How many of you have Become Love?”

We are all in process, and I suspect, this album will help, as music transcends…..

The lyrics are up on earthethics.org.in   The song-book doesn’t have the chords up yet, but will soon, we are still collecting them.

Here’s the url click to the Promo Video that Karthu created and uploaded today from some of our studio shots….(one never knew if it was day or night in there)…you can see Eswar at the end, he did alot of the recording and early mixing.  I’d better stop naming you all…I’ll never be able to stop!  This is really Your Album.  Guarantee -  you will dance!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wnCv4ZJU0

Anyhow, we invite you to hear the songs, to sing them to and with others, and to pass the joy and love around in the prayer that we all Become Love!  Yes!  Lets fill this place with Harmony!

Loving you,

Aunty Kamala, Anni and Link

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.