Finally! The birthday celebrations are behind us…lot of chaos, ofcourse in a positive way i guess. Amma has her way of breaking down the ideas we have about ourselves and others, breaking down set patterns so that we come out of the attachment to our personality and stand free as the infinite…but its a painful process…

The last few days were tough, staying up all night working, few hours of sleep, dont know where to eat the next meal, finding our way through the crowds, going to the ayurveda building for tea! and so on…I just kept wanting things to go back to normal, for me to wake up at 4.30 and go to archana, attend the gita class, sit for the bhajans, the normal routine we are used to and love…it was a battle to keep my equanimity in all the chaos! Thats the training ofcourse…

Things are slowly returning to normal now at the ashram, yesterday amma came out for the satsang, after the meditation, she said she was busy and didnt want to answer questions but she wanted karkera achan to say a few words(she does this sometimes).

Normally Karkera achan, with his emotion on the mike always generates a lot of laughs, but somehow i was paying attention to what he was saying yesterday…he told a story:
The first day of Sri Rama’s battle against the demon king Ravana at Sri lanka, the army of Sri Rama was tired from the battle against the demons, in the evening, in the calm setting, the army was sitting around Sri Rama, tired, wounded, hurting…and then Sri Rama looked at all of them with his beautiful eyes and all their hurt…physical, mental and spiritual was gone!
and then Karkera achan said, “thats what is happening here”.

It really struck me because thats how i felt the last few days were, a battle to balance our physical and mental energies in all that was happening, and definitely i was tired, and sitting around amma during the satsang yesterday gave me the same feeling…
the feeling that i was sitting here and waiting for amma’s glance, sure that it would take away all the fatigue…its true that self reliance is necessary,that we need to feed on our own strength, but is amma seperate from our own true self?

vikas.
september 30,2006.