17 Dec 2008 —
Question
Q99: Funniest moments?
Question 99:
“What are the funniest moments that you remember from your life?”
To post your answer, click on ‘Add Comment’. Please think well before you answer, and make your answer brief and clear.
The funniest moments I remember are mainly when the ego gets blotted out by AMMA’s teachings and guidance and turns me into an innocent child.
Many times, AMMA tells in Her teachings that the child has no ego and so he is always happy and playful. That’s what AMMA wants me to remember always to turn the sad and mad mind into a playful mind of a child.
Of course, AMMA does it always.
I had definitely many very very funny and wise moments with my spiritual teacher before Amma ( I fell in love with Amma and had to leave her). She just knew how to make almost everything funny. Nothing could be serious enough to her. Amazing and liberating moments! Well.. i have seen Amma laughing a lot … it’s wonderful… i wish i could understand!
has to be back in 1999 when I was staying in the long-term male dorms above the Temple (now women’s dorms). It was around 10pm and most everyone had gone to bed but we were up chatting. Something made someone laugh, and another person started laughing at his laugh and next thing you know we were all bouncing off the walls. The sound carried throughout the Temple and I could hear others laughing down the hall – even though they had no idea why. It lasted probably 10 minutes or so.
It was a real laugh fest.
I remember the day in sydney this year,standing in front of amma for my turn,and tears rolling down, my heart is crying not to leave amma,even a moment,want to hold her hand always.Seeing me amma made her face ,the way i am crying and made me laugh. Still i can carrying her memories and the funniest moments we spent .
The funniest moment which I always remember is our Br. Sivan dressed as Radha and coming to AMMA on Janmashtami celebration. AMMA could not stop laughing for a long time and made the moment a blissful and blessed one.
Enacting my present role. Once you have realized that you were before, you are now and you will be always only the role will change, the participants with you will change.
At present while going throuh this question!!!
Amma makes everything funny if she wants to. On one of my first visits to Amritapuri She made me laugh continuously for nearly eight hours. From the moment I walked out of my room in D block I found everything funny. A man was carrying his janitor’s supplies with the air of a scholar – which he might have been in the outside world and I burst out laughing. Another man was walking at an angle like a crab and I could barely control my giggles and it went on through breakfast, in the taxi ride to the airport and in the airplane. I laughed till my family felt embarrassed and refused to acknowledge me. Right up to my home I was laughing.
Amma says that the actions of a crazy person are funny because they are so full of ego. I did all sorts of crazy things like that. I’m sure Amma was laughing.
When Swamiji was starting to sing Meri Jhoppidi De during Devi Bhava on US tour, a boy suddenly started jump-dancing, which made Swamiji start laughing. I think he restarted the song 3 or 4 times before he could make it past the first line!!! Everyone in the hall was laughing!
…usually when Amma sets the stage to crush my ego, and leads me quietly and subtly there! One incident….was some months ago. I was going to Mother’s Kitchen, in New York city. I was guilty of not doing my 1000 Names in the morning, so was requesting Amma to punish me. Well… I got into the subway, going in opposite direction! (i am not so familiar with the system since I am from out of town). I thought, “yes Amma, it was a punishment, but not so bad at all!” At the end of the day, just as i was crossing a major, multi-lane intersection, a sudden, torrential, downpour drenched me dripping wet, from head-to toe!! I was stuck stranded on the divider, because of heavy traffic and low visibility. I must have become quite a sight…so that even a New York bus driver waived me to cross the road, stopping in the green light! …I told Amma meekly,” yes, that was a punishment.” Amma has a great sense of humor, don’t you agree?!
I remember an incident no one knows. When i was in class VIII, i was coming home from my coaching centre. It was a rainy day and just to enjoy the weather, i took another route which i had never taken before. As i was walking on the road at my own pace looking through the skies, i slipped and fell into a ditch!! and found myself more than half submerged in it with my sandals floating near my eyes…. i looked around but no one was looking at me. i quickly got out and ran to my home. It must have been the funniest moment for Amma to find me like that.
I laugh so often after Amma answers a question of mine. Even after all of these years I am still surprised at how frequently she gives an answer that is completely different from the many possibilities that I had considered. I laugh in wonder, amazement, and delight that she can never be figured out. I remember many years ago Swamiji saying that she is “ever new”. That is so true.
I was at my most somber state last winter in Michigan during the retreat. However one boy was continuously entertaining people and making people laugh and I noticed that he was strategically standing near the “Assisted Darshan” seating. How like Amma to bring smiles to the sad through this boy I later realized. What got me cracking up was that he would continuously put his finger to his mouth and make a smiley face thus asking people to smile. Also at one point he was dancing so vigourously to the bhajans and people were laughing so much that Swamiji aimed a small object at him!
This morning was cold. To save time I put Andrew’s (2yrs old) clothes on over his footy pajamas and put his real underclothes in his day care bag. He had this look…he was serious but thoughtful serious, not mad serious. His tone was like a teenager. The tone said “Mom! What are you doing? Hellooo…Im still wearing my pajamas”. What he actually said was “Mama (Pause) Take off jamas.” He said it to remind me like I forgot! I was laughing so hard I cried…we were both rolling on the bed laughing….oh boy…I have no idea why that tickled me so much…
It was my second visit to see Amma. Before the evening program, one of our new friends carried Amma’s padukam (footwear) on a thali (plate) and we got in to the elevator. This friend remarks that it is Amma’s padukam and I stare at it (as if thinking Ok so what). Then I go in the hall and Swamini KrishnaAmritaprana delivers the inaugural speech wherein she relates a story about a poor guy who runs to a famous guru and the guru gives him his slippers seeing his plight and the disappointed guy walks home and on the way a wealthy devotee of the guru carrying his merchandise stops by and recognizes the slippers and says that he wants them and he is willing to trade everything he has. The poor guy realizes the value of the slippers. I embarassingly listened to Swamini and realized how arrogant I was while my friend was showing my Guru’s slippers.
I remember when my 2 sisters and i were young, we used to travel to Europe with parents every summer to 2 or 3 new countries, and we had a weird habit to laugh every time we were entering an elevator the 5 of us with any stranger (for no specific reason).. it was a childish act but it was giving us so much pleasure to hysterically laugh (with tears) which was making dad very upset, and since then he didnt share any elevator with us again!!
But till now when i remember those ridiculous precious moments, i myself laugh again…
Kids’ innocence and lightness is really priceless…
One of the funniest stories I’ve ever heard was from the late Amit who told me about a Brahmachari who was translating during Amma’s Darshan in Calcutta, a few years ago. Amma addressed one devotee who had come for Her darshan in Malayalam: “You need to be detached in life, like a ‘mile kutti’ meaning a milestone which stands by the roadside, impassively watching the traffic on the road, unattached, a witness.”
So this Brahmachari, who did not know Malayalam well, translated thus: “Look here, Amma says you need to have the attitude of a Peacock Baby (the english word ‘mile’ translates to ‘peacock’ and kutti- He heard ‘kuTTi’ which means ‘child’).
So the devotee was perplexed, and thought that Amma wants him to have an innocent attitude like a baby, but he did not know what a peacock baby behaved like.
Amma who immediately divined the problem had a good laugh and corrected the devotee. Amit said the devotee was so perplexed and was already thinking of searching National Geographic to know what a Peacock baby was like!