The crowds in Tamil Nadu are notorious for being impatient. This year in Coimbatore, Amma had to tell everyone to sit quiet for the meditation, and in Puducherry, she asked everyone to not be impatient while coming for darshan. A group of about ten Westerners takes care of the crowd security, a seva that puts them in interesting situations.

One incident happened with security in Puducherry. When Amma was arriving down the carpet to the stage, an unknown Western lady with a backpack jumped over the barrier and stood in Amma’s path. Before anyone could act, Amma simply embraced the woman and then continued on her way to the peethom on stage.

However, this strange woman then jumped on the stage and knelt five feet away from Amma. Seeing this, someone ran to Sean, a security sevaite, and said, ‘that woman is crazy! You have to remove her!’

Sean’s immediate thought was to physically remove her, but he suddenly remembered that they were in front of a huge crowd, with Amma right next by. So he sat down near the woman and said, ‘miss, this isn’t the time to be on stage. Please leave now.’ The woman didn’t flinch. He said the same thing again, to no avail.

He then said to the woman, ‘I’m going to ask you one more time to come with me. If not, I will have to remove you from the stage.’

Again, nothing. Finally, with no hope left, Amma turned towards the woman and flashed a melting smile, and said in perfect English, ‘you can sit later.’

On saying this, the woman’s face lit up, and she contently left the stage on her own.

These situations help the sevaites to develop their discrimination and patience, and to become aware that Amma is the real security guard.

23 Jan, 2008

Piyush