“It is only with the heart that one can see clearly.  What is essential is invisible to the eye.”  So deep and timeless a wisdom spoken between friends in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s ‘The Little Prince’ reflects Amma’s teachings to us.  How profound an experience was yesterday’s installation of the Brahmastanam Temple in Mangalore.  But what was seen by the eye veiled a much greater, invisible power than we might never know.

The crowd was very large and I found myself tightly squeezed into a small space with hundreds of others standing closely around the four sets of closed Temple doors, each set leading to one aspect of the 4-faced deity stone:  Devi, Ganesh, Shiva, and Rahu. Further around the temple were thousands more gathered to witness this mysterious event.

Few could see Amma’s first installing the kalasham on the top of the temple, but the force and power of her actions became stunningly  – almost overwhelmingly – apparent when out of nowhere, on this calm, sunny, blue-sky day, came a great, literally roaring rush of a gale force wind. It blew with tremendous power through the area where I sat, and within seconds vanished as quickly as it had appeared.  This was no mere ‘natural’ occurrence.

Who is this being who calls forth the forces of nature and they come running in reverence and obedience?  What is this power so beyond our wildest imaginings?  Yet she says to us, “Do not as who Amma is, rather ask, ‘Who am I?’”

Completing the installation on the rooftop, Amma returned to the ground level and slipped into the inner sanctum of the Temple, doors closing behind Her.  Meanwhile, mesmerizing drums led the procession of the deity as it made its way around the temple carried by a half-dozen brahmacharis and devotees.  With obvious difficulty, given its massive weight, it was carried and lifted into the inner sanctum where it would be installed by Amma.  Again the doors closed.

At some point, the doors re-opened and the crowd went mad rushing forward for a glimpse of Amma –  pushing, shoving, and packing themselves into a tight space seemingly far to small to fit in all of those present.  Though it seemed impossible to move given how tightly squeezed together we were, Amma stood in the open doorway and with her outstretched arms motioned for us to come closer.  Though impossibly to physically move closer, something amazing happened.

The crowd ceased to be a massive collection of individuals and became one tide like the ocean.  Tensions simply evaporated.  We flowed in towards the door, then flowed back, then a bit left, then right.  It was one movement, one force, one tide, rocking rhythmically in unison.  No longer were we a diversified conglomeration of individuals, we had merged into a powerful unified force called forth by Amma, just as she had called the wind.

The overall influence of the day was too intense and profound to describe with mere words, and this entry represents but a very small slice of a much larger experience.

It is said that Amma installed into the murti her very own power.  Indeed, there was an unmistakable power here, a power beyond speech and understanding, defying capture by intellect or reasoning.   A very small window flashed open briefly revealing this to be a manifestation of the greatest power of all, a power offered to us repeatedly by Amma. This is the power of true Love.  No worldly power humanly manufactured can touch it.

Amma is this power.  Amma is true Love.  And love is a power we have yet to accept or understand, so easily distracted by the world and its entertainments are we, so filled with fears, hidden wounds, insecurities, and ego are we.

With infinite patience and compassion, Amma repeatedly tries to teach us, and to uncover within us this Love.  Something unspeakably profound happened to many of us yesterday, but these words taint its purity.

Perhaps it is better to contemplate such mysteries in the heart’s deep inner sanctuary of silence and stillness.   “Be still and know that I am God.”   Oh, Amma!   Be still…..

Malini
19 Feb 2008, Mangalore