Back in 1991, Singapore sisters, Renu and Preetha, were lively, fun loving tiny tots who often went on tour with the Amma’s group.  At the Mauritius airport that year, I noticed the girls in tears.  Swami Ramakrishna asked them what the matter was. They said that someone had called them “little devils.” They tearfully asked, “Swami, are we devils?”   “No, no,” he reassured them, “you are ANGELS!” The woebegone faces brightened and the girls went skipping through the airport shouting, “We are angels, we are angels!”

Eighteen years have passed the girls have grown up into beautiful and successful young women. This year when Amma came to Singapore for her program, the girls were present as usual.  They worked nonstop in various capacities.  The Singapore devotees are particularly hard working and hardly see Amma at all during the program.  Amma likes to be sure that the local sevites have some time with her and calls them all to put the prasad that she gives to the devotees into her hand as she gives darshan.

However, someone must round them up these sevites and get them to Amma.  One of the girls, Preetha, seemed always to need to run to search for the people who Amma had called to give prasad to her during darshan.  As she knew everyone, and where they would be doing their duty, she was the obvious one for the job.  Her sister Renu also took turns helping her.  For hours, the girls circled the venue, bringing the hundreds of sevites to the prasad Q.  I was particularly impressed by this, as often I have the experience, when organizing the prasad, that no one is willing to do this job.  Some people work for a couple of hours, or for one darshan.  Some even promise to help, then give prasad themselves and disappear!  But not these girls!  They made sure that every sevite in Singapore and Malaysia gave prasad to Amma daily.

Devi Bhava was festive and busy for the devotees.  Preetha began looking for prasad givers at 10 a.m. that night and continued until 3 a.m. the next morning.  Finally, she breathlessly heaved a sigh of relief as all the Singapore people had given prasad and it was the turn of the Malaysians who were lined up and eagerly waiting.  Then traditionally it would be the turn of the tour staff to give prasad, so she should be able to relax for the rest of the Devi Bhava Darshan.  After a couple of hours, the Malaysian devotees had finished and the Tour Staff had lined up to give prasad.

Suddenly Amma announced that she wanted to see the hard working co-coordinators of the various departments one more time!  The exhausted Preetha doggedly began to circle the venue ceaselessly, bringing each of 25 to the prasad Q one by one! In over fifteen years of organizing Amma’s prasad, I’ve never seen anyone work as hard as Preetha and Renu at bringing the devotees to Amma.

Amma often compares young children to grassy ground and adults to rocky soil.  She explains if we start shaping the youngsters at an early age, it is comparable to creating a path easily in the grass.  Whereas, by the time we are adults, our habits are hardened, and we are like rocky soil- hard material to shape.  Their family brought these girls and their older sister directly to Amma at an early age.  They grew up in Amma’s satsang and hearing Amma’s teachings.   We can see the results of exposing young children to Amma, to her teachings, and to her satsang in their selfless actions.

I thought back to that exchange between the girls and Swami Ramakrishna eighteen years ago.   Call them angels and they will become angels!

– Rita