April 20th, Korara Beach, New South Wales, Australia

Anyone who has ever travelled with Amma on any portion of her world tour knows that long distances are covered over relatively short periods of time, on the ‘days off’ between all night programs. More often than not, Amma travels with the rest of the tour group by road. For most people who make these long trips by road, often covering over 1000km in a day, the rides are both the highlight and lowlight for the tour. Lowlight because very few people look forward to getting on a bus for 16+ hours or so after being up all night and knowing they have to set up for the next program upon arrival. But no matter how grueling or unpleasant the ride, Amma makes these trips the highlights when she stops with the group and breaks the journey with a spontaneous picnic somewhere in nature.

For many years, Amma and the group had to fly from place to place in Australia because of the order of the cities Amma visited and the fact that the distances were simply too great to make the trip in one day. Two years ago on the last Australian tour, Amma expressed her desire to the organizers that they arrange the next tour in such a way Amma and the entire group could travel by road. So this year the tour was arranged accordingly and for the first time Amma is doing the Australian tour by road and everyone travelling was hoping there would be an opportunity to stop with Amma.

On the first drive from Melbourne to Sydney Amma had wanted to stop, but the buses left late and were far behind and those of us who were involved with arranging all the logistics of making the stop happen, failed in doing so. Amma had stopped in a nice place and waited for hours for everyone until it became dark and started raining and there was too much distance left to cover before the next day’s program. So to the disappointment of the tour group, there was no stop with Amma on the first trip.

So for the next trip from Sydney to Brisbane everyone made their best effort to make sure all the details were ironed out before the drive. The route was planned carefully, everyone packed up the hall as fast as possible at the end of the program to be ready to leave right away, etc. But there was one small thing that was beyond our efforts. For the entire two days of programs in Sydney it rained heavily, almost nonstop. I had checked the weather forecast the night before the trip and it didn’t look good- 80% chance of thunderstorms all along our route. We also needed Mother Nature’s to play her part.

For the first 600km of the journey we drove along the coast with ominous dark clouds hovering above us…but it never started to rain. Finally we reached a spot of the coast with several good possibilities for a stop and a few of us went on a reconnaissance mission to find the ideal place for Amma to stop with the group. A beautiful, empty and secluded beach was decided upon and before the buses arrived, the food was prepared, sound system set up and all made ready for afternoon picnic. Soon after, the buses arrived and all came to sit with Amma on the sand. It was an amazing scene to see Amma sitting there a short distance from the waves with so few people around her. Even Mother Nature seemed to appreciate the scene and for the first time in the day the clouds began to part and the sun shined down. Just as Amma began to pass out plates of food to everyone a rainbow appeared over ocean.

Once all the humans received their prasad, a few seagulls came a landed a short distance from where the group was sitting. Amma instructed the person who prepared the food to make a plate for them as well. All looked on as he walked over and left a plate of pasta for them in the sand. Amma watched intently, smiling, as they also ate her prasad.

Amma then asked for someone to share some jokes or stories with a spiritual message.Then she wanted to go into the ocean. As she walked towards the waves, knelt down on the ground, reverently touched the earth, and started moving the sand around with her hands. She picked out tiny white shells, and made small mounds of sand. Then she stood up, and began walking into the waves. As she stepped in to the water, she became quite concerned about the children in the group. She asked all the moms in the group to hold onto their kids, and made sure everyone around her could swim.

As the water started breaking over her legs, Amma became very playful. Everyone hiked up his or her pant legs or skirts and stood knee-deep in the water with Amma, waiting for the next wave to rush forth. Each time a wave brushed over them, all screamed and laughed like a little kids with Amma. For several minutes Amma stood there, wave after wave soaking everyone, laughing and playing like kids. Each wave seemed to get bigger and bigger than the one before it as if the ocean couldn’t resist getting closer and closer to Amma.

After a few minutes, she turned stepped a few feet back from the waves and asked everyone to stand in a big circle and join her in singing Bandalo, clapping hands with the person next to them. Although Amma kept asking everyone to widen the circle so that everyone could see, people seemed to have a hard time following instructions. Like the waves a few minutes before, everyone wanted to be as close to Amma as possible.

After that bhajan, Amma turned once again to face the ocean, and started to sing “Shrishtiyum Niye.” Her mood changed from very playful and childlike to very deep and inward. As she sang, she stretched her arms out towards the ocean and up towards the sky and her eyes rolled back. When the song finished, everyone was still and silent. Even the waves seemed to have shrunk back and quieted their roar to hear Amma sing to them.

Then Amma sat down again at the waves’ edge meditated in silence. As the meditation continued, tears started to stream down from Amma’s closed eyes. After a long time, she opened her eyes, wiped away her tears, and bent forward to prostrate. She placed her head on the sand, and bowed fully to the ocean before she got up to leave.

Just as she walked back to the camper the sun began to set and for the first time in the day a few raindrops started to fall. There were still more than 400km left to drive till the group reached Brisbane and since Mother Nature had held back the rain all day, seemingly waiting for Amma to finish her picnic, she completely let loose the rest of the way. It then rained very heavily from the moment Amma left the beach until she arrived in Brisbane.

The stop definitely ended up being the highlight for all those travelling with Amma. Afterwards many of those that were there said it felt like a dream to be at the beach eating, singing and playing with Amma. It was such an amazing surreal experience that few could really express the bliss they felt afterwards. The scriptures tell us that we are living in Maya, in illusion, in a dream and we need to wake up and experience the bliss that is our true nature. For most of us there this may have been one of the rare moments that we were actually awake and experiencing reality as it should be, as it should always be.

-Gautam