The lush farmland of Northern Illinois glowed hazily in the slanting light of the setting sun as we drove from our hotel to the M.A. Center of Chicago.  Tonight, June 30, 2012, the Center, located in rural Elburn, was being officially inaugurated by Amma and the Honorable Patrick Quinn, Govenour of Illinois as well as other local officials.  An attractive reddish trapezoidal sculpture cum signpost beckoned us up the curving driveway under classic American maple trees to the huge main hall of the Center.  Directed by a bevy of orange jacketed devotee parking attendants, we joined several hundred other parked cars in the flat grassy fields surrounding the campus of the former boy’s boarding school.

Shortly after we entered the huge steel hall Amma made her auspicious entrance for the first time into her newest Center, welcomed in the traditional manner by lovely girls holding brass plates, as the ceremonial drumming reached a crescendo.  Shortly afterwards, the Governor of Illinois arrived with a slight different escort: flashing lights of police cars and burly security guards.  In his speech, the Governor warmly welcomed Amma to the Land of Lincoln.  (Illinois is the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the USA, who guided the country through the turmoil before and during the Civil War, until his assassination in 1865.)

Governor Quinn, who is keenly interested in humanitarian relief, praised Amma for her charitable work and then offered her what is a very great honor in the West.  He told Amma that she was most welcome today or any day she wanted to come, to the state of Illinois and that he hoped she would return and stay at the Governor’s Mansion, and make use of the bed that had belonged to Abraham Lincoln.  Now he would have had no idea that several times a year, Amma comments on the life of Abraham Lincoln in her satsangs around the world.  She recites in minute detail the numerous failures and challenges in his life before he began to succeed in politics.  She uses his example of how determination and enthusiasm can overcome poverty and seeming insurmountable obstacles.

Lincoln was known as the Great Emancipator for his abolition of slavery in the USA.  His goal was the physical freedom of the enslaved Africans.  However, Amma could be called the Greatest Emancipator as her aim is to take us from physical and mental slavery to the ultimate emancipation of Self-Realization.  Amma, her new M.A. Center and the land of Lincoln seem to be well suited to each other.  Late that night we drove back to our hotel under the brilliantly waxing moon.  Amma, as usual, was still giving darshan- in her newest Center-the fruit of the hard work and sacrifice of countless Midwestern devotees

Rta S
Elburn, Illinois