Amritapuri – A Bouquet of Flowers I
From Lotus to Brahmi
Amritapuri and Nature…
One early morning, way back in the late 90s, after Devi Bhava, as Amma went up Her steps, as usual She stood at the landing and turned around to see Her children. Amma’s Face bloomed with a bright smile like the Sun yet to rise. Looking at the smiling faces of Her children Amma said, “Lo! I have so many colorful flowers in My garden.” Kisses flew from Her on all Her children, like the flowers She splashed on us just half hour ago at the end of Devi Bhava….!
For Amma the entire world is a flower, as She has often said. The earliest i heard was in Her 1993 speech at Chicago, ‘May Your Hearts Blossom!’
Now when She saw Her children from all over the world seeing Her off into Her room, after over twelve hours of Darshan, indeed Amma was seeing Her entire world family.
In Her world family, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, Amma includes not only humans as is normally presumed by onlookers, but also members of animal and plant kingdom. Sakala caraacara – the entire moving and the non-moving.
Amma kissed the flowers and the little children by the landing who were waiting to see Her to go to take rest.
Yes, Amritapuri has been home to innumerable kinds of plant life. The early settlers of ashram remember… how remote and impenetrable the island looked from Vallickavu; in the 80’s one could not make way easily through the dense vegetation …to reach the hut where Devi lived.
What was once wilderness is now transformed into a most habitable and at the same time most nature friendly island.
A lotus pond at Amritapuri 
Delicate Bhringiraj flowers 
The small Brahmi white flowers
Today among others the ashram has more than 50 kinds of white colored flowers alone, starting from the tamara or lotus, up to the tiny brahmi and bhringiraj flowers. This when Amma’s world children, under Her instruction, are regularly practicing Peace Meditation, using the power of Imagination, a great faculty that Humans alone have, calling upon the entire world, showers of White Flowers of Peace.
Lotus has a formal superior place in all spirituality; it is the king of flowers, one could say. And brahmi, whose flower is just a few sq mms in size, is a king of sorts in Ayurveda as its oil helps scalp health also heals certain problems like stress, connected to the brain.