Category: AshramDiary
life at the Amritapuri ashram
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Ending of a season
The season is coming to an end The room darshans still continue and probably will continue until Amma leaves for Japan and US next week. This task takes up all of her time at the moment.She came out for bhajans on Wednesday and sang the following songs: Yamuna Tira Vihara YadukulaAnathanakaruteJivitamennumKarunya VaridheMere Hridaya Sree Rama BaseOru Nalum PiriyattoOm Namah ShivayaAmma Amma Taye The season here is slowly coming to an end. Soon those of you in the US and Japan will see Amma again, and can write blogs about the tour for us to read here in Amritapuri.We will also…
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Passing away of a great man
Passing away of a great man Yesterday morning an ashram resident loved by everyone made an exit from this world. In the morning hours around 8.20, our dear Bombay Acchan passed away peacefully amid chanting of mantras. I cannot write that much lest I become too emotional. I interacted with him almost on a daily basis for many years and got to know him quite well. I remember when I fist came to Amritapuri in the mid nineties my first impression of him was, “Who is this fiery old man who is always scolding someone and almost emitting flames? I…
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Room Darshans
The last public darshan was on Sunday and it lasted late into the night. Amma has now started receiving all the residents of the ashram for the yearly private darshan. A little private time she gives to each resident to discuss with her whatever is on their minds and instruct them in their sadhana and work. Hence Amma has not had the time to even come for bhajans. It is no small task for Amma to go through everybody here in Amritapuri especially nowadays when everything has grown so much and there are so many people. Amma sits from morning…
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Final Day of Fun
Today is the fifth and final day of the Children’s camp. It will be almost sad to see all the kids go tomorrow, even though I’ve always considered myself a bit of a recluse and definitely not very good with children.These past five days have made me reflect on some things like the nature of innocence and enthusiasm, and their place in spiritual life. As we grow older, and often after being on the spiritual path for some time, we tend to loose these qualities. In some cases we try to make up for it by various things. Each one…
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Getting better every day
Today was the fifth day of the children’s personality development camp. The day was full of excitement as it started with Amma answering the children’s questions, then giving darshan to everybody, and after that took all the kids swimming. After darshan Amma sang Mata Rani Ke, during which the children got up danced all through the song. The whole hall was just one big mass of dancing children. Quite incredible really. The whole ashram is just bursting with fun. I was already up on stage ready for bhajans when I was told that Amma is calling the brahmacharis to join…
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Go Swimming
It’s the fourth day of the children’s camp and by now it almost feels like the children have always been here. The day culminates in the bhajans for them that they genuinely seem to enjoy to the full. You can see that these are children of devotees with some real spiritual samskara. And the love and affection they exhibit towards Amma is phenomenal. During bhajans they sang along, clapped, and almost got up to dance, there was so much bliss in the air. I’m not exaggerating. When Amma sang Om Namah Shivaya they bellowed along with great vigor and at…
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Loosing all shyness
The mayhem continues and the children seem to be liking the camp more and more. They are having the time of their lives. There are spiritual activities, satsang with Amma and all kinds of fun. Right now they are watching Finding Nemo in the temple and judging by the sound, loving it.When Amma came for bhajans the excitement in the air was really intense as all the kids chanted Om Amriteshwaryai Namah in unison, and then when Amma reached the stage they all broke into loud applause. Today there was no apparent shyness anymore. When the bhajans were over many…
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The Soundless Mother
Even though the camper made sound while entering the patio of Amma’s house this afternoon and its door made sound when it was opened to let Amma come out of it, and the people made sound while running to see her, and the trees made sound by hitting softly with their twigs against her house, and the water made sound in the tank nearby running up and down, and cooking vessels made sounds in the kitchen when people there rushed with loud steps out to see Mother, and the crows made sounds on the roof edge, there was no sound…
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Amritam ’07 – Day 2
Today is the second day of the personality development camp, Amritam ’07. All I see is kids everywhere, left and right. If one has any prarabdha to do with children I think that gets taken care of during this children’s camp. With so many children who needs more? I’m just joking. It was meditation day today and Amma was answering the kid’s questions after which she distributed Prasad to them and all the ashram residents, which was a nice surprise. I think nobody was expecting to get Prasad from her today except the children. But then again to Amma we’re…