Category: General
not this nor that
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Call of Nature – call for Awareness!
Amma always reminds us how important it is to have awareness in each and every action of ours. The following incident reminded me just how important it is to put Amma’s advice into practice in everyday life. It was during a spiritual programme with one of Amma’s disciples in Dublin, Ireland. It was my duty to pass around the wireless microphone to people in the audience who wanted to ask questions. As the session went on I suddenly felt the urgent call of Nature. I figured that in between two questions, while the response was going on, I could easily…
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The chain gang
Today was the Japanese students’ first full day of seva in Uttarakhand and the task of the day was getting rocks and sand from the riverbed up to the village of Batwadi Sonar in preparation for building them a community hall. Sand and rocks are some of the main raw materials used for building new houses and fortunately they are readily available in the riverbed. The only hard part is that they needed to be delivered about 500 meters up a very steep switchback trail to the construction site. When the work began in the morning, each person…
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Empowering Women
I have always heard of Amma’s charitable and humanitarian work and respected her for all that She has done for the society. However, Amritavarsham 60 was provided me with an opportunity to meet people whose lives she has touched and changed. My first brush was with the volunteers of the AmritaSREE project, and the Women Emporwement (WE) activities of the U.N. registered NGO of Mata Amritanandamayi Math, Embracing the World (ETW). A quick snapshot to the activities of ETW gave me an idea of the extent to which Amma’s charitable projects have changed the lives of people around her. Started…
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Amma’s gift of life
Amritavarshini five and half years old Japanese child in Indian costume, getting ready to receive Amma’s darshan on the occasion o Amma’s 60th birthday celebrations. Amritavarshini is one of the unfortunate victim tsunami who has received high level of radiation from Nuclear Power Reactor due to leakage. Her body was full of rashes. When Amma visited Japan to meet tsunami affected people, parents of Amritavarshini along with the child met Amma with grate concern over their child. Amma with grate love asked the parents with child to go to India for treatment. Parents with child arrived for treatment in Amrita…
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Painting Amma’s life on Amritavarsham 60
I landed at Amritapuri a few days ago. Amritapuri is gearing up for Amma’s 60th Birthday celebrations. While talking to Dyanamrita Swami, he told me about a special event that is happening during Amritavarsham 60. A group of 15 artists are using their creativity to capture scenes from Amma’s early years in the form of paintings. The medium for these paintings include acrylic, water color and computer. During Amritavarsham 50, a team of 108 artists made abstract paintings on Amma which were exhibited during Amma’s 50th birthday and were also published as a colorful souvenir . This time the artists…
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Egos outside please
After the momentous speech at the inauguration of Swami Vivekananda’s 150th birthday celebration, and the historical event at the Delhi Red fort area, Amma soon returned her attention and time to us, Her darling children travelling with Her, and Her Delhi devotee children. Amma called us to the auditorium on the top floor of the Amma School in Pushp vihar where we were staying. Amma served us dinner Prasad. As She served, like She always does, She wanted to do several other things at the same time, saving time or rather utilizing time for more than one activity, Amma asked…
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Women’s day
Spirituality has solutions for all the problems of the human world, Amma has reiterated this message many times in Her satsangs. Today, when thousands of Her children from Amritapuri –ashram residents as well as students of the University- went to form a human chain from Vavakavu to Karunagapally on the national highway Amma was offering a beautiful solution to the international social problem bothering women. Amma was drawing attention of the public for the need for empowering women by teaching values to both men and women at large. Amma made us take vows to respect all women as one’s own…
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Sober up with Love
One evening in early March, as Amma sat giving darshan on the stage and Swamiji sang the evening bhajans, a strange scene unfolded in front of the temple. A western man walking up to the International Office and asked for—or rather, demanded—accommodation. By default, the doors of Amritapuri are open to everyone. But in this man’s case, I hesitated. He seemed quite aggressive, and his face bore the marks of physical combat. Beyond that, he was reeking of alcohol and obviously somewhat intoxicated. As he was filling out his registration form, I sat down next to him and suggested that…
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Sivaratri with Amma
21 Feb 2012 – Sivaratri in Amritapuri, with Amma Usually Amma is on tour for the Sivaratri (Night of Lord Shiva) which occurs in the month of February. During this special occasion, devotees are supposed to stay awake all night chanting bhajans to Lord Shiva. But this year, as no tours are planned, Amma was in Amritapuri for that special holy day and everyone was waiting with anticipation for possibilities of Amma doing something to remember for the occasion… At around 11pm, and as bhajans for Lord Shiva were being sang by small groups of ashramites and devotees, Amma came…