Category: WithAmma
travelling with amma
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Look within
“It is only with the heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” So deep and timeless a wisdom spoken between friends in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s ‘The Little Prince’ reflects Amma’s teachings to us. How profound an experience was yesterday’s installation of the Brahmastanam Temple in Mangalore. But what was seen by the eye veiled a much greater, invisible power than we might never know. The crowd was very large and I found myself tightly squeezed into a small space with hundreds of others standing closely around the four sets of closed Temple doors,…
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become greater than amma
24 feb, bharata yatra 2008 washim, vidharbha, maharashtra. during arati, at the end of the programme in washim, a girl jumped from the stage and joined the arati line, did the arati courageously pushing a lady who is supposed to do it. after waving it few times, she jumped back on to the stage. amma was looking and smiling at her innocence. later i asked her why did she do that? what prompted her to do the arati? she is sneh priyanka sharma, said that her foot were trembling, heart were longing to do the arati. so she jumped. she…
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beautiful washim
24 feb, bharata yatra 2008 washim, vidharbha, maharashtra. from hyderabad, at 3 am we reached washim. washim is in the vidharbha area, in the state of maharashtra. children and people with their families wide awake, were waiting for amma. the whole street was lit with small oil lamps. people decorated the street in front of their houses with kolam – auspicious designs made with powders. there are a lot of posters all over the city put up by different people welcoming amma. maharashtra has had a lot of mahatmas, and they have moulded the culture of this land. This generation…
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all are ammas children
23 feb, bharata yatra 2008, hyderabd to washim the drive from hyderabad to washim is something like from hi-tech to pre-tech; from the head to the heart. on either side of the roads were full with the farms of grapes, oranges, sunflowers, barley and wheat. as we entered maharashtra, one could feel the change of culture in the air. we stopped in a quarry for the bhajans and dinner. there were some workers in the quarry. amma called them and gave prasad. its amazing, the devotion of marathas. they have a place for mahatmas and sadhus in their heart. there…
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say yes to life
hyderabad, 22 feb, bharata yatra 2008, we crossed karnataka then into andhra state. after some distance our car broke down in the middle of the road. it wouldn’t even move from the spot. there were no apparent reasons why it should not move. where we broke down, there was a temple nearby and a festival was going on! so it was such a crowded highway. we found out that the gear box had gotten jammed!! so it cannot even be pushed to the side. there was no other way out. we thought that if the vehicle cools down maybe we…
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Bathing in Bliss
Before coming to Mangalore, i had made a resolve that I would find a spot near the spigot where the Tirthum (Abhishekham water) would flow out of the Temple. Inside the Temple, Amma was going to pour a few dozen pots of sacred water imbued with herbs and sacred mantras. The murti’s first Abhishekham – for Devi, for Shiva, for Ganesh, for Rahu. I wanted to bathe in that water, to gulp it down fully, to imbibe it as if my life depended upon it. When Amma came down from the platform and went inside, the doors to the inner…
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huge hyderabd
22 feb, bharata yatra, hyderabad, andra pradesh hyderabad was huge programme. there was an LED screen put up in the ground. you could see amma even when u go over the bridge of the far road. so clear and nice. it was so beautiful. it was too cold, in fact chilling at night. the wind started blowing across the ground, it was almost like freezing. there were hundreds of village children who came to receive the ‘vidyamritam’ scholarship from amma. it was very nice to see those children who would be receiving blessing and financial support from amma. the children…
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unexpected blessing
22 feb, bharata yatra 2008, raichur, karnataka. the sun was still on the horizon, in its count down. we were 20 km away from karnataka – andhra border. amma’s van pulled over to an office compound. it was the seed collection office of karnataka govt. the moment amma entered there, an old man, in his eighties came to amma. he said “i was wondering how i came here. i went to see mallikarjuna (lord siva of sri sailam). i am returning back home. here i happened to see you. and was attracted to you. i am very happy to see…
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sleepless drive
21 march , bharata yatra 2008. we reached bellari at 7 am the next day. last 20 hours we have been driving. of course there was a chai stop. but it was a straight drive. we stayed in jindal steel factory guest house. the road to the factory was horrible. that is the reason why most of them were really tired. it took almost 2.5 hrs to travel the last 36 km! jindal is one of the leading steel factories in india. they want to be no. 1. hundreds of truck lorries bring sand that contains the iron ore. here…