Category: WithAmma
travelling with amma
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The wish fulfilling Mother of all
French Fries in Munich Recently at the Munich program, little Aikyam came up to Amma for his morning hello and kiss. Amma looked at him fondly and asked if he had eaten. Then she told him to wait and sent for something. When it arrived, Amma put something on a plate and offered it to Aikyam. It turned out to be French fries! The people standing around kept telling him that Amma had made the fries for him. Then Amma herself turned and explained that on the way to Munich, someone had offered the group travelling with her some fries.…
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Duende meets Parashakti
Barcelona, Spain – Europe Yatra 2014 Barcelona was the first stop on the 2014 Europe tour. The weather was warm and sunny, which was a boon for the many people who lined up in the early hours of the morning to try for an early token. The huge sports hall was packed with enthusiastic Spaniards, who despite lots of cheers and applause, also meditated with Amma and listened to her satsang in pin drop silence. The University table where I worked was located next to the local seva table. The organization was amazing and the response to seva requests was…
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Tangled Apron Strings in New Mexico
Producing Amma’s New Mexico program requires thousands of hours of seva in many departments. This year I was once again doing the kitchen laundry. This requires loading several bags of damp aprons, rags, and chef’s coats used by the kitchen staff while preparing and serving meals, and driving to the nearest local laundromat. Fortunately, in the USA, there are many convenient and large laundromats . However, all the nearest ones had already been commandeered by the people washing 35 loads of staff laundry. So I drove to the far end of the town of Espanola, one of the earliest Spanish…
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The sprouting of the seed
Never, not in this lifetime did I ever picture myself rising before dawn to a cold bucket shower, sporting the occasional sari, mentally offering flower petals at the feet of the Divine Mother, chanting Ma-Om with “each cell of my being dancing in Divine Bliss” around the tropical palms of a little fishing village in India! Going on nearly 20 years of “knowing” Amma, receiving Her blessed darshan each year since I was five years old, it has been a surprising journey discovering how spirituality has finally bloomed in my life. Though the seed was planted in me early, growing…
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Interacting with Her Orphan Children
For a moment, it appeared Amma would be pulled off the stage! We had stopped at one of Amma’s orphanages for a late lunch on our way from Palakkad to Trivandrum, and Amma was saying goodbye to the children. They were excited, shouting and crowding towards Amma with hands outstretched upwards to reach her… In turn, she had bent forward at the waist and was reaching down to each one of them with a look of immense love and joy on her face. Her broad smile seemed blissful as several small hands tugged at her arms, while others stroked her…
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She Doesn’t Rest…
The 2-week tour to Mangalore and Kerala ended with the Trivandrum darshans on the night of 25th/26th Feb. Coming to the stage at 11am on 25th, Amma gave darshan till 2:30am. Wanting to reach back Amritapuri at the earliest and avoid the hot day-time driving, we had planned to load the bags at 1am and be ready to board the buses and head back home as soon as Amma finishes darshan. The 13 tour buses started at 3:15am and reached Amritapuri around 5:30am. Amma joined us at 8am. 3 more buses transported the additional people who had come from Amritapuri for…
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A moving ashram of 700
As we started doing registrations for the present 2-week tour, we expected the number of registrants to be similar to the recent tours. But with the crowd of westerners in Amritapuri not having reduced much since the New Year (coming down just from 1600 to 1200), we suspected that we could be facing a new situation… Still we never expected the numbers to get close to 400 registrants… When we finalized the buses and departure time came, 420 westerners had joined the tour!! All past records were clearly broken. With an additional 300 Indian ashramites, the tour’s vehicle-caravan consisted of…
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Happy Amritapuri
Just like 2 years back, no major tours have been scheduled for the December-March period and the ever growing number of visitors and residents have been enjoying a blessed and stretched extended period near Amma, right here in Amritapuri… where it all began 40 years ago. The darshan days are busier than ever with large number of seekers and devotees from all over the world reaching Amritapuri on daily basis. There are the old-timers, the regulars and an increasing number of groups and new comers. Free from the time constraining tours, Amma welcomes all with her usual extremely generous disposition,…
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Devi who loves the Names
2 Jan 2014, Amritapuri Devi, the form of the Divine Mother is glorified in Hindu scriptures by various names attributing the formless and nameless Self in its compassionate form as the Mother. Yesterday was one such day of beautiful reminders. Amma had been giving Darshan for more than 10 hours. Hall was crowded. As someone got up, the more people tried to squeeze into that space near Amma. Soon it was the end of Darshan. Swami had come to take a place next to Amma to help lead the pada puja conducted by some devotees. After half hour or so,…