Category: WithAmma
travelling with amma
-
Reached Mysore
Amma finished her programs in Mananthavadi, visited 3 houses before leaving for Mysore. Traveling through the forests crossing the borders of Kerala and Karnataka, we reached Mysore in the evening around 3.50. Summer has started here, the forest is dry. I could not see any wild animals on the way. Saw only a few monkeys. One was interesting — a mother monkey holding her baby and a father(?) monkey is removing the lice from her body. Only that. That’s all I saw? Yes, because I took a nap. When I opened my eyes I was already in a city. In…
-
Quadruplets
It was baby-feeding time at the end of darshan in Mananthavadi. Early mornig 3.a.m. Today there were 20 babies for Annaprash. The last set of parents had 4 children to be fed by Amma belonging to the same parents. All delivered in one birth! The fifth one died immediately after the delivery. Oh my god. When I told Amma their story She was looking around and warning all the brahamacharis and brahmacharinis… “Look if you had taken up the family life, you would have been like this. (Pointing at the father) See how much suffering he is going through.” The…
-
Intoxicating Laughter
Mananthavadi is a beautiful place. The ashram is on top of a hill in the town. From the top you see a range of mountains around. We are staying in the Amrita Vidyalayam here. Amma is just two rooms down the veranda. Today Amma sang kannunir kondu nin padam kazhukam. It was intoxicating. There was not a single line after which Amma did not laugh. I was always attracted to bhajans not because of the tunes or the lines, but because of Amma’s bhava and her laughter. The sounds of Amma’s laughter—soaked in divine bliss—is utterly intoxicating…it takes you beyond…
-
Procession of Love
Amrita Setu was put to its first test this morning. But it was no tsunami warning. Instead, it was a Procession of Love as about 1000 or so ashramites followed Amma as she crossed the bridge over the backwaters to Valikkavu where her car was waiting. Amma was leaving for the North Indian Tour and will not be back in the Ashram for at least 5 weeks. Earlier this morning, around 5:30am, about 400 or so Westerners and Ashramites left by bus for the 12+ hour trip to Mananthavadi where the first programmes will be held starting tomorrow. Even before…
-
Bharat Yatra 2nd leg
Amma left Amritapuri for the 2nd leg of her Bharata Yatra today at 10.30 a.m. Amma reached the Mananthavadi Brahmasthanam temple at 9.00 pm. Amma will hold programmes here for the next two days. Don’t forget to visit the YatraBologs http://withamma.blogspot.com
-
Festival Block
2nd leg of the Bharata Yatra started. We were passing through Trissur District on the way from Amritapuri to Mananthavadi. Now its the time of festivals in Kerala. Especially in Trissur, which is a land of temples, elephants and festivals. We saw a lot of temples and celebrations. The area around the temples is divided into eight segments. From each segment people will come in a procession with elephants, drums, cultural art forms, folk arts, and girls with lamps and flowers. They all merge in the temple, where there will be fireworks, panchavadyam, panchari, pandi melams (different types of traditional…
-
Natural Wakeup
The trip from Ramanathapuram to Kanyakumari was interesting in the sense that you see the typical Indian villages and their life. You pass through the rice fields, sugarcane fields, bananas and coconuts then to barren lands. Then you come across small mountains. Then cultivation of fans. Yes big fans… Nagarkovil is the district in Tamil Nadu where the majority of electric production comes from wind. These fans are windmills. One of its three arms is more than 30 feet! In one rotation it produces one unit of current. The weather was terribly hot. We were tired when we reached Kanyakumari.…
-
Many faces of Amma
It was in Kanyakumari, I was updating the web site, sitting in the left corner of the stage. Amma was giving darshan. I can see Amma, she occasionally turning around – and I look at Her. The prasad line is stretching all the way from Amma to where I am sitting, and beyond, then curls around. One lady who appeared to be in her 40s, came from the prasad line, saw me working at the computer. She asked if I was updating the web site. I replied ‘Yes’. ‘Why was the posting for Ramanathapuram late?’ I was half surprised that…
-
Spotless beach
During my walk through the crowd, the grounds of the yajna shala was covered with paper and plastic. This made me sad, but as the sun was rising, to my surprise, I heard that Amma had called all her devotees to help clean the trash. About 30 people rushed to help, and in about 15 minutes, the whole place was clean! No one could believe it.. Yes, Amma is the greatest sweeper! Amma’s invitation to help in this service showed us how we can participate at each moment in caring for Mother Earth. Mother, we want to serve you in…