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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…
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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.…
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Saying Hello
Saying Hello Just before 1pm, the Ashram began to buzz with anticipation of Amma’s arrival back from Sri Lanka. As usual, the question was which entrance would Amma arrive through. Most people anticipated the north entrance – Her car would pass by the Girl Student Dorm, past the Flats, through the gate, past the Temple, and around the back, dropping Her off at the entrance to Her house. Many people had started to gather near the front of the Temple, hoping to catch a glimpse of Her, or touch Her hand as She extended it out of the opened window. …
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Waving Goodbye
Yesterday during sunset, while laying in savasana after doing IAM on the rooftop of the ‘S’ flats, I caught a glimpse of another flock of Kites (eagles) slowly circling above on an air current near the south entrance to the Ashram. Sitting up, I noticed another even larger flock circling further to the north – perhaps near Amma’s house, or towards the northern entrance of the Ashram. As I watched, the northern batch started to drift southwards and joined with the others. The combined group of about 50 danced and circled directly above me for about 30 seconds, then slowly…
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Amma left for Sri Lanka
Amma left for Sri Lanka in the evening at about 6.30 pm. Tomorrow Amma will hand over the symbolic key to the tsunami-relief houses to the President of Sri Lanka. She will return on Saturday, and will leave almost immediately for the next leg of Bharata Yatra 2007.
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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…
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prayer
Just before darshan started today, Amma asked everyone to pray for the 35 children who perished yesterday evening when a boat capsized during an excursion on the Periyar river in the Thattekad area of Kerala, about 55 km east of Ernakulam, as well as for the 60+ people who died when the Samjhauta Express train taking passengers from Delhi to Lahore in Pakistan was bombed. After the prayer Amma said “We should pray to God that such tragedies do not take place in the future. We should also be ready to serve those who are affected.”
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Prasad Day
Today was meditation and Prasad day. It is always a highlight of the week to receive Prasad from Amma. There is something in it that makes one feel all round good. Normal food might make the belly full but Prasad goes to the depths of ones being and seems to give total nourishment. Also one gets the feeling that through the Prasad Amma can enter the mind and body to a certain degree in order to purify the inner essence. A certain amount of tuning happens so to say. I think it is true also of all food dedicated to…
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Rainy Day Bhajans
It was a quiet and slightly rainy day today. Even now a slight breeze with a little smell of rain is there. I love this tropical climate even though I was born in the totally opposite arctic world. When I was a child I used to imagine tropical places in my mind in the cold dark nights of the northern hemisphere. I guess it was some kind of foreboding of things to come. In my mind everything here is connected with Amma. I imagine how Amma would have passed all the different seasons here in Her early life and find…
