22 Jun 2009<\/p>\n
Tonight was the last public program in New Mexico – the Retreat starts tomorrow.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 During the evening program, archana had just finished and it seemed like darshan was going to end soon. Ramanand took the stage to perhaps sing a few bhajans.\u00a0 It was going to be an unusually early night – 2am.\u00a0\u00a0 But then something happened.\u00a0 There was a mad scramble.\u00a0 Amma had asked for a microphone.\u00a0\u00a0 Then a harmonium.\u00a0 Then tablas.\u00a0 All were moved near Amma.\u00a0 She was going to sing!<\/p>\n
People ran in from the hallway, friends contacted their roommates who had gone to bed early.\u00a0 They scrambled out of bed and to the elevators.\u00a0 The crowd drew nearer forming a semi circle in front of Amma.\u00a0 People in the back of the crowd stood on chairs to watch, others pushed their faces through the gaps.\u00a0 A song sheet was brought to Amma.\u00a0 The tablas started, and Amma began….Khol Dar Waza Sera….<\/p>\n
Amma motioned for everyone to clap along.\u00a0\u00a0 She was radiant, beaming.\u00a0 Like Mata Rani,\u00a0 Amma was engaging Her children in a wonderful exchange of love and longing for the Divine Mother.\u00a0 Towards the end, Amma was shouting out “Jai Mata Di” –\u00a0 Victory to Mother – raising her hands in the air just like Mata Rani.\u00a0 The crowd was in bliss, shouting out the same in response.\u00a0 Then the Jai Mata Di was echoed by “Sherawaliye Maharaniye” – The Supreme Queen who sits on a Lion – and the exchange went on for what seemed like forever.\u00a0 Amma motioned for Ramanand to add his wonderful melodic callings while we continued singing.\u00a0\u00a0 Just as Ramanand would finish, Amma beckoned for him continue on.\u00a0 Again and again it went for some time.<\/p>\n
Finally, it all came to a blissful end. For a moment, all was silent. Amma sat absorbed in absolute bliss – Her eyes closed.\u00a0 It was brief – maybe two seconds.\u00a0 One wished that She would sit there longer.\u00a0 But Amma stood up, and, in what has been a tradition on this tour at the end of evening bhajans, She raised her hands up in the air and shouted out ‘Mata Rani Ki’… and we all responded with a resounding ‘JAI!!!’<\/p>\n
– Sri Pati<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
22 Jun 2009 Tonight was the last public program in New Mexico – the Retreat starts tomorrow.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 During the evening program, archana had just finished and it seemed like darshan was going to end soon. Ramanand took the stage to perhaps sing a few bhajans.\u00a0 It was going to be an unusually early night – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-with-amma"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}