{"id":4765,"date":"2012-03-09T16:07:37","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T10:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/?p=4765"},"modified":"2015-01-13T11:53:43","modified_gmt":"2015-01-13T06:23:43","slug":"kanha-he-ek-gopi-anek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/2012\/4765\/","title":{"rendered":"Kanha He Ek? Gopi Anek!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will she or won\u2019t she?\u00a0 That was the question on everyone\u2019s minds on Holi.\u00a0 Most years Amma has been in North India on this day, but this year it was a darshan day at Amritapuri.\u00a0 Would she play Holi with us?
\nDarshan was coming to a close and there was a Pada Puja at the end.\u00a0 As the puja ended, it seemed that Amma might just stand up and leave.\u00a0 But some devotees showed Amma a pichkkari and some coloured powders and her interest was clearly aroused.\u00a0 She asked for the musicians to play \u201cAyi He Holi\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cAyi he holi bhari pichkkari\u2026 The festival of Holi has come.\u00a0 The water pistol is full of coloured water\u2026\u201d\u00a0 As the song began, she charged the pichkkari in a bucket of water and an intent and mischievious look came over her lovely face.\u00a0 She took careful aim at a few tempting faces nearby and soon sprays of pink powder also joined the pink water being sprayed in all directions.\u00a0 Amma began \u201cdancing\u201d as she sat on her chair and alternated dancing and squirting as\u00a0 \u201cAyi he Holi\u201d reached a crescendo.\u00a0 Definitely Holi had arrived at Amritapuri!
\nYet not everyone could fit on the stage.\u00a0 The hall was full of people watching Amma on the big screens. Hundreds of us were sitting far from Amma.\u00a0 Far beyond the reach of the colour and her comments, glances and smiles.\u00a0 We could see the joy on the people\u2019s faces on the stage and hear their shrieks when Amma took aim.<\/p>\n

\u201cRanga nahi tan re\u2026More Shyam hamre sang khelo holi\u2026The body is not smeared with colour\u2026O Shyam, come and play Holi with us\u201d
\nBut we were too far away to play, or were we? The atmosphere was so ecstatic and Amma looked so joyous, that the joy of Amma\u2019s Holi play permeated the whole hall.\u00a0 Amma asked for another song. \u201cVraj Me Aisa.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, Amma\u2019s \u201cVrindavan had risen in tumult\u201d when we saw \u201cthe divine butter thief was going to celebrate.\u201d\u00a0 But the words of the song that Amma dwelled on the most were: \u201cKanha he ek,\u00a0 Gopi anek.\u00a0 Iske sang vo racayenge ras\u2026 Krishna is only one, yet the Gopis are many.\u00a0 How will he manage?\u00a0 With which one of the Gopis will he dance?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Amma sang these lines over and over.\u00a0 \u201cKanha he ek, Gopi anek\u201d.\u00a0 I felt that just as in the song, during the \u201cRas Lila dance of Holi\u201d, Amma had materialized beside each one of us, laughing with us and smearing our faces with pink powder.\u00a0 Indeed by the end of the song, Amma seemed to have entered another and higher realm and taken us all with her, on the stage or off it.\u00a0 \u201cHari bol!\u00a0 Hari bol!\u201d she cried. \u201cHari bol!\u201d we responded.\u00a0 Looking around the hall, I could see some people grinning from ear to ear, some with tears running down their face, and others sitting in deep meditation.
\nAs Amma finally left the stage, the full moon of Holi, earlier obscured by clouds, shone brightly over the hall.\u00a0 The whole atmosphere was radiant and permeated with joy.\u00a0 I imagined this joy fanning out from Amritapuri and spreading far and wide to reach all of Amma\u2019s devotees all over the world.\u00a0 Some might have been beginning their work day or smiling in their sleep.
\nCertainly the thousand and more people milling around the hall were smiling.\u00a0 Some, covered with colour, had clearly been in reach of Amma\u2019s aim.\u00a0 Others had gone to the stage after Amma left and smeared on some prasad colour.\u00a0 Krishna is only one, yet the Gopis are many.\u00a0 How will he manage?\u00a0 With which one of the Gopis will he dance?\u201d\u00a0 Somehow Amma had managed.\u00a0 If we were open, we could feel one consciousness, off or on the stage.\u00a0 If we were open, she managed to make us feel that she had danced and played Holi with each of us!
\nRta S<\/p>\n

8 Mar 2012, Amritapuri<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will she or won\u2019t she?\u00a0 That was the question on everyone\u2019s minds on Holi.\u00a0 Most years Amma has been in North India on this day, but this year it was a darshan day at Amritapuri.\u00a0 Would she play Holi with us? Darshan was coming to a close and there was a Pada Puja at the […]<\/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":[3,627,4],"tags":[154],"class_list":["post-4765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ashram-diary","category-festivals","category-with-amma","tag-holi"],"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\/4765","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=4765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}