Chennai<\/p>\n
The Chennia ashram is the only one of Amma\u2019s Ashrams I\u2019ve been to that lies directly on a main street in the city.\u00a0 The Ashram itself four stories high with the main hall on the ground floor.\u00a0\u00a0 Literally just out front is a bustling street \u2013 two lanes in each direction.\u00a0 The police have blocked off one lane for the Ashram buses to drop off people and for the crowd to form a line.\u00a0 They stop traffic for people to cross over. There\u2019s a shoe stall and cloak room just next door.\u00a0 Hundreds of pairs of shoes stacked on makeshift shelves in the entrance way to the upstairs wedding hall where the western men stay.\u00a0 A furniture store is on the ground floor.\u00a0 Fully opened with couches and chairs almost spilling out onto the street.\u00a0 Rickshaws and taxis are directed to a spot about a hundred feet up the road to drop off people.\u00a0 There is a school just up the road.\u00a0\u00a0 When we first arrived and unloaded all our luggage \u2013 250+ bedrolls and suitcases\/backpacks onto the sidewalk, the school let out.\u00a0 Hundreds of children emptied out on to the street.\u00a0 Many stopped to stare and the strange foreigners who have just arrived.\u00a0 It\u2019s controlled chaos outside when Amma comes to town.\u00a0 And with Amma\u2019s Grace, all goes smoothly.<\/p>\n
The same goes for inside the program.\u00a0 I had the opportunity to sit directly behind Amma\u2019s peetham at the start of darshan on the second day.\u00a0 I was helping with the Prasad.\u00a0 It\u2019s a postage sized stage \u2013 maybe the size of a living room in the west.\u00a0 This is in contrast to the near tennis court sized stages at the public programmes.<\/p>\n
Even before Arati ends, the controlled chaos begins.\u00a0 Amma\u2019s peetham has to be moved forward. The singers have to move back. The darshan line monitors have to almost jump over the locals who were just doing Arati to get into place. The Prasad rollers and givers rush onto stage. Amma starts giving darshan immediately.\u00a0 There is no waiting.\u00a0\u00a0 Prasad has to be in her hand.\u00a0 Face wipers line the way equipped with hundreds of neatly folded tissues. .\u00a0 The locals rush to get in the darshan line.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some don\u2019t understand the token system even though it\u2019s been announced several times.\u00a0\u00a0 In the end everyone\u2019s face is wiped. Everyone gets darshan. Everyone gets Prasad.\u00a0 And hopefully in the controlled chaos, everyone walks away with a smile on their face.
\n– Sri Pati<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chennai The Chennia ashram is the only one of Amma\u2019s Ashrams I\u2019ve been to that lies directly on a main street in the city.\u00a0 The Ashram itself four stories high with the main hall on the ground floor.\u00a0\u00a0 Literally just out front is a bustling street \u2013 two lanes in each direction.\u00a0 The police have […]<\/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-600","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\/600","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=600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}