One of the good things about the 10 and a half hour time difference between New York and Amritapuri is that this usually late riser has been able to naturally get out of bed with the first ashram bell at 3:50 a.m. and enjoy the peace of brahmamuhurta here in Amma\u2019s main ashram. <\/p>\n
As I walk across the early morning grounds the Indian ladies float like apparitions in white, as they sweep the sand into crescent patterns that resemble Amma\u2019s closed eyelids as She meditates. <\/p>\n
I sit in the kalari, where the only light comes from the lamps and sacrificial fire and the only sound is the pujari\u2019s clear bell and the flute-like voices of the girls as they chant in the near-by temple. After taking prasad, I settle in the temple itself, where I chant the mantra just feet from where Amma gave it to me and chant the Names with-in sight of the Kali murti\u2019s blissful and fierce countenance.<\/p>\n
I arise fresh and whole, and back at my flat look at the sun, at 8 a.m. now warm and white, rise above the calm backwaters and green sea of coconut trees, thankful to have been blessed with what already feels like a full and sacred day. <\/p>\n
Jai Ma! Jai jetlag!<\/p>\n
Robert, New York
29 Dec 2006<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the good things about the 10 and a half hour time difference between New York and Amritapuri is that this usually late riser has been able to naturally get out of bed with the first ashram bell at 3:50 a.m. and enjoy the peace of brahmamuhurta here in Amma\u2019s main ashram. As I […]<\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ashram-diary"],"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\/6737","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=6737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}