{"id":797,"date":"2008-07-28T00:19:15","date_gmt":"2008-07-27T18:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/797\/carvan\/"},"modified":"2008-07-28T14:11:47","modified_gmt":"2008-07-28T08:41:47","slug":"carvan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/2008\/797\/","title":{"rendered":"The Divine Caravan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"left\">27 July 2008<\/p>\n<p>The clock was at quarter past eight and my heart started pounding faster than usual. The clouds gathered above Kerala\u2019s capital \u2013 Trivandrum and started raining. The mind was silently repeating the childhood prayer \u2018rain rain go away\u2019 and as though an answer to the innocent prayer the rain stopped!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/files\/2008\/07\/08tvm-line.jpg\" alt=\"08tvm-line.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As the clock continued ticking, the crowd started swelling tremendously outside the airport. The airport premises were rhythmically echoing the bhajans. In groups, devotees were singing Amma\u2019s bhajans. Some were holding placards and welcome banners while others were displaying signs and flags as an outer expression of their inner joy. By now the crowd has swelled up to few thousands. The devotees stood on both side and the crowd stretched from the exit gate of the terminus.<\/p>\n<p>The electronic display announced that the Srilankan airlines flight is arriving 15 minutes ahead of the scheduled time. The most cherished moment arrived\u2026 three exited cops try to make way (that was already there) and there comes our Amma. \u201cMata Rani ki jai\u201d shouted the devotees as she was gracefully sending endless kisses to all her waiting children. All eyes got wet when she cast her divine glance all around. Every body felt \u2018she saw me\u2019.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/files\/2008\/07\/08tvm-arrival.jpg\" alt=\"08tvm-arrival.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0Far different from the usual style, not a person crossed the security barricades. Still there was some jostling near Mother! We could clearly see the security personal and airport staff jostling among them selves to get near Mother.<\/p>\n<p>Amma got inside her car, waving and kissing all her children who had queued up for more than a Kilometer.\u00a0It was a rather unusual spectacle to see a long procession of cars beautifully following behind Mother\u2019s car. The procession seemed endless. Amma\u2019s car started speeding up and our driver had to use all his skills to follow Her.<\/p>\n<p>As Amma\u2019s car moved out of the capital city, not a single onlooker could take his eyes off the long caravan. We heard the traditional drum beats\u2026 and Amma had stopped. Yes! That was Amma\u2019s orphanage kids. Hundreds of them, who had assembled out side their primacies, were overjoyed to get Mother\u2019s Prasad. Soon, the caravan resumed it\u2019s journey. After 15 minutes again Mother stopped as an answer to intense prayer of few of her children who were waiting to get a glimpse outside an Ayurvedic hospital. As Amma waved her hand, the doctors, the nurses and all the staff rushed towards her.<\/p>\n<p>By 1.00 pm, as the caravan neared it\u2019s destination- Amritapuri, one could easily feel the intense longing of all the ashramites\u2026 \u00a0In her usual fashion she spent some time near her steps with the Bramcharinis.\u00a0\u00a0 One of our younger brothers commented, \u201cMay be they have more devotion. If only we have some devotion, Mother would peep through her balcony window and send kisses\u2026\u201d I said, \u201cDon\u2019t be silly. Mother has stopped the coming to the window for almost 5 years now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No sooner Mother went inside her room, we were in a dilemma \u2018Will she peep out?\u2019 Suddenly there was an uproar \u201cAmma!\u201d yes! she peeped out of the balcony. Waving and sending endless kisses to all of us.\u00a0\u00a0The bramachari silently said, \u201cSo! All of us have got some devotion within isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Ram Kumar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>27 July 2008 The clock was at quarter past eight and my heart started pounding faster than usual. The clouds gathered above Kerala\u2019s capital \u2013 Trivandrum and started raining. The mind was silently repeating the childhood prayer \u2018rain rain go away\u2019 and as though an answer to the innocent prayer the rain stopped! As the [&hellip;]<\/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-797","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\/797","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=797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}