A Talk about Ammachi +

[Guest guest]

Dear Ones,

 

Last summer in Rhode Island, Ammachi gave her blessings for the

Women's Spirituality Departemnt at New College of California (San

Francisco, CA) and the M.A. Center in San Ramon to work together. I

received my master's degree from that department. My thesis was

about Bhajanamrita bhajans increasing compassion in those who sing

them often as spiritual practice. Ammachi told me to talk to Br.

Dayamrita about it. Neither Cr. Dayamrita nor I were too sure

exactly how to proceed but a few things have happened so far.

 

One Saturday, when Br Dayamrita was out of town, Ms. Max Dashu, who

is a visiting scholar in the program showed slides of goddess images

from around the world. She has made an independent study of this for

the past 25-30 years and has a collection of 12,000 slides. One thing

9/11 showed me is that power of the image and Max, well, she has

another set of powerful images to do their transformational work.

Max also makes wonderful cards. Hmmm. Maybe she could sell those in

the MA Center store. Have to ask her and see if that would be okay.

 

The faculty have been trying to figure a way to introduce the

students to Ammachi and the center while still maintaining the

academic focus. Last Saturday for the Embodied Sirituality class, I

gave a talk about Ammachi's life and the charitable works that have

resulted from Her encouragement to all of us to work a little bit

each day or each week for those in need. I made a Power Point

presentation, played one of the songs, showed a 3-minute video

newsclip of the home building program and the pension program for

destitute women. I also showed the video about the AIMS Hospital and

gave the women Amma's address at the UN. They have contact

information for the Mother's Kitchen Programs in the SF East Bay and

San Francisco as well as the Shower Project.

 

New College is becoming quite popular so there were some exasperating

experiences involved in doing this--like having no parking near

school but tons of videos, tape players, etc. to lug around. I

brought my Amma doll and passed it around the class of graduate

students for everyone to give and receive a hug. (Does this sound

like a "normal" graduate school class?) The women wanted to know if

Amma ever got tired and cranky. They wanted to know what it was like

to get a hug from her. Besides me, there are several other Amma

devotees among the Women's Spirituality graduates. They have shared

their darshan stories with me so I was able to tell my own story and

several others.

 

You can't beat the subject matter about which I was so fortunate to

have been asked to speak.

 

Aikya