My Amritapuri Experience: Part 9

[Guest guest]

Continued from Part 8...

 

After unpacking my bags and settling into my new penthouse I

headed down to see about getting a darshan token. As I said before,

it was a lean season and the crowds were not very large. Still, my

number was in the 1200+ range. But I was in no hurry since I had all

day and then some. I had some time to kill before Amma's arrival in

the hall of the Kali temple. I tried calling home on my mobile to

give my family an update on my situation but found that it could not

pick up the network signal. So I walked over to the pay phone booth

and made my calls. After I was done running up a bill of several

hundred rupees, I stepped out and began talking to people.

 

My first contact was a householder ashramite in his early 40s (I'm

guessing). He and his wife had no children and had been with Amma for

a number of years. I opened conversation with an introduction and

brief sketch of my situation and he responded likewise. While we were

talking I noticed a general flutter among people at large and guessed

that Amma had arrived. She had indeed. I did not see which way She

made Her entrance but at any rate, She was now in the temple hall. I

tarried for a while longer with my new acquaintance before going over

to the darshan hall.

 

I sat down cross-legged in the hall while queues formed on both

sides - on the left side for the men and on the right side for the

women. I felt some mild excitement, a sense of anticipation but it

was nothing to write home about. I went over my agenda in my mind,

rehearsing exactly what I would say when my 20 seconds of air-time

came up. The complexity and difficulty of the task cannot be

overstated. As most of you are probably aware, compressing your

life's events and concerns into 3-5 short sentences is not something

that is easy to do. I found myself thinking about structure,

composition, prioritization and such other technical questions

pertaining to the delivery of my intended message.

 

I also had to wrestle with the issue of language. I had the choice of

speaking to Amma directly in Malayalam - my mother tongue, in which I

was reasonably fluent but far from being accomplished (my knowledge

of spoken Malayalam is fair but I don't know how to read and write in

the language) or, in the alternative, of speaking to her via an

intermediary in English, a language which despite its foreignness, is

my strongest suit. I decided that English would be (sort of) fake,

unnatural and even misleading; I did not wish to represent myself as

a brown 'Sahib', an Indian-foreigner, typical of a species that is

alienated from its own culture and tradition. Also, at our first

darshan, although it had been my wife who did the talking (I had not

said a word) the language used was Malayalam. Therefore in deference

to tradition and with regard to continuity/consistency, I opted to

sacrifice the higher clarity that might have accrued through my

resort to English; I decided I would speak in Malayalam.

 

While I actively pondered the modalities of speech delivery, a part

of my brain was passively engaged with the idea that Amma's

omniscience (an article of faith with me and a necessary axiom for

any devotee, IMHO) rendered physical communication somewhat

redundant. I figured that the superfluity, such as there might be,

was extant purely on Amma's side. For my part, I clearly had a need

to engage Amma physically and I saw little point in repressing or

denying that drive. What then was the true import of verbal

communication with Amma? I fell upon the notion that it was a ritual,

a shell devoid of meaning on its own but meaningful as an expression

of some underlying truth. And what was that underlying truth?

Children babble, not always coherently but the Mother always listens.

To Her children, She might appear to respond (or not at all) in ways

that seem variously intelligent, empathetic or just abstruse.

However, regardless of the quality of physical communication, the

Mother or Guru is at all times doing what is necessary for the

betterment of the child or disciple.

 

To be continued in Part 10…

 

Om Amriteshwaryai Namah

 

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