Group Darshan?

[Guest guest]

At the recent California Institute of Integral Studies graduation,

the Co-directors of the Women's Spirituality Program at New College

of California asked me if I could arrange for them and some students

to meet Ammachi while she was here in June. It would really help

some of the students, they said. I pictured these two professors and

maybe two or three students. I agreed to try. A week later Br.

Dayamrita agreed to help set up this first meeting.

 

Just how many people would be coming? There was no response. Br.

Dayamrita left California to meet Amma and I still had no idea..

Finally I wrote up an information sheet about meeting Amma, sent it

to the Co-Directors, and suggested that they invite EVERYONE with an

RSVP, including the College President. When the number of positive

responses went past 15, I realized another problem. Where would they

all sit? Could they be seated together? Devotees are really serious

about getting their favorite seat.

 

The number of positive responses was growing as I consulted with

various people to find out who could solve the seating problem. On

the Saturday before Amma arrived, as I was helping prepare lunch for

the devotees who were doing seva in preparation for Amma's visit, I

talked to Kasturi. She was exactly The Person. Kasturi talked to

the other volunteers and they decided to save three rowas of seats

for what was by then 27 people.

 

Twenty-one people came to have Amma's darshan. For nineteen of them

it was their first time.

 

Ammachi blessed all of us as a group. Then she took the families.

These included two mothers and their small daughters; a mother, her

partner and her pregnant daughter; and two married couples. Then

Mother took the individuals. When the Co-Director Dianne Jennett

came for darshan, Br. Dayamrita told Mother that she was the Co- and had done her doctoral research in Kerala. Mother gave

Dianne a very LOOOOOOONG hug. (That department is definitely charged

up for this year.) I was last I thought, and Dayamrita told Mother

something that resulted in a very loooooong hug for me too. I

thought it was over but Amma grabbed Max Dashu and I and gave us each

ANOTHER hug. We were both puzzled by this. About 24 hours later I

realized that Max and I had each given a Saturday satsangh when

Dayamrita was away. The devotee who was awaiting her turn for

darshan said she'd never seen anything like our group, that we moved

as one in an organic way, like a flower opening. That was meaningful

wording. Dianne Jenett revolutionary book proposing a new researh

methodology, written with four others, in entitled ORGANIC INQUIRY;

IF RESARCH WERE SACRED.

 

Afterward Dianne Jenett gave me a long tearful hug. She had already

said how wonderful it was, what a relief- for her to give all the

women (meaning the students, each with her own struggle in the

graduate Women's Spirituality program) to Amma. Many of the students

and family members were in tears afterward. One husband was

profoundly moved. He sat on the floor away from all of us for a

while after his darshan. He seemed somewhat stunned, very open and

vulnerable.

 

Dayamrita gave each of the people who came a copy of Amma's UN

speech. He sent Dianne Jenett back to school with a generous

collection of materials in several media about Ammachi. He

introduced Savitri Bess to Dianne and I. Savitri had agreed that her

book could be given to the college. One of the women who had had her

first darshan with Ammachi had been reading Savitri's book beforehand

to "prepare." It was another sweet part of the day to meet Savitri.

 

It didn't occur to me until afterwards that my talk last semester

about Ammachi and the charitable works in a required course in the

Women's Spirituality master's program, had created a context so that

this voluntary meeting with Ammachi was integrated in the program

curriculum.

 

Probably all of us do things here and there to bring people to

Ammachi. Seeing mother touch the lives of these people, many of whom

are committed to working on the ideas Mother spoke about in her UN

address, was a wonderful blessing, like a super-darshan.

 

Jai Ma!

 

Aikya