My Amritapuri Experience: Part 16

November 7, 2003

Continued from Part 15...

As I stood outside the souvenir shop, conversing with X1, I was

struck by his intensity. Upto that point, I had not come across any

other ashramite with the kind of intensity that was evident in his

mien. I don't remember exactly how it came up, but at some point in

our conversation, we touched on the subject of death. X1 said to me

with considerable feeling, "Death is a joke. If anyone dies here, we

have more than enough people to take the body out to the beach and

cremate it after performing the last rites." In his telling, death

was not even a comma, much less the full stop that most people take

it to be. I did not find his view or sentiment particularly jarring

as the subject of death had come up in my own ruminations, over the

years. The status of death, in my view, has evolved from an early

glorification of its false potential as an antidote to the misery of

life to something bordering on irrelevance. X1 seemed to be on the

same page as I was.

Later, on my return from India, I happened to mention X1 in a meeting

with some local acquaintances (members of the Amma satsang). I was

giving them a brief account of my visit to Amritapuri and told them

that I met up with so and so from their country. Thereupon, I was

treated to the view that X1 was a somewhat crazy fellow. "Do you

know, he has even asked Amma for death?!" That was the clincher, in

their view. Anyone who was not absolutely brimming over with the

sheer delight of living must be a total lunatic. Edgar Allan Poe

would never have penetrated their stony hearts with his famous lines:

Thank Heaven! The crisis,

The danger, is past,

And the lingering illness

Is over at last -

And the fever called "Living"

Is conquered at last.

With some effort, I managed to repress my contempt for their view and

even feigned an expression of mild incredulousness. I asked, "Did he

really do that?" But in my mind, I was not surprised at all. There

was so much suffering in the world and a modicum of that was

reflected in my own life. It was not hard for me to visualize that

people might be driven to despair by their circumstances, even to the

point of desiring death. I found myself at odds with their rating of

X1 as inferior to some of the other characters (not yet discussed)

who were seen to be more conventional and also 'cool'. Those other

characters, like my acquaintances in the present instance, appeared

to be practitioners of a brand of spirituality that involved

bhajans, 'hanging out' and other soft options with near zero effort

aimed at integrating Amma's teachings into their daily lives. In my

deeply felt but diplomatically unarticulated view, this kind of

superficial subscription to spirituality was only marginally better

than being hooked to MTV.

I decided immediately that X1 had to be a good guy, my kind of

fellow, if these folks did not like him. I also guessed that the

converse was likely to hold good ie. it might be a good idea for me

to give their favorites a wide berth. I had nothing but the deepest

respect for people such as X1 who engaged deeply with the questions

of life and death, who experimented with their own lives out of

scientific curiosity, with an air of nonchalance and for whom

spirituality was not a fad. On the other hand, my regard

for 'devotees' who jetted from Japan to Switzerland to sing with

Amma's choir but who exhibited only pettiness in their daily lives

was not very high, to put it mildly.

I realize I am being totally judgmental here but I have never claimed

unity with Brahman. However I would like to qualify my judgments by

pointing to the possibility of error. There is a possibility, however

remote, that my reading of these people is totally wrong and they are

really Jnanis/Bhaktas of a high order who have just done an

exceptionally good job of camouflaging themselves. If that is the

case, I am guilty of gross ignorance and misrepresentation.

To be continued in Part 17...

Previous episodes blogged at

http://www.sulekha.com/weblogs/listingsbyblog.asp?pg=1&blogid=750

Om Amriteshwaryai Namah

November 8, 2003

-

faintglow

Ammachi

Saturday, November 08, 2003 12:24 AM

My Amritapuri Experience: Part 16

Ah, Dear Faintglow,

How wonderfully worded! You commented that you might have misinterpreted the

actions you mentioned, and that's always a huge possibility with anything our

monkey minds think they've figured out -but it also follows right along with

Mother's "warning" that going from holy place to holy place without true

understanding is misguided. One of my favorite lines from adolescent literature

says "We heard the Teaching, but we took it all wrong."

As for death- I thought our experience in this lifespan and these forms was

supposed to help us see that this is not where, or how, we wish to remain.

Certainly there is great beauty to behold, and I wonder what could be better

than the taste of a perfect peach or the fragrance of lilacs, but for each

"good" there is a "bad." Roses smell wonderful, but many species carry a

defense mechanism of staph - prick your hand trying to capture one and it's not

so wonderful. I also thank my body daily for its excellence service - and

politely do not mention that I am aware it is full of bugs, parasites, waste,

and is in the active process of decaying. So it seems, to me anyway, that there

may well be delight in living but death has a pretty strong upside, too.

Om Namaha Shivaya,

Snehalata