My Amritapuri Experience: Part 18

[Guest guest]

Continued from Part 17...

 

X1's reply indicated that the desire to be something, anything (in

the organizational context) had been completely scrubbed from his

mind, if indeed it had ever existed. When asked if he would be a

Swami someday, he just looked upwards and said that whatever Amma

wished would happen. He did not say it wistfully or with longing but

in respectful surrender to Her Divine will. He seemed to be truly

free of predilection in this matter. I could see that his gentle,

implicit disavowal of desire was the genuine article. I contrasted

that with my own occasional explicit declamations, usually before a

captive family audience, disclaiming the desire for this or that. I

had mostly given up things because God/Amma had denied them to me.

 

So it was, that I would say to those around me, "I am just a dog in

my office. I don't have the wish or the wherewithal to be anything

more. If I am asked to sit, I sit; if told to stand, I stand, usually

on all fours. When asked to fetch, I run for the ball but sometimes I

stop at the lamppost (vasanas!)" But even as I made these mock

statements of purpose, to be free of the desire for respect in the

world of business, I usually knew that my touted virtue was

whitewashed necessity. Amma had placed the grapes beyond the grasp of

my paws, so I had to declare they were sour and I could quote Adi

Sankara in support! I noted the quality of X1's renunciation and

resolved to improve the quality of my own.

 

X1 went on to disabuse me of the notion that I may have entertained,

perhaps lightly, that the Swamis had 'made it', that after suffering

years of obscurity battling the waves, they had finally surfed into

the big-time on their saffron boards (robes). X1 asked me if I had

noticed how much in awe of Amma, the Swamis were. He explained the

Swamis were a charismatic bunch that could sing, speak and generally

hold their own with diverse constituencies but that they knew, to a

man, that they were nothing without Amma. If I may misappropriate one

of Amma's own similes for the benign purpose of proclaiming Her

glory, the Swamis were like empty light bulbs without Amma's

electricity flowing through them.

 

I saw what X1 was getting at and had to agree, based on my own

observations. I had been very impressed earlier, during the evening

bhajan sessions, by the reverential way in which the Swamis behaved

with Amma. At the conclusion of each evening's bhajan session, Amma

would exit the stage and a couple of the Swamis would offer closing

prayers to Her in Her (physical) absence. I used to find the mood

particularly electric at those moments, every evening without fail.

The bhajan sessions were charged affairs in entirety to be sure, but

these moments were like lightning to me. The air at those times used

to be surcharged with poignant longing for the Divine Mother of the

Universe who walks the earth in Her unassuming mortal frame as

Ammachi.

 

The takeaway lesson for me, from this exchange with X1, was the

understanding that the Swamis were less like big rock stars than like

little rocks, pebbles that would be pulverized by the power and grace

of the Guru's gait. They would be deprived of their dimensions, lose

their rough edges and their very shapes under the weight of the

Guru's step. These finite losses, however, would be more than offset

by an influx of infinity; as dust they would become Divine and cling

to Her feet.

 

Dust be diamonds

Water be wine

Amma commands

And All is fine

 

(Plagiarized and modified without permission, not sure of the

original source though!)

 

To be continued in Part 19...

Previous episodes blogged at

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

 

Om Amriteshwaryai Namah

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