My First Darshan, Part One

[Guest guest]

As I boarded the flight for Providence on Thursday morning, I thought

about the first time I saw Amma. I was living in Boston and it was

the kali yuga of my life. I did little other than go to work and

come home to watch TV at night, drinking a lot and feeling trapped in

a miserable relationship. That particular night, I was watching

Lonely Planet on the Travel Channel, a show about solitary

travelers. That week the host was traveling to South India. I was

so excited because for years I'd felt drawn not only to India, but

inexplicably to South India. During the program, the host said one

could not visit the area without going to an Ashram, and guess who's

Ashram she visited!

 

Since that day, I never could get the image of Amma out of my mind.

Every few months, I'd find myself looking up information about Amma

on the Internet. I had always been drawn to the feminine aspect of

divinity, even as a girl in Catholic Sunday school, so I found Amma

appealing from the start. At the time I could never have known the

intensity of attraction I would one day feel for her.

 

Two years later, I moved to Austin, Texas and once again found myself

looking up Amma websites. I was looking for a local group or center

where I could learn more about her. Hungering for my guru and not

knowing she was there all along, I attended satsangs for other

spiritual groups. I never felt comfortable at those, always feeling

like I was going through the motions. I even began feeling like I was

being unfair to the people who let me in so I stopped going.

 

When I learned Amma would be in Dallas the summer after I moved here,

I wanted to go see her but didn't know how. What I mean is that it

was so far out of my comfort zone that I didn't take the steps to

go. That summer came and went, and I blew it off. The following

summer, again I wanted to go and again I blew it off. That time I

felt really angry with myself for not having the courage to just go

and do it.

 

This spring, I finally made contact with the local satsang group and

began following their postings as well as these. I also began

thinking about Dallas again. One dear friend of mine finally

said, "Gabriela, if you're been wanting to go for two summers, then

you need to just go." Funny, that was all it took. I began making

plans to go.

 

Once I made contact with the satsang group, not a day went by that I

didn't check my email for new messages, or Amma's website for

anything new to read. My excitement continued to grow for months as

I waited eagerly for July to approach. Finally, the trip was a week

away and my grandfather began dying. I worried about him, but also

that I'd miss the trip.

 

The Saturday before the trip, my grandfather slipped quietly into a

coma and we brought a priest in to give him his Last Rites. The

Sunday of the Dallas program, my grandfather left his body and I

cancelled my trip to be with my small family. Though I felt blessed

to be with my grandfather at the end and with my family for the

funeral, I was sad about missing Dallas. It was looking like I wasn't

going to get to see Amma for yet another year.