for Erica--scene around Amma

[Guest guest]

Dear Erica,

 

thank you for honestly expressing your feelings and experiences,

and being the starting point for a very good discussion on our list.

It has been very interesting. Some messages have been mind expanding

and inspiring for me to read.

Thank you to List members for that.

 

Now, I want to offer my 2 cents; (borrowing the term from Kalika).

 

This comes from what I , myself, have learned and experienced.

Maybe some clarity would come for you if you asked yourself the

following question:

What if it became physically impossible for you to be in the hall

with Amma during Her programs? How would you feel and react ? There

would be no inside the darshan hall scene for you to experience.

Would you feel happy, relieved, sad; what would you feel?

 

Most of us, on our List have the opportunity to be in the darshan

hall with Amma , and experience the scene around Her. We have a

choice. What if that choice was taken away from us ; how would we

react? Sometimes we do not value someone, or something, until we

lose it, and that happened to me.

 

Due to an illness I have, for several years I was not able to be in

the darshan halls during Amma's programs.

I waited outside the darshan halls, and saw Amma when She entered

and left the halls. Sometimes it was very cold and wet waiting

outside. Sometimes, after waiting several hours to ask for

darshan, or to try and get a look or glimpse of Amma, some

physically bigger and stronger devotee would try to pull me away, or

block my access to Amma. Inside myself I did get irritated and angry

and hurt, with Amma and many others.

Often I wondered , what am I doing.....but then I would always

think, where else is there for me to go, because to me Amma is the

fullest manifestation possible in a human body of the Divine

Consciousness. I have had proof of that in my own life.

 

For the last couple of years I have been able to be in the halls

with Amma, and I am so very, very grateful to be able to stand and

look at Her, and see the book store, and be able to be with the

other devotees, and experience that scene. I still have my illness,

so I never know what is in store for me when I go to an Amma

program, except spiritual growth.

 

I have experienced a lot of pain being around Amma, ( and also the

scene that surrounds Her) and have been in the deepest depths of

despair and depression over my situation, and feeling that Amma and

others did not understand my situation. Also, there have been truly

wonderful devotees who have helped me, like Ray in the U.K., and

Sw.Ramakrishnananda, and Jyoti, who is now Brcii.Dipamrita, Cathi

Schmidt, and several others.

 

I came to Amma with my own agenda with what I wanted. I

did not get what I wanted; I got something else instead that is much

more precious and valuable....a connection to my Divine Mother's

Love that helps me to be a better person and sees me through each

day........and I REALLY HAVE SOME ROUGH DAYS.

 

I greatly respect the honesty in what you wrote:

"If Eastern thought has taught me anything, it is that we should all

respect where we are starting from. I respect that I am starting from

a place of intense pain and issues surrounding that, and I can't

allow myself to be subjected to further pain in the name

of "spirituality".

 

The pain you are feeling needs to heal, and I wish you the very best

on that journey of healing.

The IAM technique really helps me, and also Ása (my fellow

devotee in Iceland) to keep in balance and to keep connected to the

Divine that is within all of us.

 

Amma has healed very many emotional wounds in me....amazingly

so...and for this I did not ask Her, but She knows what I need .

That my father and I could heal our relationship, and express

love for one another for a few years before he died was one miracle;

and that my biological mother ( who I had nightmares about for most

of my life) and I can now express love for one another, and let

bygones be bygones...let the past be in the past, and not interefre

with our present, ... is another very big miracle.

I still have my physical problems, which are a lot to deal with

every day, and Amma has not healed them yet, anyway.

But I am so glad that I stayed the course with Amma, and did not

give up on those cold rainy and windy nights, and go away; and that

somehow there was a tiny atom of faith in Amma inside me that

kept me going, and keeps me going.Thank You, Amma.

 

Thank you again Erica for your honesty of expression.

I hope that you continue to participate on the List , and express

yourself.

 

Quote from Amma:

"This new millennium will see a lot of spiritual awakening, both in

the East and the West. That, indeed, is the need of the age."

 

In Amma,

Sara Jonsd.