bowing the first time

[Guest guest]

The first time this bowing stuff came up for me was after I'd heard

my direst talk about Vedanta. I was completely enthralled and was

about to run off to study with the Swami, Swami Dayananda Saraswati

who was conducting courses for Chinmaya Mission at the time. then I

thought that perhaps I should check out other swamis. Swami

Dayananda was the very first Swami I'd ever seen. Maybe they were

all like him. So I went to the Ramakrishna Mission in New York City

for the Sunday talk. I know the Ramakrishna Mission tries to make

their services culturally harmonious but they didn't work well for

me. They rather copy Protestant church perhaps and I was raised

Catholic so it was double strength strange.

 

At the end of the talk, as people were leaving, they all bowed to

the Swami's feet. I freaked out. This was new behavior to me. I'd

never seen it before. Every single person bowed to this Swami. He

was a nice guy and everything, but this bowing and touching feet was

over the top. I wasn't THAT fond of him. I actually ran downstairs

to the bookstore to try to figure out a strategy. It looked like I

couldn't get out of the buidling without touching this Swami's feet

and I didn't like it.

 

I realized that I'd never touched Swami Dayananda's feet, or Swami

Chinmayananda's either, and suddenly that really felt like something

I wanted to do, that I would long for the chance to do. Having

gotten clear about that, I came back upstairs and noticed that some

of the Westerners were just shaking the Swamiji's hand on the way

out so I was okay.

 

The Swami, meanwhile, had been watching my little drama and was

slightly amused, smiling benignly as I made my way to the door,

where I shook his hand. Once outside the door I felt a huge wave of

relief. Whew! First cross-cultural challenge passed!

 

The first foot touching I got to do involved Swami Chinmayananda. I

remember looking into his eyes and noticing that no one was there.

That is there was no ego. It was like looking through his eyes at

the sky and everything else. He has just given a talk which had

been very witty as usual. It was a big relief for me to see that

people could be witty and also egoless. It was encouraging. At the

time I imagined that being egoless was like being mildly brain-

injured.

 

Amma shows me that you can be egoless and loving. All that Vedanta

with the guys might have led me to believe that you could be egoless

and witty but not also affectionate and empathetic. Some of these

ideas are so subtle that seeing a personal living example is the

best way to understand.

 

In Amma's love,

Aikya

 

 

Ammachi, superblu7@a... wrote:

>

> A friend of mine who is an Amma devotee took another friend who

was very

> skeptical about Amma, and is Jewish to come meet Amma. This

newcomer said that

> she would not bow down because we are not supposed to do that and

besides was

> very skeptical about Amma and her following. Upon meeting Amma,

however,

> she found herself with her head bowed to the floor...when asked

later about it

> she said it wasn't even done consciously she was just so filled

with humility

> and it just happened.

>

>

> In a message dated 4/11/2005 4:13:22 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,

> Ammachi writes:

>

> The reason for bowing down is because there is the supreme

> consciousness (or God) residing in every human being and in whole

of

> creation itself, but we are not aware of it. We know it in theory

> because Satguru like Amma tells it to us. It is upto us to

believe it

> or not.