Is Amma an Avatar and Omniscient?

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Is Amma an Avatar and Omniscient? Here is my 2cents worth.

 

Most of this is what my mind remembers from reading "Awaken

Children," listening to Swami Paramatmananda's satsang tapes, etc.

 

Swami points out that our belief that someone is an Avatar is mostly

based on what someone tells us and not necessarily on our own

experience. So, when introducing Amma to someone new, it is safer to

tell about Her compassion, hugs and many selfless service projects

rather than say that She is an Avatar.

 

Of course we may have some insightful spiritual experiences and then

the mind takes that, analyzes and arrives at various conclusions. To

my mind( trained in science ) it seems that we cannot know 100% if

some one is an Avatar, Enlightened or Omniscient unless we ourselves

are.

 

Oooops, my partner just disagreed with me. She said "I, Samarpana, am

not enlightened but I know that Amma is an Avatar." This is pure

bhakti and those of you who are pure bhaktas need not read any

further. The logic may feel too painful. But for the rest, read on.

Perhaps for many of us the path is a blend of bhakti, knowledge,

selfless service, meditation, etc.

 

Amma points out many times that spiritual experiences have to be

experienced and cannot be fully expressed in words or understood 100%

by the intellect. Amma points out that the first Guru did not speak

but that he thought in silence and his students learned in silence.

Amma also tells a story how when Buddha was enlightened, he did not

want to come down from that place of Silent Oneness and speak

because he felt the Absolute Truth could not be expressed in words.

Buddha was finally overcome by compassion created by the many devas'

prayers on behalf of suffering humanity and especially seekers of

God. For the whole beautiful story, please see "Awaken Children" Vol

5, pages 55( bottom ) to 64.

 

Concerning omniscience ~ Amma tells us it is OK to attach ourselves

to Amma via devotion, selfless service, respect, etc but that we

should also remember that Amma is not only the body-mind we see and

hear but that She is also beyond. To us Amma should be both the

person we interact with and the Cosmic Divine Mother. So it is the

Cosmic Mother that is, let us say, Fully Omniscient. And it is this

same Cosmic Mother that is manifesting as Amma's body, as your body,

as my body, etc. What we do not know is what the interaction is

between Cosmic Mother and Amma as body-mind. And, being ignorant( not-

enlightened ) we do not even know what that interaction is for each

of us. We are also told that God is the only doer ~ that God does all

~ but this is another point that is hard for us to understand

intellectually without the experience.

 

Anticipating this Q from someone. Is not Amma beyond body-mind? Amma

explains that a Mahatma is one who has gone beyond mind and abides in

a state of no-mind. But, if the Mahatma chooses to help others out of

compassion, He/She creates a suitable mind( full of compassion )

which can function in the world and interact with people.

 

There are several stories of Amma appearing to people not only in

visions and dreams but also physically( not always in the familiar

body ). Also other saints have been reported to appear in two

different places at the same time. One such story of a saint is ~

she was invited to two different spiritual functions ~ she sent

regrets to one ~ but later was told that she came anyway ~ she

replied it must have been the devas satisfying the strong devotional

desires of the devotees.

 

When our minds are presented with such experiences, the thoughts in

the head stop and our awareness gets drawn into the heart. This also

happens when we watch Amma hugging thousands hour after hour, after

hour ~ can you imagine 30,000 hugs in 22 hours? This happens in India

~ 2 secs per hug.

 

What else is there to say? Do not expect too much from logic, mind,

words. Use them economically to function in world efficiently. And

learn to dwell in the heart more.

 

Jai Amma,

amarnath

ps ~ yes i feel Amma is an Avatar