Pada Puja This Morning in San Ramon

[Guest guest]

This morning I had the honor to perform pada puja to Amma. The

whole process is set up beautifully for Indian families, which

unfortunately, is not me. I'm a single American woman who lives in

the city with a room mate. I do not have any saris in the closet

which no one has ever worn. There are lots of little cultural

details which we Westerners just don't do or have. One is four other

people in the household who will rush to participate in something

we're all keen to do. No matter. Circle of Love people were

thrilled to help.

 

Several of the Circle of Love and Circle of Love Inside

Letter Writers and one Circle of Love recipient, our greatest

fan, joined me. I brought in a cloth folder with all the

photographs of prisoners...any that I had..to whom we write and/or

visit for Circle of Love Inside.. I had copied

pictures from the Illinois Department of Corrections website of

Michael and Antonio, two guys in Illinois who used to have Awaken,

Children study group in the Rockford, IL prison. Also included was

Chet, the newest guy from Michigan who is already

asking me to send Amma books so he can spread the word about

Amma in the prison. I put the folder with the photographs in it

underneath the rug that Amma stands on. Thus they got a big

blessing today and so did all of us.

 

The cloth Amma stood on was a khadi sari (handloomed

hand-printed cotton of the sort Gandhi encouraged everyone in India

to spin and weave). The sari had been given to me 25 years ago by

a Krishna devotee. It was too long for her (and me). Thus no one

had worn it. I had been used as andecoration on the asana for Swamy

Chinmayananda and Swamy Dayananda. The "towel" I used to dry her

feet was a doily my paternal grandmother made which says "Home Sweet

Home."

 

I "washed" Amma's feet, dried them and applied sandal paste and kum

kum (red powder). Then I offered big yellow flowers to her feet. I

was both filled with love and happiness and very nervous. After my

part was over, a looong pranaam was what my heart wanted to do. ...

thus I missed seeing what was happening up above with all the others.

 

Sweta Mitzel made a gorgeous mala out of BIG dark red and peach

roses. She said that Amma kissed her after she put the garland

around her neck. Sweta brought a sari which we also put under

Amma's feet. Sweta wants to use it as an altar cloth.

 

Theresa Turner held Amma's sari. (I still managed to get sandal

paste and kumkum on it!) Theresa also donated the flowers.

 

Fe Langdon donated a beautiful big salmon peach rose and offered

the arati. Fe is the one who does all the beautiful hand made cards

and bookmarks that recipients love madly. Fe also brought a

quilt that she uses with a Taize group, Catholic/Christian

chanting group. It was placed under Amma's feet too.

 

Shreemata Braubach was the letter recipient who participated.

She held the beautiful plate of flower petals for Amma to toss

at all of us. Shreemata has been disabled by a painful back

condition for years. She is currently also homeless. Even so

she retains a beautiful loving positive attitude. She LOVES

Circle of Love and is a big fan of Circle of Love Inside because

she had family members who spent time in prison. If you saw

this angelic person you would think she hadn't a problem in the

world.

 

After pada puja, I really wanted to share the experience and, at the

same time, I didn't want to talk a lot about it. Silence felt

really good, so I walked around with the water from Amma's feet and

gave it to devotees working in the kitchen, child care area, snack

tent, transportation shed and in the hall and environs. It was fun.

The people in the kitchen were really surprised! I bet the lunch

that they were fixing turned out really good!

 

Even after sharing the prasad--flower petals, water, kumkum, etc.--I

still had a lot left over. I went home and carefully put the ferns

and flower pets inside the pages of books to dry.

 

Blessings,

Aikya

 

Blessings!

Aikya

[Guest guest]

Aikya wrote:

 

The whole process is set up beautifully for Indian families, which

unfortunately, is not me. I'm a single American woman who lives in the city

with a room mate.

 

Sweta writes:

 

Amma seems to be showing us this week in more than one way, that the whole world

really is one family to the Universal Mother. At least most of ho participated

are unattached, & how beautiful it is that we acted as a family.

 

Your heart of gold is apparentin that you wanted to share the experience with

everyone by distributing prasad. How inspiring.