INDIA: MIRROR OF TRUTH (A Seven Year Pilgrimage)

[Guest guest]

Below are two excerpts from a new book, INDIA: MIRROR

OF TRUTH (A Seven Year Pilgrimage). It's now available

at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

 

The author of the book was sent to India to teach

meditation by his teacher, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and

spent seven years traveling from coastal Kerala to the

border of Tibet where he met Himalayan yogis, visited

ancient holy sites, encountered swamis living at the

source of the Ganges, experienced the excitement of

thirty million pilgrims at the Kumbha Mela as guest of

a maharaja, initiated India's elite into meditation,

and shared the company of lamas at Tibetan monasteries

in Ladakh. While in India, he met Amma in Delhi in

1996. The following excerpt describes his experience

at Devi Bhava.

 

 

DEVI BHAVA (Excerpt)

 

I was deeply moved by Amma, and decided to see her

again. According to one of her people, an all night

affair called Devi Bhava was scheduled for her last

day in Delhi. A sprawling tent was already filled

beyond capacity when I arrived, but with the help of a

volunteer, I located a seat on the canvas-covered

ground near the front. After a lamp-lighting ceremony

and a short talk, Amma led a group meditation. Then

the stage curtains closed around her for ten minutes.

Bells and chanting could be heard, but what transpired

behind the curtains remained a mystery. The person

sitting next to me said that Amma was entering a

divine mood called Devi Bhava.

 

When the curtains opened, Amma was wearing a deep

purple sari and had a tall silver crown on her head.

She had apparently entered the mood of Divine Mother.

Assistants began bringing over nine thousand people

one by one to be consoled and uplifted. She embraced

families together and placed babies on her lap,

cuddling and kissing them on the cheeks. Many sobbed

as personal trauma was expelled when Amma stroked

their head and back. Her expression was filled with

understanding and concern as she comforted the

distressed and disturbed. A disfigured child near me

was carried to the stage by his mother and placed in

Amma’s lap. She gazed compassionately into the boy’s

eyes, kissed him several times on the cheeks, and then

sprinkled flower petals on him. His expression changed

for the first time in many hours. Biblical stories of

Christ ministering to the sick and lame came to my

mind.

 

The hugging continued for sixteen hours. During that

time, Amma never left her couch. On two occasions she

sipped water from a metal cup. By early morning,

Amma’s right cheek was bruised from having heads press

against it all night. An assistant alternated

massaging her back and feet. Amma embraced ten people

per minute with assembly line precision, yet each hug

was custom-fit for the individual, bringing smiles to

some and evoking fits of emotion in others. Her

endurance alone was superhuman; her energy never

waned, nor did her enthusiasm, and she smiled and

chatted with helpers as she hugged. All night long

bhajans were sung by a group of devotees. The last in

the tent to be hugged was greeted with the same tender

smile and heartfelt embrace as the first. I was told

Amma repeated this ritual virtually every day as she

circled the globe on a personal mission to eradicate

suffering. While traveling, she embraced people in

airports, even hugging passengers on international

flights, including pilots and flight attendants. By

2002, when she received the Gandhi-King Award for

non-violence, she had already hugged over twenty-one

million people.

 

After hugging everyone in the tent, she stood at the

front of the stage. An assistant stood next to her

holding a bowl filled with flower petals. Amma’s

divine mood was different now. She appeared more

abstract and less approachable as she stared at the

audience. Her intensely personal style of interacting

one to one with people was gone. She rocked from side

to side as if possessed by a cosmic personality too

great to be accommodated in a human body. As she

swayed, my perception underwent a bizarre change.

Everything dissolved around me, including the noise of

the crowd, which faded to a faint drone. Although the

singers had increased the volume to extreme levels, I

barely noticed. No matter how I adjusted the focus of

my eyes, I couldn’t see Amma. I looked intently as she

stood there, but she looked different. I no longer saw

Amma. Instead, the mystifying Kali, the black goddess

I had seen in the Calcutta temple a few years earlier,

stared with intense eyes at the audience, but the

all-powerful gaze of the black goddess was tempered

with immense kindness. Disheveled hair formed a mist

around her head, and her scarlet tongue stretched

beyond her chin. As I stood there amidst the crowd of

thousands, it was evident that either I was

hallucinating from the combined effects of sleep

deprivation and sensory overload from the music, or

what I saw was real. The goddess possessed the power

to destroy anything that displeased her. Kali was, as

the scriptures described her, unassailable and intent

on destroying suffering. I felt safe with her as a

protector, but would never want to encounter her

displeasure. She was both benevolent and

uncompromising.

 

I tried to hold onto the specter as it faded, but it

was hopeless. The vision of the black goddess vanished

as mysteriously as it had come. A sort of mist now

shrouded the stage, and when it cleared, Amma was

standing there, throwing flower petals at the audience

like a shortstop in a baseball game. With an almost

casual sidearm motion, she tossed handfuls of rose

petals as the crowd scrambled to collect them with the

zeal of a beggar chasing ten-rupee notes. As the beat

of the tabla intensified I looked for signs of

reassurance that I was not the only person that had

seen the awesome sight, for confirmation that I was

not losing my mind. Was it real, or had the lack of

sleep and earsplitting music induced the strange

vision?

 

Maybe others had seen it too. I looked at the faces

near me, but I wasn’t sure until I saw the crippled

boy. I had looked at him from time to time, but his

expression hadn’t changed all night. He had appeared

completely out of touch until now. But now his eyes

were open wide, as if he had seen a ghost. He was

staring at Amma. More remarkably, his tongue extended

from his mouth to his chin as if he were mimicking

someone doing the same thing. It was the only time all

night I had seen his tongue. I wondered if he had seen

what I had seen.

 

After a superhuman length of time onstage, Amma

climbed down and walked briskly through a human

corridor with the enthusiasm of a youngster on her way

to visit friends, smiling at anyone and everyone. A

van outside was poised to take her to the airport for

a flight to Calcutta, where even greater numbers were

expected. In the sudden wake of her departure, tears

streamed down the cheeks of many. Others looked

bewildered. With her hands pressed together in the

traditional gesture of reverence, Amma stepped into

the van and was gone. I glanced again at the crippled

boy. His tongue was still stretching to touch his

chin. I wanted to ask him what he had seen, but what

did it matter? Numerous miracles had been attributed

to this tiny woman from the Kerala backwaters, but the

feats she had performed in the tent that night were

miracle enough for me.

 

 

GANESH'S MIRACLE (Excerpt)

 

One emerald morning, the peacock that visited our

garden with his mates was performing at his flamboyant

best. His harem of peahens and I watched the vain

showman’s dance. The proud bird circled like a Native

American chief dancing at a powwow. His iridescent

train and steel-blue breast was more stunning than the

feathered headdress of a Shoshone or Blackfoot chief.

The large black eyes and gaudy greens and blues of his

feathers mesmerized his consorts as he paraded past.

Perhaps the showiest bird on earth, the peacock is

Krishna’s favorite, and rightly so, for Krishna also

cast a hypnotic effect on his adoring gopis (maidens).

I would do well to copy the peacock’s subtle steps

should I decide to dance again.

 

I had been teaching in Bombay, and it had been several

weeks since I’d seen the Pateriya family. My Hero

bicycle lurched about as I navigated the potholed dirt

road leading to Pateriya’s house in the far corner of

the ashram. I was bringing my friends a framed picture

of Krishna, but the lumpy road made it almost

impossible to carry the gift and ride at the same

time.

 

“Steveji, have you heard?” bubbled Pateriya as I

walked into his living room.

 

“Heard what?”

 

“Ganesh drinking milk in temples all over India.”

 

“What do you mean?” I hadn’t heard the news.

 

“He’s drinking. Come.” Pateriya led me barefoot into

his puja room where we sat in front of his bronze

Ganesh statue. Pateriya prayed for a moment and then

took a small spoonful of milk from a bowl and put it

up to Ganesh’s mouth. Then something amazing happened.

The milk slowly disappeared as if the elephant god

were drinking it.

 

“But that’s incredible, Pateriya.”

 

“Steveji, you try it,” Pateriya suggested and so I

filled the sugar spoon and put it up to Ganesh’s

mouth. Again the milk disappeared, except for a small

amount, which Pateriya and I shared as prasada. “It’s

a miracle,” enthused Pateriya.

 

“Only in India,” I replied, shaking my head.

 

“No,” countered Pateriya. “It happened in a temple in

London and Hong Kong too.”

 

“In a Hindu temple, no doubt.”

 

The next day I read about it in the newspaper. Ganesh

temples all over India were reporting the exact thing

I had witnessed at Pateriya’s house. Thousands lined

up outside temples with jugs of milk to feed their

beloved god, but apparently not only Ganesh was

thirsty; Siva also drank the offered milk. The miracle

was so widespread that the Indian government closed

down, and the Bombay Stock Exchange stopped trading so

everyone could visit the temples. Wealthy Delhi women

with silver pitchers lined up alongside street urchins

carrying plastic pouches of milk. Millions of people

claimed to have seen what we had seen in Pateriya’s

puja room. The news was reported all over the world. A

wave of inspiration swept India. For Hindus it was

proof that their gods were here on earth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

>

> DEVI BHAVA (Excerpt)

>

>> Amma was

> standing there, throwing flower petals at the

> audience

> like a shortstop in a baseball game.

 

Gotta love that!! And I thought I was the only one

who ever compared Amma's flower-throwing motion to a

baseball player (though she usually reminds me of a

pitcher throwing a three-quarter arm fastball, rather

than a shortstop!!)

 

 

Keval

 

 

 

 

 

Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005

 

[Guest guest]

Written by my friend Steve Briggs who was married by Amma in Santa Fe

several years ago and was just with her in Michigan with his wife. Fun book.

 

 

on 11/24/05 7:03 AM, Sivram Deodar at sivram108 wrote:

 

> Below are two excerpts from a new book, INDIA: MIRROR

> OF TRUTH (A Seven Year Pilgrimage). It's now available

> at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

>

> The author of the book was sent to India to teach

> meditation by his teacher, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and

> spent seven years traveling from coastal Kerala to the

> border of Tibet where he met Himalayan yogis, visited

> ancient holy sites, encountered swamis living at the

> source of the Ganges, experienced the excitement of

> thirty million pilgrims at the Kumbha Mela as guest of

> a maharaja, initiated India's elite into meditation,

> and shared the company of lamas at Tibetan monasteries

> in Ladakh. While in India, he met Amma in Delhi in

> 1996. The following excerpt describes his experience

> at Devi Bhava.

>

>

> DEVI BHAVA (Excerpt)

>

> I was deeply moved by Amma, and decided to see her

> again. According to one of her people, an all night

> affair called Devi Bhava was scheduled for her last

> day in Delhi. A sprawling tent was already filled

> beyond capacity when I arrived, but with the help of a

> volunteer, I located a seat on the canvas-covered

> ground near the front. After a lamp-lighting ceremony

> and a short talk, Amma led a group meditation. Then

> the stage curtains closed around her for ten minutes.

> Bells and chanting could be heard, but what transpired

> behind the curtains remained a mystery. The person

> sitting next to me said that Amma was entering a

> divine mood called Devi Bhava.

>

> When the curtains opened, Amma was wearing a deep

> purple sari and had a tall silver crown on her head.

> She had apparently entered the mood of Divine Mother.

> Assistants began bringing over nine thousand people

> one by one to be consoled and uplifted. She embraced

> families together and placed babies on her lap,

> cuddling and kissing them on the cheeks. Many sobbed

> as personal trauma was expelled when Amma stroked

> their head and back. Her expression was filled with

> understanding and concern as she comforted the

> distressed and disturbed. A disfigured child near me

> was carried to the stage by his mother and placed in

> Amma¹s lap. She gazed compassionately into the boy¹s

> eyes, kissed him several times on the cheeks, and then

> sprinkled flower petals on him. His expression changed

> for the first time in many hours. Biblical stories of

> Christ ministering to the sick and lame came to my

> mind.

>

> The hugging continued for sixteen hours. During that

> time, Amma never left her couch. On two occasions she

> sipped water from a metal cup. By early morning,

> Amma¹s right cheek was bruised from having heads press

> against it all night. An assistant alternated

> massaging her back and feet. Amma embraced ten people

> per minute with assembly line precision, yet each hug

> was custom-fit for the individual, bringing smiles to

> some and evoking fits of emotion in others. Her

> endurance alone was superhuman; her energy never

> waned, nor did her enthusiasm, and she smiled and

> chatted with helpers as she hugged. All night long

> bhajans were sung by a group of devotees. The last in

> the tent to be hugged was greeted with the same tender

> smile and heartfelt embrace as the first. I was told

> Amma repeated this ritual virtually every day as she

> circled the globe on a personal mission to eradicate

> suffering. While traveling, she embraced people in

> airports, even hugging passengers on international

> flights, including pilots and flight attendants. By

> 2002, when she received the Gandhi-King Award for

> non-violence, she had already hugged over twenty-one

> million people.

>

> After hugging everyone in the tent, she stood at the

> front of the stage. An assistant stood next to her

> holding a bowl filled with flower petals. Amma¹s

> divine mood was different now. She appeared more

> abstract and less approachable as she stared at the

> audience. Her intensely personal style of interacting

> one to one with people was gone. She rocked from side

> to side as if possessed by a cosmic personality too

> great to be accommodated in a human body. As she

> swayed, my perception underwent a bizarre change.

> Everything dissolved around me, including the noise of

> the crowd, which faded to a faint drone. Although the

> singers had increased the volume to extreme levels, I

> barely noticed. No matter how I adjusted the focus of

> my eyes, I couldn¹t see Amma. I looked intently as she

> stood there, but she looked different. I no longer saw

> Amma. Instead, the mystifying Kali, the black goddess

> I had seen in the Calcutta temple a few years earlier,

> stared with intense eyes at the audience, but the

> all-powerful gaze of the black goddess was tempered

> with immense kindness. Disheveled hair formed a mist

> around her head, and her scarlet tongue stretched

> beyond her chin. As I stood there amidst the crowd of

> thousands, it was evident that either I was

> hallucinating from the combined effects of sleep

> deprivation and sensory overload from the music, or

> what I saw was real. The goddess possessed the power

> to destroy anything that displeased her. Kali was, as

> the scriptures described her, unassailable and intent

> on destroying suffering. I felt safe with her as a

> protector, but would never want to encounter her

> displeasure. She was both benevolent and

> uncompromising.

>

> I tried to hold onto the specter as it faded, but it

> was hopeless. The vision of the black goddess vanished

> as mysteriously as it had come. A sort of mist now

> shrouded the stage, and when it cleared, Amma was

> standing there, throwing flower petals at the audience

> like a shortstop in a baseball game. With an almost

> casual sidearm motion, she tossed handfuls of rose

> petals as the crowd scrambled to collect them with the

> zeal of a beggar chasing ten-rupee notes. As the beat

> of the tabla intensified I looked for signs of

> reassurance that I was not the only person that had

> seen the awesome sight, for confirmation that I was

> not losing my mind. Was it real, or had the lack of

> sleep and earsplitting music induced the strange

> vision?

>

> Maybe others had seen it too. I looked at the faces

> near me, but I wasn¹t sure until I saw the crippled

> boy. I had looked at him from time to time, but his

> expression hadn¹t changed all night. He had appeared

> completely out of touch until now. But now his eyes

> were open wide, as if he had seen a ghost. He was

> staring at Amma. More remarkably, his tongue extended

> from his mouth to his chin as if he were mimicking

> someone doing the same thing. It was the only time all

> night I had seen his tongue. I wondered if he had seen

> what I had seen.

>

> After a superhuman length of time onstage, Amma

> climbed down and walked briskly through a human

> corridor with the enthusiasm of a youngster on her way

> to visit friends, smiling at anyone and everyone. A

> van outside was poised to take her to the airport for

> a flight to Calcutta, where even greater numbers were

> expected. In the sudden wake of her departure, tears

> streamed down the cheeks of many. Others looked

> bewildered. With her hands pressed together in the

> traditional gesture of reverence, Amma stepped into

> the van and was gone. I glanced again at the crippled

> boy. His tongue was still stretching to touch his

> chin. I wanted to ask him what he had seen, but what

> did it matter? Numerous miracles had been attributed

> to this tiny woman from the Kerala backwaters, but the

> feats she had performed in the tent that night were

> miracle enough for me.

>

>

> GANESH'S MIRACLE (Excerpt)

>

> One emerald morning, the peacock that visited our

> garden with his mates was performing at his flamboyant

> best. His harem of peahens and I watched the vain

> showman¹s dance. The proud bird circled like a Native

> American chief dancing at a powwow. His iridescent

> train and steel-blue breast was more stunning than the

> feathered headdress of a Shoshone or Blackfoot chief.

> The large black eyes and gaudy greens and blues of his

> feathers mesmerized his consorts as he paraded past.

> Perhaps the showiest bird on earth, the peacock is

> Krishna¹s favorite, and rightly so, for Krishna also

> cast a hypnotic effect on his adoring gopis (maidens).

> I would do well to copy the peacock¹s subtle steps

> should I decide to dance again.

>

> I had been teaching in Bombay, and it had been several

> weeks since I¹d seen the Pateriya family. My Hero

> bicycle lurched about as I navigated the potholed dirt

> road leading to Pateriya¹s house in the far corner of

> the ashram. I was bringing my friends a framed picture

> of Krishna, but the lumpy road made it almost

> impossible to carry the gift and ride at the same

> time.

>

> ³Steveji, have you heard?² bubbled Pateriya as I

> walked into his living room.

>

> ³Heard what?²

>

> ³Ganesh drinking milk in temples all over India.²

>

> ³What do you mean?² I hadn¹t heard the news.

>

> ³He¹s drinking. Come.² Pateriya led me barefoot into

> his puja room where we sat in front of his bronze

> Ganesh statue. Pateriya prayed for a moment and then

> took a small spoonful of milk from a bowl and put it

> up to Ganesh¹s mouth. Then something amazing happened.

> The milk slowly disappeared as if the elephant god

> were drinking it.

>

> ³But that¹s incredible, Pateriya.²

>

> ³Steveji, you try it,² Pateriya suggested and so I

> filled the sugar spoon and put it up to Ganesh¹s

> mouth. Again the milk disappeared, except for a small

> amount, which Pateriya and I shared as prasada. ³It¹s

> a miracle,² enthused Pateriya.

>

> ³Only in India,² I replied, shaking my head.

>

> ³No,² countered Pateriya. ³It happened in a temple in

> London and Hong Kong too.²

>

> ³In a Hindu temple, no doubt.²

>

> The next day I read about it in the newspaper. Ganesh

> temples all over India were reporting the exact thing

> I had witnessed at Pateriya¹s house. Thousands lined

> up outside temples with jugs of milk to feed their

> beloved god, but apparently not only Ganesh was

> thirsty; Siva also drank the offered milk. The miracle

> was so widespread that the Indian government closed

> down, and the Bombay Stock Exchange stopped trading so

> everyone could visit the temples. Wealthy Delhi women

> with silver pitchers lined up alongside street urchins

> carrying plastic pouches of milk. Millions of people

> claimed to have seen what we had seen in Pateriya¹s

> puja room. The news was reported all over the world. A

> wave of inspiration swept India. For Hindus it was

> proof that their gods were here on earth.

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

Aum Amriteswarayai Namaha!

> Links

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

 

--

 

Rick Archer

SearchSummit

1108 South B Street

Fairfield, IA 52556

Phone: 641-472-9336

Fax: 815-572-5842

 

http://searchsummit.com

rick