Re-post of article about Temba in Amma's E-voice newsletter

[Guest guest]

Around Amma Everybody deserves to see her face

 

14 June 2006 —San Ramon, California, USA

 

Themba first met Amma in the mid-1990s in New York. At that time, he

was a troubled spiritual seeker—a young man who was inspired to

search for Truth yet who still occasionally found himself in trouble

with the law. {read his email from 2002}

 

Though Themba's father had instilled in him a basic spiritual

understanding, he seemed unable to transcend the pitfalls associated

with young men growing up in America's poorer neighborhoods. He

became a gang member, used and sold drugs, and regularly engaged in

violence and theft. He even still carries a bullet in his chest from

a rival gang member's gun. Themba says that he was inspired by the

teachings of the spiritual masters but, at the same time, he was

irritated that the proliferation of such teachings seemed limited to

America's middle and upper classes. "I felt like, 'If this is so

real, how come it ain't reaching the ghetto? Why isn't the universal

message coming to the 'hood?" he says. Themba wanted a spiritual

teacher who put their words into action, someone who didn't just

speak about how every man, woman and child is an embodiment of the

divine but who also served his fellow man accordingly.

 

At that New York program Themba leafed through Amma's biography and

was bowled over by what he read. Amma said that in her childhood her

inner voice had told her, "Your birth is not merely for enjoying the

pure bliss of the Self but for comforting suffering humanity." He

was further impressed with Amma's response to that inner

voice: "Thereafter, I renounced everything but the love of my

children."

 

"I had never heard anything from the spiritual masters that was that

profound," Themba exclaims. "Amma kept it real: She said, 'Yeah, I

renounce everything except y'all.' In that moment, I fell in love. I

was blissed out. I was so overwhelmed that I didn't even go for her

hug that year. And I had the experience that every time she was

hugging someone, she was hugging me."

 

As Themba watched Amma give darshan that day, he heard an inner

voice of his own, experienced an inner vision: "I started seeing

busloads of homeless people in North America being brought to get

Amma's darshan. And I started seeing busloads of African Americans,

Latin Americans and all these different cultural persuasions of

people just coming to reacquaint themselves with Amma, with their

mother."

 

And the next year when Amma came to New York, this is exactly what

Themba did. He gathered 15 homeless people in a van and took them

for Amma's darshan.

 

"I just believe that everybody deserves to see her face," he

says. "I just feel that everybody deserves to know that their mother

is here with them."

 

But Themba's story does not end there. "Old habits die hard and I

got caught back up in the lifestyle and wounded up locked up again,"

he says. This time, he was sentenced to stint in Riker's Island, one

of New York's most infamous penitentiaries, after being picked up on

an old warrant.

 

In retrospect, Themba feels that his prison sentence was, in fact,

an opportunity for him to serve "Amma's children in prison."

 

"Through Amma's grace, it ended up being more like a spiritual

retreat than anything else," he says. "Prison was my first ashram

experience."

 

Soon after his incarceration, Themba asked his father to send him

some of Amma's books. He did so, and Themba tore out one of Amma's

photos and used it to create a small puja in his dormitory. He began

to take happiness from the fact that hundreds of other prisoners

were now seeing Amma's face each time they walked past his small

shrine. As he puts it, "Even behind bars, Amma was giving me a

purpose."

 

Then, Themba says, Amma began to speak to him in his heart. "She

said: 'No matter what happens, you just be an example of love. Pray

with the Christians, pray with the Muslims, the Bloods, the Crips1,

the thugs, the criminals… I don't care if they about to go on death

row—you just keep loving them.' And brothers began to gravitate to

me. She began to send people to me. They would be like, 'Who is this

woman?' And I saw society's so-called 'hardest' just melt at the

sight of her face. I never got any disrespect for Amma's picture.

They would all just melt and be like, 'Who's that?' I ain't being

romantic. I'm being real.

 

"And when I would chant 'Om,' they would tease me, but Amma was

like, 'That's all right, let them tease you, because they are

learning something new. So it is uncomfortable for them but they are

learning something new, so you go ahead.' And soon people were

coming up to me and asking, 'Can you teach me a little meditation?'"

 

Themba began to tell his fellow inmates about Amma. He says that

many of his fellow African Americans identified with Amma's life

story—the fact that Amma, like them, had been subject to persecution

due to her dark skin. Soon there were three, then four, then five

more altars to Amma set up in Riker's.

 

"Some of these belonged to the so-called 'most threatening'

and 'hardest' children of Amma," he says (reminding everyone "she's

everybody's momma"). "So these people became like my guardian

angels. So then even the people who were teasing me weren't saying

anything… because all the hardest people in the dorm were

chanting 'Om' with me."

 

"Amma was fulfilling my dreams," he says, "because I always wanted

to know that the message of the spiritual masters was for real. I

always wanted to know that it was not just a message for certain

people. And Amma was proving it to me right behind bars, right in

prison."

 

Then in 2004, Themba was released.

 

As a free man, Themba has become a key figure in Circle of Love

{news}, the M.A. Center's program that arranges the writing of

loving and encouraging letters to people who are lonely, grieving,

sick or isolated. With Themba's assistance, the program created a

subsidiary branch that focuses specifically on writing letters to

prisoners: Circle of Love Inside.

 

"People are really lonely locked up," says Themba. "Many people's

families have turned away from them. Actually, for someone in

prison, getting a letter is maybe the equivalent of getting darshan

for us—that's how serious it is."

 

"Many people who are in prison are dark-skinned like Amma, and they

had a lot of abuse, and for them to read how Amma, who is dark and

was abused like them, has become a spiritual leader... it really

moves them. The life she has lived and the life she lives now are

particularly inspiring to this population of people."

 

Today, Circle of Love Inside is active in nine states, with

volunteers from around the world participating. So far, the group

has also sent more than 200 of Amma's books to various individuals

and prison libraries. It also arranges prison visits.

 

Through the Circle of Love, the prisoners have even taught prisoners

Amma's "Ma-Om" meditation technique.

 

Aside from Circle of Love Inside, Themba has recently begun a

project called "Mother's Murals." Stemming from Themba's desire that

everyone have the opportunity to see Amma's face, he is trying to

get murals of Amma painted on the walls of poor communities

throughout North America. The first one, in Bay Area's Richmond, was

recently completed. "I just believe that everybody deserves to see

her face. I just believe that everybody deserves to know that they

are loved" says Themba.

 

"My main prayer is that this will inspire a wave of devotion and

service towards Amma's children in all circumstances—not just the

ones we are comfortable with," says Themba. "I hope that we will

begin to go into uncomfortable situations with Amma's face and our

hearts open."

[Guest guest]

What a great article, thanks so much for posting it. Very inspiring!

 

Can anybody tell the address of the Richmond mural? I want to see it.

 

Jai Maa

Max

--

Max Dashu

 

Art in Goddess Reverence

http://www.maxdashu.net