To Mike about I Should Have Known Better - Amma at EarthDance

[Guest guest]

Dear Mike ~ I've chopped up your story a bit for brevity's sake, but thank

you so very much for sharing it with us. It truly shows that Amma can and is

with us anywhere/everywhere. It was amazing to think of the Beatles' song in

the context of it being about Amma ... how wonderful. : ) I too love

Ganesha and really enjoyed your story of being drawn to that altar and how the

picture of Amma got bigger. It reminded me that I have a big picture of Amma,

from an old calendar, and I want to put it up in my bedroom where I can see it

when I am lying in bed.

 

I want to thank you too for reminding me about the prayer: "Lokah Samistah

Sukino Bhavantu." I was trying to think of it recently and could not get it to

come out of my foggy brain. Now I have typed it in a beautiful sage green

color to put on my refrigerator next to my fridge picture of Amma. As I was

reading the rest of your experience, I began to sing the prayer, and the melody

came right to me. : ) Reading about your experience was like a fresh cool

breeze to me. Thank you. Blessings ~ Linda

 

Mike wrote:

 

I have been meaning to get this written for you all, relating my

experiences at EarthDance a couple of months ago. It was a very

special weekend and...I spent the weekend there with Amma.

 

It began the first night when She let me know she was there.

 

Under the spell of the music, lying still in my sleeping bag, I let it

wash over me and fill my being. As the pulse of the music became my

pulse, a big sleepy smile must have been on my face. I knew the song

well, but hadn't heard it for years.

 

I Should Have Known Better - The Beatles

 

I should have known better with a girl like you

That I would love everything that you do

And I do, hey hey hey, and I do...

 

As 4 PM approached...Back in the

middle rear of the arena was a platform that held the "Elders," a

group of spiritual elders from many paths that had held a council

earlier in the day. I...was drawn there instead of...the main stage where

everyone else seemed to be gravitating...As it turned out, this was where

all attention was directed as the program began...

Directly before on the platform me was a Buddhist holy man and oddly

enough, simultaneously lifted our malas from around our necks and

began chanting. I took my mala in hand and was chanting "Lokah

Samistah Sukino Bhavantu." As I continued praying in the midst of

this sea of kindred spirits...It began to get rather close, and...I began to

feel a

bit light-headed and overheated.

 

....All of a sudden, from somewhere directly above me and in

front of me, I was bathed in a fresh cool breeze that seemed to

envelop me in a refreshing, energizing air. It just dropped out of

the sky overhead and was so sweet. It was almost as if a big bucket

of sweet cool air had been tipped over right above me.

 

I smiled and knew that our prayers were being heard.

[Guest guest]

Ammachi, nierika wrote:

>

>

> Dear Mike ~ I've chopped up your story a bit for brevity's sake, but

thank

> you so very much for sharing it with us. It truly shows that Amma

can and is

> with us anywhere/everywhere.

 

 

Om Namah Shivaya all,

 

To echo what you said, since I have let Amma into my life, she has

shown me over and over that she is "in" my life and is looking out for

me. Here is just another example:

 

I have been facing a challenge for a while: to "minimize" my life. I

need to pare my sphere down to a more manageable level. I did 30

years as a building contractor and have a place that i have been at

for 17 years and it has sprawled out with storage sheds and trailers

full of tools and materials until it took over.

 

Then a couple of years ago, at one of my daughters' wedding, i invited

a dear friend that I had been out of touch with for 5 years or so. In

our re-acquaintance, I found out that he had gotten into trouble with

his gambling, and lost everything. Then he was diagnosed with cancer,

and because of these health issues, coupled with his depression at his

ruined life, he wasn't able to work and was going to be homeless a

couple of weeks after the wedding when his money ran out. He too was

a building contractor and had tons of stuff stashed at some friends

house. So I spent the next month or so getting all his stuff hauled

out to my place and installed him in a spare bedroom and began my

"save Greg" project. His stuff took more space than mine. Think

Sanford & Son.

 

That hasn't worked out so well, and basically I have figured out that

I am just enabling him to do nothing but feel sorry for himself. Oh

well.

 

Then I met Amma (1 year ago this Thanksgiving).

 

So I came to the decision to minimize my life. Basically, the closest

thing I can get to rununciation. A move was needed to force me out of

the inertia that has seemd to have taken hold of my life. It is so

comfortable to just keep going.

 

To make a long story short, I was faced with some challenges once I

made this decision. Getting rid of 30+ years of accumulated "stuff",

getting Greg out of here, finding a new place, etc.

 

Amma has taken care of all this for me, and I am in the middle of the

move right now.

 

First, last summer another Amma devotee and a dear friend told me that

an elderly friend of hers was going to move to an assisted living

place near her daughter and had an old trailer that she needed to get

rid of. It was one of those old aluminum trailers from 1950 (same as

me!) and she gave it to me in exchange for helping her clear out some

more of her stuff. I got it hauled home with intentions of re-doing

it to live in, but didn't have the money to get started, so it sat.

 

Then I was facing one of those lose-lose things with my car. It was

12 years old and was beginning to have problems. The transmission was

going out and the cost of fixing it was about what the car was worth.

So what to do? Spend the money and have twice what the car was worth

in it? Sell it cheap and lose money?

 

Amma solved this for me in a very exciting way a couple of months ago.

I was driving into work, babying the car, and pondering what to do,

when right in the middle of town, the car burst into flames! I pulled

it over to the side of the street, grabbed my picture of Amma from the

dash and the rest of what I felt comfortable grabbing (the fire was

still pretty much contained up front under the hood), put it on the

sidewalk and just stood there with a smile on my face and watched it

burn. Passers-by commented on how calm I seemed to be :-). The fire

guys poked and prodded the charred car after they put it out looking

for the cause/origin of the fire and after an exhaustive

investigation, looked at me with puzzled faces and stated that they

couldn't find the reason and were going to have to put it down on the

report as "spontaneous combustion." It was totally insured and I got

the check a couple of weeks later, so I am now in the middle of

re-building the old Spartan trailer (new wiring, insulation,

re-finishing cabinets, etc.) Best possible outcome.

 

That left me only one more big one: the place for my new life.

 

I mentioned my problem to some other old friends that I ran into a

couple of weeks ago and they told me that their house had burned down,

and had taken the insurance money from that and bought a new home in

Victoria, B. C. and were looking to put a small trailer on their

property here and find someone to move in and "caretake" the place.

 

There you have it!

 

Problem solved except for the yard sales and prodding Greg to move

out. Right now he is getting up the courage to make it out to the

trailer once in a while and do some of the work. He is trying to work

with one of his sons to maybe take over the place I am leaving, which

would probably be best, then he wouldn't have to deal with moving all

his stuff out.

 

Amma is watching out for us, this is truth.

 

In Mother's Arms

 

Mike

 

(only 10 more days!!!)