to premarupa about welcoming home (was Recomendations for healing)

[Guest guest]

premarupa wrote:

 

And GREAT to see Linda here again, by Amma's grace.

 

 

Dear premarupa ~ thank you for these warm and welcoming words. They are

short and yet so sweet, and maybe, as you will see, this is the need of my soul.

Perhaps this is the place to tell my story. Everyone knows that I became

enamored by Shree Maa and Swamiji, and became more and more involved in their

group digest sankalpas, which were very complex. And I couldn't keep up with

both digests...so I drifted away. Now I can't keep up with that one either as my

health has worsened a great deal.

 

I was never able to keep up, and I began to feel more and more sad and

uncomfortable.

I wasn't in training to be a pujari, but, in a sense, that is what it felt

like. The wealth of information, live classes, webcams from the Mandir and so

on are so wonderful, but they are for people of better health than I.

 

I was beginning to feel disillusioned with the experience, but still felt an

attachment to Maa and Swami. And if there are any other devotees of Maa and

Swamiji here, I hope you will not take offense at my story. They are making so

much available to so many and are now beginning to hold regular retreats at

the Mandir. At the same time this was going on though, my relationship was

disintegrating; my husband's abuse was getting worse, and when he wasn't

yelling me or throwing furniture around the room, he was plugged into the computer.

After the furniture throwing incident, which terrified me, I told him he had

to go. Yet still I felt such a deep loss, just as when my mother died in

July. One night, in great despair, I ran to one of the many boxes I still have

not had the strength to unpack and grabbed the Amma doll my mother gave me.

(Mine got partially eaten by my puppy, some of you may recall.) I held Her

close to me all night, feeling like I was in an ocean of swirling and gigantic

waves, holding onto the one small stick I could find.

 

Several times, I had written to different people at the Mandir about how I

might be able to come, how I could fit in (when I couldn't fully participate

in everything), despite my illness. Then I got an email from Maa and Swamiji

about the most current class and the next retreat, which will be at Christmas.

So I thought, I'll write to them directly. But the very interesting thing is

that, some weeks before, I had a very vivid dream, where I was with Swamiji,

and he was beaming kindly at me, and he said, "Linda, this is not your

path." When I got the response back from Maa and Swami, I was somewhat devastated

because they said there was no way they could accommodate someone like me at

the Mandir.

 

Immediately my mind turned to all the videos I had seen, and pictures, of

Amma licking the leper, and of Her giving darshan to people in wheelchairs or

who could barely sit up on their own. At first I was disillusioned and could

not imagine a guru turning a devotee away. But then I remembered my dream, and

I remembered how difficult it was to keep up with the group sankalpas, and I

thought ... okay, this is why there is more than one Great Soul walking the

earth in this Kali Yuga.

 

My feeling is of being at a huge banquet with many rich foods of all

different kinds and having to eat some of everything (when I actually can eat very

little). This is what Maa and Swami offer ~ a huge banquet. When I think of

Amma, I think of a cloth spread on the grass with some simple food ... flat

bread perhaps (which I could eat) and maybe some rice or sweet balls. But it is

only a little, and yet, for me it is enough, and it is very large in a way

that my spirit and body and mind and heart can handle.

 

So if someone has to carry me to Amma on a stretcher, I pray that I will see

Her because it has been so very long. Jai Ma ~ Linda