Seond Birthday of Seva Program

[Guest guest]

Here is an update on activities in Circle of Love Inside, Amma

Prison Outreach program. The program was 2 years old this past

Thanksgiving so this is a second birthday report. We currently have

85 letter writers and will soon have 100 recipients. There are 96

this morning and 8 new people awaiting letters.

 

Letter writers are across the US., in Canada, and Ireland. Three

letter writers have been approved by Amma to be IAM instructors

including me (to my amazement). I'm studying all the insturctions

now.

 

Letter recipients are in 15 states including , Arizona, California,

Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts,

Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and

Texas. The greatest number are still in California and Illinois,

with California taking the lead.

 

Fifty Amma books have been sent to individuals. This year we also

sent about 50 Who is Amma pamphlets and have recently started

sending the small pamphlets of Amma's talks such as May Your Hearts

Blossom. Now that the numbers of recipients are expanding, we'll

need to develop a followup system to be sure those who would be

interested in receiving books are known to those sending the books.

 

We made a good start on institutional donations of Amma's books to

California State Prisons thanks to the help of Mahadevi (Patricia

Tanner). We have placed two full sets of Awaken Children,

Swamiji's biography of Amma, My first Darshan and Lead Us to the

Light in four California prisons for their chapel and prison

libraries. Mahadevi received good feedback from one of the

Catholic chaplains who said that the man really love to read

people's stories. We will work with him to see if books like On the

Road to Freedom, vols. 1 and 2, Sacred Journeys, Amma and Me and the

like might be popular. That chaplain also wanted stories about

people's recovery from addiction that might not be limited to the

usual model. We could definitely manifest a book like My First

Darshan but filled with stories of recovery that included Amma. All

we need is an organized writer.

 

A set of 10 Amma books were also sent to Pioneer House for the

homeless. Sweta Mitzel handled getting the books to the shelter.

This was the same shelter which brought a van of people to meet Amma

in the summer.

 

The new challenge for Circle of Love Inside is working with the IAM

team to get the IAM technique into the prisons. We seem to have

eager students in places where there are no IAM teachers. Our best

chance at the moment involves San Francisco County Jail. Zeena, who

is a high school teacher in a charter school that serves that

facility in both the men's and women's areas, has offered to bring a

proposal regarding teaching IAM to the appropriate staff person at

SF County. Zeena is an Amma devotee. She will meet with the IAM

teachers on an upcoming Saturday to discuss the proposal.

 

We are all deeply grateful to Amma for this opportunity to serve her

sons and daughters in prison. We are grateful for the chance to

open our hearts and grow and to be inspired by the transformation we

see in those we contact.

 

Aikya

[Guest guest]

Om Namah Sivaya,

Aikya, Sweta and all,

It is so heart warming to read about Amma's Grace

reaching so many through the tireless service of all

of you. Our prayers will always be with all of you to

help you in all your undertakings.

Love, Suja.

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone is raving about the all-new Mail beta.

http://new.mail.