Sandy and Mary go to an ashram
I hadn’t expected that nearly all the westerners on the backwater jungleboat ride from Alleppy to Kollam would disembark at the Amritapuri ashram but that’s exactly what happened. I guess Amma (aka The Hugging Saint) has gotten herself quite a reputation. It increased my cynicism about the whole endeavor being a thinly viewed scan aimed at spiritually bankrupt whities. I am suspicious, to say the least, of Americans and Europeans who can only find fulfillment – including spiritual meaning – in the Exotic Other, and teachers who cater to this audience are difficult for me to take seriously. It didn’t help that as we walked to the check in office, every western white-clad devotee had that annoyingly self-conscious “look how serene and blissed out I am – look!” somber half smile that I seriously started to want to slap off people’s faces in Thailand.
Mary and I were assigned our own room on the ninth floor of one of the non-Indian acccommodation buildings, where we settled in after picking up sheets from the bedding office on the ground floor. Nearly 2,000 people live on the premises, in pink highrise buildings surrounding the main temple. Our room was airy and simple, with a window overlooking a wide swath of coconut palms and the Arabian Sea beyond.
It wasn’t until evening that I started to feel a certain spiritual current running through the place itself. It happened when I was sitting on the beach during evening meditation time, as a thunderstorm approached. The sky and sea were painted in dramatic tones of gray. I counted prayers on my beads while watching the sea rise and fall behind a rough stone wall. And for just a moment, something opened up and I heard a rhythm behind it all, a rhythm behind the roll of the sea, the thunder, the pattern of the words in the Hail Mary – the same rhythm underlying everything, linking it all together…a song of God.
That night there was another kind of sea – one of white-clad women sat cross-legged on the floor of the cathedral-like main temple singing bhajans (traditional devotional songs). I can see now how people could get very, very high on a practice like that. Even though I obviously couldn’t understand the words, when I closed my eyes and let myself merge with the music, I couldn’t help swaying along to it and a few times had a strong urge to lift up my arms in praise and thanks, as the saying goes. I’m pretty sure I had one of those dumb blissy smiles on my face, too.
The next day was Kerala’s Vishu (astrological New Year). I got up at 4am to go to a special viewing of the Divine Mother, which turned out to be an Amma doll and giant photo plus statue of another goddess (not sure which one) surrounded by candles, flower, piles of offerings, and even though this sounds hokey it wasn’t at all. The shrine was beautiful and it was moving to see the glow of love as each devotee approached to prostrate themselves.
Oh, I forgot to mention there’s a superstition that whatever is the first thing you see when you open your eyes on Vishu, is how your year will go, so people make elaborate shrines using symbolic objects and colors. I did my own but then the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was light coming in between the wall and curtain by my bed. I immediately thought that I could do worse this year than to have new light flowing in through a break in the darkness.
After Archana (chanted recitation of the 1,000 names of the Divine Mother), Mary and I had breakfast and gave some thought to our next move. We had planned to get back on the jungleboat ride, continuing down to Kollum, spend the night there and the next day work our way through Trivandrum and down to Kanyakumari (at the tip of India). That’s not what we ended up doing but I’ll save that for next time since this is already way longer than you should be expected to read.
I’d just like to say that even though I was a bit cynical to start off with, Mary and I both left Amritapuri feeling really positive about the ashram and about Amma. It was fascinating to see both men and women from all over the world dedicating themselves to following an embodiment of female energy. We were glad Amma hadn’t been there because it was much quieter than it would have been otherwise, but her embracing spirit of compassion and service was unmistakably present. I’m really looking forward to going to the east bay when she gives darshan in June.
Tags: Kerala
sandyo
“I immediately thought that I could do worse this year than to have new light flowing in through a break in the darkness.” – LOVE it! 🙂