Devotees in the Pacific Northwest decided to celebrate Amma’s birthday this year by planting trees. Our goal was to plant 64 trees over a 7 week period but we far exceeded that number. More than 100 people participated in the project and our final count was 309 trees!
The December issue of our PNW GreenFriends newsletter was devoted to sharing stories and photos from the tree planting. Since Amma did not come to North America this fall, some of us decided to create a booklet from the newsletter and give Amma a copy when we were in Amritapuri.
This week there were fourteen devotees in Amritapuri who had participated in the project either by planting trees or by helping with the organization. Tirtha, who came up with the idea of tree planting for Amma’s birthay, was one of those people. I was so glad she was here.
We planned to present Amma the booklet on Thursday December 21st. Finding a time when all of us would be available was quite a feat. We settled on 8 p.m.
The first bump in the road came when darshan was changed from the big auditorium to the small temple. The temple stage is very tiny so there would be no way for us to all be in front of Amma at the same time. The second challenge occurred when Western devotees were asked to come for darshan starting at 2:00 p.m. There was no reasonable way to get all of our people together at that time but we did decide to move the presentation from 8 to 7 and trust that the darshan program wouldn’t end before then.
Tirtha and I needed to find everyone to let them know of the time change. Within five minutes of the decision, almost all of the people involved walked in front of me; I didn’t have to look for any of them. Tirtha found two of the Victoria devotees soon thereafter. There was only one more person to locate. I knew he was doing seva (volunteer work) until 6:30 but I didn’t know what kind of seva it was and I didn’t know what building he was living in. The offices were closed by then so I didn’t know what to do. He was someone who had a lot of desire to participate in this presentation, so I became increasingly frantic about finding him.
Lakshmi, a long time Amritapuri resident who also helps organize and run the darshan line, had agreed to translate for us once we reached Amma. When I saw her in front of the temple in my frantic state, she said, “Karuna, Go with the Flow.” I knew she was right and I also knew that my seeing almost all of the people in the first five minutes was a good example of the flow that happens when something is meant to be.
I believe that letting go is not permission to be passive and assume everything will work out without any effort on my part. I knew, though, that I had put in plenty of effort. Instead of continuing with my frantic search, I decided to go to my room and take a cold shower even though it was 6:45. After a quick shower, I looked at my email. In that moment, a new email arrived. It was from the devotee I had been looking for, saying he was heading to the temple. I was so glad I had decided to trust the flow and had taken the shower. That helped me cool off as well as calm down. And what a good example it was of the benefits of “Going with the Flow.”
By 7:15 everyone had arrived, and we joined the darshan line. It moved much faster than I had expected. Lakshmi had suggested that since we couldn’t come in front of Amma as a group, we should go one after another. I would hand her the booklet and then each person in the group that followed would say “I planted trees” to Amma. Lakshmi even told them how to say those words in Malayalam.
Before long, I was in front of Amma. She looked through the booklet and was clearly happy. Then I was in her arms, my favorite place to be! Afterwards, I sat in an area where I could see each member of our group receive their hug.
I loved how our presentation had turned out and also appreciated the reminder of the importance of “going with the flow.”
If you would like to read the GreenFriends newsletter that became Amma’s booklet click here.
To read the previous Amritapuri posts in this series click here.
Living, Learning and Letting Go 