Amritapuri Christmas Play- Part 3

Surprise! I’m able to write the third post about the Amritapuri Christmas play after all. Enjoy!

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As I’ve mentioned before, this year’s Christmas musical was about the nativity story as told by a 9 year old child named Grace. Grace was living in a school for girls. She is the second child from the left in the first photo below. She is wearing a blue dress.

In many Indian plays, the actors don’t speak or sing, they lip sync. The musicians and people singing or speaking for the actors are out of sight. In this play, they were sitting on the left side of the stage.

The children were amazing. They had practiced their roles so thoroughly that you couldn’t tell they weren’t saying anything.

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In Grace’s version of the nativity story, one of the wise men came from Africa. She named him Tsabo Babatunde. Tsabo was very, very old. When he received God’s direction to follow the star to Bethlehem, so that he could welcome another great soul to the world, he obeyed.

Tsabo was able to talk to animals, and they talked to him. One of the songs in the musical was Come Awake Africa.

[Note: You can enlarge the photos in this post by clicking on the photo galleries. To hear the songs, click on the audiofiles.]

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Joseph and Mary sang and danced with their friends before they traveled to Bethlehem.

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One of the most intense scenes of the play occurred when it was time for Mary to give birth and no one would give them the couple a place to stay. I think you will get a sense of the intensity by listening to the song. I still get goose bumps when I hear it.

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An angel was present during the nativity scene. As you look at the photos and listen to the music know that she was 30-40 feet above the floor!

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One of the most touching scenes was near the end when Mary let Grace hold baby Jesus.

Throughout his journey, Tsabo had visions of what the adult Jesus would do in his life. Those visions were enacted. The photo below is from one of the last scenes in the play when Jesus was talking about love.

It was a wonderful musical. I hope you were able to get a sense of that from the photos and songs in this post.

To read the previous posts in this series click here.

We Had a Great Month Thanks to You

Last night, Sreejit posted the summary of his Rage Against the Machine event. He did it in a new way in that for each post he included a quote and one of the comments that a reader made. I think that is a valuable way to help new readers choose which posts to look at, so I’m passing his summary on to those of you who read my blog.

A Bridge Between Worlds

Sreejit’s directions for this week’s Dungeon Prompt were:

If the journey of your life could be boiled down to a particular mission, what would it be? What has been the primary focus or purpose of your particular birth? You may believe that all of life is on a big picture path, but I’m asking about your particular journey. Is there any lesson or goal that has defined the majority of your life? What is your life’s mission?

I once used the process that Stephen Covey described in his book First Things First to develop a personal mission statement. The document I created that day is as relevant and alive for me now as it was on the day I created it. (My mission statement can be found in this blog post: Living with Purpose.)

For this prompt, I decided to look at my life’s mission from a different angle. Throughout my adolescence and young adult years I believed that I didn’t “belong” anywhere. That belief developed, at least in part, because I grew up as an army brat. I generally moved every three years, and if I wasn’t leaving then my friends were. No place or group felt like “home,” I always believed I was an outsider. Continue reading “A Bridge Between Worlds” →

No Matter Time Nor Place

Sreejit, as always, picked an interesting Dungeon Prompt for this week; one worthy of considerable contemplation. His instructions:

Which truth do you hold no matter the time or place? This isn’t a prompt about whether you believe in God or not, or in science or not. This is a morality question. For example, most of us can say that we believe in the commandment, thou shalt not kill, regardless of religion, but would you be able to stick with that even while witnessing your mother or sister being raped? Would you feel that it was wrong if another person, in that kind of situation, killed an attacker to save someone else? So the question here is, which of your values do you hold so strongly that it wouldn’t matter the time or place? Explain.

I did my personal therapy with therapists who used a process known as corrective parenting psychotherapy. When I finished my therapy, I decided I wanted to become a therapist. After obtaining the necessary education, I chose to do the same kind of therapy with my clients.

All corrective parenting therapists and their clients use a set of six self-care contracts as guiding principles in their lives. The contracts are:

I will not hurt myself or others nor provoke/allow others to harm me. I will stay safe and honor the safety of others
I will not run away. I will stay and work through my problems.
I will not be sneaky or lie. I will be honest with myself and others.
I will not make myself sick or go crazy. I will stay sane and healthy.
I will not be passive. I will be proactive.
I am responsible for my feelings, thoughts, actions and attitudes.

There is no expectation that anyone will keep these contracts perfectly. In fact, if we look closely, we probably break one or more of them every day. By using them as guiding principles, however, we learn to become conscious of our actions. When we break one of the contracts, we look at how and why we broke it and determine what we will do to prevent ourselves from breaking it again.

I still place great value on these principles, but since I have no expectation that I will keep them perfectly it would not fit into the “no matter time nor place” criteria.

Since Sreejit mentioned the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses, I decided to take a look at those. They are:

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
Thou shalt not make any graven idols.
Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor
Thou shalt not covet.

I found it interesting to reflect on the list. Some I have broken at some point in my life either overtly or subtly, intentionally or unintentionally (3, 5, 8, 9, 10). I know there are people who would believe I have broken two others, although I would disagree with that opinion (1,2). One of the ten I have broken because it is not part of my belief system (4). There are two I have not broken and can’t imagine ever breaking (6, 7). When I ask myself if I would I kill in self defense or to save someone else, I conclude that I can’t answer the question without being in the situation. I don’t see myself as someone who would ever commit adultery, but I am always leary of saying “never” about anything. All in all, I see that I cannot give “no matter time nor place” status to the ten commandments either.

I place very high value on my path with my spiritual teacher Amma. However, I don’t do many of the spiritual practices that she instructs us to do and even though I may ask her questions about my individual practice or my life, I don’t ask her for advice unless I am willing to do what she suggests I do. I clearly am not committed at the level of “no matter time nor place” even though my process with Amma, in many ways, is the center of my life.

I place great value on my relationship with my children, Sreejit and Chaitanya. For the purposes of this prompt, I reflected on whether I would give my life if it would save theirs. I would like to think so, and I think in almost any circumstance I would, but after recently rereading the book 1984, I recognize that when tortured, a person can be made to betray even those whom they love the most. So, while I think that this would be the value I would most likely hold on to “no matter time nor place” I cannot even be sure of that.

So after much consideration, I have come to the conclusion that there is no value I hold that I can say, without a shred of doubt, that I would be 100% committed to regardless of the time or place. I wonder if it is possible for any human being to stay that committed to anything.

Living and Learning in Amritapuri, India: August 28-31, 2017

Ganesh Celebrations

I have continued to attend the Ganesh bhajans in the Kalari from 9 to 10 each evening. I love, love, love the high intensity, ecstatic music. The only reason I’m not sad that it will end on Sunday is that Onam and Krishna’s birthday are coming soon.

I love participating in the procession that goes to a nearby temple on Krishna’s birthday. The college students and brahmacharis do the same style of singing on that occasion that I’m hearing during Ganesh’s celebration, so I have that to look forward to. However, I’m also keeping in mind that the last time I was in Amritapuri on Krishna’s birthday, my back went out a few days before the big day and I couldn’t participate. I frequently remind myself that tomorrow’s not promised and do the best to make the most of today.

Onam

A few days ago, I heard someone say that Onam is like a combination of New Year’s Day and Thanksgiving. I liked that way of thinking about it. Daily pukkallams are still being created near Amma’s house in honor of Onam. During my last “Living and Learning” post, I shared photos of the first three. Here are photos of the four newer ones. (The artwork is all made from flower petals.)

Healing

The skin near my eye is completely healed and I’m off of all medication for that. I am able to take my wrist splint off part of the time I’m in my room. There is too much chance I will get bumped when I go outside so I almost always leave the splint on when I leave the flat.

I am focusing on using my right hand more. When I do anything with my left hand, I’m making a point of having my right hand participate whenever possible. The strength and flexibility in my injured hand is no where near “normal” but I think my recovery is progressing well.

Rain

It has been raining several times a day for the last week. The rain makes everything so much cooler. I have no doubt that people in Seattle would like to have some of this rain.

Temple

The public program on Wednesday was held in the temple rather than the auditorium since the crowd was smaller than normal. When we are in the temple, it brings back so many memories of my early visits to Amritapuri. Here are some temple photos from 1990. (Click any of the galleries to enlarge the pictures.)

Darshan was held in a small hut in those days. Everyone didn’t fit inside so there was a line of people waiting outside to get in. It wasn’t a long line though. This is a picture of the darshan hut.

Most visitors lived in a small guest house above a print shop or in rooms in the temple. The residents lived in thatched huts.

For many years, we took a taxi from the airport to Vallikavu, the town across the backwaters from the ashram. We then boarded a canoe to get to the ashram. This was the view we saw as we got close.

The construction of the first four floors of the temple was completed just before I arrived in 1990. I remember sitting in the temple on days when there was no public darshan and noticing that we all fit into the first third of the room. I wondered why Amma built a temple so big. It didn’t take long for me to realize Amma knew what she was doing. This is what the crowd looked like by the mid-90’s.

Eventually, Amma built an auditorium and flats to accommodate the growing number of people coming to Amritapuri. Here are a few views of what the ashram looks like today.

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Current Events

I am looking at CNN as much here as I do at home, or at least close to it. I sense it is important for me to stay aware of events that are happening in the world. I was at the ashram during the 2004 tsunami and during Katrina in 2005. The flooding in Texas is bringing back those memories.

I feel so sad about the loss that people in Houston and other areas in my country and the world are experiencing due to Harvey and other natural disasters. I feel many emotions around the fact that so many people in power in the U.S. can see the magnitude of these storms and still deny the existence of climate change.

Tai Chi

Thursday was my last day of Tai Chi as the teacher was returning to Barcelona. I am sorry that it ended, but feel very grateful that I had the opportunity to take 12 classes with him.

Quote and Photo from North American Summer Tour 2017

The circumstances of life will always keep changing. Change is nature’s unchanging law. However, it is we who make experiences bitter or sweet — our mind and our attitude. As long as we are unable to bring our mind under our control, sorrow will continue to hunt us down. However, once the mind comes under our control, then no problem or tragedy can devastate or paralyze us. In reality, the foundation of happiness is gratitude. When the mind becomes filled with gratitude, we will spontaneously become happy.” -Amma in New Jersey, June 29, 2017.

To view the previous posts in this series click here.

Dungeon Prompts: Moral Authority

Last Thursday, I received notice that Sreejit from The Seekers Dungeon was re-starting his Dungeon Prompt series. I was intrigued by the topic for the week, Mor al Author ity. I began to think about what moral authority meant to me.

The next day, I read that the Trump Administration had 1) stopped a study of the health effects of a mining practice in Appalachia, 2) disbanded the federal advisory committee on climate change, and 3) decided that the Environmental Protection Agency would work on building partnerships rather than focusing on regulations and enforcement. I felt despair when I read that information. It occurred to me that I was seeing examples of what moral authority is NOT, at least in my world view.

I accept that President Trump has some authority over me because of the power of his position, but due to the things he says and does on nearly a daily basis, I do not believe that he has moral authority, or it least none that I will accept.

Since those were thoughts I had on the spot, I decided it was time for me to learn more about moral authority.

Wikipedia stated:

Moral authority is authority premised on principles, or fundamental truths, which are independent of written, or positive, laws. As such, moral authority necessitates the existence of and adherence to truth. Because truth does not change, the principles of moral authority are immutable or unchangeable, although as applied to individual circumstances the dictates of moral authority for action may vary due to the exigencies of human life. These principles, which can be of metaphysical and/or religious nature, are considered normative for behavior, whether they are or are not also embodied in written laws,^[1] and even if the community is ignoring or violating them.^[2] Therefore, the authoritativeness or force of moral authority is applied to the conscience of each individual, who is free to act according to or against its dictates.

Moral authority has thus also been defined as the “fundamental assumptions that guide our perceptions of the world”.^[3]

Theodore Brown wrote:

Put the phrase “moral authority” into a Google search, and you will get back something over 670,000 hits. Clearly the expression gets used a lot. But what do people mean when they use it? Many people seem to think that it means the right to weigh in on discussions involving what to do about some tough issue. Other uses suggest that it is a measure of virtue; those who live exemplary lives have moral authority. Or, that one can gain moral authority by having been put through a trial: the John McCain effect. One simple definition is that moral authority is the capacity to convince others of how the world should be. This distinguishes it from expert or epistemic authority, which could be defined as the capacity to convince others of how the world is.

When I found the diagram at the top of this post, it occurred to me that reflecting on those positive and negative behaviors might help me identify those people who I think have moral authority. From that exploration, I came up with a list of behaviors that I think those who have moral authority have in common. In my mind, people with moral authority:

love all beings in the world
love and are committed to nature
live lives of service
speak the truth
teach others to live in integrity
teach others healthy principles of living
teach others to love and respect one another
value unity over division
live lives that are true to their teachings, i.e. they walk their talk

As I pondered who the people were that I think have moral authority, Jesus, Amma, Martin Luther King, and Pope Francis came instantly to my mind. Amma is clearly the person whose moral authority has impacted my life the most.

I believe blind faith may come in an instant, but mature faith develops from experience. I have been in Amma’s presence for 28 years- watching her, learning from her and seeing the impact she has had on my life and the lives of my friends, family, and other devotees. I have no doubt that she has made a massive difference in the lives of millions of people the world over.

Many years ago, I wrote a song, and had a friend translate it into Malayalam, that in a way reflects my decision to accept Amma’s moral authority. I titled the song, Only for This I Pray.

This is an audiotape and lyrics of that song. Please pardon any pronunciation errors.

amma ende karangal ennum ninne sevikkatte
amma ende manass˘ mantrathāl nirayename
amma ende vākkukal ennum ninne pukazhthette
ende hridayam ānandam kond˘ nrittamādatte

ende sneham prakāshamāyi ennenum thilangatte
amma ende vishvāsam valarnnu kondirikkatte
ennenum ammayepole āyi varename
amma itinnu vendi mātram nyan prārthikkyunnu

Mother, may my hands be in service, my mind fill with mantra
May my voice forever sing your praise, my heart dance with joy
May my love shine ever brighter, my faith ever grow
Mother, may each day I become more like you, only for this I pray
Only for this I pray

That prayer is as true for me today as it was the day I wrote it.

Living and Learning in Amritapuri, India: August 21-23, 2017

Saraswati Gardens

I’ve stopped by Saraswati Garden twice since I’ve been in Amritapuri. The plants have grown so much since I left the ashram in January. Some of the marigolds are now six feet tall!

(You can click on the galleries to enlarge the photos.)

Fruit bat

As dusk approached on Tuesday, Kumuda and I were walking down the back stairs of the building where we both live. As we looked below us, we saw a group of people gazing up into a tree. There was also a lot of movement in the tree.

We suspected that they were watching fruit bats. Moments later, bats began flying in and out of the tres. The bats coming towards the tree were carrying round objects that were bright yellow or orange. We wondered if those objects were small oranges. Whenever the ashram elephant is brought to the courtyard on darshan days, devotees buy fruit from the juice stall to feed it. Maybe the devotees were buying oranges for the bats. That explanation seemed far fetched but we had no other.

This was our first view of a bat from the stairs. (It is towards the left side in both pictures. It started opening its wings in the second photo.)

Once we reached the ground, we joined the group who had gathered at the bottom of the tree. I watched one of the fruit bats moving through the tree in a way that reminded me of a monkey. It even looked like it had hands. The video below gives some idea of what I saw.

Crows and Pappadams

At one point during the Tuesday prasad lunch (the day when Amma gives everyone lunch), I looked up and saw six crows perched in a line towards the top of the auditorium. The crows were intently watching the activity below. If one saw an opportune moment, it would swoop down and take a pappadam off of someone’s plate. I saw several crows with partial pappadams in their mouths so maybe they were stealing pappadams from each other as well. When I looked up five or ten minutes later, all of the crows were gone. Perhaps they were feasting on their plunder. (The photo of pappadams came from Wikimedia.)

Café

Thursday is opening day for the new café. They closed the cafe about 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday and started moving all the equipment to the new building. I imagine the kitchen staff stayed up most or all of the night putting the new place together. I wanted to help but knew my help would be limited by the splint on my injured wrist.

A story about an Indian squirrel that helped build the Rama Setu bridge kept coming to my mind. I blogged about that story last year:

Many years ago, at the the end of the programs in each city on Amma‘s North American tour, there was an announcement that contained a story about a squirrel who contributed to the building of the Rama Setu bridge. The squirrel participated by rolling in the sand and then going to the end of the bridge and shaking the sand off, chanting the name of Lord Rama throughout the process. It completed this process over and over.

Lord Rama rewarded the squirrel by picking him up and stroking his back. From then on, this type of squirrel had three stripes on its back, stripes that went from head to tail. The stripes are seen as Lord Rama’s fingers. At Amma’s programs, this story was used to teach that everything we do to contribute makes a difference.

I remember thinking that what was called a squirrel in the story must be what we call a chipmunk. Since then, I have learned that the squirrel is a palm squirrel and it the same size as a large chipmunk.

I was determined to find a way to support the effort. I saw that the counters and shelves in the new building were covered with a heavy layer of construction dust. I found a small bucket of water and a rag and started washing down the counters with my good hand. Often there were hoses, boards and other construction materials on the counters. I had to wipe around those, but I was helping! I washed the surfaces for a couple of hours and then had dinner. After dinner I came back and did some more.

When I returned, I discovered a lot of the construction materials had been moved so it was now possible to wash many of the surfaces completely. Also, enough of the dust and other debris had been removed by the first cleaning that we were able to use soapy water with the next round. Soon the beautiful counter tops were in full view. I was so happy to have found a way to help.

On Thursday morning there will be a puja to mark the opening of the new cafe. I will share about that in my next “Living and Learning in Amritapuri” post.

Ganesh sculpture

Ganesh’s birthday celebrations begin this Friday. (Ganesh is the aspect of God who removes obstacles.) The Ganesh statue is being sculpted at the ashram this year. I don’t know where that work is occuring, but I found this photo on the Amritapuri Facebook page. There will be 11 days of celebration and then the statue will be carried to the Arabian Sea, immersed, and the sea will take it.

Rain

There have been many days since I have been in Amritapuri where it has stayed clear all day. In the days surrounding the eclipse, however, it poured many times. I don’t know if there was any relation between the two events, especially since the eclipse was on the other side of the world, but I wondered if that was a possibility. It is so much cooler on days it has rained. I wish it rained every day!

Sunset

Last night, as I was walking towards the building I live in, I noticed that the sky was a brilliant red. I rushed to the elevator and took it to the 14^th floor to see if I could see the sunset in its full glory. By the time I got there, however, the sky was no longer red. It was still a beautiful sight though.

Later, I found a photo of the sunset on the Amritapuri Facebook Page. It wasn’t red then either, but the colors were more vivid than when I last saw a few minutes later.

Sunrises and sunsets are so beautiful here. I should make a point of looking at them more often.

Synchroniticy

When I visit Amritapuri, so many synchronous things happen. A really good example of that occurred two days ago. This is the first time I’ve come to India in August in more than a decade. I usually arrive towards the end of November and stay until January. My main reason for picking that time is the Christmas musical that is performed each year on Christmas Eve.

My daughter writes the scripts and co-directs the plays and my son and his friends compose many of the tunes, provide the instrumentation and work with the singers. I feel so proud of them and wouldn’t want to miss the event. Besides it is such an exciting time to be at the ashram. There is only three weeks time for the actors and dancers to learn their roles and for the costumes, backdrops and many other aspects of the play to be created. The energy at the ashram during that time is electric.

My desire to surprise Sreejit and Chaitanya by showing up at the ashram at a time when they would never suspect I was coming and my desire to participate in the three festivals (Krishna and Ganesh’s birthdays and Onam) won over my desire to see the play this December. I considered the possibility of coming to India twice but that solution seemed unlikely.

A few days ago, Chaitanya said she hoped I decided to come again for the play. I gave reasons why that wasn’t likely to happen, money being one of them. When I woke up the next morning, there was an email from a neighbor in Seattle saying that she needed to move out of the house she has lived in for the last ten years and someone had told her that I might rent her a room in my house. She needs a place to stay from October until the second week in January.

I haven’t rented a room to anyone for about five years but it wasn’t lost on me that if I did that, I would have the money I needed to go back to India in December. Also, the person that usually stays in my house when I am traveling may be in India himself this December, so having her living there would be helpful. If those two things weren’t synchronistic enough, this all occurred within a week of me writing a post saying that I needed to work on being more interdependent as opposed to overly-independent. Having a roommate would certainly facilitate that process. What could do but laugh?

I don’t know whether or not she will decide to rent from me, but if she does I will consider coming back to India to see this year’s play.

To view the previous posts in this series click here.

Living and Learning in Amritapuri, India: August 15-20, 2017

I had planned on writing another ashram living post several days ago but have had more health challenges. I will give you details about that later in this post, but wanted to acknowledge that I believe this one is overdue! At the same time, I know that many of the lessons that come in Amritapuri are about learning to be flexible and not attached to plans so not being able to adhere to my self-imposed timetable should not be a surprise. Amma often encourages us to be like a bird on a dry twig, ready to fly at a moments notice.

Photo Credits

I looked at the ashram Facebook page yesterday and was excited to find that it had many photos that fit this post. All of the pictures below come from that site. To see the page go to: Amritapuri – Home. The photo at the top of this post comes from pixabay.com.

Stage Seva

In my last post, I mentioned having had the opportunity to be a prasad queue assistant. I had planned to find the sign up sheet for that position so I could do it again, but I had no luck locating it. The next darshan day, I was standing next to Chaitanya when someone walked up planning to ask her to call me. The prasad line lead had just discovered that the devotee who had the 8 p.m. shift had left the ashram earlier in the day without telling anyone she was returning to her home country.

I was asked if I would work the shift, which started in five minutes, and I agreed to do it. Sometime during the shift, I was offered the opportunity to have that shift until I returned to the U.S. I was delighted to accept it.

There were several components to the job. Not only did I have to call the people from the prasad line on the auditorium floor to come to the stage at the appropriate time, I was also responsible for seeing that any first time givers were trained and that there was always enough people sitting in the downstairs part of the prasad line. That meant that in addition to calling people to the stage every two minutes and seeing that they sait in the right place, I had to go down to the downstairs prasad line to see if there are any first timers, train them and if necessary walk into the main hall to recruit more people.

I felt a bit muddled during the first two days, but I know I will figure it out in time.

Independence Day

Tuesday was India’s Independence Day. I understand there were several activities related to that event in the morning before I came downstairs. I didn’t see those, but I did enjoy watching the children carrying their tiny flags around the ashram.

Tuesday meditation day

Tuesday is also the day that Amma spends with the ashram residents each week. She joins us for meditation, leads a question and answer session and then serves us lunch.

You can see from the photo above what a feat it is to feed everyone lunch in a short period of time. The photo below shows some of the devotees who put the food on the plates. The plates are then handed to Amma and she blesses the food. From there the plates are handed to devotees in lines that snake throughout the auditorium. The plates are passed in this manner until everyone has been served.

No one eats until everyone has their food. As that process nears completion, we chant a chapter from the Bhagavagita. When everyone has been served, Amma leads the meal prayer.

Tai Chi

I started a Tai Chi class on Wednesday. It meets six days a week from 7 to 8 a.m. The teacher will be here until the end of August. He is from Spain and is an excellent instructor. I am so happy to be taking Tai Chi classes again and I can tell the practice is helping to heal my wrist.

Sanskrit chants

On the first darshan day after I arrived in Amritapuri, I was drawn by the sound of a large group doing vedic chanting. When I made it to the front of the auditorium, I saw about 100 residents chanting in unison. As I looked around the auditorium, I noticed many others participating. I understand that those who are part of the group are learning them in a class. I decided I wanted to join the chanting but not the class. Over the next few days, I found out they were chanting;

Dhyayamo
Guru Stotram
Guru Paduka Stotram
Om Ganaanaam
Prano devi Sarasvati
Ganapati Atharvasirsa
Mantra Pushpam
Na Karmana

At one point, they alternate between these chants:

Sri Rudram
Narayana Suktam
Purusha Suktam
Medha Suktam and Durga Suktam

The order of the chants above change and I think other chants are added as the class learns them. I haven’t been able to follow, or even find, all of them in my booklets, but I am able to participate enough to feel satisfied.

Hospital

Sometime last week, I noticed that there was a redness on the skin above my left eye. Over the next few days it spread. It didn’t itch or hurt, but I was concerned when it seemed to be getting worse rather than better. On Saturday I decided I needed to have it checked. We are blessed to have a small hospital on the property so I went there. Before long, I was with the doctor. She was concerned by what she saw and wanted a specialist to take a look. I thought that meant I would have to take a three hour drive to Kochi to go to AIMS, Amma’s multi-specialty hospital. I was pleased to discover that they used a different process. The doctor’s assistant took a photo and sent it to the specialist. I was then told to come back in an hour. When I returned, I sat in front of the doctor while she talked to the specialist and answered his/her questions over the phone. The specialist recommended a combination of antibiotics, ointments and an allergy med. The combination is working and my skin is significantly better. I am so glad medical care is available so readily when I am here.

This was another be a bird on a dry twig experience because I did not believe it was appropriate for me to do the stage job until the skin problem was healed. Hopefully by Wednesday I will be able to start it again.

Darshan

On Saturday evening, the darshan line was finishing sooner than Amma wanted the program to end, so she instructed the token team to give darshan tokens to visitors who had not received her hug that week. Needless to say, I was happy to be one of those peope. It had been a stressful few days for me and it was wonderful to be in Amma’s arms once again.

Café

The café is moving into the new building on Thursday. I look forward to seeing what the new space is like. I drastically cut my sugar intake in early July so haven’t had many bakery times since I’ve been here, or at least haven’t had the cakes and cookies. I always make an exception for the Sunday morning cinnamon rolls though. Those are a priority for me. Yesterday afternoon, in a moment of weakness, I decided to have a piece of chocolate cake!

Crows/Eagle

While I was eating my chocolate cake, I watched a crow that was perched nearby. I imagined he was watching me, looking for an opportunity to take away my treat. If you leave food unattended here, a crow is likely to steal it.

At one point in the past, an eagle visited the western canteen during every meal. It perched in the rafters above the tables, patiently waiting for an inattentive devotee. If someone casually held up a piece of toast while they were talking, the eagle would swoop down and snatch it from their hand. That eagle was a regular guest at the canteen for years. In those days, even crows were known to snatch an omelet off a plate as a customer carried their food from the café to the dining hall. That may still happen, but I haven’t seen it for a long time.

Rain

One of the things I love about coming to the ashram in August is that it often rains. The rain may last only a few minutes, but it really pours. A lot of the buildings here have structures with metal roofs so the metal really magnifies the sound of the rain. I find the sound exhilarating. I also appreciate how much cooler it is on days that it rains.

When I hear the rain now, I remember a time when I was in the auditorium a few years ago. It happened to be December, which doesn’t tend to be a rainy season, but that day it poured. Every time I didn’t think it could rain harder, it did. The rain intensified over-and-over again in a fifteen minute period. The next day, we learned that there had been devastating and deadly floods in Chennai around the same time.

The rain photo above doesn’t show the rain when it was heavy but I really liked the image.

To view the previous posts in this series click here.

Will I Choose to be Independent or Interdependent?

Decades ago, I participated in an experiential exercise that the facilitator called The Relationship Dance. That exercise gave participants the opportunity to feel the difference between dependent relationships, independent relationships, and interdependent relationships.

First, we each picked a partner. During the Dependent section of the exercise, one person in each dyad leaned against their partner and they walked around the room in that state. One person had the experience of being completely dependent on their partner to hold them up, and the other person had the experience of being totally responsible for their partner’s well-being. In the Independent section, partners wandered through the room having essentially no contact with each other or with the people in the other dyads. Interdependence was demonstrated by having the pairs separate to do some individual activities and at other times walking shoulder to shoulder.

I’ve never forgotten that exercise. The experience of being Dependent was not familiar to me, and was not at all inviting. I was more familiar with having people be dependent on me. Being Interdependent was inviting but not familiar. When I experienced Independent, I felt lonely and it was all too familiar. Since this post isn’t about my relationship with a partner, I’m going to broaden the definition of interdependent so that it includes being in give-and-take, supportive relationships with many people.

I grew up as an army brat. It was very hard for me to make friends since we moved at least every three years. If I wasn’t leaving, then my friends were. Also, my mother once told me that I would make one friend at a time, and then was devastated when that person became friends with someone else. To compound the problem, in my opinion, our family had a very low level of connection with each other.

As a child I became very independent. Over the years, I have made significant changes in that part of my life and now have many friends who could potentially be a large support system. While I have moved a significant distance along the continuum that goes between independence and interdependence, I still have a way to travel before Interdependent becomes my primary way of being.

I have had an abundance of opportunity to watch my struggle in this area as I heal from breaking my wrist. My recovery was made harder than it would normally have been because I also had considerable pain from bruised ribs caused by a fall two weeks earlier. The rib problem made it painful for me to get up and lie down, and the fact that I needed to overuse my left side when I couldn’t use my right hand, prolonged that pain. (Be assured that I am looking at, and committed to changing, the factors that caused me to get hurt twice in two weeks.)

I have long marveled at how people who live with physical limitations are able to overcome them. I decided to use this experience to see what I was able to do on my own. One of the accomplishments that I am most proud of occurred on the second day after I broke my wrist. On that day, I was able to pry open tight hooks on a bra and put on the bra using only my non-dominant hand. I soon discovered I could do my own laundry, get dressed in carefully selected clothes, cook using the food I had in the refrigerator and freezer, and crack an egg open. I also felt proud the day I changed the cloth waist ties on two pairs of Indian pants to elastic. With the cloth ties, I would have had to tie a bow, an impossible feat at that time.

While I was able to figure out how to do almost everything on my own, I did ask for help when it was impossible for me to do something that needed to be done. The best example of that was being unable to lock my deck door at night since I had to pull it towards me with one hand and turn the key with the other. I tried but I couldn’t do it. The temperature was in the 80’s and 90’s in Seattle that week and I couldn’t open any of the windows in my living and dining rooms with one hand. Leaving the deck door shut as well would have been unbearable.

I wouldn’t have felt safe leaving the door open at night so that was not an option. I asked one neighbor to lock the door each night before she left town. After she left, I knocked on different neighbors doors each night, asking them to lock the door for me. I rationalized that asking a number of people would cause them less of an inconvenience. Another example is that I asked a friend to bring my vacuum cleaner up the steep stairs from my basement since I knew it wouldn’t have been safe for me to carry it, but I didn’t ask for help vacuuming even though it was difficult for me to do with bruised ribs. And instead of asking for help to bring it back downstairs, I eventually took the vacuum cleaner outside and rolled it around the house and in the back door.

I did accept help from two friends who wanted to bring a meal and from another who offered to come cook some meals that would last for a few days. I also accepted help from a friend who offered to go grocery shopping for me and asked another to take me to the places I needed to go to get ready for my trip to India.

For the most part, however, I told the friends and neighbors who offered help that I was fine, but would let them know if I needed anything, and then for the most part didn’t ask.

While I did accomplish many things on my own, I was also abundantly aware how different my experience would have been if I had been living with someone or if I had taken full advantage of my support system. I was aware of the message in my head that said Don’t bother anyone, an adult version of Children are to be seen and not heard. I also heard You should only bother someone if you really, really need it; You may need surgery for your arm or you might get sick sometime in the future, so don’t ask for help now, you might need it more later; and You choose to live alone and that decision has consequences, which was short for “You made your bed, now lie in it. As I write these messages down, I realize how immersed in old unhealthy ways of thinking I have been. I knew these messages were still alive in me to some degree, but the injury brought them out full force.

Just before I left for India, I attended a potluck in the Seattle area. I witnessed my reaction when the friend who drove me there offered to help me put food on my plate. I told her I could do it. I even resisted when she gave me reasons why I should let her help. Seeing such a blatant example of my resistance stuck with me. On my second day in India, a man offered to help me wash my dishes after a meal. I told him I could do it. He watched me struggle with that for a minute, and then took the dishes away from me and washed them. The incident made me aware once again of how I push help away. It also gave me the experience of how good it felt to get it. The next day another man asked if I wanted help washing my dishes. I said thank you and handed them to him. Since then, I have accepted help when it is offered and have been more willing to ask for it in the first place.

I dread the thought of ever being completely dependent on anyone. I hope that is not in my future, but I have no control over that. What I do have control over is whether I live my life alone now or instead create a life style that includes a mutually supportive community.

Even though this injury has highlighted my tendency to be overly independent, I know I have come a long way in this area. I also know I will have an abundance of opportunities, perhaps on a daily basis, to choose between an action that would support my tendency to be overly independent and one that would lead to an experience of interdependence. It is my intention to increase the number of times I choose the road that leads to interdependence.

To view the previous posts in this series click here.

Living and Learning in Amritapuri, India: August 11-14 2017

Setting Up

I spent a good part of my first days at the ashram setting up my room. That included unpacking the suitcase I brought from Seattle and the items in the small trunks I keep here year round. I washed the clothes from the trunks in buckets. That task was made considerably harder since I couldn’t wring out the clothes with only one hand, my non-dominant hand at that. I knew I could choose to use a laundry service, but clothes dry so fast here that I prefer to do it myself. Luckily, I was in India not Seattle. I could press the items on the washing stone in my bathroom and get out a lot of the excess water. And in India, the clothes and towels would drip dry in a reasonable amount of time even though they were not rung out properly.

The morning of my first day I ordered a SIM card for my phone. I was surprised to discover I could buy a plan that included the SIM card and 1GB of data a day for 84 days for 450 rupees! Four hundred and fifty rupees is equivalent to $7.14. I sure wish we could get these prices in the U.S.

At the end of my last visit to Amritapuri, I loaned my internet stick to my daughter. She added data to it as necessary during my absence so it stayed active during the year. As a result, I had immediate access to internet, rather than have to go through the application process. Sometimes it takes a week to get the SIM card and activate the internet stick. This time I didn’t have to wait at all for internet access and it took only about 36 hours to get the SIM card. Once I had the SIM card, I discovered that using the Personal Hotspot on my iPhone gave me faster internet speed than the internet stick!

Changes

As always there are so many changes to see, even though I was here in January. I probably will have not seen them all by the time I leave. Construction has been endless since I first came here in 1990.

Since January, the Western café has been in a temporary structure while the new café is being constructed. They will be moving into the new café in a few weeks.

There are many changes related to security. I will mention a few of them. New structures are being built in the front of the ashram where visitors will register for the day. Residents, flat owners, and visitors staying more than 30 days will be given photo ID badges. Even the Swamis are wearing them! Visitors who are staying less than 30 days will use the receipt they are given when they check in as their form of ID. The auditorium is still open air in that it doesn’t have walls but now has white railings with some gold colored ornamentation around it.

Amma

Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday are public darshan days at the ashram. It is on those days that people come for Amma’s blessing in the form of a motherly hug. She has hugged more than 37 million people worldwide. Darshan days last from 11:00 a.m. until around midnight. At most, Amma takes a ten minute break during that time.

On Saturday night, I eagerly awaited my hug. I was so tired that I was nodding off for hours as I waited for the international token numbers to start but it was of course well worth the wait. I had a fun and meaningful time with Amma.

Earlier that day I had been asked to help with the prasad queue. Amma hands each person that comes to her a packet of blessed ash and a piece of candy. Devotees who want to hand her the packets Amma will give out form a queue. Normally, I love to hand her prasad, but with a broken wrist, I couldn’t do it fast enough, and besides, I would have trouble standing when my time was up, so that seva (volunteer work) wasn’t possible for me. When someone asked me to be the person who makes sure the prasad giver line near Amma stays full by gesturing the people in the area of the auditorium where they wait for their turn, I eagerly said yes. I have felt drawn to that seva in the past but have never done it. It gave me time to be on the stage with Amma, and the experience of being useful. I loved doing it so will find out how to sign up for other shifts.

Monday and Friday evenings Amma comes to the beach to meditate with us and have a question and answer session. I forgot about it on Friday night but went to the question and answer part last night. I love being with Amma near the sights and sounds of the beach.

Festivals

I picked the dates I would come to the ashram based on the timing of the festivals. I really wanted to be here for Krishna’s birthday, Ganesh’s celebration and Onam, a family festival in Kerala. I knew there were multiple dates that Krishna’s birthday is celebrated in India so I googled Krishna Jayanthi, Kerala and found out it was August 14. As August 14 drew near, there were no signs of the big celebration. As I remembered it, the alternate date was after I would leave India, so I was bummed. Later that night, I was excited to learn that the celebration will occur on September 12, days before I leave. I look forward to sharing all three of those events with you.

Seva

When I am in India, I like to work in the gardens and to help Chaitanya in the café. I also work on the GreenFriends newsletter we publish in Seattle each month and write for this blog. Having the broken wrist has really put a dent in my ability to do some of those things. Chaitanya had hoped I could hand out the finished orders in the cafe but I would need to have the ability to move fast, to work with both hands, and to carry items having some weight. I can’t do any of those things so that job was out.

When people finish their meals, they wash and dry their dishes and then put them in a big bucket. The dishes are then dried a second time so no water remains on the plates. I discovered that I could slowly dry dishes for a short time, so have done some of that. Yesterday I tried buttering the bread that would be used for grilled cheese sandwiches and the buns that would be used for vege-burgers and omelet sandwiches. I was able to butter about a dozen buns but was slower than molasses. Those buns would probably be used in less than fifteen minutes. Buttering the bread didn’t work at all.

So far, I have been focusing on healing and getting over jet lag. I slept a lot yesterday so maybe I will be more awake today. I hope to go visit the garden that I worked in last year today. I can at least see it!

Greenbelt restoration work

Under normal circumstances, I would probably be thinking a lot about our Greenbelt restoration work back in Seattle. Part of me would want to be there working to turn that property back into a healthy forest. Since I wouldn’t be able to do that work even if I was there, I notice that it has been easier for me to be fully here.

We will be receiving 400 trees, shrubs and ground covers to plant on that property in the fall so I hope that Ananya, the Forest Steward that is my partner in this project, and I will be able to do some long-distance planning while I am here. The photo above shows an area where a potential design for one segment has been laid out. The ferns in that area have grown after having been buried under blackberry vines for 30-50 years.

Weather

As I arrived in the ashram on Friday, it became very windy, and chilly. That seemed unusual to me. Later in the day someone else commented that they had never seen it so windy unless it was raining. It was chilly enough that in the evening I put on my jacket! The next two days were warmer. For me, yesterday qualified as HOT.

The forecast had called for rain every day, but there hasn’t been any rain since I’ve been here, at least not during my waking hours.

To view the previous posts in this series click here.