August 9-November 18, 2024

Writing/talking to myself for a moment: “Ti, what the heck are you thinking,… writing this (blog about your recent time being with Amma)? Why would you share something so personal and possibly not meaningful in any way to anybody? AND it’s going to take so long! In your mind right now it seems like it will probably be a book! …But at least it’s not the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”
“That’s true.”
“But seriously, dude. What the heck are you thinking?”
“I don’t know.”
“OK. Carry on.”
(Thanks, Devyn! for wanting me to write what follows.)

Now I begin (and yes, it’s very long!):

I’ve written previously about Amma and being with her (Some Thoughts on Amma from 2015 and Reflections on This Time with Amma from 2016). If you don’t know about Amma and my relationship with her, I strongly suggest you read those past blogs before this, as this time I’m intending it to be more detailed and personal.

First, when you read this, know a couple of things. One is that we never know if or when Amma will come back to the U.S. This current visit was arranged on very short notice—which is not completely atypical—but she hadn’t been here for almost five years, and she did visit later in the summer than she had historically.

Another thing to know is that I met her in 1997 and have spent almost two weeks a year with her in the U.S. in the summer and five days in the fall since then…until Covid. Five years of her physical absence have elapsed since I was with her those two weeks in late July to early August. If you read those previous blogs, you know that I consider her as my Satguru and that I believe that, ultimately, she is omnipresent.

During the Covid years, as I deepened my spiritual practices, I felt that I had daily darshan with the Divine Mother in that human form that I revere. Amma is my everything. If you feel uncomfortable reading or knowing that, it may be best to just stop reading now. I tell some people that if you feel that you are getting something good from being with me, you are getting her. If you feel you are getting something not good, I’m sorry; I was in the way.

And finally, be clear that I am writing this not only as what is now considered a “long time devotee” but also as a sadhak—one extremely committed and dedicated to spiritual practices for many years. My first priority in my life is my spiritual practices; my wife will confirm that. What I share may or may not have anything that relates to what others experience who are in another—possibly very different—location and time on their Path. This is my experience and may or may not be anything like anyone else’s.

It will be useless at best, harmful at worst, to compare your experience with mine. If you find something useful or inspirational, great! Take it, use it, apply it, reflect on it. If anything seems too far out, or you just don’t understand, or it contradicts what your mind thinks or is counter to your direct experience, drop it immediately! Don’t collect and carry unnecessary baggage from this; I’m sure you have enough of your own already to deal with without this adding more!

Preliminaries are mostly out of the way.

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I have been gifted for the past four U.S. tours to serve as “tour staff laundry coordinator,” which means that I arrange for getting people to help me take the staff’s laundry (this time 468 people on staff traveling with her) to the laundromat and wash it so they can have clean clothes and still keep doing their seva (service) in the programs. It’s a seva I love doing and feel blessed to do. As a result of doing that service, I worked for hours on that in the weeks leading up to the tour. It set the stage and allowed me to feel even more connected with Amma and more continuously.

Then one day early in July I had what I considered as a surprisingly profound and deep meditation. Later in the day I realized, “Ah. Amma’s in the U.S.” (It was the day before her programs were to begin on July 4 in Seattle.) This same phenomenon has happened twice annually for I don’t know how many year—that I would have some notably profound meditation and later realize that Amma’s physical body was on U.S. soil. Others have told me the same thing happens to them as well.

I felt that she was “working on me” fairly intensely since that meditation. Among other things, I consider her as “the Divine Surgeon,” and I’ve been under her scalpel since then. I would not say it has been a pleasant time—more like…painful. But I was able to feel her presence even more all-embracing and strong. And meditation has been going deeper by leaps and bounds.

One example of the “surgery” relates to one way I regularly bow to the Divine Mother—as She who smiles at pride in neophytes and destroys pride in experienced sadhaks. I’m the latter, and she has been relentlessly revealing where and how I still have pride. One of the most painful things to see—and have crushed—was the pride of feeling that I didn’t have pride! Ack! WTF! Yep. It’s a real thing.

When I was going to finally see her again, I planned to give Amma (put in her hands) a couple of writings that I have been wanting to give to her personally for over a year in one case and more than two years in another. I also wanted to make and garland her with a mala that I knotted and made myself.

If you read my last blog, I have received and collected 1008 “Names” of the Divine Mother that I now recite five days a week. The working title is Bowing to the Divine Mother in 1008 Moods. (I refer to it as “the 1008,” for short-hand.) This practice has been happening for over a year. I also started reciting it semi-privately once a month (see dates and more info here). I wanted to offer my Guru this deeply personal collection of ways that I view the Divine. Before I knew Amma was coming, I was wondering if I would have to go visit her in India simply to place that document in her hands. Fortunately, she came to me “just in time” (the “just in time” is another longer story).

I also wanted to give her my written response to a question she had asked the residents at her main ashram in India, “Why is the Divine Mother Lalita vidya/knowledge and avidya/ignorance?” When I read that question, it grabbed me. I thought about the question for about a year and a half before even starting to write, the writing of which then took fourteen more months.

I mention all these things because they all led to some of the most intense devotional moods I’ve had in a long time. In preparing the 1008, I spent many more hours getting it to a form that I felt comfortable placing in her hands. That work allowed/forced an even deeper listening and opening to the Divine inspiration. It went along with unexpected shifts of consciousness as well. When I finally printed it out and put the pages in plastic sleeves that I had saved from student move-out junk piles, there was such open-hearted devotion and tears of joy and gratitude soaking my cheeks, beard and neck; I was finally going to be able to offer this special thing to her. When it was all in the folder, the blank front of it was screaming at me for a title, though inside, of course, was the title of the actual document. After a short moment, all I could write on it was “My Heart.”

In the rereading and extensive editing of my answer to her question—which involves embracing the Divine Mother in her form as ignorance—I had to dive back into that experience—again and again. It made my relationship with the Divine even more intimate and honest. And as you may guess, embracing the Divine Mother in that form means facing and being deeply present with a lot of ego-pain in order to get to the “other side.”

Then when I finally started knotting that mala while listening to my favorite Amma bhajans (spiritual songs), a constant flow of tears of devotion poured from the outside corners of my eyes (worldly tears come from the inside corners of the eyes). Bead after bead, slowly knotted; rivers of tears of devotion pouring down my cheeks. The sweetness of the pain/joy of devotion is beyond compare and washes the crazy mind clean.

At the end of the process, I ended up having a problem with the super glue I used to keep the mala from coming unknotted. I had to scrub the piece of onyx that completed it the mala with my finger nail to get the super glue off (nail polish remover completed the task). I did that for many minutes, repeating my mantra with love with each rub of my fingernail and thinking of garlanding her with that mala the whole time. It was the only way I could keep my mind from spinning and agonizing over having possibly lost all that time and work (and having no foreseeable time to restring it). In the end, it ended up fine and looked great, so I could be happy and whole-hearted in offering it to her.

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Finally then, the trip to DC a couple days before Amma’s program to help set up the hall, etc., for her arrival. I had wanted to join in that part of the seva since I saw her in DC in 2019; honestly, I had looked forward to it since then. For me, the most painful part of her not coming physically to the U.S. all those years was not missing being in her presence (since I felt that I was in her presence daily in my yoga room), but missing the opportunity to serve her directly. That was the worst part of the separation for me.

For a couple days and long into the night the night before she arrived, unpacking trucks and taking stuff where it needed to be, and standing and walking and going up and down and up and down a tall ladder for hours. Hard physical labor. Totally enjoyable with lots of mantra repetition. …more on all that later.

This specific program venue had never hosted a non-governmental or non-business organization ever, in their more than 50 years of operation. The venue had apparently—really—been designed to be confusing so you had to talk to other people and rely on them or you would never—really, never—find where you were trying to go! It was a huge, octopus-like place with lots of walking, anywhere that you wanted to go. I was on my feet for possibly 16 or more hours a day.

All of that time walking and standing may have been fine, but… remember what I said about the pride crushing that had been happening previously? As one form of her prasad—sacred gift—Amma “gave me” plantar fasciitis. As I reflected on what was the lesson it it, I had to face more painful truth. I had thought—imagined—that I was offering all that labor as pure selfless service—which is the goal—but it turned out that, on reflection, it was laced with pride. I’m sure it had been previously, too, but this time the Divine had to do something to correct the wrong view. I attribute that—the pride—as the main reason that it happened. In subtle ways, I had thought that “my” service was about me and forgot that I was simply given the opportunity and ability to be of service to this Being who is so important in my life. I had given way too much importance to the part of this being—“me”—that causes only suffering.

Somehow I managed to make it through all the days of my service with the laundry, even with pain at each step on my right foot for the last couple of days. It was pure devotion on “my” part and pure Grace on Amma’s part that allowed me to complete that. At the very end of all the programs in DC, I was even somehow—I thought, miraculously—able to help stack a bunch of chairs before the pain came back too intensely to continue helping with the breakdown of the hall. That is one seva I had previously participated in for several hours on the final morning. More pride crushing while also allowing for a little bit of seva as well.

All that was such a big part of the whole time with Amma that I mention it before writing about the time being with Amma!

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In the weeks leading up to seeing her, I was not sure I would get darshan when I was physically with her again. Her body is 71 years old, and it, no doubt, physically pains her to give darshan for all those hours every day.

When I was there on the first day of the program, I talked with one of my fellow sevites (worker of seva) who lives at Amritapuri, Amma’s main ashram (spiritual center) in southern India. This sister was also on the whole U.S. tour on staff. I shared my concern about getting darshan or not since it has to be hurting Amma’s physical body. She said that’s what they all (at Amritapuri) wonder. She said so many people have asked Amma to stop giving darshan but she won’t.

In regard to this question, toward the end of every program, on the video screen, they put up a quote from Amma saying something like the one on Amma.org: “As long as there is enough strength to reach out to those who come to me, to place my hand on a crying person’s shoulder, I will continue to embrace people.” I believe that she will manifest that.

What I took as an answer to my question happened first in DC where I saw her call the tour staff for darshan when she could easily have just “wrapped up” and gone back to her room. I ended up going for as many hugs as I could, which was four times.

It’s interesting to note that Amma, on every public program day, called more people for darshan than she “needed” to. She could have easily stopped earlier every day. When the line was getting close to winding down, she would call people who had gotten there late and might not have gotten in, as well tour staff who are only “guaranteed” one darshan on the whole tour, allowing them to get multiple hugs. She did this even late at night after having been hugging people for eight or more hours already! As far as I can tell, Amma will just keep going to see them everyone who is there and who wants or is willing to get a hug. She does this even though no one would think anything was wrong if she stopped earlier. Me, or anyone, not going for darshan will not make an easier job for Amma is my belief now.

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I’ve had many amazing darshans over the years. This time, interestingly, my mind graded every experience in her arms as “meh”: nothing special in the moment or in the experience of the hug itself. However, the effects of each one—what actually happened that I attribute to those maybe 10 seconds of her one-pointed focus on “me”—were quite profound and life-changing!

I will share more than I probably should about my experiences. I do so in the hope and prayer that what I write will be helpful to someone, somewhere, and that I will not lose anything by sharing some spiritual experiences—something I have been advised against in a number of different contexts.

The first darshan I went with the mala I had made for her as well as “My Heart,” the print out of Bowing to the Divine Mother in 1008 Moods. After more than a year of anticipation, it was finally going to happen! After at least a half hour in line, it was my turn to have Amma’s focus. She placed her hands together in prayer position at her heart as I garlanded her with the mala and then took the document I handed her. She tapped it to her head, glanced at it as she passed it off to a helper at her side to hold, and pulled me in for my short hug. I had the feeling that in that short glance on my precious document, she saw everything about it. Such is the power of attention that any human can cultivate; no need to read every word! I’ve heard too many first-hand stories to not believe such things are possible and even likely.

Having been “in Amma’s lap” around 170 times, I have noticed a pattern: the first darshan on any single tour is clearing, and every one after that builds, or adds something. That first darshan this year certainly had that effect. Right afterward and for the next two days, I felt that whatever happened in those ten seconds opened up a huge internal space—creating or revealing a huge inner openness or spaciousness! The words that spontaneously came at the time were that it felt that 500 years of karma were wiped away. I felt that much lighter and more open. I believe that is entirely possible in some literal way, though the mind doesn’t really have the capacity to fully know what those words really mean.

The second day, the retreat began in the evening, and I didn’t get darshan, but was assigned the “seva” of “post-darshan seating.” This meant that I was responsible for directing people to sit in chairs close to Amma on each side of her where they could “recuperate” after their darshan. The term “recuperate” was given by one new person who had come from the Loving Kindness community. Practically speaking, my “seva” meant that I was standing twenty feet away from Amma—this radiant energy vortex—most of the time meditating on her form as she was giving darshan, for two hours (I thought it was to be an hour!). I felt that Amma was “working on me internally” every moment of those two hours. That’s why I had to put the term “seva” in quotes. It was the easiest and most profound “service” I’ve ever had the pleasure of being assigned!

The first hour of the two, the Swami was chanting the Thousand Names of Sri Lalita (which you can listen to here), which I chanted daily for nineteen years, and then the Mahishasuramardini Stotram, powerful verses in Sanskrit composed by Adi Shankara praising the fierce but benign form of the Divine Mother Durga as the destroyer of the demon which signifies the ego. (My favorite version of that hymn you can listen to here.) I was changed. I was in another state of consciousness. Everything was changed. And the plantar fasciitis was just beginning to rise up.

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The next day I had the second darshan. From that day through the end of my time with her and beyond, every single step on my right foot was excruciatingly painful. It led to very slow moving, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that I could maintain a comparatively low pain level if I walked with the attitude that I wasn’t going anywhere, with the attitude that I was simply standing still. That was a practice in and of itself. I was “forced” into constant walking meditation, if I wanted to move anywhere! I still try to remember that attitude since in the Yogic view, not going anywhere is actually a more accurate statement of fact than I am going somewhere! As the saying goes, “wherever you go, there you are.” I easily forget that I am being as I am going!

After another long morning of doing laundry, I got back early enough to go for darshan before the morning program ended. I parked the van in the parking deck, went to the program hall to see if I could still get darshan, went to change clothes and get my offering for Amma, came to the program hall—all of which involved a lot of walking, probably a couple of miles total, at walking meditation speed!—and got in the queue.

I had in hand my answers to her question about the Divine Mother being vidya/knowledge and avidya/ignorance. In the slow movement of the line of people toward Amma giving hugs up on the stage, spontaneously lines from the 1008 that I had placed in her hands three days before came to mind, one after another. It was such a sweet, devotional time approaching her again, as each of the 1008 are intended to be coming directly from my heart to the heart of the Divine.

Finally, I was in her arms for five or ten seconds, after which I was barely able to make it to the “recuperation” chair near her at the side of the stage. I was in another state of consciousness—maybe we could say “expanded” but to an extreme extent, or maybe “Total,” or “Beyond” could work? “Intense Bliss”? Deeper and more hidden aspects of this mind and beyond were revealed and experienced in profound inner silence (These words may make no sense.)

I don’t know how long I was in that chair, but I do know that the “keepers” let me stay there much longer than they usually do and definitely longer than those around me. When the woman finally touched my shoulder and said something, it was like she was speaking to me from planets away. Obviously I managed to come back, with effort. After being in Amma’s arms over the years, I have had profound and deep experiences, but this was beyond anything ever before.

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The final night has always gone all night, but Amma made some changes this time so it’s shorter, but she still gives mantra initiation and anyone can get a darshan token, regardless if they have had one before recently or on the tour.

After the teachings and ritual part of the beginning of the evening, I finished cleaning up and putting things away from my seva tasks and took stuff to the car so I could leave somewhat quickly and early in the morning. By the middle of the night, by 3 or so, I was able to just be with Amma and watch and meditate. I had told Nikki that we could get darshan together that night. I started doing my daily recitation of the 1008, during which our darshan token numbers came up. I got to a good place to pause it right before Nikki came up to see about going for darshan, which we did. Again, “meh” was one level of response to that darshan.

However, it was extremely noteworthy to me that Amma whispered “my son, my son, my son” in my ear as I was getting my hug, words that I love to hear from her and only do get to hear on rare occasions. During the other three darshans, she said what she usually says, “my darling, my darling, my darling.” However, that one darshan when I was doing it in such a way to make another person happy and not just for myself was the time she called me her son. Her life being all about acting for others, it was not lost on me that that’s when I got the in-person response I most love from her. Nothing earth-shattering happened afterward, just the usual sweetness.

Quite a few women who came from Loving Kindness got mantra initiation that night, which is extra special to me since I have a mantra from Amma, meditation on which has been one of my main practices for all these years. Now I had more sisters in the practice, fellow-travelers on the Yogic Path (as they already were anyway).

Amma ended and left by 6:30am, and as I mentioned above, somehow I was able to help stack quite a few chairs and help with a little more of the breakdown of the hall before my foot became painful, and I couldn’t continue. I walked back to our room, and miraculously got about three hours of sleep before getting in the car to start my solo drive to be with her in Boston, intending to be there by the time the program began the next morning at 11am. (If you want to listen to listen to what I consider inspiring music, you can listen to my playlist that was playing the whole time on my drive here. Put it on shuffle and let the Diving DJ decide the order.)

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My fantasy in the planning stages of the trip was to go to the Boston program by myself, but as the time neared, and Nikki had just returned from a hellacious trip to help a relative in Puerto Rico for several weeks, she was planning to go with me. While we were with Amma in DC, Amma/the Universe/the Divine Mother/circumstances happened that necessitated Nikki getting a ride back home with students of mine right after the DC program ended. Thus I was able to get my meditative solo drive to Boston listening to devotional songs the whole time. And once there, three days of programs! It was my chance to have a spiritual retreat with only me to consider.

And Amma arranged it so I could do no seva, something that historically would have been many hours of my day there, too, including doing more tour staff laundry there. I couldn’t walk. I was side-lined. I got to park in the lot right next to the hall for “people who have difficulty walking.”

I arrived at the hall when the program began, sat there meditating, singing, watching, writing, chanting, meditating from 11am until 11:30pm (Amma gave a talk, led a meditation, sang for an hour or so, led another short meditation, and then she was hugging people for the rest of those hours!). Wednesday. Thursday.

As she was leaving on Thursday night, people where crying out the usual things they do as she’s leaving—“Jai Ma!” (Victory to the Mother!) “Mata Rani ki Jai!” (Victory Queen Mother!) I felt called to yell loudly enough for Amma to hear me, “Where would Amma go?!” That sentence was exact words I have heard her say a number of times in that exact same physical location, “Where would Amma go? She dwells in your heart.” She said these consoling words to the sad devotees as she was leaving, sometimes leaving the U.S. at the end of the six-week U.S. summer tour. Many times I had heard those words with tears in my eyes as she was leaving; this time I said it with joy, complete trust in their veracity, and some small level of understanding of what they meant.

Oh. My. God. Something shifted. Immediately. It felt like Amma heard me and knew exactly what was in my heart. The Universal Mother revealed Herself to me in a way She never had before. I capitalize all these words on purpose, to indicate that I was experiencing something way beyond the normal human “realm,” “state of consciousness,” “reality.” I don’t even know what to call it. The Universality was full blast. The entire physical universe seemed like just a small piece of the Totality. Everything is connected was something I felt as true through the entirety of my being. The inner world was more silent for longer than it had been in a long time. I was in intimate union, connection with the Divine Mother, the Infinite. Words don’t suffice.

I was barely conscious of other human beings around me as the Universal Presence was dominant. Someone asked me at one point if I was OK; they might have been asking me as if from only as close as the moon, which illumined the night sky. I couldn’t even answer, the bliss was too strong. From the outside, a person may have thought I was tripping on drugs. (I have been straight edge for over 25 years.) It was far beyond anything like that. I was cognizant only that I needed to exit the hall so they could clean up and get it ready for the next morning program.

By the time I walked the fifty yards to my car, probably an hour and a half of reveling in bliss had passed. I was extra careful as I traveled the empty roads one mile to my hotel. I was changed. Even as I type these words nearly three months later, I recognize the importance of that transformative moment in my spiritual life. And it’s gone; it was just a passing moment. But it was a milestone of sorts.

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I returned to the hall in a more normal state of consciousness the next morning for the short morning program and went back to my hotel for lunch and a nap right up going to the hall right before the final evening program began. I got a darshan token, which that night they give to anyone who wants one, even if you’ve had darshan earlier in the tour. More hours of listening to the teachings, joining in the prayers, singing, chanting, meditating, watching Amma give hugs, until time for my darshan. Ironically as I made it onto the stage, they had put the chairs away for the darshan line, so I had to stand instead of the usual sitting! Jai Ma! Thanks for the additional pain and the additional practice of maintaining an evenness of mind during it. By that time, it was almost funny, the irony of it.

Another sweet, meh, hug. Back to my seat. She ended and left again about 6:30am, in time to get a few more hours of sleep before the drive. I was shocked how just those three hours of sleep, which often at that time of the day would be more tiring than refreshing, really helped, and I was able to be alert and refreshed for the eight or nine hours of driving in heavy traffic—and in NYC, in HEAVY rain—to Maryland to sleep. Home the next day, and then the challenge of integrating all that experience into daily life!

OK. There it is. The tome of Ti’s time with the Divine Mother Ammachi 2024. If it was not helpful to anyone out there, it was insightful and revealing to the writer, helping to name what actually happened.

To end: Now, do—or keep doing!—intense, daily sadhana, guided by your innermost Self and, if possible, with the Grace of an enlightened Being, for many years and have your own spiritually transformative experiences! The Divine—Mother, Father, Spirit, Consciousness, Love, the Entire Universe, whatever you want to call it—is here, right now, ever-available and accessible. It is you! We just need to get the little-“I” out of the way and open to that Grace as much as possible. May it be so.