Holiday at the Ashram Hospital

Travel Day 938 – Amritapuri Ashram, Kerala, INDIA

Today was Tuesday, a holiday at the ashram where Amma apparently hosted a meditation session, a teaching and a ceremonial serving of the lunch…

My infected Green Finger in Amritapuri

Initially we were told that the meditation with Amma would happen in the temple, but as the crowds had grown, the session had to be held on the big open stage in the center of the ashram. While the meditation was rather short, the question and answer session with teachings was rather long, but quite boring. We were hoping to get some nice teachings as we did yesterday at the beach, but in the end an incident with one devotee became the main focus of the discussion…

It had already occurred to me that some people here in the ashram seemed to be a bit too devoted and treated the spiritual path as an open competition. And so it didn’t really come as a big surprise when we learned that this morning one Western woman just snapped, punched another women and even threatened to kill her, because she wanted to sit closer to Amma than her ‘competitors’.  Great, there seemed to be some real need for spiritual growth right there…

While the serving of the food and the discussions about this incident were rather boring, mainly due to the fact that they were held in local language, my afternoon on the other hand was much more exciting and eventful than I could have ever wished for. My finger got infected while working with the compost and I ended up spending the whole afternoon at the local hospital…

Actually my finger started hurting already yesterday during my Seva, but today it started swelling up and turning green. It was also extremely pressure sensitive and already in the early morning hour I had decided to turn to the local hospital which was part of the ashram. But unfortunately I was told that Tuesdays is a holiday because of Amma’s teaching and I should come back tomorrow…

My infected Finger after Treatment

Well, by the afternoon my finger got worse and after showing it to my supervisor from the compost plant, he personally walked back with me to the hospital to knock on the doctor’s door and ask for some treatment. First I was told to come back two hours later, then I was sitting around for another hours and then told come back later again. This way I managed to waste pretty much all afternoon, but in the end I finally got my much-needed treatment…

Apparently the bacteria around this area and especially in the garbage or compost were nothing to be taken lightly and so I not only received a pain killing medicine that was supposed to help drain the finger, but I also got a load of antibiotics and treatment for my finger. Well, treatment for my finger meant that the nurse cut my finger open and squeezed out all the pus that had accumulated inside…

Since my finger had been really pressure sensitive to begin with, this whole treatment must have been the most painful thing I ever experienced and for about 20 minutes I was not able to leave the hospital because my body was still debating to simply pass out on the floor. Only after lots of sugar-water and holding hands by the nurse, I was finally able to make my way back into my room to pass out on the bed and rest. Yeah, this had not been my best travel day, but I would definitely remember this holiday in the ashram hospital for quite a while…