Travel Day 950 – Amritapuri Ashram, Kerala, INDIA
Today was Sunday, it was also the last Darshan day before Amma would go on tour and it was Shivaratri…
Sunrise in Amritapuri after Shivaratri
So far I managed to time my visit in Amritapuri pretty well in terms of being here during the same time as Amma was. But on Wednesday she would finally leave for Singapore and some islands, as well as her South India tour at the end of March. It seemed overall pretty incredible how much she was doing and because of all the travel plans, today was her final Darshan day and many local people had arrived to get one last hug from Amma before she would leave for a while…
For me personally the day seemed to be pretty normal as I had my Tabla practice and Seva of serving food in the Western canteen, but by the time the afternoon came around, I had a new idea. Some people had told me that it was possible to give prasad to Amma during her Darshan session and while this was the last chance, I thought I should give it a try…
Giving prasad to Amma basically meant to help her for exactly two minutes while passing little prasad packages to her. When she was giving Darshan and hugging people, she handed out these little prasad packages to every single person. The little package containing a sweet and blessed ash had a rather symbolic value, but it seemed to be a fun thing to pass these directly into Amma’s hands…
Since this little task brought me in direct contact with Amma, I had to first read very detailed instructions and warnings and then undergo a little training of how exactly to pass the prasad packages into her slightly opened hand. It seemed almost like a joke how much everything was organized and I was pretty nervous of not to make any mistake within the whole process, but in the end everything went really well…
Actually everything went so well that Amma turned around to me at some point and gave me a big smile. This obviously not only made my entire day, but it also was a much nicer experience than any of the somewhat mechanical huggings that I had before. When I sat down on stage behind Amma for a while to just watch her, I couldn.t stop smiling and though the day couldn’t possible get any bet…
As it turned out, I was far off since it was Shivaratri night, which was usually celebrated by fasting and staying awake during the entire night until the sunrise of the next morning. Unfortunately the whole ashram did not stay awake the entire night, but at about midnight Amma ended her Darshan and gave a little speech about Shivaratri. Then she kicked back her chair and for about one hour she was dancing and singing on stage like a rock-star…
Well, she was probably dancing like a spiritual rock-star, but I was first struck by the vast amount of people who suddenly showed up out of nowhere and then by the fact that the crowd went simply mad. I don’t think I had ever seen any other person working the crowed as Amma did and while we where chanting one Shiva song after the next, everyone was wildly clapping the hands, dancing and throwing the arms in the air. It was a little bit crazy to be standing in the middle of it all, but on the other hand it was a really great experience and the best night I had in quite while… : )
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