Oh my darling

"Oh my darling...oh my darling...oh my darling," Amma said these words into my ear last night while I recieved Darshan (the direct experience of meeting the divine). She may have hugged 600 people last night, and I was one of them. For those that aren't framilar with Amma and her work of embracing the world, please go to www.amma.org and check out her teachings online. I've longed to meet Amma since I first heard about her from the co-creators of the Laughing Lotus Dana and Jasmine. Yet every time she came to New York or San Francisco, there was always something else to do. Isn't there always something else to distract our minds from the direct experience of the divine? This time I couldn't hide myself away from the experience. Here I am, in her motherland, and what's more she's come to Chennai! A few weeks ago I saw a big poster with her face on it and dates for her visit, and on the bottom it said, "All are welcome". I knew I had to go, it was too perfect. So I patiently waited until the 21st of January, asking my classmates if they'd be interested in coming with me, and finally my friend Marlene from Quebec said she would love to join me becasue she too has been meaning to experience Amma in the flesh. So the location where Amma would meet the public is a half mile from our brillant teacher Dr. N.C., so he volunteered to give us a ride to the event. An hour of traffic, and finally we arrived to his house where met his daughter and had some tea. This gave us plenty of fuel for meeting Amma. We got there at the right time, becasue Amma was slated to arrive ten minute later. Yet India being what it is, she arrived in an hour instead. We sat right in the front with the devotees. So naturally I start talking to my neighbor, because I've always been one to make a new friend. The woman sitting next to me is from France and Marlene begins speaking French with her immedaitely. Marlene gets all the details about Amma and the event from the French lady and I space out on the scene. I get goose bumps thinking that I am about to witness with my two human eyes one of the great spiritual leaders of our time. Amma arrives, and everyone stands up and is seated again. Amma speaks for about an hour in Tamil, which is funny becasue there were moment when everyone started laughing, and I was clueless. I'd ask my Tamil speaking neighbors and would get bits of the joke before the audience was quieted again. Then came the chanting, clapping, swaying, clapping faster, Amma singing into a distorted microphone that made her voice echo. She had a man with a harmonium, a whole team of tabla players, and women chanting with her as her back up musicans. Then came the fire puja (offering) at her feet by various women, and Amma threw rose petals on them in gratitude. And then finally Darshan, we all headed toward the stage, and a woman pulled Marlene and I over to the side and asked if we wanted to sit on stage with the devotees. Let me think about that? Um...yeah! So we witnessed Darshan from Amma's perspective, sitting 8 feet from Amma. It was amazing! After awhile it occured to met to check where they were in the order of the paper tickets, think deli numbers at Bi-rite grochery. We were D5. When I looked it was D5. How magical! We cut line beause we were already back stage. The Amma handlers wipped my face, asked me which language I spoke (apparently she speaks 102 languages), and reminded me not to touch Amma. Moments later she was hugging me and whispering, "Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling," into my ear.