Hug

I observed some nervousness among the people in the ashram yesterday in the afternoon. Some of them seemed to be in a hurry. Suddenly, someone said “Come on, Amma is in the beach”. Then everybody left what was doing and headed to the beach. There, in the middle of a huge group of people (about five hundred people!) Amma was sitting down on the rocks and staring at the sea. Someone was holding a big umbrella over her to avoid the sun bothered her. After a long time in total silence, she said “I want all the children doing meditation with me now”. I thought she meant that she wanted the little children sitting down beside her while doing meditation but after a time I realized that I was wrong and she meant something different: if she is “the mother”, the rest of the people are “the children”. So everybody had a long time of silent meditation and at the end they chanted some traditional Hindu prayers. Then, Amma took a microphone and talked briefly to the crowd: “Don’t you worry, my children, that sitting down here, so close to the sea, other tsunami could appear and carry us away?” (This area of the Kerala coast was especially devastated by the tsunami of 2004). Then someone stood up, asked for the microphone and said: “What could fear a little child having his mother so close and feeling her immense love?” The audience applauded in sign of agreement. I opened my eyes absolutely astonished.

The brief chat with Amma was translated simultaneously into English by one of her collaborators since she only speaks Malayalam, the language of Kerala. At the end of the talk, she ordered to all who wanted to receive her blessing, which is her embrace, to make a line. Immediately a kind of mayhem was formed and the crowd, prodding each other, made several lines, in the Indian style of forming a queue. All the people who received her embrace looked really moved. If you ask me what I felt I tell you I didn´t feel anything, a part of an unpleasant brief sharp sweaty hug. But I'm going to not confess it to anybody else here, just in case they think I’m a sceptical rationalist spy!