X1's reply indicated that the desire to be something, anything (in the organizational context) had been completely scrubbed from his mind, if indeed it had ever existed. When asked if he would be a Swami (monk) someday, he just looked upwards and said that whatever Amma wished would happen. He did not say it wistfully or with longing but in respectful surrender to Her Divine will. He seemed to be truly free of predilection in this matter. I could see that his gentle, implicit disavowal of desire was the genuine article. I contrasted that with my own occasional explicit declamations, usually before a captive family audience, disclaiming the desire for this or that. I had mostly given up things because God/Amma had denied them to me.
So it was, that I would say to those around me, "I am just a dog in my office. I don't have the wish or the wherewithal to be anything more. If I am asked to sit, I sit; if told to stand, I stand, usually on all fours. When asked to fetch, I run for the ball but sometimes I stop to irrigate the lamppost (vasanas!)" But even as I made these mock statements of purpose, to be free of the desire for respect in the world of business, I usually knew that my touted virtue was whitewashed necessity. Amma had placed the grapes beyond the grasp of my paws, so I had to declare they were sour and I could quote Adi Sankara in support! I noted the quality of X1's renunciation and resolved to improve the quality of my own.
X1 went on to disabuse me of the notion that I may have entertained, perhaps lightly, that the Swamis had 'made it', that after suffering years of obscurity battling the waves, they had finally surfed into the big-time on their saffron boards (robes). X1 asked me if I had noticed how much in awe of Amma, the Swamis were. He explained the Swamis were a charismatic bunch that could sing, speak and generally hold their own with diverse constituencies but that they knew, to a man, that they were nothing without Amma. If I may misappropriate one of Amma's own similes for the benign purpose of proclaiming Her glory, the Swamis were like empty light bulbs without Amma's electricity flowing through them.
I saw what X1 was getting at and had to agree, based on my own observations. I had been very impressed earlier, during the evening bhajan (devotional music) sessions, by the reverential way in which the Swamis behaved with Amma. At the conclusion of each evening's bhajan session, Amma would exit the stage and a couple of the Swamis would offer closing prayers to Her in Her (physical) absence. I used to find the mood particularly electric at those moments, every evening without fail. The bhajan sessions were charged affairs in entirety to be sure, but these moments were like lightning to me. The air at those times used to be surcharged with poignant longing for the Divine Mother of the Universe who walks the earth in Her unassuming mortal frame as Ammachi.
The takeaway lesson for me, from this exchange with X1, was the understanding that the Swamis were less like big rock stars than like little rocks, pebbles that would be pulverized by the power and grace of the Guru's gait. They would be deprived of their dimensions, lose their rough edges and their very shapes under the weight of the Guru's step. These finite losses, however, would be more than offset by an influx of infinity; as dust they would become Divine and cling to Her feet.
Dust be diamonds
Water be wine
Amma commands
And All is fine
(Plagiarized and modified without permission, not sure of the original source though!)
Om Amriteshwaryai Namah
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