X1 also explained how being a Swami was not exactly the fun thing it might appear to be from the outside. The Swamis, according to him, were held to far tighter standards than the rest. Amma, in ways variously subtle and gross, was constantly holding their feet to the fire, notwithstanding the external glitter associated with their senior positions in the hierarchy. In this sense, the prime qualification for being a Swami was perhaps the ability to operate a much higher threshold of pain than the average.
Our conversation chugged on. I had some questions for X1. I wanted to know how an ordinary seeker like myself could find the vast bandwidth that seemed to be necessary to bring my Guru upto date with all the minutiae in my life. At one level, I subscribed to the idea that Amma represented the Universal and that as God, Guru and the Self, She knew all that there was to know. However, this belief was more cerebral than visceral and at another level, I felt an ongoing need to figure out what I was going to say to Her in person and how I was going to say it. The second level may have been lower, conceptually speaking, but it was where I lived most of the time.
In his reply, X1 conveyed the same understanding that I had gleaned earlier from talks with some other ashramites. The idea that Amma was aware of every single thought and action, no matter how trivial, appeared to be a bedrock assumption with all and sundry. For me personally, the omniscience of the Satguru (the ultimate Guru, teacher of truth) was a logical deduction, arrived at through a conscious process of intellectual reasoning. In my thinking, worship was meaningless unless the object of worship was the Infinite. I figured that Amma as Satguru had to be a seamless window into the Infinite, otherwise what was the point of going to Her or any other Guru figure?
Being aware that my intellect was a weak one, I did not usually rely heavily on the conclusions it generated, and tended to place my trust more in intuition, a faculty that, despite its mysterious black-box nature, seems to be strong in me. It was intuition that brought me to Amma and it is intuition, even now, which makes me clutch Her and feel afraid to let go. Grace may possibly be a better term for what I have referred to as intuition, but I don't have a way of describing it; all I know is that it exists and rules my life. Reason is an ornamental artefact, generated by a secondary hunger for explanation; it does not seem to be the primary driver of action in my case.
What I am trying to say here, in my usual roundabout way, is that the conviction that Amma knows everything and that I do not have to say much, was only weakly grasped in my mind, because it was chiefly intellectual in nature. For the residents of Amritapuri that I encountered, however, it seemed that Amma's universal knowledge was at once, a reality experienced daily at the mundane level and also an article of deep faith. At the time, I found it hard to digest this view. In the course of our talk, I shifted my weight from my right leg to my left leg and wondered if Amma had noticed that inconsequential move from Her position, beyond visual range and capacity, inside the walls of the temple where She was settling down to give darshan. At that early point on my spiritual learning curve, I was not very sure of the answer but today, after a couple of years of sadhana (spiritual practice) and cogitation, I increasingly operate as if She does indeed attend every moment of my life, no matter how trivial.
X1 pointed out my great and good fortune in having met Amma. "Now that She has claimed you, just relax and stop worrying", he said. He underlined the idea that Amma was in total and absolute control of Her children's lives, among a zillion other things, by pointing to a stray dog that was roaming the ashram compound, ten feet away from where we stood. "Not even a dog can enter this compound without Her approval, and no one leaves here without Her blessing. Even the postman who comes to deliver letters to the ashram must have earned a lot of good karma, or been associated with Amma in some capacity, in his past lives", X1 said.
In answer to my questions about how I should convey my concerns to Amma, X1 suggested that I just approach Amma with a prayerful attitude, keeping the most pressing problems in my mind, as I stood in the line. To recast this strategy a little, in the light of my subsequent insights into the sadhana process, one should let go of all that one can drop and let stay those thoughts that will not release their grip on one's mind, for that is all that one can do. I cavilled in a small way, about not having enough time with Amma, to convey whatever I considered to be necessary. X1 responded that even the ashram residents did not get personal darshans (audiences) with Amma more than a couple of times a year. By that token, as a visiting devotee I would be receiving more darshans in a week than he probably would get in a couple of years. When I looked at it that way, my grouse gently faded into admiration for the ashram residents who had renounced all manner of physical comforts for the sake of those two darshans per year. I marvelled at the intensity of their love for Amma, that they could be satisfied with a scant couple of personal audiences with Amma per year, and spend the rest of the year just being in Her general vicinity, or when She was on tour, just go about their duties, working and worshipping, and waiting for Her return.
My mind was struggling to make sense of all the new imagery. It was as though I was a visitor from another planet, trying to understand the Earthly way of life. Life here had a completely different foundation from what I had ever known. Renunciation, service, love and devotion - I had encountered these values before, but not in such awe-inspiring quantities. Bhakti towards Amma, I was beginning to understand, was the key. She was the pivot around which everything revolved.
At just this point, while I was musing internally about faith, X1 drew my attention to a figure standing on a mid-floor on one of the residential buildings outside the temple compound but within the ashram complex. A short, dark Indian man wearing a mundu (broad white sheet) and white shirt stood there, with a child alongside. "Do you see that man?", X1 asked me. I nodded in the affirmative. X1 told me that this person, a long-time devotee of Amma, used to live in Gujarat. In the great earthquake, earlier that year or before, he had lost his wife and son. His wife had been trapped under a beam in the kitchen when the quake struck. His son went back to try and save her and was trapped as well. Both of them sadly died, leaving this unfortunate man and his daughter behind to pick up the pieces of their lives. He decided to wind up his affairs in Gujarat and come down to Amritapuri. His daughter was now pursuing her studies at the local school. X1 said to me, "That man has real faith. No matter what happens and how unpleasant it is, he retains his faith in the Guru."
I made a mental note that this was the kind of example that was worthy of emulation. This was the kind of mettle that would be required on the spiritual path. If I was to go the Bhakti route, and I had already so decided, this was the kind of steel I had to weld into my heart. It would take a lot of doing of course, and generous dollops of the Divine Mother's grace but there was now a goal in sight. I might never get there but at least I had a putative destination, and that was preferable to the weakly directional random walk that had marked my spiritual quest before.
Om Amriteshwaryai Namah
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