Today I had the chance to experience Amma for the first time.
She has been named the hugging mother saint of the world and is know for her devotion to Bhakti, meaning love and compassion. She is a true and humble Humanitarian and Luminary, and being able to see her work today made quite an impression on me. As she pulled me in close and wrapped her loving arms around me I heard her whisper to me over and over, “Oh my daughter, my daughter, my daughter…”, it was what I had waited over 5 hours for and the moment had come and gone before it even started. Before I even knew it I was being whisked away by her helpers and left with only a chocolate Hershey’s Kiss wrapped in flower petals inside the clutches of my palm. Emotions flooded my mind and the sea of devotees overwhelmed me as I took refuge in a prostration to ground my body and thoughts.
How can one person be so loving? So compassionate? And for hours upon hours, day after day?
Without judgement on religion, race, or character she embraces and blesses all who come to see her as her own children. Enthralled by the divine hugging mothers presence I steered myself out of the worship center and onto a tiny patch of grass amongst the concrete city I live in. Here I layed in the grass to process all that had happened in that day–the early morning rising, the waiting, the tokens for darshan, the chanting and meditating and then more waiting and waiting…until the hug–that embrace–that aggressive and potent awakening.
“In July at Laughing Lotus we cherish, honor & bow to the divine mother.
The divine mother is, quite simply, everything. she is loving & compassionate; she is forgiving & tender. she is ferocious & unwavering; she is dominant & powerful. at one moment she will chop your head off & wear your skull around her neck. The very next, she will cradle you in her open your arms, will drink your tears & will make you know that you are in the safest place in the universe.
The divine mother is love.
Love is not always pretty. Love is not always the honeymoon phase. Sometimes love is like the jagged shores of a rocky beach & those waves, they come crashing hard. but there is always the calm after the storm.
This is the way of things. This is life. This is the divine mother.
We all need love. We all need nourishment. We cannot– we CANNOT– do anything alone. We all need a mother’s love. It is a special kind of love.
We are honoring the divine mother all month at Laughing Lotus in her many, many incarnations.”
(borrowed from my Friend VR. C.)
YOGABUGG 