KOCHI: In a torrential outpour of unchecked maternal love, a sweet smile playing on her lips, Amma embraces us and whispers in our ears, “Children, Amma is with you!”Thereafter, we experience the truth all through our life, that those words aren’t hollow words.
While we have health and wealth, authority and power, there will be quite a lot of people to flock around us. But in the vicissitudes of life, no one would care to give a company. However, it is only very late in life that man realizes the fact that he is utterly alone in the war field of life. It is possible that perchance our own body might refuse to obey us. It is here that Amma’s comforting words truly become a refuge.
Our Guru will be there with us always, through good times and bad times alike, and even after death. It is just the merit we earned over our previous lifetimes that brought us to such a Sadguru that Amma indeed is.It is impossible for the tiny intellect of puny man to comprehend the nameless, formless omnipresent God. There are no short cuts to know the Effulgence imminent in all Universe. We are only endowed with finite senses; and God is not One that can be known remaining confined to within the limits of the senses.
However, difficult as it might be to know the Invisible Power, the sages of yore devised methods by which we can experience It. They prove to us that it is indeed
possible to know God by observing certain protocols in life.You can’t look up at the blazing sun with naked eyes. Even if you did, you wouldn’t get to see it the right way. Only, the eyes might get damaged instead. Since the naked eyes are not powerful enough to withstand the brilliance of the sunrays, the Guru appears like the moon that transforms the dazzling sunrays into soft and cool radiance.
Since we are normally incapable of knowing the power called God, Cosmic Consciousness incarnates in Guru-form, embodying and displaying all the qualities and
attributes of God so that we can rely and depend on it.There might be several teachers in our life. All who teach us good things are our teachers. Each and every object in this universe could become our teacher at different times. Sometimes our own body imparts us lessons.
This is to say that the present form and beauty of the body are not going to last forever. Unfortunately, man understands this only late in his life. We must learn whilst still alive in a body that in this mortal coil resides the Immortal Effulgence of the Self. In order to experience that effulgent self, the eye of Knowledge needs to open. Only the Guru can do it for us; only the Guru’s blessings can eliminate the cataract of ignorance.
That is why the rishis of yore prayed thus: “Om tryambakam yajamahe /sugandhim pushti vardhanam / urvarukam iva bandhanaat / mrityor muksheeya maa mritaat.” ‘I take refuge in the three-eyed Supreme Lord (Lord Siva)’. There is no redemption from worldly sorrows and the birth-death- cycle until the eye of inner experience opens. It is the Guru who redeems us from the shackles of this world. The Guru who appears before us in physical form, like the tender moonlight of knowledge,awakens the Guru within us, our inner Guru, and renders our inner Effulgence experienceable to us.
Much as water vapor pervades the atmosphere, God’s Effulgence pervades the entire creation. If the unbounded and all pervading vapor in the air were to be condensed, it would then flow down to us in the form of fresh and pure water. It will descend from the heights and pour down in torrents to the lowly regions. It will assume the shape of the container that collects it. The water that gets collected in various vessels of various shapes is seen to assume their respective shapes.
Of course, nothing is impossible for the omnipotent God. If He is one who is incapable of taking a form how could he be all powerful? It is usual for believers to adopt a form to their liking and worship it and earn the good fortune of the darsan of their ishtamurti or personal god. Since human character is of thirty three crore types, the one God needed to manifest in multiple forms. Such forms which gave darsan to worshipping devotees came to be known by different terms like ishtadeva or ishtadevata. The sound vibrations that our rishis heard along with their visions of God became mantras. Those who recited those mantras found themselves to have had the good fortune of receiving the vision of the respective deities.
To obtain the darsan of the personal god, an attitude of sacrifice and piety, and austerities, might be necessary. Vapor cooled and become flowing water, and solidified by the chill into snow, comes to have perceptible shapes. Likewise, the Formless incarnates on the earth in
order to instruct ordinary people in their Godward paths. The act of the cosmic power assuming human form and descending to our level is called the avatar. Much like a
magician who chooses to reveal the secrets of his magic, God draws apart his veneer of maya and strives to impart the understanding of the mysteries of Creation in a comprehensible manner.
Once the backstage secrets are known, then, this world gets transformed into a stage of entertainment; into a playground. We get the chance to cleanse our mind of its negativities and be ready to listen to the Guru’s Gita- instruction. Often, it is amid critical times that the instruction can be most effectively delivered.
So the Guru sits in wait patiently for the opportune moment. It is like the expectant wait of a mother’s heart certain that her child, tired of playing and hunger, will seek her. So the Guru, the embodiment of sacrifice, waits, ever ready to accept all our miseries and absorb the burden of all our sins; much like the mother confident and anticipant of her child’s return upon ending its frolic.
Transcending all limits of compassion and love, the Universal Mother resides among us enthroned as the Amritavarshini, the Bestower of Ambrosia. We have only our pains and sins to offer her. Yet she, on her part, most gracefully returns her Divine Love to us. Amma showers her compassion on us in utter disregard of our worth. Even though we might be undeserving, Amma teaches us methods by which we can become deserving enough. Even though we don’t belong to the highest class of seekers fully qualified for spiritual instruction in all its fullness (the Uttamadhikaris), Amma continues with the process of eliminating the negativities within us through Her Divine Love and transforming us into epitomes of innocence.
Amma says, “Children, in order to reach heights, legs alone won’t suffice. You need to sprout wings, too. Thus you must fly across boundaries and soar into the skies within. Fear not; Amma is with you!”