Experiences with Amma
AMMA Shows the Way from Leiden to Ettimadai
Dr. A. G. Menon
Leiden University
The Netherlands
About 20 years ago, a polite, young Dutch girl came to Leiden University, The Netherlands, enquiring about the possibilities of learning Malayalam. Students usually take up the study of Malayalam as a main subject including the culture, history, language and literature. An interest in Malayalam is aroused by the unique social structure of Kerala society. However, this intelligent girl had a different motive. She narrated her story of meeting a "lady" in a place near Quilon, where "she" has an ashram. Very soon this student replaced the word "lady" with Mata Amritanandamayi. She explained further why she was so much attracted to Amritanandamayi. Though I had spent many years in Kerala, I had only very vaguely heard about Mata Amritanandamayi. On the one hand, I was ashamed of my ignorance of a great mahatma living in my own state, and on the other hand, I was very curious to know more about Amma from this Dutch girl, who had already spent a considerable time in Vallikkavu, Amma’s home.
The student was preparing for her next visit. Following the tradition of the Dutch who meticulously plan everything including the most minute details, she wanted to learn the local language in order to better understand the message of Amma, and to feel at home in Vallikkavu. She followed a course on Malayalam and left for Kerala. Thus, I learned more about Amma from my Dutch student. This was my indirect acquaintance with Amma. However, I did not take further interest, even though I had read an interesting article on Amma in an international magazine.
During her 2004 visit, Amma told me about Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and asked me to go and have a look at the engineering campus in Ettimadai near Coimbatore. Although I agreed to go to Ettimadai, I did not visit this campus because I was wondering what I could do there. Amma didn’t ask me to go there to do anything; Amma only asked me to have a look. My field of specialization is linguistics. Amma knew this. My thinking was, “What can a linguist contribute to an institution dedicated to engineering?” The following year, when Amma visited The Netherlands, Amma asked me if I had gone to Ettimadai. I didn’t have the courage to inform Amma that I had not. Amma again asked me to visit Ettimadai. Though I agreed to go, again I didn’t go because I was very skeptical about my contribution to an engineering college.
I was trying to escape from Amma, and thought that Amma would have forgotten her request by the time she visited The Netherlands the following year. But as a member of the organizing committee I could not run away and hide myself in the crowd. When I approached Amma for darshan, Amma’s penetrating eyes caught me again. First, Amma asked me about my health and her next question was, "Son! Did you go to Ettimadai and visit our college?" Instead of beginning with a "No", again I began to plead my inability to contribute anything to the field of engineering. Amma did not wait for me to finish the sentence. Instead, Amma called Swami Ramakrishnananda Puri and directed Swamiji to contact Ettimadai and inform the university that I would be visiting. Swami Ramakrishnananda Puri made the contact, arranged my visit and this time there was no way for me to escape. Amma has already organized my visit.
I first visited the engineering campus at Ettimadai in January 2006. The brahmacharis were very kind and showed me every part of this huge campus. I wondered whether I deserved such treatment because I was still doubtful about my ability to contribute to the scientific development of Amma’s great university. After a delicious lunch at the guest house, I returned to The Netherlands. I was waiting for the next visit of Amma’s next visit to tell her about my visit. However, I wanted to show my wife the Ettimadai campus because my first visit kindled in me an unexplainable urge. We visited the campus again in September 2006. It was a most unique experience, because on the day when we were visiting the campus for the second time, CEN (Center for Computational Engineering and Networking) received a letter, confirming the award of a grant for an English-to-Tamil Machine Translation Project of the DIT Ministry. I was shown the award letter and we wished them every success, returning to The Netherlands.
CEN placed a number of advertisements seeking a linguist for this project, but there was no response. Around January 2007, Prof. Soman, Head of CEN, telephoned me to say that the whole project might not go through because of the absence of a linguist. He then asked me to come to Ettimadai as early as possible to assist them. When Amma had asked me to visit the Ettimadai campus in 2004, this project had not yet been conceived. From the beginning of 2007, I stayed many times in Ettimadai to deliver my humble contribution to a project of a prestigious engineering institution founded by Amma. In this context, I remember a sentence from a recent book (Eye of Wisdom, 2007, p.164), written by Swami Ramakrinananda Puri. He wrote, "Amma has so much of faith in us that we have no choice but to believe in ourselves."
There is no room for pondering over an elusive problem. Very often we fail to understand the visionary words of Amma. Where there is faith, there is a way. Amma's love for everyone and her services for humanity are inspirations for all of us, irrespective of our religion, social status and race. While thinking of Amma, I am often reminded of a classical Tamil poet, who wrote a secular poem about two thousand years ago. His two themes were universality and fate. He wrote:
Every city is my city,
Everyone is my kin.
Good as well as bad things do not happen because of others,
Suffering and cure are also like that.
Death is not new,
Life is not always sweet.
We neither admire great people nor despise the common,
Everything is regulated by our karma and fate.
We go wherever our karma and fate take us,
Just like a block of wood is tossed about in a big stream.