From restoring spiritual values and traditions to its glory, to providing total medical care for all, with state-of-the-art facilities including free treatment or with reduced fee-charges offered to the poor, immediate disaster relief measures during natural or man-made calamities, value oriented educational facilities through the finest educational institutions, offering food, clothing , shelter and old age pensions to the poor, scholarships and self-employment opportunities to the needy, and to preserving the nature and environment at its best, indeed, the range of her services encompasses all, bound not to any boundary.
Reproduced here, are a set of answers given kindly by Amma, in Malayalam, during her visit to Chennai, to Meera Krishnankutty, translated by Amma’s senior most disciple, Swami Amrita Swaroopananda:
Mother, throughout your life, you have embraced and comforted millions of people. Your motherly embraces began when you were only 14, at a period when even speaking to strangers was considered a great sin. How did your family and society respond to this unconventional gesture?
Amma: Even as a little girl, I always experienced a spontaneous stream of love flowing out of me to the entire creation. I never thought that “this self” is different from the totality. With that experience within, I always felt a motherly affection towards everyone and everything.
Initially, due to ignorance of spiritual principles, the family did raise a lot of objections. They were concerned about “their daughter’s future” and their own reputation. However, once the family realised the truth, they offered their full support. The villagers also became very loving towards me.
My mother believed girls shouldn’t run. Girls were supposed to walk slowly. If they ran, they were said to be of bad character. They were supposed to speak so softly that even the walls would not be able to hear them. They shouldn’t burst out in laughter. When guests came, they were not supposed to show their faces. Until the guests left, we wouldn’t be able to come out of our room. There was no bathroom inside the house. So, until the guests left, we had to endure.
Men in the family were given more importance. Girls were not allowed to sit even in the presence of their younger brothers. Food was first served to the men. Only if there were leftovers, would the women get to eat. Men were not supposed to wash their clothes or dishes; that was a woman’s work. There were so many restrictions on women. In this way, we were conditioned to respect men. This was the culture of my village. It was in this environment that I was brought up.
So, when I began to receive men and women without any difference, it created a big hue and cry in my family and in the surrounding villages. It was totally unacceptable. Initially, I had to face severe challenges, but I didn’t budge because of my firm conviction, trust and realisation that, “Love alone can transform.”
Intolerance is a word that is very commonly used these days. Isn’t it also an expression of impatience, Mother?
Amma: Intolerance and impatience have been hallmarks of humankind for centuries. They have existed in varied names and forms in every nation and among all classes of people and sections of society. The difference is only in degree. The human mind cannot exist without such negative tendencies. So, the mind itself, along with all its weaknesses, must be transcended.
In today’s world, when people, individually or as a group, blame others as “intolerant,” they are forgetting that they, too, are intolerant in many ways. They forget how they have also been prejudiced and narrow-minded on many previous occasions. Tolerance occurs only when you are able to put yourself in the other person’s place and love him as you would love yourself. When you reflect the pain and pleasure of the other like a mirror – at that point, all intolerance disappears.
People from all over the world come to you for solace. Amritapuri is a mini global village, where different languages are spoken, and people of different nationalities stay together, eat together, work together and live together, with perfect mutual understanding. Mother, what is the magic formula for this wonderful phenomenon?
Amma: This is the magic of love – a magic born out of understanding that life and love are the same. It is as simple as that. Love is closer than the closest. However, out of ignorance and greed, we are distancing ourselves from this most sacred love. Unfortunately, love has become scarce in today’s world. Love is the food that nourishes everyone. When love becomes the main component of all that you do, unity and understanding spontaneously arise.
Mother, every day you listen to thousands of distress stories. Can we say that your charitable activities and humanitarian services are an immediate response to this?
Amma: Yes, almost all the humanitarian activities undertaken have been a response to a need, when immediate attention became a demand to an impending situation. However, generally speaking, the strong urge to love and serve humanity has been a spontaneous expression of the experiences that I underwent and the harder realities of life I saw around me.
Misery manifests in different names and forms, but basically it is deep grief. Humanity, all over the world, is suffering from this disease known as grief. It comes as sadness, anger, hatred, greed, jealousy, poverty, lack of love, fear, insecurity and so forth. However, the common name for all these various symptoms is grief. Grief is the hallmark of today’s world.
The village where I was born and brought up was comprised of about 10 acres at that time. In my childhood, if anyone had even a quarter of an acre and five people asked if they could build a hut on it, the owner would allow them to do so because people had faith in each other. The landowner knew that, if necessary, the people would vacate. So, there were about 70 small huts spread throughout the village. When I was about eight, I started going to these houses to collect leftover vegetables and rice gruel to feed our cows and goats. At that time, a family typically had 10 to 12 children. In one home, I would see the children clinging to their mother and crying because they were so hungry. The mother would be trying to console them, but she herself would be in tears. Seeing such things I would become very sad. In another house, I would see children who were well-fed, playing happily.
The pain that some people were experiencing was unbearable for me. I asked Nature, “Why do some people have to undergo so much suffering and others do not? Why are people so unhappy?” Then the answer came from within that their suffering was due to their previous actions. But there was an additional revelation. I realised, “If a person falls into a pit due to carelessness, is it right to just call it his karma and walk away without helping him out?” I then knew that my mission in life and my responsibility was to love and serve people.
I would take food from our house and give it to those in need. The elderly would tell me their sorrows. I would wash their clothes, give them a bath, feed them the food I brought, console them and help them in whichever way I could, even though my family would scold me. Thus, I spontaneously began to listen to people’s sorrows and to console them by wiping their tears. However, I also realised that spiritual teachings alone will not work without appeasing people’s hunger and taking care of their basic necessities. That is how all the charitable activities unfolded.
Mother, many generations of men and women have been coming to you. Have you noticed any remarkable changes in the attitude of the present generation, towards life?
Amma: Certainly, there are changes in perspective between today’s men and women compared to those of the previous generation. In fact, there is a widening gap, perhaps, almost an unbridgeable one. People who belong to this younger generation, children in particular, are definitely well-informed, technically knowledgeable and intelligent. However, there is a serious degeneration in their values. The current generation also seems to be emotionally immature. They are more attracted to the fancy glittering world of fantasies. There is nothing wrong with such dreams. Indulging in such things is required to a certain degree. But currently, people are going overboard. Information technology and spiritual values should go hand in hand. Otherwise, our much treasured and glorious family structure and the love that always strengthened it will gradually disappear, which will culminate in social and cultural disintegration.
We need to strengthen the family structure. As mothers, women will have to play a significant role in this. This age calls for a reawakening of motherhood. Parents, especially mothers, should make it a point to train their children in spiritual values. Let our children build their future on the foundation of our age-old values and traditions. Let them learn to love and respect their parents, elders, teachers, nature and fellow human beings.
To desire and to be ambitious is fine. However, our life and the actions we perform should be in tune with nature, with the universe, because this is the substratum of everything. The most serious challenges in the history of mankind – the climate change and global warming – are nothing but the result of humanity’s callous actions and endless greed, forgetting Nature and its laws that govern us.
The floods that hit Chennai due to incessant rains during the end of November 2015 had been the severest disaster that Chennai encountered, since Tsunami. Almost immediately, the Math began its relief operations. Mother, but what was the first thought that came to your mind when the news was flashed?
Amma: My heart reached out to the people. I felt their pain. The immediate question, of course, was how to help them. We called our hospital in Kochi instantly, and asked them to send emergency-care ambulances, medicines, doctors, paramedics, etc. Then we instructed our Chennai, Coimbatore and the other branch ashrams and institutions in the area to send volunteers, food, clothing and other necessary items. Compassion is the first and last step in resolving a problem.
Mother, atrocities against women and children are still on the rise. Is there no solution to this? What do you see as the family’s role in preventing this crime?
Amma: Everything good and bad that you see in a person’s character originates from home. Children are the greatest observers. They see, hear and feel everything so deeply. So, the family atmosphere, the conversations you hold, the bond you have, the quality of thoughts you think, your gestures, the way you treat each other, your guests, animals, plants… Every single thing that happens there, even things that seem insignificant, counts. It is all creating an impact on the child’s mind.
Parents are always telling their children, “Study! Study! Study!” They need to be just as focused on ensuring that their children are cultivating values. They need to teach their sons – both with words and through the example of their lives – that women are not inert objects for men’s pleasure, but embodiments of God. They need to teach their sons to respect women and protect women, to be kind and understanding.
However, women are stronger than they think. Women need to awaken to this truth. Unfortunately, women have been conditioned to think they are weak. When an elephant is a baby, the mahout ties it to a tree. It pulls with all its might, but it cannot break free. Eventually, it accepts this situation and stops struggling. Later, when the elephant is fully grown, it can be tied to a small tree with a thin rope. It could easily free itself by uprooting the tree or breaking the rope, but because its mind has been conditioned by its prior experiences, it doesn’t even try. Women should realise their inner strength and courage.
In essence, men should be trained to have kindness and understanding, and women should be trained to have strength of heart. But this will take time. Until the situation changes, women should consider travelling in groups of at least three, especially at night.
‘Amala Bharatham’ is a project of the Math which commenced much earlier than the Swachh Bharath campaign. How did it all begin?
Amma:The Amala Bharatham campaign was started in September 2010, and we have also been working in close association with the Prime Minister’s ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ ever since 2014.
It has always been my dream to see India clean like the West. Just as any other project, Amala Bharatham was born out of an inner urge to help create awareness among our people to live a clean, healthy life, more attuned with nature. Of course, the task before us is huge.
However, the first step of anything is compassion. Then determination and other necessary resources will come. Whether it is with regard to cleanliness or anything else connected with our daily life and living conditions, the first step in helping others is imparting awareness. Inspite of taking regular medication, if a diabetic continues to eat sweet food, his blood sugar level will still increase. So, diet control and lifestyle modification are just as important as medication.
I remember an incident that happened in one of the villages we adopted. Initially, we taught a group of people how to build their own toilets. Then we left the actual building to them. When we revisited these villages, we saw that the villagers were not using the toilets. They would just open the door to their new bathrooms, look inside as though they were visiting a temple, and then close the door and go to the nearby lake to relieve themselves as usual.
When we saw this, we started educating the villagers, explaining that open-defecation leads to water and soil pollution, which further contaminates food and leads to all kinds of parasitic infections. This helped create the much-needed awareness in the community, and they started using the toilets.
Providing basic amenities alone is not enough. We have to painstakingly help such people make these habits a part of their daily life.
We live under constant fear of unrest these days. What would be a possible solution to restore peace?
Amma: Fearlessness comes only when we live a life rooted in dharma. What is dharma? Adhering to the laws of the universe is dharma. If a political party has an absolute majority, it can change constitutional laws. Nevertheless, the laws set by the universe are unalterable. If we go against them, the universe may remain patient and silent for some time, but it will not, forever. It may be difficult to establish complete peace in the external world.
However, we can definitely experience perfect peace within if we tune our mind with the universe, with the cosmic laws. Learn to be loving and respectful to Nature and your fellow humans. Coexisting in harmony with Nature, our fellow human beings and the mysterious aspect of life, will bring us more and more peace and harmony within and without.