Steve, yes, karma yoga or a non-negotiable karmic duty as I feel it is. We may call it a karmic burden and in a way it is, but it's also a big challenge in some sense. A karmic opportunity. I had to explore new topics like psychopharmacology and behavioral sciences, which have their interesting aspects.
Re. Amma: I'd really like to meet her person.
A laudable aspiration. We both want to see her. I cannot think of a single human being now in the body, I would like to see more than her. I have had some wonderful blessings in the process. With Masters, we often recognize their blessings over a life time not so much immediately. Perhaps that is because they are always with us regardless of physical proximity and their consciousness is timeless.
We all wear certain stigmas attached to us. Some by social factors and others we have put on in previous lives that we carry with us. There is no one that I’ve met that takes away these social, personal psychological and biological stigmas more than Amma. I have also welcomed her discipline which I have found has changed my way of relating with people as well. While not very easy at times, I find that my life has taken unusual twists and turns because of having people like her and our gurus of SRF guiding my own difficult karma I’ve been working out this life. While I often feel the weight of karmic factors in my life, many people have also entered my life showing me how graceful to be when karma seems oppressing.
I remember once asking one of Amma’s close nuns about being with Amma and how it is. She explained in her own words it is not always as glamorous as it appears. She herself goes through many physical difficulties. Like Jesus and Paramahansa Yogananda, such Masters help their disciples by working off their karma (sins) on their own body. Can we even begin to understand such compassion. I am not able to or have never been able to accept when I have received the blessing of experiencing Amma’s love. It was truly overwhelming when compared to any human experience.
