Wisdom from Age

On April 17th, Amma's Ayudh USA visited LightHouse Nursing Home in Castro valley. Amma's volunteers individually visited all the rooms offering a rose and simple conversation. The gift we got in return were truths that can only be sincerely understood through the span of one's life. The most astounding parallel was that almost all of them who were able to sustain conversation stressed (unprompted) that the foundation of an honorable life is the act of giving selflessly. Through their tears and occasionally our own we felt when we left that we had received a lot more than we had ever hoped to give.

Ocie Benson, an 86 year old American lady, was celebrating her birthday facing a cold white wall. Although she looked tired from receiving fluids she had a formidable presence which contributed to our initial hesitation to approach her. She did not hesitate to share her insights into various topics ranging from marital relationships to understanding death. She had witnessed one of her sons being murdered and the other die slowly due to injuries sustained from a street side thug. Her husband and all her siblings had died of old age. The thing that truly struck us at first about Ocie was that although she was deprived of the family and companionship we take f

or granted, she had a certain sincerity in her optimism that truly reflected on the resilience of the human spirit. This was in stark comparison to the many who wandered those halls that had to a great extent reconciled themselves to their fate. Ocie was older than most and faced imminent death due to chronic heart disease. As a result she treats our each meeting as if it were our last and strains to kiss us goodbye. After around three hours of conversation we soon discovered that every word she spoke to us caused immense pain to her throat. She had been confronted with the option to underg

o surgery to quell the pain, but in return she would lose the power to speak. Even now she had to work for every word, but that did not stop her from sharing as much as she could, and we could tell that she really did. Perhaps what we really drew from her was inspiration to never look at things from one angle, to broaden our perspective on meaning, and truly introspect on the reason for our existence.

Ocie was an out of the ordinary example, and such people are hard to find. Still there are countless veins of knowledge that can be tapped to provide one with a conversation that can induce a lasting change. For true sincerity has a power than cannot be matched. Our Amma is a shining example of this, and her effort should urge us all try to help those who can truly benefit from the comfort of a few words. When we left Ocie, she told us that her family now had three new young members (thats us!). Amma says that in essence we are all beads strung on the same string, a family in its truest sense, let it be our mission to be the family of all those who are willing to receive us, as faulted we may be.

Earth Day At The Ashram!

Aum Amriteswaryai Namah 

On April 25th, 2009 Earth Day was celebrated AYUDH Style!!! AYUDH helped to organize  the Earth Day Fair at the M.A. Center.

Amma says  "Nature is our first mother. She nurtures us throughout our lives. Our birth mother may allow

 us to sit on her lap for a couple of years, but Mother Nature

 patiently bears our weight our

 entire life. Just as a child is obligated to his birth mother, we should all feel an obligation and responsi

bility towards Mother Nature."

It was a beautiful sunny day which started with the  Eco-Meditation, followed by the workshop "How to grow vegetables at home" and a guided tour of the new orchard at the ashram. AYUDH members have helped plant many of the young trees that will someday produce apples.

Later in the afternoon a picnic lunch was served and the AYUDH band made it's debut! Performing original devotional songs,  the AYUDH music was described by many listeners as "so beautiful"  The band earned much applause and requests for an "encore" at the end.

Following the performance, the celebration continued with lots of family fun. At the AYUDH booth face painting was offered as 

well as an opportunity to sponsor a tree to be planted in a loved one's name or as a gift to Mother Nature in the new orchard.  

Near the pond, AYUDH had set up a bubble station and in the middle of it all AYUDH members, little children (and big kids too!) participated in a rousing game of capture the flag otherwise known as "Rescue Amma" with a photo of Amma in place of the flag.

Other booths had information about how

 to keep bees, solar cooking and other tips for a more green friendly life style that will benefit Mother Nature positively.

The entire day was wrapped up with a relay race in which participants had to cluck like a chicken and walk like a crab! 

It was a warm spring day, the ashram swans floated by on the surface of the pond and the trees swayed gently in the wind. Each summer when She visits San Ramon,  Amma leads an outdoor  meditation  

in the field where we had the celebration.   Spending the day in the grass enjoying the sunshine and fresh air was a good reminder of the love that Mother Nature offers us every day and Amma's

 Presence was strongly felt.   

It was a fantastic way to remember the importance of nature in our lives and to celebrate Earth Day with consciousness and love!

Story of Love

Story:
My dad always had an angry streak while my sister and I were growing up. If his ego was ever challenged he just would blow up. Frequently while working on a project with us, or on his own, if a challenge to his skills or to his ego arose he would start to swear and yell and a hush of fear would fall over the whole family. There was nothing that we could do and there was nothing that we could say because he was so sensitive and emotionally injured. This negative trend continued up until my sister and I headed off to college. Over the process of going to school and returning home we both gained new perspective on life and the way that we percieve things to be. Each time we would come home to visit we would bring new ideas home to dad and mom, and they would always adopt new ways of living that we presented such as buying local and orgainic foods, using cloth bags and composting. They even bought solar pannels for their home.
After I finished my first year internship at a non-profit in the Sierra Nevada, I began to delve even deeper from environmental dis-ease to my own emotional and spiritual ailments and healing. Over this period of time I began to express things that I never had to my parents. Things that I had never said before that seemed terrifying to say about problems in childhood and how they effect me today. Speaking these words often felt like jumping off a cliff and I didn't know who would catch me. My parents heard me and gave me love as best they could as I moved forwad in this self inquiry. Over this time I began to notice changes in my dad too. He started dropping external negative habits in himself expressing his own vassanas and crying a lot more. Things have been pretty hard for both of us over the past couple years, but we are now facing things and bearing the pain like never before. The whole family has been noticing the changes in my dad. We were driving in San Francisco last month and we were very lost for hours. My dad kept his cool and stayed more patient than the rest of us. This is unheard of in given his history. This is just one of the many examples of his ablity to cope and to not get angry that I have witnessed. He and I both have been meditating and trying to listen to God/Amma more thatn listening to our own loud egos that want to be heard and feel frustrated. I feel like we are approaching change and challenge in a whole new way. I thank Amma for giving us both the strength and patience to face these negative tendancies; and for showing us the light at the end of this tunnel to walk towards even if we feel blind right now. I read an amma quote this morning that said "you are love!" And I believe it. Understanding this allows me to witness the false me based on fear that has been parading around as me for so many years. Another moral to this story that is unfolding is that once you begin to look inside of yourself you unknowingly open a window for others to do the same. I had no idea that my family would be moving forward together spiritually like we are, but each time one of us take a leap of faith, or opens thier eyes to unbelievable pain it becomes an invitiation for others to do the same. Thank you Amma for lifting us up each day.
Om Namah Shivaya

In courage and in love
Leah

Mass-Apple Tree Mania!

Aum Amriteswaryai Namah,
On March 14th, 2009, AYUDH participated in the 2nd mass Apple-Tree Planting at the MA Center.
The planting was to carry out Amma's instructions that the MA Center plant 1000 apple trees. Amma specifically has asked that we plant 500 this year. So far we have planted 260 trees. We are half way there!

MA Center has been expanding it's orchards onto the hill sides. Some of the special work AYUDH members participated in included rolling a very large water tank up the hill! The tank will provide irrigation water for the expanded orchard.Overall the plantings have been very successful so far. Hopefully with Amma's blessings and grace we will also be able participate in caring for this new orchard.

Maybe even eat some apples...
Namah Shivaya
-Gilad

Will you be my Valentine?

Last year in 2008 Amma requested AYUDH youth to contemplate this question, "Our whole life we have been taking and receiving from the world, now we must ask ourselves: what can we give back?" Since then AYUDH members have been trying to answer the question.

This month's theme on AYUDH's calendar of change was about spreading Amma's message of universal Love. AYUDH Americas tried to honor this in more ways than one.

For Valentines Day 2009, AYUDH members banded together to make and sell traditional Valentines Day cards with a special twist. Using recycled cards as a base, members cut, pasted, glued and painted hand-made Valentines with Amma's message "May the tree of our life be firmly rooted in the soil of Love... and may Peace be its fruit" printed inside.

Instead of the usual sugar candy heart, or box of chocolates, AYUDH members included with the cards something much more Alive. For a donation of $20, devotees could sponsor a tree to be planted in someone's name as part of Amma's Orchard Expansion project at the MA Center.

Devotees received their card and homemade cookie on Valentines Day which was also the MA Center's 20th Anniversary, all in all AYUDH managed to have over 100

trees sponsored for the orchard expansion project!!

On the 14th, AYUDH members also trekked the muddy hills of the MA Center and helped to planted almost 200 apple trees, many of which had been sponsored by the Valentines project.

May Amma's words come true, that Love becomes the basis of our lives.

Knitting for the homeless

Namah Shivaya,

KnitWits is an organization driven by volunteers which provides warm clothing to men, women and children with HIV/AIDS, Hmong and Somali refugee children, South Asian women touched by violence, poverty-stricken families, and many others who cannot afford warm clothing in this season throughout the US. They provide fleece and yarn to volunteers who can then sew together mitten-shaped cut outs.



We took up the project in the Michigan Amma center as a youth project but soon many members from the ashram actively joined. With over 18 participants, we had a great time sitting as a group and doing something to help the community! We spent the time together sharing stories of our experiences with Amma and other projects we could do. For many of us, this was the first the first experience sewing and knitting so it was also a learning experience. We made and decorated a total of 16 pairs of toddler-sized mittens.

January Soup Kitchen event

On Saturday January 17th AYUDH members helped serve a morning meal to diners at the Saint Vincent de Paul Society's soup kitchen in Oakland . We arrived around 9:30 in the morning and were greeted by the smiley volunteer organizer who took us to a side room where we were shown a short, but inspiring video highlighting the importance of service and featuring the lives of a few of the regular diners. The video was a nice introduction and helped us to feel personally connected to the people we were serving. After the video, we helped set up by counting plates, carrying food, moving ice, filling a big thermos with water, etc. The workers at the soup kitchen then lead all the volunteers in a short prayer service. We then assumed our serving stations and the diners began to arrive.

Most of us were in the family room where woman, children, and men who were involved in some way with the women (husbands, boyfriends, etc) ate. One or two of us were in a more crowded room designated for single men. Some of the members of our team served the food onto trays, others cleaned the tables after the diners finished, and one of us was at the door controlling how many diners came in at a time. All of the guests we served were very friendly and enjoyed chatting and joking with us as they ate. One woman that seemed to be a regular at Saint Vincent de Paul's gave us helpful instructions us on the procedures we weren't familiar with at the soup kitchen. The atmosphere was very open and the diners were cheerful and talkative. Even though they are coping with the effects of poverty, many of the diners took the time to show their gratitude for what they were given. It was very moving to see. In addition, all of the staff at the soup kitchen were very kind and gave good, clear directions. The soup kitchen was very large and there were a number of groups volunteering there that day. We were also able to chat and make friends with the other volunteers, many of whom were high school students from surrounding areas.

We finished serving around 1 pm and after a short clean-up we were done with a fun day of service!

Just Listen

Hello AYUDH recipient,

I am writing you from the library here in Grass Valley. Since this month's message is about LOVE I would like to share a quick story that just happened to me.

I was waiting outside for the library to open when a gruff looking man came out of the bank next to the library singing "the wheel in the sky keeps on turning" really loud. He is the kind of person that most people would likely turn away from, laugh at, or ignore completely. He proceeded to show me a picture that he was drawing with much pride and told me that the bank was going to let him hang it on the wall when he was finished. At this moment I felt love in my heart for this man. I continued to listen to his story about how he quit drinking at the beginning of the month, and how his baby granddaughter was just born on superbowl sunday, and how he has so much to live for. I listened to him when he began to cry as he told me that he knows god loves him even though he has done so many terrible things. I saw hope in his eyes when he talked about his drawings, and so much love when he spoke of his family.I didn't say much throughout this long discussion, but I knew that I helped just by being there and reflecting the love and hope and sadness that he was expressing.
I could have walked away when he started talking. I could have just kept walking to do the "very important" things that I was going to do. But what is more important lending an ear to someone in need, spontaneously on the street? I cant think of anything. It was a great gift.

Power to Love!
Peace to AYUDH.
Om Namah Shivaya,
Leah

AYUDH Recruiting

Om Namah Shivaya,

The Michigan AYUDH group gave a video presentation about AUYUDH in the intercollegiate Dandia Dhamaka dance competition. At the event, we also collected interest from students of the University of Michigan in helping with community service projects in Ann Arbor. We need to practice collecting names and actively approaching students to see if they are interested in AYUDH but, for our first time, this was successful and some students came on their own accord to sign up!

Love infused Falafels

Om Namah Shivaya- January at the M.A. Center in Cali-
AYUDH members lovingly made Falafels for dinner on the night of Karthika puja. Yes! Yes! As you know this month is "Eat to your fill" on our Calendar of CHANGE and 2009 is starting beautifully. Our Love infused Falafels were prepared in stages as Kripa and Gilad blended the tahini and falafel mix the night before. On the night of. . Maxi and Mahita showed up for veggie chopping. While listening to 2005 bhajans . . the peppers, cucumbers, onions, and lettuce were all mixed together to make a refreshing Mediterranean salad. Kripa with her amazing skills fried all the falafels as Gilad put the final blend of lemon and olive oil into the tahini. At last, we heated up the pita bread and made a plate for Amma. The meal was received with joy by the devotees and nothing was left over. With the intention of serving our brothers and sisters we offered this meal. From our hearts we pray that one day everyone may eat til their full. We pray that Ammas Grace may be with all of us this year guiding our actions, words, and thoughts towards a Spirit of Service.
In Gratitude- your San Ramon AYUDH brothers and sisters.

Chant your mantra while engaged in work. This way, the mind will be continuously focused on Him. — Amma

Bala Kendra Tree planting

The tree planting today went really well! There were dozens of kids with their parents, those who knew Amma and many who did not, and about 10 AYUDH members to assist them. It was mostly for the Bala Kendra and younger children to get involved in helping the environment. Many of them had heard about the activity from a website, and were interested in helping. We started out by making nets for the trees we were going to plant. Then a short slide show was presented about Amma and the environment. Afterwards, the same instructions that were given to AYUDH were given to the kids and their parents at the spot where we all planted. It was pretty much the same activity we did, but modified for younger children. There were a few issues, like how people kept forgetting to put compost and mulch, and how parents sometimes refused to listen to the youth about digging, but overall it was fun and effective!