Many of my friends spoke very highly of Amma Amritanandamayi in the past. But I never felt the 'tingling' to have her darsan. In the recent past, our friend Bob from the Sai group kept on sending e-mail info about her. He adores her and cherises his visits.
At first I was very skeptical going to Dearborn, Michigan to see 'Amma'. Then, I thought that like in every other situation, I will not know until I experience it. Soon, I started reading about her and felt quite impressed. Her organization is doing similar things like the Sathya sai organization. So, I told my husband Rao that I would go. My not going would not have stopped him from going anyway. He likes to visit all 'holy' persons. He happily made hotel reservation for Monday, Nov 23rd night at Hyatt where all the action was. We were told that Monday evening and Tuesday daytime, there were free public programs and Amma hugging and blessing the devotees. Rao's young Tennis friend Alex joined us. We left Cleveland around 10 a.m. The check-in was before 3 p.m. We arrived before 2 p.m. On the way, we had fun learning and using our newly acquired GPS (along with printed directions for Rao's satisfaction)which was a present from my adopted (??) nephew Raj.
The room was quite spacious with two double beds. The men put our overnight bags in the room and then went to tour the activity area. Amma's food service was buzzing with volunteers. Also, there were many booths and tables that were being set up for sale of several types of items like, cds, dvds, incense, clothes, jewelry, pictures, massage, acupuncture, healing and so on. Alex and I commented a bit on the commercial part of the set up.
They were expecting a big crowd inspite of it being a working day. All the volunteers were very cheerful and ready to answer any question you had. After the preliminary tour, we went back to the room to rest. The line for darsan would form at 5 p.m. and tokens would be given to go inside the hall and Amma will arrive at 7:30 p.m. - this we gathered, rested a bit and went downstairs by 4:30 p.m and I stood first in the line, watching the 'Greeters' desk that was being set up.
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