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A Change of Pace

May 22, 2005

Suppose you could call together some of the very best teachers from the top schools in various parts of your state, and ask them to offer classes in their areas of expertise.

Suppose you were able to offer potential students full accommodation: meals and rooms.

You set this up as a residential camp for youngsters for five days and nights.

What do you think you could charge?

A bundle.

What do you think Amma charged?

Nothing.

At the end of April, Amma invited any and all young people (from about 7 to 24) from the Alappad Panchayat (basically the 12-km long island on which the Mata Amritanandamayi Math is located) to come spend nearly a week as guests of the Math. And now, late in May, it’s happening again: now the youngsters are from Alappuzha, a district slightly north and on the mainland. Again, about 3000 kids are having an experience unlike anything they’ve known before.

There are classes in spoken English, yoga, and swimming. During the first camp, there was also spoken Sanskrit, but since the children were utterly exhausted with their full schedules, that course was not repeated in the second camp. In addition to the classes, different ashram swamis offer the young people talks each day, and for fun and creative relaxation there are arts and crafts programs…and video programs (tonight, for instance: “101 Dalmatians”).

Most of the camp events occur in same-age groups, but one event is attended by everyone at once—from the youngest to the eldest. And by ashramites and visitors as well. When Amma comes to meet with the children, the huge auditorium is packed.

Amma: “Children are you feeling hot?”
Children: ”Yes”.
Amma: “Are you tired because you did yoga?”
Children: “Yes”
Amma: ”Was it painful”
Children: “Yes”
Amma: “Really ?”
Children: “Really.”

“What do you want to ask Amma?” she asks the children. “Amma is here to clear your doubts. Ask anything.”

It’s wide open, and nobody seems shy.

“How old are you?” asks one child.

“Amma, who invented computers?” asks another.

“Amma, is it true if we enter a temple from one gate, we must leave from a different one? Why is this said?”

And more and more questions—never predictable.

Amma replies to the children’s questions, often widening her reply to touch on related issues, and adding stories. She is building in the young listeners a desire to ask more and more. It’s hard to find a way to end such a free-for-all session, but two things seem to work.

Sometimes Amma asks, “Children, are you hungry?” What child is ever NOT hungry?

“Aaah!” they shout. “Yes!”

And so she serves them lunch—to each child she hands a plate of rice and curry. It takes a couple of hours at least.

Sometimes, instead, instead Amma asks, “Darling children, would you like darshan?”

“Aaah!” they shout, already jumping up from their seats to rush towards the stage. “Yes!”

And for the next four or five hours Amma sits there hugging them, one after another, listening to them, whispering to them, looking at the crafts projects they bring her, making them welcome, guests in her home.

No one can become proficient in English or yoga or swimming in less than a week, of course. So what is the point of a camp like this?

In light of the recent tsunami, one intention is that the children should come together to have exciting new experiences. For indeed, one of the ways people heal from trauma is to have something good occur, something other than tragedy to focus on. That is indeed happening these days. And the swimming classes, in particular, are encouraging children (some of whom have feared the sea since the 26th of December) to play in the water, and to develop confidence

Another intention is to expose the children to some of the traditional values of Indian culture, values on the decline in the wider culture. The young people have a wonderful time with each other, their teachers and the ashramites who are big sisters and brothers to them. New bonds are formed. The ashram has been here for over twenty years, but it is safe to say that most of the six thousand young people who attended these camps had never set foot in it. Now they know it as a place of fun and friendship, a place where everyone greets you back when you smile and say “Namah Sivaya!”, a place where people of all classes and religions and nations mix together. It’s a fun place to be, and it is built on solid values.

It’s a safe bet that many of them will turn up here again. It’s not even a bet, but an observation: already youngsters from the April camp have come back to see their new friends, to have darshan, and even to lend a hand in ashram seva (selfless service) like stacking and transporting the monthly magazines, or helping to unload the trucks that return from delivering meals to the still-homeless tsunami survivors.

By Janani
Correspondent, Amritapuri

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