Amma learns a New Bhajan

What is really going on when Amma learns to sing a bhajan in a language she supposedly doesn't know? She likes to please her children wherever she travels, so during the last spring tours, for example, she learned some new versions of a few otherwise familiar bhajans-so it was that In New Delhi there were several Hindi bhajans; in Calcutta, a few Bengali versions; in Reunion Amma learned to sing "Ishwar Tumi Daya Karo" in French.

And in San Ramon, a few days ago, that same bhajan-"Ishwar Tumi Daya Karo" emerged in a new language: English. The English words were transliterated into Malayalam characters, in with only a few tries Amma had mastered "Grace Us With Your Compassion Lord":

Grace us with Your compassion Lord
I have no one but You my Lord.
You are my friend and my family Mother and Father, my Everything
You are my soul refuge O Lord
I have no one but You my Lord

When we watch Mother "learning" something, questions naturally come into our minds: Does she really NOT know these words? Is it really hard for her to make these foreign sounds? She gives every appearance of moving from confusion to comprehension, from awkwardness to mastery. And yet we recall the story of the Russian devotee who brought her a letter in Russian at a time when there was no translator near the chair-so what could she do but reply-in his own language! Or the Brazilian woman who had never met Mother before, and approached her with cool curiosity. She drew near, watching-and suddenly was overwhelmed with emotion. She began crying, and couldn't stop. She reached Mother's lap, and Mother, Who didn't know her, didn't know she was Brazilian, didn't know she spoke Portuguese, touched her chin, looked into her eyes, and said lovingly, "Don't cry." In Portuguese.

Now, how are we to understand this?

Maybe we need not understand, but simply enjoy the different faces of Amma as they unveil.