Being Multilingual
San Ramon, CA, November
27, 2003
Maybe it is an answer to
the ardent prayers of those devotees who miss the comfort of a simple
conversation with her. Or perhaps it is just the mother's heart
reaching out to strengthen the bond of love with her children who
speak different languages. Whatever the intent, Amma can now increasingly
be found speaking sentences and singing bhajans (devotional songs)
in various European tongues, much to the glee of her Western children
who are simply delighted to hear Amma speak their native tongue.
In San Ramon, Portuguese-speaking
Gokul shook with joy as he came out of darshan (meeting and receing
a hug from Amma) with Amma. " She asked me to say 'My darling son'
in my dialect of Portuguese. I was so shook up by then that I couldn't
remember how to say it. I said something …..I
knew it was not correct, and Amma immediately said no, that was
not how it is said. Then she said it in another dialect of Portuguese.
This is the longest that Amma has spoken to me; the best darshan
I have had with Amma!" Gokul could hardly hold back his excitement.
What does she have up her
sleeve this time?….we wonder as Amma starts
on this new trend. Maybe a pre-cursor to a greater global expansion
of her spiritual outreach?
Later in the evening, a devotee
who Amma calls Santa Claus (an account of his flowing white beard
and physical similarity) came for darshan. As Amma remarked on his
resemblance to the benign St. Nicholas, the European lady assisting
her mispronounced the word Claus as 'Klaas' - from 'Sinter Klaas',
Santa Claus in Dutch, her native tongue.
Amma caught on to that immediately.
"Klaas?…Klaas? What language do you speak?"
"Dutch, Amma." "Oh, Dutch! It is sooo difficult to articulate…"
she said. " German, Swiss and Dutch have many familiar words but
the pronunciation of Dutch is by far the hardest," and Amma quoted
some example words. Then she turned to the Dutch lady. "Mijn lieve
dochter," (My darling daughter) said Amma in Dutch. "Was that right?"
she asked, with innocent concern.
Hmm…
Multilingual in a new dimension, with a mission and vision to boot
- we think to ourselves, on a lighter note. Amma could very well
be the most lingual realized soul in all of mankind's history!!
Knowing Amma's 'little-food-scarcer-rest'
schedule in order to fit everything into the twenty-four hours in
a day, we wonder where she gets the time to learn all these languages.
Often the only time that she even listens to a new bhajan before
presenting it is the brief window of time in transit at airports
and the like. Forget about unfamiliar languages, it is impossible
for us to do that even in our fluent native tongues! Even the singers
who sing with Amma often find singing these new songs a difficult
task. What Amma does effortlessly, they accomplish with hours of
practice! How does Amma manage the impossible?
The answer lies in Amma's
omniscience. A realized soul like Amma needs no one to 'teach' her
a language. It flows to her, through her and in her, at all times.
Is it really necessary for
Amma to speak in these many tongues… we wonder
…does she not do enough already? But this is
Amma we are talking about - the same Amma whose "one desire is to
burn like an incense stick," imparting the fragrance of her service
to the world. She would do this and more, in a single heart beat…
Amma herself tells us that
the Guru's (spiritual master) sole and primary concern is contributing
to the spiritual education and uplift of the disciple, in the manner
most conducive to each particular disciple. To most people, the
comfort of hearing Amma in their native tongue leaves a lasting
impression in their heart. In an interaction of this manner, it
is love that is being shared, binding the disciple firmly to the
Guru.
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