Saturday, May 30, 2009

2009 05 30. Saturday.

2009 05 30. Saturday.

As I suspected would happen, I've been roped into more seva. I should be happy cause Amma says seva is the fastest way to purification in today's world. OK, I'm happy, see? Happy now? This morning before breakfast, one of the seva organizers ask me to help with morning veggie chop from 7-9am. He didn't know I was already doing trash seva but I said I would try to do the veggie chop also. Actually I really should be happy cause veggie chop is an easy seva, just sitting on my lazy butt and flailing away with the knife. Gotta make sure and count my fingers after each seva session.

This afternoon an American renunciate here (Cameron) let me borrow his UPS to see if it would provide a good ground circuit for my laptop power. As we were talking I asked him if there was Wi-Fi at the ashram. He said he didn't know of any. Then he said something that really surprised me: "If you're nonchalant and cool, you can go into the boys computer room and use the internet there. Just act like you should be there and usually they won't say anything." Wow! That is a *seriously* useful and wonderful insider tip! The boys computer room is where male ashram residents go to mainly work on the ashram web site (which is a pretty extensive web site at www.amritapuri.org). It takes a lot of effort to keep a big web site like that up to date. Apparently, as long as the privilege is not abused, male ashram residents can go in there to check personal email, etc. So, feeling vaguely guilty and nervous, I quietly stepped inside and set myself down in front of one of the computers, expecting any minute one of the big swamis to slap his hand on my shoulder, glare down at me, and ask what I'm doing there. However, everyone there completely ignored me as though I totally belonged there. Wow. That was like too good to be true. I checked my email and took care of some banking transactions and, shortly before 4pm chai, quietly gathered my bag and stepped back out, still slightly dazed at my good fortune of discovering this option. The main ashram public internet room is a rupee (2 cents) a minute so this will save me a tidy sum. I'll use my savings to buy some extra hot whole milk at night. Hear that, Dad? Even more good protein!

While I was plowing through my email one of the Amma swamis was sitting next to me at his computer station. Nearby a young Indian guy was working on an Amma article for the website. At one point the swami gave a very nice little impromptu dharma talk to the young Indian guy about the deeper meaning of what an ashram is all about. It was really cool to listen in and absorb some wisdom. Moments like that are part of what makes it so nice to live here. Most people's minds here are fixed on dharma in one way or another and that passion also flows in me. Just another small example of the little things that make me feel at home here.

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