2009 07 26. Sunday.

2009 07 26. Sunday.

Got up around 6:30am and went to the kitchen at around 7am for some chai (didn't have any, Poo!). On the way I saw Amma's beautiful white Mercedes. Amma's back! Turns out She came back around 6:30am. Her equally beautiful Mercedes RV was also parked nearby. Both cars are not actually Amma's. Some rich devotee has loaned them to Her. In the past some rich devotees gave some fancy cars for Amma to use, but Amma just turned around and sold them to get money for Her charities.

I got a letter from my Mom in Richmond, Virginia. In it she says there's a small town in Finland called Kerela (my Mom was raised in Finland and I got a lot of relatives there). Be funny if India Keralites were descended from some long lost colony of Finnish Viking explorers. Or vice versa... (smile).

The fluorescent light in my new room isn't working, so I dropped off a note at the electrical repair office. To my huge surprise, some guy came by about a 1/2 hour later and fixed it. Wow! That was really fast! I wasn't expecting to see anyone for at least a few days.

I had a nice, intense talk with Svayam about spiritual life while waiting in lunch line. We were kind of making the same points in different ways. I was saying something like the goal of sadhana is so we can more and more deeply embody the truth that we already *are* everything we're looking for. He replied "Yes. Yes. Of course. But we must learn how to do that in a world full of difficult choices and difficult life circumstances." His point seemed very obvious to me so I just said "Yes. Yes. Of course. That's all just the leela of life. We do the best we can and surrender the rest to Amma." And from there we would go dancing around in more verbal circles. Kind of useless but also fun. I really like Svayam and enjoy sharing with him. He's a very thoughtful and smart guy. It seems that Svayam loves having a westerner to talk to who resonates with his ideas and outlook. He's deeply passionate about serving Amma and moving toward awakening.

I got real feverish this afternoon. After lunch I went to the hospital for a few tests. They told me to come back at 3pm when the doctors arrive. I went to the compost area to tell them I wouldn't be there and spent a brief moment getting them started on the work. I was too tired to walk back to my room so I laid out some sacks on a table at one end of the compost area and slept till about 2:45pm while the usual compost crew worked around me. Then I went to the clinic and waited to see the doctor. I was too tired to sit on the bench, so I sat on the ground in front of the bench and laid my head down. It was actually fairly comfortable. I had a sudden loud coughing fit and spat out some mucus. The Indians next to me jumped away quickly! I smiled. Now I had the whole bench to myself! Then I finally got checked out by the doctors. 102 degree fever. They gave me some fizzy medicine and a session of menthol steam inhalation to help clear out the lungs. Then I went back to my room and slept and sweated till dinner. I got up in time to take a cold shower. Yuch! Pure torture taking a cold shower while in the grip of a fever. I should have asked the doctors for a note to get a hot shower. Definitely have to do that next time I ever get a little fever. Then went to dinner (not much appetite).

At dinner I was looking down making a note in my Palm when I suddenly hear this French voice say "Please, would you like some?" The eccentric, slightly crazy French lady is just about to scrape some of her food onto my plate. "No!" I say and yank my plate away. She looks at me like I just refused a piece of gold. Jeez! She is one wacky lady. As she shuffled off to pester some other people I remembered that it is through people like her that Amma tests our patience and compassion. I smiled and resolved to try and always be compassionate toward her, even if she is totally loopy. I appreciate her cause she'll give me some good stories to put in the blog.

Came back, brushed teeth and collapsed into bed. Didn't set any alarms. Some Indians chattering away down the hall but not too bad.