Monday, September 28, 2009

2009 09 28. Monday.

Less than five seconds after my alarm went off, some noisy neighbors started talking loudly. Perfect timing! Slept well. Rained a lot last night.

Soon after I woke up i noticed a wet spot on my sheet on the edge of the bed. What's this? Did I pee in my bed or something? Soon I noticed a small drip from the ceiling. Oh, that's it. I've got a leaky roof. Luckily I sleep in the bottom bunk of a bunk bed so I was able to put a bucket on the top bunk to catch the drips. Easy fix. Its a very small leak so I'm not gonna worry about getting it fixed yet. Rainy season should be over soon.

I found out that Amma gave darshan (hugs) from noon Sunday until 9am Monday. That's 21 hours in Her chair hugging about 80,000 people with no bathroom break. That's a typical program for Amma whenever She goes on Her Indian tours. The whole time She's reaching out to people with both arms, holding them and often caressing their backs. With that many people, She moves pretty fast. Whenever I see Amma hug that many people without any break, I really feel like I'm witnessing a miracle.

I'm discovering its easier to do my mantra when I'm out and about walking around, and more difficult to do when I'm alone in my room. Something about knowing other people are around inspires me to get more focused on my mantra. When I'm alone my mind more easily wanders. I'm becoming a lot more aware of this and trying to get more focused on my mantra when I'm alone. Just seeing this pattern helps.

I've got a library card for the main library and Dortmund wanted to borrow a book. So we went there together so I could get the book for him. He got a book called "Mystical Formulae" written by an Indian man. The English translation is laughably terrible! The translator barely knew English so reading it is pretty funny. Its a book filled with hundreds of mantras for all kinds of different purposes. Mantras for getting a lover, for flying, for getting wealth, for defeating enemies, for curing snake bite. You name it, this book has a mantra for it. In the middle of the book in some random spot is a mantra for enlightenment. Cool! Just have to do the ceremony correctly and repeat it 100,000 times and boom! You're enlightened! Be warned that the ceremony is pretty complicated. And the book says repeatedly that if you don't do it just right you won't get the result. I'll just stick with my Amma mantra. I wonder if they have a mantra for curing chai addiction? Actually what I'd really like is a mantra to help me be happy with less sleep. But because I've got Marfan's syndrome (which affects my main aorta) its probably good for me to get enough sleep. Helps minimize the overall stress on this aorta.

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