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An Offering of Love
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| My First Darshan is
an offering of love to souls everywhere. This book is a collection of
short stories written by fifty-four of the hundreds of thousands of
people blessed to have received darshan from Mata Amritanandamayi Devi,
their beloved Mother and Guru. Writers share their heart warming and
deeply moving experiences with Her in these stories. This book is their
offering at Her Divine Feet. |
| Many of Amma’s
"children" regard Her as a divine incarnation, not unlike
Christ, Buddha, or Krishna. Teachers, students, business owners,
corporate employees, physiotherapists, healers, yoga instructors,
artists -- Amma’s children are from all walks of life. They come from
countries across five continents. They range from young boys and girls
to old grandfathers and grandmothers. Some are from traditional
religious households while others had no spiritual or religious training
prior to their meeting Amma. Together, their stories beautifully
showcase Amma’s love, which transcends all barriers of culture,
nationality, language, religion, and age. |
| The stories in this book
are from people who have only met Amma once as well as from those who
have known Her for nearly two decades. About half of the stories are
from those who were already on a spiritual path when they first met Amma.
Others met Her serendipitously but still felt drawn to Her. |
| About the Stories |
| The stories follow a
similar format. The writer briefly shares his or her spiritual
background, if any, prior to meeting Amma and then describes events
leading up to the first darshan with Her. This first meeting is
described in detail and is followed by a brief description of the writer’s
journey with Amma over the years. Sometimes, however, this brief
description of the latter journey is not so brief. But knowing how Amma’s
children love Her stories, we did not have the heart to prune them down.
Perhaps How I Became Amma’s Child would have been a more
fitting title for some stories instead of My First Darshan. We
trust that our dear readers won’t mind this sweet indulgence. |
| The stories in the book
represent nearly thirty different countries. A quick way to tell the
country of residence of the writer is to look at the sidebar quote,
which includes both the writer’s name and country. In general, one to
three stories are included from any one country. A fourth of the stories
are translated from languages other than English. |
| Amma’s words appear in
italics at the start of every chapter and every story. These teachings
of Amma relate to a theme in the chapters and the stories and are taken
from Her books and talks. Amma’s words also appear throughout this
introduction as italicized text. |
| Names and short biographies
of the writers are included to make the stories more personal. These are
real experiences that happened to real people. In many cases, writers
allowed the use of their birth names instead of their spiritual names
given to them by Amma so that readers new to Amma and unfamiliar with
Sanskrit names and Vedic traditions might relate to the stories more
easily. |
| A chapter includes stories
from Amma’s younger children. It is deeply moving to read about the
manner in which Amma’s love is molding these young ones. Blessed
indeed are they for coming to Amma so early in their lives and for
making such a whole-hearted attempt to live in tune with Her teachings. |
| The final chapter includes
stories from Amma’s renunciate children who live in Her ashrams.
Especially powerful journeys of transformation, these stories are filled
with rich lessons and deep insights. |
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