Christmas in Amritapuri

Christmas carols

25 December 2005 — Amritapuri

Christmas carols

Never is Amritapuri filled with more of Amma’s devotees from the West than during Christmas. Each year people from America, Europe, Australia and other parts of the Western world come all the way across the globe to spend their winter holidays with Amma. Many of them only get 10 days off from work, but still out of their love for Amma make the pilgrimage, which can take as many as 40 hours each way.

In fact, many of them had arrived when Amma was still conducting her programmes in Tamil Nadu. During the long journey back from those programmes, Amma’s mind was clearly on her newly arrived devotees. At a lunch stop on 24th, she reminded everyone that they had to go fast so they could reach the Ashram in time to celebrate Christmas with all her Western children.

Amma reached Amritapuri in the wee hours of Christmas morning. To her devotees’ delight, at 6:00 p.m. she came out for the nightly bhajan, singing bhajans in Malayalam, Tamil, English, Sindi, Marathi. (Devotees not only from the West but also from across India had come to Amritapuri during the work holidays.) Then, at 9:30, Amma again came out to the bhajan hall for the Christmas celebrations.

“The message of Christmas is the life of Jesus Christ itself,” Amma told the devotees gathered to celebrate the holiday. “It is said that God is the embodiment of infinite divine values. At the same time, God is beyond words and the mind. It is through the lives of Mahatmas that we are able to directly experience the divinity of God. Mahatmas teach us through their own lives. Christ was the embodiment of love, self-sacrifice and humility.

Surrender towards God and love towards the world—both of these qualities shined through him. He took birth in a barn, worked hard in life and lived in an ordinary hut. Though materially he had nothing, he was the embodiment of prosperity.”

To celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Christ, Amma’s Western devotees put on a children’s play, performed dances and sang Christmas carols–all of which Amma watched while seated in a chair in the midst of a sea of devotees.

The children’s play started off with a young child asking his mother the question, “Who is God?” When his mother couldn’t answer, the child sat down and started to think: “God is in the sun.. God is in the rivers, the moon, and the mountains.. God is also in the lion and the tiger..” And as the child thought, various children came out, enacting each image or animal. One child even came out as a train. (“God is in the chugga-chugga chugga-chugga of the train.) Amma laughed whenever the children–many of whom where very small–lingered too long on the stage, missed their cues or acted generally confused in the spotlight. At the end, the child realized that if God is in all these things, He must also be inside each child, mother, father, brother and sister as well.

The Western men and women who sang the Christmas carols kept switching back and forth from various different languages. For example, the verses of “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” were sung alternately in French, German, English and other languages, while the chorus remained in Latin. Carols were also sung in Finnish by a large group from Finland.

There was also a juggler from France, an Indian dance by a group of teenage Western girls, a Latin dance led by an Ashram resident from Venezuela. The performances ended with Murali, a professional pianist from France, playing a piece by Elbeniz.

When all the cultural performances were over Amma distributed chocolate cake as prasad–something that has become an Amritapuri Christmas tradition.

-Tulasi