The key to happiness

Taken from Amma's Wisdom

This is an interesting and perhaps a bit of a strange anecdote about Amma. 

It was some time in 2000 my mother and my mother-in-law and a couple of her friends went on a pilgrimage to a few places near my village. My village has a temple of goddess Laxmi and in their itinerary they had included  my village too. They travelled by car so that they could visit many places.

After visiting all  the other places of worship, the team reached my village by lunch time. Since their purpose was pilgrimage and it was also 
almost lunch time, they decided to visit the Goddess Laxmi temple. After the prayers they had their lunch (prashad) in the temple as is the tradition in our village temple.  My village house is two hundred yards from the Temple. Therefore, my mother-in-law, it appears, suggested that before they left the village it maybe a good idea to visit our village house. I must at this point tell you that, by this time all of us - my brother, sister and me had shifted to live in Bangalore and the house was under the care of a relative and the people to whom my brother had assigned the farm to be looked after.

I was told that Amma went to the house and sat in he verandah (open portico) and talked to people around and after the team was ready to leave she tagged along with them and left the village. I was told that she didn't make any effort to go inside the house to see whether the upkeep of the house was alright and not even looked inside the kitchen or any part of the house, save sitting in the verandah and exchanging courtesies with the people around taking care of the house and the farm.

When I heard this I was a bit puzzled that Amma didn't show any interest in the village house or showed any sign of nostalgia and she was just normal and talked to people around who were taking care of the house and the farm. 

For a couple of days I was thinking about this incidence. The woman who lived in that house for more tha35 years and took care of the house and saw her children grow up and worked to hold the family together and was part of every activity in the house chose not to go inside the house to see whether the upkeep of the house was alright or to see some part of the house which was dear to her that evoked memories of living in that house. None! She didn't do anything like that.

After a couple of days of thinking about this, it dawned on me that, she had just dropped the house from her belongings and there was no craving about the house that it was hers and she was the owner and she didn't even try to tell her team mates the many stories about the house.

I believe,this is a the greatest example about detachment and giving up. I had read about (detachment) and maha vairagya (supreme detachment) in a book by Guruji on Patanjali's yoga sutra and I would do well to quote it, which sums up what detachment and supreme detachment mean:

"parama vairagya.
Detachment and supreme detachment. Dispassion and supreme dispassion. Being in the middle of everything and not running away from it but enjoying it and yet be detached is supreme detachment or supreme dispassion. Mere detachment is not being affected by anything and not being disturbed is a kind of inertia"

Perhaps this anecdote about Amma's visit and the way she related to the village and her house gives a practicle example of the meaning of supreme detachment (maha vairagya). She went to the village and she went to the house and talked to all the people taking care of the farm and the house.  She didn't show any feverishness about the house in which she lived enjoying  and also enjoyed being there after several years.

I sincerely feel that what is said about supreme detachment and supreme  dispassion in the above quote becomes so easy to grasp  When you read the anecdote  about Amma visiting the village and the village house. The following story, i believe, also gives her sense of supreme detachment. 

Note:Thanks for reading this story.
It will immensely help me in improving my writing, if you share your ideas and thoughts  and suggestions about the story and my writing. You may also suggest topics  for my writing. Please feel free to contact me on my email  for all your comments and suggestions:  
vdharmraj@ramaavenkatesh.com.