Dear Patricia,
I’m glad you found a nice place to
spend the summer. It sounds ideal. I read with interest the Amma
dream. I’m glad it was positive. The last one was negative, wasn’t it? This is the way the mind is, projecting one
thing one time, another the next. I know you didn’t ask me what I thought about
the dream but I will tell you anyway.
I think Amma
in the dream is a symbol of who you are.
I know you like to think of Amma as a person
outside yourself, as your guru, and she is on one level, but on another level I
see her as your mind’s way to telling you about yourself. I think it is saying that you need to love
yourself completely…as you are.
The part of the dream where she said
“Look, I can stand on my head” and then she jumped forward I take to mean that
you should trust your highest understanding of yourself…which is that you are
not separate from Amma, the Self. And this is the way ‘forward,’ The ‘head’ in dreams usually indicates one’s thought
life. In India they worship the feet of
the guru because it represents the under standing, the knowledge
that he or she is whole and complete, that he or she knows that nothing is
missing, that nothing can be taken away.
I think this is something you might
think about because one of the themes in your writing is about a sense of
loss. When you understand yourself as Amma your sense of loss will never come back…because you
are partless.
If the world takes away everything you remain the same. If it gives you everything you want you are
not changed. I think the dream is asking
you to think like this. It is an upside
down way of thinking…just the opposite of the normal way, the way that causes
you so much pain.
It is a lovely statement of bhakti
when you say, “…but i already decided that even if
she had abandoned me i would be happy just to get
near her, if that is allowed, and not demanding anything.” I think, however, that you are thinking
incorrectly. How can your Self as Self
or as Amma, abandon you? It is not possible. Actually you can’t get near to her because
you are her. Perhaps your body can be
near or far but how far are you from your Self?
I think you should demand
something. I think you should demand to
understand that you are not separate from Amma, that
she is you. As long as you take her to
be somebody outside yourself you will be full of longing and
disappointment. You will feel happy
sometimes and unhappy at other times. A
little while ago you were feeling cut off from her, now you feel
connected. How can these feelings be
real? How can you know which one to
trust? A little while ago you were fed
up with
If you say you are connected or
unconnected it means that you and Amma are two
different things. But this is not
true. If you can see that
I have been sick with a cold for
five days so I didn’t feel like writing.
It came the day I returned to
Much love to you,
Ram