Powerful Tara

This Tara is now merged with Amma!

I went back to see Amma on the last day of her visit to London; I bumped into several friends and the day gradually turned into the evening and the plan to stay for a couple of hours was lost in the reality of being in the presence of a truly divine being. On the last day of her visit, she offers puja (worship) followed by Devi-Bhakti Darshan: this is where she dresses in a goddess costume and performs her usual hugging darshan in this dress within a golden canopy on a throne under a golden umbrella. There is a wealth and richness - an overt divinity - about this that sets it apart from the more ordinary, simple ceremony when she is dressed in white sari and sits lower down. I don't suppose there is any difference in the quality of the darshan - I truly believe she is inseparable from divinity the whole time and there can be no "less/more" comparisons within that.

By virtue of sitting outside to have a sandwich, I ended up being at the front of the queue for puja - which meant sitting right beneath Amma. Had my friend Sky from Samye Ling not appeared at the last minute, I might have bottled out of this proximity with crowds of people behind...but she gave me the courage to stay in situ. Amma first lit several lights of camphor oil, with which she purified the space around her and then, taking each vase of water before her in turn, she closed her eyes and blessed the water. I could feel a really strong buzzing in the third eye every time she did this - and don't doubt the sanctification of that water, which was then distributed to each of us.

She gave a teaching and then led us into meditation and into a traditional chanting of OM and of the 108 names of the Divine Mother. It really was, for me, the highlight of everything: this pure and powerful spiritual practice made sense of everything surrounding it.

We were at the front of the queue for darshan aswell; there was a different quality to this blessing but I can't really describe how. We were also offered the opportunity to receive a mantra directly from Amma: there is a commitment with this, and an acknowledgement of Amma as a guru and as someone you have implicit faith in. Having been assured that this would not contradict the Buddhist connection I have, but would support and complement it, I felt no hesitation in receiving a mantra. For me, Amma is the female embodiment of God's love; I have not met someone of this stature in any other tradition. Ultimately the male and female must merge and that union, that spiritual marriage within, will bring about a great shift in consciousness and realisation - that hasn't yet happened within me fully, so I feel incredibly fortunate to have met and to have a direct connection with outer embodiments of the male and female aspects of divinity. I know these gurus are all perfectly merged within and that the need to see and experience them in this way is due to my own dualism (which is the illusion to be shattered). But still I am glad and grateful. Sometimes we need the physical manifestation to awaken the inner reflection.