One of my favorite parts of spending time at Amma’s ashram is listening to the evening talks by her disciples. The talks are filled with wisdom, and delivered with delightful humor! One such talk, given by one of Amma’s brahmacharis, centered around realizing our helplessness and finding the compassion within ourselves. He began by saying that realizing our helplessness helps us to let go of our egos, and then he talked about how helpless we feel when disasters hit.

He said that since the disaster in Japan, many people are finding the Compassionate One within – even a tough motorcycle gang that used to cause trouble (in Japan) gave up their gang flag and joined the relief work. What he said next really struck a chord in me: “We don’t have to travel to Japan to do disaster relief work – there are disaster victims all around us, since anger is a disaster – anger pollutes everything – we can do selfless service by just showing compassion to everyone around us.” He concluded the talk by saying that Amma teaches us to control ourselves and find strength within. She says that adversity is our greatest Guru because it helps us to realize our potential.

The next evening when I sat down to dinner, the Amma quote taped to the table at my spot read, “In real prayer, you bow down, surrender, and declare your helplessness.” There it was again – that word “helplessness”! For the remainder of my time there, focusing on that word “helplessness” helped me to let go more than ever before; that word was a big part of my transformation that week.

To read some of my previous articles on anger, click here on their titles: “Working Skillfully with Anger” and “Cultivating the Witness 101: Managing Anger”

May all beings find surrender through admitting their helplessness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Photo of hills around Amma’s California ashram taken by Teja Shankara.