Love Will Set Us Free - Even From Inside Prison Walls

On September 6, 2002, I, Themba Kelly, was arrested. The warrant was not legitimate. However, I now know it was all part of God's plan. I had been on a road to destruction, and it was that Grace alone that spared me.

I grew up on the west side of Chicago, East Garfield Park, which at the time was the second poorest neighborhood in the country. Due to abuse and lack of love in my environment, as well as a lack of love for myself, it was easy for me to go on an external search for love. I joined a street gang, and got involved in selling and using drugs. By the time I was sixteen, I had been shot in the chest. I still live with a bullet a couple of inches away from my heart.

Dealing with the results of my actions (or karma) has been painful, however, I am engulfed in gratitude because it has brought me closer to an experience of true Love.

At the age of eighteen, I stumbled upon a different way of life, and I stopped hanging out with gangs. It was when I learned that the ancient cultures of my ancestors were founded in wisdom and love that I changed. This knowledge gave me a different perspective about my own life.

I was able to drop my gang ties, but my addiction to drugs still haunted me. I was a hopeless case with a good heart. Through all of my chaotic behaviors, some Grace stayed with me in the form of my good heart although I didn't realize it at the time.

In an attempt to save my life, my parents sent me to New York City. For a period of time, it worked. A wonderful couple adopted me as their god-child and gave me an opportunity to do research at the Collective Fellowship and Peace Academy. Eventually, I worked my way up to become assistant principal, but my addiction still haunted me.

One day while skimming through a magazine, I stumbled across an advertisement, and for the first time in my life, I saw the face of Mata Amritanandamayi. Amma's gentle smile, along with the fact that the program was free, attracted my attention. The word 'free' meant a lot to me because at the time, I was upset with the new age movement because certain groups charged so much money for what I know in my heart should be given for free. I knew I was supposed to go and meet her.

When I arrived at the Universalist Temple on Central Park West, NY, I immediately felt as innocent as a child. Although my ego still was tainted with small degrees of skepticism, I almost immediately fell in love with the aura that Amma had created in the air. My intention was to hang out for a couple of hours and go home. However, I became so overwhelmed by Amma's beautiful energy that I stayed until sunrise the next day when she departed.

Being with her was heaven on Earth. Time and Space didn't matter, and my dream had finally come true. My inner longing for Love was fulfilled in her presence. It was as though she had come all the way from Heaven and India just to hug a wretch like me.

The funny thing was that about a month prior to Amma's coming, I had an overwhelming desire to hug everyone my heart told me needed a hug. I had been hugging everyone in sight, from the homeless stranger to anyone who seemed like they needed a hug. It blew my mind away when I found out that Amma was called the 'hugging saint.' Remember, this was happening to this child who had a bullet in his chest next to his 'heart.'

I was an ex-thug, ex-criminal, ex-drug addict, ex-homeless man, an outcast, etc. Yet, Amma didn't care about any of that, She was only concerned with Her child's well-being. That night was the most profound night of my life, and I will never forget it.

As the evening with Mother continued, I picked up a pamphlet and read Amma's life story as a child. It connected me to her on a deeper level when I read that she was abused as a child, like me, and that her family labeled her an outcast. Amma's family thought She was crazy, and I felt crazy, or shall I say 'different.'

When I read Mother's words, "We are not merely here to experience bliss, but to aid in suffering humanity," and "I renounced everything but my children," I was completely stupefied by Her. Those words are the deepest words that I have experienced.

As the program continued, I was so immersed in her Love that I didn't even go to receive her hug physically. Instead, I felt her touch in every person She hugged. This was my first true, non- intellectual, experiential glimpse of what the scriptures call liberation, which is full immersion in Love. That night, there was no inner and outer, there was only Amma and the inexhaustible experience of undying, eternal Love.

Well, that was the year 2000 for me. Then, a couple of months after Amma left New York, things began getting rough for me again. Even so, there was something new deeply ingrained in my heart. When Amma came back the next year, I brought about ten people with me to receive Her hug. Everyone who came was also completely filled with her Love.

Well anyway, around the middle of 2002, I ended up strung-out and homeless again, hopeless and heart-broken all over again. This time I had given up totally. I just wanted to die in the streets. My ego made me think that I had let down the whole world, and that I would be better off alone and dead to all of my loved ones. I wasn't even "Themba" anymore, for my name "Themba" means hope, and I had lost all of it.

It was during this period that I was caught in a petty case, and then released. I had a court date scheduled for September, but the District Attorney changed it to August without my knowing. It was then that I was arrested on the non-legitimate warrant and sent to prison.

I didn't realize it at the time, but it saved my life. I had been saved from myself. After three weeks of being incarcerated, I went to the prison yard by myself one day. The sun was shining brightly, and I began singing a song that I had written to Amma. The tears poured out in gratitude as I cried the words, "After all of my crap, somebody still loved me, came all the way from Heaven just to hug me, amazing grace, a wretch like me could be loved so much it just can't be." I cried like a baby. I just couldn't believe that the Love I felt in Amma's presence still was with me. I mean that presence of Love was stronger in my heart than it had ever been, and I was in prison! After that, I was free. I had been graced with the ability to totally forgive myself. Those tears of Love gave me complete contentment.

After that, I told more than seventy inmates about the fullness of Love I found in her presence, and I taught meditation to more than twenty of them.

My father sent me a book about a woman's experiences with Amma, "Path of the Mother," which gave me the address of the California Ashram. I wrote a letter to the ashram, and Dayamrita Chaitanya (one of Amma's disciples), wrote me back and encouraged me to keep up the good work. He also sent me more books and pictures of Mother.

I read and passed around the books, and immediately displayed the photos on my locker and bed area. Now, Amma's beautiful smile is smiling at fifty inmates.

Once I was inspired to create a Thanksgiving dinner for the inmates as a service to those around me. Afterwards, one of the correctional officers told me that they had never seen anything like that in prison, and a few inmates told me that for that day, they felt like they were not in jail. Some inmates wrote statements about how they felt that day, and I hope to publish them one day.

Brother Dayamrita Chaitanya has been so helpful and loving to me. His accepting spirit has helped me to feel even closer to Amma. He also has given messages to Mother for me, even though I have always felt that her Love is with me at all times. One time while I was writing a letter to Amma, a brother who had no knowledge of chanting or anything other than seeing Mother's picture on my locker, all of a sudden began chanting Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma. When Mother hugged me in 2002, this is what She chanted in my ear. When I asked the brother why he said "Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma," he said he didn't know, and that it just came to him. Experiences such as these have occurred here very frequently.

I still don't understand why Amma continues to love me. She taught me to love myself, so now I don't question Her Love or Will, I just accept it.

To my best ability, these were actual accounts of our experiences here in jail with 'The Mother of Immortal Bliss'. I pray and hope with all sincerity that my experience with Amma can inspire one of my brothers or sisters to be open to Love. If Amma's love can reach me even when I am incarcerated, she can reach you in your pain and suffering. I only have one question to ask Amma, "Amma, how can your son be of better service to Universal Love?"
No other question remains unanswered.

To all my brothers and sisters, I love you.

- Themba Kelly (written from NY prison)
March 2, 2003.