1 Sep 2015, Amritapuri
Chair Cleaning Seva
Normally when Amma arrives on the stage for bhajans, she immediately starts singing. But today she made the following announcement before she started, “A lot of the chairs in the hall need to be cleaned. Everyone should try to clean two chairs.”
So all throughout bhajans everyone kept in the mind the need to make themselves available for that seva later…at some point…maybe tomorrow…maybe the next day…but no one thought that for Amma, action goes along with words and right away!
As soon as bhajans were over, on her way to her room, Amma walked straight to the stacks of unused chairs at the back of the hall and started on her own to take the chairs down individually and pass them on to whoever was nearby. It took time for everyone to understand what was happening and what they were supposed to do with the chairs. But soon enough, buckets with water and soap showed up at the scene and were passed on. Following Amma’s lead, the seva started and quickly took over the whole hall! After taking down the chairs from the stacks, Amma took a bucket, a brush and soap and started scrubbing a chair. She stayed focused on the work, while she gave directions to the hundreds of devotees, students and Ashram residents who joined in.
The work went on well past midnight, filling up almost all the hall with chair cleaning. Everyone joined in, including small children and the elderly as well, singing bhajans to keep the enthusiasm and good spirits up. During the previous day’s satsang Amma was saying that we should never miss any opportunity to serve; that it is like winning the lottery. So how fortunate were all of us to be given such a memorable opportunity to serve and be happy, offered by Amma!
-Kannadi
Watch slideshow
