Blessing a Child of the Survivor Tree 29 June 2008 — Addison, Texas, USA The terrorist bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building on April 19, 1995 took the lives of 168 people and scarred thousands more physically and emotionally. Despite the massive blast and subsequent fires, a 100-year-old American Elm Tree, part of the building’s original landscaping, survived. At the insistence of Oklahoma citizens, survivors, family members of the deceased and rescue workers, the “Survivor Tree” has become central part of the memorial dedicated to the victims of the blast. At the beginning of Amma’s two days of programs in Addison, Texas, devotees from Oklahoma brought Amma a sapling to bless that was grown from a seed taken from the Survivor Tree. This sapling was presented to Amma by the Mayor of Addison, Joe Chow. Immediately after Amma blessed the sapling, it was taken to Addison Town Park, where it was planted by the mayor, Swami Ramakrishnananda and members of the American wing of Amma’s youth group, AYUDH (Amrita Yuva Dharmadhara). Just prior to Amma’s blessing of the tree, Elizabeth Muller, a devotee from Oklahoma, addressed the gathering. “The Survivor Tree is a witness to tragedy, but also a symbol of resilience, tenacity, perseverance and hope,” she said. “Today, it is a tribute to renewal and rebirth. The inscription around that tree at the memorial reads: ‘The spirit of this city and nation will not be defeated. Our deeply rooted faith sustained us.’ This tree can stand for the nurturing of the tree of compassion in the hearts of us all. For, as Amma has said, ‘Compassion is the only way to peace.’” Welcoming Amma to Addison for the fourth year in a row, Mayor Chow lauded Amma’s tireless service to humanity. “She gives everything she has to the poor and the needy,” he said. “She has done so much. Let’s give her a big round of applause.” Jim Smiles With His Heart 30 June 2008 — Addison, Texas, USA Grammy Award-winning Country and Bluegrass artist Jim Lauderdale met Amma in the summer of 2005 after being told about her by a tai-chi teacher. Reflecting back, Lauderdale says, “He said, ‘You’ve got to go to San Ramon and see Amma; you’re not going to believe her singing and her band.’” Lauderdale says he was overwhelmed by the experience. “I’ve never met anyone like Amma—someone who has such a great impact on people’s lives for the good and for humanity. I am hard-pressed to think of someone who is doing more for mankind and the environment.” Currently a resident of Nashville, Tennessee, Lauderdale has won two Grammys for “Best Bluegrass Album of the Year”: one for his 2007 release The Bluegrass Diaries (Yep Roc Records) and one for his collaboration with Ralph Stanley, 2002’s Lost in the Lonesome Pines (Dual Tone Records). He has also written a number of songs for Country stars such as George Strait, the Dixie Chicks, Patty Loveless, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Vince Gill and Mark Chesnutt. To the delight of devotees, during Amma’s programs in Albuquerque, Lauderdale had his first opportunity to perform for Amma, an experience he says he will never forget. “It was very moving for me,” he says. “It was hard for me to hold the tears back. I have been fortunate to perform in a lot of different place and in front of a lot of different people that I was really nervous about—various musical greats. But Amma probably stands at the top of those kinds of experiences.” The song Lauderdale performed, “Smile from Your Heart,” was inspired by something Amma had said during a recent program. Lauderdale explained from the stage how during one of Amma’s programs a mentally challenged boy had been going around telling people to smile—sometimes going as far as to press his fingertips to their cheeks in attempts of coercing a grin to emerge. As Lauderdale was having Amma’s darshan, the boy was standing at his side. “He was saying, ‘Smile! Smile!’” Lauderdale told the audience. “And then Amma said, ‘Smile with your heart.’ And that really impacted me. Then last week that this melody came to me.” Lauderdale’s composition clearly imparts a spiritual message, but is Country music “spiritual”? Lauderdale says it is: “There is a history, especially in Bluegrass, of Gospel Music. In both forms, it is almost like a contradiction, because there are songs about going out and having a good time and going to a ‘honky-tonk,’ which is a bar… and then the next morning going to Church and worshipping. So, it’s kind of like the human condition—and we kind of run a gamut of behaviours and experiences. But there is a big tradition in both for Gospel Music.” In fact Lauderdale’s musical upbringing was very much rooted in the music of the church. His father was a Presbyterian minister and his mother was the choir director. However he says that he in no way feels any conflict between Amma’s teachings and his roots. “When I first came to see Amma, I saw people from many different faiths, and so I did not feel a conflict with my Christian upbringing. I thought, ‘Here’s a saint.’” After three years of attending Amma’s programs in America, Lauderdale remains a “fan” of her music. “I enjoy so much listening to the bhajans and hearing Amma’s voice,” he says. “She has such an earthiness and otherworldly, heavenly, side to her voice. … When I get a new Amma CD, it reminds me of the excitement I got when I was much younger and a new Beatles album would come out. You were just—Oh yeah! And you just listened to it over and over and over. That’s the kind of feeling I get.” What does Lauderdale feel to be the secret behind Amma’s musical brilliance? “Great songs and great singers and the combination, they come from another place—no matter what style or whatever the intent or the emotion is of the song,” he says. “And I think that great singers really have to lose themselves in the song. And it is very clear that Amma does that. And what sets her apart from other singers is that she doesn’t have any ego involved in it. She’s beyond all that. There’s no agenda or commercial goal, and so it’s very refreshing to hear that. “Sometime when I listen to the CDs and hear Amma sing, it strikes me as what God would sound like if God were making music or singing,” Lauderdale says. “For some reason, I just get that feeling.”