She was looking at everyone one by one

- Buvanasundari Sudharsan

Just two days before, on Thursday, we were reading - every Thursday we are reading "Savitri" during Shraddhavan's classes-and this Thursday we were reading a line from "Savitri": All these inventions of the mind is just pebbles collected by a child on the sea shore. In the same way I feel that before this strong gathering I am a very small person. But even then I am Her child and I am proud that She had poured Her Grace on me when I was a teenager. Though my family was in Madurai, we were forced to move here by the higher Grace which made my father to move to Pondicherry for construction of JIPMER. He was the manager of a construction company and we came here. I was studying my high school here at Immaculate Convent. And although Ashram was very much close, coming from a very orthodox Brahmin family we children were prohibited to go beyond the canal. We were made fearful. "Don't go there, Ashram is there." And because something made them to say like that, my parents were telling that. Though my father was busy here in building, my mother used to say, "You go to school, come back and be here." And something in the teenager mind creates the question: "Why shouldn't I go?" In those days the school was from 8 to 11 and again it started at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. During the break, myself, my brother - everybody go home, take lunch and come back to school. I decided to take my lunch with me for a few days. I told my mother that I wanted to be in the school to study with bright students - I told some lies like that. And one of my friends was also interested to go and see the Ashram and Samadhi. Our only attraction there was the beautiful flowers. Beautiful! We've never have seen such roses and other

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flowers, and very good variety is there. So the Samadhi was decorated with nice flowers. And fragrance! Before even entering the gate, what a nice smell! So we would finish our lunch quickly. Just take only curd rice, eat it quickly and keeping everything in the class room we ran but slowly because we were afraid also. We slowly stepped into the Ashram and just saw how nicely decorated flowers were there. One evening both of us went after 4' o clock. People were going very fast and we thought, "Oh, why don't we also go?" And then, the people were telling: "Mother is appearing in the Balcony. She is giving Darshan." I was not even knowing what Darshan was. She was giving Darshan - that was it. So everybody went. And we also - both of us - went and stood opposite the platform. Very few people were there - maybe 100 or 150, not more than that in the evening time. She came and just put Her hands on the balcony railing and She was looking at one by one slowly from that end to this end. And the atmosphere was so dense - I can feel that even now. And She was very slow. I was not knowing what was happening there, what was the significance of that Darshan - nothing. I knew that the great person in the Ashram was coming up and giving Her Darshan. (Buvanasundari is living in Auroville since 2005. She teaches basic English to village youngsters at Savitri Bhavan and also music to differently-abled children at Deepam School, Auroville.)

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