3rd morning Rio

Yesterday was a little overwhelming here.

The first night darshan ended at 5:30 a.m .The second morning program was again packed, and She did not finish giving darshan until 6:15 p.m., a near record for world tours .

The bookstore sales are doing very well.
One of the odd-job sevas that I picked up was labeling CDs as they are duplicated. We made nearly 200 copies of CDs yesterday . They are selling fine with just hand lettered labels. That seva was very interesting and gave me more insight into Amma’s workings, and how She is forcing ever more progress - better attention to detail, better focus on a task, more mindfulness – (I tried to use the word sraddha but cannot seem to spell it right so I tried to say what I mean), on Her devotees (myself included – there are many lessons in the seemingly mindless task of writing a label on a CD).

Anyway, I was talking with the man who was making a new CD, Amma sings in Portugese. He was explaining the difficulties in making these CDs –to get songs in the local language as soon as possible, so each day he will re-make the CD, adding the songs She sings each night. He has had to do the same thing in 9 languages for some of the songs.

I have seen the photographer do the same sort of thing, spending hours editing a video of a pada puja to give a little extra for the customer. The effort to do this repetitively is not minor.

Amma issued directions that no one was to leave the hotel grounds after 3 p.m., apparently in response to two incidents of violence in the area of the hotel. Only a road separates the hotel grounds from the beach. It is really a pretty scene, I guess I will go beach walking after Devi bhava.

The Brazilians here in the hall seem noisier, more talkative and a little more pushy than the Chileans. Perhaps living under the oppressive government for so long had an effect on the people, or perhaps we are reaching a more affluent segment of the population here. The Chileans applauded the bhajans more, although after ‘Mata Rani’ last night the crowd cheered and applauded. I heard that when the Brazilians became aware that having small children could get them into special needs early darshan, some people called and had children brought – one child was used by more than one person. I have seen a lot of people using cell phones, and do not recall seeing that at all in Santiago.

Back to the bookstore. Remember I described some of the airport leelas – it was even worse than I described. Some of the devotees did not arrive until 1:30 in the afternoon. In the U.S. you can ship two personal bags, but in South America it is only one.

It is nearing 1 p.m., and there is still a good sized crowd.

Now that I have figured out how to use the Internet in the hall, I expect to give you a Devi bhava update.

Shambugh
2 Aug 2007, Rio