LA JOLLA CHIROPRACTIC HEALTH CENTER
     
THE CENTER FOR DEPTH HEALING
    “Meeting My Mother”
    A Story of Healing Thru My First Meetings with 'Ammachi'

    By  Dr. Michael B. Ackerman


For many years, since about 1974--around the age of 16--I had been engaged in spiritual practices and reading about
the lives of Eastern saints and spiritual masters.  I was initiated into the meditation practices and the "Kriya Yoga"
technique of Self-Realization Fellowship, and I frequently practiced the repetition of a mantra and studied the application
of various spiritual affirmations, all with the purpose of seeking "the light" and regaining the awareness of God
constantly in my life.

Throughout most of my years of spiritual practice, I equated God with this "light."  He was present for me in
consciousness as a crystalline quality of transcendent stillness, untouched by any manner of mental or material
“forms”...the space in meditation where the breath wanted to stop, and the all-fulfilled mind became powerfully drawn to
a singular ecstatic point of focus.  To experience anything other than this state of consciousness, as was my opinion
for most of the years of my spiritual practices, meant that I was seeing something somewhat less pure and not the
ultimate experience.   I practiced bringing this meditative state into the world using a mantra I received internally
through my intuition: namely, "Krishna," on the inward breath, "Om," on the outward breath.  After years of repeating it,
within just a few repetitions of the mantra, the world would start transforming into a sparkling, luminous experience--
where all the objects within my vision would take on an aura of the divine.  The name "Krishna" changed for me from
being merely a reference to a great historical person, into the actual experience of the transcendent Father Principle
behind all creation.

This was, however, a best-case scenario... Most of the time, despite my struggling spiritual efforts, I confronted
darkness and negativity around almost every corner.  I begged and cried for God in the midst of the un-godliness I
believed I saw in the world of people and Western material society.  For years I was so sensitive to the energy in my
environment that I avoided most people and places and become very reclusive and -- admittedly -- almost always
depressed.  After doing spiritual practices and working hard to achieve a "high" state of consciousness and the desired
sensation of light in my being, I could not even sit in a chair where someone had been sitting in a negative mood, nor
would I even shake hands with anyone for fear that I would absorb hard-to-release negative energy.  I was a very pitiable
and poor example of what a so-called "spiritually aware" person was supposed to look like.  The dichotomy in my life
between light and dark, between God and not God, was palpably present for me all through each and every day.  I
explored many paths and methods to try to hold my vision of the light -- consistently seeing all things as divine -- but I
only met with temporary success, for surely another instance would come where my judgmental mind or someone
else's apparent negativity would result in a falling-out from this state of grace.

For 17 years, this battle raged on with only gradual and slow progress, until a major turning point in my life came.  It
was 1992, and a great saint was visiting the San Francisco bay area.   Her name was Mata Amritananda Mayi, or for
short, as we know her in the West, "Amma" or "Ammachi" (The Holy Mother).   She was believed by many to be one of
the world's most pure spiritual luminaries of our time, a self-realized master who was egoless and lived her life as an
example to us of unconditional divine love.  I had received her blessings at a few of her programs during her previous
1990 and 1991 World Tour visits to the bay area, and I had been most impressed.   All programs were free to the
public, and she embraced and received everyone with what appeared to be inexhaustible divine motherly love and
spiritual energy.

I decided I had had enough confusion (Yogananda's term was "spiritual indigestion") from the many paths I had studied
and was trying to integrate.   I practiced Self-Realization Fellowship meditation and Kriya Yoga techniques, attended
Siddha Yoga intensives, used the teachings of Guru Ram Das, Master Da Free John, and the Course in Miracles as the
main foundation of my philosophy, and sung Hare Krishna and Sai Baba bhajans to a picture of Sathya Sai Baba which
occupied the center of my alter (as a testament to my unconfirmed belief that he might be my Guru).   So it was within
this muddle of spiritual practices that I decided to once again go and visit the Holy Mother during her summer programs
of 1992.  

Quite unexpectedly, 2 weeks prior to seeing her, I had had a very vivid dream -- set in India -- in which I had posed a
very key question to Amma.  So, during her first San Francisco Bay area program, when my turn came up for receiving
a blessing from her, I felt inspired to pose the same question I had asked her in the dream... now in waking reality, I
had full faith that her reply would reflect only the absolute divine truth, so with all my courage mustered I finally asked,
"Amma… Who is my Guru?"

After engaging me with her sparkling eyes, and mischievously asking me a few questions about myself I knew she
already knew the answers to, she ultimately replied with a smile, "Son, I will take care of you."

So is how began what was to become one of the greatest transformational periods of my life… I had finally found my
Guru after almost 20 years of consciously longing for a spiritual master!   I had tried and mysteriously failed on three
occasions in the past to travel to India, so with baited breath I decided to ask her the next most important question in
my heart, "Would Amma give permission for me to work as a doctor at her ashram in India?"  

She said, "Oh I don't think you will like it there…” with a grim theatrical frown on her face, “but if you wish, you can
come for a period of time.  After this you will know first-hand what our life is like there, and if you decide you like it, you
may stay."

I was awestruck and teary-eyed.  My long awaited dream of being accepted by a spiritual master and some day moving
to India was now within reach, it was only a matter of my ultimate decision to choose what my future would be!   To
make a long story short, after attending as many programs on Ammachi's 1992 U.S. tour as my work schedule would
permit, I made arrangements for another doctor to take over my practice, and in mid-September I left for my first two
and a half months stay in India.

In the weeks before departing for India, I had several people tell me that they foresaw my having a very unique
experience there, one which would profoundly impact the course of my life.  Well, the entire visit turned out to be one
miraculously powerful experience after another.   Hardly a day went by where I did not find my self repeatedly moved to
tears by the divine grace which was so markedly present in the opportunity to perform service work, and by the grace
which powerfully guided my learning to surrender to God, evidenced by the constant incredible synchronicities and
miracles that occurred in the presence of the spiritual master.

I am moved, especially, to describe one particularly profound experience. I suspect strongly that it was the one
foreseen by several of my intuitive friends, which was to have significantly altered the course of my spiritual
understanding.   As a preface, however, I wish to state that great teachers such as Ammachi place little importance on
the mystical experiences of devotees, emphasizing much more the greater miracle of the steady transformation of our
ego-centered minds dissolving ultimately into selfless love. With this considered, I have decided only to share this
experience because it was integral to my process of transformation towards realizing a more all-embracing love and
understanding in my life.

It was approximately one month after my arrival in India, and I was struggling to try to more consistently repeat a new
mantra (given to me by Amma, the year before) while being engaged in all of my work at the ashram.  It was a mantra
invoking the Divine Mother, and I had had a hard time with an uncomfortable darkness and constant burning feeling it
brought up in me.  So I sought Amma's counsel in hopes that she would compassionately see my predicament and
allow me to change back to repeating my previous "Krishna-Om" mantra, which felt wonderful after all the years I had
been practicing it, and could lift me into a state of divine bliss almost effortlessly.  Amma's reply was loving, but very
disappointing:  she suggested I continue with the mantra that was given by her, and that I not use my old mantra at all.  
I left very heavy hearted.  Why was I not supposed to repeat a mantra that so easily lifted me up into ‘God’ and divine
bliss?  Why did this Divine Mother mantra have such a burning and heavy quality for me?  What was the difference if I
invoked Krishna or Divine Mother, both were names of God?

This heaviness of heart lead to a frank depression, which continued through the day and into our evening program of
group devotional singing. Amma usually joined these programs each night at the ashram, and inspired everyone with
the magnitude of her heart-rending calls to God, which she fervently cried-out while singing songs with us.  During a
devotional song to Krishna, she would repeatedly cry out for him, calling him by one of his many endearing names
"Krishna!", "Shyama!”, "Chitta-chora!", "Kanna!".   It lifted me up when I heard these names, because of the many years
of chanting my mantra, and the divine vision Krishna's name almost immediately conferred upon me.  However, when it
came to singing a devotional song for the Divine Mother, and Amma crying out one of Her many names, such as "Ma...
Ma...Ma..!", "Kali...Kali...Kali!", or "Radhe…Radhe!",  I couldn't feel any semblance of God or light, what-so-ever.  The
vibration of these names, to me, just didn't feel like God.  I was in an extremely troubled mood, rehashing over and over
in my mind that I couldn't understand why, if the name Krishna moved me so much, that I couldn't continue with his
mantra.  During the next song to the Divine Mother, I concentrated inwardly on trying to feel, "who is Ma?" , as Amma
called out her name,  let me feel into the vibration of “Ma“, “Amma, if you are taking Krishna away from me, show me
who this Ma is!"

At that moment I felt a kind of hollow 'pop' at the base of my spine, and I was immediately flooded with an incredible
ocean of ecstatic vibratory energy, rising up through my spine and thrilling every atom of my being with the cosmic
sound “Ommmmmm“.  To my inner vision, the temple, all people, and all things around me were pervaded and
empowered by this tremendous sea of conscious, deeply embracing, loving energy.  I knew as if for the first time in all
eternity, I had finally found my Mother…the Mother I had always been searching for!

For three days, I wandered in a semi-altered state of consciousness.  Everywhere I looked, I could tune into the sacred
sound OM coming from animate and inanimate objects around the ashram.  My perspective on God shifted from nearly
20 years of seeing him only as the transcendent light and stillness of the formless absolute--the ‘Divine Father’
principle--to knowing God also as the deep vibrant rich loving energy of all forms (sometimes even appearing dark, to
my perception)--the ‘Divine Mother’ principle.  Whereas, when I had felt "negative" energy before, it was often
incompatible with my staying centered in the light and Divine Father consciousness, now I was able to offer this
negative energy up to the Divine Mother, who would easily embrace and absorb it, without breaking my communion with
my new deeper and more whole vision and understanding of ‘God‘.

Over the years my Divine Mother mantra finally lost its heavy quality and it has worked to continue to purify me more
and more, opening up a whole new aspect of God that I had previously never truly seen: the God that is imminent in all
things of the world, not just transcendent above the world.  Meeting my dearest guru Ammachi, and having been given
the gift of this experience, was the dawning of a new period of growth and transformation for me--after all the years of
spiritual practices dedicated to reaching the light, now I began my equally challenging journey of learning how to
embrace and release the darkness  that still remained within me.
Doctor Michael Ackerman helps patients to understand and release the emotional stress patterns underlying their physical problems
and disease.  Dr. Michael Ackerman has been in practice as a chiropractor in La Jolla, California, for 11 years of his 23 years in
practice.  Being a La Jolla Chiropractor has been extremely rewarding for Dr. Michael Ackerman, and he is unique among the
chiropractic doctors in La Jolla in that he has worked with professional athletic teams, such as the New Orleans Saints, the Delta
Festival Ballet Company, as well as collegiate and amateur athletes from most sports backgrounds.  Dr. Michael Ackerman enjoys
practicing as a chiropractor by the sea in such a beautiful town as La Jolla, California, but he also does healing consultations by
phone with people from all over the country.