Drop the thought that you cannot affect the future.

Tell yourself that the future is not coming TO you, it is coming THROUGH you. The change that is coming to you is that change that you place in your future with the thoughts, words, and actions of today. – Neale Donald Walsch

A little later, on a dear friend's website I came across a link to a colleague of hers. And there again was a link to an event taking place in October - an event of someone named Amma, who came to Munich, as she had been doing every year for 20 years…

When I saw Amma's photo, I jumped up from my chair as if struck by lightening: "Whoa...?!? I know her! Where have I seen her before?!"

Then I saw that she would be in Munich about a week later.

"That's where I'll be, and it will change my life!" I exclaimed.

So the following Saturday I took the subway to the venue and arrived there sometime around four in the afternoon. Quite disoriented, I walked in and through rows of tables, there were definitely a lot of people there, but no crowds. Everyone seemed to have something to do somehow, and I walked further into the hall wondering how the whole thing was going, where this Amma was…

Then my eyes fell on a large screen hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the hall. There she was, this Amma, laughing and hugging people one by one.

I looked away from the screen again and into the hall to look for her... that's when my eyes fell on a scurrying group of people just below the screen. People were standing up and sitting down again, there was also pushing and shoving... and suddenly I saw her. A little woman with a brown face, a black mop of hair and a white sari, hugging one after the other from the queue of people in front of her.

I was thunderstruck. For a moment I held my breath, and tears welled up in my eyes... and flew over. My breath came back to me... and quietly sobbing I stood there and stared at the scene that presented itself to me... the laughter of this woman... and how she briefly pulled one after the other to herself…

Suddenly I realized that I was hot - the hall was heated! I looked at the clock. I had been standing there for almost an hour. I took off my warm winter jacket (it was late October and already quite cold) and started looking around. This caught the eye of a man, and he kindly asked me what I was looking for. He explained how I could also get a hug, and he also showed me where I could leave my coat and also get something to eat.

Then Amma took a break. Only in the evening she came again. The program began with music and meditation, before she again received a now much longer line of people, to hold one after the other briefly to herself…

As I came into her arms, she looked at me briefly, then my head landed between her breasts. One hand she held on my head as I experienced an exhalation like I had never experienced before in my life. My whole being seemed to exhale into her round soft body... once, twice, a third and even a fourth time…

Then she gently pulled me up to her shoulder and whispered in my right ear, "My love! My love! My love!"

And let me go. Gave me a candy in the hand, and quickly looked away.

I was pulled away by gentle hands and managed to walk back to the rows of chairs with non-existent knees to sit down and cry unrestrainedly.

I later learned that this happens all too often.

About a month later, a new business contact arose, which directly led to a collaboration. The following months I wrote web content for this customer, before he had to discontinue his startup in March 2011.

I then dissolved my apartment and my life in Munich and went to Amma's Ashram Amritapuri in Kerala, India. I didn't have the slightest idea what I was getting myself into, and was also really, really afraid of living in that climate and under those circumstances (India, noisy, crowds, no space...), but I knew it had to be done, for some reason I just had to do it.

I stayed there for almost ten years.