Re: Speaking Of Sathya Sai Baba’s Light Body, (let’s use the proper term The Subtle Body) In Kodaikanal 2014 – (and at the “property” in Muddenhalli) Speaking Of Sathya Sai Baba’s Light Body In Kodaikanal 2014 – More Sathya Sai Memories
I’d forgotten all about Muddenhalli until by chance the name came back to me over this weekend. I remember a friend of mine a Dr. Gulshan buying a house there some 5/6 years ago. A mutual friend of Dr. Gulshan and myself, had visited Muddenhalli and had given me a detailed description of the Sai activities there. I remember that Sai Baba had asked that a college be built. We all thought that Sai Baba would up sticks from Puttparthi and go live there for his remaining years. I mean the very name Muddenahalli, reminds me of “Away from the Muddening crowd” – sorry about the pun.. Here’s a little about Muddenahalli from a devotee who has kindly written his experiences down in this post.. I don’t know why he has not continued with the blog.. His writing is delightful. The blog title is Sri Ananda Sai Blog..
Whilst laying the Foundation Stone at Muddenahalli on 14 February 2009, the Revered Founder Chancellor stated that, along with secular education, the Muddenahalli Campus would train students to spread the sublime message of Ramayana, Bhagavatham and the Bhagavad Gita. I have listened carefully to the vimeo interview with Sri. N. Murthy, posted at the bottom of this page. During this interview, while discussing his personal experiences during those final years with Sai Baba, he tells us that Swami visited Muddenahalli on 14th Feb. 2009! That on that day, Swami gave him a gift of a ring. I don’t know how that was possible without some miraculous intervention, for I remember 14th of February well, because we were in enjoying Sai’s darshan in the Kuwant Hall. I remember the day well, being Valentine’s day, we decided to spent the evening dining out in the little Italian Restaurant on the main street in Puttaparthi..
The Sacred Hill of Skandagiri and the Library Dome at Muddenahalli
THE BACKDROP
This last year has been one of tremendous change in my life… and as I get ready to go back to sacred Muddenahalli after a sojourn of nearly five months at Puttaparthi and Prashanti Nilayam, I thought it would be interesting to share the happenings with all of you who have been observers of the transitions of this life…
In January 2011, I was almost a recluse at my home in Bangalore.. the various religious ceremonies relating to dear Nirmala’s passing had got completed, and both my daughters were back home to their families and their usual routines. Just before they went back, they had queried me,
“What are your plans? Would you like to come and stay with one or both of us?”
The Universal Body of the Lord comprises all things–trees, flowers, leaves, hills, mountains, rivers, oceans, and so forth. A time will come, must come, when one actually perceives this all–pervading Universal Form of the One. The variety of His shapes and guises is infinite, uncountable, without end. Just as ice is nothing but water, so the Beloved is without form, without quality, and the question of manifestation does not arise. When this is realized, one has realized one’s Self. For, to find the Beloved is to find one’s Self, to discover that God is one’s very own, wholly identical with one’s self, the innermost Self, the Self of the self. First of all it is necessary to become acquainted with Him Whom you wish to invoke. Constantly think and talk of Him, look at his pictures, sing His praises or listen to sacred music, visit places of pilgrimage, seek solitude or associate with the holy and wise, so as to become familiar with Him. When this has been achieved, you may call Him “Father” or “Mother”. Some relationship of this kind has to be established with Him, because people of the world do not feel affinity unless their bond is defined in such a manner. You are accustomed to ties of kinship in worldly life; this is why you have to bind yourself by some sort of relationship in the spiritual field as well. Even though at the start you may not feel deep devotion, learn to invoke Him unceasingly and with perseverance by repeating His Name, or by any other method, until gradually He will fill your heart. However, prayer, meditation, alms offered in His Name, and so forth, are necessary even after the bond of love has been forged, so as to keep it unimpaired. In this way the awareness of Him will become your second nature and never leave you to your last breath. This is what is termed communion with God. – Ma
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I have chosen this wonderful passage from page 87 of the book “The Essential Sri Anandamayi Ma by Alexander Lipski. The Life and Teachings of a 20th Century Indian Saint”. I just loved this excerpt and wish to share it with you all.
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Selected Discourses of Anandamayima – Part Two
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
There are two kinds of pilgrims on life’s journey. The one, like a tourist, is keen on sightseeing, wandering from place to place, flitting from one experience to another for the fun of it.
The other treads the path that is consistent with man’s true being and leads to his real home, to self-knowledge. Sorrow will, of a certainty, be encountered on the journey undertaken for the sake of sight-seeing and enjoyment. So long as one’s real home has not been found, suffering is inevitable. The sense of separateness is the root cause of misery, because it is founded on error, on the conception of duality.
A man’s belief is greatly influenced by his environment; therefore he should choose the company of the holy and the wise. Belief means to believe in one’s self, disbelief to mistake the non-self for one’s self.
There are instances of self-realisation occurring by the grace of god whereas, at other times, it can be seen that he awakens, in some, a feverish yearning after truth. In the first case, attainment comes spontaneously, in the second it is brought about by trials, but all is wrought solely by His mercy.
An eternal relationship exists between god and man. But in his play it is sometimes there and sometimes severed, or rather appears to be severed; it is not really so, for the relatgionship is eternal. Again, seen from another side, there is no such thing as a relationship. Someone who came to meet this boy, said, “i am a newcomer to you” and he got the reply “ever new and ever old indeed!’
The light of the world comes and goes, it is unstable. The light that is eternal can never be extinguished. By this light, you behold the outer light. Whatever appears to you in the universe is due solely to that great light within you, and only because the supreme knowledge of the essence of things lies hidden in the depths of your being, is it possible for you to acquire knowledge of any kind.
Irina Tweedie, a Russian Lady, decided sometime way back in the early 1960′s to study yoga with a Naqshbandi Sufi teacher. (He was actually Hindu but took up Sufism and studied for many years under a Sufi Master, until his enlightenment.)
Irina Tweedie’s books “Daughter of Fire” and “Chasm of Fire,” tell clearly the story of a Woman’s experience of liberation through the teachings of a Sufi Master. The books are written in the form of a diary. Her dear teacher had told her to keep a diary on their first meeting. He also told her she would one day write a book that would help enlighten seekers on the spiritual path. During her training, guruji, did not give her any specific spiritual practices. Her teachings consisted largely of her sitting in his courtyard or house, observing his interaction with other disciples and family, with occasional terse conversations with him. She was at one time thrown out of the house and had to return to England with no money. Also at one time she contemplated suicide but her guruji said, “I have not brought you this far to let you do that!” She was never treated as special on the contrary, she was often treated harshly. Her guriji did not treat anyone more speical than others. Yet, he gave each what they asked for and in most cases, they were not after things of a spiritual nature.
The result was one of intense stress, the cultural differences, the heat,smells, physical illnesses, and her own emotional deprivation seemed to cause a progressive emptying of her personality. Her ‘guruji’. who felt she had travelled so far for truth, gave her the highest possible teaching because she proved to be ready. Her teacher described his method of instruction in the following way:
“..we do not teach but quicken. I am stronger than you so your currents adjust themselves to mine.” Thus causing, the stronger magnetic field to affect, quicken and weaken.”
This combination of suffering so that she would lose herself in every way, and her guruji’s continued presence and influence resulted in a very different type of spiritual experience. Her guru was not in anyway famous outside his own region of India. He was a married man with a family. Yet, his teaching was not only masterful but also thorough and majestic. The book Irina Tweedie eventually wrote, some eleven years after his death, is now considered a spiritual classic, along with those books written by Sri Yogananda. I thoroughly recommend ‘Daughter of Fire’ to seekers of all traditions.
Irina Tweedie in later life
The Talk begins: (in her own words.)
The subject for tonight is, I think, rather interesting, it deals with the powers latent in man. There are two great powers which we can achieve or which are rather our Divine heritage. It is the Divine power from God and it is the Power of Yoga. Yoga is really union. The Sanskrit word Yoga means Union, union with God. How the yogic or Divine powers is acquired, there are slight differences and slight difference in working.
The divine power is given. It is a state of grace. It is given only when the person has surrendered to the light within, which is One with God. Because we in the Theosophy, we believe that the soul of man is one ray of infinite truth. Or God. I use the word God deliberately because it is short and everyone knows what I mean. The word truth or infinite light is not always familiar to people. It is all the same thing. It is all light. It is all God within and without. Like fish in water, we are in him and he is in our form. Now the divine power is given when the human being is completely surrendered to his maker. The yogic power is acquired, by the yogi or aspirant, through concentration, meditation and stilling of the mind. It is a very, very difficult process.
My dear teacher, who was a very, very great yogi of India…. I have just returned from India…. He died on the 21st of July. He left his physical body. I had to go to the Himalayan Mountains to recuperate in solitude. It was a shock, a great shock to us disciples.
My dear teacher worked with both the divine and the yogic powers. You see the working of the divine power and yogic power are a little bit different. For divine power you need faith. For yogic power you don’t need faith. And you don’t need faith for magic. But magic is a very low subject. I won’t touch that subject tonight, I am only going to speak about the yogic and divine powers.
I always remember the words of Christ when St. Peter wanted to walk on water, when he suddenly lost faith and became afraid and began to sink. Christ pulled him up and asked him where was his faith.
If you have no faith, the divine power will not work with you. In other words, if you come to a great yogi for a healing or anything. If you do not believe in him, the power will not work.
People came to my teacher for healings and others for help with the process in the law court. They want to win the case. People come to the yogi for all sorts of things and if, like my teacher, the yogi is great, if he is one with God, he will know which human being can be helped and which cannot. You see, we in the Theosophy believe in the laws of karma. Karma is the law of cause and effect. If I did evil, then evil will come to me. If I did something which is considered good, then something good will come to me too. If the human being is sick and has great troubles and cannot be helped, this is something the person themselves have created. The yogi cannot help you. He will not hurt your feelings. He will not say I cannot help you. We disciples, we noticed one day, that our teacher use to sometimes say, “I can only pray.” This is a refusal.
Yet, if a person of faith came to him, and said, “my child is dying of smallpox or cholera” which happens often. People just die away. They cannot be helped with these cases. They die. My teacher would look at the child and say ’go home’ and give him a glass of water. The father would say, “but he cannot keep the water down”. My teacher would say “he can take the water and he will be fine. Just go home and let him sleep for twenty four hours and he will be fine“. The next day the child would be well.
I saw in my teacher’s house, a servant falling ill with smallpox. One day I arrived in his garden. There was no one there. This was very unusual. Someone came to me and said, “Mrs. Tweedie, our servant is ill with smallpox. You may be a afraid to stay.” I was not afraid as I had been vaccinated against smallpox for my journey to India. I stayed in the garden. After sometime, my dear teacher came out, he was a very old man, with a snowy white beard. He was all dressed in white. He said, “Mrs. Tweedie, you may like to leave because our servant is ill.” I said, “No I want to stay, I have had a vaccination“. He said, “our servant has smallpox.” I said, “would it not be better to send her to the hospital.” He replied, “Oh no she will be alright. I gave her a glass of water. And tomorrow she will be well.” Now this was a little bit too much for me quite frankly. Coming from the West, I had faith in my dear teacher but this was a little bit too much. I said nothing because I could not believe it, The next day the servant was washing dishes and she was full of smallpox marks. I asked, “For goodness sake is she not contagious!” My teacher said, “Oh no, I gave her a glass of water and that was that.”
I have seen the case of a mad dog who had bitten six people. Five of those died. The one who got the glass of water from guruji was alright. We called him guruji because that is the term used in India. The word ‘guru’ is teacher. The ‘ji’ is used as a term of endearment. It is like saying Sir guru….It is a Sanskrit word. Guru means the light and the dark…. Gu – ru. He gave her a glass of water and she was alright. Like Christ he did this work.
Here in the west, I have not seen anyone cast out spirits. I have been told that some priest do it. The R.C. church has priest trained to do this work. I have never seen it. I have seen my teacher cast out an evil spirit from a boy. It was a horrific sight. The boy was rolling on the floor, foaming at the mouth. He looked like he was suffering from an epileptic fit. My teacher said it is not a fit but a spirit. He then ordered the spirit to go out. It is was a terrific sight. My teacher was all dressed in white and very majestic. He pointed with his finger to the outline of the boy and drew an invisible line around him. The boy was lying on the floor, foaming and shouting. My teacher was saying very sternly to the spirit. “Go out or I will burn thee and all thy family”. Now, I did not know he was talking to the spirit. I thought he was speaking to the boy, and in my ignorance, I thought was a terrible way to talk to this boy when he is in this condition, then suddenly the boy became sort of blackish in his face, or blue rather and stopped shouting and was completely calm. I said to myself, the boy has died, guruji has killed him! But after a few minutes, the boy sat up, with a perfectly normal expression on his face. He folded his hands in India salute and said, “thank you.” It was so beautiful to see the boy well. He rose and left with his father. He was from one of the local villages and he went home. I turned to my guruji and said, “well I never saw anything like this in the West.” He said, “Oh! this is nothing. When you stay with me you will see many such cases and much more of this sort of thing, It is nothing. It is the grace of God. We are given that. But we don’t care for these powers, we are not after these things.”
.
“We Yogis can do anything but we cannot heal everyone.”
In the afternoon, when in his garden, I asked him what he meant by the words,“I will burn thee and all thy relations“. He said, “Well those evil spirits are part of evolution, just as we are part of evolution. There are human beings, there are evil spirits, there are angels, there are all sorts of things. There are birds, and animals. These spirits are of a group soul. They are never alone. They are like a whole family. So when one is killed the others die too. I have no rights to kill a spirit. When an evil spirit enters a human being then I have a duty to help the human being because he is one of my own kind. So I cast out the spirit. But if the spirit disobeys me and comes again, I have the right to kill it. Although I will not kill it without warning. I have to give it a warning. But if the spirit is disobedient then I have the right to kill it. I first have to give the evil spirit a warning and I give it three times. But with me it never happens! I give the warning once, it is enough. When a saint has great powers, the spirits dare not return“. Actually the young man and his father never returned.
—
This is the end of part one of the lengthy talk given by Ms. Irina Tweedie on her return from India sometime in the late 1960’s. I will be translating more of the speech in the next few days and will post it when it is ready.
Sorry vimeo talk no longer available. Here is a five part talk given by Irina Tweedie at a later time. Three have been posted here, the last two parts of this talk, can be found on Youtubes…..
Irina Tweedie, a Russian Lady, decided sometime way back in the early 1960′s to study yoga with a Naqshbandi Sufi teacher. (He was actually Hindu but took up Sufism and studied for many years under a Sufi Master, until his enlightenment.)
Irina Tweedie’s books “Daughter of Fire” and “Chasm of Fire,” tell clearly the story of a Woman’s experience of liberation through the teachings of a Sufi Master. The books are written in the form of a diary. Her dear teacher had told her to keep a diary on their first meeting. He also told her she would one day write a book that would help enlighten seekers on the spiritual path. During her training, guruji, did not give her any specific spiritual practices. Her teachings consisted largely of her sitting in his courtyard or house, observing his interaction with other disciples and family, with occasional terse conversations with him. She was at one time thrown out of the house and had to return to England with no money. Also at one time she contemplated suicide but her guruji said, “I have not brought you this far to let you do that!” She was never treated as special on the contrary, she was often treated harshly. Her guriji did not treat anyone more speical than others. Yet, he gave each what they asked for and in most cases, they were not after things of a spiritual nature.
The result was one of intense stress, the cultural differences, the heat,smells, physical illnesses, and her own emotional deprivation seemed to cause a progressive emptying of her personality. Her ‘guruji’. who felt she had travelled so far for truth, gave her the highest possible teaching because she proved to be ready. Her teacher described his method of instruction in the following way:
“..we do not teach but quicken. I am stronger than you so your currents adjust themselves to mine.” Thus causing, the stronger magnetic field to affect, quicken and weaken.”
This combination of suffering so that she would lose herself in every way, and her guruji’s continued presence and influence resulted in a very different type of spiritual experience. Her guru was not in anyway famous outside his own region of India. He was a married man with a family. Yet, his teaching was not only masterful but also thorough and majestic. The book Irina Tweedie eventually wrote, some eleven years after his death, is now considered a spiritual classic, along with those books written by Sri Yogananda. I thoroughly recommend ‘Daughter of Fire’ to seekers of all traditions.
Irina with guruji and other disciples
The Talk begins: (in her own words.)
The subject for tonight is, I think, rather interesting, it deals with the powers latent in man. There are two great powers which we can achieve or which are rather our Divine heritage. It is the Divine power from God and it is the Power of Yoga. Yoga is really union. The Sanskrit word Yoga means Union, union with God. How the yogic or Divine powers is acquired, there are slight differences and slight difference in working.
The divine power is given. It is a state of grace. It is given only when the person has surrendered to the light within, which is One with God. Because we in the Theosophy, we believe that the soul of man is one ray of infinite truth. Or God. I use the word God deliberately because it is short and everyone knows what I mean. The word truth or infinite light is not always familiar to people. It is all the same thing. It is all light. It is all God within and without. Like fish in water, we are in him and he is in our form. Now the divine power is given when the human being is completely surrendered to his maker. The yogic power is acquired, by the yogi or aspirant, through concentration, meditation and stilling of the mind. It is a very, very difficult process.
My dear teacher, who was a very, very great yogi of India…. I have just returned from India…. He died on the 21st of July. He left his physical body. I had to go to the Himalayan Mountains to recuperate in solitude. It was a shock, a great shock to us disciples.
My dear teacher worked with both the divine and the yogic powers. You see the working of the divine power and yogic power are a little bit different. For divine power you need faith. For yogic power you don’t need faith. And you don’t need faith for magic. But magic is a very low subject. I won’t touch that subject tonight, I am only going to speak about the yogic and divine powers.
I always remember the words of Christ when St. Peter wanted to walk on water, when he suddenly lost faith and became afraid and began to sink. Christ pulled him up and asked him where was his faith.
If you have no faith, the divine power will not work with you. In other words, if you come to a great yogi for a healing or anything. If you do not believe in him, the power will not work.
People came to my teacher for healings and others for help with the process in the law court. They want to win the case. People come to the yogi for all sorts of things and if, like my teacher, the yogi is great, if he is one with God, he will know which human being can be helped and which cannot. You see, we in the Theosophy believe in the laws of karma. Karma is the law of cause and effect. If I did evil, then evil will come to me. If I did something which is considered good, then something good will come to me too. If the human being is sick and has great troubles and cannot be helped, this is something the person themselves have created. The yogi cannot help you. He will not hurt your feelings. He will not say I cannot help you. We disciples, we noticed one day, that our teacher use to sometimes say, “I can only pray.” This is a refusal.
Yet, if a person of faith came to him, and said, “my child is dying of smallpox or cholera” which happens often. People just die away. They cannot be helped with these cases. They die. My teacher would look at the child and say ’go home’ and give him a glass of water. The father would say, “but he cannot keep the water down”. My teacher would say “he can take the water and he will be fine. Just go home and let him sleep for twenty four hours and he will be fine“. The next day the child would be well.
I saw in my teacher’s house, a servant falling ill with smallpox. One day I arrived in his garden. There was no one there. This was very unusual. Someone came to me and said, “Mrs. Tweedie, our servant is ill with smallpox. You may be a afraid to stay.” I was not afraid as I had been vaccinated against smallpox for my journey to India. I stayed in the garden. After sometime, my dear teacher came out, he was a very old man, with a snowy white beard. He was all dressed in white. He said, “Mrs. Tweedie, you may like to leave because our servant is ill.” I said, “No I want to stay, I have had a vaccination“. He said, “our servant has smallpox.” I said, “would it not be better to send her to the hospital.” He replied, “Oh no she will be alright. I gave her a glass of water. And tomorrow she will be well.” Now this was a little bit too much for me quite frankly. Coming from the West, I had faith in my dear teacher but this was a little bit too much. I said nothing because I could not believe it, The next day the servant was washing dishes and she was full of smallpox marks. I asked, “For goodness sake is she not contagious!” My teacher said, “Oh no, I gave her a glass of water and that was that.”
I have seen the case of a mad dog who had bitten six people. Five of those died. The one who got the glass of water from guruji was alright. We called him guruji because that is the term used in India. The word ‘guru’ is teacher. The ‘ji’ is used as a term of endearment. It is like saying Sir guru….It is a Sanskrit word. Guru means the light and the dark…. Gu – ru. He gave her a glass of water and she was alright. Like Christ he did this work.
Here in the west, I have not seen anyone cast out spirits. I have been told that some priest do it. The R.C. church has priest trained to do this work. I have never seen it. I have seen my teacher cast out an evil spirit from a boy. It was a horrific sight. The boy was rolling on the floor, foaming at the mouth. He looked like he was suffering from an epileptic fit. My teacher said it is not a fit but a spirit. He then ordered the spirit to go out. It is was a terrific sight. My teacher was all dressed in white and very majestic. He pointed with his finger to the outline of the boy and drew an invisible line around him. The boy was lying on the floor, foaming and shouting. My teacher was saying very sternly to the spirit. “Go out or I will burn thee and all thy family”. Now, I did not know he was talking to the spirit. I thought he was speaking to the boy, and in my ignorance, I thought was a terrible way to talk to this boy when he is in this condition, then suddenly the boy became sort of blackish in his face, or blue rather and stopped shouting and was completely calm. I said to myself, the boy has died, guruji has killed him! But after a few minutes, the boy sat up, with a perfectly normal expression on his face. He folded his hands in India salute and said, “thank you.” It was so beautiful to see the boy well. He rose and left with his father. He was from one of the local villages and he went home. I turned to my guruji and said, “well I never saw anything like this in the West.” He said, “Oh! this is nothing. When you stay with me you will see many such cases and much more of this sort of thing, It is nothing. It is the grace of God. We are given that. But we don’t care for these powers, we are not after these things.”
.
“We Yogis can do anything but we cannot heal everyone.”
In the afternoon, when in his garden, I asked him what he meant by the words,“I will burn thee and all thy relations“. He said, “Well those evil spirits are part of evolution, just as we are part of evolution. There are human beings, there are evil spirits, there are angels, there are all sorts of things. There are birds, and animals. These spirits are of a group soul. They are never alone. They are like a whole family. So when one is killed the others die too. I have no rights to kill a spirit. When an evil spirit enters a human being then I have a duty to help the human being because he is one of my own kind. So I cast out the spirit. But if the spirit disobeys me and comes again, I have the right to kill it. Although I will not kill it without warning. I have to give it a warning. But if the spirit is disobedient then I have the right to kill it. I first have to give the evil spirit a warning and I give it three times. But with me it never happens! I give the warning once, it is enough. When a saint has great powers, the spirits dare not return“. Actually the young man and his father never returned.
—
This is the end of part one of the lengthy talk given by Ms. Irina Tweedie on her return from India sometime in the late 1960’s. I will be translating more of the speech in the next few days and will post it when it is ready.
Banning is not only something that happens to those close physically to Sai, it happens to others who are seated in general public too. There are so many untold stories of seekers being banned, never to return. However, many banned devotees do not hold a grudge. They still love Swami, although they are not allowed to be anywhere near him. I’d say they were Swami’s closest devotees…
From My Memories
Om the daughter of professor parents who taught in Ivy league colleges in the USA, speaks with a cultured American accent. She obviously, had at one time enjoyed a very intellectual lifestyle and is herself a literati. How and why she came to visit Swami I have no idea. Came she did and stayed. Her story is one of the most interesting ones in Sai Baba circles. Yet hardly a word has been written about her.
Om enjoyed the casual ashram at Whitefield way back in the 1970’s where she had many close experiences with Sathya Sai. Yet sometime later on she was made persona non grata. She was banned from entering all Sai ashrams.
I remember her telling me some years ago that Sai Baba had told her at dashan one day, that although she was a graduate, and clever, he was going to change all that. He did. Once Om was banned from the ashrams, she was devastated. Swami had obviously done an egodectomy on her, now what to do next? She did not know.She visited Sri Ramana’s Ashram in Tamil Nadu for a time to think it over. She was at the time quite ill due to the ban. She did not function well and she was thought a little odd there among Ramana devotees.
Om after reflecting her position while at Ramana’s ashram, made the decision to stay in India to become a Sannyasin. She throw away her passport, clothes and all other possessions. She took to wearing a simple orange robe. After sometime she returned to Puttaparthi and began a life of total austerity.
I first noticed her on my second visit to P.N. ashram way back in the late 1980’s. She use to stand outside the old darshan area, looking over the wall, watching Swami give darshan. I remember even now how a beautiful smile would flashed across her face whenever she saw him. Her dismissal had not soured her in the least. She was full of love for him. Besides her beautiful smile, her face shone brightly whenever in the vicinity of the ashram.
It is only in recent years we have began to speak to each other. She often stops me when I am shopping in Puttaparthi. Om likes to comment on my clothes. This year’s encounter with Om was pretty strange. On this certain day before the shopping trip, I’d been looking in the mirror at my Salwar Kameez for sometime before going out. It seemed not to fit well.I felt concerned about going out in this ill fitting outfit. By chance I run into Om. She stopped me in the street. The first words she said, “Oh! I would love to give you a full length mirror so you can see how pretty that outfit is.” This made me laugh, due to concerns I had over this particular ‘outfit.’ Om as always was sparkling bright. Her eyes, great orbs of blue, appeared innocent and childlike. Yet Om’s life is not at all child like for she lives from day to day on very little. Often she is seen searching through rubbish for food.
Several years ago we had a long talk about her life in Prashanti. She told me how she lived in one small room without even a fan. The room she said – in summer was burning hot. Om, by this time had suffered many tropical illnesses. Also she suffered with her legs and feet. Today she walks with crutches her once rich blondish hair is shaved.
One day I stopped to asked her why did she stay? ”Oh” she said, “I stay because that is my karma. I love Swami. I have given my life to him. I do not regret one single day here, despite the hardships.”
How does Om survive so many illnesses and hardships? I don’t know. She always appears to be positive and despite her illnesses, she manages to look after herself pretty well.
Last year I remember, Swami coming out from the ashram in his car. Om was right there. He gave her a huge smile which she returned in no small measure.
The local authorities recognize Om as being a Sannyasin. She is allowed to live in Puttaparthi without either passport or visa. I believe she is the only Westerner who can.
I feel sentalmental towards “Om.”
So here’s a little ‘ode’ to her to honor her huge leap of faith, in having courage to believe in Swami for over 30 years of hardships.
Om, here’s a poem for you.
“So I would choose to stay with you, if the choice was mine to make, You can make decisions too, and you can have this heart to break. And so it goes and so it goes.”
The Sacred Hill of Skandagiri and the Library Dome at Muddenahalli
Children Of Light 