Sai Baba on Book-Learning

(A short Essay)

As a young woman, I was very impressed with intellectualism.  I would read many esoteric texts and think I was very informed.  The more obtuse, the more challenged I was to parrot the contents.  Happily, getting married and raising a family quickly revealed that book-learning could not save me from mundane reality, nor raise me to the heights of bliss.

Our Beloved Lord, Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba said, “Reading is not enough, you may master all the commentaries and you may be able to argue and discuss with great scholars about these texts; but without attempting to practice what they teach, it is a waste of time.  I never approve of book-learning; practice is what I evaluate.”

When my three children were small, all born within a year of each other, I had not heard or read about Sai Baba.   Due to my increased commitments, I had little time to read.  This turned out to be a boon, however. I had to re-educate myself.

According to Puttaparthi Swami, the Embodiment of Love, “Education is no book-worm affair; the process must include the study and appreciation of all trades, professions and guilds. It must encourage the acceptance of the good and the rejection of the bad.  Spiritual education is not a distinct and separate discipline; it is part and parcel of all types and levels of education.  In fact, it is the very foundation on which a lasting edifice can be built.”

When I encountered these words, later in life, I saw the flaws in the system of education that I had been exposed to.  Everything was based on grades and grades alone.  Those with the highest scores were the winners.  But Sathya Sai Baba was teaching something entirely different.

He also noted, “There are two evil sirens that entice youth into futility and frivolity, diverting them along the paths of ruin.  One of them is called Dame Cinema and the other is named Dame Novel.  The film contaminates and corrupts; it pollutes young and innocent minds; it teaches crime, violence and greed; it destroys the basic humanness and degrades it into bestiality.  Even ochre-robed monks are steadily dragged down to sin by its insidious influence.”

And there I was, a child of Hollywood and TV star worship.  No wonder I was unprepared for the challenges of family life.  These “stars” smoked, drank, partied, indulged in endless cosmetic surgery, and dressed like dolls.

Our nearest and dearest, ever-forgiving and understanding Lord, said, “You read these great books, the Ramayana and the Bhagavata Gita many times for they are now easily available at a cheap cost.  But what proof can you give for having profited by the hours that you have spent with them?  To digest the food you have taken you have to engage in some physical activity.  To digest the lessons that you imbibe through holy company or through the study of great books, practice them in daily life.”

By the Grace of Guru Sai, my focus in maturity is practice, practice, practice…..

Picking up Ratna’s coffin

Picking up Ratna’s coffin was certainly a different experience.  In Bengaluru you can buy a coffin on the side of the road.  In this case it was a back alley off the Commercial-Street area which is famous for its little-hole-in-the-wall shops where you can bargain for everything from glass bangles to pure gold earrings, from one-piece bathing suits with long sleeves and pants that literally cover your calves to black lace G-strings the size of rubber bands!

Ratna was going to have a Catholic burial because when she arrived at Jyothi Seva Home she had already been baptized. Often accused of proselytizing and converting orphaned children, Sister Agata used to reply quite vehemently to whichever know-it-all happened to be attacking her. Once, she explained her position to me.

“Okay!  Okay!” She was screaming in her native Polish, her blue eyes rolling behind large glasses, her plump face blushing with anger, the black wooden rosary beads around her ample waist swinging back and forth over her traditional grey wool habit, her matching head cover slipping off to one side.

“We do baptize the ones we find in the rubbish bins, the ones with no identity whatsoever.  Is this a crime?  I say, let these families come forward and tell us what religion their throw-away-babies are.  We will gladly raise them in the religion of their birth. In fact, if the people who are so damned concerned about us raising  some of our kids as Catholics want, they can come on over and adopt them.  I say, come on over!  You take care of them for the next 20 years.  It’s okay with me! You are welcome!” 

Rarely, though, some of the Jyothi Seva children did get parents who loved and cared for them. During the years that Ratna lived in the home, one Polish woman volunteer, who happened to be blind herself, got permission to adopt a blind baby.  It was a very complicated procedure—partly because in India adoption requires that the child have two parents.  Since Wanda, the adoptive mother was single, the first answer she got from the court was, “No.”

But, believe it or not, there is a little-used law in India which allows for a handicapped person to adopt a child.  However, it still took a ton of prayers and the intervention of Mother Teresa, who sent many abandoned blind babies from Calcutta, now Kolkata, to the Jyothi Seva nuns, before Wanda could keep the child she had been taking care of since it was three weeks old.  Meanwhile, finding homes for sighted orphan children, particularly girls, remains a national problem.

On a few occasions a blind baby would arrive with a family member and be legally handed over to the nuns with instructions indicating which faith the child was to be raised in.  So at Jyothi Seva there were Hindu, Muslim, and Catholic children; and the non-Catholics were given regular instruction in their own religion, by qualified outside teachers. 

But Ratna, having worn a Catholic body for 8 years meant that body could be buried at Holy Family Cemetery.  The nuns did not want her body cremated, as is the general practice in over-crowded Bengaluru.  For those of us attached to her physical presence, this meant there was more time to bid farewell, if you will. We could have a wake, a funeral Mass, and a burial ceremony. But we knew that Ratna, Holy Little Ratna, could never be disposed of.

Still dressed in my flaming red sari and purple blouse I set out to help with the many chores surrounding Ratna’s death. There was no time to change, practically no time to think. I had routinely engaged Kaleem, an auto rickshaw driver who I had known for years, to help me pick up the coffin that Sister Agata had ordered by phone in the morning.  It was supposedly going to be ready at nine p.m.   Kaleem was a genius when it came to locating the most-difficult-to-find addresses and then having a photographic memory of routes he had taken to get you there. So once visited, you could count on him to be able to take you back to any spot.

You said things like:  Imitation alligator briefcase, or orange shoes with butterflies, and he remembered where you had purchased them; and in a flash he’d spin the rickshaw around and deliver you to the door of the exact shop you were hoping to find.  One of his neighbors had a phone and whenever I was going to Bengaluru I would call the number Kaleem had given me and leave a pidgin-Hindi message.  Puttaparthi Madam, bus standah, sevenah morningka!  I was understood; and as sure as the sun rises, Kaleem would be waiting for me at Majestic, or at the Railway Station, depending on how I had come into the city.

What’s more, he had known the Jyothi Seva children for nearly as many years as I had, since he became my rickshaw driver shortly after I had met Sisters Agata and Adella one day on Mahatma Gandhi Road when I heard them speaking my mother tongue and I ran over to introduce myself.  Kaleem loved the children and they loved him.  The nuns adored him too and they counted on him to help them out during the days when I wasn’t using him to get around town.  In fact, he was basically employed by a few special long-time customers, the Jyothi Seva nuns, and me.

At 38, he looked much older because of his many wrinkles and his bushy grey hair. But the perpetual smile on his face, due in part to his slightly bucked teeth, gave him a cheerful visage.  He was polite, eager to share a joke and probably the most honest and hard-working man I have ever had the good fortune to meet.  He was the only wage earner in a family of one son, two daughters and a wife.  They lived in a tiny one-room, ground-floor flat in a row of such dwellings.  The home was so clean it literally shone.

All Kaleem’s children were going to school, a fact that he was quite proud of because he paid the school fees out of his own earnings.  His wife was a Christian who Kaleem, a Muslim, had happily married.  Theirs was a non-traditional “love” marriage, and it had worked.  Their affection for each other was obvious and to be in their company made you feel content.

The one window in their home was draped with a pale-blue satin fabric that shimmered like water. The same fabric acted as a curtain on the ever-open-to-the-street doorway. As poor as the family was, the members were always happy to share whatever they had with neighbors, friends and the many visitors who stopped by. Often Kaleem’s wife would cook mutton biriyani for me, and occasionally a most-delicious fish dish.  

Therefore, Kaleem and I—though from two very different worlds, had found that we had two things, in common—mutual respect for each other and a desire to serve the Jyothi Seva children. So we were both heavy-hearted as we set out to pick up Ratna’s coffin. This time all we had to go by were the shop owner’s instructions given to Sister Agata over the telephone, and the address: Shed number six, behind the bicycle shop, three streets parallel behind Jewelry Street in back of the big masjid…..

………to be continued in next instalment of Terry’s Words.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama on faithfulness

A friend just called to tell me that her son has cancer.  He is the single father of a four-year-old.  The news has hit him hard.  Yet his mother is strong and there for him and for her grandchild.  Without a support system, without our friends who love us, life would be impossible—at least this is what I believe.  We have responsibilities towards those with whom we co-exist.

According to the Living Buddha, “For human beings, as social animals, it is quite natural for us to love.  We even love animals and insects, such as the bees that collect pollen and produce honey.  I really admire bees’ sense of common responsibility.  When you watch a beehive, you see that those small insects come from far away, take a few seconds’ rest, go inside, and then hurriedly fly away again.  They are faithful to their responsibility.  Although individual bees sometimes fight, there is basically a strong sense of unity and cooperation.  We human beings are supposed to be much more advanced, but sometimes we lag behind even small insects.”

Loyalty is rare. We are too often happy to be friendly with those who make us feel good about ourselves or who financially provide for us.  But when the good times come to a screeching halt, do we stay loyal?

His Holiness, the 14^th Dalai Lama says, “When our fortunes rise, even without friends, we can manage.  But when they go down, we need true friends.  In order to make genuine friends, we ourselves must create an environment that is pleasant.  If we just have a lot of anger, not many people will be drawn close to us.  Compassion or altruism draws friends.  It is very simple.”

Look back over your experiences.  How did you become friends with certain people?  Did you create a pleasing environment when you were together?  Did you put yourself second and the friend first?  Or did you like this person simply because he or she catered to meeting your needs?  Perhaps you are someone who uses people to your own advantage.  If that’s the case, it’s unlikely that you have friends to call on in difficult times. 

“All of the world’s religions emphasize the importance of compassion, love, and forgiveness,” Dalai Lama emphasizes.  “Each may have a different interpretation but, broadly speaking, everyone bases his or her understanding of their own religion on brotherhood, sisterhood, and compassion.  Those who believe in God usually see their love for their fellow human beings as an expression of their love for God.  But if someone says, ‘I love God,’ and does not show sincere love towards his fellow human beings, I think that is not following God’s teaching.  Many religions emphasize forgiveness.  Love and compassion are the basis of true forgiveness.  Without them, it is difficult to develop forgiveness.”

Happily, both the mother and her son have many friends.  And as true friends do, all are working together to uplift the family, to provide the day to day support that is needed and maintaining a positive attitude.

Sai Baba on Christmas

(A short Essay)

Christmas for many of us is more than a celebration of the birth of Lord Jesus.  It is the time of year, perhaps, when we reflect on the impact of the life and teachings of the Master Christ.  The followers of Jesus eventually became known as Christians—practitioners of Christianity, the largest religion in the world, followed by Islam, and then by Hinduism.

According to Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, “The Great Teachers belong to mankind.  It is wrong to believe that Jesus belongs only to the Christians and that Christmas is a Holy festival for the West only.  To accept one of them as one’s own and discard the rest as belonging to others, is a sign of pettiness.  Christ, Rama, Krishna—they are for all men everywhere.”

Though Christmas lights sparkle on all continents and gifts are exchanged as symbols of love, friendship, and duty, how many hearts are full of joy at this time of the year?  How many of us really emulate the actions of Lord Jesus?  Frankly, some days I do.  Other days I don’t.  And the Christmas season can become a tedious round of have-to-attend events, and have-to-do chores.

“Jesus was a master born for a purpose, the mission of restoring love, charity and compassion in the heart of man,” Sai Baba explained.  The mad rush of day-to-day life might make us forget why we were born.  So Christmas is a time to reflect on and to remember the purpose of our own existence, and our own mission as children of God. 

Puttaparthi Sai explained, “Jesus had no attachment to the self; he never paid heed to sorrow or to pain, joy or gain; he had a heart that responded to the call of anguish, the cry for peace and brotherhood.  He went about the land preaching the lesson of love, and poured out his life as a libation in the sacrifice to humanity.”

And, in the words of the Poorna Avatar, Christmas reminds us that we are a world family, “All faiths are inter-related and mutually indebted to each other for the principles they teach, and the disciplines they recommend.  The Vedic Religion was the first in time; Buddhism which appeared about 2,500 years ago was its son; Christianity, which was influenced by the Orient, was its grandson.  And Islam, which has the Prophets of Christianity as its base was like the great-grandson.  All have Love as the fundamental discipline of the mind, in order to chasten it and merge man with the Divine.”

How could the infant born in the humble setting of an animal stable, come to be known throughout the world if not by Divine design?  Sai Baba noted that first Jesus thought of himself as separate from God, next Jesus saw himself as the son of God, but at the end of his Self Realization he said, “I and my Father are One.”  The process of moving from humanity to divinity took rigorous introspection.  According to Sai Baba, “Jesus wandered purposefully in lonely places for 12 long years, engaging himself in study, spiritual exercises and meditation on God.”

His life was certainly his message.

Picking up little Ratna’s body at Saint John’s Hospital

And so it came to pass, that dressed in a bright red sari with a purple blouse that matched my purple earrings and my purple sandals, I arrived in Bengaluru within four hours of Sister Agata’s call. At Saint John’s Hospital I was directed to a tiny, less-than-broom-closet-size room.  There I was handed a big black book by a male uniformed security guard.  I was thinking this is like the big black book of childhood stories, the one that Saint Peter was supposedly going to consult when I appeared at the gates of Heaven.  He was going to check the list inside it and see if a place had been reserved for me to stay; or if I had to go!

(I knew Saint Peter’s big black book didn’t have me listed as a shareholder in Paradise.  I knew I’d never be allowed to stay.  The Roman Catholic priest who made me do sex to him in the sacristy, in his bed, in his car, in his summer cottage, in hotel rooms, in the woods… he had already told me I would go to Hell.  He said I was a sinner.  I was nine when he first noticed my peach-colored angora sweater.  I was 17 when he paid for the abortion…  It’s okay!  I ran away when I was 18.  I’ve been running ever since.)

The uniformed, security-guard morgue attendant, oblivious to my racing thoughts and panic, opened the Saint John’s Hospital Death Book to the page with Ratna’s name printed on a line underneath the word, “Deceased”.  Beside her name, under the word, “Claimant”, I wrote my own name, slowly, deliberately, aware of how fleeting, and often disturbingly purposeless, our lives can be. Maybe God would change my destiny and upgrade my position, because of my name so dutifully and artistically scripted beside the glowing Ratna’s.

When The Death Book was stamped, dated, and then closed and returned to its ominous shelf, the man in the uniform told me to follow him.  He was smiling when he said, “It’s almost over, Madam.”  We turned a couple of corners and went through a doorway.  Then he stopped in front of what looked like a large, white restaurant refrigerator—about seven feet high and five feet wide, with two handles on each side. 

“Step aside,” the man said as he pulled on the right-side handle and slowly slid the door fully open.  I peeked inside; and then, in front of me, I saw the interior of what was actually a refrigerator with three deep shelves made of steel wires coated in white rubbery plastic.  The top shelf and the bottom shelf were empty.  But on the middle shelf there was what could have been a large leg of lamb covered with a white sheet.  I kept on staring into the refrigerator waiting for that leg of lamb to be a leg of lamb.

That’s when the cold hit me.  Icy, unnatural, more like the air inside a freezer; but it was not coming from inside the refrigerator, it was permeating the whole room; I was so cold I couldn’t even shiver.  I hunched my shoulders up inside the palu of my sari and clamped my jaws shut.

I watched as the uniformed guard slowly slid out the middle shelf, handling it like a smooth-rolling bureau drawer. Quickly, as though he was a magician about to expose the missing rabbit, he removed the perma-press sheet from the leg of lamb.  Holy Little Ratna appeared.  She was coiled in a fetal position, dressed in black spandex slacks, a red T-shirt with white piping at the collar and short sleeves, and white cotton ankle socks.  She appeared to be fast asleep. 

It troubled me that she did not look the least bit dead.  As I stood there staring at her closed eyelids, I expected them to roll open.  I expected her pretty lips to twitch, and her mouth to suddenly burst into a huge smile.  I stood all alone with her like that for a good long time.  The attendant had left.  The invisible ice covered me with a second coat.  Now I was the one who had become paralyzed.  Ratna looked so flexible, so warm.

Soon there came the sound of rolling wheels (more rolling wheels!  In sickness and in health, until death do us part, they are there!) and the attendant’s footsteps.  He was pushing a gurney in front of him.  With remarkable grace, he lifted Ratna off the shelf and placed her on the black-vinyl-covered surface of the carriage.  I walked the length of another corridor behind him, amazed that my icicle body could actually move.  When we came to an elevator, we got on it, and he must have pushed a button to get us to the ground floor.  But I only remember staring at Ratna, waiting for her to wake up.

She, who was the bringer of light to the Jyothi Seva Home, was like the great Himalayan Saint from Badrinath I met in Rishikesh one winter whose name was Ever-Smiling Soul.  In his company, we only laughed.  Life, all of it, was a huge joke.  Suddenly, I remembered his thought-transmission teaching on impermanence and I found that even this, this walking beside the body trolley at Saint John’s Hospital was hilarious. This time I let the tears fall.

To the powers that be in Bengaluru, to those that monitor the paperwork of death, and to their unseen, unbounded-by-time masters, I knew that the signing of my name inside the morgue book meant that I was now in charge of Ratna’s body.  I was singularly responsible for it until I delivered it to the Jyothi Seva Home where it would again become the property of the Venkateshpuram Franciscan Sisters, Servants of the Cross.

Once off the elevator we go a bit further until we come to a large-swing-open double door.  The security-guard attendant pushes the trolley through the door and up alongside another massage-type table, the same height as the gurney.  Deftly he lifts Ratna’s body onto what turns out to be the “viewing” table where family and closest friends, or those picking up the body, like me, can spend some private time with the corpse. The “viewing” table is also padded and covered in black vinyl.

“You can wash and dress the body,” the attendant announces, pointing to a sink with soap, sponges, towels, and a bucket on a shelf beside it.  “Someone will come and give you further instructions,” he says as he turns to go.  Then he pushes the body trolley through the swinging doors, and I am all alone except for the Holy Ghost of Ratna.

Well, maybe not entirely alone with her, as the room is dominated by a giant white marble-like cross that rises nearly to the ceiling.  The cross is empty.  But, at the foot of the cross a weeping Mary, Mother of Jesus, sits, holding her dead son in her arms. Perhaps this sculpture was placed here to remind us that we are not alone in our grief.  But, the fact is, we are. 

After waiting quite awhile, no one comes to give me any instructions, so I soap up the sponge and rub it gently over the face and hands of the body.  I don’t want to disturb whatever it is that might be disturbed if I am too rough.  But it is only when I begin rinsing off the hands that I realize Ratna, Holy Little Ratna, is no longer stiff!

For eight years she was like a plastic doll that could not bend.  But suddenly she is loose and feathery.  I move her fingers to prove to myself that what I am witnessing is actually happening.  I bend her legs, her arms; what is the meaning of this corporeal flexibility at a time when rigor mortis should be setting in?

As I dry her face and hands with a towel I wonder if perhaps Ratna has not entirely left her physical sheath and that she is aware along with me in this tandem instantaneity that flexibility is her new destiny, and that the stiffness she was doomed to live with, up until death, has been cast off.  Right now she is, perhaps, preparing her new life as: The Woman who has the power to create an eye lotion which can extend one’s vision.

Before long, Sister Agata arrives with the driver of the black city hearse that will carry us back to Venkateshpurm and the Jyothi Seva Home.   For the time being, until we buy a coffin, Ratna is wrapped up in a grey wool blanket and is being carried in Sister Agata’s arms.  The nun is not crying and like me she probably does not feel that Ratna is dead.

Once outside the morgue entrance of Saint John’s, the air is thick with the jasmine-like scent of Rain Tree flowers. I reel a bit from the freshness.  I did not realize how claustrophobic the atmosphere inside had been.   I am happy to climb in through the tail-gate entrance of the hearse and settle myself across from Sister Agata on one of the built-in benches along both sides of the vehicle.

The driver slams the door shut and gets into the front seat, separated from us by wire mesh.  As we ride through the streets, heading towards Joythi Seva, Sister Agata asks me to go out later in the evening—after I’ve had tea— go out and buy a child’s coffin.   I hear myself agree.  After all, I still can’t refuse a nun’s request.

Yes! I have seen—and felt—at least one morgue in the not-so-distant past.  But there are many others I remember, like images from certain films. More on that later…..

………to be continued in next instalment of Terry’s Words.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Benefiting Others

Allegedly, when the Buddha asked his disciples to serve the sick and the suffering, some of them recoiled at the idea.  It was one thing to meditate and pray; another to wipe up the vomit of strangers. 

His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama teaches, “Welfare, in the Buddhist sense, means helping others to attain total freedom from suffering, and the term ‘other sentient beings’ refers to the infinite number of beings in the universe.”

But is it possible to feel motivated enough by our beliefs to become personally involved in caring for others?  Is it even necessary?

If we are to follow the teachings of His Holiness, the Embodiment of Compassion, our salvation from the endless cycles of birth and death depends on working for the benefit of others.  He is clear about this, “Likewise, Chandrakirti says in his Entry to the Middle Way that compassion is such a supreme spiritual quality that it maintains its relevance at all times:  it is vital at the initial stage of the spiritual path, it is just as important while we are on the path, and it is equally relevant when an individual has become fully enlightened.”

He continues, “Generally speaking, as I said, compassion is the wish that others should be free of suffering, but if we look into it more closely compassion has two levels.  In one case it may exist simply at the level of a wish—just wishing the other to be free of suffering—but it can also exist on a higher level, where the emotion goes beyond a mere wish to include the added dimension of actually wanting to do something about the suffering of others. In this case, a sense of responsibility and personal commitment enters into the thought and emotion of altruism.”

In order to serve the sick and the suffering, we must love them as if they were our very own. The living Buddha says, “The closer you feel towards another being, the more powerfully you will feel that the sight of his or her suffering is unbearable.”  But if we don’t feel close, then we can cultivate a sense of closeness and intimacy by visualizing ourselves as that person, for instance, or we might employ what is known as the ‘seven-point cause and effect method.’”

The Dalai Lama adds “This emphasizes the cultivation of an attitude that enables us to relate to all other beings as we should to someone very dear.  The traditional example given is that we could consider all sentient beings as our mother, but some scriptures also include considering beings as our father, or as dear friends, or as close relatives, and so on.  Our mother is simply taken as an example, but the point is that we should learn to view all other sentient beings as very dear and close to our hearts.”

So, there is no getting around it, to attain enlightenment, to achieve liberation, we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves and serve.

Sai Baba on Asking For Help

(A short Essay)

The Omnipresent Sai Baba of Puttaparthi promised that he would protect those who called on him.

He said, “Ask me, when you need any help.  Extend your hand only for Grace from God.  Ask Grace as a right, not in a groveling style.  Ask as a child asks the father; feel that God is nearest and dearest.”

I used to think asking God for help showed that I had not completely surrendered to his will.  But there was some thing I lost that I could not get back. A long time ago, someone I loved rejected me—my only daughter.  I was not sure why; I guessed it might be because of my spiritual beliefs. I accepted this as my karma.  

“Grace is showered on those who seek, “Swami Sai, my Guru, said. “Knock, and the door shall be opened; ask, and food will be served; search, and the treasure will be yours.  You may complain:  Yes!  Swami!  We have been knocking, asking and searching since years but, the door is yet unopened, the food is still not forthcoming, the treasure is still beyond our reach!”

This was definitely how I felt.  

“But let me tell you this,” The Beloved Lord of Puttaparthi said, “You have been asking the devil, not the deity, knocking at the devil’s door and digging for the treasure at the devil’s realm.  The devil’s realm is the object world, outer nature.  She is a clever enchantress!  You have been propitiating her, believing that she can confer peace and Ananda!  She tantalizes you and leads you from one disappointment to another.  She enhances your ego and sense of achievement, until you collapse from a swollen head!  You are knocking at the wrong door—the door of hell which is ever open.  You are searching for paltry pleasure not permanent treasure!”

Had I been doing this? Bhagawan Baba, the ever-blissful, taught, “Don’t ask God for things in life, like a cup of tea which you can get easily.  Only ask for things that you need and that you can’t get by your own efforts.”

No matter how persistent my spiritual practice, some days I still feel I don’t know where to turn.  

 “When in difficulty, pray for guidance before jumping in any direction.  Men will give you advice only as far as their cleverness can reach; but the Lord who transforms dullness into intelligence will reveal to you the way out of the dilemma.  Ask the Lord and He will answer.”

 So, I continue my prayers, asking God for help. I do not beg or grovel.  But I ask for the Grace to see me through this problem.  For a mother to let go of her only daughter is not easy. My tears of loss had burned my cheeks for many years.

Then one day I realized though my daughter is my child, she, like all of us, belongs to God.  If she is his and I am his then we are together on a soul level, always. And by his Grace, we may one day be happy together again face-to-face.

Holy Little Ratna, the child saint

Yes!  I know how cold a morgue refrigerator is.  I cannot forget Bangalore (now Bengaluru), India, Saint John’s Hospital. And I cannot forget  Holy Little Ratna, the almost completely paralyzed spastic child, born into a poor Indian family, who had been given up to Catholic nuns, Franciscan Sisters, Servants of the Cross, whose Mother House was in Laski, Poland—famous for graduating teachers of the blind, founded, in fact, by Mother Elisabeth Czacka, herself a blind person.

Mother Elisabeth devoted her life to serving the blind through education, rehabilitation, and technical or job-oriented training.  She was particularly devoted to the care of blind multi-handicapped children who were poor orphans. 

Present-day Franciscan Sisters, Servants of the Cross have homes and schools for the blind in many places. The Joythi Seva Home houses mainly blind orphans and is located in Venkateshpuram, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Bengaluru. Astonishingly, when I was a volunteer there, Jyothi Seva had only eight resident nuns and two lay helpers to take care of more than 50 kids from age three months to 18—and not just blind and multi-physically handicapped kids, but some severely mentally challenged as well.

By the mystery of Grace, or Divine Design, the Mother Superior in Laski had allowed Ratna to stay at the home even though she was not blind—this fact in itself I regarded as an indication of the importance of this child within the community. But in a mundane world most miracles, if even noticed, are regarded as luck. 

I used to visit the Joythi Seva Home frequently and help the nuns out with the kids there.  I liked this volunteer work.  I did it because my Guru, Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, who lived not-too-far from Bengaluru, in Prasanthi Nilayam, A.P. where I make my home, was always urging his devotees to do social service. 

And I spoke Polish, the language of the nuns; it was my first language. I have to tell you, though, I did this type of thing—volunteering to bring happiness, as best I could, to those so much worse off than me—long before I had a Guru.  By my own experience, (That’s the Real Guru.) I learned that when I was helping others, my own problems weren’t so big.   I inherited this insight  as a kid—from my Polish mother and my Portuguese father.

Daddy Jack is always cajoling me into old-age homes and hospitals, especially on holidays, to hand out perfume and chocolates to the ladies and cigars and bottles of wine to the men.  Then I have to dance, or tell a story, or sing! 

“But, Daddy, I c….” 

Slap hard, I can feel the belt buckle before he unhooks it…  Mostly, I dance and dance and dance; and there is that psyche-imprint moment when one of the men on the Mary Hitchcock Hospital, Hanover, New Hampshire ward screams out in sudden terror as his intestines burst and the nurses run to pull the curtain around his bed and like marathon runners they wheel him, bed and all, out into the mystery/destiny corridor—his yeti howls  still squirming somewhere inside of me, the white-nylon stockings of the nurses still pursuing me.

But I have kept on dancing, on my toes, in ballerina shoes, a Space Voyager of the Emptiness, the Void that Holy Little Ratna never has to jettez across, perhaps. Anyway, out of this spiritual bouquet of blood and guts and screams and Daddy’s belt unbuckling sprang the first yogini I had ever met in crippled child form.

Other ghosts, saints, yogis and yoginis I had met before, appeared in adult bodies or as fully healthy child forms.

Mostly Ratna sat strapped into a white metal high chair at the Jyothi Seva Home and stared out of her flame-bright-seeing eyes at the blind, groping inmates, her brothers and sisters in the Place Between Worlds.

She was so loving to anyone who spoke with her.  When I would attempt to feed her, (She hardly ever ate—Teresa Neumann, of the communion-wafer feasts—she would try to stretch her tiny, stiff, almost-bone-china-white hands up to my face.  I would bend my head down towards hers and move into the touch, like a punch, really.  And I would hold back tears. Why let them drop into her soup?  And why feel sad, when she was so happy?

Anyway, one sunny Sunday morning, when the April birds were heady with love songs, on the way to Saint John’s Hospital in the arms of Sister Adella, Ratna, age eight, rasping and gasping for air, and weighing less than a well-fed puppy, died. It was that fast.

What was the cause of death?  Post-mortem examinations revealed a blockage in the stomach.  It had been there for a long time—undetected. A cauliflower-size appointment with Midwife Death, a record kept by the stars and planets of all the Galaxies.  Meanwhile, the good nuns thought, as did Ratna’s pediatrician, that her sewer-stench breath, which huffed out of her for weeks preceding the death, was caused by  a very bad case of pneumonia.  Pneumonia?

Because the Servants of the Cross  regarded Ratna as their very own, none of them could  face picking up her body at the hospital’s morgue.  Sister Agata, who was in charge at that time, called me and asked me to come to Bengaluru and perform the task.  Go to a morgue?  Pick up a body?  I had done much worse.  Besides, I could not refuse a nun who cleaned the excrement and vomit of discarded children, who loved them more than their own mothers, perhaps,  who cleaned their ears, cleaned their noses, cut their hair, their nails, gave them baths, rocked them in her arms, taught them human values, and dried their tears.

In fact, one of these kids had actually been found by Sister Adella—one of the Jyothi Seva nuns—on her way to Russell Market in the hub of the city.  She heard a baby whimpering in a city trash bin, crowds of people deafer than stones strolling by.  When Adella looked into the bin and saw the rustling garbage, she removed a few layers; and there was another precious flower in God’s garden, Holy Little Marta, black as onyx, her eyes already eaten by the maggots…..

………to be continued in next installment of Terry’s Words.

Dalai Lama on Attitude

Do you ever get irritated by people who try to persuade you that their way of doing things is so much better than yours? They are so sure of themselves, so condescending.  How do we handle such individuals, particularly if they're related to us?

His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama says, “Whether we utilize our intelligence in the right way or the wrong way is up to us.  Nobody can impose their values on us.  How can we learn to use our capacity constructively?  First we need to recognize our nature and then, if we have the determination, there is a real possibility of transforming the human heart.”

But whose heart needs transforming, ours or that of the pushy person?  In light of the teachings of the Embodiment of Compassion, the answer is simple.

“For change to happen in any community, the initiative must come from the individual.  If the individual can become a good, calm, peaceful person, this automatically brings a positive atmosphere to the family around him or her.  When parents are warm-hearted, peaceful and calm people, generally speaking their children will also develop that attitude and behavior.”

Therefore, no matter what kind of offensive behaviors surround us, it is up to us to use our innate intelligence to cope.  We can either step away from the disruption or learn how to let it wash over us without any effect.  

“The way our attitude works is such that it is often troubled by outside factors, so one side of the issue is to eliminate the existence of trouble around you,” His Holiness proposes.

For example, you really could change you work place if it truly is causing you too much stress.  Dalai Lama teaches, “The environment, meaning the surrounding situation, is a very important factor for establishing a happy frame of mind.  However, even more important is the other side of the issue, which is one’s own mental attitude.”

If one is strong enough to maintain a positive and healthy mental attitude, the results can be surprisingly beneficial to everyone concerned.

Having  withstood years of  calumny by the Chinese government who still refer to him as a “separatist” and who continue to persecute the people of Tibet, His Holiness  continues to teach non-violence and respect towards all. 

Meanwhile, he observes, “The surrounding situation may not be so friendly; it may even be hostile, but if your inner mental attitude is right, then the situation will not disturb your inner peace.  On the other hand, if your attitude is not right, then even if you are surrounded by good friends and the best facilities, you cannot be happy.  This is why mental attitude is more important than external conditions.  Despite this, it seems to me that many people are more concerned about their external conditions, and neglect the inner attitude of the mind.  I suggest that we should pay more attention to our inner qualities.”

Sai Baba on Ananda, Catch It If You Can

(A short Essay)

Of course you know what it is; otherwise you wouldn’t keep trying to catch it.  It’s that sense of delight we experience now and again, a freedom from ourselves, you might say.

According to Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, holding onto the sense of delight is important.  He says, “When the world melts away, when there is bliss, or even when there is a temporary feeling of happiness, hold to that state and stay with it, and do not allow yourself to fall back into ego emotions and thoughts.”

But what is the source of this bliss, this Ananda?  Where do we go to get it?  Sai Baba explains, “From man comes a series of spiritual rays whose quality is delight, bliss.  All man need do is to manifest that bliss.  The idea of search is in error. Everyone already knows the truth.  All that is needed is to put that truth into practice, to manifest it.”

So, the spiritual rays are already within us. “Pure bliss is the innate nature of man,” Puttaparthi Sai says. But why then aren’t we always feeling blissful?

The Beloved Guru gives an example, “The Lord’s name is like a mountain of sugar.  So long as the sugar is on the tongue you feel the sweetness in taste.  Similarly, so long as the heart has love, peace and devotion, you feel bliss.”

The realization that comes, after pondering this teaching, is that once love, peace and devotion are no longer in the heart, once hate, anger, jealousy, greed and fear, for example, push out the bliss-giving emotions, then the devotee has forgotten God.  The ego has taken over.  This is why Lord Sai repeatedly asks, “Why fear then I am here?”  If you maintain a sense of constant, integrated awareness of your connection with Omniscience, Omnipresence, and Omnipotence, at all times then you can hold on to the bliss.

Meanwhile, Bhagawan Baba warns that the acquisition of wealth and possessions should not be mistaken as the means to achieve bliss.  There is a difference between enjoying worldly comfort and enjoying inward bliss.  One does not need worldly comfort in order to experience Ananda.

“Man still believes that bliss can be got from the external world,” Sai Baba says.  “He hoards wealth, authority, fame and learning, in order to acquire happiness.  But he finds that they are all fraught with fear, anxiety and pain.  The millionaire is beset by the tax gatherer, the cheat, the donation hunter, the house breaker, and his sons and kinsmen who clamor for their share.  Happiness of material origins is short lived and has misery as its obverse.”

But no one can steal the bliss you are feeling when you watch the sun setting beyond the fields, or the moon rising above the distant mountains.  Catch those moments.  Hold onto them.  According to Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, feeling such delight is what you were born to do.

The America I remember

The Surgeon General smoking

Marlboro Man cigarettes, priests

altering the minds of altar boys,

the President himself up on charges

of sexually harassing women 

between speeches on family values.

Brand new cars parked in the lots

of towers of imported steel,

everyone an executive manager

of somebody else’s financial deals.

Dollars crisp and clean spilling

out of Automatic Teller Machines

where new leaves once grew on trees, 

smog obliterating the horizons,

oil choking once sacred beaches,

the seagulls gasping

for recognition.

Gangster kids, cheating teachers, 

out-of-control credit cards,

bankrupting the possibility

of saving a single dime.

Mortgage payments outlasting

the houses, the so-called owners

of the houses.  Apple pie crust,

a glue of preservatives,

plastic surgeons carving

eternal doll faces,

unable to save the dolls.

Artists pleading for audiences,

truckers speeding on speed,

heroin eyes, marijuana ennui,

my own mother afraid 

of the night-time streets

in a town so small and sweet,

everyone knows everyone’s creed

and drug prescriptions.

The snow mountains sinking,

the desert canyons slipping,

Death Valley itself dropping below

sea level, closer and closer to Beijing.

Juan Rosales serving Mexican booze

and Chinese chicken tacos to film stars,

in unlit, dull as old flame bars,

the Cambodian student flunking

English 101 because she can’t study

and work three jobs as well—Hell,

just to keep donuts in the house,

how she escaped over the barbed wire fence

of the Kmer Rouge concentration camp,

risking her life for the documentary dream

of Abraham Lincoln’s sainthood.

For what?  She wants to know

because the slaves are still slaves

she says, and I cannot answer her now,

nor could I then, or before,

riding the bus five hours

a day to keep the landlord out

of the palimony courts.

God, a word we trusted,

like the made-in-the USA bordellos.

I remember every pizza parlor,

every fast food fry shack.

Mostly I remember the shadow men,

their impotent beds,

insomnia swelling their lids,

adrenalin of terror

keeping them going

nowhere and everywhere

at once in instantaneity. 

When I remember America

I think of the Warm Springs Indian

Reservation, how the people took me in,

feeding me Deschutes River salmon for weeks,

singing, rattling, dancing the Medicine

until there is no more home

to come home to,

I say, falling asleep

and into my self

11,000 miles away

from San Clemente’s nuclear plant

perched like a huge temple

on the best shore of California waste.

Yes, I remember,

 remember,

 remember.

 I do not dare to forget. 

Dalai Lama on Our True Nature

As a child, I thought I could fly.  I studied the birds taking off and landing, wondering what made bumblebees buzz and stars shine.   

His Holiness, the 14^th Dalai Lama says, “We have to consider what we human beings really are.  We are not like machine-made objects.  If we were merely mechanical entities, then machines themselves could alleviate all of our sufferings and fulfil our needs.  However, since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone.  Instead, we should consider our origins and nature to discover what we require.”

Early in life I was the lucky recipient of much love.  My parents adored me and my maternal grandmother, whose house we lived in, regarded me as her life’s purpose.

Tenzin Gyatso, who still calls himself a simple monk, explains, “Leaving aside the complex question of the creation and evolution of our universe, we can at least agree that each of us is the product of our own parents.  In general, our conception took place not just in the context of sexual desire but from our parents’ decision to have a child.  Such decisions are founded on responsibility and altruism—the parents’ compassionate commitment to care for their child until it is able to take care of itself.  Thus, from the very moment of our conception, our parents’ love is directly involved in our creation.”

My parents definitely wanted me—and they were deeply in love when I was conceived. 

“Moreover, we are completely dependent upon our mother’s care from the earliest stages of our growth, Dalai Lama instructs. “According to some scientists, a pregnant woman’s mental state, be it calm or agitated, has a direct physical effect on her unborn child.”

My mother was fully happy awaiting the birth of her first-born child.

“The expression of love is also very important at the time of birth, His Holiness says, “Since the very first thing we do is suck milk from our mother’s breast, we naturally feel close to her, and she must feel love for us in order to feed us properly.  If she feels anger or resentment her milk may not flow freely.”

I was born into the lap of luxury in terms of love, but ours was a no-frills life.

The embodiment of Compassion noted, “Then there is the critical period of brain development from the time of birth up to at least the age of three or four, during which time loving physical contact is the single most important factor for the normal growth of the child. If the child is not held, hugged, cuddled or loved, its development will be impaired.”

Because I received the necessary nurturing, by the time tragedy struck when I was nearly three, I could withstand the absence of my parents from my life—due  to Father’s extreme illness and near death  necessitating Mother’s having to  work two jobs.

Grandmother held, hugged, and loved us through this crisis. 

CONTROL

SUNDAY IS FUN DAY (Special)

I have never thought I was much of a control freak.  I have always bragged about being able to go with the flow.  Sometimes the flow was more like a tsunami or a toilet flush, but I adjusted.  Yesterday, though, I was exposed as the control FOOL that I really am.

At about 5 p.m. I was finishing up a project that had taken me about three days and approximately 14 hours to complete.  It is a proposal to a literary agent, complete with query, sample chapters, etc. etc.  To writers, creating the query letter and the proposal are sometimes harder to do than writing the entire book.  Whether you get through to a publisher hangs on that initial letter, or at least that is what is preached to us.  Frankly, for a long time, now, I have announced that I knew that God is in charge of my life so I was aloof when I wrote things, not too concerned about whether they were accepted or rejected.

Yesterday showed me that I am not the detached spiritual aspirant that I thought I was.  I was finishing up the last edit of the material I was going to print and send when suddenly the current went off.  In India this is a common occurrence, so I didn't even blink.  I knew the computer had about 10 more minutes on battery and I was literally only seconds away from being finished.  In semi darkness, not looking at the keyboard, which I rarely do having been properly taught by my high-school typing teacher decades ago, I pressed Control Save, to keep the material in the perfect shape I'd finally achieved.  It was with a sense of pride and joy that I completed my three days of work.

Then, all of a sudden, I saw the screen go blank!  Everything was deleted! What was happening?   Then the computer signaled that I had only a few seconds to shut it down and exit since the electricity had not come on yet. With a huge sigh of frustration, I did that.  Waiting for the lights to come back on I managed to call my computer technician and he said not to worry, the "lost" material would be able to be restored somehow.

Before long, the electricity was back on and I was madly searching the Recycle Bin and every other place on the Mother Board for my file, "Submission Details".  After 29 minutes of mounting frustration, I knew the sad truth. The material was vaporized! 

Even the help of the computer genius could not restore the document.  The only submission detail to be noted was me—in a state of complete powerlessness.  I stared and stared and stared at the keyboard.  Then I saw what might have happened in the quasi darkness.  I timidly asked the fellow, more than half my age: What happens if you accidentally hit Control Z instead of Control S?  He said, with the serenity of detachment, "Everything gets undone."  My heart thumped madly. I felt faint.

It was of no comfort, whatsoever, that he and I realized simultaneously what had happened.  In fact, I felt humiliated and more powerless than ever.

I did rant at the stupidity of a system that allows you to UNDO what you've done without any backup warning, such as asking, DO YOU WANT TO UNDO THIS?  You know, the way you are asked if you really want to delete something into the Recycle Bin!  But my ranting only elicited smiles of sympathy, (or were they smiles of glee?) from the handsome young man.

When he zoomed off on his brand new motorcycle I came to my grandmotherly senses.  Why did I imagine, once again, that I was in control of anything in my life?  I had forgotten what I'd struggled for years to integrate into my conscious awareness, God is the only Cause and the only Effect.

With much humility I bowed my head remembering once again that it is better to go with the flow, not with my cement will.  Obviously, the query and the proposal letter were just not meant to be sent out as they were. 

Today, I will remember who the Real Doer in my life is! I don't want to be exposed, again, as a Control Fool.