Swami's Nuns

I must have had a few past lives as a nun because I've always been attracted to that way of life. When I first came to India back in 1978 there were at least a dozen of us younger foreign ladies and I thought we should all live together in a convent doing Swami's work. No one else thought so.

I was young, about 45, and didn't know anything about the way Swami works on us. Because each of us has had many many past lives, we are all quite unique and require different methods of transformation.

Now I'm old and still don't know anything accept as a Sai Graduate we have to appear to be good examples of the Lord's teaching otherwise people will doubt His power and ability to transform us, which He has certainly done in my case!

Where am I, oh yes, my sister and I watched Oprah the other day and Oprah had about four nuns on her show. The people who do the show had gone inside the convent to see how they lived and to see how things were done and it was very interesting. They spoke of the three vows of chastity, obedience and poverty and gave us a good look at how those vows were being practiced in their daily lives. They have morning prayers at 5 and then breakfast and more prayers and games in order to exercise. Then they have group singing and more prayers and reading their prayer books. The meals are eaten in silence and they retire about nine.

Naturally I compared our life at the ashram with their's and found that ours was much harder, For one thing the Mother Superior said there was a great deal of love between the sisters in the convent so that no one was ever lonely. Relationships are even frowned upon at our ashram, IN FACT IN THE PAST, THERE WERE OLDER WOMEN WHO ACTUALLY WATCHED US TO MAKE SURE WE DIDN'T GET TOO CLOSE TO ONE ANOTHER. WE CALLED THEM SPIES.

There were reasons for these differences between our ashram ladies and the nuns, of course. For one thing, nuns are married to Jesus Christ and will never leave the convent. If any of the foreign ladies ever hinted that they were married to Swami, God help them even though He has always been our Beloved and is closer then the eye lid to the eye. We were all there temporarily as shown by the fact that the 12 ladies including me, have all disappeared and gone back 'to the world' Also we were foreigners trying to live in a Hindu ashram in India. There are certainly cultural differences. For one thing, Hindu ladies pretty much stay in their families and don't form attachments elsewhere. I always lived on the ashram and so I was EXPECTED TO STAY BY MYSELF WITH FEW VISITERS AND NO SOCIALIZING.

These things made it more difficult for us than may be with the usual Catholic renunciates although we did hold to the vows of chastity, obeisance and poverty. Chastity was a given, obedience also. No one did anything without permission although I left that last day without permission. I feel that it is very different when you ARE Swami. You feel stupid asking Him something when He lives in your heart and you know that He is the very reason for your being.

And then there is poverty. Well, when you know that all of your money is really His money, you just don't spend much on things that aren't necessary. I spent half my pension on all the books that I wrote and printed with His/our money, and which were sold in His bookstore. Many people asked me if I got permission to write the books. I thought that was silly because, how could I have written them without His hand on mine and His thoughts in my head. I always felt that if He didn't want the books they could be trashed....which is what happened in the end anyway.

So even though I never got my convent, I was a renunciate for the 30 years I lived at His ashram just as I am now. Many of the other ladies were nuns also even though some were married and lived in the world.

I don't know that it should be really a question of taking a vow. It's really just a question of living for God or living for yourself. Some of us simply do not live for ourselves. If you are living for yourself I think it's called being a REPUBLICAN OR A CONSERVITIVE! OK OK, I'M JUST KIDDING!