Until I came to the ashram I didn't know that I was a spiritual being as well as a human
being. And I went to a United Church, a little great church in Princeton, B.C. and I learned
the names of all the Bible, people in the Bible and books of the Bible. But there wasn't
anything there really, more from my granny who read the Bible every day. So it was interesting
seeing how I came into it. So I'm starting at the beginning in 1977 in Lethbridge. Streaming
droplets of light shower down on me like crystals, tiny shining bits like heaven's rain. The
room becomes very bright. I feel bright and it turns so silent. Little stars settle in
us and around us and I even breathe them in. I open my eyes a crack to see everyone concentrated
and glowing, closing my eyes. It is quiet beyond quietness, bright beyond brightness. Susan
has just led our women's group in a standing meditation. I'm amazed at the intimacy, immediacy.
We invoke the light and it fills us, making itself part of me, the whole space and everybody
in it. The dark, dingy church basement is transformed. So this is yoga. It must be something
extraordinary.
Ashram, August 1977. I've been depressed and my best friend Susan wants to share what
was, what has helped her. In May she attended the 10 days of yoga at the ashram and she
already taught me the light and meditation we did at the women's group as well as how
to work with dreams and chant mantras to calm my mind. I especially like finding the messages
in my dreams. Now we're on our way to the conference called Women and Spiritual Life
which seems right somehow. Still, I'm nervous. I'm excited but also leery. Will it be weird,
foreign, full of swamis? What are they and what will they say? How will I fit in? Stepping
out of the Volkswagen van onto the ashram ground, I smell something familiar, fresh, uplifting.
I've been here before. That's the feeling I get from the smell. I don't know how to
explain it but I feel connected and I know I will be safe here and that everything will
be fine. Surrounded by trees and greenness I feel I'm back in the dream I had a few
nights ago. Back where we're driving to a hidden place, a familiar place behind the
mountain and into a valley, a place that's hard to find and very far from everything
else, especially my family and friends. A woman comes to meet us. She looks happy and
is such a lovely person, so normal. Susan and I walk down the path a little to an A-frame
overlooking the lake, beach, prayer room. When I open the door again, a wonderful smell
familiar like something I remember. The next morning we go to our class and sit in a big
circle of women in the guest lodge. The ashram women are dressed in skirts and nylons and
the rest of us are like hippies in old jeans and t-shirts. What is it to be a woman? They
ask and we write our own reflections. I explore wife, mother, daughter, sister, teacher. As
a woman I sometimes feel powerless, dismissible, invisible. I am responsible for nurturing,
loving, consoling my children and husband. At work I am a doer and a problem solver.
I've resisted entering the unknown spiritual part of me and have only seen it through small
cracks. Who am I? How am I changing? I have a feeling I haven't been changing. I am aware
that I am a woman but not beyond who I am. Suddenly I suddenly understand that I don't
know who I am. Strange. For two days we write, we read our responses and talk to each other.
We do spiritual practice. Everything goes deep and directs me back to myself and to what
I think. I have very powerful feelings. Sometimes I feel frightened or mistrustful at the start
of an exercise or I imagine something dramatic will happen and hit a barrier. That same dream
that I had before coming keeps arising in my mind. The building we are in seems to be
just like the long cedar building in my dream and today we see a little cabin from my dream
where Susan's husband Russell was standing on the porch and Susan was waiting across
the rushing stream. That stream is here too. How can I see something in a dream before I
actually experienced it? Why is it also familiar? I explore my fear of crisis, of losing things.
I remember the last party I went to and how futile it seemed. Yet now I am frightened
of losing my friends, my marriage. Keep a spiritual diary, they say. Ask yourself questions.
Give your feelings. Choose something to work on and write down your insights and intuitions.
Review it at the end of the month. I am going to try this at home. This afternoon Swami
Radha comes to speak to us. Something inside me is touched by her wisdom. There is an underlying
question in my life. Is this it? I have done many of the expected things. Gone to school,
university, taught school, married, had children, been involved in community projects and women's
groups. I am starting a daycare, something I really believe in. I love my two young children.
Still, there seems to be something missing. Is this all? Swami Radha looks more like a
well-dressed and kindly grandmother than my image of what a Swami would be. She appears
to be ordinary, but I know she is extraordinary, extraordinary, after a moment in her presence.
I am struck by the power behind her speech and the simplicity of the teachings. After
she has spoken to us, all I can say is, why haven't I heard this before? Why hasn't anyone
ever said this to me? She speaks about the purpose of life, living life fully with quality.
She talks about the light and she gives everyday examples that are the essence of simplicity.
Swami Radha talks of making time with family, quality time. Mealtimes should be made different
by paying attention to the detail in order to appreciate what is received, making the
setting and presentation pleasant and sincerely giving thanks. She tells the story of her
guru pouring cream into the black coffee until the cup is filled with white cream. The blackness
is transformed. She talks about climbing the snow-peak mountains to the top and how lonely
it is. She encourages women to live their focus to the most high and stop being so immature
and selfish. It is a challenge to live life fully and not get stuck at the bottom of the
mountain. My heart aches for her and I want to help. She says that every woman is complete
in herself and must allow the completeness to manifest. A woman who wants quality shouldn't
be involved with a man who doesn't want quality. What do you do when you want your life? What
do you want your life to be? If you haven't brought quality into your life, own life,
you can't ask it of others. And then she speaks of doing the divine light once a day and life
will take on a different meaning. She promises the effort to cooperate with the evolution
of consciousness is worth it. She challenges, aren't there women out there who are willing
to aspire? I can feel part of me wanting to step onto this path and a part of me definitely
wanting to stay in the security of known pain and darkness. It seems scary and very distant
this message of change and effort. But I decide I will do one divine light invocation today.
What can I lose? Everybody starts at the beginning. It's good to know that. And often I go back
when I'm teaching to find out what it was like for me at the beginning.
Thank you.
