CENTERING

You are three people:

the one you think you are,

the one others think you are

and the one you really are.

Baba

For the seven years leading up to my 1980 interview with Swami, and for fourteen years afterward, we enjoyed less material security than before. Paul never did find a regular job again after leaving the Simcoe County Board of Education. I worked only occasionally. We took out no lease on an apartment, nor mortgage on a house. 

All that we knew was that Baba was at the helm of our ship as it was blown this way and that across the choppy sea of change. One of our favourite photographs of him shows him looking out like a Captain at the helm of a ship; we call it “Baba at the tiller”. His gaze looks into eternity, seeing all that comes between the immediate and the infinite.

When  Baba asked me whether I wanted spiritual advancement, he was closing the door irrevocably on other alternatives. It seemed that he was increasing the tests of our mettle, in intensity and duration.

One of the first things that he did was to untie our ship from its moorings. During the troubled period of 1981-2 we were abruptly estranged from elders in our families. Under their wings, we could not have spread the wings of our spirit.

Birchholme on the St. Lawrence beckoned, as a refuge where we could, again, lick our wounds before the next onslaught on the job market. Unfortunately, or so it seemed, my father refused to let us stay at Birchholme longer than a long weekend because of impending guests invited by my cousin. 

Eventually we were reconciled with our elders, and our relationship was actually improved - thanks probably to what we had learned in the meantime. Our spirit was stronger and happier. Our elders never did understand our affinity with Swami. Yet he knew them well. He made them into teachers who, by kicking us out of their nests, forced us to fly.

Baba had also said during my 1980 interview, “You have friends there. They are waiting for you.”

Our “Man from the Ministry” and his family took us in, thanking us for telling them about Baba. We lived in tents in their North Toronto backyard for the summer, then they found us a house-sitting job when the weather got colder.

For many months, as material advancement eluded us, we often pondered what Baba meant by “the middle”. Or was it “the centre”? Ontario contains Canada’s largest city, Toronto. Businesses in Calgary open their offices as early as 7:00 am to be in touch with that city, which is, after all, not in the very east of Canada, but closer to the middle. Quite apart from cold geographical considerations, or the economic weight of Canada’s largest city, I was born in Ontario and knew it best as my home province.

A deeper meaning also unfolded, as I remembered Baba’s advice given in many discourses, to stay in the centre, our own spiritual heart, deep within, wherever we may go.

Meanwhile we had to survive. As a serious job-hunter I took whatever courses, seminars, workshops and tests were available. It became clear that I was overqualified for most clerical work, and not very good at it either. It seemed only right that I should be able to qualify at managerial level. That could be the solution.

I took home armfuls of books from the career section of public library. Books like Games Your Mother Never Taught You and How to Dress for Success. I learned how important it is to climb the corporate ladder until you can grab that heady symbol of success, the key to the executive washroom.

All those courses in Public Relations and conference management were packed with bright young women,  glamorously dressed, many with more and higher university degrees than I, and still, like me, unemployed. We all enjoyed our classes. I suspect we had begun to give up doing things we didn’t like, and were ready to follow our dreams.

Eventally it dawned on me that I did not want the key to the executive washroom, and that “Dressing for success” would mean spending huge sums of money on a wardrobe that would set me apart from ordinary people. It would take away all the fun of shopping for second-hand clothing; that fun was the only privilege that I was prepared to enjoy, thanks to still having savings to fall back on.

I remembered that as coordinator of a community project called “The People Pool” I had been unable to pay myself more than the rest of our team after the first week. Throughout the rest of the project, each of us got the same pay of an even one hundred dollars a week.

One evening our instructor in writing for public relations  at Ryerson University told us to write a short piece on a subject of our choice. It would appear that the Subject of my choice was far overseas:

O to be in India now October lengthens,

where sounds of conches mingled with trumpets 

blare wild, wedding music, 

and multi-coloured saris, like a million butterflies,

dot burning sands under azure skies.

Immaculate white dhotis worn by men 

fleck crowds eager for festivals,

thronging toward sacred fires

that burn seven days long. 

Pundits feed the yagna 

by pouring melted butter into it, 

intoning holy writings.

Nine gems fall from an avatar’s fingers, 

gleaming before destruction through flames; 

ashes become their lot. 

How blessed those holy gatherings, 

whose memories I treasure. 

Will my steps soon turn eastward around this globe? 

This longing increases ...

Paul, Mary and I each struggled with our own identity crises, and, inevitably, with each others’. Hard-working Paul was reaching official retirement age, after several years of unwanted early retirement. It seemed that every endeavour to support himself and his family reached a peak, and then faded away. I had turned fifty, without finding my vocation. Mary was thirteen, and rebelling in black leather, cascades of safety pins and an orange mohawk hairdo.

The day came when I reached such a depth of discouragement that I cursed my spiritual Lord. I was driving our wonky old Volvo away from the hideous house that we were occupying in the east end of Toronto. Heavy clouds hung over the most depressing city landscape I thought to inhabit. There was no hope in sight of anything better. Yet we could not even be sure that this misery would not evolve into something worse, something more unimaginable. How could we have sunk so low? “Goddamn You, Baba!” I roared, hitting the wheel of the car with my fist.

There was no one around to see, in those back lanes, and so I let myself rant on. “You’ve got us in a horrible mess, saying to go to Canada. I hate living in this ugly house, not knowing when I’ll have to leave, and or where to go when I do. This is the dregs. I hate this part of town. I’m desperate about Mary; she’s disappeared again.

“We’ve tried everything. I go west to get work and people ask me if I’m not ashamed to come from Ontario. I lose my job two days after I get it, and meanwhile Paul and Mary are on their way west.

“We come back east and Dad throws us out of "Birchholme", and I'll never see that dear island and house again. We live in tents in our friends’ backyard, an object of pity to all the neighbours ...

What more are You going to throw our way? Have You finished toying with us in this cat and mouse game of Yours?” 

Suddenly Baba appeared before my inner vision, smiling sweetly. “Feel better now?”

He was the last person I expected to see, even though, if you think about it, I had called on Him personally, to damn Himself. I hung my head, but His next words made me look up and lose myself in the compassion of His eyes. They had their Mother Look. “I’d rather hear you curse Me than pretend to adore Me when you are fed up with everything. Go ahead. I can take it. Take your anger to Me, not to others. That’s what I’m here for!” 

There was no escape from Love divine, once He revealed His roles in the play that is my life. Several years would go by before I would realize that the roles that I play are not the same as who I really am. The label that I wear shows the person that I think I am and the way I wear it tells others what to think I am. Who I really am - it seems only God knows, so far. Finding out is my path and my goal.

I soon found myself back in the teaching treadmill, going out into the high schools of Toronto as a supply teacher. The climate of the classrooms, and staff rooms, had changed since I last ventured there.

In one senior class our reading assignment was on the subject of suicide. From the discussion I could tell that several of the teenagers had seriously considered it. I pointed out the implications of that choice, if reincarnation were a fact: “You’ll just have to come back to face the same problem, perhaps under better circumstances, perhaps not.” At least freedom of speech allowed me to risk that comment. 

In junior French classes the pupils born in Canada fooled around, while more recent arrivals waved their hands eagerly and asked me whether I’d marked their tests yet. In the staff rooms, young teachers with brilliant qualifications were afraid of being declared redundant. Older staff members ranged from dedicated to disgruntled, as ever. I had never felt comfortable in staff rooms anyway. I didn’t seem to fit in, no matter how I wished that I did.

With beautiful irony, my temporary Alberta teaching certificate arrived in Toronto in February of the year following my application. I could not feel any pull to return to the west, or to pursue that profession in my native Ontario.

It was not until 12 March 2007 that it dawned on me that for the past twelve years I had been living in Central Ontario.

PSALM 84 As Experienced in Prasanthi Nilayam

How lovely is Your temple, where the multitudes gather for Your grace!

My soul is longing for the courts of the lord, and my heart and flesh cry out for the living God.

Even the sparrow has found a house and the swallow a nest for her young above Your altars.

Blessed are they that live in Your house, singing Your praises day by day. Blessed is the one who takes from You the strength to live in the world, who walks through it in Your way.

Your blessing goes with those who serve You, who make a well where there was none, to be filled with the rains that You send to the dry earth.

O Lord of hosts, hear my prayer. You are our protection, You who have called us to Your presence.

A day in Your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than live in the tents of wickedness.

For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory: no good will be withheld from those who walk in Your righteousness.

O Lord of hosts, blessed are those who trust in You.

Birch and Pine Whisper His Name, Chapter 61

INNERVIEWS - UNLIMITED

The outer vision is purposely insufficient, momentary and transitory, so that you may long for, and acquire, the capacity to view me in your heart.

Seven years went by before I could make another pilgrimage to India. During those seven years, I had many “innerviews”, chiefly during morning meditations, when the eyes of my spirit visited distant Prasanthi Nilayam. In the cool depths of my imagination, Swami would come by and call me for an interview - not every day, but from time to time.

These inner encounters gave me needed strength to face and overcome the many difficulties of everyday “outer” living. My spirit often soared in ways that brightened my vision. Phyllis Krystal calls these excursions to the vantage point of the Higher Consciousness “tapestry” experiences. I call them “mountain-top” views. They help to keep me in a bigger picture when I get bogged down in mundane worries. I wrote them faithfully in my diary, carefully dated, but timeless in their power and love, like this one of 9 December 1988:

You and your husband are worried who will  die first. But whoever does comes straight to Me - and both will die anyway. I am with you always - now too - so be happy, no matter what the circumstances. You yourself are worried about coming to see Me - but Swami always helps you to make such visits worthwhile. So don’t be stopped when the time is right to come.

My dearest hope for that September 1989 visit to Sathya Sai Baba was that he would call me in and tell me face to face whether or not my “innerviews” were just wishful thinking or real experiences on a level above ordinary consciousness. Was I being foolish to rely on them - or was I gradually gaining faith? Once in Prasanthi Nilayam I found the “innerviews” were increasing in frequency and fullness.

At Prasanthi Nilayam appearances may change, but the spirit remains. Buildings are demolished, others rise up in their place. People come and go. National groups mushroom up, like fairy rings on a lawn, and just as ephemeral. Setting out “alone”, I found groups of people wearing distinctive scarves meeting here and there in between darshans, bhajans, meals and lectures.

Soon I joined a small gathering from my other country. Coming from different parts of Switzerland, we coalesced and formed a group, designing our own pink scarf, which we wore self-consciously, when we remembered. The first few meetings we felt our way, finding out who could speak what.

Switzerland has three official languages and one more that is as near to official as makes no matter. Most of us in the group were bilingual, but few proved to be bilingual in the same way. The combinations and permutations were mind-boggling, especially for our only trilingual member. Soon weary of ceaseless interpreting, she suggested that we fall back on English, although our degrees of fluency varied wildly.

Organized at last, we began by congratulating ourselves on being far from Switzerland, which we denigrated as a materialistic, stuffy place. After a day or so, it occurred to us that perhaps Swami might not favour this negative approach. We needed to find some good things to say about our country. After a blank silence, we found several mercies, large and small, to be thankful for, and so reached a turning point. At the following  darshan we ladies were in the first line. Swami stopped in front of us as if we had just arrived: “What country?”

“Switzerland, Swami,” I said.

He looked at me as if he didn’t believe His ears. “What country?”

I let someone else answer who did not have dual citizenship, and he seemed satisfied. “How many?”

The answer brought a broad smile. Then Swami went on, without inviting us to the coveted interview.

No interview was granted that visit for any of our Swiss group. Meanwhile, our meetings were taking on a life of their own. By tacit consent, discussion was cut to a minimum. Music and silence transcended words, as we fell back on those languages of the heart - singing and meditation.

Group meditation led to a series of group “innerviews”. Most of those described here came to my inner eye, but I call them group innerviews because I am convinced that they could not have come without the presence of all of us. In the rest of this chapter, innerviews are in italics.

At the first Group Innerview I saw in my mind’s eye: a large lotus blooming in the centre of our circle. Meanwhile, a soft grey-white mist was curling up around us, lifting us up.  When the mist cleared, we were still in our circle, floating over a serene landscape. A sparkling lake lay below us, among green foothills. In the distance tumbled a range of mountain peaks. Then we were wafted higher, beyond the orbit of the earth, and shown some of the breath-taking vastness of starry space.

After this meditation, a sweet atmosphere still enfolded us like a gentle mist. The one who had the vision shared it with the others, shyly, uncertain how they would take it. We all seemed to accept this inner happening, and to appreciate the sharing, unaware that this was only the beginning of a new phase in the life of our group. Our inner adventures progressed day by day, developing a storybook quality.

On the second day, group meditation brought me a glimpse of a giant cosmos flower. The cosmos, found in many North American gardens, is tall, delicate and daisy-like, it blooms in various colours. The cosmos of my vision was a very pale shade of pink, paler than the lotus.

On the following day, it was a lotus that arose in our midst: A gold light appeared around us, out of which I soon discerned tall, gleaming Devas. Baba took the place of the lotus in the centre. Clockwise inside our circle he passed, giving us each his Feet. He then handed out little white-enameled brass lamps, each decorated in a delicate tracery of pale blue, turquoise, mauve, pink, orange or yellow. Then, we were watching the sun set over a lake. When the crimson, orange and rose had faded into gold, then into pale green, and the evening star had pierced the sky, Baba appeared high above the band of twilight, holding in his hand an image of the Earth.

Seven of us were present at the fourth meeting of this series, when two of us reported visions. This is Kathy’s:

We were sitting around a large wheel that lay flat on the ground, and each of us had a sparkling light. We inserted our lights in the rim of the wheel, and Baba his in the centre. When He twirled the wheel, all our lights merged into one brilliant circle around his light.

And this is the other vision reported to the group:

Swami came and gave us each a large pink cosmos flower, saying, ‘I am the Heart of the Cosmos.’ The scene shifted to a sunlit meadow. We could see Swami coming, and we ran to him like little children. He sat down under the big tree on our right to tell stories, while we snuggled around him.

It takes courage to tell about such seemingly fanciful inward events. The person who appeared to have the most visions in the group was often tempted to edit, rather than be suspected of exaggerating. We may only guess what more might have been seen than was reported. Near the end of our series of meetings I added to our collection: After praying a lot, I suddenly ‘saw’ us as the petals of the lotus. Then we were with Swami in a small cove. At our feet were plenty of flat pebbles, mostly of a pale red. They were just the right size to fit in the palm of the hand, and perfect for being skipped on the calm water. The cove was small, but the lake or sea large, its far shore below the horizon. We were intent on skipping stones. Little rainbows linked each hop of the stone when Swami skipped his. We stopped to marvel.

Sitting in a circle on the beach, we each held in a closed fist a stone that Swami had chosen for us. When he gave us the signal to open our hands, the beach pebbles had turned into flashing gems - a diamond for most of us. Kathy’s father held a blue sapphire, and Susan a golden topaz.

Afterward Susan looked more pensive than usual. When I ventured to ask why, she told me that she had lately been looking for a topaz with a deep, golden colour, as recommended by a local astrologer.

Lately we had been singing an old French air to Sai-inspired words, full of symbols for the spiritual heart within: 

Je la vois fleurir, belle rose, Rose de l’amour divin ...

One day pilgrims from the Ivory Coast heard us singing about the rose of divine love in the heart, where shines the light of God, and where flows the crystal stream of inspiration and purity from the original Source. Our Ivorian guests who joined us during our singing stayed at our invitation to meditate afterward.

Meanwhile, Susan was missing, as she had some social service to do. Her seva completed, she hurried to our meeting, hoping to be on time for mediation, and wishing in a vague way that our group were more racially diverse, like those of other nations. Ah, well, she reasoned, we would soon be disbanding, and did it really matter? Just a fantasy, she told herself, dismissing the idea and taking a deep breath to clear her mind.

Arriving at our meeting-place she found us already plunged in meditation, our circle expanded and no longer pale-skinned. There we sat majestically, like pieces from a giant chess set: Caucasian, African, Caucasian, African. Stunned, but grateful, the later-comer sank down in a space that had been left for her between two Ivorians.

In addition to the scenes that came to my inner eye during Swiss group meditation, I had many visions and auditions where Baba spoke to my personal condition. One in particular comes to mind.

Normally I am happy to see people called in for interview, the more so when I know them, even a little. One morning, however, I found that I am not immune to jealousy. What I had against this travel-worn group in bi-coloured scarves I do not know. Perhaps I felt that I had been quite patient enough, and that I, who had waited several weeks without an interview, ought to have precedence over people who had recently arrived. For some reason, I felt furious when these women and men were called in by Baba.

Fuming, I sat opposite the verandah, with a faint hope that the chanting of the priest inside the temple and the holiness of his puja would calm me down. Suddenly I “heard” inwardly Swami’s voice. You wanted to come to this interview. “Come, then. Come, come!”

I knew he meant to come inside in spirit, and so imagined myself in the interview room, facing Him. “No, sit here! “ He ordered, pointing to a place right beside him, facing the people.

I settled myself and looked toward them, but could not see them. They were hidden behind a thick brown fog that smelled bad. I suddenly felt their need must be much greater than mine. “Oh, Swami,” I said. “How horrible! How can You stand it?”

“I shall have them in here as often as it takes to clear it away!”

I looked at the two others whom he had also invited, two ladies in white from a middle eastern country. I could see them clearly. No fog obstructed my view, but a jagged red blaze of anger was coming from their heart regions.

Looking back at the larger group, I could see the fog lightening in colour, and beginning to clear the floor. A golden light seeped out from the group inside. Then I saw, outside the clinging brown cloud, more golden light coming from tall Beings of Light stationed at intervals around the group. And so it seemed that there was a concerted effort coming from Swami, from some Devas and from the people themselves to dissipate the unwholesome cloud. 

At this point I lost concentration and my focus flitted back to the place where I was sitting outside. I fell into amazed contemplation of what I had just apparently witnessed. After some time, my mind ventured back into the interview room, to find the fog thinning in places. Again my focus shifted back outside. A third “visit” to the interview room showed the fog completely banished by a golden radiance emanating from the group.

The angry red light flaring from the two “clear” ladies in white had softened to a magenta shade pulsating more gently from their hearts. I sensed that it would take Swami more time to change that red to soft pink than it had to clear away the brown fog around the others.

The actual content of that interview was known only to the group and to Swami, and none of my business. I had, I believe, been called in to glimpse their auras, to see some of what Swami sees when he looks at us. As Wendy had explained ten years earlier, He sees the more subtle aspects of our being, beyond the body.

During the last week of my stay, Swami subjected me to the blank look familiar to many who have visited his “workshop”. For a couple of days he would beam a gracious smile along my line of ladies, only to flick it off when it reached me, then turn it on for the rest of the row. This happened often enough to convince me that my imagination was not playing tricks on me. Swami might be though. To find out why, I had to inquire within - a practice that I must have been neglecting, bedazzled by a magnificent series of darshans and festivals. Tuning in felt rusty, but proved immediately effective. I “saw” Swami standing still, looking straight at me. “I’m testing you”, He beamed. “Do you truly believe I am in your heart of hearts, as you so glibly write and gladly sing?”

On my final morning darshan an Irish lady with a big heart insisted on giving me her place in first line. You may recall that in my introduction I mentioned “a girl from Tipperary”. This was she.

I was certainly not imagining it when Swami made a beeline from the porch to my  corner of the courtyard.

Stopping right in front of me, but well out of reach, he glanced quickly past my folded hands and spoke over my head to the ladies right behind me. They had arrived only the day before. He asked,  “What country?”

They told him, and it was like a password to an interview. They drifted up to the verandah like sleepwalkers, while Baba passed on along the lines, keeping out of reach for anyone thinking to touch His feet.

Swami had nearly reached the mid-point of the lines, when I “saw” him standing close in front of me, offering me his feet. I “touched” them wistfully, half-believing, my mind on the verandah.

My Irish friend later guessed out loud that the power emanating from Baba that morning might have been particularly strong - greatly blessing us all, but too much for human safety to touch His feet directly.

As I gazed at the flame of orange silk on the other side of the courtyard, Baba’s voice came from close by my left ear, quiet, but urgent: “I would like to talk to you. Will you listen?”

Yes, I would, no matter what he had to tell me. I got ready for I knew not what. What came was a sweet and true, “Be happy! Be happy! Be happy!” Then, in a crisp tone of command: “Now, go!”

My luggage was already in the taxi, but the Thought for the Day posted by the Accommodation Office was particularly apt. I was copying it down in my Commonplace Book when, out of the corner of my eye, a gleam of orange appeared.

Looking to my left, I “saw” Swami standing a few feet away and watching me write. He also looked as if he had something more to tell me: “Innerviews - unlimited. Interviews - limited. I cannot take everyone. You  understand!”

Yes, we all understand the fact that all the crowds at Prasanthi Nilayam could not fit into his tiny inner room even in an eternity of Sundays, and we manage most of the time to accept his choice of those to call in. But there was more to it than that. I suddenly realized that he was helping me to understand better this particular pilgrimage of mine.

Stubbornly, I had been expecting Swami to confirm outwardly a series of inner experiences. Steadily, he had been alternating inner and outer events directly related to each other. With infinite patience and thoroughness, he kept the innerviews coming until I got the message by the appropriate channel.

Through the grace of innerviews unlimited we need not lose that vital “contact and company” of which Baba so often speaks. We are at home with him wherever we are, and free to fly in spirit to Prasanthi Nilayam for as many inner darshans as we need. Gradually, the place where we live can also become one of Great Peace, where we see Swami in everyone we meet. No wonder he is training more and more of us, day by day, to tune our finer senses in to him. It cannot be an easy task.

If we find our imagination winging out into the Cosmos, we are letting Swami show us how to use it as a tool to help us reclaim our birthright, for he has said we are the shining star, the smiling flower. We may catch glimpses of luminous beings, wondrous colours and a softer, more lucent light in realms invisible to the outer senses. He is ever ready to widen our scope beyond physical and mental limits, and may let us visit other worlds over which he reigns, where we may once have lived or some day be at home.

"TIME IS YOUR FRIEND"

Chapter 62 from Birch and Pine Whisper His Name  - A Tribute to Sri Sathya Sai Baba
 
Back in Switzerland and Canada innerviews  kept me centred in a place of peace while elsewhere tensions grew among nations - that is, as long as the conflicts remained far enough “elsewhere”. My daughter Mary was visiting an island of former Yugoslavia when war broke out. Immediately I was on tenterhooks, waiting by the telephone as she let me know each stage of her journey back to me. After her safe return, I was thanking Swami when he interrupted with: “Do you remember that group who made you feel so strangely jealous when I called them for interview? They were from ex-Yugoslavia.”

Indeed I had been sulking because it was nearly time to leave Prasanthi Nilayam and I had not yet had an interview. Swami called in a small group, and for the first time ever I had felt jealous of them. I sat opposite the mandir, listening to the puja and trying to banish my dark mood. All of a sudden I heard Swami internally, saying, "You wanted to  come in to this interview. Come!"

Mentally I let my spirit enter the interview room, where Swami directed me to sit beside Him and look toward the group. I could not see them. They were hidden by a thick, clinging, smelly brown cloud. Some light was showing at the bottom of it. I then saw several tall columns of golden light, devas, all around the clouded group. I lost concentration and returned to my place outside. Later I floated back into the interview room. Over the course of the interview the golden light from the group hearts, the devas and Swami gradually dissipated the brown cloud, and the group were bathed in this light. I knew nothing of what went on in the interview, only saw this cleansing process. Now I return to my morning meditation many months later, back in Geneva.

And so I began to understand how I had picked up something of their distress, but on a subconscious level, and how Swami had shown me a clearer vision then, and hope for the future. If indeed Love can clear away a brown cloud of fear and despair for one small group, then we may believe that Love can, and will, disperse the darkest clouds hiding the true light of every nation on earth.

Reminders of the Sai presence continued, some gentle and comforting to calm and give serenity where needed, while others took my breath away with their splendour and power. Every morning before getting up I took half an hour to meditate. Swami kept up my courage with “News from the Heart”.

Waking up one day later than usual, I tried to cut short my morning meditation. Almost as soon as Swami appeared in my mind’s eye, my day job beckoned, and I began to worry about being late for work. Anxiously I told Him that I “hadn’t much time”, and was sorry, but  ...

The Embodiment of Love cut into these time-consuming excuses with loving tones of cosmic grandeur that still fill me with awe: “Foolish talk! Time is your friend. I am Time.”