TREE OF LIFE

EVERGREEN


When earthly joys appear complete,
some signal comes for earthly strife
to burst upon us, unawares,
and catch us in a net of cares.
But Sai is there to show us how
the tree that’s bending every bough
with fruit that’s never been so sweet
is just the tree inviting folks
to wreak their havoc and their jokes.

Sai himself will never crumble,
though storms may rumble.
He does not wilt,
no matter who may tilt
with stick or stone against the green
of his eternal Tree of Life,
where ripens golden fruit serene.

He melts alone for hearts who yearn
for truth and love; to them he’ll turn.
All bitterness he trades for bliss,
and never tires of saying this:-
“Pain and pleasure, praise and blame
in the end are all the same,
for all are one, and all are Mine...
O Child of God, you are divine!”

Since light and love are what we are,
why should we wait to know delight
or stint a waiting world of light
when we, like flower or shining star,
can breathe out beauty near and far?

HCH

"How Beautiful are the Feet ..."

Birch and Pine Whisper His Name - A Tribute to Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Chapter 54

MESSIAH

As I sat on the sands outside the temple at Prasanthi Nilayam on the Sunday morning before Christmas, 1980, a small tune came into my head. The lilting refrain played itself over and over again, as if asking to be recognized. I could not place it, except that it came from Handel’s Messiah.

Over the years I had come to appreciate the magnificent oratorio more and more. It became a family tradition to head for Massey Hall each December to hear Handel’s Messiah performed by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Mendelssohn Choir, which usually contained several other family members.

Those of us in the audience contributed actively as well. When we all stood up for the Hallelujah chorus, my  Aunt Anne always sang along, making up in gusto what she lacked in smoothness.

In time, my singing teachers would hopefully give me solos from Messiah to practise - lovely tunes like “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace”, “Rejoice greatly” and “I know that my redeemer liveth.” Years later would I see a new meaning in that aria:

I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand upon the latter day upon the earth,  And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.   Job 19:25

By Christmas season, 1980 I was convinced that the Redeemer was indeed among us, as Sathya Sai Baba. When we went to India that year, my well-worn score of Messiah traveled with us. As our taxi bowled along the road to the “Abode of Supreme Peace”, I thought of the tenor aria that begins Messiah and speaks of a voice crying in the wilderness: Make straight in the desert a highway to our God.

Recently had it occurred to me that most sections of Messiah about Jesus are in the past tense, like the texts about His birth and the crucifixion. Other parts of the work are more prophetic in tone. It seemed to me that they could very well be about the Lord Sai Baba. The more I studied the text, the more meaningful it became, matching my own experience.

While I waited for Swami’s darshan my tattered score lay in my lap, along with a letter asking Him to confirm my growing belief that much of Messiah was about His advent and His mission. I also asked Him to bless a performance of the oratorio in His presence, envisioning choir, soloists and orchestra under the direction of a world-famous conductor.

The idea seemed fantastic, but not unrealizeable. I pictured people from all over the world practising their parts, then gathering in Prasanthi Nilayam to put the finishing touches to the whole. All in the same spirit of love, service and devotion that inspired one Charles Jennens with the libretto and Handel with the music.

Jennens himself could not understand why he was impelled to begin selecting texts from the New and Old Testaments. Their message was, in essence: Prepare for the coming of the Lord in all His glory, for the sacrifice of Jesus was not in vain.

My mind was time-travelling, back to London in the late summer of 1741. “The Great Mr. Handel” had just received a commission from the  Governor of Ireland to write and direct a new oratorio for a charitable benefit concert. The arrival of an excited Jennens with a new-old text was perfectly timed.

An atmosphere of wonder surrounded the entire creation of Messiah. Handel was so caught up in the work that he completed it in 23 days, hardly stopping to eat or sleep.

Legend says that a servant, tiptoeing into his room one evening to take away an untouched supper tray, found the composer in a state of ecstasy. A glorious vision seemed to be hovering before his inner gaze. He is quoted as saying that when he wrote the “Hallelujah” chorus: “I did think I saw all heaven before me, and the Great God Himself.”

Following Messiah’s premiere for charity in Dublin came a royal command performance before King George II in London. The first full-throated chords of the “Hallelujah!” chorus brought the King to his feet. When the King rose, the audience also stood up, setting a tradition that is generally observed to this day.

Having composed this oratorio for charity, Handel continued to use it in the service of society throughout the rest of his life, giving benefit performances for charities dear to his generous heart. In his will he left a copy of the musical score and several sets of the words to the London Foundling Hospital.

Coming back to the twentieth century and the sands of Prasanthi Nilayam, I found the persistent little tune still chirping away in my head, asking to be identified. Still unable to do so, I decided that morning darshan was not the place to play “Guess the Theme”.

Sternly banishing the motif as if it were a mosquito of the mind, I resolved to calm my spirits by looking up an inspiring text for the day. Usually I do this with one of Baba’s recent books. Today all I had with me was Messiah. Full of sacred writings, it should do very well. My musical score opened at random to none other than my little theme, to the words: He is the King of Glory! He is the King of Glory!

At that precise moment Sai Baba Himself strolled into view on the other side of the courtyard, moving majestically in rhythm to the theme, his red robe gilded by the morning sun. Throughout that unique and splendid darshan, I could “hear” with incredible clarity the ethereal chorus that leads up to my “little” theme:

“Lift up your heads, O ye gates,” sing the higher voices of the choir, like herald angels. “And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in!”

“Who is this King of Glory?” inquire the lower voices, those of the men.

“The Lord of Hosts, the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle,” comes the reply from on high. Then all the voices, high and low, unite as if heaven and earth had joined voices, to exult: “He is the King of Glory.”

The music playing to my mind came to its last chords not long before Baba reached my side of the courtyard.

As He arrived at my place in the line, I held out my score of Messiah full of the hopes of generations, and the visions of prophets since Isaiah. On top of text and music lay my letter asking to have the work performed in His presence one day.

Baba placed His hand firmly on both letter and Messiah score, and gave His blessing.

(Here is a choir singing that chorus much as I imagined it that day at darshan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kzgVzg8nVk )

NB: 

An earlier version of this chapter appeared in the December, 1982, issue of “Sanathana Sarathi”.

NATIONS COME TOGETHER

Chapter 56 From Birch and Pine Whisper His Name  - A Tribute to Sri Sathya Sai Baba

On 23 December 1980, as I left the canteen, Parvati (Suzie) Reeves came up to me and announced, all thrilled, “There may be an interview for Canadians, so get ready! Stay with me at darshan this afternoon.”

And so I joined Parvati’s group of ladies from all across Canada, many of them of Indian origin. In those days we did not wear distinctive scarves to show what country we lived in. Volunteers could not always tell who came from a few miles away, and who had been travelling thousands of miles from far overseas. For many Canadians their resemblance to local people often worked to their disadvantage, as it was assumed that they too lived close by Baba’s ashram.

Swami stopped to wish us a Merry Christmas. His reply to a request for an interview was, “I will see”. We felt that perhaps he would call us even that afternoon. It began to rain. We put up umbrellas and stretched out raincoats over our collective heads, huddled in the rain together for another hour, but no interview ensued. That way at least we got to know each other a little.  As the rain fell, we said cheerfully, “He is showering blessings on us!”

At the following morning darshan, 24 December, there was a change in the arrangement of the lines inside the court of the temple. No longer could ladies be seated along the south wall. For that reason the crowd was many rows deeper. I was rather upset to find myself far to the back on the west side, and in the full morning sun.

When  Baba came out I was still quietly fuming in disappointment at seeing my favourite place in the shade no longer available. I even wondered if this change did not arise because ladies selected by Baba for interview on the south side of the temple could not easily be seen by their husbands, on the men’s side. 

Then I saw something that plucked me out of my reverie. Some of the Canadian ladies, who had been in the front row, were standing up, and looking back at the rest of the crowd. Baba had called an interview. We trooped up behind them.

To my delight, Paul come up to the verandah as well. One of the men looked at us as if to ask what we were doing there. Prasanthi Nilayam brings together followers of Sai Baba from all across Canada, who might not otherwise meet. We two had no problem in being admitted when we crowded into the interview room, while Parvati and another Canadian lady, also an ashram resident, were not allowed in by Baba.

When I first visited Baba in 1977 to 1978, Canadians could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Now there were too many of us to fit comfortably into the tiny interview room. I tried to sit at the back, but Baba beckoned me forward to sit at his feet. 

Then he commanded “that man back there” to come forward. We all turned around, and saw several men sitting against the wall, Paul among them. A young man beside him looked eager to get up. “No, that man!” said Baba. “The old man!”

Acutely embarrassed at being singled out, Paul worked his way forward to sit beside me at the front. Afterward he told me he was sure he stepped on several people, so packed were we. He couldn’t understand why Baba made such a fuss about him. 

 When Baba called me for a private interview a few days earlier Paul had been sound asleep in our apartment. Now, this “good man”, as Baba had described my husband on that occasion,  would able to see what was going on, even if he could not hear much, close to the feet of Baba, with me at his side. And there were wonders to see.

Baba spoke to one fair-haired gentleman, asking several times without response: “You are a Christian?”.

“He doesn’t speak English, Baba,” said a deep voice. “He’s from Montreal.”

“What is your name?” At last the Montrealer said he was Dino Fracassi. Baba moved His hand and made Dino a magnificent gold ring with an enameled portrait of Jesus. Franz patted the weeping Dino on the shoulder, but Baba said, “Those are tears of happiness. Let them flow.” It was a moment of intense beauty and love. The ring appeared quite naturally out of that love.

Then Baba asked for Dr. Singh’s ring and showed it to me. “What metal?”

“Panchalloy?” I hesitated. I wouldn’t know that alloy if I fell over it, but that was the big word that came out of my mouth.

Baba shook His head and muttered derisively, “Panchalloy... panchalloy!”

He showed the ring to some other ladies, who correctly guessed it was made of silver.

Then he showed it to me again. “Whose picture is it?”

“Yours, Swami ... Sai Baba.”

“Now watch me turn it into gold,” said Baba. He held the ring in his nearly closed fist and blew three times inside his hand, through the small opening near his thumb. Then he opened his hand, to show us a large gold filigree setting with an enamel image of Vishnu. Dotted around the central figure were minuscule heads of Shirdi Sai Baba (his previous incarnation), Sathya Sai Baba, as we see him now, and Prema Baba - his incarnation to come.

Next, He created a sparkling crystal rosary for Franz’s wife, and showed her how to use it. 

Then He leaned forward with a challenging look at us all: “What are you doing in Canada - bhajan or bhojan? (devotional singing or eating)?”

He teased a young couple about fighting, and they argued with each other and with him that they did not fight. “Well, only about you, Swami.”

Swami twisted a curly lock of the young man’s hair in the opposite direction from its natural curl, and looked over at the girl, saying, “He doesn’t understand.”

“No, Swami,” she smiled.

Then he turned to the young man and said softly, “She doesn’t understand.”

“No, Swami.”

To the accompaniment of slightly embarassed chuckles, the young man opened a vacuum-packed can of cashew nuts with resounding “pop”. Baba blessed them, and they were passed around our group.

About office-holders in the Sai organization, he said, “No selection without elections.”

He asked a young man about a head of Baba that he was painting or sculpting and called it an imitation. “Creation, not imitation!” He added, “Be heartificial, not artificial!”

He asked about a beautiful young girl, just behind me with her mother. This was a teen-ager who could say only one word that sounded like “Baby”, in a strange voice. After a strained silence, Baba said, “Brain not developed. Come!” He ushered the family into the private room behind the curtain. When they came out, he created, right above my head, a small gold medallion on a slender chain for the girl, and handed it to the mother. Then he called in others for private interviews. 

While we were waiting, I turned around to the girl, and saw her pulling on a heart-shaped locket around her neck. She beamed and held it out to me, saying, “Beautiful!”

Her voice was clear and the enunciation perfect.

At the beginning of the interview Baba had made holy ash for many of us near him. At the end, he managed to get around to all of us, distributing packages of ash. I held up a picture of my daughter, and he tapped it in blessing. Since Paul had been expressing doubts about moving back to Canada, I tried to consult Baba about it, but he refused to discuss the matter further, saying, “You go to Canada!” When I tried to ask if Paul was to go too (this after Baba deliberately seated us together!), he added, rather severely, “I spoke to you before. You go to Canada!”

I left the temple feeling exulted, and a little bruised in the ego at Swami’s slightly severe manner to me. It seems that the closer you get to him, the tougher he gets with you. In afternoon darshan, he sent me a beautiful beaming smile, as if he knew how I was feeling.

Several days later I met the mother with the daughter for whom Baba had created a golden locket, but the girl was not wearing it. She had her old heart-shaped locket on, and I asked why.

“We’re afraid she’ll pull Baba’s off its chain ... she’s always pulling on this one.” I mentioned the immediate improvement in the girl right after the interview, and her clear enunciation and understanding of the word “beautiful”. To my amazement, the mother had not heard this. After I assured her that I had, they went off, radiant with new happiness. The next time I saw them, the daughter was wearing Baba’s locket.

As for me, it seemed significant that Baba had made that piece of jewellery above my head, almost as if teasing me. It, and the heart-shaped locket, reminded me of one that my mother had given me long ago. It was hers as a little girl, and it bore the indentation of her baby teeth. I had not seen it for a long time, and began to wonder where it was.

Less than a year later, back in Canada, on a dusty basement shelf among a motley collection of trinkets, I found the little wooden box that used to contain my locket. Nearby, in a bowl of inexpensive baubles was the gold locket, complete with my mother’s initials and teeth marks. When it reappeared, I did not need to wonder whether Baba knew about it, and breathed him a silent message of thanks.

One morning darshan we ladies could see someone get up on the men’s side and begin to caper about. The men around him clapped. Then, after dancing around a little more, the “clown” headed for the temple, and an interview. After darshan, I met Paul, who was shaking his head at that “show-off Swede”. Frivolous behaviour at darshan, like suddenly breaking into a lively step-dance did not meet his approval.

“But Paul,” I protested. “He was permanently lame. Baba called him to an interview and told him to leave his crutches behind. He got up and found he could walk. He couldn’t resist trying to see if he could jump too, and dance.”

My fifthieth birthday, 28 December 1980, was a blissful day, with good views of Swami when least expected. I wasn’t quite sure how much of a fuss to make of reaching the “dread half-century mark”. When Baba gave me a wide berth at morning darshan, I took his message to be something like: So you’re fifty years old today. So what? Just another birthday, and what are birthdays anyway? Every day we are alive we are born to a new life. 

Later, as we were lining up for afternoon darshan I got talking with a lady from London who reminded me vaguely of someone. “Oh, I was in London for Mahasivathri in 1977,” I said. “I visited the home of a Mrs. Ganish, where amrith was flowing from pictures in her shrine.”

“I’m Mrs. Ganish,” said the lady, quietly amused. “And, yes, the amrith is still flowing.”

Meanwhile Paul befriended a gentleman of Indian origin who wheeled his little son around in a stroller. The boy had leukemia, in quite an advanced stage. They had come from England in hope of a cure. The father’s devotion to his son, and to Swami, was most touching. The boy was not too ill to smile at us every time we met them. He was a dear little soul.

Near the end of our stay in India, Paul met the boy’s father, in Brindavan, alone, but serene. His little son had died, with a smile and Baba’s name on his lips.

Soon after New Year’s Day, 1981,  I met Anne Marie, who was born in Germany, and now lives in New Delhi with her Indian husband.  She was among the first translators of Baba’s works into German, and is the author of that heart-warming book And the Greatest is Love. I had a preview of her book when she told me about her encounter with a “strange saddhu”, who could have been none other than Shirdi Sai Baba.

Then, hearing that I was Canadian, Anne Marie launched eagerly into the extraordinary tale of “a man in Canada” to whom Swami came in the flesh while he was giving a discourse in India.

Same Story in Toronto  

Sure enough, in Toronto several months later, I heard the gentleman’s story from his own lips. It happened three years earlier, while I myself was in Prasanthi Nilayam.

As a child Mr. K. had always been sickly, and as an adult he was plagued by many illnesses both known and unknown to his doctor. All the same he had succeeded in immigrating to Canada and was employed by the government of Ontario as a finance director. 

K.’s health took a turn for the worse in August of 1977, and by October he had wasted away to 100 pounds, unable to eat or retain water. He was admitted to a hospital intensive care unit. As he lay awake that night, worrying what would become of his family if this illness were to carry him off, the door opened, and in walked none other than Sathya Sai Baba.

Although this was the first time that K. saw him in person, there was no mistaking the strong, gentle features and the afro hair style. These could be seen on the walls of K’s home, for his wife and children believe Baba is divine, and they often prayed to him, especially during K’s illness. Not an open devotee, Mr. K. too had been praying, and also taking holy ash sent by his brother, a permanent resident at Prasanthi Nilayam.

Instead of the usual orange or gold robe, Baba was wearing a white surgical gown when he walked into K’s room at the hospital in Toronto. K. tried to speak, but no sound came out. Baba came over to his bedside in a businesslike way, and said, “You see, I am also a surgeon.”

Turning K. over, Baba rubbed his back thoroughly. After blessing the patient, saying he would be all right, he walked out the way he had come in.

Recovering his power of speech, K. thought of calling the nurses, but decided not to. He waited until his family came to see him the next day to announce, “Baba came!”

K. recovered rapidly from his illness, and also from his many chronic complaints. He wrote to his brother and sister-in-law at Prasanthi Nilayam to tell them about Baba’s visit to his hospital room in Toronto.

In reply, they expressed their joy at his recovery, and also informed him that Baba had been delivering a speech to a vast audience at Prasanthi Nilayam at the exact moment of his appearance in Toronto. Incidentally, one witness of that discourse in the fall of 1977 was Toronto-born Helen Heubi, diligently scribbling every blessed word.

The following August, 1978, K took his family to India to see Baba, who called them in for an interview. This gave the chance for the burning question: “Baba, did you come to see me in hospital in Toronto?”

“Yes,” said Baba.

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.