Letters from Shanti Ashram, India

1. Shanti Ashram - First Impressions

1. Shanti Ashram – First Impressions

August 4, 1994  

Dear Parents,

Divya conveys her namaskars. After some delays in making reservations etc., I finally arrived here on Tuesday evening (2 August), after 35 hours of travel and nearly 24 hours in waiting for late bus and train connections! (Total price, less than $10.)

I really like Shanti Ashram! It is huge, about 100 acres. It is mostly clusters of trees and bushes. Here and there are built little “kutirs,” self-contained cottages, all at distances from one another. Also there are statues of saints and Avatars around the grounds, plus stone benches put under trees for meditaters, and sayings like “Peace is Inside” and “All is God,” put on boards here and there (in English and Telugu languages).

I was given a charming little house (it seems very big to me!), near to the cottage of a resident foreigner (the only foreigner here, I think!). The foreigner is “Susheela” named after a foreigner who visited and stayed at Shanti Ashram long ago, and who helped the ashram a lot. This one is Polish (but lived in France her whole life so she considers herself French), slightly plump, friendly, wears orange Punjabi-pant & shirt, and is wholeheartedly into helping the ashram – like organizing programs and overseeing workers and construction. She is 38 years old.

It is so nice and quiet around here! The only noise is trees blowing in the breeze and birds seining. Susheela showed me around the grounds – it is like trekking on a forest hill, clusters of trees and flowers and dirt-paths. We are a little distant form the main Mandir – about the distance from the sheds to Ganesh gate in Prasanthi Nilayam. But, the path here leads us around trees, amongst sweet-smelling flowers and over a bridge (under which flows a canal of Godavari river water, one of the seven most holy rivers in India),

The Mandir is just a big hall, and at one end is a separate room (like in Anandashram) which has a tomb, on top of which is a marble statue of Swami Omkar meditating. There are two programs a day: 7:30 – 9 AM (chanting of 1,008 Names of Visnhu, sloka to Lakshmi, chanting “Hare Rama, Hare Krishna 108 times, chanting one chapter daily of the Bhagavad Gita) and 6-8 PM (chanting “Om Namah Sivaya” 108 times, “Om Sri Ram” 108 times, chanting ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ then a short discourse in Telugu by a lady sanyasini).

Beside the Mandir is a long building - the former residence of Swami Omkar. The room that he used as a bedroom is preserved there. Now Jnaneswari (around here she is called ‘Mataji’) lives in the next-door room, which was Swami Omkar’s office. The front verandah is enclosed by ornate iron grids and it is where people can go to meet her. In the back is a small dining room and kitchen area, which is used to make Jnaneswari’s food and also food for some of the residents.

Jnaneswari is very simple-looking and humble. She has been in this ashram since she was 9 or 10 years old, serving selflessly and wholeheartedly. Swami Omkar made her his successor, the spiritual head of the ashram. She wears starched, pure cotton all-white saris and, like Swami Satchidananda, walks about the ashram overseeing things. Yesterday, my first full day here, she wandered to my house and drifted inside, much to my embarrassment! (As I had only half-unpacked and things were strewn about!)

Jnaneswari and everyone else, of course, are happy that I know Telugu. I am already getting privileges, like being asked to take milk and tiffin in Jnaneswari’s kitchen, and also daily take buttermilk from there.

A few weeks before coming here I discovered a new, easy and simple food – sprouting wheat grains! I just soak wheat kernels in water overnight, then I boil them a little with the immersion coil-heater, and eat it plain with a little salt or a spoon of sugar. Easy! It’s all I need! Although I told Jnaneswari I need nothing, she is asking me to take milk in the morning and sending things like bananas and sweets as prasad, through Susheela who is close to Jnaneswari.

Outside my kutir is a lime tree, and two nice limes have fallen from it in the last 1½ day (nice for lime –juice!). Just now Susheela gave me ½ a coconut, saying it dropped from the coconut tree outside.

Around the place are pictures of both Sathya Sai and Shirdi Sai, along with many other avatars and saints. In the “Ram Tirtha Hall” are pictures of all the Self Realization Fellowship gurus, including Paramahansa Yogananda.

In 1990, Jnaneswari went to see Swami in Whitefield! He gave her an interview (four of them had come from Shanti Ashram, including Susheela). At one point He said that He knew that the ashram was in financial difficulty, as Swami Omkar never kept money but spent it all on the ashram. Swami gave Jnaneswari Rs 10,000! He also gave her a japamala of crystal beads.

Like in Anandashram, here there are several Sai devotees, and Sathya Sai bhajans are sung in the Mandir also. A devotee recently came from Bangalore with a lot of sweets sent by Srinivas and his wife Shalini. Srinivas is very close to Swami – he is one of the few allowed entrance into Swami’s rooms whenever he wants. He lives in Bangalore – near Brindavan, and eats all his meals with Swami. It was Srinivas that I had to talk to, when Venkamma was sick in the Bangalore hospital, as it was him that conveyed all the messages to Swami. Jnaneswari told me that Srinivas is a great well-wisher of Shanti Ashram. His parents used to live in nearby Kakinada town and they often visited here when Srinivas was a kid. His parents even built a cottage here!

The cottages around the grounds were all built by devotees over the years, for their use whenever they come, and also for the use of people visiting Shanti ashram. Remember when I first came to Anandashram, the first one I saw was Sri Ram who smiled and said, “This is your home!” Well, almost the first thing Jnaneswari said to me was, “This is your permanent spiritual home!”

I really like here a lot! Maybe I will stay on & on! My own house – just think! Of course, there are no charges at all and it is wholly donation only. Susheela is interested in spreading the message of peace (like Omkar was very intent on doing) and she dreams of having more and more people here, from all countries, doing intense sadhana here and thus lifting the vibration of the world. She is hopeful that I will settle here forever! The name of my cottage is “Dwaraka Mandir” but she told me, “It is no longer ‘Dwaraka Mandir,” but, ‘American Home’! She is dreaming of starting a colony of aspirants for all over the world - me being the first, I guess!

The post office in the ashram is one tiny room with a lone desk. A young educated girl runs it. She didn’t know how to send a foreign telegram! She called up different places and it was finally sent. It took awhile, they kept asking, “Is California the state capital? Is ‘Walnut’ the street and ‘Creek’ the state? Does ‘Dr’ stand for ‘Doctor’? (Then I wrote out ‘drive’!) etc., etc. Afterwards Susheela who was with me asked the girl, “All this time you said foreign telegrams could not be sent from here. Does this mean that now they can be sent?” And the girl confidently answered, “Yes, from now on I can send them!” Maybe I sent the very first foreign telegram from Shanti Ashram!

It is a wonderfully quiet place and such a Blessing, I feel, that I have my own little house! Also there are very few people – less than 20 people come to the morning and evening programs, this is including both gents and ladies!

Everyone seems very sincere and deeply involved in sadhana. So, happily Swami has led me to an ideal retreat! Now, He should Bless me with Realization soon, soon, soon!

Like Swami Satchidananda, Jnaneswari also sits on the enclosed verandah during the day, and anyone can come to talk with her. She also comes and sits for the evening program. I don’t have questions so don’t go to meet her, but she has been ‘catching’ me while I go or come in the morning to take milk and she keeps asking whether I need anything. She insists I take tiffin in the morning so I have no choice but to obey, out of respect.

So… I am enjoying myself! :-) hope you are all well and happy there!

Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu.

Love,

Divya