Letters from Shanti Ashram, India

63. More on Materialism - Sept 2000

More on Materialism

Sept 17, 2000

Dear Parents,

Namaskars! Here all is well. Praying that you are all fine too.

I remember the first dream I had of Swami's sisters (it's in the Dream Diary I gave you - called 'Swami's two sisters' and I had it in January 1986). In it I was having an interview with them. I asked something like "Can I stay in India?" and they said something like, since I was 18 years in America, I could stay in India some time more (i.e., as many years as I had been in America). I can't remember exactly, but this was the gist. Interestingly I will soon enter into my 17th year here.

When the body is not in a place it likes, or if there is a irresistible pull away from somewhere when a necessary change in life is needed (due to karmic pull or whatever), naturally if the change does not take place, the mind is affected adversely. I think this is what is happening to both of us! Although it is entirely different for both of our personalities, we are being drawn away from ideal surroundings into an unknown and different place (for me, America and for you, Colorado!). Dad is the Witness to all this, going with the flow as usual!

So changes have to happen and we have to go along with them, or suffer the ucky consequences in body and mind. Wherever we go, there will be tests and trials there also. But at least somewhere deep in our conscience there will be relief and contentment, because we are where we should be and doing what we should do. Like Dad says, there are plenty of twists and turns in the plot of the Play! It is good, because if life would be perfect it would be too boring, and there would certainly be no growth of the soul.

Vidya said now and then that once some foreigner gets really and truly transformed into an Indian (in mind!), the first thing they want to do is visit America!! Because, all Indians wish they could go to America. She used this to explain how, after people finally attain Indian citizenship, the first thing they do is run to get a passport and get visa to visit America! It seems like this is what is happening to me (all fate!). I don't need to repeat my thanks that I listened to you all these years, and didn't file for citizenship even though there was plenty of pressure to do that.

Lately our electricity supply has really been atrocious. I have been mostly translating discourses in a notebook, only typing them on the computer in the very rare and sudden spurts of electricity supply. Usually they don't last long, either! Most work can be done during evening Satsang, the only time the generator is allowed to be on (from 6 PM to 9 PM). If the current goes off during the day, the ones in authority feel it isn't necessary to waste generator petrol.

In Swami's discourses, the translators often take very wide liberties interpreting what Swami says. In my humble opinion, knowing the exceptional intuitive powers of Indians, I'd say that much of the time they are right. However, it is only my job to translate exactly what Swami says, not interpretation. So that is what I do.

Yes, sometimes it sounds a lot different than what the translators print. It usually goes along with the gist of what Swami said: it is spiritual and it certainly makes better sense than what He actually said. Yet, sometimes even I shake my head when the translators go off on their own, changing and expounding on what He was supposed to say. All we can say is MAY HIS WILL BE DONE!

I wouldn't say that materialism is 'far worse' here than in America (as you wrote, Mom!), but I would say that it is nearly the same! 'Spirituality' is so inter-twined into daily life here that it seems to me that it has lost its meaning. Thus all the recent saints and sages have stressed bringing spirituality into daily life, in the form of feeling compassion for others and the unity of all living beings.

Here, everyone bows before idols and pictures of the gods, but sometimes they go on doing terrible things, unfeeling for their fellow living creatures. It's a bit mixed up, but we do have to admit that the Avatar chose here to be born, the one place He would be easily accepted!!

The kitten Sruti is fine now. Only, since her run-in with the outside dogs, she is terrified with our dogs also. She won't even play with Vijay anymore, but only runs away. She mostly stays safe in the house, which is one good thing that came out of her unfortunate attack. She is busy having ratling-meals and in-between meal snacks of flying bugs and lizards, all in plenty here.

We have been having more water problems with broken (now repaired) motor, and because no electricity for so long means the motor won't pump water! I was shocked to see one night, the old, round mother of the Hyderabad girls lugging a bucket of water from the pump and up the stairs to the house. At that time the young and strong brother was aimlessly pacing outside, doing Japa, and the three young and strong daughters were in the house singing "Sri Ram Jai Ram" as usual. Who is the God they are singing to and contemplating on, anyway? Is He not in their poor elderly mother lugging water?

Love,

Divya