Nine Lives(7)

“In those early days, we also began to learn how to meditate. Our guru trained us to get up at 3 a.m., and on the days we were not travelling, we would spend the early morning—the most peaceful time of the day—in meditation, striving for self-knowledge. We were trained to think of the twenty-four Tirthankaras, to visualise them, and to contemplate within our hearts their attributes, their lives and the decisions they had made. We were shown how to sit in a full lotus—the padmasana–with our eyes closed. My ability grew with my studies: first I studied the Sanskrit scriptures, then during the meditation I would recollect what I had read, and attempt to visualise what I had studied. Like a spider making a cobweb, with meditation you need patience to keep building. Once you know all about the Tirthankaras it is not difficult to picture them. It is like a child learning to cycle: as you cycle, you master the art, until eventually you hardly notice that you are cycling at all. But as with the bicycle, the first steps can be very hard, and very disheartening.

“Learning the scriptures, learning Prakrit and Sanskrit, learning to meditate, learning to accept tapasya—it is all a very slow process. When you sow a seed, you have to wait for it to grow and become a tree and bear fruit—a coconut palm will not fruit for many years. It is the same with us. There is a lot of time between sowing the seed and reaping the produce. You do not sow the seed and expect to get the fruits the next day. With our tapasya, with the deprivations we experience, you do not expect to get immediate rewards, or even necessarily to get the rewards at all in this life. You may only get the rewards many lives into the future.

“Like the Tirthankaras, you should have faith in the Jain path: faith is everything. For without the spiritual knowledge that the Jain faith contains you can never attain liberation. Spiritual knowledge is like ghee in the milk: you can’t see it, so initially you just have to trust that it is there. Only if you learn the proper techniques can you reap the full benefits of the milk’s potential: you must learn the way of splitting the milk into curds, then how to churn the curds and finally how to heat the butter to get ghee. The sun is always there, even if the clouds are covering it. In the same way, the soul is trying to reach for liberation, even if it is encumbered by sin and desire and attachments. By following the Jain path you can clear the cloud, and learn the method to get the ghee from the milk. Without the Jain dharma you are a soul tormented and you cannot know any lasting happiness. But with a guru to show you the right path, and to teach you the true nature of the soul, all this can be changed.

“By following the Jain dharma, by living a life full of good deeds, you can gradually erase your bad karma. And, if you are lucky, and steadfast in your pursuit of this goal, you can finally achieve moksha.”



“At the end of two years with the Sangha,” continued Prasannamati Mataji, “I finally made up my mind that I would take diksha. That November they plucked my hair for the first time: it’s the first step, like a test of your commitment, because if you can’t take the pain of having your hair plucked out you are not going to be ready to take the next step. That day, I performed a fast, and that evening one of the senior matajis of the Sangha applied the ash of dried cow dung. This acts as a sort of natural antiseptic if you bleed, as well as stopping the hand from slipping during the plucking.

“I had very beautiful long thick hair, and as I was still very young my guru wanted to cut it with scissors then shave my head with a razor, so as not to inflict such pain on me. But I insisted, and said there was no going back now. I was a very obstinate girl: whatever I wanted to do I did. So they agreed to do what I wished. I think everyone was rather amazed at my stubbornness, and my determination.

“The whole ritual took nearly four hours, and was very painful. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help crying. I didn’t tell my parents about my decision, as I knew they would try to stop me, but somehow they heard, and came rushing. By the time they arrived, the ceremony was almost over. When they saw me with a bald head, and scars and blood all over my scalp where my hair had once been, my mother screamed, and my father burst into tears. They knew then that I would never turn back from this path. After that, whenever the Sangha would arrive at a village, the maharaj would show me off: ‘Look, he would say. This one is so young, yet so determined, doing what even the old would hesitate to do.’

“It was about this time that I met my friend Prayogamati. One day, our Sangha happened to walk into her village, and as her father was a rich merchant, who lived in a very large house, they invited us to stay with them. Prayogamati was the same age as me, fifteen, a beautiful, fragile, sensitive girl, and she came down every day to our room to talk to us. We quickly became very close, talking late into the night. She was fascinated by my life in the Sangha, and I had never met anyone who seemed to understand me the way she did, someone who shared all my beliefs and ideals. She was about to be engaged to the son of a rich diamond merchant, and the match had been arranged for her, but she told me that she was really much more interested in taking diksha. She also knew that her family would not allow her to do this.