This Monk From India - The Divine Life Society

MOTHER INDIA
came into my eyes. They brought me a Coca Cola, but I could not drink it, my throat was so tight.
Then they brought me a fruit juice, a soda water. They did not know what to do to show me their
sympathy. The officer took us to the taxi-stand, debated the fare with the driver, and all the time his
face, his eyes showed me his compassion, his kindness.
How wonderful to find in men, who in the execution of their work are made to be hard and
severe, such quick heart-felt response, such warmth of heart And again I was made to love India
for her tolerance, her patience, her gaiety, her smile—and mostly for her love which is everywhere
so vibrant.
In our journey back in the taxi, seeing my emotion my friend questioned me. I was
impressed to tell her something much more moving, which had happened to me in Delhi, at the
Government house, at the beginning of my stay in India. I told her how the love Mother India has for
her spiritual heritage was to move me in a way I shall never forget, and how the prayer I had then
was still vibrant in my heart. Two months or so after my arrival in India, I was going to leave, as my
Visa had been refused. I said goodbye to everybody and left for Delhi. But Swamiji had told me to
give a letter to a friend of the Trustees of the Ashram, and I went and met him in his house.
He asked many questions, endless questions. I wondered about what seemed to me to be
only curiosity. He seemed such a cold man, so indifferent to everything. I was going to leave when
he suddenly looked at his watch and said, “Come with me.”
He took me to the Parliament House. I will never forget the beauty of the place. It seemed to
have always been there. The India of the past revived in my heart as I looked at it. We went in.
Inside were long passages with gardens here and there through which one could see the lawns
outside, and the beauty of the Indian women walking on the vast green lawns made the colours of
their sarees shine all the more in the bright sunshine, and made their supple way of walking apparent
to me for the first time. I was so new to India. I had seen so little of her! I was enthralled and forgot
my worries and my sadness about leaving India, the India I had dreamt of for so long. My
companion took me to an office. An official was there behind the desk. My companion just barely
introduced me. The official asked me many questions. I answered in the same vein as I had
answered my companion when he had questioned me in his house. The official suddenly said, “So
you could not submit to what has become a general habit all over the world to get your Visa Why”
The Gita says “No corruption of officials.”
My companion was silent the whole time. The official gave him a note. “Take this lady
to...”, he wrote a name, the name of another official. We left. Same procedure...the questions were
different, my answers were the same. It seems to me now that from the start they had decided, each
one of them, to let the next one discover me as they themselves had done. This new official read the
note, looked at my companion who was silent, and he seemed intrigued. The questions went on,
when he suddenly seemed to make up his mind. He rang a bell. A man came in with a very big book.
The official opened it and read a passage out of it. I was very moved, tears came into my eyes. It was
so well written. It was such a wonderful way of speaking of the wonders of the Gita. The man closed
the book.
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