How I Came to Santosha Ma

I want to write about the life Given to me by Santosha Ma and Adi Da, lived in Her most wonderful Company since 1992.  Before that I had been in Adi Da’s community for 12 years, and I know in my heart that He sent me to Her to serve Her Work and Him here.   And She showed me from the first second of my seeing Her that She is God Incarnate, one with Him, Beloved Adi Da. How I came to recognize the signs for me in my own heart, how it went from one recognition to the next, is a tale I want to tell now, how my life led up to being with Her.

In 1977, I was in grad school in Potsdam, NY. It is a SUNY college, and I was in music school. My boyfriend Chris, who I lived with, and I were with a friend we had just met, but we were very attracted to this guy. He was very energetic and happy. He also did some drugs, as we did at the time. I think it was the second week we knew him, when he invited us to spend time at the small chapel in town, where he was the caretaker. He said we could hang out there and make a fire. It was a very snowy, stormy night in the northern ‘snowbelt’ of upstate NY. It was fun to go into a chapel.

I was non-committal in myself about God. I didn’t not believe, but made nothing out of it in my life. My Presbyterian childhood had not given me any zeal about God, or loving God as a real part of my life. But I had some respect for churches and such. So going into the building where there was a chapel was a ‘cool idea’ for me.

Our new friend, Richie, had brought peyote with him. He told us we’d feel sick for a bit before it ‘kicked in’. We ate it and did feel quite ill for a short time, but then a euphoria came over me. Things looked bright and shining, even inside at nighttime, even in the small room used for a kitchen in this small building housing the chapel. What followed was very unexpected, and changed my life.

Richie began telling us the story of Jesus, from the time of Judas betraying to the guards where Jesus was, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and his kiss of identifying him, to his ‘resurrection’ from the tomb. I had never heard anything like this. Our friend came alive in the telling. He was a passionate lover of Christ! He told the tale with movements and gestures and intonation of an actor on a stage, only it was the most natural moment for him, as if he had been there. I felt Jesus like I never had, what he endured, what he suffered. The story went on for perhaps an hour. Then Richie and Chris went outside to collect some firewood for us to build a fire.

In that short time they went out, I was drawn to go into the chapel alone. I walked in and saw the statue of Jesus on the cross, very large and in front of the small chapel. I looked at him with different eyes right then. He seemed more real to me than all the empty tales of childhood. I felt the pain he had endured, and wondered about him now. Was his spirit still alive, as Richie had said?

In an instant, I felt a pressure on the top of my head. It was as if someone very large was pressing their hand flat down. The pressure increased. I looked a Jesus, stunned. I continued to gaze at him as the pressure continued to increase, until I was flat on the floor, gazing into the face of Jesus on the cross, knowing for absolute certain that God was alive in this present moment. I do not know how long I was there. I left the room when I heard the guys coming in with the wood, laughing and happy. We made a fire, had some tea, and sat quietly for a little while. After a bit we went home. I did not say anything about what had happened.

For the next few weeks we saw more of Richie. My connection to him was brief greetings and a couple of minutes of talk, but he mostly talked with Chris. One day he handed me what he called a “Green Sepulcher”. It was a small rectangle of plastic on a green ribbon. Inside the plastic was a picture of Mary holding a baby, and something written on the other side. I never took notice of that other side to remember what it said. I have no idea! But that day, I began to feel what I would now call transmission from that little necklace. It was alive somehow, communicating to me directly somehow. I was amazed, but I thought it was the same living God communicating to me. I told Richie, and he said he was happy for me that I could feel her. He was not surprised by it, and instantly believed me. I found that hanging this necklace in the kitchen produced the result in me of keeping the kitchen spotless, as I had never done before. I would feel ‘Her’ with me out there, and when I cleaned, I felt Her happy. I could not have Her in a room that was not clean!

Just after this, I began to have an urge to read the 4 Gospels of the New Testament. I read them, and I felt this ‘transmission’ again. When I had finished them, I was moved to re-read them. If I read them during any day, I felt this transmission every time. I re-read the Gospels for an entire year. I began to occasionally feel the transmission without reading. I would feel it at work, or randomly. It was my quiet secret. I do not recall ever talking to Chris about it! I recall I ate better, and would sometimes fast on water for 24 hours. It was not for any reason I knew, I just wanted to do it and did it. I drank a LOT of water every day for months – nearly a gallon. This private relationship to what I knew was God and felt to be Jesus went on steadily for a year.

Then one day, a good friend of ours, Doug, our jamming piano-playing buddy, said he had read a great book, and would I like to read it? I said sure, not having any idea at all what he had read. He and I were alone at the time. He handed me a silver book with a smiling man on the front cover, called The Knee of Listening. I took it home with me and read it. As I started reading, I knew right away that what this man was saying was true, that I believed every word I read, even though I didn’t understand all of it.  Part way into the book, I began to feel that familiar feeling of transmission. I was stunned. I looked at the author’s face on the front cover, and it obviously was coming from Him, from whoever He was. He was saying He had realized God, and so that is what I felt from Him. I felt God, exactly as I had felt it all year. There was no difference. I felt immediately that I had been prepared all year to read His book, so when this came, I would recognize and not doubt my own feeling. I told Chris about it, who I lived with all along. He and Doug were fighting in that moment, and so he refused to read the book because of their argument. I still knew it was Real. I waited and did nothing about it for now. When Chris and Doug reconciled months later, Chris read the book and had the same response I did. Da Free John was a genuine Realizer, a true Teacher, a real Spiritual Master, alive right now!

I never dreamed of anything like that in my entire life, but here it was. My validation was my own, known in my heart, beyond doubt or input from anyone else. Chris was a man of action more than I was at that time, and so we three contacted the community and became corresponding students. That was in 1980. Da Free John was my Guru for the next 12 years. I was in His community the entire time. I lived in NY, then in Los Angeles, CA. I moved back to NY, then to LA again after divorcing Chris. I moved soon to the Bay Area, and settled in San Rafael. I loved and trusted Beloved Adi Da as my Guru. I did not doubt that He is exactly who He said. I have always and will always hold Him as the Truth in my heart.  And little did I realize, my relationship to Him was just going to grow from being in Her Company!

I went on retreat at His Hermitage Sanctuary in Fiji in 1990.  It was the first time I was physically close to Him, without 200 people between us. I was allowed to give Him a gift at His Feet. I was overjoyed. When it was my turn, I went to stand up to go over to His chair, and realized I was shaking head to toe. I was not just shaking, I was quaking. I could barely manage to stand! My muscles felt like they were moving inches in either direction. Somehow I got to His chair. I bowed briefly then held up my flower and gazed into His face. His eyes were looking directly into mine. His face grew large and was all I could see. Then I had the sensation that He vacuumed me up into Himself. I prostrated and went back to my chair. I tell this because it relates directly to my first meeting with my beloved Guru Santosha Ma.

It was after several years there that events occurred that made me aware of the existence of Santosha Ma, then known as Marada Heart Warrior. I heard of Her from a couple of friends who had met Her. They were very taken with Her. She said She was Enlightened, Awake, and this by the Grace of my Guru, Adi Da. I was not particularly drawn to meet Her at that time. I almost sang at a party for Her one time, but the party was cancelled by the leaders of the community. I did not find out anything else and let the incident go.

One of the women who went to visit Her asked me to house sit for her and her housemates while they went on a trip with Marada. I agreed. Upon my arrival the house was empty. I was feeling very nosy I guess, and glanced into each person’s room from the doorway. In the first room I saw a picture of her that shifted me into unfamiliar territory. Here was a woman, sitting somewhere in the desert. I was looking at Her profile. Her head was shaved, and She had on very cool Ray Ban sunglasses. She was not an ordinary woman, this was obvious! I was stunned by Her altogether.

I went to the room where I was to sleep. I got into bed, and noticed a paper sticking out from underneath the bed. I picked it up. It was a short story titled, The Passion Play.  That sounded interesting, so I began reading it.  What I read shocked me, but I could not put it down. It was about a spiritual community – mine? It was fiction, but described many attitudes and events that were demonstrated in the community. The difference here was, when seen from a different point of view, it was not a pretty sight. I felt all kinds of feelings, and then they would be described in the very story I was reading!! I was astounded. Something in me opened up, and by the end of the story, I was amazed with this Marada Heart Warrior. I only wanted to read more.

I literally searched the house for something more to read, but it was as if they had hidden everything! Finally, I was standing on a table in the living room, reaching into a cupboard near the ceiling, when I found a book called And the Truth Will Be Told By the Healing of the Warrior Spirit.  OK!! When I went to bed, I was determined to get up and read the book. In the morning I sat on the couch, and did not get up at all until I closed the back cover. On the back was a picture of Marada. She was sitting very quietly on a chair. She did not look like an ordinary woman – She looked powerful, unlike any other woman I’d seen. As I looked at Her, to my amazement, I began to feel the familiar feeling of transmission. I was undone by this. How could this be? But because I knew this transmission as God, I knew certainly that She was Enlightened, that She was that same One my Guru Adi Da was. I instantly could not doubt it!  This is the Grace of God in life – that such signs in my own heart are irrefutable for me. I thank God for these signs of love.

The next sign was just as unexpected. I left a note in that house that I would love to meet Marada as soon as possible. About a week later, I was invited to a picnic at a park outside of town on a lake. I was very excited at this point. I knew She was real, and I just had to meet Her! The sign that appeared to confirm to me all I felt was that, as I approached where She was sitting, up a small hillside on a bright green patch of grass, my body began to quake. I cannot say shake, but literally quake, exactly as it had happened to me in front of Adi Da. I could barely walk, again, but I kept moving forward toward where She was. When I was within about 30 feet of Her at the bottom of the small hill She was sitting on with some others, She seemed to notice me coming. I was riveted on Her face, undone by the quaking response I recognized to be my bodily response to facing God in human form. She turned Her head so slowly and gently toward me, gazed into my eyes through those Ray Bans, and nodded Her head slightly. In that timeless moment, She revealed herself as God to me, as the same One as Adi Da. She was Infinite, as He Is. And She knew I knew it in that moment. It was only a matter of a couple of seconds. My life changed again, and I became Her devotee. I am certain I was sent, Given, moved to Her by Adi Da Himself, by Her. It is my lucky lucky life to be with Her. I feel I am one of the luckiest women on the planet.

My life with Her will be in other stories. All I did in my life moved me mysteriously to the Heart. Everything led me to Her; or as She said to me, She called me to Her, and Adi Da sent me to Her, and here I am! What a mystery.   I am so grateful.