I fell under Mirabai’s spell in Manhattan, when a western friend who had just returned from India handed me a slim book about her extraordinary life. At the time I was still struggling to make sense of what appeared to be a chaotic, violent and apparently loveless world in which I could see no sign of what the citadels of monotheism called “the moving finger of God”. If such an entity existed, I decided in a fit of pique, he’d made a royal mess of things.
Absorbing Mira’s amazing story, I found the courage to go deeper within myself. Now here was a rebel I could identify with, an Indian female who had fought with infinite grace to become light, joyous and free—that too in a distant era when Hindu women were most often forced into claustrophobic prisons constructed by outdated custom and patriarchal mores.
When I read the version of her life that described how Mira had courageously refused to obey her father-in-law’s order that she leap on to her husband’s funeral pyre, I was exultant—now this was my idea of a heroic Indian woman! Not only had she stood up to her royal father-in-law—a terrible sin in those archaic times—but she had won! Continue reading
The years flew by and our group of fantastic females disintegrated. Some left Manhattan or began new lives that did not allow for the intimacy we’d shared as single women. As for me, I took a huge leap into the unknown at the eve of the millenium: I left my comfortable life in Manhattan for the foothills of the Himalayas in order to become a good Tibetan Buddhist. But that plan for enlightenment did not work out for a variety of reasons, and once again I found myself travelling here, there and everywhere, searching for that perfect home into which I could settle for the rest of my life, in order to focus on my creative and spiritual goals.
mira prabhu 