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Spirit of Ma'at: "Being Light" — Vol 4, No 4 with Ma Jaya by Valentina Kneppers
To those who know Ma Jaya (aka Sati Bhagavati), she is a unique, down-to-earth, service-oriented teacher with a practical, "Brooklyn" sense of humor.
A kind of modern version of Mother Teresa, Ma Jaya works extensively with AIDS patients and other adults and children who are in their final stages of life. As such, she realizes that many people will not associate her life with the theme of this month's magazine. But we would not be talking about lightness of the heart if life always held inherently joyful events. There's no trick to feeling happiness in the midst of celebration. In fact, it is perhaps only when we can shine our Light and Truth into the depths of human suffering that we can say we have truly become Light. Valentina: I understand that you deal with extreme suffering every day. And yet, if anyone seems to have lightness of heart, it is you. How do you do it? Ma Jaya: Let me begin by saying that there is no other way to do it. You can't love God, Buddha, the Self — you can't follow any tradition — without lightness. I have never, ever met a holy person, including my own guru, Neem Karoli Baba, who did not have a twinkle in the eye. That twinkle comes from the knowledge that, "This, too, shall pass." My first teaching came from my mother. When I was ten years old, right after World War II, she was at Coney Island Hospital, dying of cancer in a charity ward. And when I visited her, she sent me around to the other patients, saying, "Go ahead! Make everyone laugh." There were a hundred people in that ward, people who had been dumped on Coney Island Hospital's doorstep by their employers. There were Germans there, and people whose parts were being amputated. And I went out into the ward and did as I was told. And when I came back to my mother and asked, "Now what?" she gave me a playful smack and said, "Touch them." So my mother was my first teacher, and I learned very quickly. Basically, I got a lot of my teachings in that cancer ward. People didn't know then what they know today. I learned how to touch, how to hold — and how to bring lightness to death. Bringing heaviness to death, one does absolutely nothing. After my mother's death, I was raised — from the age of nine — by four of the most magnificent folks one could ever imagine. They were Black alcoholics, drug addicts, and prostitutes who lived in the streets and under the Coney Island boardwalk. At a time when they could have been hung by their fingers for doing it, they took in a little white girl. They lived dharma — acting from soul-consciousness — every second of their lives. And they made sure that what happened to them would not happen to me. If I live to be a thousand, there will never, ever be time enough to repay them. There was a street woman I adored named Chews. "Girl-child," she said, "you promise me you'll never stick anything in your arm, not up your nose, not in your body. Tell me now! Tell me now!" I didn't know what she was talking about, but I said, "Of course not." For the longest time, I wouldn't even take aspirin because I had given my word. "You take care of our people," Chews said to me. That's what started my path. We celebrated our 30th anniversary last week, 27 years here at this ashram in Sebastian, Florida. At one time, we were doing fifteen memorials a week here. This pond, which we call the Ganga, holds the ashes of hundreds upon hundreds of young men, women, and babies that nobody wanted even in life, never mind after death. In order to survive all this and teach my babies — we've raised over three hundred children here — one has to bring humor. Without humor, we'd have absolutely nothing. Valentina: How do you, in the midst of death, stay present with the knowledge that this, too, shall pass? Ma Jaya: I learned from a master, Swami Nityananda, to go over the head into a place where there is no "me.' It's called the Chidakash.[1] In this space, there is no memory of one's own past. Even if one has lived a life of being abused — as many have[2] — by going to the place over the head, where the heart of detachment is, there is nothing there of the person who is serving. This way, we go into hospital rooms or county wards or charity homes — even under bridges and on the streets — and serve. We go and see a particular person, and that's all that particular moment of the Buddha is about: that moment, that person, and whatever his or her beliefs are. If a man you are with is Catholic, for example, the moment may be about him and Christ. Valentina: So in other words, you're saying that joy and lightness come from service? Ma Jaya: Yes, when you're seeing the heart of the other person, and leaving yourself out. By actually touching people, bringing others close to our breast, whether we are male or female we become The Mother. Robes, getups, red marks like the one I wear on my forehead — these things mean nothing without service. And we must serve from the heart. Some people serve in order to get what I call "Wilkie buttons."[3] They serve with the idea "look what I did, God, knock it off my bad side." Personally? I don't care. Not as long as they're getting out there and feeding someone. But it's not okay for the person doing it. If you can exchange yourself with another human being, my God, can the world be changed! Little by little, person by person. My children ask, in their last days, if they can come to serve. What does serving do? It opens the heart to death. Even if you're going to die in a hundred years, it will open your heart. Valentina: Can you tell me how opening the heart to death creates lightness of being? Ma Jaya: What do people fear the most in their lives? It's not death, believe it or not. It's pain and dying. Once you've conquered death — which I teach through yoga, meditation, and breathing — you've conquered dying. If you conquer death, you're not afraid of dying. They interchange. Whatever one's God is, one can learn the magic of going through the top of the head in the death process. Death becomes a very beautiful moment, and all of a sudden that moment extends throughout the whole dying process. I find that most of those who are suffering and dying want children around them. In this way, every one of my children — every single one — has witnessed death. It is in the conquering of dying that you know that death is on the other side. And it is the conquering of death that gives you the lightness of life. I say "Namaste" to people. People look at me, and they don't know what it means, but after a few times, they learn. "Whoever, Whatever is in me greets Whoever, Whatever is in you." Soon, this greeting comes flowing easily. If we say "Namaste" to people, all of a sudden we're all the same. When we say that kind of hello, and give a hug, we become equal, we have love without borders. Valentina: From my own experience in serving people, there are times when I feel weighed down with their heaviness. How do you deal with that? Ma Jaya: This is where I speak of detachment. When you begin to feel heaviness come into you from another person's sorrow, you are putting yourself into that moment with them. For this, we need darshan,[4] meditation, and yoga. Again, suffering is not necessary. I can't imagine a God who would say, "I am going to hurt you, torture you, take away your mother and father so that you will learn." But those things all happened to me. So can the suffering we experience be used toward a better life? Absolutely! Some people fall apart with what life dishes out, and others become stronger. My sister shared my experience of childhood, and she fell apart. Different people, different ways. Valentina: So what was the difference between you and your sister? Why is it that she fell apart and you did not? Ma Jaya: I chose not to. I chose to learn how to be in my heart in every single moment of my life. Also, I chose to have my older sister with me always. So at the end of her life, she found the great beauty. You persist. You don't insist, you persist. I go into poorhouses, county homes. I go into the streets where they don't even want to know me. I constantly go, and I persist, I keep going, constantly. It's consistency. You keep going until you have people's trust. And once the trust is there, life opens up like a lotus.
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