The Heart-Changer

On January 26, 1996, at the age of thirty-eight, I left my southern Ohio law practice, said goodbye to family and friends, and moved to California---to live behind steel-barred gates, locked away from the world. I lived there for nineteen months, with about one hundred other women of all ages, under many rules and restrictions on every facet of life. I was constantly under supervision, and even the most personal aspects of my life were monitored. Private moments were rare, and then I had to report not only what I had done, but also what I had thought and felt.
No, I wasn’t in a prison, at least outwardly. I had voluntarily boarded the airplane that took me there and had willingly, even enthusiastically, entered this place of confinement. I could have packed up and left at any time during those nineteen months, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the steel-barred gates were an outward symbol of my own inner prison. I thought I was free, but my heart, mind, and soul were anything but free.
What was this place? It was an “ashram,” which means “house” in Sanskrit. But it was not just any house or home. It was like a monastery, or a convent, and I went there to become a monastic disciple, a nun---to devote my life to the teachings of a guru from India. I had never met him in person. In fact, he was dead. He had come to the United States in 1925 and spent several years gathering followers from all over the country by performing miraculous signs. He established a religious organization to spread his teachings. Then he died in 1952. This guru---or rather, his spirit---had entered my life in seemingly miraculous ways, and I had been all too willing to let him in.
Why would a reasonably intelligent, educated, responsible woman, who had attended church every Sunday of her childhood, leave her career and loved ones to follow a dead guru and become a nun in a religion she had learned about less than two years before? What was so captivating? So convincing? What provided an escape from those steel-barred gates? And, more importantly, what---or who---provided an escape from the inner prison that had held her captive?
In the following pages, I’ll tell you the story that answers these questions. My purpose isn’t simply to tell you about me. I’m writing because, though my story may seem strange in the details, it may help you find answers to questions you have about your own life.
My decision in 1996 to go to the ashram revealed my beliefs at the time---beliefs about God, about myself, and about life---beliefs that are fairly common today. The story of my captivation tells much about God’s enemy and the enemy of our souls, who has invaded all of our lives, whether we realize it or not. But the story of my rescue tells of the power and mercy of the true and living God. Only by His grace am I alive to tell this story. It’s my prayer that you will find the freedom you long for deep in your heart.