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burned seed does not sprout, so once you renounce the world you will not be sucked into the whirlpool of samsara . I was quite clear now that what I was doing was right. I also found that following this spiritual path brought happiness in this life – something I had not really expected.
    ‘For me, the Sangha was itself like a rebirth, a second life. I felt no real homesickness, nor any wish to return to my old life. The gurus taught me how to live in a new way: how to sit as a Jain nun, how to stand, how to talk, how to sleep. Everything was taught anew, as if from the beginning. I felt happy in this new life; I felt sure I was on the path to salvation, and was no longer being distracted by the outside world. I knew I had done the right thing, and even though I didn’t want to hurt my family, I was only sad that I had already wasted so much of my life.
    ‘I really had no time for worrying, anyway. Our guruji made sure we were totally occupied with lectures, study, classes and travel. All the time, in between days of walking, our lessons in Sanskrit and Prakrit were continuing. I found I loved Sanskrit – I loved its complexity and perfection – and after a while I was good enough to read some of our Jain literature and scriptures in the languages in which they were written. We are encouraged to carry on studying and gaining in knowledge until we can get rid of the last delusions of samsara. Twenty-four years I have been studying now, and I still have a lot to learn.
    ‘In those early days, we also began to learn how to meditate. Our guru trained us to get up at 3 a.m., and on the days we were not travelling, we would spend the early morning – the most peaceful time of the day – in meditation, striving for self-knowledge. We were trained to think of the twenty-four Tirthankaras , to visualise them, and to contemplate within our hearts their attributes, their lives and the decisions they had made. We were shown how to sit in a full lotus – the padmasana – with our eyes closed. My ability grew with my studies: first I studied the Sanskrit scriptures, then during the meditation I would recollect what I had read, and attempt to visualise what I had studied. Like a spider making a cobweb, with meditation you need patience to keep building. Once you know all about the Tirthankaras it is not difficult to picture them. It is like a child learning to cycle: as you cycle, you master the art, until eventually you hardly notice that you are cycling at all. But as with the bicycle, the first steps can be very hard, and very disheartening.
    ‘Learning the scriptures, learning Prakrit and Sanskrit, learning to meditate, learning to accept tapasya – it is all a very slow process. When you sow a seed, you have to wait for it to grow and become a tree and bear fruit – a coconut palm will not fruit for many years. It is the same with us. There is a lot of time between sowing the seed and reaping the produce. You do not sow the seed and expect to get the fruits the next day. With our tapasya , with the deprivations we experience, you do not expect to get immediate rewards, or even necessarily to get the rewards at all in this life. You may only get the rewards many lives into the future.
    ‘Like the Tirthankaras , you should have faith in the Jain path: faith is everything. For without the spiritual knowledge that the Jain faith contains you can never attain liberation. Spiritual knowledge is like ghee in the milk: you can’t see it, so initially you just have to trust that it is there. Only if you learn the proper techniques can you reap the full benefits of the milk’s potential: you must learn the way of splitting the milk into curds, then how to churn the curds and finally how to heat the butter to get ghee. The sun is always there, even if the clouds are covering it. In the same way, the soul is trying to reach for liberation, even if it is encumbered by sin and desire and attachments. By following the Jain path you