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ways to explain that God was on earth in the form of Sathya Sai Baba, that we, too, are God, that everything is God, and that our lives would now take on new meaning! What could I make of all this startling information?
The change in Sam was profound on many levels. A confirmed meat eater, he immediately became a vegetarian! I was hurt and angered by this sudden change and felt rejected. It had never occurred to me that eating meat required that someone kill an animal. I had never thought about how an animal is slaughtered and whether it suffers. I hadn’t even considered that there might be another way to eat.
But within a month the blinders fell from my eyes. How could I again eat meat, knowing that I was causing pain and suffering to an animal? So, I, too, became a vegetarian, and a potential source of marital conflict was quickly resolved. Sai Baba’s subtle influence was already helping me lead a more thoughtful and loving life.
Since I didn’t want to force our four young daughters to make such a radical change in their eating habits, I decided to no longer have meat in the house but to allow the girls to eat meat outside the home. Within two years, our eight-year- old twin daughters pronounced, “Mommy, we love animals too much to eat them.” Immediately their two younger sisters followed suit.
Sam underwent many positive changes. He became a calmer person. He was kinder and more patient with his mother and my parents, who were worried about his new focus, and he seemed less affected by life’s daily trials. He no longer had an interest in riding his motorcycle out into the countryside, and he even sold his super-fast Porsche car and replaced it with a modest, slightly beat-up Jeep. His former restlessness was replaced by an intense, one-pointed devotion to Sai Baba. He began meditating every morning at 4:00 a.m. and prevailed upon me to journey with him to India to experience Sai Baba for myself.
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