I was caught in a very difficult situation a few years ago. We had this Hindu/Jewish dialogue and I was one of the delegates who went to Jerusalem to talk with the Orthodox rabbis. And I was the only woman delegate, ordained woman delegate. And then before going I was given a slip saying that, you know, there are all these protocols, you should not talk before the rabbi talks. [LAUGHTER] And then you should wait and then wait 'til somebody says you can talk, then you can talk.
So I was memorizing it closely, thinking, okay, I should not make any missteps. I'm going to a foreign country, and, you know, the whole image of this conference will be tarnished. And then not only that there was also rules within the ranks of all the other swamis. There was one particular order of male swamis who should not look at women, who should not eat with women, who should not sit with women, and it was very difficult. [LAUGHTER] And I said, what to do now, should I not go?
Then, you know, no, no, no. You should go. Okay. Then how to go? And so the thing is I took it as a very interesting challenge. I said how am I going to do this? How am I going to be a successful conference participant without doing all these things? So then I decided that I'm just going to, you know, hang back and have a good time. Jerusalem is an ancient city. It's going to be wonderful, and it was. And, you know, so I just made sure never to come in the line of the swamis, you know, the non-woman-seeing swamis. [LAUGHTER] So I stayed behind him; I walked behind him, never let him set eyes on me; gave him a lot of space. Because my heart was filled with compassion for him. I said, poor thing, what a way to live! You have to constantly wash your eyes out because you're seeing the women everywhere. [LAUGHTER]
And then when we got there also, I let the rabbis talk, let everybody do their thing. And then we went on this—that was just the first day we were there, some reception was there. Then the next day it started to snow, after 75 years, in Jerusalem. It snowed and snowed. [Luisah Teish: That's your fault, you know.] Perhaps. [LAUGHTER] It was a blessing. And then you know, what happened. We were taken -- we were going on the road to the old city when everything, it snowed, snowed, snowed so much, and there were all these small, small roads. You could get lost in them, and they told us, "Don't, you know, get lost, because, you know, it will be very difficult, because all these things go in loops." I said okay.
And then what happened is that because I was so careful to hang back and not let the rabbis see me and not let the swamis see me, I got lost. [LAUGHTER] They all went, and in the thick snow I didn't know which—there were five roads. I didn't know which to go, so I just said I'm going to stay here and just admire the snow. Guess who came to bring me back? It was the non-seeing woman swami…[LAUGHTER] He said, "I'm so worried where you are; you please come with me." And he made two taboos: One was to see me, one was to talk to me. So I happily, I said, "Thank you, Swami G," and happily I went with him. And he took me there, and after that he also didn't speak to me, I also never spoke to him. And the moral of the story is sometimes our absence is stronger than our presence. [APPLAUSE].
