“Everything changed once I came here,” Aparna told her. “Everything fell into line. My days, how I spend my time, the people who come into my life, like you.”

“How . . . how do you support yourself?” Jaya felt awkward asking, but she was curious, and Aparna didn’t seem to mind.

“I have a small stipend from my husband’s pension,” she said. “Everything else, God takes care. Guru takes care.” She bobbed her head side to side. “Everything is taken care.” Jaya was fortunate, she realized, to be able to come here without any financial sacrifices, thanks to Keith’s support.

The ashram served simple vegetarian meals twice a day, not only to devotees but to visitors who stopped in. Some days, the Guru gave a lecture, but every day people streamed in to pay their respects and make offerings. There were large donation boxes bolted securely to the ground at each entrance, which were cleared out each night. The Guru’s books and recordings of his lectures were sold from a small shop inside the ashram, as well as framed photographs like the one that hung in Jaya’s temple room back home. It was all very pragmatic, the need to fund Guru’s considerable operations.

For Jaya, being here in the wellspring of his energy was a powerful experience. Everyone at the ashram, from the floor sweeper to the Guru’s inner circle, seemed to reflect and compound his radiant presence. Here, sitting for hours in prayer and meditation, not alone but surrounded by others of the same mind-set, Jaya felt she was reaching new heights of spirituality that went far beyond the rote religious rituals she had practiced as a child. It was remarkable to her how, after a few days living amongst these new people in Pune, she could feel bolstered in a way she hadn’t when she’d lived with Keith for twenty years.

She no longer had to look for Prem reincarnated in other individuals; his spirit simply inhabited her. Jaya felt his presence so strongly at times, it was as if he was right next to her, telling her something funny to make her laugh out loud, guiding her gently away from the dark abyss of sadness. She marveled with his childlike wonder at the tendrils of the jasmine blossoms that flowered outside the ashram. Her days were unhurried, full of the small pleasures he used to enjoy while the rest of them bustled around him—an unexpected sun-shower, a comfortable pillow, a midday nap. In the wake of Prem’s death, her abiding love for her son had had no home. Now she had found one, and he was with her everywhere. She felt blessed to have Prem in her life for eight years, and even after his death, she was still learning from him.

When Jaya returned to her parents’ home in Delhi, she was eager to share with her mother everything she’d experienced. “Next year, I want to go back for a whole month. Maybe you can come?” Jaya expected her mother, who’d always been spiritual, would love the idea.