The day of smiling²⁷

All of you kindly smile at me! Today is the day of smiling. Today I came to America, I came to the West, so I expect a smile from all of you. Smile, smile, smile! You have no idea how much strength I get from your smiles! If you do not smile at me, I feel that you weaken me. Since you are so kind to me, I expect only smiles and smiles from you.

It seems that some people have never learnt how to smile during their entire life. Once upon a time I was one of those! In my Ashram life I did not know how to smile. One picture was taken of my boss, Nolini, his wife and me — the three of us together. In that picture I smiled broadly. Nolini said that it was the first time he had seen me smiling!

I had two other names at the Ashram. One was “Fire.” Always people used to see fire inside me. And because of my delicate movement, people used to call me “Japanese Girl.” My movements were delicate, specially when I played ping-pong.