How God Found Me tells the captivating story of a young girl’s impoverished beginnings under the Coney Island Boardwalk in the 1940s and 50s, her spiritual awakening in the early 1970s, founding an ashram in Florida that continues to thrive and her fierce advocacy for those in need. She and her followers became early proponents of LGBT rights. When the AIDS epidemic hit in the early 1980s, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati and her students were there to give a voice to the silent and to show love and compassion to the dying. Even before Princess Diana’s earth-shattering handshake with an AIDS patient in 1987, Ma Jaya had for years been in hospital wards hugging people with AIDS, listening to their stories and taking away their fear of death. In 1996 she stood in front of the United States Capitol at the AIDS memorial quilt, proclaiming from the podium, “There are no throwaway people!”

The story of her later years is well-documented. Her memoir’s focus on her childhood is a delightful look into how the human experiences of a wide-eyed girl are forged into the steel of a resolute spiritual leader unafraid to speak truth to power. She tells of how thrilled she was when she started her first job at the age of nine carrying ABC Beach Chairs and umbrellas to customers for tips. Her first expenditure with her new income was buying a daily flower for her overworked Mama. Her first crush was on an African American boy, something still taboo in 1950s New York. Young Joyce learned the pain and stigma of racism and spent the rest of her days fighting against it.

Ma began writing her memoirs many years ago. Her students have done a fantastic job compiling and editing her work into a pleasantly compelling narrative. I felt that I was at the boardwalk with Ma, listening to the conversations among her and her eclectic assortment of friends. I received my copy of the book as the COVID-19 pandemic began and read a few pages each night before drifting off to sleep. Reading Ma’s story brought comfort and relief to me and, at 458 pages, I only wish it were longer. The pandemic continues to rage and if there was ever a time for her message of love, kindness and healing, that time is right now. Fortunately, because of her engaging memoir, all of us can hear this message and carry it forward for her. ( )