Book excerpt: After graduating from college, Marsha Low left home to spend eighteen years as an Ananda Marga yogic nun, living in countries throughout the Middle and Far East, Australasia, and Eastern Europe. After undergoing training with the organization, she taught meditation and yoga, opened schools, and performed social work and relief projects. Often skirting the law to further her organizations mission and raise money for it, she came face to face withamong other thingsgun-toting border guards in Cyprus, the Russian KGB, and misunderstanding and rejection as a female spiritual teacher in the Middle East. In India, she faced harassment from government officials intent upon hunting down foreign members of her blacklisted organization. In The Orange Robe: My Eighteen Years as a Yogic Nun, the author also relates incidents from her family life growing up, her dreams, and the issues that she had to deal with upon returning to ordinary life. From her first encounter with the group to her eventual disillusionment with it and the reconciliation with her family, The Orange Robe chronicles the dangers, triumphs, misadventures, and heartaches she experienced on her journey. It also provides a unique window into the behavior and psychology of Ananda Marga and its founder, Shrii Shrii Anandamurti.