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Show Women Choose Life of Monks Forswear Lipstick, Men, Liquor, Money MONTECITO, CALIF. With an electric kitchen and outgoing laundry, laun-dry, nine young, lipstickless women are being monks in the foothills behind be-hind Montecito. The nine are members of the Ven-danta Ven-danta society of southern California, a monastic order stemming from an ancient Hindu philosophy. Their convent consists of three ranch type buildings and a chapel set in beautiful flower gardens. It was once the 30 acre estate of the late Spencer Kellogg, a student of Ven-danta. Ven-danta. Each of the girls has a private room. The spacious main house is luxuriantly furnished. It has a grand piano. The principles of the girls' monastery monas-tery can be paraphrased as these: No lipstick. No liquor. No men. No money. The first two are to make the third one easier. Maybe the fourth one helps, too. The girls wear yellow monkcloth dresses and are called by Hindu names. Three are college graduates. Two are divorcees. All must study five years before taking the vows of sisterhood. In the convent, as Sarda, the elder eld-er sister, puts it, the members seek "divinity of mankind in a simple life of intellectual study and spiritual discipline." No one is in charge of the monaS' tery. Once a month the members meet to decide on work assign ments. "Most of the time we keep the same jobs which we have because we like them," said Sister Sarda. "For instance, I am laundress. It's not hard. I just breeze down to the Tpn-fst launderette." . After the chores are done, the girls study, and read. "There is no censorship of literature here," said Sister Sarda, "but we do not read dime novels." .One requirement is that the girls meditate three hours daily. They may direct their meditation to whatever what-ever is their conception of God. Another rule bans talk after 9:30 p.m. The rules are self-enforced. There is no such thing as punishment. |