Experiences

Surpassing Understanding

When I sit for meditation, I generally light a candle and an incense stick. It’s a common way that yogis create a pleasant atmosphere for sadhana, spiritual practice. One time, I lit my customary incense stick, but when I opened my eyes after meditation there were two incense sticks burning. I thought that was pretty cool but I didn’t understand the significance.

I called my trusted friend and spiritual elder, Swami Jaidev, of the Institute of the Himalayan Tradition, to get his counsel. Swami just laughed, asking why I was making a big deal of a little event. Such things, he said, are bound to happen to one on the spiritual path.

“What does it mean?” I asked. He laughed even harder.

He then said something like, “When you stop worrying so much about what things mean, your wisdom will grow and you will understand a lot more.” This has turned out to be very true.

No Big Deal

My friend Shyamdas recently died. He rode a motorcycle over a cliff in India. He was a member of a traditional sect in India that uses murtis, or idols, as a means of connecting with the divine. Shyamdas once gifted me with a small murti of Krishna, an incarnation of God, in the form of a baby, kind of like baby Jesus.

Accepting the gift, I also accepted the traditional practice of caring for the murti as if it were practically a living baby. I took little pieces of cloth and wrapped Krishna in it, got a tiny pillow for him to rest on, and even brought him food and water.

One morning, after placing a cup of water in front of Krishna, I sat to meditate. When I finished my meditation and opened my eyes, the cup was empty, the water was gone. This is evidence, tradition says, that God has accepted one’s worship and has drunk the water.

This was definitely an unusual event and the kind of thing that many religious people consider a miracle. For me, it had just the opposite impact. I thought, “So, Krishna drank the water. My son, Jahnu, drinks the milk I bring him every morning. This is no big stink.” I couldn’t see how water disappearing would result in my becoming a kinder and wiser person. That ended my practice with the murti.


Healing Mantra

One time I was sitting in a sauna with a group of friends. In a rush of dizziness, I found that I had become too hot, too de-hydrated, and too high too fast. I left the sauna to try and gain my composure.

Standing in the forest, I realized I was going to pass out. I felt sick and stupid, but I wasn’t scared that I would die, or anything like that. I stumbled to the foot of a large tree and lay down. The part of my mind that was still lucid figured this would be a safe place. I wouldn’t fall and hurt myself, and my friends would find me and care for me until I regained consciousness.

As I laid my body down and began to drift off, I heard from the sauna my friends chanting the mantra, “Om sri ram jai ram jai jai ram.” I felt the mantra as a cool breeze, lifting my energy, and permeating every part of my being. In a matter of seconds, I sat up completely healed and whole. I could hardly believe it. It was such a dramatic transition, in only a matter of moments, that I can still hardly believe it. I went back into the sauna to share what had happened, but there was no space to talk as everyone was chanting. I joyously joined in.


Doing One’s Best

Another time, in the same sauna, Ambika and I were getting ready to sweat by meditating, chanting, and reading from a book on the great yogi, Sri Ramakrishna, the Bengali devotee of the Divine Mother. We entered the sauna and sat down on the upper of two benches, about five feet off the floor. I recited a mantra to Hanuman and, while doing so, Ambika entered into a deep state of meditation. So deep, she lost consciousness of her body and the world.

I watched my sweet wife fall forward and crash violently onto the lower bench of the sauna, like a sack of potatoes, and then fall completely unprotected onto the floor. It was a horrific thing to witness. Ambika was laying in a fetal position with her pelvis raised and her face smashed on the floor. Her hips were leaning against the burning hot woodstove. It took a moment for me to cognize what I was witnessing. Then I shifted into action, jumping off the bench and pulling her body off the stove.

Ambika looked up at me with a dazed expression, unaware of what had happened, how she had gotten from the bench to the floor. Her face was cut, and blood was pouring from her mouth. I helped her out of the sauna and onto the forest floor. In the clear light, I could see that her wounds were quite serious. How serious was difficult to ascertain at first glance. I wondered about the extent of her injuries; how bad were her burns, had she lost teeth, was her nose broken, did she have a concussion, and was she going to need stitches to close the cuts.

It seemed like we had gone from heaven to hell in one minute, from sitting peacefully in the sauna to being naked and alone in the woods, dealing with a potentially dangerous injury.

As we gathered our wits, we knew that Ambika needed medical attention. To reach the nearest hospital, however, we would have to get dressed, walk through the forest to our car, and drive close to 45 minutes. In a decision born of faith, we resolved that before we left the forest for the greater world and medical help, we would try and heal her ourselves. Please understand that our operative feeling was “try.” Ambika was in bad shape and neither one of us felt especially confident that anything we could do would make a big difference. Still, we felt guided to try our best.

Try our best we did. With all of the love and sincerity we could muster, we recited our mantras, offered our prayers, and directed our healing energy into her bruised body. Our efforts seemed to work as an atmosphere of peace and love settled around us. At one point, I actually saw Ambika’s cuts stop bleeding and close. It was kind of like a time-lapse movie, where something that would take a long time can be seen as happening swiftly. I watched her face, which was swollen and black and blue, heal and return to normal size and complexion. It was as if the injuries dissolved the way watercolors might dissolve into the paper.

After some time, night fell and we knew we didn’t have to go to the hospital. We drove Ambika home, put her to bed, and she woke up the next day in good shape. It was obvious she had been hurt, but she certainly didn’t look like someone who had a violent fall. She had no deep bruises, no cuts, no burns, and has no scars. We were very, very grateful. The main sense we had after this, and which we frequently remind ourselves, was, “Try your best, for your best is good enough.”


An Unusual Cure

The Maha-Mritunjaya mantra is a well-respected mantra, used for healing, overcoming fear, and controlling death. I had repeated it over the years and one time put it to an unusual test.

Ambika, my wife, and I used to spend our Thanksgivings in Montreal. It was just another Thursday night in Canada, so we would go out to a restaurant and spend the night at a Bed & Breakfast. It was a big adventure for us, as our life is usually rather quiet, so we would try and have a big splash.

I rarely drink alcohol, but since we were out on the town, it was time to splurge. We drank a nice bottle of wine with dinner and, since I rarely drink, I got pretty tipsy.  We ordered dessert from the menu, but the menu was in French and we didn’t know what we were getting. Turned out we ordered some fancy pastry thing that came soaked in Brandy. Well, between the wine and the Brandy desert, I was good and drunk.

When we got back to our room I realized I was, truly, very drunk. My head was pounding, the room was spinning, and I was nauseous. Too drunk to take my clothes off, I laid on the bed and placed one foot on the floor in hopes of getting the room to stop spinning. I wasn’t sure what was going to be my fate: having to race to the bathroom or passing out in a stupor.

Somewhere from the recesses of my mind, I remembered the Maha-Mritunjaya mantra. With as much concentration as I could muster, I began to repeat the mantra, and to my amazement, the room stopped spinning, my head cleared up, and my stomach stopped threatening. I could hardly believe it. I changed my clothes, went to sleep, and woke up the next morning feeling fine. I’m not sure the sages shared this mantra for the purpose of curing hangovers but, in this case, it sure was helpful.