Today is the feast of Saint Scholastica, twin sister of Saint Benedict, born a little more than 400 years after Christ, when the imprint of His passing was very fresh, and the conversion of the Western World to Him was in its infancy. It was largely due to saints such as these that we have such a strong monastic tradition. These people grew up knowing about Christ, usually in pious households, but certainly in a rich Christian environment close enough to the source for the echo of Christ's footsteps on earth to reverberate in and tantalize the soul.
When I read about these lovely saints who got an early start on their monastic quest, I often reflect on them and compare their circumstances to mine. Often I wish I would have known something of religion and contemplative life when I was a child and not just my own inner feelings and directions from the Divine, but I remind myself that even those that approach God in the 11th hour are welcomed and accepted in. This is true in all religious traditions, though I see in the way that these saints are memorialized that the very human tendency to expect perfection from childhood is often reflected in the stories told about them.
What about ordinary people born in non-pious households and raised by committed heathens in an atmosphere of utter worldliness, greed and competition? It just takes longer to wend ones way to a holy life. As in my own experience, traveling through various religious expressions, depending upon the people and circumstances with which I found myself, enduring the torments that the devotees of various organizations heaped upon me, I eventually found my way.
Just as in meditation, when one is required to continually direct the mind to the "feet of the Lord," the key has always been to keep my attention on the Lord in my life circumstances and to follow Him, ignoring as much as possible the "pin pricks of jealousy" (as my swami often called them) of people also not yet perfected but who imagine they are completely cooked, despite their half-baked ideas, and who, no matter what religion they follow, do their best to try and keep it small, constricted, and exclusive, since they cannot handle the enormity of God. They try to bite Him off into managable pieces, and hold those little pieces close, jealously guarding them, but this doesn't work. We cannot, nor should we try, to manipulate God in this way. No good can come of it.
Meditation and the contemplative life allow you to merge into the Divine, and not feel overwhelmed by the vast, unending Magnificence. In the process, there are some side effects and, in typical human fashion, some people can become enamored of those petty benefits and become entranced with them, mistakenly imagining that THIS is the whole show - so we have a lot of people teaching "meditation" these days, having removed all trace of the religions that created this practice.
(One of my students once asked me, "can't I just meditate without all this religious stuff?" She wanted to use God but had not yet gotten to the place where she was willing for God to use HER."
This is a common problem with humans because natural selfishness and instincts for self-preservation impede spiritual progress. At first, no one wants to LOSE themselves in the Divine. They want to use God to gain worldly pleasures and a modicum of control over their fate. I remember, in the early days, someone talking to me about "merging into the Divine," and I retorted something to the effect that it sounded "revolting." I was still in the phase when I couldn't imagine doing anything but lopping off a piece of bliss, installing it in my heart, and proceeding on my way.
We are called by religious life to give up our puny selves and merge into the bliss of God, but it does take some practice, and some faith that one isn't going to go mad in the process. At any rate, there ARE side effects for which one should be prepared, when embarking on a serious quest, and one needs to decide not to become entranced by these small gifts. It is tempting to turn one's attention toward these little tokens and get lost in fascination on them. Unfortunately, spiritual progress ceases when this happens, because you've taken your mind off of your Goal and have become diverted by a side show.
But we love the side show. Stories of the saints are full of them, and it is these stories that we treasure and hold up as proof of saintliness. For instance, the most famous story told about St. Scholastica is how, one day very shortly before her death, she entreated her brother not to leave and go back to his monastery that night, but instead to stay with her and continue their conversations about spiritual matters. Saint Benedict, not wanting to break his own rule, demurred and began to make arrangements to return to his monastery.
Saint Scholastica attempted to restrain him with her prayers, which were immediately answered by a tremendous storm that suddenly swept up, ostensibly in response to her fervent invocations.
In India, there are yogis (a type of Hindu saint) who make a specialty out of their ability to manipulate their bodies in odd ways, and I can attest that some meditation techniques can have an affect on the central nervous system, in particular. I have had some experience with it this week.
When I was a child, I was terrified of needles, and to this day I put myself into a meditative state in order not to faint when I get a shot. Yesterday, I had to have a biopsy done at the doctor's office. There is a dark spot on my scalp, which I was fairly sure was a sun spot but which my doctor said should be tested.
I slowed my breathing and put myself into a meditative state, but the resulting relaxation caused my blood vessels to relax a bit too much so that when the doctor inserted the lidocaine shots into my scalp, blood spurted out and began flowing down my face.
"I wasn't expecting that!" the doctor said, as she scrambled for something to soak up the blood. They really WEREN'T prepared, as there were no sterile dressings with which to sop up the blood - just a few tiny pieces of gauze. So I had to stop my relaxation technique and go on blood detail, dabbing at the blood that was drenching my long hair. (As I write this, there is still blood caked in my hair, as I was so exhausted after all this that I fell asleep before I could wash it out.)
The pain shots only last a little while, so the doctor had to continue with the surgery while I kept trying to staunch the blood with those pitiful little pieces of gauze. She lost her nerve or was inexperienced with the cutting tool that she called a "punch," and was unable to get a clean cut, so had to go back in with scissors to free the flap of skin, which was difficult to see because of all the blood. As she worked, the blood kept pouring down my face in rivulets that I myself had to try and stop.
Then, once she'd gotten the piece of skin dropped into a sterile vial for transfer to the testing site, the nurse went and got some more pitiful little pieces of gauze and some little saline capsules that the doctor used (in vain) to get the blood out of my hair.
On my end of things, I had no idea that my relaxation techniques were going to cause this kind of thing. It just didnt' occur to me. Looking back on it now, I understand what happened and would be prepared for it if I ever had to have this type of procedure again.
I was also feeling a bit of an allergic reaction to the lidocaine, and I asked them if they could give me a benadryl for it, so the doctor called in the head nurse, a lovely man named "Joe," who told me that usually, these lidocaine shots will tighten the blood vessels and may increase blood pressure, as does the benadryl, so he wanted to take my pulse. It was 65 - a very respectable and low pulse rate. My blood pressure was 104 over 60, which is quite low. The nurse was surprised. I wasn't.
So, my meditation and breathing techniques brought too much calm to my system and, while I was certainly relaxed and had no fear of the needles and knives, it wreaked havoc with the surgical procedure. Next time, perhaps I will work on staying a bit more "uptight."
On the way home, I decided to grab a lemonade from a local drive-through and, while I was mentally musing over the events and congratulating myself on my yogic abilities, I failed to concentrate on what I was doing and managed to spill the entirety of a giant glass of lemonade onto the floor of my car, where it remains this morning and I have no idea what to do about it except perhaps to leave my car windows open and pray that it dries and doesn't get moldy. It will need to be shampooed, I suppose, which is more than my pathetic knees and scoliotic back can handle right now and would cost some amount of money to have someone else do and which I cannot afford to pay for, at the moment (or any moment, actually.)
This is a perfect example of what happens when you allow yourself to be distracted by the side show. When I am driving, I need to concentrate on driving. When I am reading, concentrate on the reading. Whatever I am doing at the moment, that is the thing on which I should fix my mind, otherwise it is a disaaster - not just in the amount of lemonade that gets spilled on the floor of my vehicle, but in the degree to which my mind becomes lax and flabby in its habits.
The secret of spiritual practice is that it does not have a beginning nor an ending. It is constant. What we do with our minds is crucially important - every minute of the day.
May you have all the blissful minutes in all your days.
"Sannyasini Kaliprana"
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