I’d like to share an experience I had with a remarkable monk from India. This experience, in an instant, changed my life forever. It’s an experience I will never forget and, when I think about it, I am filled with wonder and gratitude.
This was a time in my life when I was volunteering in an organization sponsoring an Indian monk touring through the United States. After this monk’s evening lectures, she would personally greet thousands of people every night, one, two, three or more at a time.
I suggested that one evening we should offer an Indian sweet to everyone who was coming to meet her. This particular sweet was difficult to prepare and required a lot of preparation. The idea was approved, and a large group of us spent hours, even days, preparing and making this sweet from scratch. It turned out fantastic and we were ready for the evening program, however we all wanted the sweet blessed by this monk, as is the tradition in this lineage. When food is blessed in this lineage, it becomes what is call “prasad”, meaning blessed food. Everyone on the team felt that I should be the one to go up to the monk and have the sweet blessed before she started greeting people.
Unexpectedly on this day a few events happened that made me feel deeply unworthy and evoked feelings of not belonging. I really did not want to approach the monk feeling this way, but I did not want to be rude either by turning down such a beautiful offering. I decided to accept the invitation and bring the sweet to the monk for her blessings, but I would do it as quicky and discreetly as possible.
As I approached the monk with a huge wicker basket of individually wrapped sweets, I bowed down, as is the tradition, and offered the basket of sweets to her for her blessings. In her hand she had a wand of long peacock feathers she would use to greet and bless the people coming to see her. As I approached, she raised the wand of feathers, and with a huge smile, said very joyfully, “Ahhhh, Prasad!”. As I lowered my body and bowed down, she laid her peacock feathers along my spine, and the very tip of the peacock feathers were at the base of my spine. In that moment, energy from the outside entered into the base of my spine into a tight knot in my spine…A knot that I did not even know was there. Then, this tight cluster at the base of my spine, like a massive dam bursting, broke up, and a divine and benevolent energy began to rush and flow from this spot and flooded my entire being and beyond. I disappeared into divine love. The flow of energy coming from the monk into the base of my spine seemed to break up what felt like ancient feelings of unworthiness and despair. In an instant, I was filled with a love that I had never felt before. The monk just left the feathers there and after a very long moment, I slowly rose. We both had huge smiles on our faces and we just looked at each other with complete happiness.
Even to this day, I’m astonished at the power of this moment. In an instant, she completely wiped the despair from my heart. Even the word “gratitude” is not sufficient to describe how I feel about the generosity and benevolent power of the monk. So much happened in the flash of a moment. My life was forever changed and uplifted.
I now understand why people talk about the benevolence and compassion of the great souls. This is a blessing that I will cherish forever.