In January 2000 I embarked on the meditation sabbatical that led to the development of the Community of the Lamb as an association of people who offer the Prayer of the Lamb in intercession for the needs of the world.
Last year I spent much time in travel around the world in spiritual pilgrimage, first to the Middle East to the places associated with the beginning of the spiritual practice of hesychasm of the eastern orthodox church out of which the Jesus Prayer and the Prayer of the Lamb derive. The time spent in Coptic and Orthodox monasteries and the caves of saints and monks of the past gave a physical, historical and geographical context for the teaching that accompanies the Prayer of the Lamb. And it was personally gratifying to sit in meditation, even if only briefly, in places like the cave of St. Antony of Egypt or a cave at the top of Mount Sinai or a cave in the side of a cliff in the desert area around the Dead Sea.
Later in September when I was group leader for a Franciscan Pilgrimage to Assisi and Rome following the footsteps of St. Francis, I was overjoyed to discover the caves of Italy where Francis and other saints resorted to prayer. Mount Athos in Greece is only one place among many where there are caves to welcome those pulled by the Spirit into periods of solitude, renunciation, prayer and meditation.
Seeking the place for retreat and prayer is a universal desire of the heart. It is not a running away from the world as much as a running to a place of encounter with God, engaging in a sensory fast in order to hear more easily the still, small voice that Elijah heard on Mount Sinai. It is not for a cozy time of just me and Jesus all full of bliss, but a time for coming face to face with the inner demons and purification of the soul and burning away of the ego. It is a time for waking up and encountering reality.
Early in December I was traveling again, this time heading for India, not returning until the middle of February. India had been there in my thoughts and imagination for a number of years. India has been referred to as the other Holy Land, a land where spirituality and spiritual practice is an integral part of daily life, a land of a surprising number of different religions and saints from every tradition, and where there is a much greater tolerance for the diversity of religions. Over the years as I read from the classic texts of the world’s religions I had been impressed by the way meditation and consciousness were discussed, how much more expansive and descriptive the vocabulary was, how this addressed questions that western spiritual writers seemed only able to hint at. Then as I read commentaries by different Hindus on Christian scriptures or about Jesus, I was struck by how easily and cleanly they zeroed in on the essential truths. It was a breath of fresh air, something that seemed more organic and congruent than a lot of the western theology I have studied. We in the west are frequently, I believe, too sophisticated, too into our heads. That is why I initially was drawn to the Orthodox Prayer of the Heart; I needed to move in my own prayer life out of the head and into the heart.
Finally the opportunity had arrived to make the pilgrimage to India. The impetus was a chance meeting with one of the many Indian holy people I had read about. Mata Amritanandamayi Devi (affectionately known as “Amma”) was on tour and in Seattle, so I went to see her out of curiosity. Since Jesus had lived in an eastern part of the world and had disciples whom he taught more specifically than the crowds, according to the Gospel accounts, and since what I had learned from Hindu writers about the process of discipleship had really opened up many passages of the Gospels to me, I had been thinking that to observe one of these eastern sages might reveal more of what it would have been like to be around Jesus during his earthly ministry.
I was not disappointed in my curiosity. In the large crowd I encountered a spiritual atmosphere much like what I would have imagined it to be like around Jesus. There was love and openness and welcome and a palpable peace. This was a different sort of crowd to be in, sort of what it was like when years earlier I had gone to see particularly renown charismatic leaders and healers. I joined the others receiving from Amma her trademark hug, a simple loving embrace to model how we all are to be in relationship with one another, an example of selfless service and giving without judgment or reciprocity. As I observed Amma that evening and that weekend I could see that here was a person truly living out the Gospel. And she also made it clear that she was not calling anyone out of their own religious tradition, but into a deeper observance of their own faith.
Here was the golden opportunity to see what it would have been like to have been around Jesus 2,000 years ago and to see what that discipleship process would have been like by being around someone whose culture, although Hindu, has more commonality with Judea and Palestine of the First Century than our western world could ever claim. And so in short order I found myself with plane tickets in hand and a reservation at Amma’s ashram in southern India for December and January.
Amma’s ashram in the backwaters of Kerala in south India was neither desert or cave, with permanent residents numbering about 2,000, a few hundred of whom were from countries all around the world. But in her presence the process of discipleship proved every bit as intense as I had suspected it would have been with Jesus. Always there were the opportunities to confront the basic core issues of one’s life and relationships. Physically it was living the life of extreme simplicity, of poverty, of renunciation of the comforts of the world. It required an utter reliance on faith, for me faith in Jesus, in Yeshua, as I came face to face with truth about myself. As one becomes more aware of the truth, of reality, one can no longer go back to old ways of being. But in this intense spiritual environment one is not given the opportunity to reconsolidate a personally framed self-definition to assure the ego of any mastery or ownership or control in managing one’s life. Instead it is all living by grace, the grace of the guru, the grace of Guru Jesus.
I have stories to tell about what I encountered at the ashram and what I saw when I traveled with Amma to various cities around south India, and some of these will appear in subsequent newsletters. The parallels with Jesus and his entourage going from village to village in Galilee and Judea were clear. The masses of people would gather, they would all be fed, all desiring to come for the loving embrace of the spiritual master would be welcomed, parables and stories conveying the basic teaching like the proclamation of the Gospel would be told, and there would always be tremendous hymn singing, Indian bhajans sung as call and response, known to all and sung with great enthusiasm.
There is more than can be shared in one newsletter. This is perhaps the introduction. But here is one example from my journal notes during the India pilgrimage.
Monday, December 12
The love and attention given to each person coming forward was constant, while Amma also seemed to be very aware of what was going on around her. It seemed to me that she was an axis mundi, like Jacob’s ladder, like Jesus, a connecting point between heaven and earth, a point at which the divine and creation converge energetically. As Amma gave her attention to each person, that seemed to me to be a point where the maya of separation was dissolved and there was only one being in harmony with itself, whole for a moment as Amma “absorbed” this other unique expression of creation kneeling before her.
It occurs to me that when I pray my intercessions each morning, this could be done with a similar giving of attention that Amma gives in darshan. This moment of intercession for each person is an intersection point with Yeshua, Jacob’s Ladder, axis mundi.
During this time in the life of the Church when interest is turning more and more to spirituality and less attention is given to maintaining the Church as an institution, people have had a tendency to look to the East for spiritual light. What one may discover, however, is that we have it all within our own Christian tradition, and the sages of the East may very well be pointing the way back home again with a fresh view.
Blessings in the Lamb,
Beverly
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