To Prasadini on on being with Mother, illness, and keeping Mother within

[Guest guest]

Prasadini wrote:

 

There are provisions for disabled people - don't get me wrong - but they

don't understand that sitting in a room full of people and sounds, etc

can make a person way sicker...We humans are blessed to not

remember physical pain well, but remember feelings.

 

....It is the discipline of sadhana that I

lack. That's what I meant about being lazy. It is one thing to start

meditating, but then something comes along to interrupt it and the

routine is broken. With us we have many interruptions, i.e. being too

sick many days. There are many, many of Mother's children who are

disabled. There are those with visible disabilities, and then the

invisible ones...

Instant realization - wouldn't that be wonderful? To go from being a

bogi to a yogi in an instant! :-) But Mother says it doesn't happen

that way. So maybe this impatience is a good thing...Ah, to be the empty pot

- the

empty bamboo, focused on the beautiful Divine Mother...

Dear Prasadini ~ thank you so much for sharing more of your experience

during Amma's tours, in terms of your illness, and the effect of being in Amma's

presence. I think it is a bit harder for people like you and I, in the sense

that our disabilities are not visible. I have had more than one snarly look

when I was taken from the chair section up to see Mother. Now I feel I will

need

to take a note from my doctor. The way you described the overload of sensory

experience when being in the hall would, just in itself, crash me. An

overload on any level can do that. I too was tested for Lyme disease, because,

as

you say, the symptoms are so similar. But I didn't have that one.

 

Swami Satyananda Saraswiti often talks, and did so when I saw him and Shree

Maa during their last tour, about this issue of struggling, looking for the

perfect guru, finding the perfect guru, what do you do when you find the

perfect guru, etc. His "medicine" is for each person to work on being a perfect

disciple. I have heard this so many times, and I think what he means is

something similar to what you mean about sadhana. He talks about paring away

what is

unnecessary, cultivating a relationship with God/dess, worshiping, praying,

etc.

Once I wrote to him and asked him about reciting puja in bed, because my

ability to sit, on the floor, on a chair, anywhere, is limited. He wrote back

that it was perfectly fine for me to do my chanting in bed ... the important

thing is the intent, the attitude. Amma has said this too, in Her own words. I

have read in several of Her books, the importance of attitude.

 

And then, of course, when you are sick, and crashing, maybe every day ... it

is very hard to get away from that, but the knowledge that I can still work

on being the "perfect disciple," even within my own limitations have had a

tremendous impact on me. It is difficult to ignore an illness that is so

comprehensive and affects my entire body, yet I can go beyond that if I am

listening to bhajans, reading spiritual books (this one really helps me), doing

meditation, even taking a moment to talk on the phone with someone when perhaps

I

don't feel up to it. I believe we are exactly where we're supposed to be in

our journeys ... and I think being the hollow reed or bamboo or pot is

precisely about that ... just being with acceptance of what is.

 

Someone, just a regular guy, once told me that we learn by our bruised

knees. This was in a job where I had a huge learning curve to go around very

quickly as I was the sole employee. But it has always stayed with me. It hurts

when we fall down, but then we pick ourselves up and, hopefully have learned

something new that will help us as we walk along our paths.

 

Thank you Prasadini ~ Linda