My second morning reflection at Caux on 24 July 2012:
I want to share an experience that I had many years ago. This contributed to directing me to where I am now.
During the monsoon of 1977, one of my tasks as head of security was to make sure mangy dogs didn’t get into the ashram. I blocked the ashram gates with wire mesh, but the dogs were still getting in. Then I discovered that they were coming in through the drainage pipes in the upper garden. I had to wade into the dense vegetation there in order to block those passages. Afterward, I began to feel ill. I thought it was the flu. A homeopath in the ashram agreed, but every two days, in the early afternoon, I got worse.
Baba sent the head of Kaliyan Hospital and a couple of other doctors to my room to examine me. The doctors concluded that I had an amoebic abscess. They wanted to take me to Kaliyan Hospital, a crowded, fly-infested facility nearby. Not knowing that one of them was the chief of Kaliyan, I said, “I’d rather die than go to Kaliyan Hospital.” They reported their diagnosis to Baba. Though I had been taking chloroquine, he advised them to treat me for malaria.
The next day, I was sicker than ever. I felt as though an elephant were standing on my chest. In the hundred-degree heat, I couldn’t stay warm. When I wasn’t freezing, I was burning up. My temperature hit 106°F. I lay on my bed wrapped in six blankets, and still my teeth chattered.
Suddenly, I was out of my body, looking down from near the ceiling. I was no longer an individual. Everything was still, and everything was perfect. I could see my body on the bed, but it was as if my seeing was everywhere, and I was everything. Then a decision was made—simply made, not by me—that I would return to my body. Back in my body, I opened my eyes and looked through them.
Rohini Ralby, Walking Home with Baba p. 59
What I learned form this is that Everything IS perfect; we just don’t always see it. When we are STILL and are surrendered to God we can see that “whatever God does He does for good.” There is no situation, in truth, that isn’t perfect. Grace IS always present, and if we are surrendered we can receive it. Our job is to return to the Heart, rest there in stillness and God will then came forth.
Congratulations on your safe return! Your own home is paradise after an absence. Everyone feels alike about this. Exactly the same feeling comes to us when, after distraction, we return to attention and to inner life. When we are in the heart, we are at home; when we are not in the heart, we are homeless. And it is about this above all that we must take trouble.
Theophan the Recluse quoted in The Art of Prayer p.192
Now let us practice. Be still and feel the peace and love within our Hearts. Then we will know that everything IS perfect.
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