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big sur
August 2009 
From Big Sur
Posted on Jun 27th, 2008
by 
ashramdiarist
ashramdiarist
At New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur... Two days ago was the anniversary of my arrival, on June 25, 1962, when I came to join this monastic house, whose members follow the Rule of Saint Benedict but imitate the Desert Elders (hermits called “fathers” and mothers, mostly Christians, dwelling in the Egyptian deserts from the late fourth century C.E.).
There are wildfires raging north and south of the hermitage. I am scheduled to give a yoga retreat here this weekend, but most of the participants have cancelled, except for three determined individuals, who know that Big Sur is beautiful in any season, even that of the wildfires. Today the sky was clear of smoke after the pre-dawn vigil service.
The day I traveled down from Berkeley, the 24th, was the forty-eighth anniversary of an evening meditation when I had a brief brush with Eternity and heard a voice tell me that the Catholic Church was my guru — the church of little people, of saints and sinners, of mystics like Benedict of Nursia and Teresa of Avila. This happened in an instant, and I didn’t have time to ask myself what I was going to believe and what I wasn’t. Lots of belief issues surfaced later, especially after I had joined this hermitage and had enough time alone to ask myself whether I believed in anything at all. I doubted that I believed, and so rather than forcing acts of faith in this or that dogma or moral precept, I was forcing myself to believe in my believing. Does that make any sense?
I’m not forcing myself any more. I think I understand the following: “The interior act of a person of faith does not point to a belief that can be put into words, but to a reality beyond all words and concepts” (Thomas Aquinas); and: “God is not only beyond all names; God is beyond all essences” (John of Damascus).
When I joined the community here in Big Sur, the superior told me to stop practicing yoga and to study the Catholic and Greek Orthodox mystics instead. Good advice. But after a year I started Kriya Yoga meditation again, and have kept it up fairly consistently ever since.
The classical definition by the sage Patanjali is: “Yoga means stopping the agitations of the heart” — yogas citta-vritti nirodha. Most books translate citta as “mind” or “mental states,” but Yogananda’s guru translated it as “heart.” After doing my Sanskrit homework and reading the Yoga-Sutras many times, I think he got it right. Yoga is about quieting the heart, the center not of thinking but of the human spirit’s intuition of its own being in relation to Absolute Spirit.
There are wildfires raging north and south of the hermitage. I am scheduled to give a yoga retreat here this weekend, but most of the participants have cancelled, except for three determined individuals, who know that Big Sur is beautiful in any season, even that of the wildfires. Today the sky was clear of smoke after the pre-dawn vigil service.
The day I traveled down from Berkeley, the 24th, was the forty-eighth anniversary of an evening meditation when I had a brief brush with Eternity and heard a voice tell me that the Catholic Church was my guru — the church of little people, of saints and sinners, of mystics like Benedict of Nursia and Teresa of Avila. This happened in an instant, and I didn’t have time to ask myself what I was going to believe and what I wasn’t. Lots of belief issues surfaced later, especially after I had joined this hermitage and had enough time alone to ask myself whether I believed in anything at all. I doubted that I believed, and so rather than forcing acts of faith in this or that dogma or moral precept, I was forcing myself to believe in my believing. Does that make any sense?
I’m not forcing myself any more. I think I understand the following: “The interior act of a person of faith does not point to a belief that can be put into words, but to a reality beyond all words and concepts” (Thomas Aquinas); and: “God is not only beyond all names; God is beyond all essences” (John of Damascus).
When I joined the community here in Big Sur, the superior told me to stop practicing yoga and to study the Catholic and Greek Orthodox mystics instead. Good advice. But after a year I started Kriya Yoga meditation again, and have kept it up fairly consistently ever since.
The classical definition by the sage Patanjali is: “Yoga means stopping the agitations of the heart” — yogas citta-vritti nirodha. Most books translate citta as “mind” or “mental states,” but Yogananda’s guru translated it as “heart.” After doing my Sanskrit homework and reading the Yoga-Sutras many times, I think he got it right. Yoga is about quieting the heart, the center not of thinking but of the human spirit’s intuition of its own being in relation to Absolute Spirit.
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My guardian angel sent me here. I was looking the Hermitage up to see if the fire had reached the hermitage yet and I found this site. I read what you wrote about the Catholic Church being your Guru and that you are still a kriyaban and a bell went off. Your comment about not forcing “acts of faith in this or that dogma or moral precept helped me. The fact that you started your Kriya meditation again also resonated. I ,too am kind of straddled on a fence between East and West. At 67 I am more confused than ever so here I sit. I was initiated in to Kriya but did not practice much as I was too busy teaching in DC. I found my early conditioning as an Anglican was kind of bubbling up through my stint in Avaita Vedanta . When I retired to the top of a mountain in West Virginia, there was no Anglican or Vedanta Temple so I became a Catholic. Nothing too mystical about that. I read most of Abishiktananda's books and loved every word. The conflict he suffered is mine too. The fact that he “went all the way” with Vedanta made a deep impression on me because I too am having big big big issues with the institutional Church and what I believe at all at this point. Any how, I hope you stay safe and no fire touches your blessed community. I will keep reading your blog and keep in touch with this blending of East and West. It may save me from dropping out all together and becoming my own hermit on this mountain.