Meditation vs an Empty, Blank Mind:  Meditation Class: The Desert Fathers: A Mystic’s Journal Entry December 4, 2009

Friday, December 4

We continue our studies of the Desert Fathers in class.  The first poem we studied this past week during meditation class was written by the Desert Father Theodoros (The Book of Mystical Chapters; Shambhala; trans. John Anthony McGuckin.).  

The poem begins:

The fragrance of expensive perfume,/ even when it is kept in its jar,/ will permeate every room in a house      Laurel said: “That’s like what is happening here.”  And so it is.  The supernatural fragrances continue.  Tonight in class MG and I both had whiffs of a gentle fruitlike scent, a fruit I have never known on earth.  Chris mentioned that she still remembered the strong scent of hyacinths from the week before.  In his poem, Theodoros compares these fragrances to the hidden holiness of the saints.  This inner holiness of the saints emanates from them, as the perfumes mentioned in Theodoros’ poem will permeate every room in a house.  Someone in class said that they would “like to be around a few saints” and I said, “We are.”  These supernatural fragrances – even though we cannot see the saints in the room with us, even my clairvoyance will not allow me to see them – tell us that they are there.

One of our meditators now lives in Dallas, Texas.  She wrote today: “ After I visited ____ in jail last Saturday, I came home, walked through the room where my statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe stands, and a waft of frankincense “said Hello” to me… as if to say, ” Thank You for visiting ____.”  This was the second time this has happened to her, both times after we began reading the Desert Fathers in class again.  Even more mysteriously, people have said that after reading my accounts of the supernatural fragrances on the internet, they also caught a few whiffs.  And since the fragrances began with the Desert Fathers and reoccur whenever we study them – we can assume the Holy Fathers are in some mysterious way connected to the otherworldly scents.

even when kept in its jar  We took this analogy as the jar in Theodoros’ poem representing the physical body.  This inner holiness that emanates from the saints, does so in a natural and effortless manner, just as the expensive perfume  will permeate every room in a house.  When we pray or meditate, Light comes into us, and the soul itself Lights us from within; when we are filled with this Light, or Holiness, it then begins to radiate from us, into the world.  It is a natural and effortless result of both our small efforts and the wonderful Graces given to us. 

MG mentioned that perhaps when the Desert Father wrote his poem, the jars were made of clay, were porous – i.e. not a glass jar with a lid.  We agreed that this was most likely the case.  In this analogy of a more porous container: not only does this holiness and Light radiate from us effortlessly – but our own physical vehicle is transformed by the holiness, until it too becomes holy and transparent, so that the inner holiness can then easily emanate from us.

The saint can transform lives by merely walking down the street, or into a room – and we should all aspire to this. If we are not as yet as transparent as the saints, or as holy as the saints – then we should continually pray for others, and in this hidden way help to transform those around us. 

Laurel then read a short poem written by the Desert Father Evagrios of Pontus. It begins: When you are praying, do not try to envisage/ the Godhead within you in any imagined form.