I have been listening to a sung Sanskrit prayer called the Gayatri for about a decade now as part of my daily spiritual practice. When my parents have visited, they have enjoyed being quiet with me as this most ancient of prayers plays in the background. . My Mom listens and says, “I understand that prayer – it means love” and my Dad would say “it means peace”. They often enjoyed disagreeing about things that didn’t much matter which made for great amusement in our family. We often told them they had high entertainment value.
One day, my father and my husband were working on installing a light near our spiral staircase. Chris was in the tiny knee-wall attic amidst the rafters and insulation, crawling on his knees, flashlight in hand, looking for the wires Dad was feeding through the wall. All of a sudden Dad stopped and the Gayatri started playing. (He had accidentally pushed the button on the nearby CD player). “What happened?” Chris shouted from within the attic. Dad said, “I don’t know but suddenly I feel very peaceful!”
Eventually the light fixture was installed but every night when we turn it on, we smile with the memory of Dad’s sudden peacefulness.
The following Christmas, the one thing Dad wanted was a CD of the Gayatri which I was pleased to give him along with a translation of the word’s meaning. Though the language was foreign and the source of the prayer more ancient than Judaism or Christianity, he recognized the oneness of truth that transcends our paltry attempts to know Divinity.
It is a fine line to walk: discerning what is true and what is human misunderstanding. As our world grows smaller through information overload, and we learn from the variety of experiences of holiness in this vast earthly population, I find that the test of what is true becomes clear to me when the peace of Christ shines brightly within my heart. And that comes with the daily practice of sitting quietly in God’s presence, and through the reading and memorizing scripture. May you know that peace today.
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