A while ago, I had what writer James Thurber would have called “a permanent case of the jumps.”
“Meditation versus medication,” a friend advised me.
So, I pulled a chair up to a blank patch of wall, and relaxed from my forehead down to my toes, letting everything but my spine go soft. I endeavored to quiet the mind and, like a Buddhist monk, be open to whatever sensations and emotions arose, without reacting. I visualized thoughts as autumn leaves or taxi cabs blowing past and didn’t try to catch them. I aspired to lighten up.
And I signed up for a correspondence course with the Central Chinmaya Mission Trust in India. “Blessed Self” began the letters accompanying the lessons in stamp-strewn envelopes from Mumbai. Eventually I called Chinmaya’s Washington Regional Center, in Silver Spring, Md., to enroll in a Sanskrit class. A man from the center returned the call, ending his message on our answering machine with a pleasant “Hari Om.”
My husband raised an eyebrow. “Heidy ho.”
In hindsight, this captured the tenor of my meditative.. .