A Simple Sainthood

Transcript

Welcome from the depth of my heart, with great respect, with great love I welcome you.

I was just thinking about sainthood.

I was having a discussion with my friend Luis Fernando Mises, some of you may know him.

We were having a conversation about sainthood and he mentioned the story of Baba Muktananda. A book I still have yet to read, a play of consciousness an autobigraphy talking about his spiritual progression and how our teacher arrived to have many strange mystical experiences, how he describes them in detail.

And I was thinking about that, what would it even look like to be a saint. Luis used the word saint to describe Baba Muktananda and so when I sat for my midday meditation just now I thought “Okay, what am I gonna focus on. The breath like I normally do?”

And I thought no, I’m going to direct my attention to some idea that I want to gain insight on the idea of sainthood and it wasn’t long, I just took a 15 minute meditation now.

I started to receive these ideas.

There was a story I read last night from Reddit, this beautiful story.

It was in a thread of people asking about hitchhikers and some guy said “You know, it’s funny because a lot of the time when I’m in a jam, you know what really helps me? Mexican immigrants”

This is a guy from the US trying to correct some of the stereotypes that people have about Mexican immigrants based on his own experience.

He tells a story about how he was trapped on the side of the highway. Something had gone wrong with his car and he needed to change a tire but didn’t have the jack. And so this family of 6 stopped on the side of the road, the father summed up the situation.

Looked at him and said to his daughter to translate “we have a jack but it’s not big enough, I’m going to have to brace it.

They got the tire iron out and pull what’s called a mexicanada which is a improvised resourceful solution.

I forget the word in English, I guess it’s jury rigged.

Anyway they come up with this solution and break the tire iron and have to go off and buy another one so they could help this guy replace his tire.

The guy is so grateful he said “As a token of my appreciation…” and he tries to hand the man a 20 dollar bill. The man says “I can’t accept that, this is out of pure kindness” and of course he says that in Spanish so the guy does not understand.

And so the fellow with the broken car hands the 20 dollar bill to the guys wife and hes later talking to the daughter and she says “We’re humble agricultural workers. We’re going to pick peaches in California then later we’ll get the cherry picking season and then we’ll head back to Hermosillo or wherever.”

The guys moved by the kindness he received from these people and the young lady says “Hey, been out here on the side of the road for awhile, are you hungry?”

And she hands him a tamal wrapped in corn husk as is the tradition.

And he takes this delicious tamal, he can already tell it’s really delicious just by smelling it he can tell it’s good home cooking.

Takes it back to his car and starts to unwrap it and what does he find? 20 dollar bill.

And he takes off and runs back to the family’s car and says “Hey mister, please take this, please take this so you can see how grateful I am.”

And the Mexican gentleman struggles a bit with his English and he says these words “today you, tomorrow me.” Pay it forward. Hey, we’re going to help each other in this thing.

So during my meditation this was the message that the sainthood, those simple acts of kindness, and of course remember the sage who wrote those words “The first will be last and the last will be first”.

Maybe people who don’t always have so much prestige in this world, maybe humble folks willing to show kindness, maybe that’s what really counts?

Maybe there are a lot of folks out there who aren’t really recognized, maybe they’re saints they’re just doing what they can and when an opportunity comes to do good they have the courage to start taking that first step.

I think a lot of the time we have so many impulses.

I know for so many years I had the impulse to do good, like give food to a stranger or a friend money when they needed it. I didn’t have the courage to actually do it?

What if a saint is a person who habitually summons the courage to do those things that we all intend. A simple sainthood.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for those times when you take the courage to act on your finest intentions. Thank you for having a wonderful day, I’ll talk to you soon, take care.