A Grandson Sees the Light of God by Chanting “HU”

This clip—and the transcript below—is from Harold Klemp’s 2007 talk “Change Is Change.”

 

Myra also has two grandsons. One Saturday morning, they came over to visit. “Mark” is the older; he’s thirteen. “Jimmy” is eleven.

Myra greeted them with a lot of joy. She loves them dearly. Then she said to them, “It’s just about time for my spiritual exercises. You’re free to stay out here or go to the den and watch cartoons on TV.” They said, “No. No. We want to do a spiritual exercise with you.” So Myra said, “OK.” They went into her bedroom and sat on her bed.

She said, “All right. Look for the Light, and listen for the Sound. Look into your Spiritual Eye.”

It wasn’t five minutes later that she heard this snickering. Myra opened one eye. She’s been around. She peeks. She saw the younger grandson, Jimmy, sitting with his hand covering his mouth, laughing. Over his hand, she saw these two laughing eyes. At the same time, Mark, the older boy, was whispering in one of those stage whispers intended for Grandma’s ears, no doubt. He said, “She’s making it up! She’s making it up!”

Well, this aggravated Grandma. She said, “You all get out of here, and let me do my spiritual exercises.” She’s from the South. She doesn’t mess around.

So, laughing and snickering, the boys went out of the room. Myra likes her special HU session because of the love that comes through from the Mahanta. She feels all this love. So she settled in and began the spiritual exercise.

She’s just getting into it, when she hears this very gentle knocking on the door. She opens her eyes, rolls them to the ceiling, and says, “What is it?” Mark, the older of the two boys, creeps in. He knows he shouldn’t be doing this. He asks, “Can I do your spiritual exercise with you? Can I sing the HU with you? It calms me down and makes me feel better.” “OK,” said Myra. And now Myra laid down the ground rules. She said, “But this time I’ll walk you through it. You can take it from there.”

So Mark sat down. And, as Myra tells it, “Like an old hen with one chick, I put my wing around his shoulders, and we started to sing HU.”

After a while Myra became quiet. Then she described aloud the scene they were to visualize. She said, “We’re walking on a beach. Feel the sun’s warmth on your body.” She took him through this spiritual exercise very nicely, step-by-step. “Notice the wind blowing a breeze that plays with our hair. The silky sand is squishing between our toes.”

Very poetic, Myra is. I could feel that when I read this. I said, “Oh, yeah. Boy, I remember those days.”

Then she said, “Notice the smell and sound of ocean waves rolling in to shore to kiss the sand at our feet.” Very much the poet. She went on, “And look. There’s a sailboat appearing on the horizon. Look, it’s coming to shore, and there’s the Mahanta at the tiller.”

She described climbing into the boat. “The Mahanta is sailing the boat to an island. The island has a beautiful crystal castle on it.” Myra stopped talking, and they sat quietly. They were listening, listening, still on the edge of the bed.

Then Mark said to her in a soft voice, “Uh, Grandma, what color is that light?” She’s very down-to-earth. “What color do you see?” “White.” “That’s the best,” said Myra. “Hush,” he said, “it’s still there.” But Myra knew her moment to strike, and she replied softly, “Now, am I making it up?”

Mark was trying to keep what he’d got going on the inner. He said, “No.” No, she wasn’t making it up. It was true.

So something was changing here too: Mark. Just like that—a change in consciousness.