Carlito and the Church of El Santuario

 

About an hour’s drive from Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, in the little village called El Potrero, stands the church called El Santuario de Chimayo (originally named Tsi Mayoh by the Tewa Indians). Renowned for its reputation as a healing church, the Catholic Church considers it one of its ten most important pilgrimage centers in the United States.

Edna Lena and I first visited that church about six years ago—before Covid, before Trump, before the country and the world was becoming aware of the horrendous contradictions and divisions that were surfacing from the depths of its collective consciousness. That said, even then, the enormous suffering of the planet was obvious to anyone who had the courage to look.

El Santuario was not difficult to find, even for the directionally challenged like Edna and me. Everyone in the town knew where it was, and everyone was happy to give us directions. We parked our car on the side of the road and followed the sign to a little lane that led to church. For me, there was a sense of being on sacred ground and a feeling very reminiscent of rural India. There was also a sense that I’ve consistently experienced at sacred sites, of not quite being in my physical body. Along the way were a few very modest looking stalls and stands and simple domiciles.

The first stall we encountered belonged to Carlito. Carlito looked to be a man in his fifties, full of life and energy—and a real zest for selling his hot pepper powders that he arrayed on a wooden table before us. If memory serves me correctly, I believe he said that he was a descendant of Don Bernardo Abeyta, who two hundred years before was told in a vision that the ground under his plow had healing powers. 

“Take this in your mouth but don’t swallow it,” he instructed us as he broke open a pistachio nut with his fingers and handed their fruits to Edna Lena and then to me. Then, with the empty broken shells he scooped up one of his chili powders and handed it to us saying, “Take this in your mouth and chew it with the pistachio, and then swallow it.”

We did as he instructed. It was delicious, the heat and bitterness of the chiles was perfectly balanced and enhanced by the sweetness and the saltiness of the nut. There were at least five different kinds of chilis and chili mixes on the table. We repeated the process with each one and ended up buying almost all of them, which we later brought home and enjoyed for over a year.

Carlito was also an artist, a painter of mystical religious paintings. He invited us to view some of his works in a series of rooms that adjoined his pepper stand. A few of the subjects I can remember were the church, Catholic saints, and nature. Some of the paintings were rather large and most were displayed in heavy rustic wooden frames. If you asked him, Carlito would tell you about the paintings. The inspiration for most came from his dreams and there was an unmistakable otherworldliness about them.

When we took leave of Carlito and his paintings, we walked a few steps down the road to the broad paved plaza of El Santuario. To our right were a few church buildings and a gift shop, while to our left, just adjacent to the church, was a patio with benches and flowers and shrubs.

From the outside, the church building looked simple and modest. It was a weekday afternoon and there were not more than a few people inside the church. We sat down on one of the old wooden pew benches. Surrounding us on all sides were murals and statues of various Catholic saints and Jesus Christ. The feeling was somber, but there was a lightness too. I closed my eyes and began inwardly taking Meher Baba’s name.

After about fifteen minutes, Edna Lena and I got up and walked to the front of the church. It was then that we saw a little door off the nave that led to a smaller room with a hole in the floor. In the hole was dirt—the sacred healing dirt of El Santuario, while around the room were piled from floor to ceiling, old crutches, walkers, and braces of all kinds, apparently left there by the throngs who had been healed. I reached down into the hole, picked up a pinch of dirt and touched it to my forehead, again while taking Meher Baba’s name. I picked up another pinch and touched it to Edna Lena’s forehead. I don’t recall feeling anything unusual or miraculous.

After leaving the church we sat on the patio for a little while before making our way to the buildings to right of the church. I recall that the gift shop was small and rather crowded and that there was another building or room where one could leave donations. My memory is not very clear on this point, but I believe that there another room with a ledger, or possibly ledgers, where one could write something—some request, or prayer, or revelation. The ledgers were open for all to see. I read through a few of them. Most were pleas for relief from various forms of suffering—mental, physical, spiritual.

Being a follower of Avatar Meher Baba, I had already put my life in his hands, at least to degree that my ego would permit, and so I didn’t feel right about asking for relief from my situation. Instead, quoting from a prayer dictated by Meher Baba, I wrote something to the effect of, may God help us all to love him more and more... After that, we placed a small donation in the box and headed back to our car.

As I mentioned, that was about six years ago…

Now, in June of 2022 Edna Lena and I revisited Santa Fe and El Santuario de Chimayo. Much had changed in the world, though depending on one’s perspective, maybe not much had changed. Suffering is still suffering. History shows us that it has been with us for forever. On a personal level, Edna Lena was still managing her store and I was still teaching and playing music. The challenge for Edna Lena was helping the family to care for her aged and infirm mother—a situation quite common in the world today. As for my health, it had its share of ups and downs, but all considered, we were both doing quite well. I would often remind Edna Leana and myself that the world is suffering, why should we be any different?

We had gone back to Santa Fe for rest and relaxation. The idea was to plan as little as possible, let things happen, eat some good food, drink some nice wines, do some hiking and exploring and buy a few gifts for us and our friends. We also wanted to see the church again, but in all honesty, we mostly wanted to buy some more of Carlito’s chili peppers.

It took us awhile to find the place again, memory has a funny way of rearranging things, but by the time we stepped into the little lane in El Potrero, my memories of rural India began to emerge as well as the feeling of being on sacred ground. Also too, I began to have that sense that I was not fully in my physical body.

But what was different this time was a little chapel called Santo Nino (Holy Child). We had not seen it at all on our first visit, but this time, we noticed it immediately after stepping out of our car. Named after a much older chapel in Plateros, Mexico, it is dedicated to the Christ child, Jesus of Nazareth.  Santo Nino is more modern than El Santuario and much smaller, but its structure was similar in that there was a small room off the larger central nave with an altar. But in this room, instead of crutches and walkers, around the alter and on all sides of the room were children’s shoes stacked from floor to ceiling.

I immediately began to feel uncomfortable. It was a mixture of fear and suffering and desperation, but it didn’t feel like my fear and suffering and desperation, it seemed to be definitely coming from the room itself and especially all those shoes. I know Edna Lena was a little surprised at how quickly I wanted to leave but I recall that we didn’t talk about it then. Instead, we crossed the lane and headed for Carlito’s pepper stand.

We were happy to see him and, apparently, he remembered us too. The routine was the same. We tasted his various peppers mixed with the pistachios and served in their shells. We bought four kinds of peppers and I bargained for a fifth, a mixture he called Alfredo which Carlito had been pushing us to try almost from the beginning.

At first I wasn’t particularly interested in the Alfredo though it was tasty, but it was also sweet. I wasn’t sure how I would use it, but I must say that since we’ve been home I’ve used it in various sauces and it really is incredible. But at the time, I really wasn’t interested in buying it as a fifth item—you only need to buy four to get the discount—and so it was really an offhand remark that I made to him about just throwing in the Alfredo with our purchase.

Carlito didn’t respond at first and so I just let it go, but then he began to tell us about a dream he had many years before and it made me remember that on our first meeting he had also shared some of his dreams. It started to come back to me, at the time I felt that his dreams were not ordinary dreams but more astral—perhaps prophetic. At first, my recollection interfered with hearing what he was saying now, and it took me a moment to begin to track his story.

What I recall is that in this dream he was instructed to take a coin, I believe it was a nickel, and to bury it somewhere. A number was given to be multiplied by another number that would yield the number of nickels that would result from burying the first nickel. The numbers and the dream were very specific and Carlito asked us to do the numbers in our head, which neither Edna Lena nor I were able to calculate. Carlito supplied the number, which seemed to have great significance since the number was exactly what the voice had said it would be.

I found the dream to be very interesting and I remembered that in the dreams he had described to us years before, there were also a lot of numbers. Anyway, it wasn’t until we have finished transacting our purchase and Carlito placed the Alfredo in our bag with the other peppers that I realized he had told us about his dream in response to my asking him for the free Alfredo.

We stopped in to see some more of Carlito’s paintings. I especially remember one of a large tree in full bloom. He drew our attention to how the colors of the tree changed when viewed from different angles.

After we took leave of Carlito and while we were walking to the church I began to wonder if Carlito was not an advanced soul. He seemed to be close to, very in touch with, the sub-subtle sphere, what is typically called the astral world—the sphere of dreams. It was only a feeling, though a strong one, because his outer appearance did not exhibit anything that one usually associates with an advanced soul; but then again, what exactly do we think an advanced soul should look like or act like? In Sufism, the most advanced souls were merchants and craftsmen with mundane occupations. To follow them on the internal path of consciousness, one would begin by learning their external occupation or craft. The “apprenticeship” would sometimes take years, even decades. Think of the movie, The Karate Kid…

Anyway, it was just a thought, it really doesn’t matter much to me whether Carlito was advanced or not; I no longer feel any need to intellectually confirm the existence of advanced souls or higher consciousness, what matters to me is direct experience. As Kabir said, “Until you experience it, it is not (yet) true.”

So we turned off the road and entered the plaza that led to the church. It was a warm sunny summer day and the whole feeling was quite pleasant. We only saw a few people and there were only a few people in the church when we entered it. They were standing close to the nave and were talking. Their demeanor was serious but did not seem unduly heavy. I could not hear what they were discussing.

I asked Edna Lena if we could sit for a while. She nodded and we took a seat in a pew in the middle of the room. As we had on our first visit, I closed my eyes and began to silently repeat Meher Baba’s name. But unlike the first time, after just a few minutes, I had a strong feeling to stop and so I told Edna Lena I was done. We got up and she wanted to go into the room with the healing dirt, I told her I would wait for her outside. I still didn’t know what was motivating me, and I still don’t. It wasn’t that I was feeling uncomfortable, it was just a feeling that I didn’t have any reason for being there.

Edna Lena and I then went back to the plaza and headed in the direction of the gift shop and the other church buildings, but many of them were closed, I suppose because of Covid concerns, and so we walked back to our car and headed back to Santa Fe with our bounty of Carlito’s peppers.

We talked some about our experiences along the way.  We both felt that El Santuario brought us in touch with suffering, not specifically our own suffering, but the suffering of human existence. The few people we had seen seemed serious, resigned, and in need of some kind of solace. Of course, Carlito didn’t manifest that way. He seemed light and bright and happy—quite the same as he had years ago. But looks can be deceiving. We all bear or suffering in different ways and unlike the Masters, we can only see the outer manifestations of others. And perhaps this is a good thing, a compassionate thing, that we can only see so much, because to see it all and not be spiritually prepared would perhaps be unbearable. A Perfect Master of the late nineteenth century once said, “A time is coming, and it is not far off, when without spiritual preparation you will look out your window and you will go crazy.”

History shows us that suffering has always been life’s constant companion. But why? Is it because our thoughts, words, and deeds can never quite get it right? There are, I am told, at least twenty different words in the New Testament that are translated from the ancient Greek and Hebrew as sin. All these different words and their meanings amount to this, sin means to miss the mark.

Fair enough, but suffering exists in all forms of life, everything from insects to fish to birds to animals. Do animals suffer because they miss the mark? The motivation of all life up to the human form is motivated by instinct and not intellect. There is no reasoning per se as we understand it in the actions of animal, so how is it that an animal can miss the mark? Instinct itself is motivated by the need to eat, to keep from being eaten, and to procreate. What’s wrong with that? Yet, animals suffer.

   Hafez said, “Praise be to God, for he never ties his slave in vain.” Hafez also said, “About what you hear from the Master, never say it is wrong, because the fault lies in your incapacity to understand.” But what is to be understood? The role and meaning of suffering in life?

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Driving through the high desert with the Sangre de Cristo mountains visible in the distance, Edna Lena and I began to reflect on our experiences at El Santuario.  We had both felt that there was an aura of the suffering surrounding El Santuario, like the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the distance as we drove back to Sant Fe, but there had also been an unmistakable sense of transcendental peace and light that pervaded the church and the village. It was a weekday and so there were not many people visiting the church, but the few we saw had seemed serious, resigned, and seeking some kind of solace. They did not seem to be locals. Of course, Carlito hadn’t manifested that way. He seemed light and bright and happy—quite the same as he had years before.

But looks can be deceiving and unlike the Masters, ordinary consciousness only perceives the outer manifestations of things in others and in other’s actions. And perhaps this is a good thing, a compassionate thing, that we can only see so much, because to see it all and not be spiritually prepared would perhaps be unbearable. A Perfect Master once said, “A time is coming, and it is not far off, when without spiritual preparation you will look out your window and what you see will make you go crazy.”

We took a brief detour to stop at Camel Rock. It can be seen from the highway and, as its name suggests, looks like a camel with a large hump resting on the ground. What is the old saying? “Death is a camel that lies down at every door.” As we walked along the little paths surrounding the camel and looked out over the high desert vistas, I wondered if someday that rock would actually take the camel form on it journey to God consciousness. And I wondered how many lifetimes and forms would it need to pass through before it achieved that animal form? Again we can wonder, but only the Avatar and His constellation of God realized Masters can say for certain…

History shows us that suffering has always been life’s constant companion. But why? Is it because our thoughts, words, and deeds can never quite get it right? There are, I am told, at least twenty different words in the New Testament that are translated from ancient Greek and Hebrew as sin. Their meanings seem to come down to this, sin means to miss the mark.

Fair enough, but suffering exists in all of life’s forms, everything from insects to fish to birds to animals. Is it even possible that these pre-human forms, guided by infinite Intelligence can miss the mark? Meher Baba tells us that Infinite intelligence is the light that guides all of life, but up to the human form it manifests as instinctive unencumbered by human reasoning and is driven by the basic needs to eat, to keep from being eaten, to sleep, and to procreate. What’s wrong with that? Needs are not desires and instincts are not reasoned. Yet, animals suffer, or at least they appear to experience pain.

When the Masters and the Avatar speak about human suffering, they seem to agree that most suffering is unnecessary. This suggests to me that the suffering caused by missing the mark is unnecessary, but the suffering that comes to us by virtue of just being alive, and life’s imperatives to eat and keep from being eaten, and procreate, is necessary and unavoidable.

 These imperatives are a legacy that the human consciousness share with all the lower kingdoms of evolution, but the suffering of sin is unique to human consciousness.

 Regarding the inability to understand God’s plan, especially regarding suffering, Hafez, a Perfect Master said, “About what you hear from the Master, never say it is wrong, because the fault lies in your incapacity to understand.”

But what is to be understood? Certainly, the meaning of suffering and its role in life falls into this category. Humankind seeks and has been seeking an answer to this question, and religions, ethical and moral codes, various philosophies, and teachings have always been happy to voice their opinions. But their various answers are as diverse as the religions, codes, philosophies, etc. themselves.  For me, their attempts remind me of the tale of the five blind men who seek to describe an elephant. The blind men all touch the elephant in different places and therefore one describes the elephant after touching its trunk, another after touching its ear, another after touching its side, etc., and therefore they can never agree, because no one can see the elephant in its totality.

The obvious question seems to be, is there anyone who can see the elephant in its totality? And the answer seems just as obvious, the one who is not blind is the one who can see the elephant in its totality. Of course, this leads us to the next most obvious question…

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 Back at our vacation rental in Santa Fe, over a glass of wine and some homemade guacamole, and with the memories of our visit to the Church of El Santuario still vivid in my mind, I returned to the question of the meaning of suffering and its role in life. For me, the explanations of traditional religions, moralities, and philosophies just seemed to miss the mark, like the explanations of the five blind men’s attempts to describe an elephant after touching it in different places.

Unlike the traditional answers, the explanations of the Masters seemed to be quite consistent. By the Masters, I mean those souls who have achieved full and perfect consciousness of Self while retaining full consciousness of all of creation. Meher Baba has explained that there are five such Perfect Masters on the planet at all times, and that it is these five Perfect Masters, as well as the periodic Incarnations of the Avatar to whom I am referring.

And what do they say? They tell us that life is meant only for the evolution and involution of that consciousness which will enable the embodied soul to experience Self, i.e., God. This process of life is guided by an unerring Infinite Intelligence which is within everyone and everything. The Masters tell us that one’s life is always the perfect life for that soul at the time. The pattern of this life is commonly referred to as one’s Karma. Karma is the hand we are dealt, and Dharma is the way we play that hand. To play that hand at the highest level furthers the journey in the most expedient and merciful way.

Meher Baba spoke about those who are inspired to wholeheartedly make efforts to live life at this highest level and of those who are not yet able to embrace that life freely, consciously and with love. 

“The spiritual experience that is to enliven and energize the New Humanity cannot be a reaction to the stern and uncompromising demands made by the realities of life. Those without the capacity for adjustment to the flow of life have a tendency to recoil from the realities of life and to seek shelter and protection in a self-created fortress of illusions.

Such a reaction is an attempt to perpetuate one's separate existence by protecting it from the demands made by life. It can only give a pseudo solution to the problems of life by providing a false sense of security and self-completeness. It is not even an advance toward the real and lasting solution; on the contrary, it is a sidetrack from the true spiritual path.

Man will be dislodged again and again from his illusory shelters by fresh and irresistible waves of life and will invite upon himself fresh forms of suffering by seeking to protect his separative existence through escape.” – Meher Baba

 

Certainly, few among us would intentionally invite suffering. As one of Meher Baba’s close disciples once said, “A kiss and kick from Meher Baba are one and the same—still, I prefer the kiss.” And who wouldn’t?

But pain and suffering are not the same and perhaps pain does not have to automatically lead to suffering. For are the Masters not saying that the source of suffering lies not in the pain itself, but from the attempt to perpetuate one's separate existence by protecting it from the demands made by life, in other words, from one’s attachments?

I tried to recall those people I saw at the Church of El Santuario. Illness, loss of loved ones and possessions—all the sources of pain and suffering on physical, mental, and emotional levels—who can blame anyone for praying for relief? Sure, we may sincerely aspire to the ultimate experience of God, but still, along the way, are we not mere human beings who seek pleasure over pain, success over failure, happiness over grief?

Christianity calls our state the state of the holy ghost. We our holy because, in fact, our reality is God, but our state is the illusion is man who, like a ghost, haunts life from form to form, lifetime to lifetime, mostly unconsciously, sometimes consciously, seeking and ultimately realizing the source of Truth which all the time was, is, and always will be, within us—is us.

Throughout history, man has sought a way to traverse the path and reach the goal. No doubt, if there was such a way, such a single one-size fits all way, it would have been found by now. And certainly I, who has yet to realize the goal has neither the experience, the authority, or the knowledge, to offer such a way. But there is one thing I personally have found to be helpful is that brutal self-honesty can help us to avoid many of the karmas that lead to unnecessary suffering. In other words, to not cloak selfishness in the guise of altruism, anger in the guise of righteousness, and personal motivation in the guise of compassion. I’m not talking about deceiving others, I’m talking about learning to not deceive oneself, and this is not so easy, for the limited ego through the mind is always trying to promote itself and justify itself and its ‘truths’ and does it so effectively that one does not even know it is happening.

And here is where the Masters and the Avatar come in. For the limited mind cannot help itself. Gurdjieff used to say it was like trying to jump over your own knees. And the help of another limited mind is at best limited. But the help of an unlimited, infinite mind, is invaluable. Hence the significance of Hafez’s statement, “The mind is spinning in all directions, like the needle of a compass. And inside that circle where the mind is wheeling everywhere, one foot is held in place by the Master.”

And, in fact, the Master, in the form of Infinite Intelligence, is always there, always holding the foot, but see his Knowledge and his Compassion; when he realizes you are pulling too hard away from him, he gives you just enough slack that you don’t break your own leg.

And so, the push and pull goes on and on within each lifetime and over millions of lifetimes until we come to the point where we freely choose for ourselves out of love and never out of fear or coercion to allow the Master to guide us one hundred percent of the way and to hold on to him until the very end.

There is nothing more powerful than love, for love is unconquerable and unstoppable. It will always win out in the end, and so as the great Masters said,

 “Come, come, come, whoever you are—

 Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving,

It does not matter, ours is not a caravan of despair.

Though you may have broken your vow a thousand times,

Come, come yet again, come.” – Shams/Rumi