“All spiritual disciplines are done with a view to still the mind. The perfectly still mind is universal spirit.” –Swami Ramdas

When I was a young boy, I remember my mom always busy with one of her “projects” as she called them. “Idle hands are the playground for the devil” was a quote I heard, and my mother would fill her idle moments with knitting, crocheting or quilting. Her projects were made with love as a gift for a family member, a friend, or someone in need. I loved receiving the newly knitted mittens, scarves or hats when I was the recipient, but I otherwise did not pay particular attention to her projects. It was only as I grew older, started a family of my own, and developed a regular asana and meditation practice that I came to view my mother’s “projects” in a different light.

Becoming Grandma the White

As part of our human communication process we seem compelled to name or label people or things as a way to understand, compartmentalize or describe them. When my daughters were young, their maternal grandmother instructed that she wanted to be called “Tutu”, the reverential name for a grandmother in Hawaii. Having already categorized “Tutu,” my daughters then wanted to separately name my mom (their paternal grandmother).

Where Gandalf the Grey (in Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring) went through Shadow, fought the Balrog, and later emerged (in LOTR, The Twin Towers) as Gandalf the White, my daughters (in a single afternoon) morphed the woman I knew as “Mom” to rename her, “The White Grandma.” The name derived from a description of her thick hair that, with time, had changed from the brown of her youth, to graying during my teens, to its current luminous white. Like the pure source light known as prakasa in Sanskrit, her white hair sits upon her head like a brilliant aura, and is her most recognizable attribute for description by my daughters. So it is easy to understand how they named her, “The White Grandma.”

Transformation

Although the simile of the Ganfalf-ian transformation into Grandma the White is fun, the reality is that I could identify no internal change in my mom over the years. Her physical appearance had certainly changed, but she has always been love and light to those who know her. But last week, as I watched the White Grandma working on one of her famous projects, I had the transformational epiphany. Mom had brought with her a scarf she was knitting for my niece. I watched Grandma the White sitting quietly on our couch (with Skylar, our yellow lab, at her feet), and her hands moving to the rhythm of the dancing knitting needles. Even though I had observed my mom knitting hundreds of times before, I could not escape the realization that was now staring me in the face. Grandma the White was in deep meditation.

Meditating Grandma

It’s said that we project our internal reality into the world. And I readily acknowledge that the witness within me had changed as a result of my asana and meditation practices. But the conclusion from watching the scene before me was abundantly clear – Grandma the White was in deep meditation with her knitting. Her heart was open and pouring love into the scarf she was making for my niece; her mind was still and quiet; the sound of the knitting needles established a rhythm like mantra japa; and the detailed precision of her fingers working the needles reminded of mudras. The realization lit me up as I watched my mother in deep meditation.

My mother was raised a Christian, and has a deep and abiding love of and faith in the Lord. But like many Westerners, she doesn’t have much exposure to traditionally Eastern practices like meditation. If you asked her what she is doing or what she is thinking about when she’s knitting, she would say: “I’m just knitting, and I’m not really thinking about anything.” Projecting my growing understanding of Indian spirituality and meditation, her selfless action and her still mindedness proves my meditation thesis.

Conclusion

Like my daughters’ need to name Grandma the White, my characterization of my mom’s knitting as meditation may also stem from my human need to categorize and create a mutuality of experience. But with the White Grandma’s open heart, quiet mind and rhythmic mantra japa movement of her hands in coordinated mudra, Patanjali himself might conclude that Grandma the White is a fine yogi, as she appeared to conquer the mind-stuff during her steady, focused, and disciplined practice of knitting. And by-the-way, the (external) result of her meditation practice that afternoon (also known as the scarf) was a beautiful work of art – made full of love.