Dear Reader,

On September 30, a flydubai passenger plane was flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv with 174 passengers and eight crew on board. Partway through the flight, the co-pilot turned on the captain, struck him on the head with a crash axe, and tried to hijack the plane.

The captain, Smit Machchhar, an Indian pilot with 17 years of flying experience, collapsed on the cockpit floor with his head split open and bleeding, as the plane began to plunge. Picture him there, powerless and in pain, with the attacker still in the cockpit, the plane falling beneath him and the passengers on the other side of a closed door. In that moment he began to recite a prayer called the Hanuman Chalisa, a devotional hymn from India that many people there learn as children, much like many of us learned the Our Father.

Then a powerful thought came to him: "The door is right there. All I need is one last attempt." So he reached the door and opened it. Several passengers and crew members rushed in, overpowered the attacker, and helped steady the plane. The plane landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, and everyone on board survived. Afterward, he told India's Prime Minister about the prayer that gave him the power to open the door.

THIS WEEK'S REFLECTION

A Prayer that Gives You Power

The Hanuman Chalisa is a hymn of forty verses honoring Hanuman, one of the most loved deities in India. He's mentioned in the Ramayana, an ancient epic that people in India have treasured for thousands of years. In it, a prince's wife, Sita, is kidnapped by a demon king, and Hanuman, the prince's devoted servant, a monkey who can fly, leaps across the sea to find her. For millions, he stands for strength, courage, and selfless service, and they turn to him when they are afraid.

A monkey who can fly is a picture of immense strength and power. Personally, I don't read it as only a story. I see in Hanuman something that lives inside each of us: the instinct to survive, the fierce will to live, when it is placed at the service of love. That is the heart's virtue of valor, the courage to protect what you love.

A member of our Sacred Heart Meditation Circle from India, who chants the Hanuman Chalisa regularly, told us that Hanuman's energy lives in the heart because Hanuman was a servant leader, and that chanting the prayer awakens that power. When I think of the captain lying powerless on that cockpit floor, I see exactly that. He wasn't only fighting to survive, he was protecting 174 people, and his prayer summoned the power he needed. That power lives in you too, and prayer is one of the ways to awaken it.

THIS WEEK'S PRACTICE

GO DEEPER

A Powerful Prayer to Use in Times of Crisis

When life asks more than we have to give, most of us buckle down and try to fix everything through grit alone. But there's a greater power you can invoke: the power of surrender.

If you'd like to learn this simple prayer and go deeper on this topic, read my article, A Powerful Prayer to Use in Times of Crisis. You'll discover how the more we depend on God instead of our ego, the more our crises get handled in ways we never could have planned.

FINAL THOUGHTS

A Miracle in the Air

People are calling what happened on that flight a miracle in the air, and I understand why. When an airplane disaster happens, we usually hear about the long chain of events that went wrong, one small mistake after another. But it's rare to hear that everything went right, one thing after another, at exactly the right time.

This happens, I believe, because every situation arises inside a field of consciousness, and the higher that field, the more goodness can unfold. Prayer spoken from the feeling heart, invoking the higher will of the Divine, raises that field and creates the conditions for miracles to take place.

In closing, I’d like to invite you to think of a situation in your life where you feel powerless. If you were to invoke the higher will of God there, so that the field of consciousness rises into a place of infinite possibilities, what is the greatest miracle that could happen?

From my heart to yours, Gabriel Gonsalves