I happily spent time instead with my brother, Atmananda, and the
other Stony Brook Chinmoy disciples.
One time, while camping with my brother in a marsh near Stony Brook,
my calves began to itch. I tried not to scratch what seemed to be
poison ivy, but must have done so in my sleep because by morning,
the rash had spread.
When I went home, my mother applied lotion to my skin. The next day,
she asked if I was better.
"Yup," I said and left for school. Confident that my skin would
heal on its own, I did not want to make a fuss over the red bumps
which now covered most of my body. Yet later that day in writing
class I had to sto...p reading a poem becau...se I could no...t get
the words out, and my mother arrived and rushed me to the hospital.
After a shot of adrenaline caused the puffy, quarter-sized blotches
to shrink, the doctor pointed out that had I not been treated in time,
I might have been suffocated by the growing bump in my throat.
"How odd to have a near-death experience so soon after my
spiritual initiation," I thought. I asked the doctor what he
thought had nearly killed me. "Perhaps you had an allergic reaction
to something you ate," he said. But after various food groups were
one by one reintroduced into my diet, the cause of the hives remained hidden.
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