(HH Kadamba Kanana Swami, Musko Sredice, 7th August 2012, Lecture: Free Talk)
We see that in the early middle ages, the Christian Crusades, which were meant to secure Jerusalem, were somewhat successful. So at that time, many Christian seekers settled in Palestine on Mount Carmel. There were many devotees living in caves, in very simple conditions. They were not renunciates who were giving up the world but they were mystics who were trying to develop their relationship with the Supreme Lord. Out of that came an entire school of Christian mystics.
A very famous Christian mystic is Teresa of Avila, who was trying to approach the Supreme Lord. She wrote a book called The Interior Castle which is an interesting book. It describes a big building with many rooms… in the exterior rooms there were some issues so these rooms were neglected. There were also snakes in those rooms which was not very nice. It refers to the consciousness, when the external part of our consciousness has become influenced by material things and these snakes are negative influences.
But gradually, as one goes deeper inside the interior of this palace then in the most interior rooms, she meets the Supreme Lord face-to-face! Then she describes that when she experiences this, she can no longer move… she is just over whelmed by that feeling of being face-to-face with the Supreme Lord.
It is interesting because Vedic literature describes the same since it says that when a devotee is approaching very advanced stages, then sometimes the devotee just freezes… they cannot move… they stand there like statues. This can happen when one becomes very emotionally overwhelmed… the mind shuts down since it is just too much. Sometimes the devotees of Krishna are going through these experiences!
Mother Yasoda is like that… she just stands there and cannot move. Also when Krishna plays His flute, then some living beings get so attracted that they become frozen and cannot move… they just stand there… but the stones melt and the branches of the trees start shaking with ecstasy!