To meditate truly is to experience our individual, pure consciousness, without the distractions brought on by conceptualizations, ideas, memories, expectations, and so on. To recognize the restless activity of thought and realize the distracted nature of the mind’s ongoing narrative; to practice stillness and tranquility away from the tumult of daily and worldly distractions; to experience living unified in flesh and spirit: this is meditation.
It is the act of becoming one’s true self.
Praying is a blending of mind and heart energies, to bring some spiritual effect to life. When we are contemplating our notion of God in an effort to achieve alignment with His nature we are praying. Prayer is asking for guidance and mercy, for goodness and light. Whether we use the traditional prayers of our religious system or our own does not matter so long as we are earnest; humility and conscious effort are essential.
God is in the Here and Now. Attempting to regulate human behavior, religious institutions have promulgated the notion that after death the “soul,” some conscious element of each of us, is transported to a place of eternal bliss (Heaven) – or damned to eternal torment. These kinds of illogical “articles of faith,” because they defy current, informed, adult reason, are actually counterproductive. Rather than help humans live better lives, these notions drive them away from believing in God altogether. There is no cosmic gatekeeper; no place in the clouds where we will foregather. Some who reject God may live in a comfortable hell, missing out on the true sweetness of Life; others may suffer needlessly, causing harm to themselves and others.
We human beings attain salvation by living in conscious contact with God right here, right now. The blessed energy we emanate from a God-centered life is suffused over the world and it remains to do good forever; in that sense do we achieve everlasting life, Heaven on earth.
The spiritual journey is a series of plateaus. We scale some heights in a feat caused by challenge or by sudden inspiration, or gradually, coming to awareness of our lives and our minds, or souls or spirits now different, changed, improved. A talk with a teacher gives us new insight. We become fed up with some life-long, habitual bad thinking. We make that one mistake that reveals so much. Or, blessed, we hear something somehow, in a still small voice that changes our outlook, our minds, our selves. And we remain in this changed state for a time, realizing we are new and improved, but thinking: This is the real me! I will be like this forever! And then, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, we have another, equally revealing experience and there is another cliff we have scaled, revealing new perspectives, new ideas. When we realize we’re in a new place we’ll have been there for some time.
What is faith? It is belief in an ideal: the personal conviction that one’s life is a process of absorbing and demonstrating the spiritual dimension, or God; it is living God’s will, unfolding in goodness and truth. Faith is action based on belief in an unseen reality, on a conviction that there is more to life, an unseen reality more important than the here-and-now. Faith is the acceptance of the idea that one’s personal fulfillment in this life depends on the pursuit and realization of the spiritual dimension through study, meditation, and prayer.
Is there a way to understand completely and thoroughly the nature of me? Of my strengths and weaknesses, gifts of abundance, tendencies to failure? Or must I live in illusions of myself, coming and going like weather patterns, either feeling strong, sensitive, petty, or wrathful? Is it possible to have a complete concept of the person that I am, with its subtleties and contradictions, so that I may have a sense of being a whole, individual, complete person in this world, with tendencies toward both success and failure, illness and health? I believe that spiritual attainment produces consistent personal unity, and that this unity is experienced in meditation.
When you follow the quiet longing of your heart, which guides you in meditation and prayer, answers will appear, like oases in the vast desert of earthly experience, and you may rest for a time, drink, and immerse yourself in the pure explanation, in the clarity of the message. But an oasis is not the ultimate destination for most of us; it is but a rejuvenation, a nourishing and strengthening pause which fortifies us for further travels. If we are fortunate, and if we work at it, this beautiful, exciting and fascinating journey will never end.
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The way to enlightenment is persuasive by itself. We succeed when we communicate the Truth of life in subtle, quiet, and loving ways. There is never a need to shout or swear – in fact that would be contrary to the message. “Let him who has ears to hear,” that is, the one who wants and is ready for spiritual Truth, let them hear and understand our message. We lead mostly by example.
The quality of our mentality determines the quality of our surroundings; our attitude colors the incidents and activities of our lives, and of all of our relationships. If I consider myself unlucky, or as a victim of malicious will or circumstance, then the things which happen will be happening “to me.” If, however, I see my life gratefully, as a fortunate child of God, I will consider the happenings of my life to be good, fair and natural occurrences. While it may be impossible for the suffering soul to see, all of life is a wonderful experience. I am master of my fate to the extent that I am able to see life objectively, so as to overcome self-pity and victimhood. This is accomplished by my healthy daily practice of study, prayer and meditation.
The enlightened individual lives in the same world as everyone, and so experiences the same events and conditions which can bring pleasure, pain, hope or fear, those things which cause feelings of attraction or revulsion. But enlightenment brings a kind of emotional immunity, revealing that what appear to be the dualities of life are not opposites. The enlightened person feels pain and fear but does not wish it were no-pain or no-fear. He or she experiences loss but does not wish the loss undone anymore than that his or her happiness should go away. Our aim in spiritual growth is to achieve an abiding sense of unity with what is, and to be free from comparing what is with what was or what might be.
Nick Hilton - Reflections 