In meditation we seek to “unlearn” all the worldly ideas and information and all the mass of intelligence that fills our mind in the day, and return to our childhood mentality: open, inquisitive, trusting, free. Beneath the layers of this and that, should and shouldn’t, might and might not is the pure bliss of existence, where all our needs will be met and all questions have answers and where we are truly happy to be ourselves.
The key to living successfully is to experience God’s love in every moment. But how do we do this? How do we realize and experience this love, emotionally and psychologically, especially in times of difficulty and stress? Does the love of God feel like the ordinary kind of love we feel for the people and the things we cherish? Does it feel the same as the love our parents or other people express toward us? And if our experience of love from childhood or from faulty relationships is damaged and painful how can we know what the pure, true, nurturing and forgiving care of God would mean to us if we could recognize it? It may be exemplified by some or all of these, but we must each build the sense of this love, the true experience of being loved, for our individual selves. The answers may come from sacred writings, from prayer and meditation, and from the simple experience of witnessing the unfoldment of nature, of the “force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”
My setbacks are not obstacles thrown in my path by contrary luck or fate or even by the ill-will of others. My setbacks are my failures to deal with the difficulties of life in a spiritually mature way, with patience, equanimity and personal grace. These setbacks are frightening and painful, and they remind me that although I have traveled this road for so long, although I have studied and prayed and read and meditated, that I can be a beginner again. These setbacks are learning moments for me, making me reopen my mind and heart to the possibility of future progress, of more grace, of better response to life. My setbacks are stepping stones on the path of humility. Thank God.
In the Gospels Jesus is challenged again and again, invited to participate in arguments. “Why was this man born blind?” Or, “Your followers eat without doing the ritual washing of hands!” His responses are always to bring the questions back to an individual, personal challenge. He is not concerned with theological or doctrinal orthodoxy, but only with the cultivation of God-consciousness in the persons to whom he speaks. His unexpectedly oblique responses always bring the questions back to the development of my soul. “That the grace of God may be revealed.”
I pray that my response to life will be like this; I pray that the tumult and distractions of the world will instigate in me only a grace-full response. Please God, allow me to be in the world without being of the world. Allow me to be concerned primarily and continuously with the acceptance and sharing of Your grace.
Just God and me is the starting place, and from this place of unity and peace I can move outward — into the world of relationships, responsibilities, events, things, thoughts, perceptions. The starting place, where I am at each moment, in anticipation of life in all its rewarding and frightening reality, is like a twig on the periphery of a tree, and I am a bird perched there. Precariously. With difficulty. By keeping my balance and concentration I may remain in the starting place and from there fly with poise and balance intact into life and then to return as soon as possible to just God and me.
If I can remain contemplative and mindful of the Spirit as I go about my daily, humdrum affairs, I am free, and not a prisoner of all the “things” that demand my time and attention. My car, my watch, my computer and the monitor I look at while using it, my possessions and my many obligations are no less God’s creations than the trees and the stones and the clouds, or the light of dawn in the eastern sky. My reverence for life starts with a reverence and an appreciation of everything I touch, see, feel, or even smell. All of creation is holy and I possess all and none of it simultaneously.
When Christian teachers talk or write about the “Christ” it does not seem that the word signifies the person of Jesus of Nazareth, but a concept meant to convey a sense of God-in-man. Beyond the teachings and selfless example of Jesus there is in the story of the cross and resurrection a sense of eternal, death-defying and saving Grace. This is something that cannot be understood by the intellect, but it can be absorbed in our hearts. Jesus becomes the Christ to the open and welcoming heart. In the resurrected Jesus the human became The Christ and we who pray and seek communion with The Christ are enveloped in and guided by the blessing of God. There is mystery in this, and beauty.
My essence is holy, pure and undefiled. From the instant of my conception, though, the world affects me from within and from without, causing me to have ungodly craving, selfishness, and prejudice, traits which are all simply the various disguises of fear. As my personality develops, these traits form my personality to the extent that I live apart from God, which is to live in the absence of love. Prayer and meditation bring me back to God, and the strength and persistence of my faith transforms me. I can see that ultimately I will return to that state of my essential being, which is holy, pure and undefiled. I will become my true self once again.
Love of God is the be-all and end-all of life. In sorrow and in joy; in every defeat and in all our successes; through the fearful hours and in moments of confidence and celebration; during the most mundane tasks and throughout the most thrilling experiences — the love of God surrounds and infuses us. To experience this love is to really live. It is the object and aim of all prayer, all religious devotion and meditation. To experience the love of God is the underlying basis and the ultimate goal of our existence.
Satan is a convenient idea. I need a scapegoat when I have unkind, judgmental or downright harmful thoughts. When I realize I am thinking wrong, how can I explain why I am doing it? On whom or what can I blame it? On my unknown self? It is frightening to think that I am not in control of my thoughts; that in the dark, unplumbed depths of my subconscious lie the source of some inherited grudge, some anger, bias, or unholy desire which rises unbidden to a conscious level. It is better to imagine that there is an evil “projectionist” in the theater of my psyche who routinely inserts reels of malignant ideas among my thoughts. Perhaps this is the central question of the spiritual journey: why do I not always act according to the Truth? But, finally, I am human. The devil made me think it; the rest was my doing.
Nick Hilton - Reflections 