Readings for the Week of August 29, 2010

“The Light of the Self"

One of the greatest causes of sadness and suffering is the inability to communicate. So often what we try to express or the medium of expression distorts what we feel or mean. The repeated failure to communicate can accumulate a terrible sense that we can never communicate what we really feel or mean. If we feel that our real self is permanently isolated from others and our deepest feelings are prevented from communication beyond ourselves then we are in the isolation which underlies all loneliness and fear. One of the most powerful effects of meditation is that it confronts this bitter sense of isolation directly. . . .

By meditating we raise it up. . .and. . .there is nowhere to hide. There is no way to distract ourselves from it if we are meditating. Meditation exposes. . .a hard and essential truth. If you want to be fully human you must face the fact that we cannot communicate our real self to others because we haven’t yet made contact with it ourselves. If we feel isolated from those around us it is because we are isolated from ourselves. Only when we know who we are and so can be who we are, can we communicate ourselves to others.

[But] “what does in fact block us from our real self?” Meditation gives us a very simple answer. Not an easy one but a simple one. “Nothing.” Nothing lies between us and our real selves. Nothing anyway except the false idea that something does lie between them. The false idea is what we call the ego. [. . . .] At the time of meditation morning and evening we shuffle off another layer of self-consciousness. First we learn to leave all ideas behind. Then at the next layer of consciousness we detach from the imagination and we leave all images behind. When we have done that, we are simply ourselves, unlayered and naked. This is what Jesus called “poverty of spirit.” . . .

It is a beautiful poverty of spirit. It is an invigorating path to follow. If there are times when it is rough that doesn’t stop it being happy, beautiful and peaceful. It is a grand poverty because it sets us free to see the light of our real self and to know that we are that light. The mantra takes us through the layers of thought, language and imagination to the pure light of full consciousness. The mantra is very simple. It is like the bleep that leads a plane to land in fog, for by following the bleep the plane stays on course. The mantra is simply the focal point that leads us to the center where the light of the real self shines out.

As you continue to meditate you may not feel this happening. . .but don’t worry and don’t look for anything to happen. . .[But] if you persevere then your life itself will slowly but deeply shine with that inner light. . .and you will know that the light is there in everything.

After Meditation...

W.S. Merwin, THE RIVER SOUND (New York: Knoph, 1999), p. 133.

The String

Night the black bead
a string running through it
with the sound of a breath

lights are still there from
long ago when
they were not seen

in the morning
it was explained
to me that the one

we call the morning star
and the evening
star are the same

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