This journey that we are on is about breaking through the wall of the ego, the wall of separateness at different levels and at different stages of our life. We use the term ‘breakthrough’, which might suggest getting a sledgehammer and hitting the wall until it collapses. This is a violent image of getting a sledgehammer and beating the wall down brick by brick until it collapses, doing violence to ourselves in order to love ourselves. This is a negative kind of spirituality, which finds expression in many traditions. But it’s really a false spirituality that has been hijacked by the ego itself by its own image of perfection, and negative perfection. It isn’t by violence that we make the breakthrough, it’s by faith. It’s faith that moves mountains, and the exercise of consciousness in the practice of meditation is an act of faith. It is faith, that is the breakthrough.
( Breakthrough by Laurence Freeman OSB )
