Dearest Friends, a letter form Laurence Freeman, WCCM Newsletter May/June 2024
Starting to meditate, we all start from where we are. After 45 years of meditating, I can say with authority I am still a beginner. The meditator is always returning to his or her beginning. Why begin in the first place? Even if you only have a superficial feeling of curiosity about meditation, it’s a sign to take seriously. Try, take a first step. You have nothing to lose except your limitations and your fears about your limitations. It might just be a milestone on your life’s journey. Simply to try, with an open mind and heart, may itself be a life-changing decision. In fact, you are opening yourself to something new, some dimension of yourself you want and need to know better. You’re looking ahead into a new part of yourself.
Beginning the journey of meditation is a journey within a journey – the ever-mysterious journey of your life. You are responding to a call from deep within yourself, beyond thought or explanation. If nothing else, meditation will give you a new depth and help you live from that depth.
You may be thinking “Everyone is talking about how great meditation is: some see it as prayer and part of the religious traditions of wisdom. Others may do it just to for mental or physical health reasons and it has the scientific seal of approval for that. So, spiritual wisdom traditions and modern science agree meditation is worthwhile. Let’s see if it’s for me.” John Main put it another way when he said, “We are made to meditate. It’s as natural to the spirit as breathing is to the body.”
Whatever motivates you to begin, it is more than just curiosity or even about feeling lost or desperate. The inner force that draws us to meditation is faith. Human beings grow through faith – meaning through relationship, integrity, being true to oneself. Experience will teach you the difference between faith and belief. In meditation, as in all important things, experience is the teacher.
St Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle (El Castillo Interior), First Mansions, Chapter 1
I thought of the soul as resembling a castle, formed of a single diamond or of very transparent crystal… In this castle there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions… At the centre, in the midst of them all, is the chief chamber where God and the soul hold their most secret intercourse.
