From WCCM Newsletter, Dearest Friends, by Laurence Freeman, February 2024
Looking out over the ocean under a clear sky. Turn to the left and then to the right, see the great hemisphere that encloses us from our imaginary position in the centre. Behind us is another, unseen, equal hemisphere, an enclosing horizon. Where, so cleanly, the light blue of the sky touches the darker blue of the sea holding all its waves and battalions of white horses. This too is obvious: so the world must be round. Unless you believe it is flat. But believing something false does not make it true.
Among the beliefs and actions of life some are right and some wrong, often a mixture. But truth exists and truth is also the test of what is good and just. We can deny this. Many do not believe in truth or goodness as absolutes because our dominant worldview is shaped by materialism which claims to be the judge of truth. In the ensuing split between reality and illusion, it seems that we can measure and control everything – whole populations under surveillance, what consumers buy or what enemy to destroy. This self-division has made us dangerously foolish and foolishly dangerous, like arrogant drunk drivers convinced they can drive home. Like those the ancient psalmist described: ‘the fool has said in his heart there is no God above’. Even this foolishness craves idols to worship like success, power or celebrity.
There is false and authentic spirituality. The discovery that meditation causes cortical thickening of the brain or improves connections between brain cells can seem like its deepest validation. ‘Science proves it.’ For some it proves that consciousness is merely a function of the brain. And so, the best and really only rationale for turning to meditation is that it is a useful tool to make me happier, healthier or wealthier. If these were theological ideas, they would be pitifully inadequate. They reject the primal wisdom of humanity, that emerges from the experience of our wholeness, that consciousness is the ground of existence. That meditation leads to transforming consciousness when we stop thinking we are the centre of the world.
Meditation is marketed in our transactional world today as a way to increase ‘health or ‘well-being’. In a wiser world, the 14th century Cloud of Unknowing had a different perspective urging us to look after our health so that we can meditate. As I can testify in recent months, it is much harder to meditate when the body is not well. To get me back to meditating properly, I am thankful for medical science, skilled professional care, the love of family and friends, yoga exercises warm sunshine and my sometimes-wavering trust in the divine plan. We are earthen vessels, changeable, emotional, often doubting. But ‘God made His light shine in our hearts (and) we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the real power comes from God and not from us’.(2 Cor 4:6-7).
Kabir — One Hundred Poems of Kabir (1915), Poem I
O servant, where dost thou seek Me?
Lo! I am beside thee.
I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash:
Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and renunciation.
If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt meet Me in a moment of time.
Kabir says, “O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath.”
