Laurence Freeman, Questions on Meditation, Meditatio Talks 2012 D
John Main said once that nothing happens in meditation, and if anything does, ignore it. That might not seem a very exciting invitation, but actually it’s the wisest teaching you can find on how to grow spiritually and how to deepen your prayer. We’re not looking for anything to happen, we’re not looking for a text message from God to solve our problems, otherwise you would have had the solution for the Euro crisis by now, it would have come to you. So that isn’t how God communicates to us, by text messages. So we’re not looking for special revelations or even special experiences.
I think that’s very important to face and accept as early as possible in your journey of meditation, because otherwise you get really distracted and side-tracked because you’re looking for something to happen, and you either imagine it’s happening, or you get upset because it doesn’t happen. But what happens is of course that you are allowing God to work in you, transform you, and it will be in your life above all that you see the fruits. This is why people meditate. They don’t meditate because nothing happens, they meditate because everything happens. We just have to know where to look, where to see the results.
Obviously we have some meditation periods which are wonderful, very peaceful, very calm; other meditation periods, a complete waste of time it seems, hard work, no feeling. And you don’t know when that’s going to happen. If I were to be honest with you, sometimes I’d be sitting in the middle row of the back seat of economy class on a 12-hour flight, and I’d have a wonderful meditation; at other times I go on a retreat for a few days of quiet and my mind is all over the place, I have to catch up with all the distractions that I’ve had. So you don’t know. And that reminds you that this is all about God’s gift; contemplation is a grace. The more simple we are, the more present we are, as children, the easier it is of course to receive that grace. Even though your meditation might be very distracted, don’t evaluate it in that way, but just learn where to look for the results. You’ll see it in your life.
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book II, Chapter 4, “Purity of Mind and Unity of Purpose.”
“A man is raised up from the earth by two wings—simplicity and purity. There must be simplicity in his intention and purity in his desires. Simplicity leads to God, purity embraces and enjoys Him.”
