From John Main: Twelve Talks for Meditators, September 2012 Meditatio Talks Series
I have often found when talking about meditation that it is the non-Christian, even the person with no religion, who first understands what meditation is about. To many ordinary churchgoers, and many priests, monks and sisters, the mantra seems at first a suspiciously new-fangled technique of prayer or like some exotic trick method or like some kind of therapy that may help you to relax but has no claim to be called Christian. This is a desperately sad state of affairs.
So many Christians have lost touch with their own tradition of prayer. We no longer benefit as we should from the wisdom and experienced counsel of the great masters of prayer. All these masters have agreed that in prayer it is not we ourselves who are taking the initiative. We are not talking to God; we are listening to his Word within us. We are not looking for him; it is he who has found us. Walter Hilton expressed it very simply in the 14th century.
He wrote:
You yourself do nothing. You simply allow him to work in your soul. (The Scale of Perfection Bk I. ch 24)
The advice of St Teresa was in tune with this. She reminds us that all we can do in prayer is to dispose ourselves. The rest is in the power of the Spirit who leads us. The language in which we express our spiritual experience changes. The reality of the Spirit does not change. So it is not enough to read the masters of prayer. We have to be able to apply the criterion of our own experience, limited though it may be, in order to see the same reality shining through different testimonies.
After Meditation: The Spiritual Teaching of RAMANA MAHARSHI (Boston & London,SHAMBHALA, 2015) p.62
How can I attain Self-realization?
Realization is nothing to be gained afresh; it is already there. All that is necessary is to get rid of the thought “I have not realized.” Stillness or Peace is Realization. There is no moment when the Self is not. So long as there is doubt or the feeling of non-Realization, the attempt should be made to rid oneself of these thoughts. They are due to the identification of the Self with the not-Self. When the not-Self disappears, the Self alone remains. To make room, it is enough that the cramping be removed; room is not brought in from elsewhere.
How shall I reach the Self?
There is no reaching the Self. If the Self were to be reached, it would mean that the Self is not here and now but is yet to be obtained. What is got afresh will also be lost. So it will be impermanent. What is not permanent is not worth striving for. So I say the Self is not reached. You are the Self; you are already That.
