A Growing Commitment to Reality

"It is very difficult to try to determine what it is that makes a person want to meditate. It has puzzled me over the years. There seem to be so many reasons why people start to meditate. But I think there is only one reason that keeps people meditating. That I think we could describe as a growing commitment to reality."

- from "The Way of Unknowing" by Dom John Main, Benedictine Monk

My first experience with Meditation was not what I had expected. I had no experience of visions, or “flashing lights” - it was quite ordinary and relatively easy. I was drawn to it because of the Beatles’ focused interest in it back in 1967 - as a means of reaching an altered state of consciousness without the influence of drugs. Unlike many of my peers though, I stuck with it, even though for years I did it "incorrectly," or practiced ineffectively. It wasn't a daily practice - although I tried to be disciplined about it. 

My interest in Meditation expanded to an interest in religion, as I began to question life's "meaning" and sought a "purpose" for everything. Religion seemed to give answers to difficult questions and provided a means of finding value for life. 

UNORGANIZED RELIGION

"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." - Groucho Marx

Just recently (in the past nine months) - I have found that I do not fit the mold of any institutional form of religion. I have really tried to be Orthodox - to be obedient to the formulas of the Church and other religious authority, but I see too much, and experience too much, of the natural human desire for control within these institutions; where the principals that were first developed to preserve the truth, have become the very means of its distortion. In my own opinion, I think that many of the rules and regulations of the various religious organizations are the result of an attempt to "lock down" reality into a desired formula. When those who lack the REAL personal "experience" of God or Spirit are placed in positions of leadership - there is a natural tendency to want to define truth in concrete terms.

Over the past couple of weeks - while away from home on vacation - I've been looking at the practical aspects of spiritual practice - not as a means of attainment, but as the means of "experiencing" reality. I do not feel distant from God as I once did - I no longer experience any space between God and Creation. I hasten to point out that I'm not a pantheist. Rather, I have become firm in a position as a Panentheist. God is not equal with creation - which is pantheism, rather I see God as containing all - all is in God.

Although I am unable to JOIN any particular religious group or order - I find myself able to appreciate them all when I see that which is consistent among them. 

NO RESOLUTIONS - JUST RESOLVE

"The longer you meditate, the the longer you persevere through the difficulties and false starts, then the clearer it becomes to you that you have to continue if you are going to lead your life in a meaningful and profound way. You must never forget the way of meditation: to say your mantra from the beginning to the end. This is basic, axiomatic, and let nothing dissuade you from the truth of it. In your reading you may come across all sorts of variants and alternatives. But the discipline, the ascesis of meditation places this one demand on us absolutely: that we must leave self behind so completely that we can be totally at the disposition of the Other. We must do so in an absolute way and that is the demand that the mantra makes upon us: to say it from beginning to the end, in all simplicity and in absolute fidelity.”

- from "The Way of Unknowing" by Dom John Main, Benedictine Monk

I'm not one for making New Year’s resolutions or vows - but I do like to make commitments to transformation for the better.  So I've come home to that which was the foundation of all my seeking - the practice of Meditation. It has been the one constant in a life of seemingly endless searching and seeking which I've determined has come to an end. There is no religion that does not fall short of its own definition of reality. 

As John Main astutely observes: the practice of Meditation places one absolute demand on us, and that is: "we must leave self behind so completely that we can be totally at the disposition of the Other.”

2010 is the year for Meditation - for experiencing more of this wonderful reality that is complete, as it is.   HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!