Letters from the International School
Meditation – a different way of learning
by John Main
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Learning to meditate and learning what meditation has to teach
us are both different kinds of learning from what we are used to.
We are not learning anything ‘new’ in our usual understanding
of novelty. We are relearning something known in childhood and lost
before we could maturely integrate it .We are unlearning much, conditioned
by our education and training, that is inadequate for a fully developed
life. What we are learning by this process of relearning and unlearning
is something too direct and simple for us to understand, except
in and through experience. We are too complex and self-conscious
for the experience when we begin. Some teaching, not only by example
(the best teaching) but also by words and ideas, is needed to keep
us on the way that prepares us for the `magisterial experience'
itself. Let me try to summarize this most simple of teachings, the
essential elements of meditation. Let me begin by placing us in
the context of the essential Christian teaching in the Scripture.
St Paul here is reflecting upon the potential we all have for a
richer and fuller life, for a life rooted in the mystery of God.
‘I kneel in prayer to the Father, from whom every family
in heaven and on earth takes its name, that out of the treasures
of his glory he may grant you strength and power through his Spirit
in your inner being, that through faith Christ may dwell in your
hearts in love. With deep roots and firm foundations, may you be
strong to grasp, with all God's people, what is the breadth and
length and height and depth of the love of Christ, and to know it,
though it is beyond knowledge. So may you attain to fullness of
being, the fullness of God himself’ (Eph. 3:14-19).
This is a marvelously comprehensive description of the destiny
that each of us has, as Christians, as human beings. Our destiny
and call is to come to a fullness of being, which is the fullness
of God himself. In other words, each of us is summoned to an unlimited,
infinite development through the way of faith and love, as we leave
the narrowness of our ego behind, and enter into the ever-expanding
mystery of God's own self.
The one quality we need to begin is courage. Beginning to meditate
is like drilling for oil in the desert. The surface is so dry and
dusty, that you have to take on faith the findings of the geologists
who tell you that, deep within this dry earth, there is a great
source of power. When we begin to meditate for the first time we
cannot help expecting something to happen, that we will now see
some vision, now come to some deeper knowledge. But nothing happens.
Persevering past this stage, one of many hurdles our faith will
encounter leads us to see that quietly at work in the heart of faith
is love. When we see this, that it is not only by faith that we
proceed but by faith and love, then we have really begun. Through
this faith Christ dwells within us in love. His indwelling is the
constant companionship of the teacher. Our initiatory courage has
led us to find a teacher.
But it really is because `nothing happens' that you can be sure
that you are on the right path, the path of simplicity, of poverty,
of an empowering surrender. Jesus has told us that his Spirit is
to be found in our hearts. Meditating is uncovering this truth as
a present reality deep within ourselves at the center of our lives.
The Spirit that we are invited to discover in our hearts is the
power source that enriches every aspect and every part of our life.
The Spirit is the eternal Spirit of life and the eternal Spirit
of love. The call of Christians is not to be half-alive, which means
being half-dead, but to be fully alive, alive with the dynamos of
the Spirit, with the power and energy that St Paul speaks of, and
that is continually flowing in our hearts.
John Main - from ‘The Heart of Creation’
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