Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1993, pp. xx+339 ISBN
0-86140-354-1 £19.95
Mix together a mathematical physicist, philosopher, Sanskrit
scholar, mystic and musician with one of the great classics of
Eastern religious practice and thought, and what do you get? In the
case of this book, a work that can soberly be placed among the finest
ever written in the field of self-knowledge and self-development.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali have long held an honoured (if
somewhat poorly comprehended) place in Indian literature. With
Whiteman's insight and scholarship, the Sutras may well be entering
the most significant phase of their history, in being made accessible
to readers both in the form of an authoritative translation into
idiomatic English, and also in the form of a literal translation
interleaved with the Sanskrit, with textual and interpretative
commentaries. This allows the reader both a literary access to the
Sutras, and a direct access by coming to grips with the original
Sanskrit.
Leading up to these two sets of translations is an extended
section headed “Preparatory Studies”. This is an outstanding piece of
scholarship, which the Sutras till now have lacked. The section
covers the general background and character of the Sutras, their
history, and problems of their interpretation. In this section,
Whiteman stresses that the Sutras, or aphorisms, outline a
comprehensive course of spiritual development, one that is based on
first-hand experience. It is this emphasis on first-hand experience
that is one of the special features of Whiteman's treatment of the
Sutras. Whiteman's output, whether in the area of physics, philosophy
or mysticism, is characterized by a consistent adherence to the
principles of Husserl's phenomenology, which calls for a plain
description of direct experience, free of prepossessions, speculation
and theories.
The appearance of the term “mystical” in the title could be
misleading to those who apply to the term the common perception of
hazy and fanciful thinking. In accordance with his phenomenological
position, Whiteman stress that mysticism, as he understands it, is
active and practical, and dependent on the skills of clear-sighted
non-attachment and wisdom. Other-worldly it may in part be, but this
is based on direct perception and knowledge of what is not located in
the physical world.
Whiteman has already written at length on nearly all the topics
covered in the introductory section. The treatment in his latest book
is however more comprehensive and concise than found elsewhere, and
takes many of the topics further along the lines of clarification and
development. Readers may find some topics difficult to come to grips
with, in that they tend to lie outside the range of common
experience. This could be true especially of Whiteman's treatment of
personality structure - an area of study, it must be admitted, where
psychologists currently find little to agree about, and where some
new insights should be welcome. Whiteman describes a ‘corporate
structure of personality’, in which perceivable, nonphysical minds
contribute to our consciousness; minds which ‘come and go’ in the
personality and contribute to the generation of personality-phases
throughout life.
While difficult for most people to grasp, Whiteman maintains that
without such understanding, much of the Yoga Sutras would be
“either incomprehensible or subjected to implausible conjecture”.
Whiteman's study throws the light of direct experience and knowledge
on the Sutras, and also on many Upanishadic and Buddhist texts, not
to mention on much of the contemporary psychological and
parapsychological scene. His combination of rigorous scholarship,
wide knowledge, and deep empathy with the text can serve as a model
for the rejuvenation of other classic works.*
* This review of J. H. M. Whiteman's book by Professor John
Poynton, MSc, PhD, was first published in The Scientific and
Medical Network Newsletter, No. 54, Spring 1994, pp.58-9.
Albuquerque: Brotherhood of Life, Inc., 1994, pp.304
ISBN 0-914-732-31-5 $18.95
One of the greatest mistakes made by 20th Century scholars has
been their failure to look seriously into the extant esoteric
knowledge of the world. In Aghora II: Kundalini, Robert E.
Svodboda makes this disheartening oversight obvious by presenting
some of the teachings preserved by a Tantric sect known as the
Aghora. And he does it in such appealing and easily digestible form
that many readers will probably wish to partake of a great deal more.
Unfortunately, the paucity of such material quickly becomes apparent
on one's first scouting trip to a typical university library.
According to Svoboda, an ayurvedic physician with the Ayurvedic
Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, anyone who really wants to
understand Kundalini must first come to grips with Tantra, and for
him “Aghora is a sort of super-Tantra, a Tantra in which all sense of
limitations is removed”. It is the most extreme of all the Tantric
traditions, he says. As implied by the title, Aghora II is the
second volume of a trilogy describing this path as practised by his
teacher, Aghori Vimalananda, of Bombay, who died some ten years ago.
The author studied in India for more than a decade. “Aghoris,” he
reports, “are psyche explorers who go down into the blackness of
their individual conceits to find their way to true freedom”.
It is the interplay between master and pupil that makes this such
a readable and informative book. One learns something worthwhile
without having to expend the effort demanded by most other esoteric
treatises. Although it contains a fair amount of information, the
book's primary appeal is to one's intuitive sense. In other words,
the author has romanticized the teachings, but he has done so in an
engaging style well suited to the subject matter.
Inasmuch as words alone cannot convey the full meaning of the
Tantric concepts, a purely intellectual reader, who might even take
Kundalini with a grain of salt, will very likely wish to forego the
pleasure of reading Aghora II. This would be a pity, however,
and yet another reason why Kipling insisted that never the twain
shall meet. It is also why the author, on beginning a short section
on pranayama, says, “Suddenly, I became aware of how little
most people who try to teach Yoga really know about it”.
Without actually experiencing the inner workings of prana,
the life-energy, the techniques and rituals remain sterile.
“Vimalananda always preferred the path of worship of G-d-with-form to
that of worship of the Impersonal Absolute”, Svodoba writes. “To him,
the highest expression of divinity is the Motherhood of G-d, the G-d
who protects and lovers Her children no matter what errors they may
make.”
Well into the book, we are furnished with an important insight
into Tantra that might go unnoticed if not pointed out. Vimalananda
says: “Every part of a Tantric ritual is significant, but you can't
just do guesswork about it; you have to know its precise meaning. You
probably have seen that in formal ritual worship there is always
worship of a pot. During Nava Ratri, when we worship Ma
[Kundalini], a pot is the central focus of attention. The pot, here
called ghata, is infused with Shakti in the procedure known as
Ghata Sthapana (The Establishing of the Pot). Now what do you
think the ‘pot’ represents? - Here the pot is the pot of the head,
filled with Amrita and other ‘juices’ or hormones, just as during the
ritual the pot is filled with water before Shakti is invoked into it.
We worship the pot to make our minds firm, and to fill our minds with
energy so that our worship during the Nine Nights will be totally
steady. - As soon as you learn to control your Kundalini Shakti, She
will be at your disposal.”
To traditional scientists who know of no empirical evidence for
the existence of Shakti, it would be sheer nonsense to suppose that a
pot of water could be charged with the elusive energy. But to this
reviewer, what Vimalananda says about the Ghata Sthapana
ritual was worth many times the price of the book. Plenty of
practitioners know from experience that Shakti is real and that it
can be transferred from one individual to another, even stored in
water or some special object.
This was also well known to the African mystery-men from times
immemorial and most probably by shamans the world over today, as well
as by some hypnotists or mesmerists. Shakti corresponds to Sa,
the ‘magical or magnetic fluid’ of the Egyptians mentioned by Gaston
Maspero. A sort of ichor, the Sa was transmitted or
“imparted to others most easily in the temples, where the king or any
ordinary man who wished to be impregnated presented himself before
the statue of the god, and squatted at its feet… and by making passes
caused the fluid to flow from it and to accumulate in him as in a
receiver” (The Dawn of Civilization, p.110).
As with most religious rituals, including those of the Catholic
Church, the original meaning of the Ghata Sthapana has long
been forgotten. Or perhaps Vimalananda chose not to pass it on. Were
it to be fully explicated, we would then know approximately when,
where and how Kundalini was first discovered. This knowledge would
quickly lead to the correct interpretation of the most efficacious of
the Tantras.
While most readers of New Age books associate Tantra almost
exclusively with sexual practices, e.g., Mithunia, this is a
false interpretation. Esoteric texts seldom mean what they say.
Certain Tantric practices can, of course, greatly intensify and
prolong erotic enjoyment, but they do not lead to the attainment of
Higher Consciousness, if that is your aim.†
† This review of R. E. Svoboda's book by Gene Kieffer was first
published in The Scientific & Medical Network Newsletter,
No. 58, August 1995, pp. 71-2. Both this review and that
immediately preceding it are here reproduced electronically with the
editor's kind permission.
Joan's Text: All the Great Beings you have heard of are
still evolving spiritually - even God is evolving....only individual
men and women evolve.
Colin's Comment: Relevant theological distinctions, e.g.,
between “god”, “God” and “G-d”; “pantheism” and “panentheism”;
“Natura naturans” and “Natura naturata” are readily
available, and may prove helpful in a scholastic context, but Joan
has wisely by-passed them. In strict logic, the two statements quoted
are mutually contradictory.
More generally: In The Ancient Teaching of Yoga and the
Spiritual Evolutioln of Man Joan explains that what is here
affirmed holds true both of persons in physical bodies on Earth and
of those living on some other etheric plane. She makes no statements
about the transetheric as such.
Joan's Text (Lesson Four): Well-meaning family see you in a
certain way or want to mould you into a particular kind of person.
Labels will be applied to you by acquaintances; you will be referrred
to as a certain “type” of person by your employer.
Comment: In The Ancient Teaching of Yoga and the
Spiritual Evolution of Man Joan, without denying the value that
typological interpretations and uses of the enneagram can have in our
contemporary situation, clarifies the original purpose and value of
this ancient symbol. In another on-line volume of the Neith Network
Library ,Marco Todeschini's classification of human “characters” into
896 clearly distinct types is presented in some detail, but
“character” in Todeschini's sense does not coincide with either
“person” or “individual”.
Joan teaches that several thousand “lifetimes” are sometimes
required for a person to be, in the relevant sense, old enough to
have attained spiritual maturity- but that each individual only has
one physical lifetime on Earth.
Joan's Text (Lesson Six): Your so-called “talents”,
whatever they may be - in fact, everything you are able to do well,
are not gifts from G-d but belong to you by virtue of your own
efforts. These efforts were made at some point in your life-history,
maybe over a considerable period of time before you entered upon a
physical life on Earth.
Colin's Comment: This is experientially and psychologically
“true”; in the metaphysics of Saint Thomas Aquinas the apparent
ensuing conflict with Christian Faith in G-d's Omnipotence is
resolved thanks to Aristotle's earlier understanding that, as Thomas
expresses it, “agere est pati quoddam”. Cfr. Bernard J. F.
Lonergan, Grace and Freedom (London: Darton, Longman &
Todd 1971).
Joan's Text (Lesson Eight): Your first responsibility lies
in learning the lesson which your physical body and its defects have
revealed to you. Illness or disability, or even “accident”, always
indicates another kind of weakness or imbalance; it can reveal a
lesson.
Colin's Question: What lesson for the Roman Catholic Church
is conveyed by the gall-stones found after his death in what had been
the physical body of Saint Francis de Sales?
Joan's Text (Lesson Twelve): Do not become blocked by the
false dualism which the idea of absolute Truth implies, for all truth
is relative to the different perspectives and degrees of
comprehension which you experience at different stages and levels.
You cannot ever comprehend all truths because you will not know all
experiences, but only those experiences which you have chosen and
which belong to your own life. You will always remain ignorant of
many experiences which belong to other people and their lives. No one
can comprehend “all Truth”, for this is also an abstraction. The same
principle applies to every abstraction, such as goodness, love,
beauty, and so on. Your being comprehends different qualities of
goodness, love, beauty according to your own nature and experience.
At each stage it is important to allow many different aspects of
yourself to express and to expose yourself to different kinds of
experience. In this way the widest possible understanding may be
distilled from your experience in this life on Earth, and your
comprehension of truth, goodness, love, beauty will have growth.
Colin's Comment: Notwithstanding her forthright simplicity
of style and directness of expression, Joan's writings are
long-pondered and meticulous. Leaving aside the possible distinction
between “absolute/all Truth” and “Absolute/All Truth”, it is clear
that “Truth” is never helpfully referred to as a “thing” and that,
even if all “things” in some sense have their origin from G-d, they
are never properly said to “merge” into G-d - or even into God… Joan
is, in any case, here speaking only of experiential and conceptual
knowledge - in the final Chapter of The Ancient Teaching of Yoga
and the Spiritual Evolution of Man, however, she acknowledges
further Knowledge Beyond.
First published in Great Britain 1982 by Element Books
Limited Longmead, Shaftesbury, Dorset
Second Impression 1985
First printed in Great Britain by Billings, Hylton Road,
Worcester, with
Back cover photography by Maurice Slingsby, and Text and
cover design by Humphrey Stone
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 0 906540 29 1
First Electronic Edition 1999
Copyright © Joan Cooper 1982, 1999
Biblical quotations are taken from The New English Bible,
Second Edition, © 1970, by permission of
Oxford and Cambridge University Presses.
Joan Cooper died at the height of her work and this book contains
the essence of her teaching. All her friends and students are happy
that through this book they may share the love and wisdom that she
offered so freely. Her work is being continued by the Culbone
Community Trust. For details of the Trust please write to:
Review of a recent book by J. H. M. Whiteman
Review of a recent book by Robert E Svoboda
Notes to accompany Joan D'Arcy Cooper's "Corner Stones Of The Spiritual World"
* INTRODUCTION
A definition of “guided meditation”, and the ways in which it is related to an experience of “The Kingdom of Heaven”.
1. GROWTH
The possibility of growth depends on a recognition of an initial
spiritual poverty, together with a trust in the power that can make
growth possible - meditation on the individual personality
experienced as rooms in a house - the gradual fading away of the old
self - meditation on the effects of Jesus' teaching on personal
relationships - the need for a time of stillness each day -
meditation on the Lord's Prayer - the four great needs expressed in
that prayer.
2. THE JOURNEY
The spiritual journey into light and truth expressed through the
image of a sea voyage - the need for a trusted guide or pilot -
meditation on the experience of casting outworn values into the ocean
- why there is no rejection or shame if this proves impossible at the
moment - the possibility of serving both God and mammon - the need
for gentleness with ourselves as well as with other people - the
journey dependent on our trust in Christ, who can guide us to our
higher selves without usurping our will - as the trust grows the
anxieties of the old self fade away - meditation centred on a garden
and based on Christ's invitation to ask, seek and knock - the visible
and invisible results of our seeking - our burdens are the parts of
ourselves which do not wish to grow - meditation experience to
increase our non-judgemental understanding of other people - the
danger of secret judgements - the way lightened by the finding of
many small treasures each day leading to the “Pearl of Great Price” -
meditation on discoveries to be made in a garden - the lesson of
trust to be learnt from Christ's waling on the water - meditation
based on this and on the experience of making a journey as a young
child.
3. THE SEED
Meditation on the parable of the sower - the different grounds of
each individual - the experience of the growing process of a plant -
meditation on the various factors that inhibit plant growth - the
plant's need for a gardener - the difficulty of asking help from
anyone on the physical plane - the shift from head centring to heart
centring - giving and caring for other people in a sensitive response
to their needs - meditation on the experience of an orchard giving
its fruits - the figt of ourselves - reflections on the wages of
giving and the parable of the workers in the vineyard - the growth
that comes from giving.
4. THE POWER OF JESUS
Reflections on the raising of Jairus' daughter - the spiritual
power of meditation - meditation on the experience of leaving a
prison cell or any place of bondage - the keys that open the door to
the Kingdom of Heaven - Christ's power of caring and healing - the
vibrations we all give out - the image of the caring, spiritual
family, and the restrictions of biological family units - meditation
on the growth of individuality, and the different aspects of
ourselves - Christ as the gardener - meditation on different parts of
a garden - the need to let some parts of ourselves die in order to
transform stumbling blocks into assets - meditation on the experience
of shedding burdens as we make our spiritual journey - the importance
of relationships.
5. THE SUBSTANCE OF LIFE
Reflections on the feeding of the five thousand - the “miracle” of
spiritual food feeding the physical body - the nature of giving from
the heart - Christ's act of giving - everyone's power of giving - the
distinction between “miracle” and magic - our dependence on “the
living water” and on spiritual “meat and drink”.
This book is about the way in which Jesus taught his friends, by
giving them actual experience of another kind of thinking and being
which already existed as potential within them, but had not
yet been realised. He used place as a concept to denote the
quality of experience of which a person was capable at a given time;
he used place to describe the level of being which a person
inhabited and from which he thought and acted. The place called
“Earth” was the place within the person from which he habitually
acted or thought; the place called “the Kingdom of Heaven” was the
new, higher level of being to which a person could attain and within
which he would have a new outlook, new understanding, new experience
of himself and other people and the world around him. Jesus taught in
such a way as to give his friends experience of this new state or
level of being which he called “the Kingdom of Heaven”.
This book is based on my own experience of the way in which Jesus
taught, which is a method used today by some people in the teaching
of meditation and called “guided meditation”. “Guided meditation” can
mean anything and lead people in many different directions because
the guidance depends upon the teacher. It is simply a method by which
the pupil is more or less passively led (i.e., without using his own
imagination and letting images come into his mind) by the teacher's
words to the place or experience the teacher desires for him. There
can be any kind of principle or motive behind this exercise. My own
study of the Gospels has given me an interior experience of
how and what Jesus taught which reveals an extensive use of so-called
“guided meditation”. My personal experience is of a Jesus who rarely
preached but whose teaching was focussed on giving people new
experiences of themselves - new experiences beyond themselves as they
were and as they thought of themselves. My own experience is of a
Jesus who gave people actual experiences of the kind of spiritual
growth which was possible for them and so increased in them the
longing for this growth.
This book is about the meditations which I believe Jesus used and
the kinds of experience which they would provide. I have selected
from all four Gospels to illustrate his teaching. In some
instances there will be conflict between the meditation-experiences,
as I understand them, and how the relevant Gospel passages are
usually interpreted. The reader will have to consider this conflict
and decide for himself whether or not to reject my personal
experience - and hence interpretation - of the relevant passage. This
particular book is NOT about this conflict, nor is it directly
concerned with the truth or falsity of different statements in the
Gospels. Nonetheless, this book could not be written without
implied - and sometimes explicit - criticism of certain statements
made in the Gospels which I believe from my own experience to
be a direct contradiction of what Jesus taught. The reader is asked
only to accept that this is my own experience, for which I offer
neither testimony nor apology, and to listen within his own interior
self as to whether or not it has the ring of truth…
All growth begins with a recognition of need. One could almost say
this of plant life. The seed ‘needs’ to recognise its poverty as a
seed before it can desire to grow into a plant. Without this ‘need’
the seed could not die to being a seed and risk sending forth its
tender and vulnerable shoot into the darkness of the soil. Once it
starts the journey up through the dark soil, there is no turning
back; the safe shell of the seed disintegrates - dies. The impetus
must be sufficiently strong: the desire to gorw has to carry the
shoot forward until it breaks ground and becomes a plant. Equally
important is the vision of what is possible. The seed needs to have,
locked up within itself, some picture of what is possible: of what it
can become. And finally, within that will-to-grow, inherent in the
seed, is the knowledge that such growth is possible.
On human scale, the knowledge that spiritual growth is possible
expands and becomes what we call ‘trust’. Trust is an expression of
the knowledge that there is Someone and some Power that make our
growth possible. Jesus came to give people an experience of their
inner potential, of what was possible for them to grow into. The
Gospels contain a pale reflection of the actual meditation
experiences through which he led his friends so that they could reach
out, briefly, to their own potentials and return with a clear vision
of what they could then begin to grow towards. His teaching commenced
with enabling people to experience their own needs, by recognising
the poverty of themselves as they were and how, out of poverty, could
come the new growth: the new perception, the new knowledge, the new
experience and understanding, the new relationship to G-d. This
teaching is expressed in a preacherly way in the first part of the
Sermon on the Mount, in some of what are called the Beatitudes (Mt
5:3-8). This is how Jesus taught the truths contained in these
verses, in a form inspired to give his friends experiences of
themselves, of that inner poverty or need which alone could lead them
to a new level of growth in themselves. This form is altered slightly
here to enable the twentieth-century person to follow the meditation.
Visualise a house (a simple Mediterranean house with a ground
floor, first floor, flat roof… and white-washed). There are two
halves in this house and the door is in the middle… In your mind walk
up to the door of the house… open it… walk in… and turn to the right.
The rooms of the ground floor are full of possessions… your own
possessions. Experience your satisfaction and pleasure in these
possessions. Experience a sensation of self-assurance and confidence
through having possessions… Now go up to the first floor… and
experience here the fullness of your own mental possessions… your
practical skills that enable you to live your life… the knowledge you
have gained from the different kinds of experience you have had… your
intellectual knowledge - maybe there is a library full of books…
Experience, as far as you can, the completeness of all your
knowing as it exists now… and include those intimations of
intuitive knowledge which indicate deeper levels of spiritual
awareness and knowledge which belong to your innermost being…
Experience how your mind-possessions, together with your material
possessions, give you the feeling of your identity… There is also a
temple - chapel - somewhere in this part of the house… it may be only
a corner of a room… Experience this place which contains your
religious beliefs… the rightness for which you strive…
Experience the principles that make your life and you seem right -
and even sometimes righteous… Experience also the feelings of guilt
that refer to the unattainableness of this structure of principle and
rightness…
Now, go back to the front door of this house and stand inside,
with your back to it, experiencing the entire section of house you
have just visited… Do you experience that it is complete in itself?…
Do you experience its lack of space? How nothing new can enter into
it… because there is no room? Do you experience confinement and a
kind of airlessness or suffocation in this part of the house? Or are
you satisfied with it as it is?… If you are satisfied with this
section of the house as it is… as you have experienced it… conclude
the meditation by leaving the house, shutting the door behind you,
and returning to an awareness of your physical body and the position
in which it is sitting.
If you experience a lack of space in the section of house you have
visited… or any sense of being confined by it… go into the other side
of the house. On the ground floor you will find one room only. It is
completely empty. Experience its bareness… the shock of its bareness…
Experience its poverty… and how you feel without the confidence and
security of possessions… Experience this bareness in yourself… a part
of yourself you do not normally inhabit… Now, move to one of the
windows and look out. Observe all the manifestations of nature that
are visible to you… the earth and the plants and the trees that are
near at hand… and everything at a distance, even to the skyline.
Observe the abundance of nature's expression: its colour and form and
fragrance. Look at the sky… and its reflection of light… even from
the formations of cloud cover. Open yourself to everything you can
see from that window… and know it is yours to feed upon. Experience
the nourishment which it supplies to your innermost being… (Mt 5:5).
Now, observe people passing by your window… or in the distance…
and experience compassion and understanding for them as you stand in
this bare part of the house… naked and without the inhibiting
barriers which possessions and self-confidence give you. Experience
your sensitivity and vulnerability as you watch the people passing…
of your need for them… and of the feeling of caring which
flows from mutual need… (Mt 5:7).
Now, experience your own spiritual needs… whatever real spiritual
need you can sense in yourself in this bare room, where you are
exposed to yourself and cannot hide behind possessions… Experience
the comfort flowing into you, from nowhere in particular, unimpeded,
to answer your need… (Mt 5:4).
Now, go upstairs to the single room above… and observe that it
also appears to be bare… Experience the emptiness in your mind…
Experience your own ignorance… and not-knowing… (Mt 5:3). Now,
experience the desire in yourself to be filled with real knowledge…
with the truth… (Mt 5:6). Observe a ladder in the corner of the room
that leads onto the roof… and experience, as you move towards that
ladder, your own heart's deepest desire… which is to know G-d… (Mt
5:8). Now, climb the ladder… out of your need and desire… and find on
the roof the nourishment… truth… vision you most need…
After a time, return down the ladder… go back down the stairs to
the front door. Pause at the front door and decide which side of this
house you will light up for other people to see… and be invited into…
in order to experience what you personally have learned… (Mt
5:14-16). Then, come out of the house… shut the door… and return very
slowly to a physical awareness of where you are actually sitting.
The house is an ancient symbol of man and the different parts of
his being, each level representing some aspect of his mind. Many
meditation experiences are possible, based on this symbolic house,
and can reveal different kinds of things to us, according to the aim
of the meditation and what each of us is capable of experiencing. The
ground floor represents, generally speaking, our practical
relationships to life and our skills; the first floor stands for
different kinds of knowledge, both intellectual and intuitive, as
well as the acquired attitudes which influence our thinking about
ourself and our life. A top floor or roof represents the place from
which we reeive inspiration, guidance, vision.
This meditation speaks for itself. It enables us to experience
both our fullness and our emptiness, the part of ourself which is
weak or poor that we usually hide from acknowledging. The experience
can be - according to each person's desire to know - one of realising
that fullness/righteousness cannot go beyond itself, whereas from the
weak/empty part of ourself growth can take place and new experience
is possible. This is the essence of the teaching contained in these
verses. All things are possible for the person who is able to
recognise and accept his emptiness, his lack, his need; he will be
nourished and given understanding, he will experience compassion for
others, he will have a vision of his own spiritual path.
How do we grow spiritually? What does it feel like - and how is it
different from what we have been doing all along? Is it not merely an
extension of what we already are - an improvement on our character
that is already striving to live up to a code of behaviour: to live
in accordance with the Law? When a person has become aware of his own
need, discovered the emptiness in himself, and experienced a longing
for spiritual growth - what happens? Does he clear out his
possessions in the other part of the house - metaphorically speaking?
Does he throw away the books in his library and get rid of those
acquired attitudes that have tightly structured his life and which he
has tried to live up to for years? In his initial enthusiasm he is
all for making a clean start.
Jesus speaks to this person in us: “Do not suppose that I have
come to abolish the Law and the prophets; I did not come to abolish,
but to complete” (Mt 5:17). But if we are not to clear out and get
rid of, in order to make a new beginning, what are we to do? There
seem to be gaps in the actual teaching, but indications are given
that nothing should be altered by abolishing; instead, new growth - a
new understanding - commences in another part of ourselves. The stern
moral code of the Law belongs to one part of our being; it forms part
of the rigid social structure within which we live our physical life
on Earth. That part can remain undisturbed, for it will fade away
naturally when the new part - the growing part of us - becomes strong
in its new understanding. This new understanding is contrasted with
the old structure in verses 38 to 42:
And in verses 43 to 45:
In this new place in ourself, we can behave differently. This is
not behaviour related to a moral code, it is not a kind of striving
to be ‘good’. It is a natural response from this new place -
the empty place in us; it comes from the heart rather than from the
head.
The following meditation framework is one which can be used today
to enable us to experience what Jesus meant in the above verses. Its
effectiveness on any one occasion will depend upon both teacher and
pupil and the depth of their desires to experience truth.
First of all take the necessary steps to prepare for meditation.
Sit comfortably, relaxing your body as far as possible. Close your
eyes and let the tensions drain away from the small muscles of the
face. Relax the top of the head and allow any throughts to drift
away. Sit for a few minutes just listening, letting any audible
sounds flow through your mind.
Now, let your mind be taken back to Palestine… and receive an
impression of Jesus waling around the Sea of Galilee, finding
disciples… Allow pictures or sensations of some kind to come into
your mind… Wait to receive whatever can be given to you… Now, you
will hold in your mind the thought that you are going to visit the
household of John, James, and their father, Zebedee. Hold the
thought… but do not imagine anything. Some picture or sensation will
be presented to you… if you wait patiently… The first impression you
will be given will be of the household of Zebedee as it was when
Jesus met John and James. Experience this household and the order or
structure of life in it at that time… and how it depended upon strict
observance of the Jewish Law… Allow yourself to experience as much of
the structure of this way of life… and in as wide a variety of ways…
as you can… Someone from outside offends a member of the household.
Observe… experience… the reaction… Observe… experience… how the
household gives to a neighbour in need… Observe… experience… the
striving to live up to the moral code…
Now, let this picture slowly fade… and visit the same houshold two
years later… Again, allow yourself to experience the order and
structure of life in this household… two years after James and John
had become intimate friends of Jesus… Observe… experience… the
difference (if any) in how James and John live their lives. Allow
yourself, if possible, to experience the sensations that denote the
difference reflected in your own body… Observe… experience… what
happens when one of them is attacked or offended… Observe…
experience… how they relate to their neighbours… Observe… experience…
what has happened to the striving…
Now, allow the experiences and the scene to fade from your mind
and let your awareness return to the physical sensation of your body
and its posture of sitting. Always close the door completely on any
meditation experience and do not allow it to become confused with
your daily life, or yourself to drift in any way betwen the two.
It is only an experience of need: of poverty and emptiness
as we are and the longing to be filled with spiritual sustenance,
that awakens in us the possibility of spiritual growth. That is our
first truth; that is our starting point. The second truth has to do
with realising that growth takes place from this very place in
ourselves which is empty, where space exists. It hasn't anything to
do with striving to live up to ‘the law’ of any religious or moral
code. The law - the code or religious structure - exists in another
part of ourselves; it cannot simpy be discarded. It must continue to
co-exist with the new growth, in the other part of our beings, which
is so utterly different. One day ‘the law’ will fade away because it
is no longer necesssary, having achieved its only true spiritual
purpose in our complete renewal. Our rebirth into new purpose and
understanding and a new quality of aliveness in the “fulfilment of
the law”.
In order to make possible this rebirth in ourselves - in order to
allow any spiritual growth to take place, we need to make space daily
in our lives, by stopping the automatic flow of activity and
withdrawing briefly to a stillness that is both within and without.
For that brief period of time it is necessary to “shut the door” on
the busy-ness of our life and our thoughts and allow ourselves simply
to experience the “new”, the “other”, the reality of the spiritual
plane which is always present, even when we are not aware of it.
And so Jesus taught his friends at this stage to meditate and to
pray, very simply - without any kind of ritual performance being
required. A pale reflection of his teaching is contained in
Matthew 6: 9-13, in what is called “the Lord's prayer”. The
lack of understanding which led to its being presented in this way is
due to some people's resistance to Jesus and his teaching. They
resisted Jesus because they could not allow themselves to grow
spiritually, and therefore they were not capable of understanding how
spiritual growth could take place in other people. They could not
even accept that this was what the teaching of Jesus was about.
This is how Jesus really took his friends through what we call
“the Lord's prayer”.
When you have prepared yourself physically and mentally for
meditation, taking the time you feel you need, experience
yourself… as you are at this moment… physically, the different
parts of your body… and mentally, with your different thoughts… and
any intimations of desire or longing that take you beyond your
present state…
Now, visualise a Person who is at a higher spiritual level than
yourself - this may be your spiritual teacher who is in a physical
body… it may be a spiritual being… it may be a clear image you have
of G-d… This Person cares for you with all love… requires nothing of
you… does not judge you… does not try to smother you… Experience the
power of this caring and love… which leaves you completely free… Let
some response flow from you… to this Person who cares so completely
for you…
Now, allow this Person… who cares for you personally… to come
close to you… Experience this Person's intimate presence… Now, allow
your own mind and being to extend towards that Person… to enter into
that Person… so you experience from INSIDE the Person some quality of
that Person's being… or character… Allow yourself to open as fully as
you can… and to extend beyond the limitations of your ordinary self…
into that Person… Let the Person enter you… nourish you… grow you…
After allowing a time for this inter-penetration or union… withdraw
slowly into your own smaller self again.
When you are in your smaller self again… experience the desire in
ourself… in the core of yourself… to expand… to grow… to evolve into
the possibilities or potential of which you have just had an
intimation in your experience of union… however shadowy that
experience may have been… Experience the need for spiritual
food… in order to grow… Experience the need for encouragement…
in order to grow… Experience the need for challenges…
adventures… even tests… in order to grow…
Experience the need to see clearly what is true… and to
know what is false for you at this time… in order to grow…
Experience once more the power of caring… of that Person for you…
and the fulfilment of all these needs in some measure… by that
Person…
Slowly relax your concentration… and return to an awareness of
your physical body… your physical surroundings… and your physical
life.
This personal experience of Jesus' own teaching of “the Lord's
prayer” - which will, no doubt, come in for much criticism - shows
that it was meant to be both meditation and prayer. As meditation, it
is an experience of being aware, first of all, of ourself, our state,
and the different parts of our being manifesting at a particular
moment in time. Secondly, it leads to a direct experience of a Person
- Someone whom we know, love, respect as having the integrity to
teach us and to grow us. This must be someone whom we trust; but
trust is not abstract, and so our ability to relate to this Person -
to exend into this Person - will depend upon the depth of this trust.
If the Person is the right one for us, the necessary trust will grow.
The essence of the meditation experience lies in our desire to
transcend, in however limited a way, our self as it is now and enter
into the Person. It requires a letting go of ourself, our
limitations, the boundaries with which we define “our identity”, and
allowing the will-to-grow to flow upwards, without reservations, into
the Person. For a moment there is a union of ourself with the Person,
in which the Person also flows into us, feeding us. These are words.
They cannot describe or truly comprehend the experience. Each time,
the experience will be different and the emotional intensity will
vary. It is important to remember that this meditation experience is
NOT about giving up ourself or letting someone else, however high or
evolved a spiritual being, take over our own being in any way. It is
about letting go, momentarily, the barriers that inhibit growth and
extending ourself into the Person who can nourish us and grow us into
WHAT WE ALREADY ARE in potential. For this reason it is important not
only to learn to trust and respond to trust, so that this extension
of ourself and therefore our growth can take place; it is equally
important to find the Person who is right for us and whose integrity
is known to us. There may be more than one such Person. There is
likely to be Someone on the spiritual plane with whom it is right to
perform this meditation; there may also be Someone who inhabits a
physical body and who can teach and grow us in this way.
The other part of this prayer-meditation has to do with petition:
with a recognition of our daily spiritual needs and asking for their
fulfilment. The first need is obvious and stated clearly in the
Gospels. The spiritual being cannot grow without food, any more than
the physical body can grow or be maintained without its own form of
nourishment. Spiritual food is, indeed, more important than physical
food as Jesus illustrated later on in his teaching (Mt 15:29-39). We
can live for a time with very little physical food, but without
spiritual nourishment our life is empty of meaning and a travesty.
Our second need is for encouragement. “Forgive us our debts as we
forgive our debtors” reflects the Jewish teaching about sin and
people's preoccupation with their burden of sin and their need for
forgiveness. Jesus knew that the greater need in us was for
acceptance - an unqualified acceptance of ourselves as we are. The
focus on sin and forgiveness creates in us a structure of guilt and
striving and self-deception and, ultimately, a situation in which
nothing can change in us because we are unable to accept ourselves as
we are. G-d's acceptance of us as we are, without judgment or the
ritual of forgiveness, is the only possible starting point for our
spiritual growth. Jesus knew this, but he also knew that our
spiritual need is for even more than acceptance. Our deepest need is
for encouragement from the Other who is spiritually above us, which
is the next step that takes us beyond acceptance and being accepted
along the pathway of spiritual growth.
The third need is for the kind of challenge which stimulates
growth, awakens us out of torpor or sleep, and enables us to learn.
We do not instinctively expose ourselves to new situations; we tend
to repeat what we have already done, to coast on what we have already
acquired. We are often timid about new adventures. If it were left to
our habits of living and thinking we should not increase our trust in
spiritual guidance and purpose because we would not seek to be
challenged or put to the test. But this is our third need: to be put
to the test, to be given challenges and adventures which call forth a
new leap in trust, and the courage to go beyond ourselves as we are.
Jesus could never have said: “Lead us not into temptation”, because
this statement is spiritually unsound. Once we have started our
spiritual journey, challenges and tests are necessary to keep us
moving. We have to recognise our need and ask for them to be given to
us, in the right way and at the right time.
Our fourth need is to be able to see clearly what is true and what
is false for us throughout each day, in the context of our ordinary
lives. Our spiritual growth depends upon our own discrimination and
the growth in us of that inner touchstone which can tell us what
is and how it is. No one can take this innermost sense of
Truth from us - nor can anyone usurp our need to use and develop it,
not even G-d! It is to this inner touchstone that we must refer all
things, all experiences; its growth in sensitivity and insight is our
own spiritual growth. And so we ask not to be “delivered from evil”
but for the growth of the part within our own soul that can know what
is evil or destructive for us and what is positive and true and can
nourish us. Upon this discernment and its application to our daily
lives depends our spiritual growth.
The prayer concludes, as it began, with a form of
meditation-experience, in which we become aware of the power of love
coming from the Person that can supply our needs. This is not merely
an answering of needs, because the needs which we recognise in
ourselves are not questions to be answered but hungers to be
satisfied. The power of the Person - which is the power that comes
from caring or love - fills the space of our hunger, nourishes the
soul, stimulates the will to learn. Our awareness of this power
concludes our prayer-meditation with an experience of certainty and
hope.*
______________________
* Editor's note: Dom Sylvester Houédard suggests the best
‘translation’ of the conclusion of the Lord's prayer involves taking
“not-into” as one phrase - “lead us out-of tempation into freedom
from evil“ or “from the evil one”… and, viz. into Peace-Pax-Shalom…
i.e., eventually Cessation, Samadhi, Nirvana rightly
understood.
(Mt 6:19-24.)
Jesus grew up familiar with boats - small fishing boats and larger
trading vessels that worked their way around the Mediterranean and
even ventured to distant lands. Many of the spiritual experiences
which he gave people in the course of his teaching were based on
boats and the journeys people could make in boats. His teaching was
essentially about making journeys, the journeys individual souls make
as they grow from one state of being to another. No experience could
better describe this spiritual journey than sailing in a small boat
across a lake, like the Sea of Galilee, with its challenges and risk
and unexpected dangers. The meditation-experience related to these
verses, through which Jesus taught his friends, is based on such a
journey.
The above verses do not immediately appear to be about a journey.
They contrast two different kinds of security on which we can rely
and two kinds of “master” whom we can serve. They relate to two
contrasting states of being - or two very different places in
ourselves. One state concerns the place called “Earth” which contains
the structure of life and forms of security we have built up for
ourselves and is our starting point on the spiritual path. (There is
no other starting point than where we are now.) The other state is
represented by the place called “Heaven” towards which we are
journeying - where a different kind of experience is possible, a
different set of values exists, a different kind of “master” is to be
served. Between one state and the other lies a sea - or country -
which has to be crossed, where there is all the risk of letting go
the known forms and expressions of our life and allowing our
innermost desire for growth to launch us into the unknown. That inner
desire for truth, new experience, increased understanding is the
essential condition for such a journey; but it cannot be undertaken
alone, without a spiritual “master” - without our being aware of the
presence, love, power of One who can guide and encourage.
The passage in Matthew which stands between the comparison
of two different states in ourselves (6:19-21.24) is concerned with
seeing the truth of things for ourselves. What is: what is not. This
is not abstract Truth or Principle, Law or Religious Code; this is
about what exists - or does not exist - now, in ourselves and in our
relationships to other people. “If your eyes are sound, you will have
light for your whole body” (6:22). The spiritual journey from the
place where we are at this moment, to the new place which we cannot
yet see and of which we have only vague intimations of greater light,
greater capacity for understanding and love, is only possible
through the light of truth. It is only possible if we allow truth -
the little truth that is in us now - to grow in us so its lamp
enables our eye to perseive what is. This requires courage;
courage comes from the intensity of our desire to grow. But it is
also based on the extent to which we can trust the Person who is with
us, who guides and encourages us. Truth is the light which expands us
and makes our journey possible; our journey is, in fact, a journey in
truth. The journey from one shore to the other is a journey into
increasing light and growing truth.
This is how Jesus taught his friends - this is the spiritual
experience he gave them when they were actually on a boat, making a
journey across the Sea of Galilee, from one shore to the other. It is
re-worded for someone living today.
You are going on a journey… You are in a boat. Experience being in
a boat… on a journey… Each one of you has a large parcel… Experience
your own parcel… It contains things you cannot leave behind… You are
on the sea… and the boat has moved away from the shore… It feels
overladen… but Christ is in control…
Christ now says: We cannot continue with such a load. The boat
might manage it… but this is a spiritual journey… and the parcel you
have contains parts of yourself which belong to the place we have
left behind… These parts of you have nothing to do with the place to
which we are going. You will have to open your parcels… and look
inside and see what is there… Then you can decide whether or not to
proceed with the journey…
Now, open your parcel… and look carefully at its contents…
Christ says: Let spiritual light shine through your eyes… and see
the truth about the parcel and yourself… Eventually, Christ speaks
again: Decide what you want… Do you want to hold onto all that is in
our parcel… and return to where you came from?… Or do you find you
have outgrown some of its contents… which you can therefore jettison…
and continue with me on the journey… trusting me and your own desire
for this journey?
Decide what you want… and what you can do…
If this is the core of the teaching contained in the above verses,
they take on a different meaning. There is no longer the rigidity of
two alternatives which are mutually exclusive - no longer the
impossible requirement of opting wholly for the one and rejecting the
other. The dualism of the preacher, with its irreconcilable
opposites, disappears and is replaced by the teacher who is not so
much concerned with principles and absolutes - you cannot serve two
masters - as with human experience and the underlying spiritual
realities in which opposites co-exist and growth takes place slowly
through growing insight. How ready are you to go on a journey? That
is the question. You cannot take the whole of your old mind with you
on this journey because the other shore is a place where you will be
able to think and act from a new mind. If you are really wanting this
journey, some things must go; these are the parts of your mind which
you have outgrown, which you no longer need. Maybe they were useful
at one time, like attitudes of caution, anger, certain fears. In any
case, they were natural to you - and to other people - in the one
state and in the place where you are at present; various forms of
security and material possessions are important at one stage and lose
their relevance later on, when you have grown. There is no command
here, no requirement, but simply the question: Have you outgrown them
sufficiently to follow Christ and your own desire for spiritual
growth to the farther shore? Or do you need more time, more
experience where you are, before you can really commit yourself to
the journey? There is no shame in abandoning the journey, because
it cannot be undertaken until you are able to jettison some of
the contents of your parcel. Until this happens, there is no journey
- only imagination.
If is not possible to ask this question before you start on your
journey. None of us can anticipate how we will feel when we are at
sea, separated from the shore of familiar places and still a long
distance from that unknown shore towards which we are desiring to
move. On a little boat, at sea, Christ can ask us this question: What
about the parcel you are carrying… is it out of habit? What is in it?
What are you finished with… and can throw overboard… or give to me?
Just see.
There is no judgment, no risk of rejection if we can't make it
just yet. In this context it is impossible to pretend to ourselves or
to Christ. In the meditation-experience we look into his eyes, from
which truth shines out purely and clearly. No gesture - no sacrifice
- is possible. He requires no sacrifice. There is only gentleness and
caring - caring even if we have to go back. We do not lose him if we
need to go on serving that “other master” too for a time and learn
more lessons. We can carry on serving two masters.
A parable, attributed to Jesus, is recorded in Luke's
Gospel (16: 1-8) which explains the necessity for some people to
“go back” and carry on with their learning on the nether shore before
undertaking the journey in full. This understanding does not come
from the parable as it stands, although verse nine can be read as
giving some insight into our need for working out the variety of
desires in us - not jumping through imagination into the boat and
making the journey before we are entirely prepared for it. This is
how the parable reads:
Jesus gave his friends an experience of going back, after having
started the journey, because they needed to work through certain
aspects of themselves which they could not take with them. Only a
shadow of the truth is presented in the verses above. The “bailiff”
is not wholly able to serve the “master”, i.e., the new and growing
part of himself. This new part of him is not yet able to take
control: it cannot “do its job properly”. And so the person must turn
his attention to those parts of himself which are represented as the
“debtors” - not debtors to the “master” but debtors to himself. They
are parts of himself which he still feels owe him something. In other
words, they are parts of himself through which he feels himself, with
which he identifies himself. He cannot cut himself off completely
from them. He can “cancel” half of what they owe him: he is half
freed from needing them as much as he did; but he needs them
nevertheless as a “place to go to”, as expressions of himself - the
“master” - understands and approves of this action, because it knows
that spiritual growth depends upon this temporary “going back”.
We need to be gentle with ourselves as well as with other people
and not place upon either expectations or requirements which are
impossible of fulfilment. There must be a strong desire for the
journey before it can be completed, and the resistance to it (in any
form) must be minimal. Only a strong desire can produce the courage
for such a journey and the trust in Christ necessary to take us
through storms and the unpredictable. Very often we have stopped at
the beginning of the journey and can go no further. That is the time
when we need to know that there is a way back - the boat can turn
around and go back and wait for another time. The way back needs to
be kept open by us, for ourselves and for other people whom we may be
helping. We may think that the person should be able to go; we may
even see that the “way back” is going to be unproductive, a way of
marking time out of fear. We may see that the person has really
completed all he had to on that particular plane. Nevertheless, we
must allow for this to happen and we must never withdraw our support
of the person - even if he is marking time and is afraid. Our support
- as much as Christ's - keeps the way forward open to him again when
he has gained sufficient strength.
The word “gentleness” does not fully describe Christ, for in his
eyes is also the power of love to encourage and draw us on,
not out of ourselves or into any giving up of ourselves, but on into
a bigger conception of ourselves. We shall be there, on that boat,
with a smaller, emptier parcel, when the time is right for us
individually and for our growth. In the meantime, he is not only with
those who are undertaking the journey now, he is also with those of
us who have returned for more experience.
The journey does not only depend upon looking at our parcel and
being able to dispose of some of its contents because we have
outgrown them. It also depends upon learning to trust and accept
direction from Christ. The efforts needed for the journey consist of
a delicate balance between what we can do ourselves to see truthfully
where we are, to discard what we no longer require, to ask for help;
and the necessity of trusting Christ so much that we can put
ourselves in his hands to teach and to grow us. This is where a
struggle ensues which goes on for a long time. We need to clarify
what this struggle is about.
The independent - and even isolated - self in each one of us has
evolved through many earlier stages of acquiring different kinds of
possessions for ourselves. Some of these possessions may now be of a
physical or material kind, but most of them are of a more subtle
nature like different kinds of knowledge or skill. Even material
possessions may symbolise possessions of a more subtle nature,
through which we feel our own identities. As we evolve through all
the stages of self-expression, we add new facets to our beings and
strengthen the already formed centre of independence, pride,
isolation. As our existence continues over long periods of time,
before or after our physical life on Earth, the desire increases in
us to outgrow or transcend this stage of independence. The struggle
that develops is not really a conflict between that independent part
of us and the will to grow further. It is a struggle resulting from
the spiritual fact that we cannot grow beyond this state unless we
put ourselves wholly in the hands of a spiritual teacher whom we can
love and trust to guide us on our journey, without distorting or
taking over our beings. The conflict lies not only in the
unwillingness of the independent self to give up its control, it lies
equally in the existential fear of being taken over. Can we trust
there is a power that comes from Someone's love strong enough to
guide us to ourselves, our higher selves, and not usurp
our will? There is another stage - and still another stage - within
us, waiting to be grown into; we cannot grow ourselves into the stage
beyond where we are now. Can we ally our will-to-grow to the love of
our spiritual teacher, the love of Christ, to grow us? Can we trust
enough?
Again, there is no absolute answer. There is no question of trust
or not-trust. There is only the experience of growing trust - growing
slowly, as seeds grow - and of diminishing un-trust. Christ, or our
spiritual teacher, accepts the growing and the diminishing as
realities. They are within the texture of our daily lives. This is
what the last verses of the sixth Chapter of Matthew are about
(6:25-31). Anxiety comes from the independent self, the self that
thinks it can go it alone. As trust grows, anxieties fall away and we
become free to go on that journey where we need to live each moment
and every day for itself. In this way we approach the new shore, the
new stage in our being.
Christ cannot grow us unless - or until - we reach out to him with
our seeking. To seek, or to ask, opens the door of our beings so that
we can receive. Unless we ask, we cannot receive. Jesus gave his
friends an experience of what it meant to ask in a simple meditation
that referred to a garden. In this context of plant-life and growing,
the desire to seek would come naturally. This is the kind of exercise
Jesus used.
Visualise… or let come into your mind… the picture of a garden. It
is a walled garden… large, and containing a variety of shrubs…
flowers… trees… There are many paths… and people in this garden… and
gardeners working in it… You are walking about in this garden…
experiencing its beauty and all that it can offer you… As you move
about in the garden… a question comes into your mind… something you
most desire to know… It may have to do with the garden… the name of a
plant… something about how to care for it… It may not seem to relate
directly to the garden at all… Ask your question of someone… and
experience opening yourself to receive the answer… As you walk about
in the garden… you experience seeking something… You need to find
something special… that has meaning for you… It may not be anything
big… it may be a tiny thing… but for you it will be a “treasure” that
means more than anything else in the garden… or it may seem to give
meaning to the experience of being in that garden… Experience seeking
a treasure… whatever it is… and somehow, somewhere you will find it…
There is a door in one of the walls of the garden… Your eyes keep
being drawn to this door… You have a desire to open this door… and go
through it… The desire grows in you… What is on the other side of
this door… you keep wondering… What is it you expect to find on the
other side?… What do you most desire to find on the other side of the
wall?… Knock on that door… or make the effort in some way to go
through that door to the other side… and experience what you find
there…
The power of Jesus made it possible for people to have an actual
experience of asking, seeking, knocking through this meditation. His
power came from his caring. Each person was helped to have an
experience not just of being in a garden but of connecting with
deeper desires and spiritual questions within himself. Without this
guidance - or the guidance of a spiritual teacher with true caring
and power, this meditation-exercise could not achieve its intended
aim. This aim is to awaken the asking/seeking part in each one of us.
We cannot grow unless this asking is truly awakened in us. All
learning proceeds through asking: asking for material things, asking
for knowledge, asking for truth. Some form of asking is always going
on in us, even unconsciously, and it draws in many kinds of answers
which we are probably not aware of as “answers”. Until we become
aware of our asking - of desires which may contradict each other - we
cannot clarify to ourselves what we most deeply want. We need to
become aware of the different levels of asking, and especially of
those forms which oppose our spiritual asking. Then we need to be
able to see the answers which are drawn to us by our own asking -
even our unconscious asking. One part of our being asks for growth
and a spiritual challenge, and another part asks for security and
protection against change. Can we see, and acknowledge, the different
things we seek, which contradict each other? Only then can we begin
to sort out and evaluate the kinds of asking that are within us.
This universe contains all possibilities for our self-expression
and growth. It is both visible and invisible. It is peopled by
persons at every level of evolution and distortion who can respond to
any level of asking in ourselves. If we “ask for fish” we will be
given fish - but something else in us may ask for a “serpent”, and we
will also be given a serpent. If we are truly in a state of spiritual
seeking, what we receive will confirm that state and feed us
spiritually; but if we are in a state of resentment or jealousy or
fear, this state can also receive confirmation. This negative state
cannot be removed from us so long as we are secretly seeking its
confirmation. It is essential to understand what Jesus was teaching
in and through these verses. Otherwise, it is easy to become
disenchanted and to develop mistrust towards our spiritual teacher -
even towards G-d - because our states of fear, jealousy, resentment,
and so on are not removed for us. What are we asking for? How many
things are we asking for? Are we seeking justification for our
states? Are we truly seeking to grow beyong these states - which
means leaving them behind without justifying them? Can we ask for
truth - and truly allow it to be applied to ourselves? Can we seek
growth - and trust the One who grows us to the extent of letting go
the forms of security that cover up our fears? Can we walk through
that door on which we have knocked - and walk through it into a new
quality of life that is so different from the smallness of our life
now?
No religious structure, no intercessions, no rituals - no prayers,
even - can do it for us. There is no magic which can grow us
spiritually. Jesus eschewed the use of magic. He gave people
experiences of different states in themselves - and of a possible new
state of ebing which they could inhabit; he helped them - he can help
us - prepare the ground of themselves so that spiritual growth could
take place.
The old mind - the “old man” in us - cannot be abandoned easily,
any more than it can be magicked away by priests or rituals. It has
to be carried, like the parcel in the boat, for a long time, by our
awareness of it. It will gradually diminish in size and in its effect
on our lives through our consciousness of it. The carrying of
our burden is essential to our own growth and to our increasing
ability to help and care for other people. The carrying of those
parts of ourselves which have no wish to grow teaches us acceptance -
of ourselves and others. It increases patience in us. Our trust
begins to grow in the One from whom we ask help in the bearing and
sharing of our burden. We learn that we cannot carry our burden
alone. This is our spiritual growth: the journey with our burden or
parcel.
(Mt 7:1-5).
Jesus showed his friends that only by carrying their own burdens -
the burdens of themselves and their weaknesses - would they be able
to help others. This is the kind of meditation-experience he gave
them to illustrate this point.
Visualise the person whom you find most difficult at this period
in your life… Visualise the person as clearly as you can… Experience
your own reaction to him or her… Now, experience the corresponding or
similar trait in yourself… to the one which you find most difficult
in this person… Face this weakness in yourself as far as you can… and
accept its existence without justifying it. This is the carrying of
your own weakness… Now, carrying your own weakness… being aware of
it… extend yourself or enter into that person whom you find most
difficult… Allow your passive mind (not the active mind or
intellect)… to pick up some new understanding of that person… Do not
put this understanding into words… merely receive the imprint of it
on yourself… Withdraw slowly from the person… and return to an
awareness of yourself…
This experience brings with it a different quality of
understanding to the one which derives from the above verses. The
commandment “not to judge” but to look to our own weaknesses instead
cannot produce real, spiritual results. It creates another kind of
hypocrisy in which we do not judge openly - but carry on with our
judgments in secret. They may even be hidden from ourselves, often
because they are not expressed in so many words but are an attitude
of mind. We are not able wholly to see - let alone remove - the
“plank in our own eye”. Catching a glimpse of it, we may imagine that
is enough - or we may feel so ashamed that nothing further can take
place. It may bury itself again. This is partly through our
ignorance: we do not know what to do.
What Jesus taught and gave people practice in experiencing was
seeing and accepting. This meant seeing our own weaknesses, but also
seeing the weaknesses - often very similar - in other people. It
meant also going a step further and accepting these
weaknesses, both in ourselves and in other people. This was an
essential part of his teaching. To accept does not mean to condone;
nor does it mean to shrug off with “This is the way I've always been
- and always will!” It means that we accept, as far as we can, the
whole of ourselves as we are now, bearing the pain of those parts
which are weak or disagreeable or even disgusting. If we can do this
with even one unpleasant aspect of ourselves, we can do the same
thing with other people and their unpleasant traits.
The ability to see and accept these parts of ourselves comes from
a tiny light or spark of truth within us. This spark of light was so
increased by Jesus for his friends that they were able not only to
see and accept, but also to carry the burden of themselves. Through
carrying this burden, in which they were no longer alone, they were
able to enter into the other person and not only see, accept - but
also help to carry his burden. The shared carrying of our burden -
shared by friend with friend, and shared also with the spirit of
Christ - enables them to diminish, slowly but steadily. This is
possible for each of us now.
(Mt 12:30).
The burden of our weak and recalcitrant self is not only a burden
which we simply carry along our spiritual path until such time as it
becomes pocket-size or falls off altogether. It is an “enemy” with
which we may have to wrestle; it is a person that stops us in our
tracks; it is the part of ourself that “scatters” the seeds of truth
and even sidetracks us from our path. This is the truth - so
misunderstood by writer and interpreter - which Jesus found essential
to get across to his friends. He was speaking of himself as a
Gardener, and he said to his friends: Do you want to grow and use me
as your Gardener - or do you not? It was a simple question which
needed to be asked many times, not just once. Do we want to grow and
use the Gardener? Sometimes we will answer with a profound “yes”; but
sometimes we will experience great resistance in us to change of any
kind, but especially to spiritual change that depends upon the help
of our Gardener.
Jesus was not referring to any conflict between outside forces:
between the “devil” and “god”. It was not a question of taking sides.
Rather, he was pointing out that there are two sides within each
person - within each one of us; there is the side that wants to grow
and the side which resists growth. The burden we are carrying
contains its own will, and this will can not only resist our desire
to grow spiritually but even stop our journey temporarily - but not
forever. In the course of day by day living experience with his
friends, Jesus showed them the two sides of themselves. Sometimes the
side desirous of spiritual growth was uppermost and he could be the
Gardener for them. On the other hand, there were times when his
friends resisted growth, became frightened and obstinate and wanted
to remain as they were. Then Jesus became the “devil” for them. He
had to accept misunderstanding and even calumny. At such times, he
helped them to express their resistance to growth - and to himself
who represented their growing side - and bore these burdens of
themselves. And when again they had returned into that part of
themselves which longed for spiritual growth, he reminded them of the
opposite part so they could come to know and recognise the two sides
of their beings.
Until we can accept and understand these two sides which exist in
us, as parts of our own nature, we cannot help other people in any
profound way. The spiritual strength required to bear the suffering
of rejection or mistrust, as Jesus experienced them at times, can
only come through understanding our own natures and experiencing the
patience and love of our own Gardener through our times of darkness.
The Journey is not one journey but consists in the many small
steps we take, day by day, and in the new meanings that give
encouragement and feed us. These new meanings are like the treasures
which children find as they play in the sand-pit, or walk along a
city street. There is always some thing - a special thing - that
transforms the place and the day. It may be a stone, or a nail, or a
piece of glass, or a flower in a crack in the pavement. Whatever it
is, it becomes the focus for something more than itself; it is, for
that child, a window into a tiny piece of eternity.
We, too, need to re-learn how to find “treasure” in our moments
and our days, with each treasure becoming a special “thing” that
lighted up the day and gave it new meaning. The treasure is usually
small or slight: a bird poised, a drop of dew, the aroma of steaming
earth after rain, but through it we feel the excitement of another
dimension entering our life and consciousness. Every day - each hour
- has its treasure. All the treasures, taken together, create another
kind of pattern in our life. They are like beads strung on the same
thread, which is the thread of a deeper awareness. We cannot - and
should not - put this into words, but it exists - and they, the
treasures, exist - as points of aliveness and growth. These are our
“pearls of great price”, leading us, treasure by treasure - as they
are strung on the thread of our awakening consciousness, to the one
Treasure, the one Pearl of Great Price which we will eventually seek
and to which we can commit ourselves with all our heart. This is a
simple meditation-exercise which Jesus used to connect his friends
with this truth.
With your creative imagination, visualise your own garden (if you
have no garden, visualise a garden familiar to you)… Enter into the
garden… and look around it… This garden is you and your life… Observe
the different things that you do in the garden… the hard work…
digging… pruning… weeding… planting… And how you could work about in
your garden forever in this way… Or observe your pottering… in a
desultory way… Or how you sit in a corner of it and relax… Experience
these activities… going on and on… Observe how it is still the same
garden… whatever you do… Observe how plants grow and die… and weeds
are weeded and grow again… Observe how the seasons come and go… and
come and go again… Suddenly, you find a treasure in your garden… or
maybe it just appears… The treasure you have found transforms the
garden… gives it new meaning… Everything is different… more
meaningful… Examine the treasure… enjoy it… Allow it to give off a
kind of light…
If we ask and seek and knock - and sometimes it may be without any
real awareness that we are doing so, then we may find at some point
in our lives the Pearl of Great Price. This is more than a garden
treasure - more, even, than those treasures which open our eyes to
eternal truths. It is the treasure our innermost being seeks. Can we
recognise it - or does it pass unnoticed? Our lives are so filled
with things and activities and securities - can we sell anything and
purchase this Pearl? Can we sell enough of the possessions that stand
in the way of our growing and commit ourselves to the path and to the
teacher who can guide our steps?
Sometimes the learning experience, in which Jesus involved his
friends, was an actual journey. The lessons derived from the physical
experience. One such journey is recorded in the fourteenth Chapter of
Matthew.
The difficulty with this story, as it is written in the
Gospel, is that it involves the use of magic. This is true of
many stories and parables in the Gospels, and, as they appear, they
cannot be understood as spiritual lessons. Because Jesus rejected the
use of magic categorically, these happenings need to be read
differently.*
[* Editor's note: Some readers may find it helpful to recall the
already-mentioned distinction made by the anonymous and posthumous
author of Meditations on the Tarot between “magic” and
“Magic”. ]
Under certain conditions, people can be “taken back” to the past
to experience what in fact took place. This possibility is based on
two spiritual facts. One is that the people who were involved in any
situation, at whatever point in history, are still alive somewhere in
the spiritual universe. The other fact is that events are recorded
truthfully on the minds of the participants, regardless of
distortions that obscure their perception of things at the time. If
truth were not recorded, it would be impossible for learning to take
place after the event. From what can be experienced NOW, (this is
from my personal experience as a teacher) these appear to be the
lessons which the disciples learned from the above-recorded event.
The most important lesson was about trust. Jesus had sent
the disciples on ahead of himself in a boat, to cross the sea of
Galilee. Would he have sent them on this journey to capsize and drown
in a rough sea? But trust is not faith; it is a relationship
between two people and it is based on the experiences they have of
each other. Trust is not definitive; it is ever moving; growing, or
else dwindling. Growing trust is based on new experiences that
provide us with proof that our trust is well-placed. We need always
to leap beyond the proof we already have, and in this way our trust
grows.
The disciples were in a small boat on a rough sea, with a strong
head-wind, and it was night. At night imagination can feed our fears,
and we forget what we know spiritually to be true. So Jesus came to
them in a vision, at the time of night when they were at their
weakest. That is to say, he came to them in his spiritual body, while
his physical body was still on the hillside in prayer, and they saw
him walking without fear on the rough sea. Their trust in him, and
their confidence in themselves, returned.
Then he taught them, further, something that is not recorded in
the story. He taught them how to draw always on himself for strength
- to draw from him the power of his love to take them through every
situation. They did not need to depend upon a “vision” which he
created, but could at any time call on him from their own needs and
out of the love and trust they had placed in him; and the response
would be immediate. The bond between them - his love for them, their
love for him - always existed and could always supply them with the
spiritual strength they needed, regardless of whether or not he was
physically present. (This was also in preparation for his eventual
physical death.)
Then he gave them a meditation-experience.
You are in a small boat on the sea… crossing from one side to the
other… The wind gets up suddenly… and the sea becomes rough.
Experience being in the boat on the rough sea… Now, you have a vision
of me coming to you… walking on the rough seas… It is my spiritual
body you see. Experience its calming effect… Consciously draw
strength from my spiritual body…
Now, I call to you to come to me… over the water… Look into my
face… and step out of the boat… and walk towards me. Experience
confidence as long as you look at me… Experience your own ability to
walk on the water… Now, you will look away… and you will be filled
with fear at the roughness of the sea… and the strength of the wind…
You will feel that you are going to sink…
I call to you again… and you look up… You do not sink… but regain
confidence as my strength flows into you…
Eventually, the wind subsides… and the sea becomes calm. You are
back in the boat.
In this simple meditation (which can still be used today), Jesus
took the actual experience which his friends had had and extended the
lesson to show them how it is possible to walk on top of the
circumstances of life, and not sink. There will always be storms and
rough seas in everyone's life, but we need never sink providing we
look up, into the face of Christ, and draw on his strength. To his
friends Jesus gave an actual experience of these spiritual truths so
they would not forget them. But for every one of us he is spiritually
present and calls to us in the same way: to look on him and, drawing
on his strength, gain the confidence to walk on the rough seas of our
own individual lives.
The spiritual journey can only be undertaken by a child. The
childlike qualities in everyone, even if they have become dormant or
atrophied, are the qualities that enable us to grow spiritually and
transcend every barrier or obstacle. These are not qualities that
have anything to do with being humble! They are qualities of an
adventurous spirit and the desire to learn, the quality of acceptance
and adaptability to circumstance, and - above all - the quality of
trust. The small child - the child in us - goes out to life,
responding to each new thing with curiosity and acceptance and trust.
Its trust means: all will be well, whatever happens.
Jesus gave his friends an experience of becoming a child again in
connection with both the journey and the up-and-down movement of our
boat on the sea, which is caused by our inner obstacles and fears.
Imagine you are in a very small boat on your own… and you are a
young child again, of not more than ten… You know without doubt that
the boat is quite sure and safe… and that it is taking you on a
journey… Experience a sense of excitement and adventure.
Now, you are on the sea in your boat… Experience the up-and-down
movement caused by the waves and troughs… The movement is gentle to
start with…
Suddenly the boat slides into a trough and the waves are high
around you… Experience fear… Accept the fear as a child would… and
experience the boat beneath you, shaking but solid…
Now, experience the boat moving up the wave… climbing out of the
trough… and your fear fading…
Experience strength growing in you… and confidence… You are
riding the crest of the wave… and moving forward… You are sliding
down again into another trough… Experience hopelessness… Face it…
accept it… Experience a Presence in your boat who manifests in some
way… and allow yourself to be reassured as a child would… As trust
returns… you experience the boat moving up the next wave… out of the
trough…
Now you have some measure of the movement of your boat your
excitement returns… and your sense of adventure… The boat skims the
waves, moving forward on your journey… Again, your boat begins to
slide into another trough… and you experience childish anger… and
resentment against the one who directs you on this journey… and
against this up-and-down movement of the boat… Resistance and
obstinacy seem to take over in you… and you are cut off from that
Presence of whom you were aware a short time before… Experience this
childish state of resistance… Face this feeling of being cut off…
accept it… and wait for the boat to start its upward movement… As
your boat moves upwards… experience a new emotion… which can only be
called joy… Let it rise and absorb you… Experience seeing land ahead…
and feel your boat coming closer to the new shore…
Spiritual journeys are never straight lines but grow out of the
kind of undulating movement experienced in this meditation. Both
extremes have to be allowed to happen in us, the troughs as well as
the wave-crests, if the journey is to take place. We have to
experience and become aware of both extremes in ourselves. Only
through allowing ourselves to experience joy, adventuring, trust on
the one hand, and doubts, fear, resistance on the other, can growth
take place. We have to allow ourselves to go into these different
states so that we can experience them consciously and see what is in
ourselves. This movement of up-and-down is part of every spiritual
journey a person makes from one state of being to another. We cannot
argue or persuade ourselves out of fears or doubts; we need to
experience them and know the different sides of ourselves before
change can take place and we can actually arrive on the new shore. In
the meantime, and as our acceptance of the different manifestations
in ourselves grows, the extremes become less extreme and we become
more certain as to the safety of our boat and the reality of the
Presence who is guiding us on our journey. In fact, our growth takes
place long before we arrive at our destination, for the very
journeying is our growth.
“That same day Jesus went out and sat beside the lake, where so
many people gathered round him that he had to get into a boat. He sat
there, and all the people stood on the shore. He spoke to them in
parables, at some length.
Jesus used the imagery of boats and the sea and journeys, but also
used all the signs and manifestations of nature to show people how
growth takes place and to give them experiences of their own growing.
Plant life reveals many truths that teach us lessons about ourselves
and the nature of our own growing process. Jesus used different
aspects and stages of plant life, from seeding to harvesting, to give
his friends experiences relevant to their own needs. The above verses
illustrate one kind of experience he gave his friends. You are like a
piece of ground, he said - only you are not just one piece of ground
but several different kinds of ground, some of which are good for
planting and others are not. This is how he went on:
Visualise a piece of ground… with a footpath… and uncultivated or
overgrown parts… and some soil that has been well dug… Look at this
piece of ground intently with your mind… Now let yourself become this
piece of ground… Experience the ground of yourself… consisting of
different parts… Experience the footpath or wayside in yourself…
Experience what happens to thoughts that fall on your footpath…
Experience shallow or stony ground in yourself… Experience what
happens to thoughts that fall on your shallow ground… Experience the
tangled, weedy, undug part in yourself… Experience what happens to
thoughts that fall on your tangle of weeds… Experience the rich,
well-dug part of yourself… and what happens to thoughts that fall on
this good soil… Experience these varied parts of yourself… and where
it is possible for seeds to fall and new growth to take place…
If we allow ourselves to have this experience of ourselves, we
will find that new growth can only take place in a certain part of
our beings. Other parts of ourselves are too busy with many thoughts
and other people's opinions. Some parts have shallow soil, where
bursts of enthusiasm are possible that wither when they meet
resistance in ourselves - or from outside ourselves; they cannot root
properly. We need also to experience the stones of our resistance -
our literal-mindedness, our obstinacies. And in some parts of our
minds there is such confusion of attitude and thought that nothing
could possibly grow. Only where the mind has been cleared and space
made, where there is depth of soil, can seeds take root and grow
properly. We seem to have been born with some soil already prepared,
but we need consciously to prepare new places. This meditation, once
experienced, goes on working in us and provides us with new insights
from time to time.
Another purpose of this meditation, as it was given by Jesus, was
to teach his friends how to become more aware of the different kinds
of “soil” in other people and to be sensitive to which state (or
“soil”) a person was in, before endeavouring to sow a new idea in his
mind. Every exercise that Jesus gave had this twofold purpose of
providing self-knowledge and increasing awareness of other people and
their states and needs.
The next stage is to plant the seed. Jesus went on with the
meditation in this way:
You are a seed in the ground… Experience being a seed… Experience
its smallness… the hardness of the shell of protection around you…
Enjoy being a seed deep in the earth… Enjoy being snug… and safe…
Now, experience a force or power working on you… causing something in
you to vibrate… to become excited… to want to stretch out beyond the
confines of your seed… Experience the response in yourself to this
force of creation… working on you… Experience also the resistance in
yourself to this force… to change or growth… Experience your fear of
change… Now, allow the force of creation to work on you… so that your
own desire to grow becomes stronger than the resistance to growth…
Experience the softening of the seed-shell… and the sending forth of
new shoots of growth… Experience pushing up through the soil…
Experience obstacles in your way… like stones or rocks… or predators
in the soil… When you encounter difficulties… experience more
strongly the pull of the light and warmth reaching down to you from
above… through all the darkness of the earth… and drawing you up…
Allow yourself to come through the earth at last… Experience the
excitement of breaking out into the light… Experience as deeply as
you can this entry into a new dimension… your joy and tenderness… and
other emotions… Experience yourself as you breathe in the light and
air…
This is a meditation-experience that speaks for itself and will
awaken some respose in everyone. It makes us more conscious of the
growing process in ourselves and of the parts in us that resist
growth. As we become more aware of ourselves, so we are better able
to understand and help other people with their own particular
obstacles.
The growth of the seed is everyone's experience of spiritual
awakening. It can happen many times, at different points in our
lives, because there are many new beginnings from different aspects
of ourselves; there are also many hesitations and stoppings - but no
finish-line! There are, however, spiritual “achievements” in the form
of reaching that new dimension or level of being as a “plant”, from
which return to the seed-state is no longer possible. The plant has
become established once and for all. This act of dying to the seed
and growing in trust through the darkness of the soil until the
surface is reached, and the plant formed, requires different kinds of
time-scale. With everyone it is different. It might take years, or
weeks - or the growth of a particular “seed” might even take place
for someone during the meditation-exercise itself. There are many
seeds in us, and different kinds of plants need to grow in the ground
of ourselves before the whole of us can become established in that
new dimension of life. This is the essence of Jesus' teaching.
The next meditations are not directly related to the growth of the
seed, nor are they about growth into a new dimension or level of
being. Jesus gave them originally to his friends as exercises in
which they could recognise more easily their own strengths and
weaknesses and how they related to the growing process in themselves.
They can provide us with detailed experience of what is dead in us or
needs to be pruned back, of what is sick or weak, and of the parts
that are full of vitality and need more room for expression. These
exercises enable us to experience our own personal need for a
gardener, without whose help we cannot achieve any of our growth
potential.
Let the image of a plant come into your mind… any kind of plant
that is seeking to grow… Observe the plant carefully… Now, move up to
the plant in your mind… and become the plant. Experience being the
plant… Experience the kind of soil you are in… and how it contains
and holds you… Experience also how the soil restricts you… Experience
the kind of garden you are in… Experience your roots… and whether
they are strong and firmly anchored in the soil … Are they
inter-twined with other roots?… Experience any other plants
encroaching on you… and taking moisture or nourishment from you… Do
you need to extend your roots… or put down new roots? Experience your
stem and leaf structure above the ground… Experience the vitality and
growing in you… and how it is expressing… Be aware of any weakness in
your own structure that limits your growth… Is there any sickness?…
Are there parts that are overgrown… or leggy?… Are there any dead
parts… or parts that are stunted… and maybe with mould or some kind
of parasite?… Are there pats that need pruning back?… There are also
predators of different kinds who may menace or threaten you…
Experience who they are… and what you do in reaction to them…
Experience your reaction to all these challenges… that come from
outside you… as well as from within yourself…
Not everyone will experience every aspect of this meditation.
Sometimes we may need to experience one part of ourselves, and at
another time something else will reveal itself. Each day is
different, and different growths are possible for us at different
times. This is important to remember with other people.
It is helpful to draw certain parallels between parts of the
meditation and aspects of ourselves or our life. The plant finds
itself in a certain kind of soil, in a particular garden structure.
We find ourselves living within a specific social fabric that belongs
to the country and time into which we were born. A specific pattern
of thinking and attitude surrounds us and limits us. Other people and
many kinds of relationship impinge on our expression of ourselves,
and we need to see how we can interfere with one another's growing.
We also need to learn how to make our own kinds of growth by putting
down new roots and gaining independent strength - and help others to
do the same. A plant needs pruning and cutting back so that its
vitality can be used for new growth; we can be shown what we have
outgrown - attitude or activity - and where we need our own kind of
pruning. We can learn where new shoots of growth can begin to bud in
us, and where we need healing. The “predators” that attack the plant
may be the challenges or tests that the very nature of our life
supplies and which can enable us to grow stronger and overcome some
of our weaknesses. But they may also symbolise manifestations of our
own self-doubts or gloomy thoughts or emotions that seek to eat into
us and destroy the trust and confidence from which we grow.
This meditation is about all kinds of growth - the all-round
growth which needs to take place in everyone so that different kinds
of intellectual and emotional and physical needs are expressed.
Spiritual growth: the growth of our innermost being or will, depends
upon this all-round growth in the varied forms of self-expression
which make up our nature. This growth is not limited to the moral
requirements put upon us by our particular society but includes the
making manifest of hidden or unpleasant parts of our character as
well. We need to allow every part of ourselves to manifest and
express in order to strengthen in our will its desire for spiritual
growth. But if we are going to allow every part of our nature to
express, we need the guidance and caring of a spiritual teacher - and
the love of Christ, without whose protection this would be
impossible.
This brings us to the next meditation-exercise which forcusses on
our need for the kind of help that comes from a spiritual teacher -
from someone outside ourselves who has greater insight and compassion
and the ability to do things that we are not capable of doing for
ourselves. Such is a gardener to a plant. Jesus thought of himself as
a gardener, and this is the meditation he gave his friends.
Visualise a plant… any plant, whatever comes to mind… Look at it
closely… Touch it… Become the plant… Experience being that plant…
Experience clearly your own identity as a plant… Now, experience your
needs… Experience your need for nourishment… for water… for extra
space in which to grow… Experience your need for encouragement…
Experience any weaknesses in yourself… any sickness… in your plant…
Experience your vulnerability… Now, experience your need for a
gardener… to protect you… to heal your weaknesses… to help you become
whole… Experience your need for the gardener to encourage you… to
clear a space around you so that you may grow stronger… to feed you…
Experience your needs… and your helplessness… without the gardener…
Now, experience the gardener… Let the gardener come up to your plant…
Experience also your own mistrust… your fear of giving yourself to
the gardener… Allow your needs to increase… allow your sense of
helplessness to grow… and overcome your fears and mistrust of the
gardener… Now, experience the nourishment… the encouragement… the
healing… the protection… that come from the gardener… Experience what
happens to yourself through the gardener's caring…
This is an important meditation because it enables us clearly to
experience our needs and the fact that we are incapable of supplying
our own needs. This meditation can show us our helplessness - if we
will allow it to do so - and how we depend upon the “gardener”, the
person or persons without whom we cannot grow.
In the “Lord's prayer” meditation, we learn gradually to extend
ourselves into the Person - physical or spiritual - whom we accept as
our spiritual teacher or master. It takes time - sometimes a long
time - and courage to let go the barriers sufficiently, that surround
and protect our independent self, to make this meditation possible.
The plant meditation above is concerned with a more basic level of
everyday living, in which we experience our needs and helplessness in
physical terms. The barriers may also be more apparent to us and the
question therefore more starkly put, as to whether or not we can give
ourself to the gardener. Do we hand over ourself to the care of the
gardener, or do we carry on in our under-nourished, partly-grown
state? Although we may experience this particular meditation
infrequently, this is a question we have to ask ourselves daily.
Indeed, it is THE question we eventually need to ask from moment to
moment: Do we carry on as we are - or do we seek help from the
gardener now, at this moment in time, with this particular
problem or need or decision? We have to learn from this meditation
how difficult it is to ask this question, because upon its asking
truly depends our own spiritual growing.
Sometimes we cannot truly ask for help until we are brought low by
illness or misfortune of a kind that stops us in our tracks or brings
us to the limits of our endurance. A strong will cannot let go; we
have to try every path or method for ourselves before we ask for help
or guidance. Many of Jesus' friends were like this. Simon Peter
appears to have been such a person. If the story is true, he went to
the limit of his denial of knowing Jesus - as Saul went to the limit
of his persecution of his persecution of Jesus' followers. And yet,
the strong will of each of these men became the bed-rock of certainty
and conviction when they had reached the dead end of themselves on
one level and finally accepted the enlightenment which led to the new
level of spirituality in themselves. [ Editor's note: Christ in them
was - and is - this bed-rock; the strong and, finally, integrated
will of each of them was rather the foundation-stone, the alchemical
or “philosophical”, diamond-like cubic stone of their enlightenment
or mystical marriage with G-d.] Some people struggle with illness and
pain until they are exhausted and, becoming passive to their
situation, are able to receive spiritual help at last. The one who
seeks spiritual growth may also, for a long time, be feeding his
desire to do it himself - alone, and without help. The fears may be
too strong to accept the “gardener's” caring. A crisis has to occur
in his life before he can leap over these fears in desperate need of
help, thereby enabling his new knowledge to be converted into
spiritual fact. That conversion in us of knowledge into substance -
the journey from one level to another, the growth of the seed - can
only be made possible by a spiritual teacher communicating the love
of Christ. How long it takes some of us to accept this truth and act
on it.
Jesus' friends experienced the intensity of his teaching through
his own personal presence. We can experience his spiritual presence -
but that is not enough. We also need a physical person as our
teacher, whose physical presence can challenge and teach us in a way
that is impossible through a solely spiritual relationship. The
spiritual growth possible for us during our physical lifetime can
only come through direct contact with a spiritual teacher who is also
inhabiting a physical body. If we practise the above meditation
occasionally, we will become aware that this is so. Our barriers to
accepting help from a physical person, as distinct from
someone on the spiritual plane, readily become apparent to us. It is
the contact and relationship between two physical persons that can
reveal our barriers to ourselves. Unless - or until - we become aware
of these barriers, and carry this awareness with us for a time, we
will not be able to accept the very help we need for our growth. A
“gardener” waits for everyone who desires to grow, everywhere in the
world, but he - or she - cannot help us until we put ourselves in his
hands.
Both of these plant meditations can be used separately to provide
different kinds of experience, or they can be given as a series of
meditations that, having an inner dynamic, make new growth possible.
This may be difficult to understand. But these meditations are not
one-off exercises which finish when the person re-directs his
consciousness to the physical conditions in which he exists. The
particular meditation may carry on yeasting in the person and
continue to provide him with experiences, dreams, insights for days
or even weeks afterwards. Even more than that, the action of the
meditation - growing, being pruned, etc. - can have a direct effect
on the person and bring about an actual change in his spiritual
being. Jesus used these meditations in this way, and we can also
experience in them the power to create us. If they are used by a
spiritual teacher today, they may be imbued with power by Christ and
work in us in the same way they worked in his friends, two thousand
years ago.
The essence of Jesus' teaching is focussed on the change it is
possible for us to make in our spiritual centre of gravity. This is a
fundamental change in how we think and feel about ourselves and in
the purpose around which our lives revolve. This change has to do
with giving and the place in ourselves from which we give. This
change is concerned with the growth of our heart as our new centre of
gravity. It may be expressed as a gradual shift in emphasis from a
head centring to a heart centring.
While we live in our heads, our relationships to other people are
determined in large part by “law”: our striving to live up to the
moral law of our times [Editor's note: Part II of Saint Thomas
Aquinas's Summa Theologiae is more properly understood as a
reasoned exposition of the relationship between the revealed,
quasi-timeless speech-patterns of Biblical and Christian discourse
about G-d on the one hand and the logical geography of the then
contemporary discussion of moral and social topics on the other than
as any sort of detailed attempt to “lay down the law” for others.]
and our fear of transgressing it. Our giving is related to some form
of compulsion, social or religious. The time comes for everyone - and
it may not be in this life on Earth - when we have gone as far as we
can in our various forms of self-expression in relation to (or in
reaction to) the “law”. The desire grows in us for a new quality of
life and expression. Jesus' teaching is focussed on encouraging and
guiding every person who has reached this stage in his or her own
spiritual evolution.
This next series of meditations has to do with our experience of
giving to other people. Jesus taught that the quality of giving which
we experience on the higher level of being - in our heart centre, in
the Kingdom of Heaven - is different to what people habitually
express in their relationships with one another. It does not come
from any striving to live up to an image of “doing good”. It is not
based on custom. It comes solely from a new point of growth in
ourselves where we desire to respond to the other person's need.
It is most important to state at this point that the new quality
of giving, which Jesus' life was to enable in those people who were
ready to learn, has nothing to do with sacrifice. There is no
dichotomy in Jesus' teaching between “self” and “others”; the
giving of self can never mean the sacrifice of self.
“Sacrifice” is an idea which belongs, like all ideas and
abstractions, to man's intellect; where a person acts from such an
idea or abstraction, he is acting from his head. The level of giving
which Jesus made possible in people who were ready for it is centred
on the heart. The heart contains no ideas about giving but only the
desire - which is our will - to learn to respond to the need of
another person.
The desire to respond may exist in us but the journey is a long
one, because there are many obstacles in us that stand in the way of
giving. These obstacles, attitudes, reservations have to be
recognised and accepted so the desire and the ability to respond can
increase in us. This is how Jesus taught his friends to see how and
what they were able to give and the barriers that stood in the way of
their giving.
Visualise an orchard of fruit trees covered with springtime
blossom… Observe the different kinds of fruit trees in this orchard…
Go up to one of the trees… and become the tree… Experience the
growing in yourself… in the blossom… Enjoy this expression of
growing… Now, experience another kind of desire in you to produce
something useful… not just an expression of yourself… but for others…
to be given away… Allow fruit to form… Experience the fruit forming…
your feelings about it… Allow it to ripen… Someone wants to pick some
of your fruit… How do you react?… Experience the tussle in yourself
between holding onto your fruits… and letting them drop… Experience
the conditions under which you will allow your fruit to be taken…
Will you allow someone to pick it… Anyone?… Someone special?… Or do
you alone decide when to drop it?… What do you want do do with your
fruit?… Experience the gradual letting go of your fruit… How do you
feel?…
Even if we experience this meditation now as a joyous giving of
our fruits, on another occasion we would be likely to experience the
barriers in ourselves to that giving. The barriers are ourself, our
own nature, the desire to give as a free action, without conditions,
requires a spiritual leap. This is the spiritual leap which Jesus
came to make possible through his teaching - but especially through
his own giving [See Chapter 5: “The Substance of Life”]. This
meditation, and the one which follows on from it, may be practised a
number of times, and each time our knowledge grows and, with
increasing insight, also our ability to act givingly from the new
growing place in ourselves.
Our fruit can stand for different kinds of things that we may
give. It may be something we have acquired or something we have
produced; it may be an aspect of ourselves. Eventually, we are asked
to give ourselves. This is the extended form of the meditation on
giving.
Visualise an orchard with trees that are starting to come into
fruit… Focus on one of these trees… go up to it in your mind… Become
the tree… Experience being the tree… Experience the fruit forming…
and your feelings about it… Allow it to ripen… Experience what
happens to the fruit… Do you give it away?… Does someone take it?…
What conditions do you impose?… Experience the gradual letting go of
your fruit… How does it feel?… Now, slowly withdraw from your tree
and stand beside it… Experience someone coming into the orchard… and
up to you… and asking you for help… How do you respond? The person is
asking you to share yourself… Experience sharing yourself through
physical contact… Experience any barriers in yourself… Experience
sharing your mind with this person… the overlapping of minds in some
way… Experience any mental barriers in yourself… Experience the
sharing of your soul… if possible a blending or intermingling of
souls: of purpose, of direction, of life-force… Withdraw from the
experience of sharing… Let the other person move away… Let the
orchard slowly fade…
We may respond to someone's need by giving him something we
have, but still withhold ourselves. We may even appear to be
giving ourselves: a hand-shake, a thought, our time - and even so
withhold the true giving of ourselves in response to that person's
real need. Conventional giving is from the head: what we think the
person ought to have, what we are prepared to give, with the
conditions that surround our giving. These meditations which Jesus
gave his friends were to enable them to experience another kind of
giving which belongs to another level of being, called the Kingdom of
Heaven. This is the quality of giving which can come from the heart
of us, in response to an actual need - not to any idea about giving.
To respond to another person's need, whatever it may be, requires
great sensitivity on our part. It also requires insight into the
conditions we habitually impose on our giving. These may be physical
conditions that relate to touching or to the making of physical space
in our lives. They may be mental conditions or attitudes that limit
the nature of our giving and what we allow to be asked of us. They
may be fears that refer to our vulnerability as persons and cause us
to hold back our spiritual beings from the contact and the giving
which are required. These insights come through esperiencing
ourselves; the desire to give freely can grow in the same way. This
is why Jesus taught people in this way, so that through experiences
in awareness - guided by Jesus - they would come gradually to inhabit
and live in the Kingdom of Heaven.
When we consider truthfully what it means to give ourself, we
realise that the Kingdom of Heaven is a vast country which we cannot
occupy all at once and in which we have almost limitless
possibilities for growth. We may start to give from our heart, and as
we go on giving our heart grows and expands and the giving becomes
more simple, and less conditioned. The nature of our giving can grow
throughout the whole of our life on Earth - and into the next. This
is the possibility we experience in these meditations.
What do we receive from all this giving? The part of ourselves
that still places conditions on our giving, that holds back from
sharing, is the part that asks this question. What are the wages of
giving and service? This is how the question is put in the
Gospels.
Jesus presented this as a learning experience for his friends in
the form of a meditation. What are the wages of service? Someone
asked. The question may have been motivated by jealousy. Someone new
came into the fellowship of close followers around Jesus who
responded quickly, giving himself joyously. How could he do it and
obviously receive such joy in the giving? Jesus must then have
explained how people are at different stages in their own patterns of
spiritual growth and could therefore respond more easily - more
joyously - from the new place in themselves. Some people were born at
a different stage; they had already worked through difficulties that
others were facing now. Comparisons are useless. Furthermore,
everyone has a different kind of work to do - a different harvest to
bring in which could not be compared with anyone else's harvest. This
is the meditation-experience he gave his friends.
Visualise a village that you know… where harvesting of some kind
is going on… Experience yourself in that village… being called on to
help with the harvest… Experience the kind of harvest (whether corn…
fruit… potato… other) and the activity in which you are engaged…
Experience the actual work of harvesting… Now, the harvest field
turns into people… and you are harvesting people… Experience giving
to people… and what you give… Experience your harvesting of people…
Experience also what you receive as you give… This is your wage…
Everyone who experiences this meditation exercise may experience
joy in harvesting people and a nourishment of that part of themselves
from which the giving is expressed. We are fed, when we give from the
heart - when we can share even a small portion of ourself, out of all
proportion to the giving, the effort, the time. Even if the giving is
rejected - which it sometimes is, for that is part of the other
person's learning process, we are still nourished and strengthened in
our growing part. This must be experienced to be understood - not
only in meditations but within the context of our daily life, Jesus
teaches and enables us there as well.
This story illustrates, clearly and simply, the fact of Jesus'
power - a power which could call back a spirit that had left its
physical body so that it re-entered and the body came to life again.
It was a manifestation of great spiritual power which
contained insight into the purpose of the child's life and the
realisation that her spirit still needed to learn from a physical
life on Earth. Jesus responded simply to the child's need with a
power that came from his own being.
This power in Jesus was inherent in the quality of giving himself
in response to the needs of other people. This quality of giving had
evolved in Jesus to a stage beyond anything we are able to
comprehend, and with every giving of himself, in whatever form, went
the power that made the giving effectual. Some of the manifestations
of that giving and its power we will discuss in this Chapter.
We need to understand that as the power of Jesus was contained
within the giving of himself, so the giving was related to the need
of each individual person, at any one moment in time. The need of the
person was understood by Jesus' insight into his or her whole being.
He saw the need and the potential together. So, the vision, the
giving, the power called back the spirit of Jairus's daughter because
she had not completed her learning experience in a physical body.
This was enacted in front of the three friends and the parents of the
girl because they were capable of learning from the experience.
Every meditation-exercise which Jesus gave contained power,
because in each meditation he gave something from himself to the ones
who were taking part. Every person's experience therefore contained a
spiritual power that could carry on having an effect long after the
meditation had apparently been concluded. The effect of this power
was to grow and nourish the person spiritually and to help break down
the obstacles to his growth. The placing of power within a meditation
is shown very clearly in a simple exercise which Jesus often gave to
larger groups of people, wherever he was talking about the “good news
of the Kingdom of G-d” (See Lk 4:43).
Visualise a small cell or gaol… as clearly as you can… Allow
yourself to be confined in this cell… Experience your confinement…
Experience the thickness of the walls… the iron gate with locks… the
small window with hardly any vision of sky outside… Experience the
lack of air… the heaviness… Recognise this as a spiritual state in
which you often find yourself… Experience the gaoler who brings you
food… and locks you up again… The food is quite meagre… Experience
the state of depression which overcomes you from time to time in this
place… Experience what limited movement you have… Now, experience a
light shining in one corner of your cell… Look at the light… focus on
it… The light grows… in brightness and in size… until it takes the
shape of a person… Experience this person… this angel… Allow the
person to speak to you… Let him tell you there is no need to remain
in this cell any longer… Let him tell you it is a prison of your own
making… Let him show you the keys to the gate of your cell… which
have always been hanging on the wall beside the gate… When the light
of the angel has faded… take the keys from the wall of your cell… put
them in the lock… and open the gate… Go out of your cell into the
daylight… and the fresh air… and experience your freedom from
imprisonment…
The aim of this exercise was to tell people about the Kingdom of
Heaven as a place in themselves where they could be free from the
prison or bondage into which they had put themselves and which kept
them from growing. Even with large groups of people or casual passers
by Jesus did not merely talk about the “good news”; he gave them an
experience of themselves as they were and of what was possible for
them. They actually experienced their imprisonment and their freedom
from bondage. Into the experience which Jesus made it possible for
people to have, he put his power; this power transformed it from a
simple, one-off experience into a spiritual action which could carry
on within the person for a long period of time. In this particular
meditation, the power of Jesus focussed on the person (or angel) and
the keys which had always been hanging on the wall. The
meditation-experience showed people how to use the keys and opened
them spiritually to the power of Jesus. This power had the effect of
releasing them temporarily from their prison-cell or bondage. The
process of becoming free had begun, and the person's will to grow was
encouraged. The power would continue to act within each person, long
after the meditation was concluded, but its effectiveness would
depend upon the individual's own personal response, from day to day.
(Lk 6:19.)
Wherever Jesus went in his physical body, his spiritual being went
with him, giving out caring and power to people who were aware of
their needs and also to those who were not. Some people actually
touched him because they knew instinctively they would receive
something from him, and they were aware of the power that came into
them. The experience of this power was in relation to their needs. It
was like electricity, or like warmth; it was an enlightenment or it
was an assurance; it was a lifting of burdens or fears; it was even a
physical healing. Most often, the physical results followed in time
from the spiritual experience.
The spiritual being of Jesus was always giving out caring and
power, wherever he was and whether or not he was aware of it himself.
Sometimes his consciousness was focussed on what he was saying to a
group of people while his spiritual being was occupied in its own
way; but he was always aware of the giving out of power when someone
touched him - not because he experienced any diminishment but because
their need touched his awareness.
So it is with all of us, whatever the spiritual level on which we
are living. Wherever we move in our physical bodies, our spiritual
beings give out their vibrations. They may emit fear and tension
rather than caring, because we are afraid of our sensitivities and
hold back from giving. But they can give out what is within them to
give - if we allow it.
Jesus used the image of the family many times to symbolise a group
of people, closely connected with one another through bonds of
caring. Jewish society and religion are based on the closely-knit
blood relationship of the family - caring, but often rigid as far as
its individual members are concerned. It was the image of mutual
caring - the fellowship of persons of all ages and both sexes, who
desired to “do the will of God”, which he referred to as “family”.
All the people - all the so-called “strangers” and “outsiders” - even
Galileans - who desired to grow spiritually, who were aware of their
needs, who asked for help in becoming free of their prisons, who
asked for teaching - they were his family. The ones who listened were
his family. Even the ones who, although unconscious of who he was,
received power from him because they knew their need, were his
“mother and his sister”.
The biological family unit is held together by the society's
requirements for stability and the religion's ethics that inflict
punishment and guilt for transgression, more than by mutual caring.
Very often members of the blood family cannot accept who its
individual members are; they cannot see beyond the physical covering
of the person. Jesus showed how in his own town, where people thought
of him only in relation to his family background, no one could
receive help from him.
This was a many-sided lesson he was teaching his friends. He was
teaching them how to transcend the limitations of their own family
units and extend their awareness and caring to other people. He was
showing them what real caring was and the quality of responsibility
for other people which developed into a real family. His power was
here the power of light and truth that could show them how the
family, as a social unit, could not accept him - could not accept
them as spiritually growing individuals. But the power of his own
caring, in his concourse with those of his friends who were daily in
his presence, gave them an experience of what a true family was like.
The power of Jesus gave people not only the light to see truth but
also the strength to become less afraid of transgressing social
requirements and family expectations, to lose some of their feelings
of guilt, to become able to listen to their own growing
individuality.
In small groups of two or three at a time, Jesus gave his close
friends the experience of seeing the broad spectrum of themselves as
if they consisted of a collection of separate individuals. This brief
but profound meditation was only possible with those of his friends
who truly desired the truth about themselves and could therefore
allow his power to reveal it to them. This is the simple
meditation-structure he used.
After you have relaxed your body and your mind as far as you can…
and offered your mind to the light of truth… You will allow yourself
to be raised up… out of your body awareness… along with me and my
presence… And we will come to rest above where our physical bodies
are sitting… Look down on your body where it is sitting… and you will
see not one body… but several bodies resembling you… but in fact
different aspects of yourself… Observe these bodies… these
manifestations of YOU carefully… Observe the manifestations of you
that hold you back from your journey… your growing… Observe what they
want instead… for themselves… Ask for increased light or guidance to
see clearly who they are in yourself… Observe clearly the YOU with
whom you identify as the growing part of yourself… and see how this
YOU differs from the others… Now, return slowly to an awareness of
your physical body…
The success, or otherwise, of this exercise always depends upon
the extent to which the individual person is ready to receive truth
about himself, and upon his need at that particular moment in time. A
woman, suffering recently from mental inertia and physical fatigue,
saw seven selves sitting in a row, dressed like herself but with
different attitudes and shapes. Only one of these was important to
observe clearly at that moment. This was a baby that wanted only to
sleep or be entertained. The woman regained her energy and mental
alertness very quickly after this meditation. A young man, who had
recently come to near-suicide, saw three people poaching on himself.
All four were dressed in his clothes. One was a baby who sought
attention; the second was a self-centred, self-indulgent adolescent;
the third was a thin man who whispered doubts and depressing thoughts
in his ear. When he had experienced what he had taken to be his own
depressing thoughts as those of the thin man whispering in his ear,
the young man felt new strength flowing into him. The whispering
became fainter.
These are contemporary experiences of the meditation which Jesus
used nearly two thousand years ago to enable people at a certain
stage to see different aspects of themselves as separate individuals,
occupying the same body. This exercise makes it possible for a person
gradually to withdraw energy from the different “people” who are
inhabiting his being and blocking his growth. For his friends, Jesus
provided the power that made their experiences possible; they needed
to continue to call on that power as they returned, again and again,
to their own particular vision of themselves. This power was always
present - but they needed to call on it and use it if they wanted to
strengthen their own spiritual identity. And so it is with us today.
Just as natural energy and sap flow through all the branches of
the vine, so does spiritual power flow through us if we do not
isolate ourselves. As the plant holds itself in readiness for the
gardener to prune and make more fuirtful, so does our growth and
fruitfulness depend upon our own spiritual gardener. The
effectiveness of Jesus's power in the individual person depends upon
his or her acceptance of him as the Gardener and upon being
accessible to that power, and not isolated.
It is easy to think of the hermit [Editor's note: For a fuller
understanding of “the hermit” cfr the relevant Chapter of
Meditations on the Tarot; for a less comprehensive, but
socially helpful, typological characterisation cfr Marco Todeschini's
presentation in The Neith Network Library. Also: The Tablet,
Vol. 250 No. 8143, 31 August 1996, p. 1129.] as an extreme form of
isolation physical isolation and the state of depression as the
extreme of spiritual isolation. We then overlook our own kinds of
isolation, whereby parts of ourselves are cut off rom the spiritual
whole and can stagnate or become overgrown with our knowing it, until
they begin to take over or damage the whole of us. Jesus likened
ourselves - our beings - to a field or a garden, each part of which
need our attention and to be worked on at some time or other. In this
way, no aspect of ourselves would be overlooked or become isolated
from the whole, but every part of us would be capable of expression,
growth, fruitfulness. This is the form of meditation-experience he
gave his friends to enable them to see the different parts of
themselves and the kind of work needed to be undertaken by themselves
with the help of the gardener.
Visualise a garden… Now, enter into… and experience being in that
garden… Get the sensation of your feet standing on the ground… or the
grass… or on a path… Experience the air of the garden… First of all,
you walk around the whole of your garden… to see how things are… what
the different plants are doing… You look at the beds of flowers… and
enjoy how they have grown… You look at the shrubs… and bushes… and
any fruit-producing trees… You find a small group of trees… and look
at one tree in particular… There is a pond or small lake nearby… and
you listen to the sound of a stream which flows through the garden
into the pond… You are aware of bird life… and maybe animal life…
inhabiting this part of the garden… You walk on… and there is an area
of cultivated grass or lawn… Beyond the lawn is an isolated patch -
maybe quite a large area of waste ground, with brambles and nettles
and coarse undegrowth… There is no path in this place… You may find a
green-house… if you look for it… or place for bringing on special
plants… And there may be a summer house… for people to sit in and
enjoy the garden… When you have walked around your garden and looked
at it… you stand and feel the whole extent of it… It is your garden…
every part of it… It is you… yourself… Now, you have the feeling that
some kind of work is needed in your garden… Maybe you have seen many
things that need attending to… You cannot work without a gardener…
who has skills beyond your knowledge… and abilities you do not have…
He also has tools to lend you… and he will guide you in the using of
them… Allow the gardener who tends this garden to approach you… Be
aware of his presence in some way… even if you cannot see him
clearly… Let the gardener take you to a flowe bed… where there are
dead heads that need removing… Begin the work of removing these dead
heads… under his insrruction… Ask the gardener to tell you what they
mean… these dead heads in yourself… Now, let the gardener take you to
some shrubs or bushes that need pruning back… to increase their
strength and growing power… Let him give you the tools… and instruct
you in pruning one of the shrubs or bushes… Ask the gardener to show
you what these parts correspond to in yourself… that need to be
pruned… Finally, let the gardener take you to a tree that needs to be
attended to… Maybe there is a dead branch that needs removing… Let
the gardener help you… and do what you can do… What you cannot do
yourself… ask the gardener to do… Now, let the garden and the
gardener slowly fade… and your consciousness return to your physical
body…
This is a specifically on-going meditation to which the person who
has experienced it returns, again and again, continuing with the work
of removing dead heads, pruning, cutting out dead wood. As the
meditation progresses, he will be given clearer insight into the
parallels with himself and his own mind. In time, he will become
aware of a kind of mental pruning having taken place in himself and
the gradual disappearance of even deep-seated attitudes or fears that
are dead - which he has outgrown. It may happen quite rapidly. After
a period of time, which should not exceed three weeks, the person
needs to be guided once more through the same meditation-exercise, in
which he is taken - not around the whole garden - to another kind of
activity, such as weeding or clearing waste ground, with another
correspondence to his spiritual being or mind. And, as he repeats the
activity on his own, every few days, working physically in his
imagination, so there will be a corresponding clearance or removal of
obstacles on the mental plane in himself. In this way the above
meditation can be used for more than half a year to bring about rapid
spiritual changes in the person or persons concerned.
The gardener in the meditation was - and is - for each person the
focus for the powe of Jesus. The spiritual body of Jesus manifested
as the garxdener in the meditation of each person to whom he gave the
meditation and in that person's private on-going meditation, giving
him instruction in what was needed and insight into the related
spiritual problem. This is still possible for people who are taken
through this meditation today. The power of Jesus works on the
spiritual plane through the agency of the gardener, while the person
works physicallyu in his meditation garden. When the will of txhe
individual person is actively enegaged in this exercise, many
spiritual changes can be accomplished - often quite miraculously.
When we consider Jesus' methods of teaching and the way in which
he made possible the spiritual growth of men and women, from his own
caring and powe, we could re-write the above verses from the
Gospel according to St. John in the following manner:
This Chapter commenced with the power of Jesus making possible the
coming to life again of Jairus' daughter, whose spirit had not
completed her sojourn in a physical body. It concludes with showing
how that same power can make it possible for us to die to ourselves
on one level and to show forth an enriched quality of ourselves on
another level. It might mean dying to an obstinacy and wilfulness
which prevent our search for Truth and discovering that this same
obstinacy has become the quality of endurance and strength we need
for our spiritual life. A quality or attitude which is a stumbling
block on one level becomes an asset - and more than an asset - at
another point on our spiritual path. If we can die to its negative
manifestation, it may be reaped as a positive good.
After they had prepared themselves over a certain period of time,
Jesus' friends were ready to make the journey which involved dying to
themselves in certain respects - and reaping the harvest of
themselves. This is the kind of meditation-journey he took them on.
Start at your home… being aware of your own home… the things and
material possessions in your home… the activities of your home… Be
aware of the background of your home… as impressions of other homes
you have had… going back to your childhood home… Be aware of the
people who belong in your home… and the shadowy figures of all the
family in your life… even to childhood… Experience all this around
you… Bring it with you… and bring with you also in your mind…
everything you enjoy or that makes your life possible… Bring all this
with you on your journey… and experience yourself with all this… and
your whole life as you are… You are travelling through space… and you
land somewhere… in a distant country… and come to a lage stone gate
through which you must go if you are to proceed… The gate is covered
with many mirrors… in which you observe yourself… and the many things
to which you are attached… which are like hooks into you… You need to
travel lighter… Unhook what you can from yourself… and ask for help
if you need it… to see more clearly your attachments or to unhook
yourself… When you have done what is possible… look around to see if
any one else needs your help before you go through the gate. On the
other side of the gate you will find a garden which will nourish you
with an intermingling of colour… and sound… and perfume…
Now, you continue on your way… much lighter… and eventually you
arrive at a second gate. In order to go through this gate… you have
to let go… or be taken from you… your imagination in the form of
ideals and expectations… what you think you are aiming for… what you
think you want to live up to… or become… There are spiritual beings
at this gate… to whom you can offer yourself: your mind… and allow
the forms of imagination and striving to be pulled from you (like
ropes of spaghetti or string)… and room is made for real growth… When
all you will allow has been taken from you… go through the gate… And
your thirst will be quenched by pure spring water… You go on… and
eventually you arrive at the third gate… Looking through this gate
you see mountains… vast, shining in the distance… Experience
excitement at seeing these mountains… Experience fear… Allow yourself
to experience all your fears of the unknown… Experience the trembling
and paralysis brought on by fear… of the unknown… of the
unpredictable… There appears to be no one at the gate… but you are
drawn towards it… If you desire to continue your journey to the
mountains… trust that all will be well and that you are not really
alone… and walk through the gate… As you walk you will find the fears
are being sucked out of you… as if from an invisible and loving
power… And you will be nourished with spiritual food… by unseen
hands… which will give you confidence and strength… As you go on the
mountains seem closer… and more alive and challenging… drawing you
on… The air is clear and the colours more vivid, and there is a sense
of vibrancy… You arrive at a fourth gate.
At a certain point… at this gate… you must go on alone for a time…
in order to become strong enough to undertake the new
responsibilities which belong to your growth of being… Until you can
go through this gate… you cannot enter into the fullness and
wholeness of the self which belongs to you… At this gate become aware
of the one relationship to which you are most attached… Experience
your attachment… your dependence… See the form of that relationship
to which you are so strongly attached as a kind of clothing of the
relationship… underneath which the true relationship exists… At the
entrance to this gate you will find a gentle spiritual being… an
angel perhaps… who will help you remove the clothing in which
your relationship is covered… so that you can pass on naked through
the gate…
When you have come through the gate… experience being bathed in a
pool of strength-giving water… and resting on green grass beside the
pool… You now move freely… up the foothills of the mountains… with
springing step… and being taught continuously, from within yourself,
about the nature of all you see… and about the meaning and purpose of
all life… Experience the freedom… and the joy… in the continuous
communication with your environment… and with the voices who are
around you… although you appear to be alone… You arrive at the last
gate… which is of luminous white stone… You look through the gate and
see people in robes moving about… and other people in sick or
distorted or crippled states being helped and ministered to by the
ones in robes… There is a light and a radiancy over everyone… and the
power of caring sends forth a vibration which you can even feel where
you are… Are you moved at this gate to let go your aloneness… and the
desires and conditions you have set for your own spiritual growth…
and enter into this fellowship of helping others?… If you are so
moved… but deeply moved… let fall away from you your independence…
and the separateness of your independence… and go through the gate
into the light… and experience the unspeakable joy and fulfilment in
the service of caring…
The power of Jesus expressed - and expresses - in relationships.
The guided meditation is a spiritual exercise which is based on the
relationship between the teacher and each one of his pupils. The
aliveness of any meditation, and the experience possible for any of
the participants, cannot be conveyed in words on paper. Words are
shadowy things which cannot convey the intensity or the power
contained in one of these meditations. The reader will have to take
my word - or the word of someone who has actually experienced these
mediations, because their full impact will not come across in the
reading of this book. But the seeker after Truth will find and draw
to himself - or herself - what he seeks, if his search has
persistence. The reader who truly seeks will need to read what he
can, and take what he can, from the signposts offered in this book
and continue with the spiritual effort we all must make, if we are to
draw in the power of Jesus to grow us.
In the fifteenth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel - as well as in
several other places - the story of an actual event is told in which
Jesus is supposed to have fed thousands of people on a few loaves and
several small fishes. Not only did he feed them with sufficient food
for their immediate physical needs, but there was food left over as
well.
There are different ways of understanding this event. It is most
commonly presented as a “miracle” in which a small amount of food was
multipied so astronomically that it could feed many thousands of
people. This is an interpretation of the happening which resembles
the “devil's” temptation to turn stones into bread. If it were the
true understanding of what Jesus did, it is not far removed from the
“miracles” performed by magicians of every race, in every culture in
the world since the dawn of history. The same kind of magic can still
be used today to produce physical phenomena and manifestations.
If you, the reader, have connected with what is recorded in this
book - which is grounded in my own experiences of Jesus' teaching -
you will know that this interpretation does not do justice to Jesus
and what you have experienced here as the purpose of his life on
Earth [Editor's note: Reference has already been made to the
potentially most helpful distinction between “magic” and “Magic” made
in Meditations on the Tarot. Note, too, that Jesus as man is,
save for his total freedom from “sin“, of the same nature as any
other man (male or female), so that the ubiquity of magic in time and
space - notwithstanding its relative rarity pretty well
everywhere-and-when, is only to be expected. However, Joan does not
claim that her own interpretation “does justice” either to Jesus
himself or to the potentially infinitite capacities of human beings
in G-d's world. In southern Eire, for instance, very early in the
20th century A.D., Little Nellie of Holy G-d, aged 2, lived
exclusively on the sustenance she derived from her devout reception
of the Holy Eucharist.]. You will see the inadequacy of such a
materialistic interpretation, and you will understand that magic -
and this is in fact what it would have been - could not have opened
people's minds to the existence of a spiritual reality. And
this was the purpose in every aspect of Jesus' teachings: to
demonstrate and enable people to experience the actual existence of a
spiritual reality.
Jesus had been helping the thousands of people on the hillside for
many hours - in this account for three days. His help - his giving -
was always of a spiritual nature, even when physical healing was
involved. After such a long period of time with Jesus, and being fed
spiritually, the people were naturally hungry and needed physical
food. This was the climax of their time with Jesus, for which he had
been preparing them all along. Now he could demonstrate, in a lesson
they would never forget, that what he had been feeding them
spiritually could feed them physically as well. Every person present
- man, woman, child - received a minute quantity of physical food
which, to his astonishment, nourished his body and satisfied his
immediate physical needs. This was the miracle. The crumb of bread -
or fish - was able to satisfy each individual's physical hunger. How
could that be? How could a crumb of bread produce the effect of a
meal? What did that crumb contain? This was the experience, which
every individual person must have had on that hillside, that enabled
him to accept the existence of an invisible substance which could
enter into them and produce tangible, physical results. This was what
we would call today a “mind-blowing” experience!
The only possible explanation of the accounts of mass feeding,
recorded in all the Gospels, is that Jesus placed in each
particle of physical food a spiritual substance which not only
nourished the person spiritually but physically as well. This must
have been the mind-blowing experience which people had - as it would
have been also for ourselves an astonishing miracle, that would lead
us to ask many question.
G-d gave his Son - but the son gave himself. This giving of
himself was at the core of Jesus' teaching. He gave himself through
his power, contained in the spiritual lessons he enabled people to
have and in his healings. He also gave himself through the actual
substance of his own life and spiritual body. His teaching was - and
is - grounded in learning to give ourself. But the giving of Jesus -
the giving of ourself - did not mean sacrifice [Editor's note:
Although this is true if “sacrifice” is understood in its now
widespread popular sense, etymologically “sacrifice” is simply that
which is especially holy and sacred because closely related to and
associated with G-d. The Catholic Mass, for instance, the Eucharist
is so called because in it Jesus praises and thanks his
heavenly Father in the Holy Spirit for everything - and invites us to
join him in this “sacrifice of praise“ (sacrificium laudis).]
or a giving up of himself.
The idea that to give ourself means to give up ourself -
the idea that to give ourself to others means a diminishment of self
- is a materialistic concept. No story in the Gospels, whether true
or untrue, reveals a Jesus that was diminished by giving. On the
physical or material plane, things are measured and weighed and
judged; to give means to take from one and add to another. But on the
spiritual plane, a different quality of life altogether is possible.
It is this new and different quality of life which Jesus came to
demonstrate as possible for everyone who wanted it - or was ready for
it.
Giving is part of this new - or other - quality of life; it is the
essence of it. The giving of Jesus was part of the very texture of
his everyday life, it did not manifest only on special occasions.
Every time he broke bread with his friends he placed in each portion
that substance which he contained in himself, which was of himself,
and which was his to give. The giving did not diminish the substance
within him: it was irreducible.
Jesus's own acts of giving were an integral part of his teaching.
His giving of himself was always a demonstration of what was also
possible for his friends - for other people as well. Everyone of us
can learn to live from that part of ourself which can give. Everyone
of us can give the power that is in us to give, to encourage other
people. Everyone of us can in time learn to give ourself and our
life, in some measure - learn to share ourself and experience not a
diminishment but an increase of self.
Jesus's teaching, if it was a true teaching that came from the
highest spiritual plane, must be consistent in itself and consonant
with its overall purpose. No part of it can be inconsistent with that
purpose, let alone be contrary to it. Any kind of materialistic
interpretation and any explanation which sees in spiritual miracles a
demonstration of magic, or a solely physical manifestation, must be a
false understanding of Jesus' teaching.
The “flesh and blood” of Jesus cannot be understood
materialistically, as the flesh and blood of his physical body
[Editor's note: i.e., when these are mistakenly understood in
abstraction from their hypostatic union with the Divine Word, thanks
to which, even after the death and prior to the resurrection of
Jesus, his body was never “a corpse”. ] , but must refer to
the spiritual substance and power contained within himself, of which
his spiritual body was composed. This was the living substance of his
own spiritual nature, with which he nourished people spiritually, in
his daily concourse with friends and on special occasions. It was
also the “living water” with which he quenched their thirst and which
he gave out continuously as the enabling power that made possible
spiritual experience, spiritual healing, and spiritual
transformation.
If we experience and pray the “Lord's prayer”, as Jesus taught it,
we ask for the spiritual food to nourish the new growing part of
ourself. When we commence our spiritual journey, our understanding is
limited of what this spiritual food is. As our experience of the
“journey” deepens and our spiritual growing takes on a clearer form,
we depend increasingly on the spiritual “meat and drink” to which
Jesus referred. The reality of its existence becomes stronger because
our need is greater. We experience the inner nourishment - and even,
at times, the nourishment of our physical body as well. We experience
also the vibration of a spiritual power that enables us to carry on
with the journey. Doubts come - they always will - but they can be
answered by our own individual experience of the fact of a spiritual
reality.
____________________
Editor's note: Were Joan D'Arcy Cooper writing her books
today it is possible that she might have found some way of expressing
herself in English that while respecting the important linguistic
fact that “man” primarily designates an individual being with a mind
would not involve using the according to many of our contemporaries
gender-discriminatory “he”, “him” and “his” in reference to human
persons of either sex. Readers familiar with each of her five books
may notice that the level of spiritual perception explicitly
manifested in the last one she wrote belongs in certain respects to a
higher order of awareness. It should therefore occasion no surprise
if perhaps you come to appreciate that there too her teachings also
need in their turn to be complemented and perhaps transcended...
Home Page© The Neith Network Library 2002
A Review of - Aphorisms on Spiritual Method
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali in the Light of Mystical Experience
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