Unless we are grounded in Mystery -- unless we experience both ourselves and others as co-participants in Mystery -- we find it almost impossible to live in compassionate love of one another for any length of time. Unless we have "new eyes" that can see others contemplatively, it is easy to miss the many-spendored thing that is our life together.
Through contemplation you become a fountain that pours forth loving waters in all directions. Anyone who comes within the radius of that fountain -- old or young, rich or poor, man or woman, saint or sinner, friend or enemy -- gets splashed by love.
All that we love mirrors who we are. To be so imbued with love that we reflect it back with our whole being is a fundamental human longing ~ not only to love another man or woman, but actually to become love. When you become love you love everything around you. You greet every human being with love and draw love out of them. ~ You feel you are loved by God, so that God's love streams through you. Everything you do is marked by this love. You do your work for love ~ You do not have to create love in yourself. You have only to drink at the spring of divine love, which is bubbling up in you and is always enough.
There came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe. ~ I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence ~ that the cosmic order is such that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all: That the foundation principle of the world, of all the worlds, is what we call love.
Love is the energy at the center of all life, the reality beneath our fears, the breath within the breath, the seed of all that grows. Loving ourselves, loving others, and loving God are inseparable, for all is interconnected and sacred. For most people, the journey toward love requires that we penetrate the armor around our hearts, feel our grief, and open ourselves to all our feelings. In doing so we become less and less dependent on others to validate our worth.
The divine love of God teaches us that fruitfulness is more important than success, that love of God is more important than the praise of people, that community is more important than individualism, and compassion is more important than competition.
My life is an indivisible whole, and all my activities run into one another; and they all have their rise in my insatiable love of humankind.
When silence, wonder, adoration are diminished, so are human beings. We imagine we can get by on love and indeed we can. But love shrivels up and dies in the absence of contemplation and adoration. Love, human love, needs to be transfigured, transcended, if it is to be true to its deepest self.
The experience of the enormity we falteringly label "divine" is unconditional love. Absolute openness, unbounded mercy and compassion ~ the sense of presence, of simply being, when investigated brings one toward the experience of the Beloved. At times the heart bursts into flame, the mind kind and clear. But usually it is just a simple spaciousness and ease that lets thoughts float in mercy and awareness and recognizes the evolutionary struggle in everyone they meet.
Compassion is an awareness that you become, rather than something that you do on occasion.
"Love isn't something you want to DO with someone."
"I'm not at all sure I know what love is," I said meaning it.
"I think love is when you know that a part of you IS the person you love, and a part of him or her is inside of YOU. You can't use or manipulate or deceive someone you truly love, because you'd be using or manipulating or lying to yourself. Does that make sense?"
God hears only the beating of human hearts and what rests within them. It is the compassion that comes out of the experience of oneness and holds the world in infinitely tender love that speaks efficaciously to Divine Creation Love and alters the course of history. It is not some beautiful thought or insightful idea, but being with the groanings of the earth and all its peoples that makes our prayer. It is only our living out of the Center of unity and oneness that make a difference in the redeeming of the earth.
May the love you are shine brightly;
May love bless you and all you meet!
The entire universe, the cosmos, manifests the mystery of the fiery, ever-living Light of Love that shines forth in and through matter, in and through human beings in their specific historical setting. God, as the mystery of Love, is like the horizon that surrounds the human spirit, wooing it into creative tension between body and soul, mind and emotion, individual and community, heaven and earth. Willingness to live in the tension of these poles is the womb that nourishes and protects those discerning actions that will mirror the fiery, life-giving love that is God.
Prayer is opening into Love; into that radiant and centerless Love surpassing our understanding and enfolding all of life.
In silence we discover ourselves, our actual presence to the life in us and around us. When we are present, deeply attentive, we cannot be busy controlling. Instead we become beholders -- giving ourselves up to the mystery of things. We become more willing to let things be. And, as a consequence we can also let ourselves be.
Through silence our days are illumined -- like rooms filled with light -- so we may inhabit our lives.
You are silence. Silence unites us, while words divide us. Silence gathers us together, while words scatter us. Silence invites us to peace, while words stir us to wars. You are silence, simple silence, eloquent silence, active silence, contemplative silence. ... Help me to be eloquently silent -- exactly as You are.
The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart
The secret anniversaries of the heart.
Don't think that those who enter the silence of God are "silent". Nothing could be farther from the truth! Silence is a thunder! You will be able to hear it everywhere. Your nights and days will be filled with it. ...Many confuse silence with solitude. Solitude is being alone with God, waiting for God. But silence is an immense sea into which you enter and never leave. And once you have plunged into this silence, you will always be silent.
It is only in silence and through silence that we can interiorize what is beyond our comprehension and apprehend the power of a design larger than ourselves: it is the medium of transcendence.
Silence, waiting, empty stillness: these are not achievements we accomplish but living forces beyond ourselves which we learn to flow with, surrender to. There is a River of Stillness, or Musical Silence, or Beautiful Darkness flowing through the heart of al beings which we enter into when we allow ourselves to rest in quiet, in silence, waiting. The contemplative way is to begin listening to this dancing stillness.
Spend time in solitude and silence. Solitude permits us to retreat from the press and struggle in order to let our fragmented and dispersed selves to become collected again. Silence goes hand in hand with solitude. Silence sensitizes, just as noise desensitizes.
There are three things needed, for which you don't require a computer, television or radio. The first is a bit of stillness. Nothing can happen if there isn't a certain stillness. We also need silence. There is nothing so vocal and articulate as silence; all good language, all great words, are born of it. Meister Eckhart said, "there is nothing in the universe that so much resembles God as silence". So we need to return back beneath our language to the silence within us. And the third thing we need is solitude ... an invitation for the soul to come alive.
If you love truth be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God.
One of the reasons why communication in general in our society is so shallow and boring is that it does not grow out of silence and solitude. Consequently there is no communion. ...Communication could be a kind of communion if indeed we were a more silent and solitary people. Where we live with God alone in silence, then when we come out of that holy, sacred space, we are deepened and not only ready but longing to share with others the deeper dimensions of life.
There is a silence of the tongue, a silence of the whole body, the silence of the soul, the silence of the mind, and the silence of the spirit. The silence of the tongue is merely when it is not incited to speech; the silence of the entire body is when its senses are unoccupied; the silence of the soul is when no ugly thoughts burst forth within it; the silence of the mind is when it is not reflecting on anything harmful; the silence of the spirit is when the mind ceases even from stirrings caused by created spiritual beings and all its movements are stirred solely by Being, at the wondrous awe of the silence which surrounds Being.
Inayat Khan tells the illuminating story of a disciple who came to the teacher and started to ask a philosophical question. The spiritual teacher was, however, in deep meditation from which he would not be disturbed. He said to the disciple: "SILENCE!"
This word was so powerful that the disciple went into silence -- and remained silent for the rest of his life. However, there came a time when his silence began to speak aloud. His silent thought would manifest and his silent wish be granted; his silent glance would heal; his silent look would inspire. His silence became living.
The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed.
Sitting there in silence, listening to the quiet, I was filled with a unique feeling of peace, an impression so intense that it seemed to expand into ineffable JOY. ...It went on, second after second, so pervasive that it seemed to fill my entire body. I relaxed into it luxuriated in it. Then with no warning, and surely without preparation or expectation, I knew what it was: for the seconds it lasted I felt, with a certainty I cannot account for, a sense of the presence of God.
Joy has the power to open our hearts, remove fear, instill hope and foster healing. Joy leads us to wisdom because it connects us to all we are -- our mind, heart, power, and spirit. Joy stimulates our immune system, increases our energy, and gives us mental clarity. It helps us heighten our level of consciousness so we can more readily tap our inner wisdom. Instead of agonizing over decisions, we become more able to simply listen within and KNOW what to do.
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
Several years ago I realized the profound impact that joy had in my life by experiencing the lack of it. I did not know that I was "joyless" until I sought the answer to a ridiculous turn of events where everything seemed to be out of kilter. During a very specific time frame the car broke down, the lawn mower fell apart, the clothes dryer died, the TV went on the blink, and my business affairs were like a soap opera. When I finally stopped to go into the silence within and ask, I heard the answer:
"Your joy vibration is practically nonexistent, and joy is the energy and the catalyst for order and harmony. Without joy all forms held in consciousness begin to disintegrate."
Joy is made full through the act of abiding in the Presence. When we are consciously aware of the Presence of the divine consciousness, we become in tune with the Energy of Joy, because the song of the soul is joy.
The smile of the contemplative in the presence of the Beloved is merely a physical expression of the total joy one perceives as one communes with God. St. Bernard used to say, "The joy of being in love is in the very loving." In other words, joy is not to be sought for itself, but is a by-product of love, and the smile is but the physical, exterior expression of the inner joy-love.
The sky of my being is dark and still,
But deep within my heart
The bird of faith stirs, awakens,
And begins a song of joyous anticipation,
Until at last,
Beyond the horizon of my mind,
The Self's own Light breaks forth,
Illumining me with joy.
Cultivate seeds of joy!
You carry
All the ingredients
To turn your life into a nightmare --
Don't mix them!
You carry all the ingredients
To turn your existence into joy,
Mix them,
Mix Them!
People say that what we're all seeking in life is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think we're seeking the rapture, the joy, of being alive.
The way toward individuality is deceptively simple. When suffering is felt, it is time to move, to do something. Moving means moving out of the fixed patterns of habit. ...It is quite possible to feel joy while finding that the outer life is in many ways more difficult, more trying than was lived before. The bodily sensation that tells us that we are at least moving toward the sense of individuality is joy. Nothing given from the outside can bring joy; it may bring pleasure, but not joy. We are always surprised by joy because this is living from the time current from the future and there are no concepts for joy.
Why has this Frenchman from France written his book in the United States to present to his friends today? Because loving the country and wanting to show his gratitude, he could find no better way of expressing it than in these two truths, intimately known to him [Jacques is blind] and reaching beyond all boundaries.
The first of these is that joy does not come from outside, for whatever happens to us it is within. The second truth is that light does not come to us from without; Light is in us, even if we have no eyes.
Joy is the perception of beauty, unlike happiness, which is because of something. Joy is singing of the heart, a feeling of praise.
Somewhere downstairs a door slammed, and my father entered the house laughing. Instantly, the whole universe joined in. Great roars of hilarity sounded from sun to sun. Field mice uttered, and so did angels and rainbows. Laughter leavened every atom and every star until I saw a universe inspirited and spiraled by joy, not unlike the one I read of years later when Dante describes his great vision in paradise.
"D'el riso d'el universo." (The joy that spins the universe). This was a knowledge of the way everything worked. It worked through love and joy and the utter interpenetration and union of everything with the All That Is.
The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there.
Even on the foggiest nights.
MEDITATION does not itself accomplish the tasks of life but provides spaciousness, bringing the great background near, so that whatever we do, rising in the quiet, has force and beauty. In meditation, we take time, sit down, watch, while the silence accumulates -- which is how the spirit gathers to a vessel the soul has prepared ... then, spiritual silence can appear in the midst of any concentrated activity. Meditation is a fasting of the heart in which, for a time, we do not go with our wanting and fear. We cease to attach so strongly to the things of our lives. When the heart fasts and we don't pursue the world, the world begins to come to us.
The silent mind, cultivated in many different forms of meditation, is the matrix of intuition. When you are in touch with the stillpoint at the center of your being there is no need to use imagery or verbal exercises to activate intuition. It flows by itself, unimpeded by fears or preoccupations.
From the brokenness of our humanity we can learn the healing and transcendent wisdom of self-acceptance and the non-judgmental acceptance of others. Meditation makes more sense to the broken or humbled parts of us than to the well-defended, successful or public poses that form the more assertive parts of our identity. Simple and pure awareness, without judgment or evaluation, such as we practice in meditation, is always compassionate.
The modality of my prayer has changed radically. In place of discursive meditation, I have begun the practice of sitting in silence, making myself a capacity for an outpouring of God's love. ... It is my experience that our awakening to the Sacred in the world of everyday is fed and nurtured by our silent journey to that "space" within where all things are ONE.
Mindfulness is meditation in action and involves a "be here now" approach that allows life to unfold without the limitation of prejudgment. It means being open to an awareness of the moment as it is and to what the moment could hold. It is a relaxed state of attentiveness to both the inner world of thoughts and feelings and the outer world of actions and perceptions.
Our task in meditation is to allow our unity to be restored and for our scattered parts to move back into their proper harmonious alignment to the center of our being. To do this we must not scatter ourselves further. We concentrate to move towards our center. When our consciousness truly awakens to that center, in silence, then a power is released which is the power of life, the power of the Spirit. In that power we are reformed, reunited, re-created.