Hello,
My name is Jemima.
Welcome to another reflection from the WCCM Young Channel.
Here we share teachings from John Mayne,
Lawrence Freeman,
And a Christian contemplative tradition.
Today I will be reading a reflection from The Experience of Being,
Written by Lawrence Freeman.
Part Four.
Being and Existence.
Existence emerges from being,
And we do.
And as we emerge,
As we grow,
We become more conscious where we have come from,
And what we are returning to,
Or what we are feeling ourselves linked to.
The Dalai Lama was asked once,
If you could meet Jesus,
Would you like to meet him?
He said,
Yes.
If you could ask him one question,
What would it be?
And his immediate response was,
I would ask him,
What is the nature of the Father?
An absolutely central question to understanding Jesus.
Who is the Father?
Because Jesus identifies himself,
Explains himself,
Communicates himself as,
And through his relationship to the Father.
In Jesus we see the Father.
You remember Thomas said,
Show us the Father,
Then we will be satisfied.
And he said,
To see me,
Comment,
To see me,
To really perceive,
Not just look at,
Really to perceive me,
Understand me,
Know me,
And comment,
Is to see the Father.
So what is the nature of the Father?
Who is the Father?
And what does the Father mean?
And how does Jesus show us the Father?
Jesus makes it very clear,
Especially in John,
That everything he says and does,
Everything he knows about himself,
Derives directly from his experience of the Father,
And his relationship to the Father.
Maybe we can say that the Father is the love that moves the sun and the stars.
That's the end of Dante's Divine Comedy,
The Paradiso,
Where Dante finally after passing through hell and purgatory and rising up through the different levels of paradise,
Finally sees the beatific vision,
Sees the whole picture,
Sees the cosmic plan,
And sees this love that moves everything.
Love that is the creative and the guiding and the ultimate goal,
Or we could say the source of all existence,
Being itself.
What brings us to meditation,
I think,
In the first place,
Is an intuition,
A feeling that there is more to life and to ourselves than what we can see or than we think,
And that we don't know how to explain,
Articulate,
Or understand that.
But we know that there is this other dimension of reality.
We call it spiritual,
Or we may not call it spiritual,
But we know that there is something more,
And we know that we need to encounter this and know it and be known by it even,
And we're drawn towards it.
Life would be simpler if we weren't,
If we didn't have that pull towards the divine,
Towards the transcendent,
Towards the unknown,
Towards the unknowable.
We would just get on with our daily existence.
This search,
This seeking for God,
It's important,
It's a priority,
A significant part of our lives.
So we are drawn towards the Father,
Towards being itself,
But we come to that intuition,
To that awareness,
To that understanding that we are seeking God existentially.
That means in existence.
So there's a simple distinction here between being and existence.
The word existence literally means to stand out.
Existence is what we generalize as life.
You know,
We say,
Well,
That's life,
Or life is good,
Or life hurts,
Or life is hard,
Or life is difficult.
All the generalizations we make about life,
That's really what existence is.
It stands out or comes out of being itself.
It emerges from being,
And we do.
We are the life,
The existence,
The existing beings,
Existent things,
The sentient things that emerge out of being.
We are created,
We emerge,
And as we emerge,
As we grow,
As we develop,
We become more conscious of ourselves as where we have come from,
Or what we are emerging from,
And what we are returning to,
Or what we are feeling ourselves linked to.
It's not just a mathematical problem or a philosophical question.
It's an existential journey that takes time and in which we change.
Even our mistakes are incorporated into the journey.
Nothing is wasted.
We are who we are.
Can't say I should have been somebody else.
I am who I am.
And this existence,
Life,
Is full of contradictions and paradoxes.
Ups and downs,
Life and death,
Sorrow and joy,
Fear and celebration,
Fear of incompetence.
It's very variable,
And of course unpredictable.
It is uncertain,
Radically uncertain.
But in this process of existence,
Of life,
Of growth,
Of growing consciousness,
We realize,
We become aware,
Self-aware that we are emerging,
We are appearing,
We're coming to know ourselves,
To stand out.
Thank you for joining me at the WCCM Young Channel.
Until next time,
But for now,
Peace be with you.
