Hi,
This is Guy,
And thanks so much for joining me in this last series of three talks,
And of course in the last one that we're going to have together,
All looking at the next level of meditation.
The only way to realize from ourselves the nature of a quiet mind,
A mind that is open and receptive to the revelation and fulfillment of all its innate celestial possibilities,
Is by consciously working in the field of silence,
Tending to its eternal seeds.
We have,
Each and every one of us,
Within us,
A certain kind of higher vantage point.
A very special part of us,
That when we are present to it,
We enjoy its peace regardless of what's going on around us or within us.
This yet to be realized state of ourselves can be called conscious self-awareness.
Through its power,
Instead of being pulled down into painful identification with each and every passing shadow of life,
We discover a life that is in the light of a certain kind of peace that is far above the reach of any fearful shadow.
This next level of meditation cannot be separated from the silence that we have to learn to not just call upon but enter into,
Because that order of silence is without cause.
It always appears on its own,
Remaining only as it pleases the purpose that it is given to us for,
Which is to be aware of everything that enters into it.
Nevertheless,
Even though it's without cause,
By the grace of God we can court this stillness through our own quiet wish to understand its life within our own.
And for this reason,
Our moment-to-moment meditation,
Particularly as we go into the next level of it,
Becomes a revelation if we will open ourselves to the truth and what that truth reveals to us as we listen in and through that kind of silence,
Which is why I've put together four insights into true silence.
Each of these insights is a kind of seed,
Really a meditation of its own,
Because each holds a certain kind of possibility that if we will work to contemplate what it is that can be conceived through a new understanding of these insights,
We will each come upon the next higher level of meditation.
So allow their understanding,
As I'm going to go through them now,
To reveal that they already have a home within you.
Ponder them.
Turn them over and over in your mind,
Quietly,
And you will hear in the silence of that contemplation what no thought will ever be able to tell you.
So here's the first of them.
Just as true emptiness holds all things,
True silence bears all things.
Whatever is brought into the silence,
Whatever it touches,
Is gradually silenced,
But not through an act of domination,
But through a peaceful integration of a lesser peace into a greater one.
Let me give you an analogy.
Think of a man,
He wanders into the forest near his home,
He's troubled by problems he can't resolve,
And his pain reaches such a point in frustration that he lets out a shout.
Now if you've ever gone into the woods,
You know that whatever sound you make,
It disappears into the silence of the woods,
Because the silence is greater than the sound that passes through it.
And inwardly we have that silence that will not just take the sounds that enter into it,
But bring them into the awareness that silence has,
That by its very presence produces a completely different quietude,
Where everything that is made in that silence is brought into the native wholeness of that silence.
Number two meditation.
True silence is an interior presence and not an exterior circumstance.
Its peace has no opposites and is not created,
Which means nothing can act against it or serve to enhance its existence.
Think for just a moment what that means.
So many of us are trying to enlarge our meditation,
To enhance in some way some experience we've had through it.
Real meditation,
Like the skies that hold the clouds but that are never changed by their passage through them,
True meditation,
True silence,
Doesn't just hold all that appears within it.
But that kind of silence is there before what enters into it and will be there afterwards.
And if we can be present to that kind of silence,
We will see that there is something in us that goes before us to turn whatever would disturb us into something that is divine and that transforms it with every single moment of that awareness.
Number three.
True silence can't be cultivated any more than we are the creators of some seed that we plant in the fields that grow the foods that nourish us.
Everyone that we know by and large is constantly trying to cultivate a way in which they can feel better about their lives.
We're not the creators of silence.
For that matter,
We're not even the creator of a mind that can be aware of silence and all of its possibilities.
But we are capable.
We're capable and we are created to be aware of the interior conditions that prohibit our relationship with that perfect presence.
This practice now that I'm describing,
Of being aware,
Impersonally,
Of the disturbances that pass through us,
Is the kind of watchfulness that we need to take with us everywhere that is indeed the next level of meditation.
Which brings me to number four.
If we wish for the presence and peace of true silence,
Then the great necessity of solitude should be as evident to us as the knowledge that any seedling must be left undisturbed.
That is,
If it is our wish for that seedling to break out of its dark ground and live in the light.
If our heart is set on reclaiming what alone has the power to lift us above everything that now makes us ache,
Then we must embrace the possibilities of meditation in every possible moment of our life.
Not make of it something grand,
Something that we set out to conquer,
But rather wherever and whenever we can for five seconds,
Ten seconds at a time,
Even right now as I'm speaking to you.
Bring yourself into that silence,
Into the awareness of everything that is moving through you,
Because in that silence we enter into an indwelling eternal self that witnesses everything without being touched by anything other than its touch transforming the whole of our life.
Remember as often as possible what this sleeping ambitious mind so easily forgets.
There is a peace.
There is a shelter.
There is a timeless space in each and every moment that no darkness can shatter or dispel because that place and space in each moment is the silence that everything enters in through and passes through.
If we can learn to prefer that ever-present company,
That level of consciousness,
To that of all those promises of peace promised to us that will come if we just do as directed,
Then we will in this next level of meditation see our life grow happier and more whole moment by moment by moment.
I hope you'll contemplate these four insights and study the talks that we've had,
All looking into the next level of meditation,
Because there is something that waits within us,
A secret if you will,
That is too great to be told with words but that can be and must be entered into consciously.
Thanks again.
Bye for now.
