The most frequent reason people give for coming to our weekly meditation sessions is to have a deeper connection with God.
We might ask ourselves what a deeper connection might mean.
It cannot mean being closer to God.
God is our being,
The ground,
The essence of all that we are.
Just as a ray of light cannot be separate from the Sun,
We cannot be separate from God.
When people say that they want a deeper connection with God,
They often mean a deeper felt connection,
That God might appear in a way that our senses or mind can grasp.
At the Last Supper,
The disciple Philip asked Jesus,
Show us God and that will be enough for us.
It's a very understandable request.
Let us see God and we'll be content.
Jesus replies with startling directness,
I've been with you all this time Philip and you still have not known me?
Whoever has seen me has seen God.
Jesus is saying,
In effect,
What you are asking for is already being shown.
Philip's request suggests that he is looking for God with a strongly dualistic mind,
That he is imagining God as something separate that can appear as an object,
Something to be seen alongside other things.
Jesus responds in a way that confounds the dualistic mind.
If you have seen me,
You have seen God.
To meditate is to commit to letting go of the dualistic mind and entering the oneness of the mind of Christ.
Moment by moment,
Breath by breath,
We open ourselves to the life-changing awareness that we are one with God,
That God is being shown to us right now,
Shining in our life,
As our life.
If you ask me to explain how this happens,
I'd have to say,
I don't know.
But I know that it does,
And point you to Jesus' invitation,
Come and you will see.
What will we see?
Well,
Forget about that.
Let go of every thought about what you might or might not see.
Let the answer show itself.
As one of my teachers at Prynish Abbey liked to say,
Just meditate.
Sooner or later,
You will notice something wonderful.
As we learn to simply rest in open,
Attentive awareness,
We become less and less interested in gaining enlightenment or some higher understanding.
We discover ourselves becoming less judgmental,
Less inclined to imagine that we have found the best way to God.
We discover ourselves becoming less judgmental,
Less inclined to imagine that we have found the best way to God.
We realise that there is no way to God which is better or worse than anybody else's.
Because the way is God's way.
God's way of coming to us.
What should we do when our simple practice leaves our senses unable to find anything to grasp onto,
And our mind tells us that we are doing nothing?
Continue doing this nothing,
And do it for the love of God,
Encourages the author of The Cloud of Unknowing.
Don't be concerned that your senses can't sense it,
And you can't get your head around it.
Not being able to reason about it is a sign of its infinite nature and value.
Choose what the senses and thinking mind will tell you is nowhere and nothing.
What the outer aspect of ourselves calls nothing,
The inner aspect of ourselves calls all.
As we learn to let go of our search for what was never missing,
To be shown what is always showing,
We are carried beyond the boundaries of thought,
And the veil of imagined separateness from God is lifted.
We are raised above ourselves,
Says the 14th century spiritual master Jan van Rysbroeck.
Raised to a modeless state of blissful enjoyment,
Which overflows whatever fullness we have ever received or could receive,
To be one with all,
One enjoyment and one beatitude,
With God without difference.
Where we end and God begins,
Where God ends and we begin,
We cannot say.
We are happy to be silent,
And rest in the boundless love which has held us from all eternity.
