The
postings here cover a fair range of material connected to the
contemplative; being discovered by God, awareness of the presence
of God discovering me, prayer, silence, stillness, vocation, contemplative
lifestyle, the natural world including the garden, and probably
a whole lot more...
May
you recognize in your life the presence,
Power and light of your soul.
May you realize that you are never alone,
That your soul in its brightness and belonging
Connects you inimately with the rhythm of the universe.
May you have respect for your individuality and difference.
May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique,
That you have a special destiny here,
That behind the façade of your life
There is something beautiful and eternal happening.
May you learn to see your self
With the same delight,
Pride and expectation
With which God sees you in every moment.
Benedictus: A Book of Blessings., by John O'Donohue, Bantam Press, London, 2007. p.127
THE
OFFICE OF READINGS - 1st October
THE SECOND READING
A reading from the autobiography of St Teresa of the Child
Jesus
To be love, deep in the heart of the Church
I was still being tormented by this question of unfulfilled longings for martyrdom and it was a distraction in my prayer, when I decided to consult Saint Paul's epistles in the hope of getting an answer. It was the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of First Corinthians that claimed my attention. The first of these told me that we can't all of us be apostles, all of us be prophets, all of us doctors, and so on; the Church is composed of members which differ in their use; the eye is one thing and the hand is another. It was a clear enough answer, but it didn't satisfy my aspira¬tions, didn't set my heart at rest. Reading on to the end of the chapter, I met this comforting phrase: 'Prize the best gifts of heaven. Meanwhile, I can shew you a way which is better than any other.'
What was it? The apostle goes on to explain that all the gifts of heaven, even the most perfect of them, without love, are absolutely nothing; charity is the best way of all, because it leads straight to God. Now I was at peace; when Saint Paul was talking about the different members of the mystical body I couldn't recognize myself in any of them; or rather I could recognize myself in all of them. But charity—that was the key to my vocation. If the Church was a body composed of different members, it couldn't lack the noblest of all; it must have a heart, and a heart burning with love. And I realized that this love was the true motive force which enabled the other members of the Church to act; if it ceased to function the apostles would forget to preach the gospel, the martyrs would refuse to shed their blood. Love, in fact, is the vocation which includes all others; it's a universe of its own, com¬prising all time and space—it's eternal. Beside myself with joy, I cried out: 'Jesus, my love! I've found my vocation, and my vocation is love.' I had discovered where it is that I belong in the Church, the niche God has appointed for me. To be nothing else than love, deep down in the heart of Mother Church; that's to be everything at once—my dream wasn’t a dream after all.
From
Patanjali's Meditation Yoga
Translation and Commentary by Vyn Bailey msc
SUTRA 45
SAMĀDHI-SIDDHIH TŚVARA-PRANIDHĀNĀT
From devotedness
to god comes perfection of contemplation
SAMADHI contemplation
SIDDHI efficiency • attainment • perfection
ISVARA lord • ruler • prince • king • God
PRANIDHANA devotion • devotedness
After a meditation session at a city yoga centre a woman confided to me, `I'd have got a lot out of that, except I don't believe in God'. I asked her, 'What is this God you don't believe in?' She said, 'I don't believe there is some-one up there, watching everything I do, ready to slap me down if I do the wrong thing'. I said, 'Join the club. I don't believe in that either. But you must believe in something, or you wouldn't have been here tonight.' 'Fair enough!' she replied, 'I believe there is some level of being higher than this, and I believe there must be some way I can raise myself up to contact that level. That's what I'm looking for.' 'Congratulations', I said, 'you believe in God.'
Her problem was not lack of faith, but lack of knowledge. She believed in God but didn't know the first thing about him: was he a person, a universal spirit or a level of being? She had been taught about God, at home, at school or in church, by people who knew something about God, but who didn't actually know God, which is something different altogether. It is more important to experience God than just to know about God from books or hearsay.
Educated Hindus unshakeably believe that there is only one God. When they speak of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer and regenerator, they are not thinking of three different deities. They are honouring the cosmic activities of the one and only God. There is, of course, a danger that the ignorant or misinformed might understand all this as referring to three different divinities, and slip into polytheism or even idolatry. So Hindus speak not of a higher God, as some translators express it, but of a higher, purer idea of God - ISVARA. This word is singular, like the Hebrew Yahweh, or the Muslim Allah, or the Christian Lord.
PRANIDHANA means devotedness to ISVARA (God). SAMADHI (contemplation) is the highest form of meditation. SIDDHI (perfection) takes us to the highest form of contemplation. This is Patanjali's goal for us.
KRIYA-YOGA—yoga in practice— involves body, mind, and spirit: physical self-discipline, mental study, and for the spirit, devotedness to God.
From devotedness to God comes perfection of contemplation
When
I heard the words of this poem "The Invitation" I heard
them as God's words to me, and by consequence God's people - humanity's
words to me, and then as I hear God calling me deeper I hear all
of creation inviting me to be true. Too often our lives
skirt around the peripheral rather than coming from the heart.
Pray we may all be true to who we are.
The Invitation
By Oriah Mountain Dreamer - 07/15/2000
Copyright 1999 by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the imitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes!'
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I what to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly
like the company you keep in the empty moments.
