Going the Soul’s Way
Our thoughts are rarely at peace. We must go outside them, or inside them, or underneath them. When we are in our mind we are mostly fretting. When we are at peace it is rarely the fruit of our thinking. How do we find another way of being present to our restless ourselves, to the negative effect of others on us?
We look for a place of a larger freedom, a larger field that includes body, mind, soul, spirit – all at once. A place of bigness without barriers. ‘’May what I am and do flow from me like a river; no forcing, no holding back” (Rainer Maria Rilke). The Indian philosopher Krishnamurti wrote, ‘If you trust the river of life, the river of life has an astonishing way of taking care of you.’ Think of God as a flow rather than a disembodied person, or a substance.
The key, I think, is about staying connected with the source, the energy, the love, at the deepest levels possible. It is a sinking into the inner wholeness of Love in our deepest hearts. Every morning, every evening, there is an invitation to choose to live from the core of love – to stay connected at all points of our awareness with mystery itself, to feel a part of a greater flow, current, ocean; to be immersed in the surrounding energy of Being. That unconditional love is always available, always pressing in on us, always breaking out of us; always supporting us; it a place of no fear; it leads to a new calmness, a peace at your centre.
It has little to do with the way the mind works; it is beyond the mind, beyond trying, beyond mental control, beyond will-power, beyond strategic planning. It is more a kind of leap into the abyss, a vision of possibility, a mind released into a sudden freedom! It is about a bigger picture.
‘If you want to build a ship do not drum up people to collect wood, and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.’ (Antoine de St Exupery).
‘Wanting’ and ‘longing’ means placing the beckoning horizon before our imagination – that is what motivates, inspires, makes possible. It is what re-aligns us, re-heals us, reconnects us inside the incarnate heart of God. It is not about starting from scratch. We are somehow already at one with God. But we have slipped our moorings, dragged our anchor, and find ourselves adrift from a grounded, centred and safe place. The church, sacraments, the eucharist, our friends our inner teacher keep reminding us of that place.
We have become disconnected. But we essentially are at one with God. We are like tiny flickers of the fire that is Life itself, Love itself, Consciousness itself, Being itself, God’s very self. But we keep almost going out, losing the light.
A door opens in the centre of our being, and we seem to fall through into immense depths. Do all of us have at least glimpses of what this might mean? Or some experience of such depth? All eternity seems to have become ours in one breathless moment. We fall into this wholeness when we transcend our negative, fearful thinking. No more denying or rejecting. You are now learning to see this Oneness, Wholeness, everywhere.
All of this is not an esoteric vision out of touch with reality. The goal of it all is to consciously and fully live our ordinary lives, from this perspective, this ground of our being. ‘If you split a piece of wood, I am there. Lift a stone, you will find me there.’ (Gospel of Thomas.) The oneness, the intimacy with God we are considering is very earthy and incarnational indeed. It teaches us to be fully alert to what is happening around us, to take full advantage of every moment. The deepest contemplation enables us to close a door mindfully, to notice the person passing by.
Put another way – the human form is how God lives in creation. God is present directly and completely in the human being; experiences the God-self in everyone. The divine permeates the whole world. The turning world is the incarnation of God. This sinking into God does not mean opting out of this world, but rather being totally IN this world, and loving it for what it is. This reality is experienced by us as a state of extraordinary clarity, love and joy, and brings enormous freedom.
Each individual person is unique, like a single stitch in a great cosmic tapestry. It is within this sacred scenario that we become more fully human, more alive, more passionately engaged as humans within the framework of an incarnate God.