The beauty of silence

There is constant noise in the world around us. And then there is constant noise inside us too: the mind which does not stop. If you’re like most people, you’ll notice your mind is making judgements about everything. Before you even realise it, the mind has flown to this place and that, and you’re definitely not in control of where it goes.

Sometimes the noise outside is a comfort. It distracts us from ourselves, and it stops us having to face our own thoughts. Sometimes we contribute to the noise by talking and judging, gossiping without even thinking about what we are saying. At night, everything comes back to us in our solitude and we might find it difficult to truly rest. This is the nature of the adult human mind.

Very young children don’t have the words and ideas to make constant judgements in their minds; they tend to live from moment to moment. They are more at peace with themselves, but they are prey to the outside noise too, and they become restless living in a restless world.

For our own mental health and for that of our communities, it’s important to learn both silence within and silence without. This does not mean stopping communication; it means deepening our ability to community so that fewer words and gestures can achieve more expression. There is time to speak and reveal, and also time to be silent and observe without judgement.

Silence is beautiful because it allows us to see things we might have missed. There are patterns in nature which we can observe in silence. Love communicated without words is one of the most powerful expressions of silence.

It’s hard to change habits. The habits of judging, gossiping, getting irritable and complaining have become second nature to a lot of us. But people can change the way their minds work, with repeated practice. Even ten minutes a day observing thoughts as they come, and then letting them go is enough to give you an idea of how your mind works. And then gradually, thoughts will pass more slowly and sitting in silent observation will become more pleasurable.

Absolute peace

Absolute peace is the opposite of… relative restlessness.

In most places today, we see visions of relative restlessness, with some creatures more restless than others. OM is the sound of absolute peace, which is what we all crave after having lived in restlessness for too long.

Absolute peace does not mean complacency or laziness, it means a quietness of mind which allows you to act more effectively in the world. If you have resposibilities like caring for others or managing a project, attempting them through an attitude of peace will bring greater rewards than attempting them through stress, pressure and restlessness.

There are many practices that help to instil absolute peace, but by far the most effective is meditation and self-hypnosis. This involves techniques for controlling thoughts and making us the masters of our own thought processes. One simple meditative technique is observation without judgement. Observe the breath, sounds, sights and watch thoughts come and go.

OM means that which is absolute (‘I am’) and SO HAM means destroying relative awareness (realising that  ‘I am that’). We have all come from the same substance that created the universe and will all change through various forms through our evolution in this cyclical universe. Understanding the interconnected oneness of all things creates an awareness of abolute peace with everything and everyone else. It allows compassion.

Understanding karma

The concept of karma is a science, just like Newton’s law that ‘each action has an equal and opposite reaction’. Every spiritual system has some reference to karma – even the Bible says, ‘whatever a man soweth, that shall he reap’. Karma is often linked to reincarnation, but karma can exist with or without physical rebirth.

Karma cannot be wiped out by a statement or a ritual – it is the science of accountability. We are accountable for everything we have done, and there is no saviour for us except knowledge. Knowledge gives us the ability to deal with the effects of our karma. Quite simply, karma means that whatever I have done, whether I consider it good or bad is irrelevant, because whatever form of thought, words or actions I have given out into the world, that is the energy that will come back to me. It’s like an echo: whatever is given out will be received back from the world.

A lot of people are afraid of ‘bad’ karma. In some cases, the consequences of our actions can be changed, reduced or even wiped away if we make enough effort to instil the opposite action. The exact science of this is very diffcult to work out. Prayers and rituals cannot wipe away karma, but they can help create the consciousness to carry out actions that may help one resolve their past karmas. We can take the support of a Higher Source, but they are there to guide us, not to wipe the slate clean for us. God gave us free will so that we could create and understand ourselves, so we have to be accountable.

We come in innocent ignorance into the world, and through exposure to senses and desires, we create karmic relationships. This keeps the world play alive and is no bad thing until we let it overtake us. Then we realise that pain and pleasure are an inevitable consequence of having desires and attachments. We begin to feel that pain and pleasure are impermanent and don’t really satisfy us deep down. There comes a point where we want peace. That is when we start to make efforts to reduce our karma, turn into ourselves and towards God so that we can escape the world of action, pain, pleasure, attachment and restlessness. But avoiding the world totally disconnects us from the reality we have to live in, and it ironically makes us incapable of handling our karma.

We have to participate in the world, but with the right kind of consciousness. Through prayer, meditation and compassion we can create the consciousness for reducing our ‘negative’ karma yet still living peacefully in the world. If everyone does this, the consciousness of the world will change and the karma of the world will be uplifted. According to ancient religions, this turn from knowledge to ignorance and back again happens in a cycle continuously. Some say the whole point is to realise ourselves as souls, which we all do once physical things no longer make us happy. Others say it is just a creative exercise that God wants us to participate in in order to realise what exists beyond. Through this entire exercise, seemingly separate identities are acting together in what Confucious called ‘reciprocity’. That is the law of karma.

What is Enlightenment?

Being and not being all at once.

Discerning without judgement.

Relishing the luxury within simplicity.

Not needing another’s gaze to behold one’s Self.

Being at one with every other, but apart from everyone.

Dying in each moment before being reborn.

Being enriched by solitude, but finding solitude within company.

Observing the action, playing the part, but watching one’s self as you play.

Embracing afflictions as a test of endurance.

Being compassionately detached.

The difference between knowing and being

Why is it that some people are great at giving advice but hopeless at following their own advice? Why is it that Wayne Rooney knows how to play football, but probably wouldn’t be able to teach someone else his techniques? Why are there so few people who can practise knowledge and preach that knowledge simultaneously?

It’s because of the difference between knowing and being.

Theoretically, you can know what you have to do but some weakness in you prevents you from acting. Some people act effortlessly but unconsciously. Others are very aware and conscious but some weakness in themselves prevents them from acting.

The secret to success is in striking a balance between knowing and being. Know what you are, what you have, what you aim for – then have the will power to be exactly that…

Predestination and freewill

Can predestination and free-will exist at the same time?

Predestination = the idea of fate; everything is already decided, planned, written and destined to happen.

Free-will = the idea of individual will; we make choices that influence and change our lives.

It seems like a contradiction to say that both of these things can exist together. If we are just living out what is written, then how can we have any choice in molding our lives? If we have choices that can change our lives, then how can anything be definite in the future?

I believe in both predestination and free-will. This is because I think there’s an interplay between freedom and limitation. I see it as ‘predestined choice’, which means that we do have free-will and choice, but we make all our choices before we come onto the world stage, where we live out our choices according to whatever we have destined for ourselves.

Looking at cultures across the world, people tend to live according to either one belief system or the other. In the East, where the economy is developing fast and there is a widening gulf between the rich and the poor, poorer societies tend to follow the idea of destiny quite rigidly. They think that nothing is in their own hands, that God gives and takes away. On the other hand, in the West, people believe in individual choice and responsibility because they have seen how much influence their actions can have on their lives; but this, too, becomes extreme to the point that people think they are omnipotent (they can buy what they want, consume endlessly without ever having to compensate for it).

These cultural belief systems don’t come from religions; they come from economics. The original, authentic teachings of all religions are actually quite similar e.g. karma / you reap what you sow / the kalyug / the day of judgement etc.

As long as we take responsibility for our actions, it doesn’t matter whether we think the consequences for these actions were predestined or whether we caused them to occur through our choices.

The ideal lover

Most people search for an ideal lover, some people feel they have found perfect love, and others realise, after falling in love, that their partners are not as ‘perfect’ as they thought they were. Perfection means someone who meets your ideals on every level and never lets you down. It’s a very high standard for any human being to live up to.

As much as we may connect with our soul-mates, sooner or later we will see that they cannot meet our expectations all the time. As love deepens, we learn to accept our partners’ essential humanity – that which makes them imperfect. Yes, we are all imperfect, otherwise we would not be here on Earth. We all have things to work on, in varying degrees.

So, why do we even search for an ideal love if it does not exist? The truth is that it does exist! Perfect, complete, unconditional love, which gives us exactly what we NEED on the soul level, exists. It is the love of God. Only God can give you this kind of selfless love, because the body and personality of man is built around a false sense of ego (especially in the current age of earthly development). The ego makes us selfish, and it is very difficult to separate from it because we are trapped in various roles.

But humanity strives to imitate God because it is God trying to realise himself in every way possible. So, from separation (ignorance of our true nature), we will travel back to union (reconnecting with our essence). There will be a time of renewal on Earth, and we will again become capable of loving each other the way God loves us.

In the meantime, the greatest thing we can do is TRY to love each other the way God loves us. But this is only possible if we feel and know the love of God. Making contact with the divine spirit is the first step along this long path of ‘homecoming’, coming back to our true spiritual identities. For me, it took a long time to feel the presence of God. But once I felt it, it was like the most powerful, beautiful energy; I could not deny it.

You may have felt a breathtaking energy when you enter a quiet place of worship, or see a sight of natural beauty. These are God’s expressions. To feel it everyday, we need to listen for it. We need to open our hearts in prayer (just talking to God with the faith that someone is listening); we need to meditate to hear God’s voice in the silence of our minds. Once the contact is made, a dialogue begins – the most enriching, loving dialogue you could engage in.

The divine force is already trying to communicate with you in so many ways…

Faith overcomes fear

Living in this world can sometimes be a frightening experience. We need to trust the society we live in, the people around us, the government, the infrastructure, for so many things. We are an interdependent web where everyone’s actions affect everyone else. We need to trust things which are out of our control. As adults, we regain some control over events, but not total control. If we could control every little thing about our lives and our worlds, I am sure we would each made considerable changes: eliminate poverty, improve infrastructure, change political systems, prioritise the environment, and so on. In a world where everything is not ‘perfect’ and everything is not ‘in our control’, we can often question God’s purpose, or the divine plan. ‘Why does it have to be like this? If there is a God, why doesn’t he make it better?’

After thinking about this long and hard, there are two explanations that are beginning to make sense to me (in relation to God or Universal Consciousness or Source, whatever you like to call the divine influence). The first is the situation of free-will. Life forms are endowed with the freedom to make choices. That means that they are accountable for the results of those choices. That is karma and it is something which teaches us to become responsible, knowledgeful and learn the secrets of creation for ourselves. Eventually, we ourselves learn to be in sync with the divine plan, and let the divine force balance the world out through us.

The second explanation is to do with vision. Only the divine Source has knowledge of past, present and future (free-will can change the future and therefore even prophetic souls cannot make definite predictions). If we could make everything the way we wanted, we would choose whatever is best in the short-term, because our perspective is limited to short-term experiences and consequences. Once we let the divine work through us, things start working out for us, but with a view to long-term progress. That’s why Jesus said, ‘Thy will be done.’ He trusted God more than he trusted himself. He knew that God’s plan could cause him difficulty in the short-term, but in the long-term, there would be some benefit. What that benefit will be cannot always be understood at the time that we call on God, which is why we think God does not listen when we pray.

Faith is the act of accepting that we are not always in control, but that there is some divine force looking out for us if we call on it. Faith does not guarantee a pain-free life, it does not offer extra comfort or immunity from danger. Faith is simply love for the divine plan, which we cannot understand but which creates within us an inexplicable wonder. Faith is love for the ways of the divine, which we get glimpses of every now and then, if we pay attention. Faith allows us to become courageous and strong; it allows us to overcome our fears. Faith beckons the divine force to flow through us so that its will can be done.

Jesus and Mary Magdalen, by Khalil Gibran

The following is an excerpt from Khalil Gibran’s work, Jesus the Son of Man… It recounts the first meeting between Jesus and Mary Magdalen, and it is written in the voice of Mary:

It was in the month of June when I saw Him for the first time. He was walking in the wheatfield when I passed by with my handmaidens, and He was alone. The rhythm of His steps was different from other men’s, and the movement of His body was like naught I had seen before. Men do not pace the earth in that manner. And even now I do not know whether He walked fast or slow. My handmaidens pointed their fingers at Him and spoke in shy whispers to one another. And I stayed my steps for a moment, and raised my hand to hail Him. But He did not turn His face, and He did not look at me. And I hated Him. I was swept back into myself, and I was as cold as if I had been in a snow-drift. And I shivered.

That night I beheld Him in my dreaming; and they told me afterward that I screamed in my sleep and was restless upon my bed.

It was in the month of August that I saw Him again, through my window. He was sitting in the shadow of the cypress tree across my garden, and He was still as if He had been carved out of stone, like the statues in Antioch and other cities of the North Country. And my slave, the Egyptian, came to me and said, “That man is here again. He is sitting there across your garden.” And I gazed at Him, and my soul quivered within me, for He was beautiful. His body was single and each part seemed to love every other part. Then I clothed myself with raiment of Damascus, and I left my house and walked towards Him.

Was it my aloneness, or was it His fragrance, that drew me to Him? Was it a hunger in my eyes that desired comeliness, or was it His beauty that sought the light of my eyes? Even now I do not know. I walked to Him with my scented garments and my golden sandals, the sandals the Roman captain had given me, even these sandals. And when I reached Him, I said, “Good-morrow to you.”

And He said, “Good-morrow to you, Miriam.” And He looked at me, and His night-eyes saw me as no man had seen me. And suddenly I was as if naked, and I was shy.

Yet He had only said, “Good-morrow to you.”

And then I said to Him, “Will you not come to my house?”

And He said, “Am I not already in your house?”

I did not know what He meant then, but I know now.

And I said, “Will you not have wine and bread with me?”

And He said, “Yes, Miriam, but not now.”

Not now, not now, He said. And the voice of the sea was in those two words, and the voice of the wind and the trees. And when He said them unto me, life spoke to death. For mind you, my friend, I was dead. I was a woman who had divorced her soul. I was living apart from this self which you now see. I belonged to all men, and to none. They called me harlot, and a woman possessed of seven devils. I was cursed, and I was envied. But when His dawn-eyes looked into my eyes all the stars of my night faded away, and I became Miriam, only Miriam, a woman lost to the earth she had known, and finding herself in new places.

And now again I said to Him, “Come into my house and share bread and wine with me.”

And He said, “Why do you bid me to be your guest?”

And I said, “I beg you to come into my house.” And it was all that was sod in me, and all that was sky in me calling unto Him.

Then He looked at me, and the noontide of His eyes was upon me, and He said, “You have many lovers, and yet I alone love you. Other men love themselves in your nearness. I love you in your self. Other men see a beauty in you that shall fade away sooner than their own years. But I see in you a beauty that shall not fade away, and in the autumn of your days that beauty shall not be afraid to gaze at itself in the mirror, and it shall not be offended. I alone love the unseen in you.”

Then He said in a low voice, “Go away now. If this cypress tree is yours and you would not have me sit in its shadow, I will walk my way.”

And I cried to Him and I said, “Master, come to my house. I have incense to burn for you, and a silver basin for your feet. You are a stranger and yet not a stranger. I entreat you, come to my house.”

Then He stood up and looked at me even as the seasons might look down upon the field, and He smiled. And He said again: “All men love you for themselves. I love you for yourself.”

And then He walked away.

But no other man ever walked the way He walked. Was it a breath born in my garden that moved to the east? Or was it a storm that would shake all things to their foundations?

I knew not, but on that day the sunset of His eyes slew the dragon in me, and I became a woman, I became Miriam, Miriam of Mijdel.

Who are you, REALLY?

Are you a man, woman, black, white, accountant, lawyer, wife, etc. etc.?

No. You are not any of those things, essentially. You’re just playing the part for a period of time.

Are you alone, isolated, separate from everyone else?

No. You affect everyone and everything that comes into contact with you. You affect the energy of this beautiful planet through your thoughts, words and actions.

It’s so hard to see this from our human eyes. Even though we spend each night sleeping, leaving the physical body at times whilst our souls explore the world beyond, we forget all of that and dismiss it in the morning. Some people travel out of body, or have a near-death experience, or they have deep telepathic insights, but we keep ignoring all these messages, dismissing them as hallucination or irrationality. What is more irrational is the way we humans are living on this earth right now. Just eating, sleeping, working, doing things mindlessly without any awareness or care. Is this the reason we came to this earth? To take a few breaths, go through the motions, and then just leave this place?

No. We came here to experience something amazing and something beautiful.

Is your life amazing right now? I don’t mean it in terms of what you do, I mean in terms of how you feel. We came here to feel something incredible, possible only on this Mother Earth. If we do not feel wonderful despite having everything, then we cannot blame anyone but ourselves. This means we have a choice to reconnect with our original vision and purpose: it’s a matter of free will.

The vital energy, the most powerful transforming energy which can change despair into bliss is love. Love is the energy which binds all of creation on the spiritual level. It starts from love for one’s self, goes out to touch the planet as love for every other creature (whatever phase of growth or ignorance a life form may be at, it has the potential to be great), and it becomes the nurturing energy of God which sustains the health of our planet, of Gaia.

If you feel out of touch with the rhythm of nature and the potential goodness of life, its unseen magical power to nurture you, heal you, sustain you, then read some accounts of near death experiences. It will remind you of something familiar seating in your soul. Visit this site.