Wednesday 21 October 2015

The Altogether Unexpected

          Time slips by and I do not post. Somehow there seems to be nothing left to say, but much to be experienced. I do not know......I do not understand......but I do not mind. It is not that I do not care but, through acceptance, that - and I must insist on this - I do not mind. It seemed to come about in the following way.
          For some years I have done a great deal of work on my inner self, work that has been very worthwhile. Out of that came a desire to know and understand all that had happened. I do not regret having spent the time in that way because that was where I was; that was what I needed to do. There came a moment, however, quite recently when I said to myself that my long period of daily, concentrated meditation must stop. The hours spent in study also had to end. These are not decisions that cannot be reversed. In fact it is highly likely that I will return to the situation that existed before those decisions were made.
          I wanted to discover what would happen if I stopped intensive meditation. Of course some form of meditation continues all the time. I choose not, although it often feels as if I am unable, to stop thinking about matters of a psycho-spiritual nature at least for part of my day. I had begun to wonder whether or not my spiritual activities, such as they are, were nothing more than a prop. I was a little anxious, I suppose, that I would finish up discarding a much-loved way of life because it had become irrelevant, the manifestation of an illusion. That it would give me more time for other pressing activities was never a convincing reason for the change. Yet what I discovered was altogether unexpected.
          Somehow, a fresh understanding dawned. I began to see that some of the beautiful but perplexing meditative imagery I had experienced made the kind of good sense that my consciousness could absorb. Far from returning to some pre-ego state by the abnegation of my ego, I have moved towards the experience of what has been called the "trans-ego." This experience comes and goes somewhat, but in perhaps a still faltering way I am beginning to "see" in a way for which I have no words. More and more I face this particular difficulty.
          For the first time in my life I am beginning to understand what real serenity is about. At times it seems like a terribly loving ache, or pain. More and more I find that to love carries something that seems to be too heavy to bear, too painful to choose to experience. Yet it can be no other way. This is the joyous......agony perhaps, that comes from my choices in the past, choices that I know are wholly right.
          So life continues on its way. Whatever situation I find myself in is right for this moment. I will not elaborate on that statement at this time. There will be time enough.

18 comments:

  1. Tom, whatever you decide to do, it seems if you follow your heart or inner prompting, all will be well. I've been feeling less driven both to post and to work as hard lately. Recent travel has something to do with it, because I observed myself simply being in the moment and experiencing life fully without analysis or thinking about how to express it. I'm not suggesting that this is similar to what you're saying, just that there seem to be seasons for everything, and more flexibility than I've sometimes realized or allowed myself.

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    1. Hullo Beth; It is certainly my belief that all will be well, and is now going well. There is much in what you say that rings bells in my mind. I suppose there was always the risk that I would become too focussed, too driven, in one particular direction. It has happened before in much less favourable, egoistic conditions. Diversity and flexibility are so important.

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  2. Habits of mind are persistent --whether attended consciously or subsumed into metaphorical language by the unconscious. They will not entirely leave. I suspect one may have "stopped intensive meditation" but the momentum continues.

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    1. Hullo Geo; I think you are absolutely correct. Sometimes the effect on oneself seem to be like dithering, and care needs to be taken that matters do not become muddled as a result of woolly thinking. Life is about process, and they do not halt simply because we will them to, of wish for alternatives. There is that about life which is immensely powerful.

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  3. funny, this post echoes some of the sentiments of zhoen's latest post, and my own recent musings. we sometimes manage to think in tandem across the continents, don't we?
    enjoy the peace, tom.

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    1. Hi Agnieszka; It does seem that we each become engrossed in our particular lives and the paths we travel, as if we are all swimming under water. Then we surface, look around, and see that we are all viewing the upper air through similar eyes. It is a love-ly feeling.

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  4. As one of my pseudo-New-York-City pals used to say, "good on you."

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    1. Hullo Bruce; Thank you for your encouragement.

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  5. Sometimes it's just time to sit by the river and watch the flow - maybe to flow with it for a while. It sounds to me as though you've incorporated the path. Be well, Tom.

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    1. Thank you Susan. And I will endeavour to stay well.

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  6. Hi Tom,
    Sounds like you’re at peace with yourself and are experiencing the affirmation of prior events / decisions to lead in naturally to that enhanced feeling of tranquillity. It possibly doesn’t quite fit in exactly with the word ”grace” but I struggle to find any other to describe it. Meditation works well for many, but a state of tranquillity can be occur at any time and in the midst of the most unlikely or even dire times – like the war story of pacifist Archibald Baxter –tortured by his own in WW1 and cast into the mostly heavily shelled areas in the hope he would be killed- "I felt quite clam and peaceful and saw everything round about, bathed in a bright white radiance. The whole thing felt strange and unusual, but not unpleasant. I never felt the same gain when I was, at subsequent times, under heavy shell fire." From The Trenches –the best Anzac writing of WW1.
    Best wishes

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    1. Hi Lindsay; I also struggle with the words. It does feel very much as if some "other" is saying, "At last you're letting me get a word in!" Inevitably I suppose, there comes the question of where I go from here, but I'm sure that will sort itself all in good time. It's a question of watching and waiting. I did like your piece from Archibald Baxter. It reminded me of a kind of calmness, but not really serenity, I felt during a bad road accident I had some years ago, an incident I had almost forgotten.

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  7. Thanks for this, Tom. I'm very glad to read such a heartening post about the discoveries that you've made. As so many times before, it makes me feel how uncannily our paths go on parallel tracks.

    “There seems to be nothing left to say”—but what you have said is rich with meaning. Till recently I would have tried to continue the sharing with a blog post of my own, but having abjured that, I’d like to email you with some thoughts I’ve had in the last 24 hours, which I think you would understand better than anyone else I know. They are not original thoughts but derived from reading.This has offered a way to understand things I’ve jotted over the last ten years in a kind of puzzlement about the assimilation of the psycho-spiritual with everyday life and our modern understanding of this world and us in it.


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  8. Tom, thank you for this post, filled with calm and sparkling reflections, very much in tune with my own thoughts at this time. I've just come back from a week away in Tavira, Portugal, where the daily view of a beautiful river echoes your words.

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  9. Hullo Natalie; Pleased to know there was a connection. I trust, and assume, you had a pleasant and relaxing break.

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  10. A long meditation practice changes you for good, really, so it seems to me you'll can't possibly fully "go back" to conditions before. A mediative state of mind becomes you normal way of seeing after years of a meditative practice. But I've also found that really, really intense internal contemplation is not, and never was, the answer. The path is an inner one, yes, but I think the answers lie just inside the door, not deep in the cellar. Good luck with this next stage.

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    1. Thank you and welcome. I agree that one can never go back to exactly how things were. I am intrigued by that penultimate sentence. Watching and waiting may be the answer, but there must also be a willingness and readiness to accept the answers that "lie just inside the door." Thank you again for your comment.

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