‘I must be back in the blog writing mode, I’m really hanging out for a new topic.’ I blurted out to my partner hermit just now.
Actually, it was desperate. What I actually said was ‘I’m really desperate‘ for a new topic. I quickly modified it to anxious then again to keen, in an attempt to keep the sound of attachment out of my voice. Finally, in these notes, it’s morphed into ‘hanging out’ which is obviously no better at all.
Her reply needs no disclaimer, no modification: ‘The answer comes from the silence,’ she said quietly.
I’ve actually had a relatively quiet – even silent – day: resting in recovery, laying on my bed, sometimes sleeping, sometimes simply following my breath.
Mind wandering, of course, that’s what minds do after all. But overall at least a semblance of silence seemed to be the order of the day.
Even then, after all that silence, quiet, rest and mostly a not overly busy mind, the best I can come up with is ‘I’m desperate’?
As in, I’m really hanging out; really anxious; really keen. As in, I”m not really listening – not at all silent. In fact, so full of desire, clinging and attachment for a new blog topic was I, that actually noticing one come out of the ‘silence’ would likely take a miracle.
All day – hours – I lie still. As I said, only sometimes sleeping, the rest of those several hours watching my breath, attempting just to be in silence and in the stillness.
So is it me? Am I missing something? An answer has come (here I am making notes for a new blog post), but what’s this ‘silence’ business from where answers apparently come all about?
Clearly, silence does not always seem to require an absolute, complete, and total absence of noise, voice, words, thoughts, if it is indeed the source of ‘answers’.
Maybe silence itself produced an apparent state of attachment to a new blog idea as a kind of ruse or trick to have my Self fool myself into seeing the foolishness of attachment as well as showing me how silence really works – in the real world.
Silence is not some sort of rarified mystical state that we have to enter through rigorous spiritual practices. It is actually a condition that emerges from everyday moments, ‘random’ thoughts, or comments made seemingly without thought or any apparent significance or meaning. Actually silence lives everywhere, is in everything and is all the time.
Right at the end of our last post, I mentioned – in an almost off-handed manner – that the hermitage has moved. Better to say the hermits were lead by the ever not so subtle universe to leave our refuge of a year for the safety and seclusion of another abode a few hundred metres away.
Why? Why did the hermits have to move? Well here’s the thing, the owner of that space that had graced us with its protection for that year decided to revive his on and off again campaign to sell the property. And with great success too: very soon there was a buyer very keen to move in ASAP
So, the search was on for a new abode to house the hermits. Cutting a long story short, and leaving out a multiplicity of praises, gratitude, and details, here we are.
Now you know why we moved into a new hermitage. Or do you? You have a few of the facts about how the process of us moving actually manifested in the material world, but as to proper answers to the why questions? You’ll agree that it’s all a bit vague, mundane, and that I haven’t given any answers to why at all.
That’s because I don’t know either; no idea at all.
It’s true, there were some unusual obstacles and pressures – but aren’t there always for everyone as they negotiate and try to manage their lives in the world?
And I could add that the timing could have been better – see above rhetorical question for my response to this one.
No. Like so much (actually everything really) that happens in the on-going, non-stop re creation of the physical world (constant flux, change,seeming chaos, conflicts, setbacks, advances, ups and downs) as it flows along in its own way at its own pace, I have to admit, its a mystery to be unravelled. Or not: there are some who would dare to label this constant re creation, God’s will.
So, we can ask why here? Why now? What’s the lesson to be learned from the move to the new hermitage.
Or we could just tell ourselves that that’s just the way the Cosmos does things. By any standards it’s been a no hitches, no hassles, change of address. But let’s not get distracted by dualities: It is what it is, as I like to say.
And there’s no good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
What I want to talk about today, what I’d like to share, isn’t new. By that I mean the ideas are well known in the world – and they’ve even occured to me from time to time.
But, today, the thought seems new. Clearer and more obvious somehow. Perhaps when a little bit of knowledge finally ‘sinks in’, and is fully realised for what it is, then maybe that’s the beginnings of wisdom. Or an enlightenment. Perhaps we can say simply that a profound insight was had.
The thoughts I’m talking about concern prayer. More specifically the thoughts were prompted by my experience this morning chanting mantra – in this case, the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra, my mainstay you might call it; My main focus of devotion and meditation.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare
As so often happens, as I chanted today, I found myself thinking other thoughts, following mental stories invented as they went. I carried on chanting, but I was thinking other stuff at the same time.
I stopped the mental recitation of the mantra so I could focus on the emerging thoughts.
Yes, it’s true I was, chanting but it was merely at ‘lip level’ as I’ve heard it described. My intention may well have been to focus my full attention on the words of the mantra, on my means of devotion, and the repeating of God’s names. But clearly my mind had other plans as it wandered and skipped around on other paths.
I guess it’s a problem for anyone who prays in whatever form the prayer takes; it’s very easy to be distracted my experience tells me. I’ve read that people may have chanted a mantra for decades – twenty or more years – and feel that they still can’t ‘get it’, that while the intention is there and strong, they just can’t seem to fully immerse themselves in the mantra. Nothing of it reaches the heart. It’s a lonely feeling, I know.
They, like me quite often, will feel frustrated, empty, and as if their devotion is not devotion at all but simply a mouthing of supposedly holy words. Just an exercise, another spiritual practice to simply get through. Some, give up.
That’s why I stopped chanting this morning: I felt the insight coming on. That new revelation that’s hardly new at all.
Here it is then, the insight. If I become aware that my mind is straying and the mantra is being recited rote fashion, then so long as I gently bring my attention back to the words of the mantra, then in fact, all is well.
My teacher, Swami Tadatmananda has said when speaking about meditation, that the very act of bringing the mind, our attention back to the object of meditation when we notice it’s wanderings, is in itself an integral component of the meditation itself.
So, if I’m chanting and my mind begins to jump about, and I notice those mental antics and bring my focus back to the words of the mantra, then in truth, in the reality of the thing, I’ve actually not ceased my chanting at all. There hasn’t been any interruption.
As I said, it’s not a new idea; it’s not my own idea. But it feels new, it feels as if it’s an idea meant for me.
Intention, effort, resolve, persistence (or is it perseverance?) – and love. The only other necessity is that I continue chanting, both in that moment of supposed interruption and generally in my life.
In other words, if it feels like I’m only mouthing words that aren’t reaching my heart, don’t worry.
There are many blessings that come with the living of the hermit life. And I am especially blessed as I am not a ‘hermit alone’ – I share my life, the Hermitage, and my spiritual practice with another hermit. We are partner hermits.
One component of that spiritual practice is our times spent together reading a few verses from the Bhagavad Gita. We pursue our own personal studies, but sometimes one or the other of us will share an especially resonant verse, or an insight or thoughts.
This morning my partner hermit told me, in a casual almost by the way manner, that she’d just read a verse that spoke about not disturbing others, and not letting ourselves be disturbed by others.
At first, I had no memory at all of this verse; I just couldn’t place it. Which might sound a little worrisome, given I’ve been studying this text for seven or eight years.
So, it wasn’t till she gave me chapter and verse and I looked it up for myself, that it finally clicked into place. Of course I knew this verse, but it had slipped from conscious memory.
And that surprised me: this verse seems to me to be speaking to a key concept in the teaching of the text as a whole, as well as to my personal aspirations. Surely, I would think, it should be, what’s the expression? Top of mind?
He [sic] who disturbs no one, and who is never perturbed by anyone, who is unattached to happiness, impatience, fear, and anxiety is dear to Me.
Bhagavad Gita 12:15
This verse is full of meaning for me. It’s like a one-stop how to lesson in avoiding the personal suffering that’s brought about through attachments. Mind you, once again I can’t help wondering after years of study, and with how much this verse resonates for me, why I had such a hard time remembering even seeing it before.
I suspect the power of the ego and the mind have a lot to do with it. Ego – along with its master, the mind – love attachments to the world, to anything really. I guess they are always doing their best to keep me attached to my compulsions and aversions.
Imagine though, not being disturbed by anything – or anyone – and me actually not doing anything that disturbs anyone or anything?
Not just people and other living entities in my immediate physical environment, but out there in the wider world – in the Universe even.
It’s about vibes isn’t it? What vibrations am I putting out into the world? Are they vibrations and waves of love, peace, compassion, detachment, equinimity? Or at they vibes of discord, dislike, anger and sorrow over the stuff I can’t control?
And just think what it would be like if I weren’t so attached to the idea that my happiness depends on getting pleasure or ‘results’ from worldly things, activities based on the senses? Imagine really understanding that the only true and real and lasting happiness and satisfaction can only come come from within my Self?
This doesn’t mean at all that I can’t be happy, or can’t have fun or enjoyment. It is merely saying that, if I can accept whatever comes to me in life without clinging to the things I want, or running away from the things or situations I don’t want, then there will be less suffering.
Ego is jumping in now and wants me to note that, while I may in fact be on the path to detachment and freedom, I’m not far along enough yet to escape its clutches. Anyway, moving right along.
Impatience, fear, and anxiety are tricky presences in the attachment arena. I’m even less far along the path to letting go of these stubborn attachments. But, again, at least I’m on the path.
And what is that path? Where’s it going? Well (paradox alert), on the path in this instance is another way of saying I’ve not realised fully that I am already at the path’s destination. I just think I have a long way to go.
Swami Ramdas (1884-1963) Courtesy Wikipedia
I think Swami Ramdas said: ‘When you set foot upon the path, you have reached the destination.’ I think!
That’s the ‘dear to me’ bit of the verse explained. The ‘me’ in this phrase represents the aspired to full realisation that I am free, liberation or enlightenment some call it. It’s a place, or state of mind in which I move through the world with peace, calm and equilibrium, where nothing disturbs me, and I disturb no one.
That state of liberation doesn’t mean I have given up, or will have to give up, all desires for things I want, nor will I have escaped the things I have aversions to. It simply means I will no longer be driven by those desires and aversions, I will no longer be attached.
It means, too, that I will no longer be concerned in an attached way, to who says or does what to whom, when, where, why or whatever. At that stage I will be in the world, but not of it.
Of course, I am a hermit; you would think it’s easy for me being secluded from the world (well it’s not total seclusion). If only that were true.
I still have the clingings, cravings, and aversions; I’m even attached to the clingings and the aversions.
The one desire, the one I permit myself to cling to, is the desire to free from all other attachments, the attachments that cause so much suffering.
As long at I have that desire guiding my life, then I will be satisfied, when I can be, knowing that one day I will fully realise that I’m already free, unattached, liberated and happy.
There’s a song I wish I could remember the name of, or at least who sings it, but there’s a line in the lyrics that, says something like ‘I don’t want to go searching for what I already have.’ That’s me!
Sharing our prayers this morning, the hermits each reciting a prayer to the other so each can pray, and talking about the oneness of life (prompted by one of the shared prayers), the dependence of one species upon another.
As we reflected on that idea – of interdependence – it occured to me that perhaps, there might be a problem in how we as humans, interpret its meaning. We can maybe call it a kind of paradox, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
Our dependence – as humans beings – on so many other species is actually a well known, and I hope increasingly accepted, reality. For food, for shelter, for water, air to breathe. Everything.
In any case, an aspect of this interdendcence idea that struck me as perhaps missing, that I’ve not really heard before (I haven’t researched this; just winging it thought and contemplation wise) is this; If, say, bees disappeared, or all trees were cut down, would humans survive? Definitely not.
On the other hand, let’s say that in an instant or even over time, all humans on Earth disappeared. What would happen to all the other living beings? All the bugs, the fishes, the animals of all kinds, trees, grasses – all the living beings?
It seems to me that all those other species, all those beings of all kinds, would not only survive, they would most likely thrive.
Actually, now I think about it, I remember during the COVID lockdowns, people in various places around the world were amazed at the return of birds to usually busy polluted cities, and how the air seemed fresher in some places when in ‘normal times’ it was getting hard to breathe. And beaches and rivers looked a bit cleaner than usual.
Fewer people commuting; fewer planes flying; less goods being transported on congested roads; less waste going into rivers and the oceans. Seems life on Earth was doing better when we (humans) were out of the picture, even for a short while.
Which is to say, humans may not be necessary for the survival of planet Earth and the other life that lives here. Putting it very simply: We go, they thrive; They go, we go too.
But, my thought train races along its newly discovered track here, what if I’m wrong? What if I’m looking at the whole issue on just a superficial level? What if all I am seeing is the gross material level of the whole question? What if I’m missing the real point of it all?
Well it seems to me that on that purely physical, surface level, my theory (borrowed as it may be perhaps) might be right, the irony true: we go, they thrive; they go, we all go; they stay, we all get to stay.
But who are ‘they‘? Who are ‘we‘? For me it’s clear that we are not all simply and only our physical bodies and our minds living here in the material world; that’s all temporary and comes and goes. No, there has to be more to it than that.
Which is what I end up coming back to so very often: there is only one. No separation; no you and me; them or us. Just one. Without a second. Only Consciousness.
I think the best thing to do, just to be on the safe side is to look after each other – regardless of the particular body we happen to be inhabiting at the moment.
Our post today is closely related to our last one. In fact, so close is the relationship, we can call them sibling posts, even twins.
Anyway to begin, I’d like to share one verse from a song I’ve loved and not loved for years. The song’s called You’re Just a Country Boy by Alison Krauss:
Never could afford a store bought ring with a sparklin’ diamond stone. All you can afford is a loving heart, the only thing you own.
It’s easy to start disliking this song right from reading the title: ‘Just‘? As in only? As in ‘Is that all you are?’. And ‘country boy’? What’s wrong with people – of whatever age or gender – who come from rural areas?
But, there is some to love as well: The lyrics are clever (cleverer than I’d thought, as you will see soon); the singer has a lovely and skilled voice that I like a lot; and there is a generally relaxed, easy listening kind of vibe to the whole tune.
Still, there is more to dislike: The song is addressed to said country boy, perhaps as well meant advice from a friend who is trying to let the country boy down easy as they say. ‘Get real my friend,’ she seems to be saying. ‘You have nothing that anyone wants. You’re poor, you’re from the country, and no way will anyone ever want you.’
The lyrics are like an affirmation or confirmation of what we know already: the world turns on material objects and money, and you aren’t anyone or going anywhere if you don’t have that stuff.
But, then on the other hand, there is much more to love. And this verse kind of sums it up. For the first time today, rereading the lyrics as I ate my lunch, I finally got it: it’s IRONY!
‘What?’ the lyrics seem to say. ‘You mean to say that the only thing you own is a loving heart? What use is that for goodness sake? Nobody wants that. Everyone wants money, jewels, and other material things’.
Well, I think I’d actually gotten it already; it’s just (there’s that troublesome little word again) that today is the first time the word itself came to mind. How ironic to come to the realisation of the irony of this song after all this time?
I like the use of the word afford. Clearly our country boy is broke, has no money, little material worth, and being a ‘country boy’ he obviously has limited prospects.
The irony is, of course, obvious: if one has a loving heart (or an awakened heart as we reflected on in our last post), what else do they need to be able to afford?
Our friend has most likely earned his loving heart over and over again anyway as he’s lived his life with its inevitable trials, tribulations, joys and sorrows. Riches galore right there. Afford? Of what value are material riches when one already possesses the most valuable asset to which a human being can aspire – a loving heart?
Just thought I’d look up the lyrics to another song I also quote from quite often. It’s also about that ‘all I have’ idea. The song is Words by the Bee Gees. These two lines I like:
It’s only words and words are all I have to take away your heart
Or, as I might reinterpret it: ‘I know these are only words, but they’re all I’ve got to try to speak to your heart from my heart’.
If I’m to dig deep, be honest, and all that, I would have to say that this idea has been a major guiding force in and for my life in one way or another – whether I’ve been conscious of it or not. As has been aspiring to a loving heart, though that aspiration has at times been bogged down in the mire of the mess of life.
Words are good and sacred, and I’ve always seemed to have a lot of them (it’s not the words that are at fault, it’s the one who uses or abuses them). Really, as I think about it now, all I want is to continue using them – words – to express what’s in this (aspirational) loving heart.
All I can afford is a loving heart.
PS Now I’ve actually truly and really seen the irony in the lyrics, maybe I don’t have to dislike this song quite so much
There would be some – including me – who would say that all human beings, and not just monks, need to learn to awaken their hearts, to cultivate attitudes and a life of love, compassion, empathy, and kindness.
Who would disagree with such a suggestion?
Well, I’ve already said that I am one of the ‘some’ who would welcome such an evolution in human consciousness. But, at the same time, I don’t want to make pronouncements, form judgements, hold opinions, on what anybody should do, or be like. Only me. I am only responsible for my own behaviours, attitudes, ideas, thoughts, speech, and the rest of how to live my life. I just can’t – as in I’m not entitled – to tell anyone else what to do, what to think, what to say and so on.
Actually I’d even speculate that Merton is in fact talking about just the one monk: himself; he’s not preaching a prescription for the behaviour of others.
I’ve read so much Merton that it’s impossible now for me to remember exactly where I read this statement of his, but I do know that when I first saw it and made a note, the concept resonated deeply for me as a great aspiration for my own life as a monk, and as a trying to be decent human being.
In other words, this monk – me, myself, and I – has a task to carry on with: to cultivate an awakened heart. And being a ‘great study’ it’s bound to be at least a lifetime’s project.
It’s an effort though, awakening one’s heart. It’s even a bit of a mystery at times what the phrase actually means in real terms.
Love, obviously, tops the list for any aspirant on the awakened heart path. And, yes, I do feel, express, and act out love – so deeply sometimes to the point of being overwhelmed or ‘flooded’; sometimes speechless (that’s the good bit), sometimes full of words.
But then there are times (oftentimes is the word) when that love is clouded or shrouded completely by angers and irritations, by regrets of what should be or shouldn’t be, could be or cant’t be, what isn’t.
The great study of the monk is to have an awakened heart Thomas Merton
All attachments to what is not as I think it should be. All barriers to love. All ways and means of keeping the heart asleep – or at best semi-awake, and still sleepy: slow to respond, slow to act, and with ongoing blockages to seeing how things actually are.
The quest to acquire an awakened heart and the outpourings of love, kindness, gentleness, generosity, that such a state would allow, is probably at the root, the foundation, of my life as a hermit monk, of my life as a pilgrim journeying through and to Self.
Living quietly and simply; developing a contemplative way of being in the world while definitely being not of the world; cultivating silence, peace and calm; all are activities and attitudes directed at cultivating an awakened heart.
All that generosity, patience, love, kindness, empathy, and all the rest are definitely all characteristics of an awakened heart. Here’s my dilemma (only one among many that riddle my crazy monkey mind): they are also precisely the elements that need to be practised in order for one to acquire an awakened heart. What’s the expression? Catch 22?
Of course, it just occurs to me now, everything that is, is exactly as it’s meant to be, happening just as it ‘should’. So, in other words, all these words of reflection are simply a commentary on what has been and gone already, that which is in the past, and is no longer existing.
All that matters – all that exists – now is that at this moment, in its ongoingness, I am as loving, as kind, as patient, and as generous (not to forget compassionate, empathetic) as I’m able. To others obviously, as well as to myself.
All that wonderful list of characteristics of an awakened heart all exist right now within me. Perhaps I need to wake up my mind a bit more so I might see that reality. Then I might actually realise that I already have an awakened heart and that I simply got forgetful somewhere along the way.
I dreamed I was drawing an OM symbol. Nothing else, no memory of a dream setting or situation, no other dream characters; only the view – as from my own eyes – of my hand making that sacred mark.
It is quiet during morning prayers today. At one point, after completing one prayer, I turned the page, and began praying the prayer there. Attentively and prayerfully, which is a really nice thing for me to notice because oftentimes I can be a lip level prayer sayer.
As I prayed, I was drawn to the part of that page labelled ‘blank space’. It was at that moment the memory of that dream began to arise.
Instinctively, without thought, I reached for my pen – this pen I now use to make these notes – and inscribed (as that dream memory seemed to demand) the sacred OM in that formerly blank space.
This all transpired as the memory unfolded; really only a matter of a just a few seconds of clock time. But, of course, what meaning is there to ‘clock time’?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was God. And the Word is God. No beginning. No end.
Om Om Om
PS Thank you John for allowing me to use your words. I know I have paraphrased and modified them a little with my own words, but somehow I don’t think you’d mind.
Recently I came across the story of Abba Arsenius – one of the early Christian desert fathers. I’d originally written about him a year ago in what became a short series of posts.
Coming across him and his story again prompted me to revisit those posts – the first of which you can read here – and I reread them again, though as if for the first time. Anyway, here’s a short recap before we move on.
Arsenius was a high ranking official for the Roman Empire, working for many years as a tutor to the sons of the Emperor.
Over time he grew tired of the glamour lifestyle, the politics, corruption and court intrigues, and looked for a way to free himself from the whole material trap he was in.
So he prayed, ceaselessly, the story goes. He prayed for salvation, for freedom.
And, in time the answer, according to the story came in just a few words:
Flee, be silent, and pray always.
And he did. Flee I mean. He headed for the Egyptian deserts which is where he found that silence, and the space, peace, and calm to fulfil his desire to be praying constantly. And, with some comings and goings, ups and downs, he stayed for the rest of his life.
Now, while Arsenius and his story are fascinating (in fact now I’ve rediscovered him, I’m going to look around for a biography or something so I can learn more), what I want to think about here is something I wrote in the first of those previous posts, and how it ties in with our decision (almost a year ago now) to stay in this one place for the present.
For these Hermit Pilgrims ‘fleeing from the world’ has meant a nomadic lifestyle, few possessions and material needs, a hermit life where our engagement or entanglement with the world is kept to a minimum, and in which we feel less of a pressure to conform, to ‘be shaped’ by the world around us.
The notion of staying in this one place – as fully now and in the present as we can be – is actually paradoxically a fleeing of its own kind. The world of Samsara, the material world ‘out there’ continues to become less and less appealing to these Hermit Pilgrims.
Alongside this growing detachment to the world (as well as the loss of desire to move about in the world geographically speaking), is the deepening realisation that the real and true pilgrimage is within, through and to our own mind and heart.
Complimenting all this, is the growing contentment we are experiencing in this actual place, this hermitage of ours that we are creating on a daily basis. More and more it feels to be the exact place in which that inner pilgrimage is to continue.
Does this mean we have given up on that ‘nomadic lifestyle’? No, not at all. Or, more accurately, we are not niether giving up or not giving up. The present is all there is and we don’t – can’t – know anything beyond that. As the saying goes, What can we say about tomorrow?
One morning recently I was reciting my prayers when I began to notice the welling of tears in the corners of my eyes. Soon the wellings became a slow stream down each cheek. And, before long, I was more or less sobbing. For a little while.
Where did the tears come from? Why was I crying? Well, to be honest, it’s a mystery.
No mystery, you might be thinking: Sounds like your tears were brought on for some reason by reading the prayers.
I’m not so sure. I used the words ‘reciting my prayers’ deliberately: Not only was I not paying attention to, or even seeing the words on the paper, I was not engaged in the least in the words themselves and their meaning.
Rather than ‘praying’ I was reciting from memory, rote fashion, as if chanting my times tables in primary school. Merely mouthing the words; my mind was blank, as in not there, distant, off doing what my mind does, without awareness from me, when I’m trying to pay attention.
So, was this some sort of moment of catharsis? Possibly, or so it seems to me.
Sometimes – often spontaneously, other times with some forewarning – there is a release: a shedding of tears, as in my story above; a heavy inner or outer sigh of relief; sometimes simply a sense of something let go, something gone, or at least on the way to being gone.
When such moments of catharsis take place, often what causes them, the catalyst, appears obvious. On the other hand – as in my recent sobbing session – that catalyst is a mystery, unrelated in any obvious way to anything happening at that moment, or at least to anything taking place on the surface of that moment.
Equally the cause for the tears, sighs, relief, and so on – the object of any potential catharsis – may also be a mystery. I had no idea at the time, nor do I know now, what caused my tears.
The prayer being recited at the time was about silence. But, as I’ve already mentioned, no way was I actually praying, what with my total lack of attention, obliviousness to the words, my mental blankness. My unconsciousness come to think of it. Nothing to suggest a catalyst or catharsis.
In any case, when such miraculous happenings occur, one thing I try (I hope) to remind myself to not do: Do not ask why. Let catharsis – or whatever process is underway – be as it is.
And to put aside my habitual tendency to analyse and categorise; resist the temptation to want to know and label everything that happens to me. Let the catharsis – if that’s what it is – carry on as it does and not dismiss it as: ‘Oh that’s just me getting emotional.’ Or ‘I must be a bit overtired today.’
To – wildly and freely – paraphrase a few words from an iconic movie character:
Notes from the Hermit's Cave 