It’s often advised by spiritual teachers and leaders, by Gurus, and other religious people, that a vital factor in the success of any spiritual endeavour or quest, is that the seeker or devotee is able to share the association of other, fellow devotees.
It is important, they say, that the seeker keep company with fellow travellers on the same or similar paths.
So, how does that work for a hermit? How does the seeker committed to living a secluded life, separated physically from others, find this association with those like himself pursuing a spirituality oriented life, a life of devotion, prayer, contemplation, and service?
Well, this hermit can’t speak for hermits generally; he can only tell you how it is from his personal perspective. So, how do I manage to obtain association with fellow travellers on my path to the Divine?
Firstly, I am blessed to share my hermitage and my life with my partner hermit, as I have done for virtually the whole of my adult life.
And my partner is very much a fellow traveller on the path of commitment to the hermit life, to a life of prayer, devotion, service, and contemplation.
This makes me think of something purportedly said by the Lord Jesus:
For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them
Matt 18:20
In other words, when the two hermits are gathered in the name of the Divine, which is really all the time, then there is the Divine.
Of course, everything, all beings, all things, are the Divine. And, as if in confirmation of just that idea, something interesting happened. Out of curiosity, without any deeper thinking than that, I looked up Chapter 18 Verse 20 in my Bhagavad Gita. It was just for fun, but I ended up getting a nice surprise:
The knowledge by which the undivided supreme being is seen in all entities, though it is divided into numerous forms, is situated in the mode of goodness.
Bhagavad Gita 18:20
Supreme being, universal consciousness, the Christ, God, the Divine. Many names, one essence.
Even so, at times we feel alone, sometimes lonely.And isolated from others on the path of the Divine. So, what do I do to have this association with other devotees, with fellow travellers?
I make enquiries into the lives – both historical and contemporary – of others who have followed or are following a genuinely spiritual path and life. I watch online videos, I read books, as well as I subscribe to a few online newsletters which I discover by investigating websites I’m led to in some way. All these provide so much opportunity for association, for connection, and for learning.
Such explorations, are at the very least, informative: I can see – or read – for myself the evidence that I am not alone and never have been, in my commitment to the Divine and a spiritual life.
They are inspiring and encouraging: I’m not alone! I can do it! And often I get ideas, clues, on how I might deepen my practice, improve my service, love more.
I love the hermit life
In a sense such stories – in visual or in word form – ‘keep me company’. As I said a couple of times already (sorry!) I’m not alone. And I can smile, perhaps nod my head in agreement (or shake it in disagreement) with a comment or observation from one of my fellow devotees on the screen, or on the page. I guess in a way, it gives me a sense of belonging or connection.
Some might say that encountering people or experience via a video or book, is vicarious at best. But I wonder about that actually: Remember my fondness for the Ripple Effect? For my strong feeling for sending out good vibrations?
And, what did Jesus say about when two or three gather? He never mentioned that it was necessary for those two or three to be sharing the same physical space.
Life’s lonely; we all know that, and to encounter like-minded, or like-hearted people sharing a similar path to mine, is more than a prayer answered. It’s a life affirming, love affirming, blessing.
Well, here we are with the third and final part of our contemplations on Flee, Be silent, Pray Always, the answer discovered by our friend Arsenius who was looking for a way to be saved from the the things of the world.
In a very real sense, this third injunction might be seen as the most important of the three. Indeed, again in a very real sense, those first two seem to me to be prerequisites for the third. Certainly, many of us would like to flee to a place and state of silence in order to escape the world and its many and varied causes of our suffering. Such people are simply and completely over the noise, the chaos, war, greed, the complexity of relationships, and all the rest.
Then there are many many others who, rather than looking to escape the world, are wanting to ‘flee’ towards a place and state of silence in order to engage more fully with the world by contemplation, meditation, and most of all, prayer. Such people are working towards making their entire lives a prayer.
And then there are the third group which is made up of those who have some sense of running away from the world while at the same time they feel compelled to move towards a contemplative life that they sense will be the best way they can actually serve the world.
I think I can include myself in this last group. I’ve never coped well with masses of people, being in the workforce, or dealing with the horrors that the world seemed to be overwhelmed with.
At the same time, I’ve always wanted to (and have tried to) combat injustice, racism, violence and the rest. I guess you could sum it up by putting it this way: I was (still am) an oversensitive person who one day had had enough of trying to ‘fight the system’ when it was the system making and changing the rules of the game as it went along.
Better I thought, to turn inwards in order to reach or realise my oneness with all living things. I’ve always been predisposed to praying as well, so it was a natural evolution in many ways. My intention and commitment these last few years has been (and still is of course) to pray continuously and with all my being.
My prayer is for the release from suffering for all living beings and that’s my central focus for prayer. For me, it feels very much that I am a lot more use to others living what I think of as a prayerful contemplative life than being actively engaged with the world out there in the midst of it all so to speak.
Pray Always
Prayer for me is not so much about petitioning some all-powerful being who is seemingly on a whim able to grant or refuse my wishes. For me it is more an affirmation of the reality of my already existent oneness with the entirety of the universe. It’s a way of seeking to actually realise that this oneness is my very Self.
Prayer is about being present, not wishing blindly that things be different than they are. In praying I seek to affirm that the ‘universe is unfolding as it should’, as it says in a famous poem I’ve always loved. (Actually if you don’t know about Desiderata [Things Desired] then please do check it out; you’ll love it).
I think that in this sense, prayer is in fact an act of mindfulness, or rather an act which will help develop a mindfulness practice. It is a way to practise being fully focused and present to whatever is going on, whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.
And if we’re able to be present – even on a temporary or momentary basis – then we will be more calm, more at peace, and more able to achieve some clarity in our lives and with whatever is the intention with our prayer.
I know it might sound like a clumsy attempt at a clever play on words, but we’ve described mindfulness as the practice of being fully present. But we can put it another way. We can define that state of being fully present as being in presence. Like what we might say to a friend who is daydreaming while we are trying to talk to them. We might say something like ‘so and so, your presence would be appreciated’.
In presence of what? I would say everything. When we are absolutely in the present moment (again even momentarily), when we are able to realise our oneness with all things. Essentially the universe is there – or is it here? – with you in that present moment. It’s a moment when we may indeed feel we are in the presence of all that is.
Some may call that presence God, or the Divine, or Universal Consciousness. Others may see it as being in the presence of their own true and authentic Self.
That leads quite nicely to the next aspect of prayer that I want us to look at. Praying to God. I’ve spent so long on mindfulness because I wanted to stress that I don’t think it’s necessary to have a personal name or form for God, or even a notion of an unmanifested, invisible ‘force’ called God, in order to pray.
On the other hand for me, and I know for a lot of people, there are names and forms of the universal consciousness that pervades and permeates the universe, that I personally resonate with and I can reach out to them whenever the feeling or inclination arises. It sounds a bit odd to say, but for me to think that all that is, is all that is, sort of sums it up.
And as a result of that, any prayer I pray is addressed to my own Self which is simply part and parcel of all there is. In other words, it’s a personal choice for any one of us what form or name we choose to pray to. Or if we don’t pray to a name and form at all. All is one.
One thing I’ve mentioned I think a couple of times is the idea of making all our activities into a prayer, but other than the discussion on mindfulness and presence, I’ve not really addressed the how and why.
Why is pretty obvious. Because living and acting mindfully helps us in so many way such as being more peaceful, more relaxed, happier, and so on. The how, now I’m thinking about it is the purpose of this post. And it’s also true to say we’ve been talking about it since this series began.
That is to say, we flee from the aspects of our lives that don’t serve us and which can be changed. This might be a decision to spend 30 minutes every day sitting quietly and undisturbed. And as we’ve mentioned a few times already it could be going all out and moving to a desert cave somewhere.
In both those scenarios we give ourselves the opportunity to be silent and, hopefully also surrounded by silence. How to pray always? There’s an expression I love and try to live by: Follow your Dharma. Here Dharma means your own truth, being authentic to who you are, having the intention to do what’s right in all situations. And of course actually following through with that intention if at all possible. In this way you transform every action into prayer.
Living a life of prayer does seem on the face of it to not involve much use of spoken prayers, as in saying prayers with words. Well, I don’t intend to be humourous here, but a great deal of prayer does it fact involve talking to one’s Self. To the real self, that part of us that’s part of everything else. It can do us good to have these deep conversations.
Then of course there are the many many prayers that already exist to serve people from so many traditions, cultures, to suit all kinds of purposes and intentions.
Many of us will be familiar with a number of prayers learnt when we were children. If you’re anything like me, they still pop up by themselves from time to time.
Actually as I deepen my prayer practice, I’m discovering that I’m remembering all sorts of prayers from many and varied sources. I think as I dig deeper, more and more are coming up to the surface.
This prayer (by Thomas Merton I think) resonates deeply with me
If these ‘pre-prepared’ prayers say what you want to say and in a way that resonates with you, then you are free to choose those that feel right for you. I guess I mix and match the prayers I use; it’s always dependent on my feelings, thoughts, and intentions at the time.
Like Arsenius, I try to be open and responsive to whatever the ‘answers’ are, even though my ego does sometimes when it doesn’t like the answer, try and control outcomes.
One point about such prayers: I find it tempting oftentimes to simply recite them at what I’ve heard described as lip level. By rote and without emotion, in other words. At those times I try to slow down or pause to reflect on what I’m doing and why to get back in touch with Self.
A major part of my prayer life is chanting mantra. I try to spend more time chanting as time passes. There are a number that I use depending on inclination and need.
I chant anywhere and sometimes a mantra will start chanting itself, surprising me by its arrival
(This photo isn’t me by the way)
Now, probably one of the most important aspects of my own prayer life: I know I’ve mentioned my intentions in praying at all, but one aspect I haven’t mentioned is praying as devotion.
Devotion as in worship, praise, as in gratitude for the beauty in my life, as an expression of love. Knowing with the mind that all is one is fine, but these kinds of prayers help us to cement our awareness of that oneness of all living beings. As I said earlier, I, like you or anyone else, may use particular names and forms to represent this oneness, but, well, it’s all one, so we are non-different from all those names and forms.
Lord Sri Krishna is among my favourite forms of Universal Consciousness (also known as Brahman)
There are many representations of the Divine, but Krishna and this picture of Him are special to me.
Focusing your devotion on a particular form seems to help make it easier or more real. It’s tricky to pray to and with a thing that has no form and is invisible.
So, my friends I hope what I’ve said here is of some little interest to you and that you have found at least something you can use for your own life.
Something quite different today. I had planned to write the second part of our contemplations on Armenius’s answer to his prayer. But then I came across a short story from quite a few years ago now, that seems to speak directly to our series title, Flee, Be Silent, Pray Always.
Grab a cup of tea, relax and enjoy the story
I offer it, I share it with you now in the hope that you will find it interesting and (or) entertaining. It’s going to make this post way way longer than usual, but I hope you find it worthwhile to spend some little time reading it.
So, with love, here is the story I once called:
LEAD ME NOT INTO TEMPTATION
The old carpetbag perched as if it ” a living thing, an alien visitor from the other world, in the middle of Brian’s old table. Its bulging bulk and musty smell, a constant reminder of its threatening presence.
It had been three days now and he knew he’d have to make up his mind soon, make some sort of decision. He had to find a way to deal with this.
Brian, or Brother Brian as he would prefer to be known, had made the long climb to this crumbling stone house a long time ago. He could no longer tell how many years it had been. All his life he had known what his destiny was to be. Even as a child, he had felt the call of the mountains and the monastic life. But, like most people, he had ignored the call, ignored his destiny, and settled for an ordinary life: school, university and a job shuffling papers for some obscure government department.
Then, one day without warning, he walked out of the office, sold his belongings, packed a small bag and caught a one-way flight to India. He didn’t know quite what he was looking for, but he did know it was something vaguely spiritual. He thought that if he couldn’t find a spiritual life in India, then he wouldn’t find it anywhere.
It didn’t take him long to find his way to the remote mountain monastery of a reclusive order of contemplative monks. For Brian, it didn’t matter what they taught, what lineage, gurus, or teachings they followed; for him it was the simple and quiet life of meditation that was the main attraction.
Now, all these years later as he sat staring at the carpetbag, he reflected on how fast time can pass when you spend your days meditating and working in the gardens that supplied the monastery. Sighing, he thought that they had been good years. Was it ten? Twelve? No, it was ten years he spent in that place. But, for some reason he could no longer fathom, he had decided that the so-called isolation of the monastery wasn’t isolated enough for him.
Then, smiling, he remembered: after a while the other monks’ constant chatter had begun to irritate him; he had begun to long for total silence.
Not our monk’s actual hermitage!
The Abbot understood Brian’s need for quiet and deeper contemplation. After all, he had been his mentor and advisor for many years and knew his student well. He told Brian of the old house, long abandoned, that lay just over a week’s walk in the hills above the monastery.
So, along with a brother monk to accompany him on his trek and help him carry cooking utensils, food and seeds for the garden he planned, Brother Brian left his home.
There weren’t many comings or goings at the monastery, so Brian’s leaving was a momentous event in the life of the community. Not sad, not happy; these monks had long since learned that what happens is simply what happens. But, for Brian, there was a sneaking sense of excitement as he began the long, but welcome, trek to what he hoped would be his home for the rest of his life.
He embraced his brother with a farewell. Brian smiled as it occurred to him that this was likely to be his last ever contact with a fellow human being. Soon the brother was gone, and Brian was alone. He surveyed the house and saw it wasn’t as bad as he’d been led to believe. Why, there was even a table and chairs to sit at.
It was the work of an hour to place his meagre belongings in their place in the house. And so his life of true isolation began. The years passed and Brian’s prediction proved accurate: he saw nobody, heard no human sounds. His only contact with that other world was the monthly cache of rice and other staples the Abbot arranged to have dropped off for him to collect a couple of hours walk downhill from the house.
Brian always ensured that he would not encounter the brother who made that long trek for him. Lately though, he had seen the tracks of a horse and cart. The monastery must have modernized, he’d laughed to himself at the time. Samsara, he thought, it’ll get you every time.
His plan for total seclusion and quiet had worked for a long time. But now as he stared at the carpetbag, he remembered the day that other visitor from the other world had come calling. It was six months ago now and he’d been at his cooking fire, about to ladle his daily rice into his bowl, when he heard the knock.
At first, it was just another sound from the old house that had over the years developed its own voice, or so Brian liked to think. But the knocking persisted, grew louder, and that did strike him as odd.
Putting down his bowl he went to the door of the house, opened it and came face to face with the first human he had seen since his brother had left him here all those years before.
‘Are you Brian?’ the apparition questioned.
Brian, for some moments, had no answer. It’d been a very long time since he had heard another human voice, and just as long since he’d had to use his own to give an answer to anyone.
‘Are you the man known as Brother Brian?’ The voice was more insistent now and Brian saw its owner seemed to be dressed in some kind of uniform. Was he a policeman? A soldier?
‘I am Brian. His voice shocked him.
‘Well, this letter is for you. It is from the government and it is necessary to deliver it to you in person. That bloody Abbot fellow tried to stop me, but it is my duty you know.’
So, this stranger was a postman. He shoved the letter into Brian’s hand, turned and marched away, leaving Brian standing dumbly in his doorway.
After some time Brian came out of his stunned reverie. He stared at the letter, which did indeed bear his name, or rather the name he once owned and was of use only in that other world he’d turned his back on. And it bore the crest of the government. Brian could not begin to work out what it was about.
But, realizing that there was only one way to find out, he opened the tattered and crumpled envelope.
Before he even read the letter’s contents, Brian’s world fell apart. The date at the top of the typewritten page transported him back into that other world. As if the long intervening years had counted for nothing, he became who he had been then.
That date told him how long he had been away from the place of his birth; it said to him that he was not alone. His years of practice, of attempting to exist in a timeless state with only nature’s seasons to guide his daily activities, suddenly seemed to have no meaning. But what he read next was almost beyond his comprehension:
Dear Sir
You have lived in our country for many years. We believe you are a member of a religious community. However, such a status does not exempt you from the very strict immigration rules that we have put in place to ensure the security and well-being of our nation and her people.
It has recently come to our attention that your original visa was for a period of six months only. Therefore, you are in this country illegally.
We have decided to be lenient in your case and have not insisted on your immediate arrest and detention pending trial for the extremely serious crime of visa violation. We hereby inform you are to leave this country by no later than three weeks from the date on this letter.
Please be warned that should you not present yourself Immigration officials at your chosen point of departure by that date, action will be taken to place you under arrest and your case will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Yours truly
Ministerfor Immigration
Brian was calm. He folded the letter, returned it to its envelope and placed it on the little shelf he reserved for his few books and papers. It would not be correct to say that Brian’s life and routine returned normal; he was really only going through the motions, tending his garden, even meditating a little more than usual.
But he was disturbed. Not only had his isolation been broken by the visit of the postman all those months ago, he was as the letter demanded, being forced to leave his safe haven, his home of all these years.
But it was neither of these two issues that seemed to occupy him most on this day. As time passed from what he now called the Day of the Letter, Brian had grown increasingly restless. He found himself spending long hours daydreaming and remembering his old life, his life before that day he walked out of the office and bought a one-way ticket. He even sometimes caught himself wondering what life would be like if he walked back down the mountain.
And now, six months later, he sat staring at the carpetbag. He smiled now, remembering the threat in the letter: he’d had three weeks to leave. Still, he remembered from his old life how slow bureaucracy could move sometimes. He reached down to rub the soreness on the side of his lower leg. As he felt the scratches, he recalled how he’d come by them. Actually, he thought, if it hadn’t been for the carpetbag and its soft bulk, he might have been more badly injured …
Along with that general restlessness engendered by The Day of the Letter, he sensed a growing dissatisfaction, a dissatisfaction that had not passed, even after so many months.
And these feelings seemed to extend to the house itself, still as tumbledown as it was when he’d first laid eyes on it all those years ago. Suddenly it didn’t seem good enough and he had an irresistible urge to improve it, to fix it up a little, as he liked to put it.
So, it was three days ago, and he was rummaging around in one of the small outbuildings at the back of the house. He trod with care: the rough floorboards were all loose and in varying stages of decay. And, sure enough, all his care didn’t prevent the inevitable. As he reached for a bundle of metal garden stakes that he thought might make a fine tripod for his cooking pot, his foot sunk into the floor as one of the rotten boards gave way.
He didn’t sink far; something solid but soft got in the way. Pulling his leg out he saw it had been cut. A small amount of blood oozed from some long scratches. Even so, he realized hed been lucky not to have gone in further and he wondered what had broken his fall.
He peered into the hole and saw what looked like a fabric bag. He reached in and pulled it out. Nice bag, he thought, with his newly reacquired eye for things of the outside world. He seemed to remember that such a bag was called a carpetbag.
Standing up and heaving the bag from the floor, Brian was surprised by its weight. He decided to take the bag, reeking of dust and the musty smell of damp and age, into the house before opening it to see what was inside.
How different he was since the Day of the Letter, he thought as he sat three days since finding the carpetbag, staring at the thing. How many years had he been here without even setting foot in that shed? Anyway, it’d been a very long time since he had been even remotely interested in anything of a material nature.
But, at the time he found the bag, he had acted without a second thought; it was just natural to take the bag from its hiding place and into the house. And it seemed perfectly normal for him to want to open it and look inside.
He had lugged the carpetbag through the door and into his house, heaving the heavy load onto his table. The dust made him cough, but he didn’t hesitate. The bag’s zip was rusty, but came apart easily. However, the sight of the bags contents did make him hesitate.
Bundles of paper that he could see were old English banknotes. Pulling himself together, he started taking out the bundles, twenty in all. He guessed that each bundle had to contain several hundred pounds. Of course, he knew that they were no longer legal currency, but on the antique market, he was sure they would fetch a fortune.
At the very bottom of the bag, he found a large pouch, heavy and solid. Opening the drawstring, he found it full of stones. Pulling out a handful, he realized they were small diamonds, dozens of them. Mixed with the diamonds were stones of many colours: red rubies, green emeralds, purple amethysts.
Even his newfound interest in material things was defeated by this discovery. He returned the pouch and the wads of banknotes to the carpetbag and set the thing in the middle of his table. Suddenly he felt the pain from the scratches on his leg, so he left the house and went to the little stream he used for water and washed the wounds.
For those three days he went about his daily routines as best he could. But he had to pass his table and the carpetbag many times a day, and it came to preoccupy his thoughts. Its contents could ease his re-entry to the outside world in a very nice way. In fact, he doubted he would ever have to think about getting a job or earning a living. But this was his home. No matter how much the postman with his letter had pulled him back to that other world, no matter how much stuff, how many things, this carpetbag and its cargo could buy, he’d have to leave his home.
So he sat and stared. He didn’t think; he’d gone over and over his choices. He couldn’t do it anymore. He just stared, and time passed. With a start, Brian realized it was dark and that the house was cold. Still not thinking, only acting, he went to the little shelf and retrieved the letter and a pencil. He returned to the table where he sat and began to write on the back of the envelope in the tiny script he’d mastered all those years ago when he still thought keeping a journal was a useful practice.
My Dear Brother Abbot
How many years you and my other dear brothers have made the arduous trek to bring to me the staples that keep this body alive. No words of gratitude would ever be enough to tell you how I feel. Of course, I know if I were there with you now you would tell me that you and they are only doing what needs to be done for a brother. Still.
When this letter arrived, I was deeply disturbed. I found myself thinking of and longing for the old world of my youth. I found myself falling into Samsara again. I did not like this, but I found it drove me to change my world here. I began to be obsessed by the need to improve the house in a physical way.
While I went about this crazy business, I injured myself by stepping through a rotten floorboard. My fall was stopped, and my injuries lessened by this carpetbag that I now send to you.
However, in the three days since, I have not been able to engage correctly in my daily routines and practice. When you see what is in the bag you will understand my distress and confusion. On the other hand, you might not: you are so much more advanced along the path to enlightenment than I.
I have just sat through a long dark night of the soul, completely lost and not aware of this body or this material world that surrounds me. When I rose from this state, I knew what I had to do. The letter in this envelope and this carpetbag and its contents do not belong to me, nor do they belong in my world. I send them to you because I do not know what else to do with them.
As always, I rely on your help. You have always been there for me when I stumble and as I enter the bliss.
Your brother salutes you dear Abbot.
Brian
Scooping up the letter and dragging the carpetbag off the table, Brian strode out of the house, and in the darkness, trod the well-worn path to the spot his brothers brought his supplies to.
Long ago, he had built a small shelter for the brothers to rest in, and in which perishable items could be left. He placed the bag there and, with a large stone, weighted down the letter so it would not be missed when the brother next came.
As he rose from this task, Brian saw that it would soon be dawn. He would have to hurry if he was to make it back to the house for his morning meditation.
THE END
If you’ve made it this far, thank you. I hope you had an enjoyable and interesting read. Next post will truly be part 2 of the series, and we will be contemplating the second part of Armenius’s message: Be Silent.
Indeed, it is clear to all who dwell there that through them the world is kept in being
I jotted down this note I forget how long ago. Over the last few years I’ve read a lot about the early Christian hermits who lived in the deserts of Egypt, Syria, and other areas of that area we label the Middle East.
While I think it was one of these early hermits who uttered these words, it may instead have been a monk or hermit from the 9th or 10th Century, living in the forests of Russia or Eastern Europe. (I wish was a lot less careless with sources for things I note down).
In any case, it was spoken by a hermit or monk who, along with perhaps thousands of other men and women, fled the strict dogmatism of both government and religious institutions , as well as the corruption, materialism, noise, and all the other distractions of the cities and towns.They went to the deserts, the forests, and other remote places, in search of solitude, silence, and peace.
They longed to commune with the divine. They chose to bypass the mire of worldliness, and hoped to find a better way to serve the divine and the world. The writer or speaker of our quote is pointing our attention to all those who went to the deserts, the forests, and other sanctuaries, who in her or his words, believe they are actually keeping the world going, and its people too.
These nuns, monks, priests and hermits, knew that by communing with the divine without distractions, and living a simple life completely and absolutely centred on the divine, was the way to save the world.
‘So’, you might be saying with a slightly cynical tone in your voice: ‘These are people who have ‘escaped’ from the world and are ignoring governments and the law, rejecting social status of any kind, not associating with other people like other good citizens. They’ve gone to sit in a hut or cave or whatever and are doing nothing productive at all. They’re not buying stuff so they aren’t contributing the the economy. And you say they are the ones keeping the world spinning round? Hardly.’
There are hermits everywhere.
Yes, I think they are. Keeping the world spinning I mean. Just as mystics from all the world’s religious traditions, these women and men of the deserts – and the forests too – knew that the world they’d left behind wasn’t real. Well, yes, it’s real enough of course: I mean we only have to look around us, and feel the workings of our bodies. It’s real alright.
But, realer (I know, it’s not a real word) than this physical world we are in and are an integral part of, is what lies within us as well as everything else in the Universe:
Holy Wanderer Detached from all Worldly Entanglements
The divine, God, the life force, Consciousness. So many names for the same thing. Many of us sense that at the core of ourselves there is ‘something else’; that there is some kind of intelligence for wont of a better word. This intelligence is what illumines life, as in life, the universe, and everything.
But, we don’t see this, or not so often anyway. The mire of worldliness (a phrase I mentioned earlier and which I like very much) seems to be specifically designed to keep us in the dark so to speak, about our true nature.
Think about the seemingly endless focus on materialism with its temptations and promises to make us happy; the conflict and competition among individuals and nations to acquire more power, possessions, land and anything else that ‘they’ve got and that we want’.
Mire is a good word: We’re trapped and sinking fast in a kind of quicksand.
And this mire keeps us from becoming aware, from realizing, that we are the Consciousness (the word I prefer but, as I said, names are just names) mentioned above. It keeps us ignorant of our true nature, and we go on and on struggling to keep afloat in the world.
The hermits of the past and the present, the nuns, monks and other contemplative people of all kinds, and, in many and various places, are all engaged in a quest to know – and yes, to realise – that they and everything else in the material and non-material universe is Consciousness.
I believe that, far from being unproductive, from ‘doing nothing’, It is the engagement by such people everywhere with this quest that does indeed keep the world in being.
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons Thank you
I would like to leave you with a couple of quotes if I may. The first is from Abba Moses, one of the greatest of the early desert fathers who was born in Ethiopia and lived in Egypt in the 4th Century:
‘Our objective is puritas cordis,’ Abba Moses told Cassian and Germanus [fellow monks]. ‘A heart kept free of all disturbance. The more we cultivate such inner stability, the more we can offer our lives in service to the world.’
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons Thank you
The second quote I would like to share is from Saint Seraphim of Sarov, a 19th Century Russian monk who lived as a hermit deep in the woods:
‘Acquire a peaceful spirit, and thousands around you will be saved.’
Remain in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything
This piece of advice from one of the early Christian desert hermits to a follower has been going round in my head for ages. And I mean a couple of years at least. I’d read it in several books at the time, and I’ve seen it in a few since.
Of course, most of the writers of those books interpreted this advice at face value, literally advising the student, hermit, monk, or other contemplative person to stay in their physical cell (hut, cave monastery cell, suburban bedroom, wherever is their permanent dwelling) and listen, meditate, study, and contemplate. The advice is, stay in that space in silence and seclusion. Quite possibly forever.
‘But it could be the cell of your Self,’ my partner hermit said to me one time. And yes, I thought, that’s exactly right. I liked the symbolism. The actual literal, physical space and its geographical location isn’t necessarily the important factor. What’s important is that you, the real you is actually fully present wherever you are, right here, right now.
Think about what it really means to be present – to be here now: It means that you can say, ‘This is the only space and the only moment that exists. Right here and right now.’
Living life is an ever-flowing movement or process, and at the same time (excuse the unintended pun) is always occuring in the present. And in that ongoing moment you – your Self -is always there.
Of course along for the ride is your little s self with its ego, chattering and never quiet mind reminding you of the distractions, stresses, anxieties, worries about things to do or not do, memories of the past, and fears for the future. It goes on and on.
But, still, that space within where you can meditate, pray, contemplate quietly, that’s your Self, your ‘cell’.
I’ve always liked and worn hoodies. I guess a lot of people do. For some it’s about fashion; others wear them for warmth in cold weather or to keep the sun off when it’s hot; some people even use them to hide.
Then there are others such as nuns, monks, priests and others too, for whom a hood is a part of the robe they wear as a member of their particular group.
In those cases, a hood is called a cowl and most often it’s a largish loose hood sewn onto the robe or habit. Just like a regular hoodie.
I read somewhere (I forget where) that some groups nickname these cowls ‘cells’. In other words, the wearer carries their cell with them wherever they go.
Of course they don’t always actually wear the hood on their heads, but whenever they wish or need to retreat to their cells, all they have to do is simply pull their hood up and over their head and all of a sudden they are in their own private and solitary world; they are in their cell.
As I said earlier, I like the symbolism. But more than that: I find wearing a hood on my head or simply in standby mode, comforting.
I’m not overly good with crowds, or in close proximity to other people on a bus or train or whatever. I like knowing that just by pulling my hood on, I’m able to create my own space apart from my surroundings. In that space I can feel safe and kind of apart.
Even at home I wear a hood when I’m meditating or praying. It’s just one more opportunity to retreat into my cell, into Self
Watercolour by Pauline (with digital enhancement by the Hermit)
Vibing on the mystic trees, their upside is downside, their downside is upside selves telling me: You’ve got to cut through the attachments. Then, not a new, but old made new again, insight confirms, clarifies, brings details to, shines a light on the specifics: Stop desiring what you already have.
By the River’s Light I’ll Live My Life out of sight of Babylon
A Note From Me: I can’t tell you who wrote these words. Maybe I did; maybe it’s a song lyric; or maybe it’s a quote from someone famous. Whatever the case, a half hour internet search failed to come up with anything even close. So, The best I can do is thank whoever did bring these beautiful words into the world. I hope you are pleased with how I’ve made use of them.
Welcome to another musing from the hermits’ cave. It’s been a while hasn’t it?
Mind you, I’ve been busy: settling into the new hermitage here in the desert. Actually, it’s been cloudy since we arrived, and raining sometimes. It’s as if the Subtropics have followed us here, except that it’s been freezing.
And I’ve been busy colouring in as well. Not as in filling in a picture book designed for colouring, but in making my own patterns and shapes with the one aspiration of making colour happen.
Japanese calligraphy masters will tell you that God is in the ink, or in my case in the pigment of the colour pencils I use. I draw designs, sometimes complex, sometimes simple, then fill the spaces with colour. Sometimes just one or two, sometimes multiple colours.
Why? Well, the simple answer is because I like doing it. I like to see colour covering the page, seeing it slowly fill that empty space. I’m not good at ‘drawing’ and painting in the traditional sense, but one thing I can do is make colour. So I do.
And it’s a sacred act: God is in the ink remember? It’s the making of beauty. And that is a holy act. There’s that aphorism isn’t there? It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness?
Or, I could say that it’s better to make colour and patterns than it is to be swamped by the darkness.
There’s a Bhagavad Gita verse I like that I came across again the other day:
If one’s thoughts are fully absorbed in the Absolute all his [sic] spiritual offerings also become a part of that same Absolute
Bhagavad Gita 4:24
In other words, all our actions – and we never cease from activity while we dwell in a material body – are not only prayers or offerings to that Absolute (or you can say to God, to beauty, to art, to love, to the universe, to life. Or you don’t have to name it at all. None of the names and forms are relevant) but in fact become that Absolute.
I am a hermit pilgrim, living a contemplative life devoted to the Absolute we just talked about. I have little to offer, but I offer all that I am. And with my photographs, and with my ‘colouring in’, I try to create a little bit of the sacred, a lit bit of colour and beauty to keep us all away from the darkness.
Greetings friends. I welcome you from my new hermitage in desert country.
You know, it’s an old idea, a cliché even, to say that we, all of us, are on a pilgrimage called life, a Hero’s Journey as it’s called by the Mythologists. And, on any such journey there is what those same scholars call a Call to Adventure.
They are the times when we are challenged by life to commit to an action that will stretch us somehow, take us out of our comfort zone, change our life; to make a move; take a risk; embark on a journey either internally or out in the physical world.
So, when I tell you I got a call to come out here to the desert, and that I answered it, why the necessity to add ‘eventually’? What happened to delay that journey? Well, that’s what our Mythologist friends call The Refusal of the Call.
They’re the times when, once we’ve heard the call, and when we’ve felt its rightness, we still say no. Not now. And we come up with all kinds of perfectly reasonable explanations for our refusal.
In my case, I said, hey, it’s fine here; I’m near the beach; I really have no reason to move; there are plenty of ‘other places’ to check out first. The excuses went on and on.
All along though, there was this place, this country, calling. Of course ‘the desert’ isn’t always or for everybody the literal sand covered land, that gets very hot, and is generally thought of as barren and even hostile. It can also be a metaphor for any place – or no place in particular – that is a place of retreat, a quiet place, a place for living apart from the mainstream of human life.
For some people inclined to a life of contemplation and solitude, this place might be a small hut in a forest or a wood, or a camp on a remote beach on an even more remote island. Then there are others who are called to an actual cave high in the mountains, or on the banks of some sacred river somewhere.
And, equally, the desert, the place of retreat, quiet, solitude, and living apart, may well be an apartment or house in a suburb, or even in the centre, of a big city.
Then there’s me: called to this desert town of Broken Hill, almost but not quite in the centre of the continent of Australia. It is deep in the arid zone: it’s very far out back here in the Outback, 1500 kilometres inland from the east coast to be precise.
Yes, well this is all well and good, but shouldn’t I be answering my own question: why eventually? Well, we’ve covered the excuses, but really isn’t that just plain old procrastination? Yes indeed. If we get back to our Mythologist friends once more, we learn there is a stage in this Hero’s Journey that follows on from the Refusal: The Supernatural Act.
These are the times when things happen that seem to come at us out of the blue, from no rational, logical, or explainable source. Something that we might find hard to beleive at first because it’s way out there; supernatural like it says.
But that supernatural bit doesn’t have to take a spooky form, it might be that the ‘supernatural act’ is an internal insight or realisation triggered by a perfectly natural occurance. That’s what happened for me. What was this non-spooky, natural event that prompted such internal insights and realisations in me and got me moving?
Rain. Yes, rain. It rained almost every day for over six months. I am very very blessed that I wasn’t affected by flooding as so many in nearby area were, and I am thankful for that. But it’s safe to say that rain, mud, no sun, and limited or no access to the outside for days or weeks at a time, soured my romance with the coastal lifestyle.
You could say that through the sound of rain on the roof, I could still hear the call of the desert. In fact it got so loud that, eventually, I could no longer ignore it.
So, eventually, I answered the call, and here I am. Here is a small miner’s cottage and my new hermitage, my new safe haven by the side of the road. The cottage is situated in a mining town that sprung up in the 1880s. So this cottage has been home to miners and their families for generations, including the current owners.
In a sense it’s quite likely that I am the first occupant who hasn’t been or isn’t a miner. Though you might say that my excavations, rather than being in the dark underworld beneath the surface of Mother Earth, are taking place in the equally dark, hidden interior places of Self. A mining of another sort you might say.
Before flying out here, I was thinking about what was actually calling me to the desert (putting aside the rain for a moment). After all, I lived in a small cabin in a park like setting literally five minutes walk to a pristine Pacific Coast beach; I had trees and forest like spaces all round, as well as a small river two minutes walk. And that’s not even thinking about the abundance of wildlife.
And it occured to me that it is the stillness of the desert that was calling to me. This town of Broken Hill is a mid size town (actually a small city with about 15000 people), with the usual shops, cars, people, and the rest.
Yet there is a stillness. No longer can I hear the constant sound of seawaves crashing. No longer can I sense the never stopping coming in and going out of sea tides. And out here, it seems like even the people are moving quite a bit slower too. I’ve yet to see a single person rushing about. And they seem to smile a lot as well.
The street I live on is extremely quiet, and even on the so-called ‘busy streets’ there isn’t the mad acceleration and braking we’d see everywhere on the coast. Of course there is the odd driver who thinks every car is a racecar, but where don’t you get that?
But, actually it’s more than this. There is, beyond the actual literal quietness, a silence that seems to exist as an entity or state of being in its own right.
A stillness that is a solid thing, just as on the coast there was (is I suppose) a constant frenetic atmosphere that seemed to overlay everything. People rushing – on foot or in cars – even when there seems to be no reason for hurry (though of course you can never tell can you?). And not so many smiles either.
Contemplative people, those seeking solitude, and peace and quiet in which to pray, to live slowily, and to explore the divine, have been drawn or called to deserts (in all its forms) for thousands of years or longer. And I am fortunate enough to have finally (eventually) heeded the call myself.
Here, away from the incessant acceleration and braking (I do like this expresion), and in that stillness that envelops this land, perhaps I can dig a little deeper, uncover a bit of quiet, and discover a piece of solitude.
Out here, in the Outback, life can be harsh for all living beings, often dangerous in its aridity and isolation. It’s a long way from major cities, food and supply chains are extended to extreme limits, and the human hold on the land is precarious at best.
Yet, the paradox exists: out here far from the fertile coasts, the soft sandy beaches, the major urban centres where the mainstream of (human) life goes on, there is a quiet, a peace, a stillness that seems to pervade the very air one breathes.
A wise person wrote something short and sweet that sums all this up for me:
Notes from the Hermit's Cave 