Tag Archives: ‘spiritual practice

Note To Self: Keep Chanting

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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.

Swami Tadatmanda Resident teacher at Arsha Bodha Centre

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.

Just keep chanting

Hare Krishna!

You’re Already There.

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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!

A Case of Mixed Feelings & Questions of Identity

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Yesterday, after getting back to the Hermitage from a walk around the block, I went to take off my shoes.

Actually, I thought, while I’ve got my shoes on I may as well spray the weeds out the front and out the back in the courtyards of the Hermitage.

Sounds like an innocent and innocuous thing to say and do doesn’t it? Well, in fact it is a far from innocuous euphemism which in reality has me saying: I’ll apply some poison through a spray bottle to the leaves and stems of plants somebody or other has classified weeds, in order to kill them slowly over a few days.

Needless to say, this activity always evokes mixed feelings in me. Like everything else in the material life, this issue has two sides concerning the rightness and wrongness of ‘spraying the weeds’.

On the one hand, I understand that we humans are merely one more species along with so many others. We have to do what we need to do in order to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves.

Weeds, I know, interfere with humans’ ability to grow food for example. In this context weeds are those plants that threaten to overrun, damage, or reduce supplies of ‘acceptable’ food plant species. Thinking about it now, it strikes me that the decisions about is it a weed or is it not a weed, can be pretty subjective.

On the other hand I personally do not want – nor do I think it right – to kill other living things. Of course, and clearly obvious too, it’s a bit more nuanced than a simple choice between do I? or don’t I?

I eat plants of many varieties, and in many forms, and I understand very well that they are all living beings. And, add to that, how many insects, lizards, snails, small mammals, birds, and other animals are displaced, injured, or killed in the planting, growing, harvesting, packaging, transport, and sale of the fruits, vegetables, nuts and so on that I eat?

Like I said earlier, the human species, like all others, must do what it has to to survive. Obviously, again being human, we have minds capable of discernment and decision making that can help us minimise the harm we cause as we pursue survival.

For me, a major component of that harm minimization takes the form of not eating the flesh of animals, as well as my choice to not utilise items made from animals.

Even with this there is a problem: Who’s to say what life forms are acceptable as food, and which aren’t? Humans have invented the scary idea of the Food Chain. We simply decide who is higher and who is lower on that chain and eat accordingly.

Needless to say, humans have appointed themselves to be the highest species on that ‘food chain’. Meaning of course, anything else is lower and hence okay as food.

Anyway, I digress a bit. Getting away from food questions, to look specifically once again at the ‘weeds’ to be sprayed in the Hermitage garden.

I often ask myself what is it that makes one plant with big orange flowers acceptable as a garden plant? Of course it’s beautiful, ornamental, and a pleasure to have nearby, but what else?

But, what is it that makes another plant, with its delicacy and little flower that are equally beautiful and as pleasing to be around in my view, not acceptable as a garden plant? What makes this one a weed, while that first one we met in the previous paragraph not?

Well, it seems to me that the first answer has to do with necessity dictated by circumstances or conditions beyond one’s control.

As I’ve said, when it comes to growing food, it’s necessary to control plants that threaten that growth. Discernment comes in when we decide how to eliminate that threat with the least harm. One aspect of discernment is actually related to that subjectivity I mentioned before: one person’s weed, is another person’s delicious and nutritious food – and vice versa.

At the Hermitage we don’t grow our own food, so we don’t face that dilemma. Here, at the Hermitage, it is a condition of living here that we control the weeds. And the plants classed as weeds are well known to us due to this condition being a routine clause in most rental contracts.

Besides, it seems that another major factor that makes a plant a weed, is where it grows, how hard it is to keep in bounds and behave.

I guess it’s not only a requirement, that we control the weeds. It’s an issue for our discernment as we try to find ways to share this little patch of the world with the other life forms who also live in this space with us.

It is a wise discernment that tells us to follow the rules of the contract. And our discernment also shows us that, in this human built environment we live in, we can’t allow the space to be taken over by plants that would then provide a safe harbour for insects, rodents, and other creatures that might or would threaten our health and wellbeing and that of our neighbours.

In a pot rescued from a roadside pile of domestic discards, a variety of plants – weeds also rescued over a few months of ‘spraying the weeds’ as a kind of offering to and celebration of life – grow in a group.

It’s a pretty group, I think, of delicate, yet sturdy little lifeforms.

Are they still weeds? Now that I’ve placed them to grow in an ‘approved’ space? Now that they are confined by bounds within which I can control them?

Confined? Controlled? Perhaps for now, but not for long. It’s a comforting thought, realising they all have allies: the sun, the rain – and the wind.

At the same time, we consider all life forms, including humans, to be manifestations of the Divine. All life is one, as I assert so often. Speaking personally, I am sad that any lifeform that is harmed because of my actions and my material needs.

Discernment, compassion, love and mindful action. As we seek to coexist in peace with those beings we share our world and lives with, these things are all required. Empathy too: We are the weeds, the weeds are us.

And the inner editor is insisting I finish by reminding myself  that life, the universe, and all that happens, is unfolding exactly as it’s meant to; all we can do is play our part in that unfolding.

How Shall I Live?

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Thomas Merton in his hermitage (Courtesy Wikipedia)

The great study of the monk is to have an awakened heart

      Thomas Merton

      

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.

with love
Paul the Hermit

In the Dream The Word Was Written

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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.

Flee, Be Silent, Pray Always: A Revisit

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Courtesy Wikipedia

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?

We are here, and it is now.

with love
Paul the Hermit

Moment of Catharsis?

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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:

Catharsis is as catharsis does.

Taking it Slowly, Taking it Mindfully

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A small irony revealed itself to me just now as I prayed my way through the prayers inserted in the front of my Bhagavad Gita.

I’d completed one prayer and turned the page to the next. Then, without a pause or thought, I quickly turned the page again. I stopped, thought better of it, and turned back to attend to the prayer I’d skipped over.

Now, here’s the irony: The prayer on the first side of that carelessly and mindlessly leafed past page read simply:

Go slowly and mindfully in everything.

Well, that’s not the ironey itself. But, given that this was the page I had simply passed over without a thought, with no pause, the words written there obviously were a lesson for me.

A message to contemplate, to actually stop and pause with, mull over, meditate on, and perhaps make resolutions over. Advice to me to stop, to slow down.

Couldn’t be clearer really.

There’s no telling why I skimmed past that page, that prayer, without a pause. Could be a simple case of absent-mindedness, or a rush to see what was on the next page; a grass is greener type of thing.

Why I was rushing through the pages isn’t the point. What is to the point is here I am, doing morning prayers, praying some, then skipping others. The other point is that in this instance, for some reason I stopped, went back, and prayed the skipped prayers.

So, moving to the resolution.

It’s extraordinary to me when that kind of thing happens. (It does happen quite a lot, but unfortunately I only notice it occasionally) We will have an intuition, or receive a message from ourself that helps to us get back on track when we mess up.

In any case, it’s obvious that I’ve found what I might call the prayer of the day, the mission statement, so to speak, informing whatever activities I undertake today.

Slow and mindful in everything I do, say, and think. For now, for the present, that will the guide on the path of today that I will follow. Keeping in mind the adage that practise makes perfect, for when I falter.

Oh, another irony wrapped up with this one. The prayer on the facing page was also skipped, and in itself sheds another light on the message from that first one. That second prayer actually puts forward one, important, way in which I can actually set about achieving  that first one:

In other words: place more focus on, pay more attention to, the Divine in whatever form, and by whatever name, I encounter it today.

Works both ways I think: Making the effort to go slowly, to be mindful, puts us in the present moment. And, the present moment is the only place we’re going to be able to become aware of the Divine.

Then, as we become aware of the presence of the Divine, we are right where we need to be, when we need to be there in order to actually slow down and be more mindful.

PS These notes were made a few hours ago. Since then, I have on the whole practised being slow and mindful. Not perfectly, mind you, but then as I say, practise makes perfect. Even now as I type this – very attentively – my mind wanders, so there is a way to go for me. The day is not over yet!

It’s All There Is

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This is my second attempt to start this post. In the first try I just couldn’t see or feel my voice, myself. Right away, as I began making notes, I launched into and quickly became bogged down, in a wordy, overly complex rational discussion.

It seemed more suited to some kind of academic essay (not that I am remotely qualified to write such essays) than a note from the heart of a hermit contemplating from deep within his cell.

So, here I am beginning again. This time I hope I’ll find a little more of me in what I write, perhaps discern something a little more authentically heartfelt.

This post emerged from my desire to share with you a little about a small item that helps me as I chant my mantra. My mind seems to switch into strong wandering mode when I try to settle into Japa or chanting mantra mode.

So, I have a small card, made from a cereal box and measuring about 15×7.5 centimetres, decorated with lovely colour pencil designs, with the mantra written in pen. Oh, it’s covered in plastic for protection and longevity, and was given to me as a gift.

Having it in hand or close by when chanting allows me to focus on the words if my mind wanders. I read them slowly, mindfully and I find it puts my chanting back on track – until the next wandering thoughts announce their presence!

Actually we have a couple of similar cards scattered around the Hermitage. One lives on the window ledge above the kitchen sink, and always acts as a timely reminder to make even the washing of dishes an opportunity for prayer.

The View from the Kitchen Sink

Having my card acts as more than a prompter to me to remember and focus; it acts as a kind of tool for contemplation: when looking at the mantra written there, I often sense the meaning of the words, the importance and place of them. I don’t call this mind wandering, this is contemplation and I welcome it.

While on this level, my card can be viewed as a mere ‘prompt’, there are some who would – and do – say that the card, and the very words written on it, are in fact, much more than being simply physical stuff.

They would say that the card, and especially the words are literally, factually, and in truth the Divine (in this case in the form of Krishna). Just as some traditions maintain that ordinary bread is transformed through ritual, into the actual body and blood of their God who was once made human.

Not mine. I’ve had this as a file for ages, and love it. I think it was originally the size of a visiting card

For much of my life I dismissed such notions as mere fantasy, the products of literal interpretations accepted as dogma through blind faith. I’ve even in the past used the word nonsense to describe and dismiss such superstitions.

Nowadays though (and here comes the but, the however, the on the other hand) I’ve come to a slightly different view of the idea. Is my little card literally a piece of cereal box, decorated with nice coloured pencil work, with words written on it? Obviously it is. Of course it is a material thing existing in a material world.

Is the statue of a deity or saint in a church or temple a lump of stone, wood, metal, or other physical material? Again, it’s obviously a material thing with a material existence . Just as communion bread and wine are baked in a bakery, and brewed in a winery.

So, is my card, along with these other examples, merely a stand in, a symbol, a represention of the Divine?

No, I don’t think so.

Over recent times, my instinct, my heart, senses that, in truth, there is only God, only the Divine, only the Absolute Reality, what we can call existence, or being, itself. It seems to me that this Absolute Reality is everything, is everywhere; there can be nothing else.

One without a second, I’ve heard it described. It’s why, I think, we can look at a flower, a tree, the ocean, a person, or some other material object and be able to in awe remark ‘this is divine’. Or how when we hear birds singing in a nearby tree (or on a neighbour’s roof as I can now as I type this) we may have a sense that we have actually had an encounter with the Divine.

Lately I’ve become bored, uninterested, even irritated, with dogma (my own or that of others) and my constant striving for rational and logical answers. My heart tells me – it feels – that the Divine is all there is.

You, me, all that is visible, and all that is invisible, is all there is, one unity. No, not even a unity: that implies the union of one thing with another.

One without a second. Yes, that says it all for me. Those four words, now I think about it, really do encapsulate all there is.

Including my own heartfelt aspiration to fully realise this Truth in the heart and soul of Self.

A Day of Silence Observed

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A few days ago we observed a day of silence here in the Hermitage. Our initial idea was to have a day of less talking, more quiet, which we hoped would help us reach a state of silence. We timed our little effort to coincide with a similar event being observed in an ashram in India whose foundation teacher we admire very much. A way for us to perhaps associate with others on a similar path out there (in there?) in the invisible community.

It’s not that we don’t experience periods of quiet (no talking) and even the aspired to silence, we do. Quite often they can be reasonably extended periods too, when meditating, chanting, studying, and so on.

But, it does have to be said, that we do spend a lot of time talking with its associated thinking – and unthinking too; with its listening – and not listening.

Of course, there are things we actually want or need to talk about; just that for us, sometimes we end up talking about stuff that’s not needed, as well we fall into what we call the adharmic trap of gossip, judgement, needless repetition, and the rest of the not so right speech.

Anyway, we wanted our day of quiet to be as complete as possible, so we agreed to not even discuss mundane and practical things unless it was absolutely essential. (Who gets to decide what’s ‘essential’ and not? Good question).

Around midday on the day in question I made a few notes on how my day was going so far. I had a vague notion I would make notes periodically through the day as a kind of ‘casual log. Needless to say, an approach of such vague casualness resulted in the notes made at midday being the only ones to actually come into existence.

Still, even though the notes were made relatively early in the day, I do think that they are a pretty good summary of my feelings on the day as a whole. So, let me share those brief reflections with you now:

Thus far (about 12) we are keeping silence (or at least not talking) – mostly. Practical things are sometimes tricky, sometimes not. It’s easy for example to point to a cup which translates to ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’. The reply which was ‘no thank you but I would like half a cup of soya drink’ took a bit more translational effort. Due of course to an almost complete lack of experience in speaking without umm, speaking.

Mind you,only three or four actual words spoken, along with a ton of hand gestures and facial expressions, did result in the transmitting and receiving  of understanding.

PLUSES SO FAR  

A sample of what it is like to be quiet, and actually being in quiet. And a happy anticipation (along with a sense of relief experienced in the present) of not having to talk about all the tired old things: the weather, the world, the ins and outs of teachings, teachers or writers, as well as ‘other people’, which often end up in judgements, criticisms, and plain simple gossip.

Alongside this overall positive vibe, there is a kind of nervousness. Where it comes from, I can’t say; probably an anxiety to do with not talking about the usual things. Though of course it’s only been a few hours.

While there has been little out loud talking, my mind has been running crazy, and I’ve had a strong compulsion to keep busy. Put these issues with the nervousness? To be expected really I think given my lack of experience with intentional quiet.

One step at a time.


Well, clearly that compulsion to keep busy didn’t extend to further note keeping, but, yes I have to say I did keep busy. Ironically some of that ‘busyness’ did in fact result in a few glimpses of silence.

I spent time working on an art piece in a prayerful manner, and in a quiet state; none of the all too usual chatter. Silence. I meditated for longer periods than usual, which allows for a deepening of a quiet mind (in theory that is). And when I chanted mantra, I think I may have been a little calmer and quieter of mind than usual.

Clearly the cultivation of silence – and even the seemingly straightforward task of simply not talking – is a practice that requires more practise, quite a lot of practise in my case.

We need to develop alternative communication strategies – hand signals, signs, gestures – to minimise speaking even more. Having said that if we’re to develop silence then even communicating about mundane stuff in other ways would get in the way. Too much talking!

Well, I occasionally make photos out there in the world

One very pleasing outcome is that I feel slightly less inclined to ‘talk about the outside world’ and other people. Less idle chatter. It’s a good start and it can only get better with some of the aforementioned practice.

Actually, thinking about it now, you’d think that a hermit who rarely goes out of the Hermitage except for a walk or occasional visits to a shop, who doesn’t watch the news or social media and the rest, wouldn’t have a lot to gossip or blah blah about.

That’s why, you see, I say that I really do need quite a lot more practice. Making silence is a long term project, an aspiration if you like, to find inner peace and make myself more able to radiate love to the world.

Love and Peace

Paul the Hermit