Posted by As we know, our practice of meditation has the effect of moving attention from thought and image and into the heart, the centre of consciousness.
In this heart is where we experience, in growing clarity, the mystery of divinity and who we are in this divinity.
We can also appreciate, in this clarity, the scaredness of creation and our place in it.
As this clarity takes hold, we appreciate Creation more deeply, and we become more sensitive to the ways we humans live as part of it.
As this happens, we are drawn by the divine life in the heart of all life to be involved in life in ways that are consistent with the divine life: truthfully, compassionately, consistently, uniquely.
Our hearts, however, are not only about the experience of divinity and who we are in this divinity.
In the heart, there are forces and inclinations contrary to these things.
The Desert Father Macarius the Egyptian (300–390 AD) said this of the heart:
The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and there are also lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of evil. But there too is God, the angels, the life and the kingdom, the light and the apostles, the heavenly cities and the treasuries of grace—all things are there. (H.43.7)
What might these dragons, these lions, these poisonous beasts be for us, here and now?
There is fear, there is anxiety, there is grief, there is anger, there is hopelessness. As these take hold, the clarity needed for us to experience and participate in the divine life becomes clouded and (perhaps) lost to us.
Acting out of this cloudiness, without enough of the influence of Love (the divine life) that clarifies sight and shapes intention, this is to act in ways counter to life, in evil ways.
How can meditation help with this?
Our tradition tells us that meditation purifies the heart of these dragons, lions, and poisonous beats: this fear, anxiety, anger, grief, and the hopelessness that can result.
Perhaps, at times, as we meditate, as we practice a gentle attention on the mantra, there may rise in us these feelings. Maybe they are there as we begin to meditate.
The invitation is to gently give and regive attention to the mantra as it is said, as it sounds, as we feel these feelings.
In time, this has the effect of providing a safe place in the heart where feelings can be felt without judgement, without analysis. This is what our tradition means when it is said that the mantra guards the heart.
As we feel our feelings in this way, the divine life can regulate them, heal them, and integrate them.
And in time, the mantra moves attention into the heart of these feelings themselves. We come to be attentive to these feelings as they are felt while also remaining attentive to the mantra. We feel them without thought; love them without judgement.
As the necessary feeling of feelings happens, they gracefully and naturally integrate; their energy becomes available for the living of life.
In time, insight into the origins of these feelings may also rise into consciousness, coming to us as gift in the ordinary of the day.
Of course, if the feelings felt during meditation are so strong that meditation becomes too difficult, then it is ok to stop. The mantra is not a tool of violence.
What of hope in all of this?
If hopelessness is the outcome of a heart clouded in fear and anxiety, then hope is the fruit of a heart being clarified, being cleansed of this fear and anxiety.
This is a hope we do not create; it is a fruit that grows in us by itself. All we need do is help provide the conditions for growth via gentle attention on the mantra.
This hope is what Paul calls “the hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2), a hope that we live into even as we live with the challenges of this age. This is the hope of the mysterious New Creation, a hope given to us now even as Creation now faces so much challenge.
And this is the paradox of ‘contemplative activism’: that we have in our hearts a hope inconsistent with so much of what we see around us.
This hope can become the foundation of our humanity, flavouring the compassion that rises as we see the need around us and what needs to be done.
As we practise, we become, in grace, this hope. This is what divinisation means. We become what we cannot see so that it may be seen as we act.
Rather than retreat from this world, do nothing and await collapse, we are asked to engage uniquely and hopefully, being a part of an emerging New Creation amid that which is collapsing and passing away.
As contemplatives and meditators, hoping for what cannot be seen, we participate (in ways unique and ordinary) in the coming consciousness – now. And so, the coming consciousness arrives.
For in hope we are saved; but hope that can be seen is no hope. Who hopes for what can be seen? However, if we are hoping for what we cannot see, we wait for it with perseverance. (Romans 8: 24-25, RNJB)