When we look in a mirror we become aware of the many changes made by age. But when Alice in Lewis Carroll’s story looks in the mirror she sees another world into which she enters. And so it is through the simple practice of meditation that we cease being self-preoccupied and discover another and richer world within ourselves. We also begin to see others as themselves and not as projections of ourself!
The Power of Now is the title of a best-selling book by Eckhart Tolle: it has been read by millions. Another and earlier master of the art of life is Montaigne who urged his readers to withdraw to an inner room and respond to every moment. We should not dwell on our eventual demise but live fully and richly each instant of our lives. We must respond fully to each and every moment.
I have already mentioned my friend Anne Powell whom I visited daily when she was dying. It was during her 95th year that I used to drive to Great Oak at Earlsfield in Herefordshire to visit her in the cottage where she lived, alone and housebound. On one occasion she said to me, ‘I wish I could do something. I feel so helpless.’ I replied, ‘Anne, you don’t have to do anything. You are! It is a privilege just to be here with you.’
If we have lived a full life then old age is about learning to let go, to shed. We need to simplify our lives at this stage so that, in the words of Teilhard de Chardin, ‘in the process of emptying we allow God to fill our lives’. The practice of meditation is an excellent preparation for this phase of one’s life. I write this as one now in his mid-nineties.
Frequently we experience situations, most often in relationships, when we are faced with a problem that seems tangled and insoluble, a situation when any attempt to talk through the problem only seems to complicate matters further. What to do? As so often Shakespeare expresses it succinctly:
‘O Time, ‘tis thou must untangle this, it is too hard a knot for me.’
We learn to wait. We learn it through our practice of meditation.
One of my favourite Chinese sayings is, ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’ In other words, one makes a path by walking! So it is with the practice of meditation. We begin simply by sitting still, being totally aware and listening inwardly. Day after day. As Jesus said, ‘No one having put their hand to the plough and looking back is worthy of the kingdom of heaven,’ and we need to remember that when Jesus speaks of heaven he is not speaking of somewhere hereafter but that the ‘kingdom of heaven is within you’.
The Well-Gardened Mind is the title of one of the most important books I have read in some time. In it Sue Stuart-Smith investigates the remarkable effects of nature on our health and wellbeing. Many people today are living in a state of disorientation from nature and from one another. We need to rediscover the practice of sitting quietly in a park, a garden, or by a window, and simply being aware of the activity of nature all around us: the changing hues of the sky, the caress of a breeze, the rustle of leaves, and the chorus of bird sounds. We become what we contemplate. When, in a garden or an allotment, we plant a seed in the ground we also plant a narrative of future possibility. Similarly, when we reach out to another person we create the possibility of exchange and sharing. We grow through one another.
While it is important to set time aside each day to meditate it is even more important to practice saying our mantra, be it a single word or a phrase, at intervals throughout the day, whether we are cleaning our teeth, sitting on the toilet, preparing a meal or waiting in a queue. The repetition acts like a monastery bell summoning us to the Silence within. The mantra also works in another way when we are in an emotional upheaval, or experiencing a setback or challenge; it acts like yeast on the whole of our being, both psychologically and spiritually.
In George Bernard Shaw’s The Black Girl in Search of God, the central character says to an old man, ‘You don’t have to look for God as He is always at your side.’ When Shaw was writing, God was always referred to as masculine, whereas God is neither male or female nor a person. The closest that we can perhaps get is: ‘God is Love.’ It is a love that surrounds, embraces and upholds us. As the Psalmist wrote, ‘Underneath are the Everlasting Arms.’
We are never alone.
Jerry Long was paralysed from the neck down as the result of a diving accident which rendered him a quadriplegic at the age of seventeen. In letter to Viktor Frankl, who tells the story in Man’s Search for Meaning, he wrote,
‘I view my life as being abundant with purpose. The attitude I adopted on that fateful day has become my personal credo for life: I broke my neck, but it didn’t break me. I am currently enrolled in my first psychology course in college. I believe that my handicap will only enhance my ability to help others. I know that without the suffering, the growth I have achieved would have been impossible.’
