James Roose-Evans

Once I had a home in Ireland, a hermitage on a cliff facing the ocean. Our local Catholic priest used regularly to invite me, as an Anglican priest, to preach at his Masses. But when he gave me the latest edition of the Catholic Church’s Catechism – a thick volume, analysing every mortal and venial sin – I had to throw it away.

I cast it off because to me it represented what the Church has become not what it is meant to be. It does not truly relate to the teachings of Jesus.

Jesus was critical of the rigid, legalistic moral code of his Jewish faith. He stated that there are only two commandments: to love God wholly, and to love one’s neighbour as one’s self. Under the Roman Emperor Constantine, however, his teachings were hammered into a theological and binding set of rules, which gave power to the Imperial Church as an institution.

Each of the major religions has been hijacked at one point or another in its history by such power structures. It has then fallen to the mystical element to preserve the core of their founder’s teachings. Thus in Islam we have the mystical tradition of the Sufi, in Judaism that of the Kabballah, in Christianity that of the Quakers, and of individual mystics such as Meister Eckhart and Dame Julian of Norwich.

Today, I find the writings of Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, who is head of the Golden Sufi Centre in San Francisco, constantly inspiring. The inner journey can sometimes seem a lonely one, for, as he writes, ‘Every effort is required to walk along a path that is as narrow as the edge of a sword. Two cannot walk together, for it is the journey of the soul back to the Source.’ But he then adds, ‘From a spiritual perspective we are never alone; we are looked after more than we could ever know. The moment we turn towards Him, He takes us in His arms and provides us with everything we need.’ These words bring to mind Psalm 23: ‘Yea, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me.’

All the great mystics throughout history have conveyed the same essential message. We don’t need books of catechism or centralised power structures. What we need is silence. Unless we learn to stand still in the darkness, and listen, we shall not sense these presences which surround us. The ancient words resonate, reminding us of what we have to do: Be still and know!

We all need what Robert Frost called ‘time out for re-assembly’, time to face our doubts, our demons, our dreams and intuitions, and time to re-charge our batteries.

Robert Frost develops this thought further in his poem, The Armful:

For every parcel I stoop down to seize,
I lose some other off my arms or knees,
And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns,
Extremes too hard to comprehend at once,
Yet nothing I should care to leave behind.
With all I have to hold with, hand and mind
And heart, if need be, I will do my best
To keep their building balanced at my breast.
I crouch down to prevent them as they fall;
Then sit down in the middle of them all.
I had to drop the armful in the road
And try to stack them in a better load.

Sometimes, in periods of being alone and reflective, when our meditation can go deep, we may realise that we have things we need to shed, that we have too many possessions, too many distractions and that we can simplify our lives. Indeed, with every decade it is valuable to take a personal inventory and say: Do I really need this? Is this what my life is about? We need to take time out, not just for re-assembly but also for re-assessment.

This happened to a man I know. He used to be the stage designer for a premier Repertory Theatre, turning out new sets every three weeks. One day, as he told me, he sat on a hillside and asked himself: Is this what I want to be doing for the rest of my life? And there came into his mind the image of soil. He gave up his job at the theatre, sold his car, bought himself a bicycle and became a jobbing gardener. What he earned was modest but adequate (he was lucky that he owned a small cottage where he could also grow his own vegetables, and he was able to rent one room to visiting actors or directors.) More importantly, he is among the most fulfilled and contented individuals I have ever met.

Mary Oliver’s poem, The Journey, imagines a youngster setting out on life’s journey, and the great pressures put upon us by our family and by society’s expectations. As we learn to resist these siren voices, we may begin to hear another voice,

which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

When I was writing my first book on meditation, Inner Journey: Outer Journey, I originally wanted to call it ‘To The Within-God’. I had learned through the practice of meditation, that whatever we mean by God, he / she / it is not to be found ‘out there’. This is what Nietzsche meant when, in 1882, he famously pronounced God dead, and it is what the great mystic and preacher, Meister Eckhart realised centuries earlier when he wrote that ‘God is no thing’. As Jesus said, ‘the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.’

Perhaps, instead of the word ‘God’ we might use Mother Julian of Norwich’s phrase, ‘the ground of our being’ or, following Eastern tradition, the Tao. Ultimately it is not words or names that matter but experience. St Thomas Aquinas was busily engaged on the last and greatest of his many works, the Summa Theologica, when one day at Mass he received such a revelation that he ceased writing. He refused to reveal the content of his vision, saying only that ‘in the light of what I have seen everything I have written is like straw.’ Three months later he died.

In Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials the Professor says to Lara, ‘The stars are alive, child. Did you know that? Everything out there is alive, and there are grand purposes abroad. The universe is full of intentions, you know. Everything happens for a purpose.’ Perhaps all we can acknowledge with certainty is that we are part of something vast and mysterious, and that the best way to explore it is to go within.

Many years ago I was given a crucifix, hand-carved by Meinrad Craighead when she was a member of the Benedictine Community at Stanbrook Abbey in Worcester. The squat figure of Christ has hands and feet like those of a mole and seems to be digging its way up toward the light. I think of it as the Underground Christ. I keep it near my bed.

The mole is a remarkable creature. Small and nearly blind, it demonstrates such surprising strength and tenacity. It can move as much as ten pounds of soil upwards in twenty minutes – which is about fifty times its bodyweight, and the equivalent of a twelve stone miner moving four tons of earth in twenty minutes. And the mole has not only to dig the soil but then push it upwards towards the surface.

In the same way the task facing each of us is that of climbing upwards towards greater consciousness. It is often a painful, costly and laborious task, and like the mole we cannot see what we are doing but simply follow an innate impulse within us. All we can do is keep digging away, removing the dark layers of selfishness and self-centredness, knowing that one day we shall emerge into the light.

There are occasions when we are frustrated by a person or an object – when someone or something won’t do what we want them, or it, to do!

Thinking about this I recall something that Barbara Hepworth, the sculptor, once said: how, when she was younger she broke quite a number of pieces of stone or marble in her frustration. ‘Now, however,’ she said to me with a smile, ‘whenever I have a problem I go to sleep for twenty or more minutes, and when I wake up the problem is usually solved.’ On other occasions she would put on some music and dance to it in her studio, and this, too, often solved the problem. In both instances she found that by letting go of the will, of the ego, the unconscious was free to find the answer for her. And this is something that the practice of meditation teaches us: not to impose our will, our ego, but to turn inward and LISTEN. As it says in the Psalms, ‘Then in the secret of my heart teach me wisdom.’

This reminds me of something that occurred in one of my ritual workshops.

Each Saturday a group, mainly of therapists, one of whom was a Catholic nun, would meet for the day. On this particular occasion we were doing an exercise which I called The Frontier (the exercise is described in my book, Passages of the Soul: Ritual Today.) At one end of the studio a length of rope marks the frontier. Those taking part in the journey to the frontier are invited to sit, stand or lie at the other end of the studio, contemplating the journey upon which they are about to embark, realising that for each of them the frontier will represent something different. And, on arrival at the frontier, they have to decide whether to cross or not.

On this occasion, as it was autumn, I had scattered autumn leaves on the floor. When Sister Mary (not her real name) set out on her journey she picked up one of the leaves and, holding it in her hand, crawled towards the frontier. When she got there she paused for a long time and, instead of crossing, curled up embryonically, holding the leaf in her hand, and ‘went to sleep’.

The following week she told us what had happened. The frontier represented a problem she had in her community which she didn’t know how to handle. When she reached the frontier she had decided that the only way of finding an answer was to sleep on it. In the days that followed she found the answer to her dilemma and the problem was resolved.

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One of my favourite images from Lao Tzu is the lesson of water. A stream, or a river, rushing onwards encounters a rock but, unlike us when we encounter an obstacle, instead of beating itself against the rock, flows round it, embracing it, and, as a result moves forward with even greater energy!

It is as Eckhart Tolle write in The Power of Now:

‘Such listening is a qualitatively different kind of waiting, one that requires your total alertness. Something could happen at any moment, and if you are not absolutely awake, absolutely still, you will miss it. In that state all your attention is in the Now.

There is none left for day-dreaming, thinking, remembering, anticipating. There is no tension in it, no fear, just alert presence. You are present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body.’

And so it is that we begin our meditation.

Following the breath as it comes in and goes out, we find it growing shallower until it is almost imperceptible. We don’t try to ‘achieve’ this as though it were a physical exercise; but, almost inevitably, if we persevere, we find our breathing growing smaller until we reach a point of deep stillness and awareness, and begin to glimpse a wisdom deep within us.

It sometimes helps to reinforce the process with a silent phrase.

Thich Nhat Hanh suggests saying mentally:

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.

Or again, he suggests:

Breathing in, I am aware of my body.
Breathing out, I release all the tension in my body.

Alternatively we may choose to take one of the following:

I am breathing Love in.
I am breathing Love out.

I am breathing God in.
I am breathing God out.

I am receiving.
I am giving back.

You can make up your own. It is like the sea, with the tide coming in, and then withdrawing back into the depth of the ocean. We breathe in and we breathe out…

Following the breath as it comes in and as it goes out is a practice found in almost all spiritual traditions, and is the simplest of all forms of meditation. In Japan it is called Hara. As one eminent teacher has written, ‘Hara is the seat of life, and the individual who practises it is not likely to lose his balance or his composure. He learns to anchor himself and not be distracted.’

All we have to do is to concentrate on a point about two to three inches below the navel, and breathe deeply into the lower abdomen, letting the diaphragm expand as we inhale. Feel the breath filling the depths of the belly. Then, on exhaling, we draw in the belly, letting the energy circulate through the whole of the body. On the in-breath we pause for a few seconds before letting the breath flow; and then for a few seconds we rest in the place where there is no breath, waiting for the breath to start flowing back of its own accord. We rest in the stillness of the full breath and we rest in the stillness of the no-breath.

We focus on the physical sensation of the breath coming in, pausing, flowing out, and pausing. Whatever thoughts or images distract us, we let them pass. It is as though we are lying on a hillside, gazing up into the emptiness of the sky … From time to time a flock of birds, or a butterfly or an aeroplane may pass overhead. We observe their passing and then gently bring our focus back to the emptiness of the sky.

As Thich Nhat Hanh observes,

When we focus our attention on our breath, we release everything else, including worries or fears about the future and regrets or sorrows about the past. Focusing on the breath, we notice what we’re feeling in the present moment … Real freedom only comes when we are able to release our suffering and come home … Freedom is the foundation of happiness and it is available to us with each conscious breath.

I once owned a netsuke – a Japanese ornament, about the size of a walnut, made of ivory, and traditionally worn on a leather tassle suspended from one’s belt. It opened to reveal the delicately carved figure of a Buddhist monk, seated cross-legged, holding in his hands, and contemplating, a miniature lotus flower.

The lotus is a familiar Buddhist symbol. The deeper the mud in which it grows the more lustrously it blooms, a metaphor for the way we can transform the dirt and difficulties of life to create value and beauty.

One of the great Upanishads proclaims:

In the centre of the castle of Brahman, our own body, there is a small shrine in the form of a lotus flower and within it can be found a small space. We should find who dwells there and want to know him. For the whole universe is in him and he dwells within our heart.

To find that presence within us, to discover the lotus flower, calls for endless patience and perseverance. Often our meditation may seem pointless, dry, full of distraction, our thoughts buzzing like blue-bottles but, just as it requires endless patience to train a puppy, so, too, we have to be patient with our unruly minds. Repeatedly we have to remind ourselves: Be still and know…..

One of Laurens van der Post’s most famous Bushmen stories is about the Great White Bird.

One day a young hunter stops to drink from a stream. In the water he sees the reflection of a Great White Bird. He leaps to his feet, but it has already disappeared. So he travels on and on, determined to catch up with the bird, asking everyone he meets whether they have seen it.

He keeps travelling, leaving behind his home and family and all that is most dear to him. Weeks, months, years pass. From time to time he meets someone who says they have seen the bird, but always he is too late to catch it.

And so he travels across the whole of Africa, never giving up, until he arrives, tired and old, at the foot of the highest mountain in Africa. The people who live there tell him that the Great White Bird lives at the very top of the mountain, beyond the snow line.

Then he knows that he is near his journey’s end. If only he can get to the top of the mountain he will at last see it. He starts to climb. The path becomes steeper and steeper; but he keeps on until, just below the snow line, he stumbles and falls. Realising he can go no further, he cries out, ‘Oh, Mother, I have failed!’

Then, as he lies there, he hears a voice saying, ‘Look up!’ And in the red evening sky he sees a single white feather floating down towards him. Reaching up, he catches it in his hand – and dies content.

To follow the Great White Bird of our dreams is the most demanding task life can offer – and the most rewarding. Jung called this the process of individuation, ‘by which every living thing becomes what it was destined to become from the very beginning’. Joseph Campbell talked of learning ‘to follow your bliss’. And Mary Oliver, in her powerful poem, The Journey, describes the emergence of something

which you slowly recognise as your own,
That kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

I have recently found myself pondering the nursery rhyme:

How many miles to Babylon?
Three score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?
Yes, and back again –
If your heels are nimble and light!

In the absence of television let alone computer games, my childhood was filled with such rhymes. They were a rich source of poetry and wisdom, as the Opies have recorded in their wonderful collection, The Language and Lore of Children.

This particular rhyme teases the imagination. First, why Babylon? What does it mean? And what might it have meant to a child when first written?

Babylon was one of the great cities of the ancient world: a thriving centre of art and literature, and a culture that gave us the story of another great journey, The Epic of Gilgamesh. It was also a city famed for its gardens, and for being the place where all the kings of Assyria were crowned. So, to a child, Babylon might have seemed a rich and exotic destination – almost like the Heavenly City itself.

The next line provides a further element of mystery – for ‘three score and ten’ is the biblical span of a human life. So, might the rhyme really be wondering: ‘How long have I got to live?’

And then the questioner asks, ‘Can I get there by candlelight?’ For centuries candles would be lit against the encroaching darkness of nightfall. So is the deeper question here: ‘Can I make it to the end before the final darkness?’

The answer comes back: ‘Yes, if your heels are nimble and light, you can, and back again.’ which suggests that, if we are flexible and don’t carry too much baggage, we might live twice as long!

In China, during August, at the Festival of Bon, people create miniature boats made from banana leaves, bearing small offerings to the gods – a coin, a flower, some incense – as well as the names of the departed, and in each a small lit candle which is then set sailing across the lake as night falls. In the dark, thousands of these small vessels float upon the water.

On our journey to Babylon, to El Dorado, to the Land of the Rising Sun, to Paradise, each of us will from time to time wake in the dark of the night thinking about what lies ahead. We may even wonder: ‘Can I get there by candlelight?’