experiencing openness
I see a parallel between the development of technology and the development of higher consciousness. In the growth of technical power, without trying to be exact, I can see the movement from simple and rudimentary implements, such as a writing instrument, stylus, chalk, pencil, to something more permanent such as pen and ink. The abacus is also a device to help with our calculations. With the invention of the printing press, human labor greatly reduced and mass production becomes available. Typewriters make printing available for the masses. These developments greatly expand the capacity to amass and save material. With the invention of the electronic device, or computer, the ability to store, retrieve and work with large amounts of information surpass anything that went before. And no one knows what is possible in the future.
There are many ways for consciousness to develop, and I wish to explore only one. The reality I want to bring about in myself at this time is openness, open to everyone and everything. Vivid awareness of an inner image is a source of great power, which I can use in this endeavor. The emphasis here is on my own witnessing power. I am content to be still and present. The image in mind is the unfolding or opening of a rose from a bud to a beautiful and fragrant full-blown flower. In Eastern thought, a lotus blossom is often chosen for an object of meditation. It is important to work with the qualities of openness, to adapt to them to make them my own. Here I want to use all the senses I can. I see the rose as a model of gradual unfoldment. There is a uniqueness and simplicity here, belonging to nothing else except itself. Holding the natural unfolding of all the petals in the mind's eye can sharpen my awareness of non-doing. I move from doing to being. The forces of nature come together to make it happen. I can imagine the fragrance exuding from the flower. I may even surmise the soft, velvety texture of the individual petals if I were to touch them. My stillness joins the rose's silence leading to our oneness. I may also listen to rain drops falling on and around the bush, and see the sun in its course of evaporating the mist and wetness. The rose calmly abides all changes around it as well as whatever befalls it. It weathers all for its destiny is to unfold, to open to whatever is there, a model for my own opening.
At the end of my quiet meditation, I recognize that the image of a rose is simply a device. It's meant to help me fulfill my potential by seeing, feeling, smelling and listening. There is an inner harmony here that helps me listen and grow. It provides me the possibility of opening myself and seeing openness in others. I can see and know things that I was unaware of before. I can become one with the rose, and as I do, only openness remains.
Just as the technology of data recording, storing and processing expands to almost incomprehensible capacity, I can say the same for my own capacity to expand and deepen my consciousness to take in and realize what was impossible before. All that is said here is for the change and development to take place within myself. I like to see it as openness to the Ever-Greater God, where the Absolute and the relative come together. There has to be a commitment to the process with a strong motivation that asks much of myself.The purpose of opening is to be receptive to our greater reality. Evelyn Underhill has studied dozens if not hundreds of mystics in her great work, Mysticism. She portrays in her masterful way what is required: "To let oneself go, be quiet, receptive, appears to be the condition under which such contact with the Cosmic Life may be obtained....The whole personality then absorbs or enters into communion with certain rhythms or harmonies existent in the universe." In this undertaking she says there is a Trinity of Unity of feeling, thought, and will. Feeling is primary as the power which sets the machinery of thought and will to work.She draws on the experiences of others, particularly Meister Eckhart: "When we simply keep ourselves receptive, we are more perfect than when at work....Often the "strong impression of rest springs most certainly from an unusually large amount of actualized energy, an energy which is now penetrating, and finding expression by every pore and fibre of the soul....As God is boundless in giving, so the soul is boundless in receiving. And as God is almighty in His work, so the soul is an abyss of receptivity: and so she is formed anew with God and in God."
I would like to close this reading on openness with excerpts from Rumi's poem, "Who Gets Up Early." The love-source of his poems is not meant to be explicated but felt as music, as presence.
"An oyster opens his mouth
to swallow one drop.
Now there's a pearl.
A vagrant wanders empty ruins.
Suddenly he's wealthy.
But don't be satisfied with poems
and stories of how things
have gone with others.
Unfold your own myth,
without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand
the passage
We have opened you.
Your legs will get heavy and tired.
Then comes a moment
of feeling the wings you've grown,
lifting."
From The Illuminated Rumi, Translation & Commentary by Coleman Barks.
There are many ways for consciousness to develop, and I wish to explore only one. The reality I want to bring about in myself at this time is openness, open to everyone and everything. Vivid awareness of an inner image is a source of great power, which I can use in this endeavor. The emphasis here is on my own witnessing power. I am content to be still and present. The image in mind is the unfolding or opening of a rose from a bud to a beautiful and fragrant full-blown flower. In Eastern thought, a lotus blossom is often chosen for an object of meditation. It is important to work with the qualities of openness, to adapt to them to make them my own. Here I want to use all the senses I can. I see the rose as a model of gradual unfoldment. There is a uniqueness and simplicity here, belonging to nothing else except itself. Holding the natural unfolding of all the petals in the mind's eye can sharpen my awareness of non-doing. I move from doing to being. The forces of nature come together to make it happen. I can imagine the fragrance exuding from the flower. I may even surmise the soft, velvety texture of the individual petals if I were to touch them. My stillness joins the rose's silence leading to our oneness. I may also listen to rain drops falling on and around the bush, and see the sun in its course of evaporating the mist and wetness. The rose calmly abides all changes around it as well as whatever befalls it. It weathers all for its destiny is to unfold, to open to whatever is there, a model for my own opening.
At the end of my quiet meditation, I recognize that the image of a rose is simply a device. It's meant to help me fulfill my potential by seeing, feeling, smelling and listening. There is an inner harmony here that helps me listen and grow. It provides me the possibility of opening myself and seeing openness in others. I can see and know things that I was unaware of before. I can become one with the rose, and as I do, only openness remains.
Just as the technology of data recording, storing and processing expands to almost incomprehensible capacity, I can say the same for my own capacity to expand and deepen my consciousness to take in and realize what was impossible before. All that is said here is for the change and development to take place within myself. I like to see it as openness to the Ever-Greater God, where the Absolute and the relative come together. There has to be a commitment to the process with a strong motivation that asks much of myself.The purpose of opening is to be receptive to our greater reality. Evelyn Underhill has studied dozens if not hundreds of mystics in her great work, Mysticism. She portrays in her masterful way what is required: "To let oneself go, be quiet, receptive, appears to be the condition under which such contact with the Cosmic Life may be obtained....The whole personality then absorbs or enters into communion with certain rhythms or harmonies existent in the universe." In this undertaking she says there is a Trinity of Unity of feeling, thought, and will. Feeling is primary as the power which sets the machinery of thought and will to work.She draws on the experiences of others, particularly Meister Eckhart: "When we simply keep ourselves receptive, we are more perfect than when at work....Often the "strong impression of rest springs most certainly from an unusually large amount of actualized energy, an energy which is now penetrating, and finding expression by every pore and fibre of the soul....As God is boundless in giving, so the soul is boundless in receiving. And as God is almighty in His work, so the soul is an abyss of receptivity: and so she is formed anew with God and in God."
I would like to close this reading on openness with excerpts from Rumi's poem, "Who Gets Up Early." The love-source of his poems is not meant to be explicated but felt as music, as presence.
"An oyster opens his mouth
to swallow one drop.
Now there's a pearl.
A vagrant wanders empty ruins.
Suddenly he's wealthy.
But don't be satisfied with poems
and stories of how things
have gone with others.
Unfold your own myth,
without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand
the passage
We have opened you.
Your legs will get heavy and tired.
Then comes a moment
of feeling the wings you've grown,
lifting."
From The Illuminated Rumi, Translation & Commentary by Coleman Barks.