May 20, 2020

Acceptance, silence, trust and joy have been the themes of the previous four posts. Important separately, they also weave together to describe the inner journey of meditation.  

Acceptance is the entrance, the invitation of an open door pulling us toward the space within. Accepting all that we are without cutting out parts of ourselves, rejecting aspects or hiding qualities we deem unworthy in some way knits us into a whole. The integration acceptance offers moves us toward life experiences, emotions and thoughts. Moving toward softens the resistance with which we reject situations or aspects of ourselves considered unfavourable and creates an opening. 

With that opening, we can cross the threshold and begin to truly move inside ourselves. Moving inside without full acceptance of all that we are and with the circumstances in which we find ourselves is pushing against a closed door. Much force is needed. 

The threshold to the inner world is wrapped in a silence that permeates through all sounds. Poised on the threshold, the silence begins to become more present than the other “noises” of our sensory systems and louder than the chugging of thought trains of the mind. Tuning our inner ears to the ever-present silence moves us into deeper relationship with ourselves. Far from the imagined aloneness of silence, we are welcomed into recognition of our innate connection with all that is around us. 

Crossing the threshold into the sanctuary of the inner world means releasing all the ways we are taught to navigate unfamiliar territory. Giving into the darkness of the innermost regions, unexpectedly, we find a guide. This guide has a barely perceptible voice; she most often “speaks” via a gentle nudge that is easily ignored if we have not yet learned to listen to the silence that is her music. Learning to hear our guide, our intuition, our innate wisdom is initially challenging because we are socialized into rejecting what is not rationale and debatable. Intuition demands trust. Cultivation of this  trust is described as “the ability to leap empty-handed into the void” where we find we can fly. 

Accepting all that we are, learning to listen to the silence and trusting our intuition leads us to the treasure at the heart of who we are. Difficult to describe, yogic sages say that our essence is joy or bliss. This is the capacity to be at ease and centred in ourselves regardless of circumstance. From this seat, we can move through uncertainty with grace, without being uprooted and destabilized. This is the invitation of meditation.