Meditation is not well understood. If it were, it would be practiced with the same regularity with which people take care of the other elements of their lives. In this brief article, I hope to explain the value of this Eastern idea of doing nothing as a way to experience inner depth and wisdom. The inner person has often been called the soul. This is like a seed. This seed carries the power of life. It also has potentiality that is not known. Sometimes we glimpse this potentiality in those who have been known to do miraculous things, like the saints of certain religions. The urge for life is the evidence of this seed. Life is not a mere mechanical arrangement like the wiring in a house whose electrical current animates various devices. Life is much deeper and more mysterious. A mystery we label as consciousness. This seed, like the shoot of a young plant, seeks always to grow. And like the young plant, it is vulnerable to the pressures of the environment and to survive must build its inner strength. Pausing then to simply be and to notice that experience of individuality, we build our inner strength and fortify it from the depersonalizing pressure of society. When this mechanism of survival is not conscious, we create a psychological shell and habits that protect. Yet when we become more aware, we awaken to our own process. Putting it another way, conscious living does not usurp the function of the unfolding seed, but instead awakens it to its own process. In this way, we do not conduct our lives as if from the outer rim of ourselves. When we affirm the value of the private person within ourselves, we make life an adventure worth living. |
