Meditation for Thursday 11th August 2022
For most of us silence is a rare commodity. Our lives both personal and working are busy and noisy. Many people during the height of the pandemic when they worked from home commented on the pleasant experience of long periods of silence as they were uninterrupted by colleagues wanting to engage in casual chatter. Unnecessary talking was eliminated and there was a pervading atmosphere of quiet.
Silence is necessary for listening to oneself in a way that can sometimes be frightening. We touch our emptiness, our loneliness, our deepest desires, our regrets and our longings. Yet even if silence pains us we hunger for it. We know intrinsically that it is in the core of our being. It may seem like a contradiction but silence can be a form of self-communication and communication with others. We seek it externally as well as in our inner world.
Regular practice can lead to silence. People have shared with me how following a period of meditation they spend some time with their thoughts, feelings and judgments. Others grab a book and allow themselves to be absorbed in the stillness and silence in reading.
The silence is there within us. What we have to do is enter into the silence, relish it and allow it to refresh us.
“Silence is absolutely necessary for the human spirit if it is to thrive and not only thrive but to be creative, to have a creative response to life, to our environment, to friends. Because silence gives us room to breathe, room to be. In silence you don’t have to be justifying yourself, apologizing for yourself, trying to impress anyone. You just have to be.”
Ref: Auth: John Main ‘Word Into Silence’ Canterbury Press, London 2014
Now in stillness and silence we meditate …..
Meditation
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A reminder to take a look at the Carmelite Centre website to explore the full range of programs on offer. www.thecarmelitecentremelbourne.org