One of the sayings I recall from my time on a three month Buddhist Retreat was the teacher saying "When will you wake up and realise there is nothing you have to do!"
At the time it didn't make a lot of sense. We were busy trying to remember all that the teacher had told us, including the meditation exercises set at the end of each day's class.
Christianity is not so different to my Buddhist Retreat. It is also full of suggestions and directives. A common saying is, 'Love your neighbour as yourself'. Sounds very simple, doesn't it. How well do I - how well do you - fulfil that simple saying let alone learning to love a God we can't see?
Sometimes, I think we make our spiritual/religious life far more complicated than it needs to be. Saint Teresa of Avila wrote something very similar to the above quotation by the Buddhist teacher. In her book, The Interior Castle, Teresa made a distinction between trying to develop a spiritual practice in the hope of finding God; and the realisation that what we seek has already found us! She said that the Divine Presence is already within us. There is nothing we need to do, nowhere we need to go, nothing we need to say - except wake up and realise and experience this divine mystery.
Teresa compared this discovery, this realisation, to trying to fill a jug with water from a faraway spring. At first, a person may put a lot of effort into walking back and forth to the spring with a bucket. This would be like us seeking out a church or a Spiritual Counsellor/minister/priest who might be able to help us with our spiritual search. Or joining programmes like 'Alpha' in the hope it would help us experience God's grace and presence.
Alternatively, we may think that if God is everywhere, shouldn't I be able to find God in my own home? So we may try various spiritual exercises, or meditation techniques, or read books in the hope of finding God. St Teresa compares this to the realisation that if we built our own pipeline to God it would save us a lot of time and effort.
Both of these approaches have their place. I know I have spent a lot of time and money on books, courses, retreats and study programmes.
However, St.Teresa also reminds us, that in reality, we have nowhere we need to go. There is nothing we need to do. No special effort is required for our souls to be filled and overflowing with spiritual delight.
We simply need to learn to rest in openness and expectation and learn to perceive the gift of Divine love that is already residing within every cell of our bodies. And there is our challenge. We all have an ego that loves to be in charge of our lives.
'Be Still and Know that I am God', wrote a Jewish mystic many centuries ago. The knowledge spoken of is not intellectual ego-centred knowledge. Rather it is about learning to let go and developing a gut-centred awareness, that deep within, each one of us is already part of the Divine mystery and beauty of our Universe.
When will we wake up and realise and experience this simple truth? When we learn to realise there is nothing we need to do - except be present to the Divine life within us and all around us.
Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga
May you find peace and good will on your journey.
Phil
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Avila, St. Teresa of, The Interior Castle, Ch 4 para 2,3
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