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Again, to speak of "interior prayer" is not the same as saying inside as opposed to outside, but inner in the sense of subtle. Every object lives and has an interior presence, more subtle than the apparent materiality of object. Hence, when we say, "Go within," we are not saying, "Focus on the inside." The Silence, the most subtle, is neither outside nor inside, but is within and enfolding all objects in its pure Subjectivity. This translates, thereby, to our relationships with others, which moves over the spectrum, broadly, from the objective - to -, to communion - with -, to intersubjective - in. All moves from and to Spirit, even the purely objective sharing, which is, literally, maybe so shallow not to warrant the word "sharing" at all. Can any true sharing occur when you treat another person as an object, which means as a thing? Yet, without Spirit, even this is not, for all is in and expresses the Isness of Life.
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A challenge can be, for one who knows he or she is to live from interior prayer, or interiority, of integrating that in relation to the life among others. This is like asking a spiritual contemplative, "How can you come out and enjoy the ecstasy of erotic sexual abandonment with someone body-and-body?" Or, "Being one devoted to interiority, can you enjoy a party?" Or, even, "Would you rather not be around people at all?" Or, reminiscent of Gospel words from yesterday, "How does the Word, immaterial, manifest in matter, so making matter a word of the Word?"
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Years ago, I was to meet someone in Clearwater, Florida USA. I lived north some 2 hours, but happened to be in Clearwater for an appointment with a doctor, so was able to plan to meet her. After seeing the doctor, I had much time before the meeting. I drove around, found a shopping mall, and went inside. I ordered some coffee at a cafe, sat down, and could look out onto the hallway as persons walked by, for the entire wall was glass. From an ego perspective, I was a stranger among strangers, a man looking out on these others moving past on their way elsewhere. As I looked, suddenly, the sense of there being no separation between everyone I was seeing and myself, the one apparently seeing, was no more. Yet, there was a seer, an "I" looking out eyes, so to speak. Likewise, I, as a man, was not lost, rather taken up into this unified and unifying interiority.
I share the above as one of many examples of this unified consciousness, or interiority, I have encountered in my life. Yet, in sharing it, I know this is unlike others, for this inter-communion does not manifest in only one manner. The move from a more surface to more subtle awareness and embodied-sense, however, is true of all manifestations of subtle Spirit. So, a consistent in interior communion with others is reduction of the sense of self-separation, and the sense of self being taken into a more subtle manifestation of connection with others, this not feeling less real, but more real than the usual consciousness one lives from. Yet, one needs beware of assigning a final summit of this to any experience, for there are potentially an infinity of such expressions and any array more subtle than any particular one; likewise, an experience, while sensed as profound, is an experience, and, thereby, limited by being an experience. All experience is somewhat like a reflection, or a shadow of the Light.
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Recently, being with a new friend, a woman whom I much enjoy sharing with, questions arose as to the merging of this interority within the context of our relationship. I, soon, began to realize that after years of living a life of solitude and interior prayer, I was faced with the question, "How do I let myself come fully into body again and meet this other, while not losing anchoring in the ground of inner solitude? And this so that the interiority of us each could meet and enhance all aspects of each other and our sharing self-with-self through embodied presence?"
The words above of Merton, during these ruminations, provided inspiration and guidance. I realized I am a contemplative, I have lived from interior prayerfulness many years. I had compromised that before in relationships with women, but I could not and need not do that again. Actually, I was encouraged in realizing that I had grown to explore, in friendship or "romance" with someone, how to celebrate a self-offering in the body, exploring the terrain of interiority in a fully-embodied relationship. In this way one realizes that the sense world, all things, are taken up into interority and are, thereby, amplified in the making more subtle the sharings heart-with-heart; yet, this heart-with-heart includes within itself body-with-body. And this includes all our relationships, as long as we, as spirit, or subtle body, are linked with a corresponding material body.
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