A Christian complained to the Sage, "I've been trying to listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to me, but I don't seem to get any response at all." "Could it be," asked the Sage, "the Holy Spirit is speaking, but you're not hearing, for you've decided what It can say before It gets a chance to say anything?"
Listening spiritually is clear, unedited openness. You are not trying to receive anything; you are simply available to receive. That openness is listening.
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
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In a meditation sit, we did Lectio Divina (Sacred Reading) with words from a Buddhist teacher from the late Middle Ages. As usual, the selection was read three times and with intervals between readings. We were to be receptive to how it might speak to us. Afterward, anyone could share.
A woman spoke of her response to the selection. She said she did not like it at first. But on the third reading, that changed. With a big smile, she enthusiastically shared insight from the Master's words.
What if she had thought, "Well, I don't like this. So, I'll stop paying attention"? By keeping openness, and to a selection outside her faith tradition, truth could speak to her. And through her, truth could speak to the rest of us present.
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Truth is not present to comfort you but to free you. Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will free you." He was so one with truth, he could say, "I am ... the truth." We can be the truth, too, by loving the truth.
Most persons do not experience the liberating potency of truth without it bringing much discomfort first. We might say we think when we simply repeat what we have been informed is true.
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When a religion professor in the 1990s, I stood in my office angry. My beliefs had been challenged for years, and I wanted to live with integrity. But I was tired of the flow in and out of this process of change in what I saw to be true. And my career was being risked by this openness. I prayed an angry prayer but could not close my mind and heart to receive new ways of seeing reality. I resigned after being under much pressure due to not fitting in with the prevalent religious conservatism of the supporters of the school.
Now, I find a love affair with truth has grown over the decades since that angry prayer in the office. How can we thrive spiritually and turn our backs on truth, even when it seems threatening to our illusory ego and its greed for certainty, approval, and comfort?
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When we are ready, truth appears, and always before we are ready. We do not recognize the truth we see until prepared to. When we do recognize it, we realize its obviousness.
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The semi-legendary founder of Zen Buddhism, Bodhidharma (b. India, 400s-500s), traveled to China and became China's first Chan Buddhist patriarch. On his arrival, a huge crowd, including the ruler, waited for him.
When Bodhidharma arrived, the crowd was shocked and ridiculed him. This presumed enlightened being was walking with one shoe on one foot and the other atop his head.
The ruler said, "What are you doing? Are you mad?" Bodhidharma laughed, saying, "You failed the test. If you can't tolerate this small contradiction, how could you tolerate what I teach?"
Bodhidharma left the town, entering a nearby forest. He waited for those who could understand to come to him. He never entered the capital again.
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We may think spiritual teaching or enlightened living will look a particular way, be a certain way, and be consistent, as we believe consistency is. We can bring expectation to it, assuming what does not fit our preconception cannot be true. Maybe it is.
Is it not futile to try to make reality fit our wishes? Is it not freeing when we agree with reality? Do you not know that feeling when you relax and finally say, "Yes"?
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Could it be we can welcome truth only when we can accept it sometimes appears nothing like we believed it would look like?
Can you listen, dropping expectations, and see what shows us? And can you remain listening when nothing appears to show up?
Can you trust truth to verify itself to you, thereby giving it time to do so, without pushing it away?
This is to say, can you get thought out of the way so you can listen, letting truth speak for itself rather than trying to speak for it?
Will you value truth above what you have been taught it is or has to be, even if that means changing in ways unacceptable to others - past and present - dear to you?
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and title and place of photographs.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
