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Brian Wilcox 'A Subtle Touch - Marigolds'
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We would think it odd for someone to say, "I don't take care of my body daily. I do that sometimes, when I feel like it or have time." Yet, how many of us who would see it as impossible for us to neglect the body - exercise, food, drink, sleep ... - do not place the same daily priority on taking care of our inner selves? Yet, the body, which we give so much attention to, is dying daily, while the consequences of neglecting to take care of our inner selves affect us now and outlive the body.
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II Corinthians 4.16 -
For this reason we never lose heart. Though our body is slowly decaying, inwardly we are renewed day after day.
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A man walked beside a river. He saw where the river was smoothest and quietest, it ran deep. He observed where the river was most turbulent and loudest, it ran shallow.
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The most urgent task before us now is for more persons to live deeply in cultures that live shallowly. We need persons gifted in social activism. Equally, we need persons graced to live contemplative lives, seeing silence and prayerfulness as their calling to participate in the healing of our world and Earth. These two ways, the active and contemplative, are not opposites, rather they abide in unity of goodwill for all.
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A sign of living from the depths - the Heart-, rather than in the shallows - body and mind -, is having a quiet spirit. As one is drawn more into the inner Life, she is moved more out of the noise and drama of the world about her. Her mouth speaks less, her heart speaks more. The heart speaking is the communication of this inner grace to those about her.
Even the activist needs this inner silence, the quiet mooring to the invisible Life and hidden Springs. Otherwise, she can be pulled away from her heart by the very structures which she is engaged in challenging. In Spirit, she discovers the Secret in the world is the same Secret the contemplative discovers, that a hidden Presence permeates the affairs on this globe and is concealed behind its appearances of conflict and harmony.
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Sri Aurobindo -
If above [this world] It stands for ever in its perfect Light, Bliss and Peace, It is also here; its Light, Bliss and Peace are secretly here supporting all; in ourselves there is a spirit, a central presence greater than the series of surface personalities which, like the supreme Divine itself, is not overborne by the fate they endure. If we find out this Divine within us, if we know ourselves as this spirit which is of one essence and being with the Divine, that is our gate of deliverance and in it we can remain ourselves even in the midst of this world's disharmonies, luminous, blissful and free. That much is the age-old testimony of spiritual experience.
*Integral Yoga.
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A monk was very hungry. He dipped soup from a pot and started eating it. He did not know it was hot. Abruptly, he stood up and began shouting and running around. Another monk, startled, asked, "Why are you running, brother?!" The first monk exclaimed, "Don't ask questions! Hurry and get some water - a fire is aflame in my stomach!"
For persons to live a life of spiritual depth, that summons must arise from within, and often a sense of inner emptiness or outer crisis prompts one to see Grace. Like the monk, a ploy of the ego is to seek to ease the suffering through surface means - like the monk thinking water on the body would cool the fire in the stomach. Popular examples are when a person seeks to use psychology, a romance, sex, dogmatic religion, cultic-like political alignment, esoteric ego-appealing so-called spiritualities, financial greed, status-seeking, excessive money-spending, being a television or phone junkie, obsessive attention-seeking, verbosity, or taking drugs to address a spiritual emptiness.
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Whether a contemplative spending much time alone in prayerfulness or one spending much time socially engaged in addressing issues pressing upon us as to justice for all, both need spiritual depth. This depth is the inner reserve for both contemplation and activism. Each path is a demanding one and much-needed to act in the transformation of social structures toward compassion and equality. Whether directed more externally or internally, renewal daily is integral to the spiritual life.
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(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2020
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