The Serpent and the Dove, Meditation 1: The Secret Light Within the Heart

This is part 1 in a series of upcoming publications.

The world is full of people, billions of people, and each one of them has a sense of individuality. It is easier to grasp the number of people who are alive than to grasp the idea that each one has his or her own particular aspirations and trials in life. Sometimes it can be difficult to understand just where our own individual temperament begins, where we stand out from the crowd, and where we are simply a part of the crowd. Yet assuredly, as certain as the knowledge that we each possess some degree of individuality and autonomy, every other person is also a unique creature endowed with experience and insight of their very own.

In consideration of what we are as people, as individuals, it is easiest to look at our physical components. We are animated parcels of water and carbon, arranged to perform chemical processes like digestion and respiration. Our brains, the most complicated natural processors known to humankind, operate an elegant system of electro-chemical magic that encompasses all we can think and feel.

When we consider the origins of the things that constitute our bodies, we need not look very far. The same elements that compose our bodies, even the mind-boggling complexities of our genetic materials, are readily present in the most humble piece of dirt. When the dirt itself is investigated, searching out the pedigree of life, we find that it has come together from particles that once drifted in space. That the dispersal of interstellar dust has formed stars, planets, and people who are inclined to contemplate such a mystery is, to say the least, a marvel beyond comparison.

Yet in all of that knowledge and contemplation, there is a sense that we are not wholly dust, regardless of whence we have come or to what our bodies might return in death. There is an innate understanding that the personal identity is not merely a particle moved by the mysterious powers of nature, with the sole purpose of transporting an animated sack of dirt from the place of birth to its place of death. The most advanced scientific research available has, to some extent, confirmed this suspicion by identifying chemical reactions as the source of so much that occurs in our brains. If the individual, the mind behind the brain, was merely a result of chemical reactions, we would be little more than robots fulfilling a chemical mandate.

We are able, we discover early in life, to exert some control over ourselves. The simplest form of this control defies any notion that we live only according to the dictates of thoughtless chemical processes in the brain. If I lift up my arm, the neurological process is merely the mechanism by which the act is accomplished, the machine at work, but the decision to lift my arm is wholly independent of the machine.

This person or mind within the body cannot be identified as a part of the brain or as a consequence of brain activity. It is no illusion, and its existence is demonstrable. At best, the body provides a suggestion for what needs to be done. It will advise you to scratch an itch, call a loved one, yelp in pain, or enjoy a warm bath, but it will not force any such activity. In all these cases, and all others in which there is voluntary action, the individual must decide to perform the act.

It would be tempting, then, to ascribe this voluntary component of existence to that person we consider, in an inward sense, to be our unique identity. It should be immediately remembered that this personality is merely a survival tool, a rough sketch of ideas that helps in relation to the rest of our experience. It is a switchboard, not the operator of the switchboard. The personal identity is only a caricature, a collection of adaptive strategies, whereas the true individual goes well beyond any circumstance.

For example, a person may think of himself as a 40-year old male, a veteran of combat, proud of his family, and fond of fishing. These distinctions serve well for social purposes, but they do not capture anything more than his personal circumstances and the strategies by which he has come to terms with life. There is, within such a person, a deeper sort of identity that transcends thoughts, hopes, and feelings. We might call it a soul.

The soul, discussed at length in philosophy and religion from every corner of the globe, is in its simplest definition the essential part of a person, pure and eternal. It is the part of the individual that remains when all else is removed. Since our thoughts represent our experiences, it is very difficult to discern the existence of the soul directly. Just as we are able to understand the act of voluntary movement as something done through the body, rather than because of the body, we can understand the soul or essential inner person through the activity of the will.

That same will, which is within each human being, is the power behind all voluntary decision. Our choices may be clouded by experiences, or obscured by the needs of the body and the perceived needs of others, but in every instance in which we choose to do something, the identity of the one doing the choosing is the true mind, the inner person. It is not some other being to which we are beholden, but our own selves, free from all the material concerns to which we are subject.

The soul is often, and easily, revealed through meditation. If you would sit still and do nothing but breathe and concentrate on some simple object, you would immediately notice opposition. Your mind will wander, unable to constrain itself wholly to one object for more than a moment. You would discover, within yourself, another mind with another motive, demanding that you alter your focus. The vanity of the assumed identity is exposed by the influence of a deeper personal identity which resists artificial restriction.

The first practice of meditation, then, is to recognize this essential inner person within yourself. Realize that it utterly transcends all that you think and feel, all that you have ever experienced, your ancestral and national background, and your very existence as a material body. This true inner person is you, just as you know yourself, but completely free of the world and its conditions.

This person is equal in every aspect with every other soul, and to them each it need offer not the slightest opposition. On the contrary, like light, its presence is intensified by the presence of others. To conceptualize the body of the soul as light, part of an infinitely extending light, has served for centuries as a poetic device to describe the inner being as real, unencumbered, and beautiful.

The first practice of meditation, then, demands more than merely imagining a light filling the body and extending throughout the universe. Such is simple, and perhaps calming, and if done with diligence it lays the foundation for prolonged concentration; but meditation demands more than mere imagining.

Begin with imagination, and unfold the meditation beyond it, so that what is attempted is not merely make-believe and daydream but an attempt to apprehend an idea that transcends ordinary awareness. To become absorbed in the idea of a universal light is a pastime; but to meditate is to seek illumination in sublime mysteries, for the purpose of gaining inner strength and guidance.

Imagine the body as filled with light. Begin with the head, or the feet, or the heart, and expand from that point to fill the body in all of its parts. It is of no concern whether you develop this imagined light in seven, ten, twelve, or 204 stations within the body, so long as the body is adequately and completely represented as a luminous being. Recognize your own being within the light, so that it acquires a form similar to your very own, asserting thereby your complete identification with this light, which proceeds from your in all directions.

Gradually, append to this light more of your own definite features. Allow the being of light to become the being you recognize, so that it becomes the mirror of yourself within yourself, a creature of pure thought enclosed within a creature of flesh, a secret light contained within a sealed vessel.

The meditation practice itself may be brief, but serves as a reminder to deeper concepts which are embodied in its use.

Source link: http://inner-dimensions.org/2015/11/28/the-serpent-and-the-dove-meditation-1/

Forum: http://www.anonymoustruthers.com/