A LAMP IN A WINDLESS PLACE
The Mind & Heart of God
Poems
by Raymond Reichman-
A lamp that does not flicker in a windless place,
To such is compared a yogi of subdued thought
Practising Union with the Self
Bhagavad Gita (Maharishi Translation)
The Yoga of Maditation (Dhyana Yoga)
Chapter VI,Verse 19
From Chapter Eleven | Meditation
From Mind to Heart
The noise is in the mind. The silence is in the heart. This does not imply an absolute permanent silence. I seek to understand the infinite silence from which finite words emerge in their full power and beauty. The Word of God; ‘and God said…’ The Word of God, emerging from the Silence and returning back into It. Emerging from the Silence in perfection, in perfect harmony and quiet resonance.
I do not eschew words. I do not eschew the mind. I do not prefer the one over the other. I reconcile the two and cognize their fertile mutuality in creation. Here is the Garden of Eden.
Words can scurry hither and thither on the ground. Or they can soar in a flight that gracefully leaves the words behind. Unless prayer transcends into meditation it too remains earthbound. This also is the power and beauty of poetry. A transcendent harmony of words, the fewer the better, rises to a resonance that lifts thought into transcendent communion.
This is my experience. In meditation alone, can the seeker of God prepare himself for his search. This book is not about teaching meditation techniques. (Meditation is but a technique, and there is no shortage of teachers and teachings of technique.) This work serves to radiate to other seekers of God my personal experiences and to share them in fertile holistic synergy and mutual gestalt.
In meditation a disciple uses the mind to still the mind, to go beyond the mind into the silent embrace of transcendent God and to rest therein… to rest in the Self. It is meditation, and meditation alone, that has the ability and power to dissolve the ego (as subject) relative to its perceived object/s. This dissolution cleanses away the obstruction and distortion of the pure Infinite Consciousness that the presence of the ego causes, and a permits the Infinite Consciousness to manifest and express through our respective unique embodiments like light through a clean and clear prism. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the meditation cleanses the ego, rather than that it dissolves it, because the relativity between subject and object remains (at least so long as embodiment remains); but for present purposes it is sufficient to make the point that the practice of meditation is essential in a search for ultimate truth.
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