Lesson 107: Truth will correct all errors in my mind
I have to admit that I am pretty bad at meditating. Honestly, I spend half of my meditation time just trying to stay awake – even during guided meditations. I once read a comment from Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn that it’s okay to fall asleep now and then during meditation, but I’m not sure how he’d feel about me napping away all of my meditation time.
In an effort, then, to achieve some sort of spiritual practice, I have turned to chanting, specifically kirtan since it blends my favorite pastime of music with spirituality. Chanting Sanskrit words that I don’t know allows me to enter a meditative state quicker than using other practices such as Taize and the varied voices of kirtan chanters such as Krishna Das and Snatam Kaur keep the practice lively and interesting for me.
There have been moments, often fleeting at best, during extended kirtan chanting that I have reached what could be called a state of enlightenment. Today’s lesson describes that place that I have so briefly touched: a place where nothing can interrupt my peace and I feel certain that I am safe and loved.
I find, however, I cannot maintain this space for long. Usually, because, my ego takes notice and balks at the whole idea – or it congratulates me for being so “enlightened,” by saying, “Hey, look at me! I’m getting the hang of this enlightenment thing.” By making the moment “special” the ego robs me of my peace and again takes control of my mind by telling me how much “progress” I’m making.
Sigh.
This lesson, however, assures us that we can, indeed, live in this state of peace – we can make it our way of life here because truth is always available to bring us out of illusion, out of pain, fear, doubt and attack. The ego, of course, pooh-poohs this idea, because it is invested in us never living in such a place, since it knows it won’t have control over us anymore.
To overcome this, this lesson encourages us to touch again that moment where we may have experienced this kind of peace and use our imagination to extend it outward into our future and just, for another moment, imagine what life would be if we lived from that calm center. As we use our imagination, our ego’s grip loosens and we can begin to live more from this place and to realize this is our true reality – this place without fear, pain, doubt or attack. Indeed, it is our birthright – it is our inheritance as God’s creations.
This truth – that we are born as children of peace and love and remain so, even if we are ensnared in the ego’s illusion – will bring correction to all of our wrong, insane egoic thinking. It will gently lead us back to our calm center where we can see through the illusion and become the messengers of truth to this world.
“Each time you tell yourself with confidence,” this lesson says, “‘Truth will correct all errors in my mind,’ you speak for all the world and Him Who would release the world, as He would set you free.”
Those words, Hafiz says, will transport us to the true reality of Love.
“Tell me of another world,” the broken heart
says, “one where love is never sad it loved,
and the word sorry never comes to mind.”
“Show me dear God, that anything I have ever
wept for will return, will reside, in my arms.”
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash