Lesson 125: In quiet I receive God’s Word today.
As someone who suffers from tinnitus, my world is never silent. I use a white noise machine at night to cancel out the noise in my head so I can sleep. A quiet room is torture for me because it simply increases the level of screeching that already exists inside my own head.
I went to the doctor about it several years ago and got the big medical shrug. They don’t know what caused it (probably loud concerts I attended as a teen and young adult) and they have no cure for it.
“Suck it up, buttercup,” could have been written on the prescription pad, since that was basically their conclusion.
As a result, meditation is difficult for me. I can’t sit quietly anywhere, since quiet doesn’t exist in my world. I have turned to kirtan chanting to settle my mind and disrupt my ego’s racing thought patterns. It works well most of the time, but I still try to sit silently (but not in silence), especially with the workbook exercises.
Tinnitus sucks, but it’s not my enemy, I have discovered. Instead, it’s my thoughts about my tinnitus that make it suck. I have, on occasion, been able to use the ringing in my head as sort of a bell of mindfulness. I’ve sometimes used it as a focal point in my meditation, following its steady ring and noticing moments when it gets louder, softer, or even changes pitch from time to time.
My ego hates it when I do this, because it actually calms down its incessant chatter. So, it reminds me of how much I hate my condition.
If I didn’t have the ringing in my ears, I’d still have the ego’s nattering voice distracting me from today’s exercise. Which is to say, whether its tinnitus or your ego’s ridiculous voice, there are no excuses for NOT doing today’s exercise. We must seek any technique that works to quiet the ego’s incessant nagging. It knows that if it can keep us busy with its “petty thoughts” as this lesson calls them, then we’ll never spend the time we need listening deeply for that still, small voice of God that will lead us to our ultimate peace that comes when we remember who we truly are.
It is important that we find time to be silent (even if it’s not silent around us or within us) so we can hear God’s Word – which simply means, we must take time to reorient ourselves to thoughts of love, joy, peace and compassion and reject any petty thought from the ego that seeks to intrude.
This is not a time for navel gazing. We are doing important work in these lessons.
“The world will change through you,” this lesson reminds us. “No other means can save it.”
God’s plan is for us to remember who we are – innocent beings that have never left their creator, no matter what the world may appear to be like around us. If we spend time each day remembering that, eventually we will awaken to the Truth of who we are. When we do, we bring others along with us. We are all healed together, the Course reminds us. So, as we do our work, we bring others with us back into the Unity we’ve never left.
It’s simple, Hafiz says, both God and our fellow beings, depend on us to do our spiritual work.
He writes:
Try and stay with me on this one: After being
so connected to the well where all is drawn,
after absorbing God through a refulgent,
pulsating chord at will as easily as most breathe,
curled there – buoyant and surrounded in a
warm sea, knowing your kingdom is light,
yes, having the Infinite rush through your veins
at your merest of commands,
what bravery dear, what strength it takes to
sometimes not openly scream
about such a stupendous loss, even though,
if you listen, all the birds’ songs promise –
it is temporary, only temporary … God not
being connected to us in a profound intimacy.
You and God are dependent upon each other’s
being for life.
What else would you like to know today … if
that is not enough?
Photo by Armin Lotfi on Unsplash