Word into Silence

Word into Silence

Metadata

Highlights

Only in union do we know fully who we are. — location: 93

the experience of union, away from the surface distractions and self-piety. — location: 130

in prayer we are not striving to make something happen. It has already happened. We are simply realizing what already is, by travelling deeper into the unified consciousness of Jesus, into the wonder of our own creation. — location: 140

God is not only a once-for-all Creator who creates us and then leaves us to ourselves, but He is also equally our loving Father. — location: 270

in meditation we discover both who we are and why we are. — location: 279

be with God, to experience God as the ground of our being. — location: 296

Meditation is not the time for words, — location: 308

a silence where we have to listen, to concentrate, to attend rather than to think. — location: 317

awe-filled and reverential silence — location: 318

not just a matter of keeping our tongues still — location: 329

achieving a state of alert stillness in our mind and heart, — location: 329

at one and the same time totally relaxed and totally alert. — location: 331

full wakefulness to the wonder of our own being, — location: 335

full openness to the wonder of God, the author and the sustainer of our being, — location: 336

full awareness that we are at one with God. — location: 336

comfortable sitting posture; — location: 338

comfortable and relaxed, but not sloppy. — location: 338

The back should be as straight as possible — location: 339

the spine in an upright position. — location: 339

If you sit in a chair, make sure it is one that is upright with comfortable arm-rests. — location: 340

Your breathing should be calm and regular. — location: 340

Allow every muscle in your body to relax. — location: 341

put the mind in tune with the — location: 341

The interior dispositions you need are a calm mind and a peaceful spirit, — location: 341

simple and constant repetition as the best way of casting out all distractions and monkey chatter from our mind, in order that it might rest in God — location: 354

prayer is not a matter of talking to God, but of listening to and being with God. — location: 363

Sit down comfortably, relax. Make sure you are sitting upright. Breathe calmly and regularly. Close your eyes and then in your mind begin to repeat the word that you have chosen as your meditation word. — location: 370

you should choose your mantra in consultation with your teacher. — location: 374

the Aramaic word ‘maranatha’ which means, ‘Come Lord. Come Lord Jesus.’ — location: 377

The important thing to remember about your mantra is to choose it, if possible in consultation with a teacher, and then to keep to it. — location: 383

If you chop and change your mantra you are postponing your progress in meditation. — location: 384

the purpose of meditation as that of restricting the mind to the poverty of a single verse. — location: 385

As you persevere with the mantra, you will begin to understand more and more deeply, out of your own experience, what Jesus meant when He said, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ (Matt. 5.3). — location: 388

We renounce words, thoughts, imaginations and we do so by restricting the mind to the poverty of one word, — location: 391

In order to experience its benefits, it is necessary to meditate twice a day and every day, without fail. — location: 393

Twenty minutes is the minimum time for meditation, — location: 393

helpful to meditate regularly in the same place and also at the same time every day — location: 394

the most important thing to bear in mind about meditation is to remain faithfully repeating the mantra — location: 396

in any talking or thinking about prayer we should fix the spotlight firmly on the Spirit not ourselves. — location: 401

This experience of prayer, of being filled with the Spirit, increases our capacity for wonder and our capacity for understanding the transcendent potential of our own being. — location: 404

after prayer our principal conviction about ourselves and the whole creation is of the infinite capacity in everything to mediate the wonder and splendour of God. — location: 408

our way forward to this growing awareness of the Spirit praying within us lies simply in our deepening fidelity to the saying of the mantra. — location: 414

begin by sitting down comfortably and calmly and then start to say your mantra in the silence of your mind: Maranatha, Ma-ra-na-tha. Repeat the word calmly, serenely, and above all faithfully for the full time of your meditation, — location: 418

The mind is our organ for truth; the heart is our organ for love. — location: 428

The truly religious understanding of our humanity is not found in terms of reward and punishment, but in terms of wholeness and division. — location: 431

The first is simply to say the mantra for the full duration of the meditation. — location: 441

simply say the mantra without haste, or expectation. — location: 444

The second aim is to say the mantra throughout the meditation without interruption, while remaining quite calm in the face of all distractions. In this phase, the mantra resembles a plough that continues resolutely across the rough field of our mind, undeflected by any obtrusion or disturbance. — location: 445

the third of these preliminary aims is to say the mantra for the entire time of the meditation, quite free of all distractions. — location: 448

By means of the mantra we leave behind all passing images and learn to rest in the infinity of God Himself. — location: 455

begin to meditate, to begin to open ourselves up to the love of God and its power. — location: 477

all we need to do is to begin to say the mantra, lovingly and in a deep spirit of faith. — location: 477

your teacher has only one instruction to give you and that is: to say your mantra. — location: 481

The greatest temptation of all is to complicate ourselves. — location: 484

Meditation simplifies us, — location: 485

When people look at meditation for the first time from outside, they often mistake it for just another form of fashionable egocentric introversion. — location: 490

Saying the mantra is just this process of polishing the mirror, the mirror within us, so that our heart becomes fully open to the work of God’s love for us, fully reflecting the light of that love. — location: 517

the first step in this process is to set our own house in order. — location: 518

‘My me is God nor do I know my selfhood save in Him’ — location: 521

As we learn to root it in our consciousness, the mantra becomes like a key that opens the door to the secret chamber of our heart. — location: 534

renouncing thought and image. — location: 542

Meditation is our way of leaving behind all the illusions about ourselves, about others, and about God, which we have either created for ourselves or received from the past. — location: 553

To learn just to say the mantra and turn away from all thought requires courage. — location: 557

meditation is the prayer of faith, because we have to leave ourselves behind before the Other appears and with no pre-packaged guarantee that God will appear. — location: 559

This is the leap of faith from ourselves to the Other. — location: 560

We meditate simply to prepare ourselves to receive that fullness and life and light for which we were created. — location: 564

No intellectual self-analysis can substitute for real self-knowledge in the ground of our being. — location: 636

it is only in accepting silence that we can come to know our own spirit, — location: 662

In its essential significance, the aim of meditation is just this: the realization of our total incorporation in Jesus Christ, — location: 726

attentiveness and receptivity. — location: 728

Important

true prayer eschews the sentimental. — location: 785

‘the Spirit is pleading for us in our inmost being beyond words, beyond thoughts, beyond images, with sighs too deep for words’ (Rom. 8.26). — location: 789

Prayer then, is the life of the Spirit of Jesus within our human heart: — location: 790

say the mantra with complete simplicity and persevere in our renunciation, at the time of our meditation, of our thoughts, imaginations, of our very self-consciousness. — location: 802

the absolute renunciation of thought and language at the time of our meditation. — location: 810

It prepares us as a living sacrifice to the Lord. It leads us in all simplicity to the seminal Christian experience of the prayer of the Spirit in our heart. The fruits of that experience are the fruits of the Spirit, — location: 824

The mantra stills the mind — location: 865

In the superabundance of love, we become the person we are called to be. — location: 878

Meditation is not a technique of prayer. It is, though, an incredibly simple means of leading us into an integral awareness of the nature of our own being and of the central, authenticating fact of our being which is the Spirit praying ‘Abba, Father’ in our heart. — location: 907

To the degree that we lay ourselves down, to the same degree and a hundredfold will we be restored to ourselves. — location: 911

The fruit of the radical simplicity of the mantra is a joy beyond description and a peace beyond understanding. — location: 912

the direction you need to be facing for your meditation, which is centrewards, — location: 925

In meditation we are all beginners. — location: 926

to meditate well you need the quietest place you can find. — location: 929

You need a good posture, with your spine upright and calm, — location: 930

regular breathing. — location: 930

Then begin to say your mantra calmly, peacefully, and with complete simplicity. — location: 930

you need only to repeat your mantra with persevering faithfulness. — location: 931

the art of meditation, which is essentially concentration. — location: 934

you will not then be concentrating on ideas or images. — location: 934

You will be concentrating on the mantra and the silence to which it will lead you. — location: 935

To many ordinary churchgoers and many priests, monks and sisters, the mantra seems at first a suspiciously new-fangled technique of prayer or like some exotic trick-method, or some kind of therapy that may help you to relax, but has no claim to be called Christian. — location: 939

In meditation we turn the searchlight of consciousness off ourselves and that means off a self-centred analysis of our own unworthiness. — location: 964

Important

The way to silence is the way of the mantra. — location: 967

In the Garden of Gethsemani Jesus is described as praying over and over again ‘in the same words’ (Mark 14.39, Matt. 26.44) — location: 978

With this word you will suppress all thoughts’ — location: 984

it lies close at hand for all if only they will by constant repetition of this phrase keep the mind and the heart attentive to God’ — location: 993

‘Maranatha, Maranatha’. ‘Come Lord. Come Lord Jesus’. — location: 994

Learning to meditate is learning to say the mantra, — location: 997

We must grow in our fidelity to the mantra and in the same proportion the mantra will grow more and more deeply rooted in us. — location: 999

‘Come Lord. Come Lord Jesus’. I suggest that you articulate it in your mind silently, — location: 1000

equal stress on each of the four syllables. Ma-ra-na-tha. — location: 1001

we cannot attempt to force the pace of meditation in any way or to speed up the natural process in which the mantra roots itself in our consciousness — location: 1016

We must not be self-consciously asking ourselves, ‘How far have I got? Am I saying the mantra or sounding it or listening to it?’ — location: 1017

If we try to force the pace or to keep a constant self-conscious eye on our progress we are, if there is such a word, non-meditating because we are concentrating on ourselves, putting ourselves first, thinking about ourselves. — location: 1018

we must say the mantra for the whole twenty or thirty minutes of our meditation, regardless of whatever mood we are in or whatever reaction we seem to be having. — location: 1035

we tend to over-estimate the first unusual experiences that the process of meditation brings to us. — location: 1041

The important thing is to persevere with the mantra, to stabilize ourselves by our discipline which makes us ready for the higher slopes of the mountain. — location: 1042

We need not be over-concerned with our motives to begin with. — location: 1044

be faithful to your humble task of saying the mantra without ceasing. — location: 1046

Saying the mantra is a discipline which helps us to transcend all the limitations of our narrow and isolated self-obsession. — location: 1052

helping us to pass over into the Other, by helping us to take our minds off ourselves. — location: 1054

the tendency of our society is to emphasize the importance of self-promotion, self-preservation, self-projection. — location: 1058

‘the other’ merely an object which we see in terms of our own pleasure or advantage. — location: 1059

If we begin to objectify the other then its reality, its uniqueness, and essential value escape us and it becomes not the other, but a projection of ourselves. — location: 1061

We do not try to do anything. We simply let ourselves be. — location: 1073

Self-obsession is the means of restricting and limiting the self. Self-renunciation, on the other hand, is the means of liberating the self for its real purpose which is loving the Other. — location: 1077

the absolute importance of personal verification. We must know for ourselves in the depth of our own being. — location: 1131

we must be fully awake to the wonder and beauty of our being, — location: 1132

absolute trust, in the Fatherhood and Motherhood of the God who not only created us, but sustains us in being from moment to moment. — location: 1155

Realize yourself, that is, in the present moment because your happiness and fulfilment are here and now. — location: 1156

James Joyce said of one of his characters that ‘he lived at a certain distance from his body’. It was a marvellously simple but accurate diagnosis of what we have come to know as alienation. — location: 1179

every life must follow. A second reason is the way we are trained to compartmentalize our lives too rigidly into, for example, school, work, home, family, entertainment, church and so on. As a result we lose a sense of our own personal wholeness. — location: 1185

the harmony we find through whole-hearted attention in prayer, — location: 1201

The whole person, rejoicing in life and its given-ness can find joy in his or her wholeness: ‘I thank Thee Lord for the wonder of my being’ (Ps. 138.13), sings the psalmist. — location: 1203

We have to concentrate, to move towards our centre. — location: 1206

By personal harmony I mean the integration, the perfect co-operation of mind and heart, body and spirit. — location: 1218

we have lost the knowledge of our spirit and confused it with our mental awareness. — location: 1228

We are not just an extreme of body and an extreme of mind co-existing. We have a principle of unity within our being, in the centre of our being and it is this, our spirit, which is the image of God within us. — location: 1231

‘When grace draws people to contemplation it seems to transfigure them even physically so that though they may be ill-favoured by nature they now appear changed and lovely to behold’ — location: 1238

The mantra opens our hearts in pure simplicity. — location: 1244

‘Do you not know’, wrote St Paul to the Corinthians, ‘that your body is a shrine of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the Spirit is God’s gift to you?’ (1 Cor. 6.19) Meditation is simply our way to knowing it. — location: 1245

We must realize the persons we already are. — location: 1273

we cannot love God or our neighbour. We love both or neither. — location: 1317