Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Lectio Divina 151


Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Sufism: The Transformation of the Heart. The Golden Sufi Center, 1995.

Meditation creates an inner structure of consciousness that enables us to operate at a higher frequency. Through years of disciplined meditation we attune our whole being to the higher frequencies of divine love so that this intoxicating energy can flow through us. Faster and faster flow the currents of love, faster and faster spins the heart. If we resist this energy we could be dangerously battered. If we were not centered we would be thrown off balance. The ego cannot provide the stability and center we need. It must be surrendered so that we can stand on the rock of the Self. Surrender allows us to spin with the dance of total devotion. But as we learn to lose our mind in the empty spaces of the beyond, we also need to be able to come back to our everyday world. The inner world with its intimacy and freedom from restraints is intoxicating, and it can make the outer world seem a cold, alien prison. We carry the consciousness that we are exiles in this world. But one must not allow states of meditation to interfere with everyday life and work. One needs to be able to focus on the outer world and function on the level of the mind whenever necessary. 


1 comment:

Lindsay Boyer said...

This passage from the Sufi tradition describes how at first we may resist allowing ourselves to be transformed by meditative states. Then, once we have learned to enter them, we may resist coming back to ordinary life. Yet we need to learn to move back and forth freely so that we may be fully present where we are needed.

Loving God, help me not to be afraid to enter deeply into my own heart, where you are waiting for me. And help me not to be afraid to return to the world, where you are waiting for me.