MEDITATION AND THE INFINITE

‘Meditation’ wrote H P Blavatsky, ‘is the inexpressible longing of the inner man for the Infinite.’

What is ‘the Infinite’? Is it Life? Eternity? Heaven? Paradise? Bliss? I don’t think it’s any of those things, at least not as those words are ordinarily used and understood. (I will, however, come back to the meaning of the word ‘Eternity’ very shortly.)

I think so-called ‘time’ and ‘space’ – which are really one – are no more than mediums in which all things exist. Life is movement---ceaseless movement--and life itself---pure Be-ing---is timeless and spaceless, with everything being contained within what we call ‘the Now.’ And when I say ‘everything’ I mean every thing … including space and time itself. All duration---that is, time---is total and complete in the Now. Further, there is an ‘eternal’ quality about the Now. It is forever new. The so-called present moment, such a brief and ephemeral ‘thing,’ has its unfolding in the Now.

So, there is one Presence and Power that surpasses even the all-consuming power of time itself--- the Eternal ... the Infinite. Now, Eternity, or the Infinite, is not something we enter when we die. No, Eternity is ‘something’ we are ‘in’---right now!

Each one of us---indeed every ‘thing’—is part of life’s Self-expression (‘Be-ing,’ or the ‘Self’), and life cannot die. Our bodies will die, and, I think, also our minds, but the life in us---well, that’s an entirely different matter.

Why meditate? The answer I give is this---it is the most natural thing we can do. You see, we come from Be-ing, we live, move and have our be-ing in Be-ing, and we will forever be part of Be-ing. We can’t escape ‘it’ … because we are ‘it.’ What? Pure Be-ing, which is forever complete and whole, and which embraces all in One-ness. Meditation---especially the practice of mindfulness---enables us to stop identifying with our body and our mind. They are not the real person each one of us is. Meditation also enables us to stop identifying with time, for the less we think about time, and the less we concern ourselves with time, the freer we will be.

Each one of us---even the most materialistic of persons---has an ‘inexpressible longing’ for the Infinite. The longing is ‘inexpressible’ because it is essentially ‘unspeakable.’ More than that, it is ‘hidden,’ because it is not something that is objective to consciousness itself. Indeed, this longing is of the very nature of Be-ing---that is, pure consciousness---Itself.

Well, why meditate if this longing for the Infinite is ‘inexpressible’ or unspeakable’? The answer is simple. People meditate because they want to live fully and mindfully in the abundance of the Eternal Now. They want to know the ‘Self as … One. They want to feel fully and truly alive … and one with all there is.

So, I say to each of you … meditate.

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The photos were taken by the author
on a recent trip to Tasmania