I turned off the light and drifted into that floating sensation, not asleep but drowsy, half awake and half asleep. Often, while in this state -- lovely, unknown faces float before me -- but this morning the experience was different. A perfect face of a child came before me in profile -- then it turned and smiled at me. It was glowing with light and seemed to fill my own head with light. I was aglow and excited and thought, "This must be the Christos"; but something within me, without sound, said, "No, this is you." I feel I will never be the same again and some day I may experience the "Promise".
Now is the moment for contemplatives. But what a vibrant presence we should have in the world, and in the depth of our silence. Not an escape, but a penetration to the very heart. That is what now I should like to understand and to make understood — and, most of all, to live. Respect for contemplative values in the world will not come because we preach about them, but because in our life of deep silence we are totally human.
~ from ABHISHIKTANANDA, ed. by James Stuart, thanks to S. Pascaline, OSB
