A new vision comes when I can stop looking into the blazing sun that blinds me, and I learn to focus more on deeper, more intimate and hidden beauties and light. It's then that I begin to feel a taste and a hunger for a new love and a new vision that calls me further on. It's then that I can begin to hear a quiet gentle voice within calling to me, inviting me, telling me that I have an immense value, because I am loved and wanted -- not for what I possess or what I have achieved, but simply for what I am. And what I am is this unique person, quite unlike anyone else, with my own story and my own very special light shining in my eyes. This uniqueness of mine comes from one source alone. It comes from the loving call to me by my name from the Author, the Creator and the End of my life. This is the road of your life and mine.
~ from A JOURNEY IN THE COMPANY OF GOD by Brother Andrew
The warmth provided by our capacity to love is as necessary for the soul's growth as any part of the meditational way... Love increases as we look out for the strangers and welcome them and particularly as we work at trying to transform our enemies into friends. Steadily the warmth that is given by this kind of action draws the soul toward the reality of the loving God. Step by step the soul's reach grows, so that it becomes easier to find the One who is Love and to carry more Love out actively to others.
Faith is a gift that comes, the gift of assurance that the powers of light have conquered and will keep on defeating the darkness. Hope is our own attitude of looking steadfastly toward that victory and trying to order our lives toward it. Faith and hope are far easier attitudes to live with than despair and disillusionment . . . so I deliberately choose to hope. Through hope and faith the inner journey has direction and a goal and meditation becomes a process of discovering the reality of Divine Love.
Breathing is one internal function that the conscious mind can control with comparative ease. The effect of controlled breathing is almost like communication with all conscious parts of one's being saying to them, "Simmer down and listen; there is something beyond the turmoil". It is communication in action that often works when words merely go in one ear and out the other, not even changing the cognitive mind. In essence, the effect is to turn all the elements of our will toward stillness and waiting.
Practicing Silence is the art of letting down the barrier that separates our rational consciousness from the depth of our soul ... of coming into touch with the spiritual world in a way that opens our whole being to the reality of the creative and integrating center -- to the Risen Christ ... In silence we meet the reality of the inner voice from God which gives inspiration, guidance and direction, and transformation.
The gift of Silence is to allow the Christ to bring the split-off, conflicting parts of our being into fruitful relationship, and at the same time, to deliver us from destructive evil which seeks to keep us fragmented and operating unconsciously. In this way, we are brought together and given a single eye -- that new center of being which allows us to operate at more nearly full potential, creatively and freed from giving in to destructive impulses.
~ from THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE by Morton T. Kelsey
