Early one morning during a time of meditation/prayer I sat
in my favorite chair, which I realize, is far too comfortable for proper
meditative posture not to mention the traditional prayerful kneeling pose. In
the past I have fallen asleep on my knees just as easily as in my favorite
chair, thus I opted for the sitting position, which was less presumptuous, as
if I could manipulate God by my pious posturing.
At any rate I sat with my cup of coffee in my
right hand, our softly purring orange tabby, named appropriately, “Marmalade”,
draped across the left arm of the chair as I stroked his neck and back and
stared into the flickering candle on the table in front of me. I realize that
there is no meaningful way to express fully how it felt to experience the sense
of presence I was melting into like the warmth of hot fudge flowing slowly over
the cold of the ice cream, or the coolness of my heart for that matter.
And yet
the ‘presence’ was not external to me. It flowed up and through and out of
every cell of my being. This was not some ecstatic religious peak experience
that lasts for a moment and then just dissipates as you return to your normal
unconsciousness. Rather than a ’stage’ experience that lasts for a while and
then morphs into a different stage, this feels more like a ’state’ of being
that is a way of experiencing life in every moment of now.
Awakening is not
just a stage experience that one achieves through rigorous religious or
spiritual practice although those things are helpful for many things. Rather it
is more a state of almost constant consciousness. A consciousness of all the
little things that comprise what we call our life, all of which is of no small
significance.
It is in the simple acceptance of all that arises moment to
moment with joy, with each and every breath, both the good and the bad. It is
the simple flicker of a single candle. It is the soft purr of peaceable
contentment at each loving stroke of the hand across the striped fur. It is the
soft sleepy snore of a loving wife in the bedroom. It is the quiet of the
early morn. And in that silence I heard a still small voice.
