the sound of silence

“There is nothing so close to God as silence.”
Meister Eckhart


Meditation:

“If ‘Om’ is the sound of cosmic background radiation
‘ma-ra-na-tha’ is the sound of the heartpulse of god’s love
in the cosmos.”


Via Creativa

Studies in neuroscience reveal a surprising relationship between thought and action. You might reasonably presume that thought is prior to action. “Just one more sip” precedes picking up the wine glass.

Not so.

MRI  scans of brain activity reveal a sleight of hand – the arm moves to pick up the glass before the thought flickers in the brain as detected by the scanner. Intriguing. So who’s pulling the strings? What precedes thought? No thought? Maybe the same no-thought that animates our Being in deep sleep or meditation. There is no Do-er ultimately … only a Be-er. All our doings, thinkings, actions and creations spring out of pre-thought silence which, according to Meister Eckhart, is next to godliness. Shhh … can you hear the sound of silence?


“Sit quietly and do not move your mind or intellect. Then observe the observer. This is your true nature, from where everything else comes. It is your own nature, don’t forget.

If you make any effort or use any method of trying to achieve something at some distant future, this will bring you into time. And time is mind. So this will be the play of mind only. But your original nature is empty.

If you follow any thought that arises in the mind, you will find it arises from emptiness, from its source. And when you are aware, when you see “I am that source itself,” then there is no need to practice anything. No need to go anywhere. And you will see that you have always been that. This is called freedom, and you are not to achieve or attain it in some distant future. It is already there.”

H. W. L. Poonja (Papaji)

“no hay camino …”

“there is no path …”

In the entrance to artist Cesar Manrique’s ‘Seventh Wonder’ – Jameos del Agua – there is an extract from poet Antonio Machado’s poem Proverbs and Songs 29:

“Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.”

“Wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.”

Here you will find meditations for the journey … back home to yourself. For “what you are looking for is what is looking.” St Franics of Assissi

The meditations each comprise four elements:

a quote from a mystic from the Christian tradition
an image to encourage you in the regular saying of a mantra – “ma-ra-na-tha”
a written meditation on The Five Paths

These will be published as a book and e-book “No Path Home – meditations on The Five Paths”.

It is my heartfelt hope these meditations will help guide you home on your own journey – no path home.

Phil Shankland