Yesterday, I did some photography in Wyoming, whose border lies just thirty miles north of my home. One of the reasons why I love Wyoming so much is because it is so vast and spacious. Hiking or driving across those wide expanses reminds me that I am called to embody that spaciousness in my own awareness. For that open-mindedness, I'm convinced, is the primary dwelling place of our Divine Source. Eckhart Tolle has this to say about what he calls "space consciousness":
"Object consciousness needs to be balanced by space consciousness for sanity to return to our planet and for humanity to fulfill its destiny. The arising of space consciousness is the next state in the evolution of humanity . . . Space consciousness means that in addition to being conscious of things - which always come down to sense perceptions, thoughts, and emotions - there is an undercurrent of awareness. Awareness implies that you are not only conscious of things (objects), but you are also conscious of . . . an alert stillness in the background while things happen in the foreground."
In the practices of Christian Insight Meditation and Crazy Wisdom Meditation, I work consciously at maintaining a spacious frame of mind, and then watching - spellbound - as all perceptions, thoughts and emotions arise from that vastness like echoes out of nowhere. In a poem that epitomizes for me the basis of all true spirituality, Ram Dass writes:
"I make the effort
to maintain a ground of oceanic silence
out of which arises the multitude
of phenomena of daily life . . .
I often fail in these aspirations . . .
But I make the effort."
May all of us find the grace to live in this liberating and creative spaciousness all the days of our life!
Photos: (Top) Cottonwoods and The Snowy Range, near Centennial, WY; (Second) A Limber Pine and rocky outcrop at sunset, Vedauwoo Recreation Area, Medicine Bow National Forest, WY; (Third) A pool, prairie, and the Mummy Range near the Colorado-Wyoming border; (Bottom) Horses graze in the shadow of The Snowy Range, near Centennial, WY. All photos were taken on October 14, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment