An original work written by Max Cade in the mystical style of Kahlil Gibran, clarifying what meditation is and what it is not.
A Student went to the Wise One and said: “Speak to us of Meditation.” And the Wise One answered, saying: “You live in a world which is hypnotized by the illusion of time. A world in which the so-called present moment is seen as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline dividing an all-powerful causative past from a fascinatingly important and alluring future. But you have no Present. Your consciousness is fully preoccupied with Memories on the one hand and by Expectations on the other. You do not understand that there never was, is, nor ever will be any other Experience … than Present Experience. You are therefore out of touch with reality and live in a world of illusion.
You meditate … when you attend, without attachment, to the Here and the Now. When your unfocused mind is aware, without comment, of whatever IS…
You meditate … when, without ceasing to be conscious of your body and your mind, and of the clamouring voices of your environment, you become increasingly attuned to the Voice of Silence, to the Wisdom of your Higher Self.
You meditate … when in the quietness of the Woods and Fields, or in the peace of some old church, you turn inwards for a while to share the Stillness of God.
Yet you meditate more worthily … when in the thick of Life’s battlefield, in the heat and dust and strife of the daily round, you carry with you that same Stillness, so that your heart becomes the Temple of your Spirit.
You meditate … when you live neither wholly in this world nor in that, when you steep your mind in the waters of divine creativity and intelligence, and your every act is redeemed by being taken up into something greater than itself.
You meditate, … when in the agony of indecision, you say, ‘Not my will, God, but thy will be done.’
But you meditate most of all … when you listen – with the ear of your body and the ear of your mind and the ear of your soul – to that soundless voice that Speaks from the eternal cosmos and bids you be One with all Life.”
Maxwell Cade