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Meditation
There are nine elements in this meditation (see figures below): The five things humans can control: Senses, Mind, Heart, Speech, Action (“In the end, all we can do is move a few muscles”; “Were we put on earth to do much less than we think?”); and four “objects” or goal/ meaning/ purpose Metaphors seen in all the Scriptures: Light, Salvation, River, and Mirror.
The human being often is symbolized by the five pointed star, for the five senses, or the five elements of human life above. The three symbols here present these nine factors in radar graphs. This graph contains all of the mathematics of the natural world, since when you graph the normal curve, or increasing levels of entropy resistance (“order”) on a decimal scale, you get a “nine” pointed graph that also produces a “conch” spiral of the number 9, seen in many places in nature, from atoms to galaxies to seashells to spiderwebs, ubiquitous, and still little understood by science. It is not accidental that this graph resembles a spiderweb!
Science explains the ubiquitous presence of this pattern from atoms to galaxies as the “Crystal structure of efficiency: greatest results with least energy expenditure, while opposing entropy.” This is the primal struggle of life! In spiritual terms it is the same, the graci-ous “unified field theory” of achieving our spiritual destiny (Unity with God), with the least effort, and avoiding the greatest number of traps, diversions, pitfalls and detours on the way.
Baha’u’llah says that all paths lead to God, but the Baha’i Faith is the “Safe and secure path.” If our motive is God’s good pleasure, acceptance, grace and favor; our senses see only the Light of His Names and Attributes everywhere reflected by His Manifestation for our age (Baha’u’llah); our heart is filled with only His love, our action is prayer and service with a virtuous character, and our thoughts are only of His Glory, we will live in continual bliss, through eons and ages of immortal cycles and spirals.
To get there, “enlightenment” was formerly described as meditating on the hard working ant, who knows, when coming to a beach, how to separate the sand from the sugar. This is a metaphor for “right thinking” or “positive thinking” in only focusing on thoughts of the light of God’s Prophets, with hard practical work in our daily life, and dismissing or ignoring or renouncing the negative.
A step beyond this is a more amazing awakening: realization of the brief SPARK that is this life (time) and realizing that life is all PROCESS (space), which is never static. Imagine a swiftly moving river. You can see both trash and sirens float by, but to reject the former and grab at the latter is still attachment, and missing the point of the river: it is ALL RAPID FLOW.
These are all symbols for the worlds of thought, and heart-attachment to physical objects, physical comforts, fame, power, and opinions. This helps us LET GO of “ALL THINGS AND ALL THOUGHTS” as ‘Abdu’l-Baha puts it. Clinging to a “future investment” or “mortal sovereignty” misses the lightning speed with which our lives are over. Clinging to thoughts plugs up the wondrous river of grace that is a continual flow: NO! Stop clinging, grabbing, obsessing, chasing: LET IT FLOW, SEE the process, then: BE the process!
Many older meditations also try to sell us on “living in the moment,” which is working hard to attain what every dog gets for free. Far beyond living in the moment is seeing the future of immortal life: living with the continual realization of the blazing speed with which this life is over, and keeping our mirror turned to God at all times by letting go of the CONTENT of thought to BE the river and BE the process of reflecting His Names and Attributes with virtue, character, prayer and service.
To simplify: we can only control how we allocate attention with our mind, (including what we see with our senses and where we point the mirror of mind); what we plant in our heart; and how we act and speak. The end is Light and Purity: reliance and renunciation; turning away from everything but God and turning to God.
There are thus only three things to remember: allocation of sense-thought attention, heart-love, and character-action including speech-silence. How do we allocate sense-thought? We scan, we search, we sort, and allocation of attention comes from this process. If we are independent of all “received opinion” we use only the Word of God as our filter, standard and selection criteria to separate signal from noise and thus to choose our focus and priorities, in managing the mirror of our attention allocation process.
We sit at the center of a web of thought. If we build our web in the Light, we will catch eternal life from the river of grace streaming through the web. That catch will kindle the spark of love in our own hearts, until we become a beacon to Paradise, guiding the way for our fellow travelers with the light of character, a light that, according to Baha’u’llah, is brighter than the light of the sun.
What about the “daily grind” of bills, raising kids, working at our job, and the calamities of job loss, financial stress, the struggle to survive, terrorism, natural disasters…? Living in grace, and seeking only God’s favor, solves all our material woes as well! ‘Abdu’l-Baha says that the “greatest bestowal in the world of being is a tranquil heart” and that it can only be attained by achieving the paradise of “the good pleasure of God.” Baha’u’llah tells us to seek only His grace and favor, for “in His Hands is the destiny of all His servants.”
‘Abdu’l-Baha states: Rely upon God, trust in Him, praise Him, and call Him continually to mind. He verily turneth trouble into ease, and sorrow into solace, and toil into utter peace. He verily hath dominion over all things.
Why should you think deeply about this meditation? Man is a “Meaning Machine” – and until we turn to the spiritual, we will never find meaning, be happy, and achieve our astonishing destiny. We have to fight and struggle, but God is in our corner! This is not the kind of Faithful Friend we want to reject, is it? And for what? As we fight the struggles of life, it's our choice who we want in our corner!
Senses: Scan, Search, 1 Eye, Independence |
| Mind: Sort, Allocate, Focus, Prioritize, GPB, Motive |
| Heart: Spark, Process, Kindle LOG, Means |
| Speech: Pure, Kindly, Truthful |
| Action: Protect, Promote Character: P and S, Svc. |
| Light: All aspects Greatest Name |
| Salvation: Reliance, Renunciation, Good End |
| River: Trash, Sirens, Detachment Flow, Process |
| Mirror: Allocation of Attention Choices |
The light hath shone on thee from the horizon of the sacred Mount and the spirit of enlightenment hath breathed in the Sinai of thy heart. Wherefore, free thyself from the veils of idle fancies and enter into My court, that thou mayest be fit for everlasting life and worthy to meet Me. Thus may death not come upon thee, neither weariness nor trouble.
Thou art but one step away from the glorious heights above and from the celestial tree of love. Take thou one pace and with the next advance into the immortal realm and enter the pavilion of eternity. Give ear then to that which hath been revealed by the pen of glory.
Hear no evil, and see no evil, abase not thyself, neither sigh nor weep. Speak no evil, that thou mayest not hear it spoken unto thee, and magnify not the faults of others that thine own faults may not appear great; and wish not the abasement of anyone, that thine own abasement be not exposed. Live then the days of thy life, that are less than a fleeting moment, with thy mind stainless, thy heart unsullied, thy thoughts pure, and thy nature sanctified, so that, free and content, thou mayest put away this mortal frame, and repair unto the mystic paradise and abide in the eternal kingdom for evermore.
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