Meditation Speaks

“Meditation speaks.  It speaks in silence.  It reveals.  It reveals to the aspirant that matter and spirit are one, quantity and quality are one, the immanent and the transcendent are one.  It reveals that life can never be the mere existence of seventy or eighty years between birth and death, but is, rather, Eternity itself.”

-Sri Chinmoy   

 

Let me start with some obscure musical information.  Back in the early 1970’s rock music and jazz music created a hybrid called jazz fusion.  The band Santana combined Latin rhythms and percussion with jazz influences.  A band called the Mahavishnu Orchestra created sounds like no one had heard before.  The leaders of these bands, Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin, besides being extremely talented guitar players, were both followers of the guru, Sri Chinmoy. Together they recorded an album called “Love, Devotion, Surrender”.  It is probably no surprise to anyone that knows me well that I own all of this music on CD’s and I jam to it on a regular basis.  All music considered jazz fusion generally has a spiritual overtone. 

 

The quote by Sri Chinmoy basically tells us that all of life is sacred.  Doing the laundry or washing the dishes can be as spiritual as going to church or reading your prayer book.  There is no separation between the secular and the sacred.  I have shared before that I once lived in a Trappist monastery.  We did spend more time in church than the average person but I also spend a great deal of time wandering in the woods and fields, working on the farm, cooking in the kitchen, and making fruitcakes in the bakery.  I also fed the cows and worked on lots of construction projects.  Sometimes the experience of God was more likely in the woods than in the church.  Most of the time they complimented one another.  The point is that whether you are a monk, or just a mother or father living in the world, all of life is sacred and spiritual at its core.