John
the Baptist:
A Clear Message and Identity
My
first teacher in meditation, Brother Casimer, now in Singapore, used
to say that if you have expectations in meditation and they are not
fulfilled you have got what you deserve! Christian meditation promises
nothing, unlike some commercialized forms of meditation that promise
freedom from stress, good health, clearer thinking and even transcendental
experience. Christian meditation as taught by John Main is very simple.
It calls for total poverty and freedom from all desires.
"You
just sit still and upright. Close your eyes lightly. Sit relaxed but
alert. Silently, interiorly begin to say a single word. We recommend
the prayer-phrase 'MARANATHA.' Recite it as four syllables of equal
length. Listen to it as you say it gently but continuously. Do not
think or imagine anything - spiritual or otherwise. If thoughts and
images come, these are not to be entertained at the time of meditation,
so keep returning to simply saying the word. Meditate each morning
and evening for between twenty and thirty minutes."
Yet, when you practice this type of meditation you will soon notice
changes in yourself, or others may notice them for you.
If
you wanted a model of the type of person that you may become through
meditation you could hardly find a better one than John the Baptist
as portrayed in our Gospel today. He comes across as a man with a
clear message. That clarity comes from his unconfused ego-free identity.
There
is a sad story from India about an eagle who laid her egg in the nest
of a chicken. The mother hen sat on the eggs and hatched them. There
was one chicken, the eagle who thought he was a chicken, who was bigger
and more awkward than the other chickens as he learned to scratch
and peck, and to take a bath in the dust. One day he looked up into
the sky and saw an eagle soaring gracefully. He asked an older chicken
what that was in the sky. He was told, "That is an eagle. But
do not give it another thought, you or I could never be like that
eagle." And so the eagle, who thought he was a chicken, never
gave it another thought, and lived and died thinking that he was only
a chicken. How sad, yet, if the story was told in reverse it would
be even more sad. Supposing a chicken laid its egg in the eagles nest.
Wouldn't the poor creature that was hatched have a frustrating time
trying to be what it was never meant to be. Yet, this is very much
our lot. We find it very difficult to accept who we are. We seem to
be always wearing masks trying to cover up who we are and do not want
to be, or else we are pretending that we are someone other than who
we are, but whom we would like to be.
Not
so John the Baptist; he declares without any doubt, "I have come
to prepare the way for the Christ" but "I am not the Christ."
"I baptize you in water for repentance, but the one who follows
me is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to carry his sandals;
he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." "He
must increase while I must decrease."
His
clear self identity leads to a simplicity of lifestyle. "This
man John wore a garment of camel-hair with a leather belt around his
waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey." One of our meditation
group shared at a meeting, "Before I started meditation I used
to spend a lot on make-up and manicures, now these things do not seem
at all important to me." Meditation tends to free us from dependence
on the unimportant.
John called for repentance, for change of life and this is also what
one experiences in meditation. It is impossible to meditate and to
continue to be angry, fearful, jealous, hateful or dishonest. One
will either give up meditation or soften and let go of incompatible
attitudes.
For
John Main the letting go of all things, "leaving self behind"
was essential. This led to an integrity and fullness of life: the
type of life exemplified by John the Baptist, and the type of life
to which we are called during Advent as we prepare for Christmas.
Taken
from Sundays
into Silence - A Pathway to Life. Copyright © 1998 by Claretian
Publications
