I remember my grandmother sitting alone in the sunny back yard - not lonely but quiet, in touch with something larger than her mind - stillness, silence, consciousness.
I remember my mother sliding into dementia and watching her mind become silent, silent and empty (until childhood abandonment pain would surface from the unlocking compartments of her personality - pain needing time to complete its course). She, too, was entering the silence.
I watch my own mind becoming ever more silent as I age. I could get busy again, start new tasks and projects, but I like this silence. What does all this mean?
We return to silence as we age, to a silent consciousness beyond thought, to a consciousness that is not our own but God's. As the self-construct drifts apart like a jigsaw puzzle floating in water, the pieces gradually sinking to the bottom, what's left is the silence of cosmic consciousness. It is a silence filled with awareness, as if we have entered the great mind, and we have. This is the gate of aging. Arriving in this moment, I know who I really am. I am one with the one - no more boundaries, no more tasks, no more separation.
This union is like death, for it is thinking that keeps the self-idea in place and silence that gradually ends its reign. But the boon of this "death" is unity, freedom from the struggling self, and liberation from the known. A radiant new world opens in this consciousness, a place we haven't been since early childhood. Don't run from silence, for silence is the divine consciousness that is Presence.
I remember my mother sliding into dementia and watching her mind become silent, silent and empty (until childhood abandonment pain would surface from the unlocking compartments of her personality - pain needing time to complete its course). She, too, was entering the silence.
I watch my own mind becoming ever more silent as I age. I could get busy again, start new tasks and projects, but I like this silence. What does all this mean?
We return to silence as we age, to a silent consciousness beyond thought, to a consciousness that is not our own but God's. As the self-construct drifts apart like a jigsaw puzzle floating in water, the pieces gradually sinking to the bottom, what's left is the silence of cosmic consciousness. It is a silence filled with awareness, as if we have entered the great mind, and we have. This is the gate of aging. Arriving in this moment, I know who I really am. I am one with the one - no more boundaries, no more tasks, no more separation.
This union is like death, for it is thinking that keeps the self-idea in place and silence that gradually ends its reign. But the boon of this "death" is unity, freedom from the struggling self, and liberation from the known. A radiant new world opens in this consciousness, a place we haven't been since early childhood. Don't run from silence, for silence is the divine consciousness that is Presence.