Even while living through one world war as a very young child, and other subsequent minor local wars in other parts of the world, I’ve never known a time when there has been so much hatred and evil at loose between different parts of the World, culture, and race. Why can’t we just see each other as people?
It may seem very foolish for me to claim that there is something we can each do individually that will, over time, collectively considerably reduce the current level of worldwide hatred; and even restore a higher level of love and mutual respect everywhere.
Consider the dynamics of our personal lives and how we navigate disagreements within families and among friends. Despite differences, we often maintain respect and affection for one another.
I’ve spent much of my life navigating disagreements among work colleagues to reach a point where we achieved a workable solution to our differences. Much of what I achieved was driven by my search for the meaning of God in my life.
Like many, I grew up thinking of God as a remote being who existed I knew not where and who could only be approached through prayer and supplication. In my teens, I realised that God is accessible to all of us by showing a willingness to be a friend without interfering in any way with our life choices beyond an occasional query of ‘do you want to think again’?
Then I found meditation which helped me feel more peaceful and, over time, deepen my awareness that God is present in our lives. This, eventually, took me to the last stage of my search known as the Silence. This is a state of complete quietness, peacefulness, and occasional joy with no mental activity. It provides a more profound state of relaxation than I achieve during meditation.
I don’t use a mantra or conversation of any kind. I think of God and why God is important to me and gradually find myself relaxing into a feeling of God’s presence. There’s no communication beyond a possible osmotic transfer of knowledge and wisdom without any awareness of this happening. It seems that we only obtain whatever we need at that time, with no communication taking place. Over time it also seems to become possible to articulate whatever was passed on to me via osmosis. A process that I used to call ‘instinct’ before experiencing the silence.
As you begin to experience the tranquillity of the silence, you may also sense a gentle wind blowing through you. This is where I need to be careful in explaining what this reminds me of because I’m not in any way claiming it to be the same experience that Jesus’s disciples had during the feast of Pentecost, the Harvest celebration that immediately followed the Passover, as described in the Acts of the Apostles in Acts 2:1 -13. And I certainly haven’t experienced what the members of other nations there that day heard, which was ordinary Galileans talking to each of those visitors in the visitor’s language.
At some later point, I realised why my experience of the Silence reminded me of the major change in the lives and talents of the disciples: it was simply that some kind of change happened to me in the much lesser shape of bringing me closer to my friends and family in a way that hadn’t happened before. The former reserve that had tended to keep me slightly distant from people dissipated so that they seemed to enjoy spending time with me.
As written by Apostle Paul, in a letter to the early Church in Philippi, ‘The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds…….’ expresses what is meant by ‘the Silence’ perfectly.