By Roland Ashby
Meditation is not about having “nice experiences” or becoming more “effective” in whatever we do, but about “aligning ourselves with the Real and the True”, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said on 9 February. He was speaking via zoom on the theme of ‘Meditation – with or without expectations’ as part of a monthly series of talks organised by the Bonnevaux Centre for Peace, the international home of the World Community for Christian Meditation in France.
Dr Williams, who meditates by silently repeating a mantra - the Jesus Prayer (‘O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner’)* - said that “The ‘I’ that emerges from the far side of a sustained practice of meditation and contemplation is not the ‘me’ I started with... In the practice of meditation and contemplation we are seeking... no result except a more complete alignment with what is Real, and that it is what is Real, what is True, that makes us grow as persons.”
This can be “quite tough and unrewarding”, he said, “because a lot of what we feel on the surface is going to be the truthful reality of God rubbing up against the different kinds of story I tell myself about myself. It’s going to be a steady, gentle but relentless wearing away of that protective surface. Because, after all, why would I want to align myself with the Real unless I recognised that there is something making me less than real – something cluttering up or blocking the path... a sort of screen between myself and what is Real.”
Quite a lot of this experience in meditation and contemplation he said will be of “recognising, naming and confronting, more and more honestly and in truth those things that are responsible for the clutter... the blockage”.
This required us, he added, “to let go of the expectations that imprison us and keep us within our comfort zone”, and to “undertake the risk of the unknown, which will allow who I am to be aligned with the Real, with Truth, with God, in a way that lasts, in a way that liberates, in a way that brings the kind of joy, which... you cannot really imagine”.
He said meditation using a mantra can be a helpful discipline in becoming less self-occupied. “The sheer regularity and discipline, the sheer focus of the mind on the mantra, the posture, really does help. We’re not thinking about how wonderful it would be to be selfless and saintly. We’re thinking about how we draw the next breath, pass through the next five minutes in stillness, and keep our minds receptive, clear as we can, and not go down the rabbit holes of our anxiety.”
The outcome of this, he said, “is another kind of self – a self that has a certain freedom from the obsessions and anxieties that so imprison us...
“Many of the great saints have emphasised that one of the things that is supposed to be happening as we grow in practice is that we see more. The normal haste, pressure and self-oriented anxiety that we bring to our daily lives is relaxed, lessened and released so that we are actually free to see and hear more. [This is] not something we can tabulate [or] quantify. We may find ourselves, to our own surprise, saying, after a bit, ‘I never noticed that’, and realise that without undue self-consciousness, something has shifted in the ecology of our insides. Something has shifted to allow Reality to impact upon us more freshly and more fully.”
He said that meditation is not just about seeing the world around us more clearly. “It’s about being aligned with the boundless, unimaginable life which is the Source of All – the Life of God... The ultimate expectation in our practice is simply that we become what God intends creation to be. God intends that creation find indescribable fulfilment, homecoming bliss, in receiving and reflecting his own glory and love, in all eternity. The Word, the Son, the eternal Christ receives and reflects the glory and love of the Source and wellspring of his being, the Father, and that receiving and reflecting eternally overflows in the gift of Spirit, breath, bringing life to the world.”
He continued:
“So what we are, when we are mostly aligned with the Real and the Truth, is reflections of... versions of that perfect and everlasting response of receiving and reflecting, which is Christ, which is finally the eternal Word of God. That’s what we’re for.
“Why on earth God should create the world is a question which God alone can answer. But if God does create a world it is a world which he wishes to share bliss, freedom and love with. And so, we are here as God’s creatures so that bliss and love may grow in us. That’s what we’re for.
“And of course, the by-product of that - as we do grow in history and time and society – is the love, justice, equity and generosity [which come to form civil society].
“But ultimately we are summoned, drawn towards that everlasting space of good, grace and God. We can’t imagine what that is because our hearts and minds are too small. But bit by bit, our minds and hearts are able, by God’s grace, to grow into that Christ-like receptiveness, that readiness to see, to be aligned, harmonised with the Real that is God. And so, at the end of the day, the expectation we bring to the practice of [meditation], is - and it’s a very ambitious thing to say - the expectation that we may become like Christ...
“We are summoned by Jesus Christ and enabled by the Holy Spirit that flows from him, so that we may pray to and gaze upon the mystery of the everlasting source of love. That’s the expectation...
He added that if we approach meditation or order to have “nice experiences” or in order to make ourselves “more effective [in whatever we do]” we’ll be disappointed. “[But] if we approach meditation... ready to grow, ready to change – that kind of expectation is what will make us, or rather allow us, to grow beyond the fear that keeps us prisoner, the habits of instinct and protectiveness that hold us back, the clutter, the blockage of which I spoke earlier.
“So it’s right that we expect to be changed, expect that we shall, ultimately, be made new... We know, says St John, that we are brought into the life of Christ, and what we shall be does not yet appear. We live in the joyful expectation of it, and our daily slog, our daily grind of faithfulness, sitting, silence, mantra, that’s part of an everlasting joy and bliss of God, takes us and changes us beyond expectation.”
*As discussed in an interview with Roland Ashby in ‘A faith to live by’ (Vol.1) published by Darton Longman and Todd and Morning Star Publishing.
For more information about the Bonnevaux Speaker Series see: