Becoming Aware of the Light

This week's quotation is by Bettina von Arnim: "Wer sich nach Licht sehnt, ist nicht lichtlos, denn die Sehnsucht ist schon Licht."

Which being translated reads: "Anyone who longs for light is not lightless, for yearning is already light."

Seeing this quotation sent me back to Richard Rohr's wonderful book Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer. In it, he explains how we can only become aware of the presence of God in our lives by detaching from our monkey-mind ego-driven selves, and finding Him/Her/It in the stillness. He argues that the busy, acquisitive world we live in is the antithesis of this stillness, and is the reason why it is so hard for modern people to let go and simply be.

The Buddha, Jesus, Hafiz and many other mystical teachers all stress the importance of being awake; of being aware of what is happening in the present moment. Rohr shares an amusing conversation between a Zen master and his disciple:

"Is there anything that I can do to make myself enlightened?
"As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning."
"Then of what use are the spiritual exercises you prescribe?"
"To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise."

Rohr says: "We cannot attain the presence of God because we're already totally in the presence of God. What's absent is awareness. Little do we realise that God is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take.As we take another, it means that God is choosing us now and now and now." (emphasis mine)

Which is why I try to sit in silence for 15 minutes every morning ... so that I will not be asleep when the sun begins to rise.