Our True Self

The more conscious of the true self we are, the more we see our attitude to others change in the way we live out our relationship with them. Fear diminishes, generous love grows; reactive anger yields to the wisdom of forgiveness; judgement is absorbed by patience. In the place of the control and manipulation which, in the ego’s eyes, makes the world go round, an amazing freedom is glimpsed as a real possibility in human affairs: the freedom that arises when people let each other be who they are. [. . . ]

But what a risk. The great risk we take in meditation is first of all to be ourselves. This is the first step. But if we do not take the corresponding next step, we would never move from where we are; we would be hopping on one leg all our life. The next step is to take the risk of letting others be themselves. Perceiving their reality as distinct from our own is the way to do this. [. . . .]

Turning attention away from ourselves toward the greater reality “outside us” that contains us is the great act of contemplation. It is the same act of contemplation, however we manage to do it—in relationships, in art, in service, and in prayer. Certainly, learning to meditate—a lifelong art to learn—is a fundamental way to do it. But it is not limited to the actual work of meditation. To meditate is to learn how to live contemplatively in everything we do, [to], as St Antony of the desert once called his disciples to do: “always breathe Christ.” -- Laurence Freeman OSB, “Letter Nine,” COMMON GROUND.