Bede Griffiths & John Main

STILLNESS AND QUIET

Hardly anything moves – no wind –

neither bushes nor trees swaying – surprising

for a winter’s day at the seashore.

Everything is in suspended animation –

blinding sunshine gives the same impression

even its gentle warmth is motionless.

Vast blue sky does not move –

no clouds to break it up –

all is still!

Not even the vastness of the sky

disturbs the silence.

Is this why I came to the sea?

I leave behind my hectic life –

house cleaning – garden pruning – e-mails –

anti-war demonstrations – neighborhood meetings.

Am I looking for something else?

Is someone pulling me to the seashore?

Stillness - emptiness

start fires burning within me.

I am waiting – catching my breath –

my eyes are straining – the absolute overwhelms me.

My Beloved is knocking at my inner most door –

a door that He can only knock at.

No one else can enter so deeply within me.

Fire burns – my heart beats faster –

my breathing speeds up –

my whole body trembles.

My Beloved is touching me – wooing me

to love –

I lay back my head - rest in

ecstasy.

Robert Trabold

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BEDE GRIFFITHS ON THE

SPIRITUALITY OF JOHN MAIN

Robert Trabold

            Several years ago, Bede Griffiths was asked to give a talk on the spirituality of John Main at the yearly John Main seminar. He was uniquely positioned to give good insights into the significance and meaning of the latter’s thought.  Griffiths was a European born and raised in the West and then spent many years working in India. As a result, he had a grasp of the Western and Eastern contemplative traditions and was able to see how Main in his own way made a good synthesis of the two and brought to his world a deeper understanding of our contemplative path to God.

            Griffith mentions that Main saw that Western people had trouble and difficulty with the Christian churches and their teaching; they did not want words and thoughts but were looking for a direct experience of God. Such an experience goes back to the fathers and mothers of the desert in the early years of Christianity where they expounded a vision of God through love. Main believed that in each person there is an archetype of the ‘monk’ Every individual has the eternal potential to experience God and when this happens, we are the new creation in Christ. In all men and women, there is a desire to reach and touch the divine who is the ultimate meaning and truth of life. The Lord resides within us in the deepest part of our person.

            In the West, our image of God is one of the Father is heaven who is above and beyond us. In the East, religious traditions see rather God as the ground and source of being in the world. Both traditions are true and compliment each other. Main mentioned that in modern life, people are very busy with the things of the world and have lost the capacity of depth where we enter into ourselves so as to have an encounter with God. The challenge for modern people is to recover that capacity to encounter the divine at their center and still point. We need to develop that discipline of silence in which we go beyond ourselves and the appearances of the world and touch the ground of our being who is the absolute and is within us. An understanding of God in the Eastern tradition is helpful in this endeavor.

           In meditation groups, people are looking for this deeper meaning in life which is the reality of God. On the other hand, modern people have lost this capacity to enter into themselves and encounter the divine reality. This is due to sin which alienates us from our true goal in life.  We get lost in the appearances of everyday things and lose sight of our true goal in life. We become the new creation in Christ when we go beyond the appearances of every day life and get to the real source of human living. We have to go beyond our ego which is cut off from God and other people and transcend this ego. We open ourselves to the way of transcendence which is the way of love and expand ourselves so as to be open to the divine and others. Griffiths mentions that John Main saw prayer and meditation as the way to go beyond appearances and touch reality. This reality is God who is always revealing his/her self behind all externals. Western people are restless and do not find the divine and the ultimate meaning in life in words or thoughts but desire to experience the divine.  Griffiths believes that Main can show people in today’s world a way to do this and should encourage us who are involved in different meditation movements to be faithful in our efforts. Our contemplation puts us on a path where we touch God, the ground of all being, and helps us attain our transformation and that of the world in Christ. There is no more important task in our life.

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On Pilgrimage

MOUNTAINS OF SEGOVIA

Sunshine baths all –

high mountains with snow tops

do not move – quiet in the beauty.

Gentle breezes touch my body –

bring a desired coolness to me.

Wheat fields are still green – summer

heat will turn them yellow – ripe.

Scene has me dream – John

of the Cross dreamt here too for hours.

He would gaze – walk through fields –

woods.  He met someone here – told

his students – this was the best place for the meeting.

I took a long trip to get here – I want

to dream the same – meet someone

in the mountains – fields – sunshine.

All is quiet – rests in silence.

Gentle breeze blows the leaves –

otherwise just peace.

Silence betrays a presence –

language of God is silence.

John felt – heard that language –

walked through the fields listening.

So I sit here – on a bench – listening

to the silence – feeling the presence –

knowing that someone loves me – touches me.

He is happy I made such a trip –

happy to see me here.

Robert Trabold

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ON PILGRIMAGE:

CASTILLA & LEÓN, SPAIN

Robert Trabold

            For many years, I have been active in the Centering Prayer Movement and the John Main Meditation Movement which basically teach and encourage people to grow in mystical prayer, that is, prayer of silence in which we encounter the divine at our center and still point. Because I am involved in these contemplative prayer paths and meditate  this way twice a day, for several years, I have been drawn to make a pilgrimage of silence to Castilla & León in Spain where two great mystics, John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila, were born, lived and are buried. After getting off of my flight in Madrid, I go to Segovia where John of the Cross lived and is buried. From there, I visit the city of Avila where Theresa was born and worked and go to the Monastery of the Incarnation where she lived most of her adult life. I can see the room she lived in, a small museum with samples of her letters and books and other personal items and a visit to the chapel where she worshipped with the community. I then go to Salamanca and from there, visit the small town of Alba de Tormes where Theresa died.  She was traveling, fell ill, died and is buried there. Her remains are in a small church and placed above the altar.

            In Segovia, John of the Cross is buried in a chapel in a church and residence that he himself designed.  It is outside the medieval walls of the city of Segovia and close to the farm lands that surround the city. In the distance are snow capped mountains which make a lovely scene. John is buried in an ornate baroque chapel and when I visit there, I feel the silence of the chapel and the presence of John. I sit there for a long time repeating my mantra and rest in being in the presence of such a great mystic. He told his students that the best prayer is to walk out in the fields and mountains and in the beauty of nature and its quiet, one can have an experience of God. When I am there, I take John’s advice and walk in the fields enjoying the lovely scenery and quiet of the snow capped mountains and fields around me. I feel God’s presence intensely and relish such a gift.

            While in Segovia, I take a one day trip to Avila which is also a medieval city on top of a hill with its walls intact. The visit to the Monastery of the Incarnation is moving because Theresa lived there most of her life. She had frequent apparitions of Jesus and one can visit the sites where these took place and the parlor where she and John of the Cross met since he was her spiritual director and both worked on the reform of the Carmelites male and female religious orders. The highlight of the visit is to go to the chapel and one can see the spot where she had her mystical marriage with Jesus, that is, she entered the unitive way of close love with the Lord.  On that occasion, John of the Cross was at her side. It is good to remind ourselves that we are all called to such a union of love with Jesus, not just the great mystics like Theresa and John. The goal of contemplative prayer with its discipline of silence should lead to a person’s purification and becoming Christ like in our thoughts and actions. With that, we grow in love with the Lord and there is a deep union between us.

            The next step in the pilgrimage is a trip to Salamanca and to a small town, Alba de Tormes, on the outskirts of that city. Theresa was traveling, got ill and died in the latter. The church she is buried in is small and in recent years, has been restored. A new roof, an inside paint job, new floor and pews add to the loveliness of the baroque church. When I go to visit, I always feel a great silence.  I believe that it is Theresa leading me into the silence of God and having me sit there in the presence of the divine. One can now go up a short staircase and to a room behind the sarcophagus of the saint.  It is a moving experience to be so close her remains and it touches one deeply. From the church, one can visit the room where she died and a small museum with her personal items and writings. Her body is uncorrupted and the relics of her heart and arm are still intact. When one looks at her heart, one sees that she was a stigmatic. Her heart has the interior wound of Jesus; she told no one of this in her life time and it was found out only after her death.

            The pilgrimage that I make to Castilla & León in Spain is not with a group but I go alone. I call it a contemplative pilgrimage and am in silence most of the time. It is an immersion in prayer where I attempt to have an encounter with the Lord in the land where these two mystics lived. I look to have a direct experience of the divine who is the ground of our being and the goal of our life. The Lord calls us to have a relationship of love with him which is deeper than any human love we can encounter.  God is present to us as no other human person can be. I make this pilgrimage hoping that John and Theresa will help me in this inward journey to encounter the divine; they themselves responded well to this mystical call from God in their lives and it is an example and inspiration for me to follow.

            When I left for Spain at the end of May, I was concerned about the large demonstrations that we going to take place in Chicago where the NATO meetings were being held. Chicago’s police do not have a tradition of being non-violent. When I arrived in Spain on May 22 and went to my first destination Segovia, I encountered a large demonstration of students and teachers who were part of national strike to protest the cuts in funding for education. I made my contemplative pilgrimage in a world full of injustices and violence. I am hoping that this prayerful journey will bring more justice to our troubled world and give me strength to continue to protest and march until a new world is born. I am sure that John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila will not let me down and encourage us all who are in this struggle.

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Easter Season

INWARD JOURNEY

Summer day – warm - humid

but not oppressive.

Clear sun brightens up

yellow blooming black eyed suzies in the garden.

I sit in the quiet – notice my heart beat –

my breathing in and out -

pointing to a presence within me –

my Beloved.

Total mystery – otherness –

that my quiet heart beats point to.

My Beloved covers me –

embraces me – my whole body feels the touch.

I sit in mystery – so deep within me.

I say nothing – I let

my breathing highlight the presence.

In the ebb and flow of my life –

in years gone by – in moments now -

in currents - undertows that almost

did me in –

Someone was there – never let me go.

I bath myself in this love –

because of it, I did not get lost

in the crossroads - curves of the years gone by.

There were no dead end streets

but always an exit.

How lucky I am that Someone loves me!

Robert Trabold

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EASTER TIME

Robert Trabold

            The Lenten season and Easter time after the feast of the Resurrection are times of assessment – we examine our life and see where it is going. We live in the modern world and in these big industrial cities, we are very busy.  We have our work, family, outside community activities, financial concerns, question of our work and job and the tumult of the modern world with its violence and wars. We are occupied and can be torn in many directions – some good and some bad. Hopefully the season of the Resurrection can be a time when we sort out what is trivial in our life and focus on the essential and important things. This can be a difficult because we are torn in many directions and it can be hard to see what is important and thus orientate our life towards it. Sometimes we are so busy that we do not have to think about where we are going. But it is important for us to do it and the Easter season should be a time where we reorient our path.

            In our contemplative path, we are called to cultivate and be open to the ultimate truth and love which is God who is transcendent and beyond us. In a real sense, we in our years on earth are on a pilgrimage to the source of life. It is a challenging trip because the Lord is transcendent and beyond us and we are called to reach out to the divine.  Since we do not see the divine face to face on earth, we live by faith and to put our hope in someone we do not see but do experience. The God who is beyond us is also the source of life and its greatest depth. The Holy Spirit calls us to a love relationship and showed us this love in the life and teachings of Jesus .This relationship asks us not to live in the shallows of life and be caught in the things that come and go. Many things of our life on earth will pass away. In our pilgrimage to the divine, we are cultivating the essentials of living and go deep to the source of life. It is here that we find our fulfillment and peace in so far it is only God who can give us this on earth. The Lord loves us and calls us to respond to this; around this, we build and orientate our human existence.

            In life we are called to be an explorer – we go beyond ourselves and explore someone who is love and beyond us but who calls us to friendship. This friendship is unique because the divine is unconditional love and cares for us in a way that no other human can. This gives us a security and peace which humans cannot give us. In this exploration, we are called to go beyond ourselves.  We are not just to be men and women but to be human in a relationship with the source and goal of all life on earth.

            In this journey to the divine, our commitment to daily meditation is very important. In our contemplation twice a day and the repetition of the mantra, we are taking time out to focus on the source of life and to turn away from the passing things of the earth. These things press on us and we can feel their pull. But if we are faithful to the discipline of prayer and our contemplation twice a day, we focus on the important one of our life and clear out our daily routine of unimportant things. In silent meditation and repetition of the mantra, we leave behind thoughts, ideas and images and we sit in silence in the presence of God who is the important ‘Someone.’ In this Easter season then, let us renew our commitment to our daily meditation and repetition of the mantra.  It is an essential part of our journey to put aside the trivial things of human living and focus on the divine who is the source of life, its depth, etc.  The Lord is also love and calls us to a friendship which will give us that peace which the world cannot give.

           

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Lenten Season

WINTER NIGHT

Dark cold air touches my skin

not biting, but still cold.

Stars glide slowly through the heavens

some twinkling – others steady.

Moon has not visited us tonight -

may not come.

Darkness - cold touch me more deeply –

stirring memories of my travels on earth –

my pilgrimage.

My feet are weary – hurt from many blisters -

memories of dreams not fulfilled -

wanting to love but not being able -

not extending a helping hand when I should have.

My feet hurt from the sounds - bombs of war –

tears - cries of injustice

these push me to the floor - I feel helpless.

When will it ever end?  If ever!

But I am not alone –

someone baths - washes my feet with warm water.

My Beloved is present – in the cold night – in the silence

I feel his presence.

He speaks in silence - in darkness –

touches my center –

touch to heal my memories that hurt -

touch giving me confidence in the whirlwind of the world.

Darkness of the evening is not complete –

my Beloved is in the light of dawn that always comes –

Come, Lord Jesus!

Robert Trabold

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FORGIVENESS WORKSHOP

Robert Trabold

            Fr. Carl Arrico led a day’s workshop on the forgiveness prayer on January 24, 2009 in West Islip.  He opened with some introductory remarks about the whole process of forgiving other people. It is a question of whom to forgive and how to forgive them. Over the years, we have memories of hurts and resentments of people who have hurt and did injustices to us. These memories can wear us down and be a burden to us. Forgiveness is a process where we free ourselves from these memories and become a new creation.

            Forgiveness is a complex and difficult process. It is important for us to realize that it is a divine gift, that is, we need God to do it. It is a moment of love in which we uncover the truth of our nature; we are weak and human but have a potential in Christ. In this process, our free will is important; we have to consent to forgive. We have the ability to choose in life and define our being. Forgiveness is an important element in our Christian life because Jesus asks us to be forgiving like our Father in heaven is.

            In the prayer, ‘Our Father,’ we say “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We ask God to loosen the cords of our mistakes that are binding us as we also try to release the bonds of other people’s offenses to us. God should forgive our hidden past and secrets and we need to be honest about we did. We try then to let go of what other people did to us. We do not deny that we were hurt and do feel this. We need to cooperate with God in this action of forgiveness and consent to the divine’s action working within us.

            The speaker stressed that the process of forgiveness has four key elements. First, it is not a one time deal but a way of life – a process. There are things of life we have to let go of. Two, in the journey of our life, we grow in the realization that people cannot give to us all that we expect from them. Three, only God loves us unconditionally and other humans cannot do this. Four, with the exception of the case of child abuse in early childhood, if we have problems with others, we most probably have contributed to it.

            In the final session of the day, the speaker led the group through the steps of the prayer of forgiveness by Mary Mzrowski. First, we opened with silence and a time for centering prayer. Second, we were asked to close our eyes and become aware of our body and relax in each part of it. We focused on our breathing and felt it close to our heart. Third, we then went into the center of our person – that sacred space within us – our still point and invited the Holy Spirit to enter this interior place. Four, we then asked the Holy Spirit to call and invite into our inner space the person, either living or dead, we wanted

to forgive. Five, as the person entered into our sacred space, we called him/her by name and then shared the pain we have experienced due to the person offenses and injustices to us. We need to be very specific about this and be open in this sharing. At the appropriate time, we told that person that we do forgive him/her and if needed, repeated this. Six, we then went on to ask the person how we might have offended and hurt him/her. We then waited and listened how the person responded to us. We have to remain open in this whole process, repeating the words of our forgiveness if necessary and remain aware of our feelings and emotions. The Holy Spirit is active to heal us of these conflicts and give us a peace which comes with this gesture of forgiveness. Seven, we allowed the person to leave our sacred and inner space and invited him/her to return at another time if needed. We then rested in silence and spent as much time as needed for this. We then moved out of our sacred and inner space going through the door and felt our whole body in this motion of exit. Finally, we opened our eyes and closed the session with a prayer.

            In conclusion, the workshop of forgiveness was a day of listening to the importance of this virtue in our Christian life. Its roots lie in the prayer ‘Our Father’ and the Parable of the Prodigal Son of the gospels. In the parable, the father waited for his son to return and received him with open arms running to embrace him when he saw him in the distance. God our Father does this to us each day of our life and to the men and women around us in the world. In the prayer ‘Our Father,’ Jesus asks us to give to others the forgiveness that we receive daily from the Father. In going through the prayer of forgiveness, we did experience the power of the Spirit within us encouraging us to repeat this prayer when necessary in our lives. We then can grow in the process of forgiveness, give it to the people who offended us and experience the peace that comes from this act.

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Always Beginners

MYSTERY

Great South Bay – spreading – vast

before my eyes – gentle blue – grey.

Afternoon sunshine – painting a

silver path across the water – glistening – jewels.

Fire Island Lighthouse – tall in the distance –

flashing light winking at me.

Robert Moses tower – strong against the sky –

wind will not blow it down.

Fire Island – just laying there –

not making a sound.

Endless quiet – endless blue – endless mystery!

I breath in and out – vibrations deep within me –

pulsing – blood rushing –

my eyes – blinded – flashes of mystery –

I cannot see – but feel.

I reach out – hands - arms –

but cannot grasp.

Heart beats faster – sensing

mystery – ecstatic nothingness –

tasting the Beloved!

Strange Beloved – so close – so far away!

My Beloved grasps me – I feel it deep within me.

For a moment, I am lifted high – into the clouds –

vast blue sky –

no words come to me.

 Let me not forget –God speaks in silence –

let me be silent too –silence meets silence.

Today at the seashore – knock

at the door – I opened –

no one was there. That is the way it is –

life’s journey on earth – gentle touches –

another day – face to face.

Robert Trabold

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                                                      ALWAYS A BEGINNER

                                                               Robert Trabold

                                                         I sleep but my heart wakes.

                                            I hear my beloved who knocks at the door.

                                                           Song of Songs, 5.3

           

In our journey in contemplative prayer and way, we will always be beginners.  In this path, God who is a mystery touches us and reveals himself/herself to us. We sense this presence within our life being quite distinct and different because the divine is present at our center and still point  We also realize that it is a mystery and totally transcendent to us.  Because God is present at the core of our person, we feel that he/she is closer to us than we are to ourselves. This intimacy and closeness goes beyond the kind of relationships we have in human friendship or in a good marriage where the other person is always external to us.  For this reason, it takes a while to realize the deep intimacy we have with the transcendent.  On the other hand, this presence within us is a mystery because with time, we realize that we cannot grasp God with our mind or intellect. We touch the divine rather by our desire to love and to grow in friendship. Because this relationship is such an intimate but a mysterious one, many of the mystics, prominently John of the Cross, have used the image of the dark night to capture its uniqueness.  In the contemplative path, we are on a journey of great intimacy but since God is ineffable, we journey in mystery and in darkness. The opening lines of the poem ‘The Dark Night’ by John of the Cross state this well:

                                                                       In a dark night,

                                                            inflamed with passions of love

           If we look at our contemplative path carefully, we will see that we are always beginners for a variety of reasons. First, in contemplative prayer, it is the divine who takes the initiative and touches us to reveal its presence. It is something that we cannot automatically bring into our life, but have to wait until someday our Beloved touches us and makes himself/herself known.  John of the Cross in giving advice for growth in contemplative prayer mentions that we have to be silent and listen so that we can see where the divine is leading us and revealing itself to us.

            Secondly, we are always beginners in the contemplative path because we are journeying into mystery and trying to have a relationship with God who is transcendent to us. In this journey, we come to realize that the divine reveals itself in silence and darkness. Mystical writers mention that we are touched when we are silent and quiet.  In this, we know that he/she is there and we are at peace with this presence. Our desire to love grows with this encounter and that is how we touch God deeply in our life. But this touch is always mysterious because our Beloved is transcendent and ineffable and meets us fittingly in silence and darkness. A saying in German states that the works of God are ones of stillness and the night. In this encounter, words can get in the way.  Meister Eckhardt tells us that more we think that we know about the divine, the less we know.

            In sum, in our contemplative path and prayer, we are always beginners.  We are waiting for the divine to touch us and reveal itself; this is not our initiative.  It is a mysterious encounter because we know that we can never grasp God with our minds but can touch him/her by our desire to love. So as John of Cross mentions, we have to be silent and listen.  We are always beginning and growing in this friendship and are on a journey without end.

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New Year 2012

SILENCE – NEW YEAR 2012

Looking at the seashore – October

weather for end of December.

Seashore is silent – no one around –

perhaps lone man walking on the beach.

Sunshine is full – takes chill

from gentle breeze.

All is silent – quiet – touching even

my bones – covers me – surrounds me.

Silence of the sea – Silence of God!

Someone is knocking at the door –

mystery.

Our world is not silent – injustices –

violence – wars blare out noise –

overwhelming us – surrounding

us with endless lies – cover-ups.

We are winning wars over

millions of dead bodies.

I do not know the answer to the

violence of the world.

I hear it – suffer under it.

So let silence touch me –

silence of the sea - silence of God.

Let me not give up hope –

Silence of the sea is mysterious –

life is a mystery

but God is there –

in the silence – in the noise.

World – its troubles are beyond me.

Silence of the sea warps around me –

mysterious hand of God – clasping me –

giving me hope despite it all.

Robert Trabold

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NEW YEAR - 2012

Robert Trabold

            As we come to the end of December and celebrate the season of Christmas, we realize that we are closing another year. At first, we wonder where the year went because time goes by quickly as we are busy with the many things of our life. We begin a new year which most probably will go also very quickly. With this passing and going of time, we might take a moment to reflect on our life to see where it went in the old year and where we might want it to go in the next one. Our life is filled with many things – some good, others of doubtful value. The challenge is to sort these things out and get a clear vision of where our life should go.  As contemplative people who strive to meditate twice a day for twenty minutes, this discipline helps us enter into a deeper level of life and so find the values and ways to live in an authentic God like way.

            In our inward journey of contemplation, we are making a journey to encounter the divine at our center and still point.  We do not look outside for this meeting but within us. In our prayer, we are touching someone who is beyond us but also within us and ultimately is the ground of our being. In meditation, we are stepping back from the many activities of our daily living and focusing our attention on an invisible world. We are building a relationship with the divine who grasps us and becomes the center of our life. In this inner journey, we feel that someone loves us and wants us to respond with reciprocal love on our part. John Main, the great spiritual teacher, mentions that we are called to a purity of heart, that is, a heart that focuses its attention on the divine and attempts to orientate the person’s life around this call and response to love. Being faithful to our daily discipline of meditation, we will grow in understanding of what is essential in our life and what should be discarded. Jesus is the teacher who will lead us on. This journey to purity of heart is difficult, because we are human beings and our lives are shot through with selfishness and pride.  This is the baggage of our human life and we have to carry it through the years but need to be faithful in our struggle to overcome these human characteristics and attempt to focus on the way of selfless love to which Jesus calls us. In this struggle and inward journey, we realize that the treasure that we are looking for is within us and the divine offers us its hand to lead us on this trip of friendship and love.

            In this inward journey to touch God at our center and still point, we develop a discipline of silence so that we focus our attention on the divine within us. We arrange our day so that we can find time to meditate twice for twenty minutes. We set up a still place in our house where we can pray and chose the posture that is helpful.  In this quiet time, we repeat the mantra, a word, bringing us into the world of the divine and helping us touch our beloved Lord. It is important that we realize that meditation is not thinking about God and trying to penetrate this mystery with new theories and theologies. In a real sense, we leave behind our thoughts and analysis of the divine, desires and images of it and sit in the presence of the Lord who loves and calls us. It is a mysterious journey because our life is filled with many things and activities. Here we are called to be silent, just ‘do nothing’ and meet the Lord who is calling us. We are meeting the ground of our being who wants us to orientate our life around this invitation of reciprocal love. We find the real focus of our life around which we can orientate and place correctly the other things that come into and are in our path.

            As we begin the New Year, let us as contemplatives try to realize more deeply the nature of the inward journey that we are on. It is not one of many words and thoughts but a trip that is much deeper and beyond words and desires.  It is a trip to touch the presence of the divine in stillness and quiet at our center which is the most intimate relationship we can have as humans.  No other person can be so close to us as the Lord within us. Silence is the language of God and this is how the divine calls us in meditation. The New Year will have its many challenges, personal and those of the world, but if we are grounded in our inward journey to the Lord, we will navigate these waters with their turbulence and be grounded in the divine. So the New Year will bring opportunities to grow in this relationship and we should use these days of the closing of the old year and the beginning of the new one to deepen our understanding and commitment to this inward journey to the divine.

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