Inquire Within

At this week’s Religion Newswriters Association conference, Clifford Saron referenced a University of Virginia study—reported by Science Magazine this past summer—that, astoundingly, found that people would rather administer an electrical shock to themselves than sit alone and meditate.* Really? How we get to a point, as a culture, that we prefer physical pain to quiet contemplation? What are we afraid of?

Over the past decade, my spiritual expression has evolved from outward (worship) to inward (contemplation). Singing and verbose prayers overstimulate me. They drown out the quiet whisper that I am training my soul to hear. When someone says, “Let us pray,” and then use words to fill the sacred silence, I am taken aback. I have become quite the spiritual introvert.

We, in the West, are obsessed with the takeaway. So, what do I get out of all this silence? Well, it depends on the day. It depends on what God needs to teach me. This week, in the silence, I realized that I was creating chaos and unrest in my life by overcommitting. Overcommitting to good and worthy pursuits, but overcommitting nonetheless. Without a quiet space to reflect, I would have forged ahead, my prayers a string of words, songs and good deeds, pulling me along, leaving me jangling like a tin can behind one of those just-married-mobiles.

Instead, the need to back off was revealed to me. I switched my list from a to-do list to an un-do list. Counterintuitively, I forced myself to cancel two things before delving into the litany of productivity running through my head. I had to create space before I could extend any further. If you practice yoga, you know that feeling well. Not “know” in a intellectual way, but “know” because you’ve moved it and breathed it. You’ve learned that to get length in your spine, you must first create space, and you must do it with out harming yourself in the process (no low back crunching).

In another meditative revelation, I realized that I was suffering from Cinderella Syndrome—that I was not allowing myself to go the ball until I had done all my work. What that looked like in my life was trying to fulfill all my outside obligations before giving myself permission to do the things that fulfill me, personally. We all know that if we wait until we’ve checked all those other things off our lists, we’ll never get to the work of our heart. There will always be something to lure us away from the work that’s dearest to us, the work that blurs the line between the earthly and the ethereal, bringing us just a little closer to God.

So today, inquire within. Listen. And heed the wisdom that emerges from the silence.

Namaste.


* Thanks to Kelly Hughes for tipping me off via Twitter to this fascinating study!