Day 8

When we try to shut our doors and do the prayer of the heart, that silent and meditative prayer- we must also beware of the mystery of the monkey mind .

The mind is like a great tree inhabited by monkeys, swinging from branch to branch in an incessant riot of chatter and movement. — Sri Ramakrisna

The words of this renowned nineteenth-century Hindu mystic came home to me while on a photo-safari some years ago in one of our neighbouring African countries. There was a great tree just outside the walls of our campground inhabited by scores of monkeys. Left to themselves, the monkeys were fairly quiet, content to live peacefully in the tree and on the branches of their choice.  However, whenever I approached the tree to get a closer look, the monkeys sent up a corporate howl, their high-pitched screeching revealing their indignation at my presence. The tree shook as monkeys by the dozens leapt from branch to branch, shrieking their displeasure. As soon as I returned to the campground, the monkeys settled down and all became peaceful once again.

Likewise, when we approach the fruitful tree of silent, wordless prayer, the " monkeys of our mind " cut loose, creating all kinds of annoying chatter, clatter, and images. These unwelcome thoughts are occasioned mostly by our daily activities and involvements and must neither be forcibly resisted or wilfully entertained, but simply ignored. We should take no more notice of them than we would of an idiot.

 I compare such distractions to a madman running about- should we chase after him (which is useless), while we leave the Divine Guest unattended and alone. Bad manners to be sure!

When we try to meditate and pray discursively, the memory, the imagination, and the rational mind ere engaged and more or less occupied. In wordless prayer we hand these lower faculties a " pink slip ," informing them that their services are no longer needed. They rebel and immediately begin to " entertain us " with an ongoing " theater of the absurd " on the screen of our mind— coming attractions, cartoons, newsreels, short subjects and perhaps a " feature presentation. " Our plans for the day, the things we must take care of, the letters we need to write, the distasteful experience we had with someone yesterday, or months before — all these " monkeyshines " surface endlessly.

Until we learn to simply ignore their antics, they can cause consternation and anguish. In the end, they can even convince us that praying is not for us.

It is only by faith that we access God. Prayer is the preeminent work of faith and therefore, like faith, often demands detachment from and the letting go of our feelings and emotions. We must stand, naked and defenceless before God. By our faith, Christ is " released " to work deep within us- to work deeply within our " heart of hearts " to gradually transform us.

Only our faith can assure us of this truth. Our deepest true self is much more than our feelings, our emotions, our thoughts, and our psychological self. This is why it is our INTENT to pray, our WILL to pray that is ESSENTIAL in our prayer, a prayer rooted and grounded in faith. To repeat, it is our intent to be present and open to the Lord that is decisive. If our intent (the will) is sincere, then our prayer will always be fruitful and efficacious, even though we may have the " feeling " that our time has been spent doing nothing but dealing with distractions.

Working unseen and " hiddenly ," the Spirit breathes upon our secret heart, far beyond our ability to perceive, removed from our inquisitive scrutiny and observation. Sometimes during our time of prayer it may be a matter of simply enduring.

In prayer, more is accomplished by listening than by talking. Let us leave to God the decision as to what shall be said. God speaks to the heart only when the heart is recollected. Grounded in faith, our prayers are always useful and bears fruit. In silence and in secret the Spirit heals us, enlarging our capacity for love, stripping away the ego-centered false self, renewing in us the image of the Son in whom we are created.

  If you never had any distractions while at prayer, then you don't know how to pray.When dryness and emptiness and the inability to pray or meditate as before come upon us, we should know that the Spirit is hovering over us, blinding our intellectual faculties and numbing our sense perceptions. God is Spirit and must work " spiritually ."

So my advice to you modern man /woman is this turn into your heart and, in silence, enter deeply into yourself and hear your true Self, hear the Absolute Ground of all being tell you through experiential knowledge that the world of senses is not the totality of reality. Modem human finds his greatest struggle in becoming silent before God's silent love.

And when you pray, go into your chamber and bolt the door, and there pray to your Father in secret. And your Father in secret will reward you . —John 6:6

This Gospel passage makes unmistakable the need for a certain amount of SILENCE and SOLITUDE in our lives if we are to pray well, if we are to grow. Without the deep cleansing waters of silence and solitude our spiritual life will be stunted and unfruitful, our spiritual arteries clogged. Though we may left the fleshpots of Egypt, we will not cross its borders and enter the Promised Land of answered prayer unless silence and solitude part the churning sea of activity that threatens to engulf us.

Jesus enjoins us not only to seek physical solitude but to dispose ourselves for an interior solitude that springs up only out of the rich soil of silence. If "God is dead," his demise in us is due to the fact we may have talked him to death! We modern people in general, are verbalizing animals. We know little of interior silence, which is the womb of new and vital birth. Observe nature, all the most serious events happen in silence.

A Buddhist saying strikes a profound note of truth: " The mind is the slayer of the soul ." The great Eastern Father St. Isaac the Syrian urges: " More than all things love silence, for it will bring forth a fruit no tongue can describe ."

Find time, 5 minutes, silence hour. In the 80's and 90's used to have silence hour back in school in the day- educators back in the day were trying to inculcate a powerful mystery in us, but now...

TO BE CONTINUED....

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