Ode To Self 7

It's all about me. I think this is what I find particularly troubling about the current trend in Yoga and Buddhist style meditation. It's all focussed on the self. The spirituality of narcissism. I have nothing against Buddhism nor Buddhists, nor against Hinduism, nor Hindus. I do have an issue with the way consumerist western culture has co-opted and bastardized other spiritual practices to suit its own vacuous and self-centred agenda. This is particularly why I tend to skirt around these things, especially where I work. There is a tendency in the local mental health industry to push such eastern spiritual practices as a placebo to help our clients relieve themselves of some of the stronger symptoms of anxiety and depression. So, it's all well-intended. But these practices are not about personal wellness, per se. They are, rather, about emptying the self so that God or however you perceive the highest universal good can fill us. I was very aware of this dynamic this morning during a Quaker prayer service. This is all about silent prayer. We gather together, sit comfortably and we are all quiet. Each in our own way attempts to make ourselves available to the Spirit of the Living God. I at first was trying to focus on centring prayer, then I started to see that this was really self-centring prayer, and not exactly what I was there for. So, I had a mental image of a cup being drained of the dirty stagnant water of yesterday to be refilled with the clean living water of Christ, and I immediately began to feel better. This form of prayer, like its eastern counterparts is not about feeling good or feeling whatever. It is all a matter of emptying ourselves that God may fill us anew with his love and goodness. It is this act of loving, spiritual in our stillness before the Creator, and actively spiritual in our way of interacting with one another, that makes us peaceful and joyful. Which is to say that when we seek spiritual means for selfish ends we are basically masturbating. When we abandon ourselves to the work of the spirit to make us more loving and less selfish, then we become truly and dynamically human. We come to flourish in our purest and strongest and most complete sense of our humanity. I will paraphrase here CS Lewis, who said that if you aim for earth and ignore heaven, you end up with nothing. By aiming for heaven we end up with the complete and best possible fullness of both.