Inner Work

For the week of December 29, 2008

Directed Receptivity

Spiritual practice gradually awakens us to new and higher perceptions, quite different from our ordinary five senses. Part of that awakening involves revising our world view to accept the possibility that higher spiritual realms actually do exist and that we personally could evolve to perceive and even enter those realms. But beyond such attitudinal adjustments, which practices enable new perceptions? Certainly the practice of presence opens us to new perceptions of our inner body, consciousness, and our own I. For here though, let us focus on what those perceptions in turn prepare us for: perceiving the higher spiritual domains.

To be receptive toward the higher seems to imply a passive state. Yet true receptivity is both awake and alert, but with an emphasis on being open toward the higher. Directed attention usually means actively focusing continuously and exclusively on a particular object of attention. But the spiritual world is not a narrow object on which we could focus. So religious and spiritual practices generally work to awaken our emotions and turn our thoughts toward the sacred by focusing on words, melodies, or concepts that represent and substitute for the higher as an object of attention. Sometimes, some people can and do make the leap from the representation to seeing the reality of the higher. Usually though it is a gradual opening: the veils of representation drop bit by bit.

A more direct, though more subtle, approach entails turning ourselves toward the higher without any intermediation, without the words, melodies, or concepts that represent the sacred realms. This is where new perceptions develop most immediately, because to turn toward the higher involves turning toward a direction we do not know. It is not up or down, right or left, forward or backward. It is neither inward nor outward. It is all of those at once and more. Consider the ocean of stillness that we touch in meditation or contemplative prayer. That cognizant stillness is consciousness. The sacred higher lies beyond and underneath that ocean of consciousness.

Just as we turn our head to look at our surroundings, we inwardly turn our attention and intention toward the higher in an act of directed receptivity. We are receptive, open. And we direct our receptivity toward the sacred higher. Our receptivity is not general, not passively open to whatever happens by, but turned and tuned to the spiritual reality beyond our mind. So in that moment we seek, we explore, we beg for help to find the true Direction, or at least the scent of where and how to search.

Quietly, in the stillness, we shift behind the silence and stand open to the ineffable Oneness. Who is open? I am. In our center, in our I, we give ourselves over to the sacred, we relinquish our center so that we have no center. We open a gap directed toward the higher, so that the sacred may enter our core. We surrender our Self, our I, in service to the Source. This is not just a one-time event. It is a practice. It is how we pray, again and again. It is the essential depth of prayer.

We move toward, through, and beyond the stillness. And we do so by, as, and beyond our I. This is where the work of presence matters in preparing us for true prayer. Presence teaches us about our I, trains us to be our I and to act as and from our core I. This meets the prerequisites of true prayer directly, since only I can direct my receptivity, only I can surrender, and only I can offer my very center to the Source of All.

For this week, practice directing your receptivity to the Unfathomable Source.

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