There are words
-so many words-
but just one surrendering,
just one place.

Renouncing answers,
all questions are resolved.

People want something

There is a play going on on the stage of our minds; a never-ending tale involving a god named Desire and a demon called Need, and we’re consumed by both. They seem to govern everything we do in this theatrical production of my life, and somewhere between these two apparently all-powerful forces we oscillate and fall in a dream of no control.

Why is there so much want in our lives? Because we make need, we believe in it wholeheartedly. Both are opposite sides to the same coin, and when we buy into one, we are unequivocally creating the other.
And quite often our own spiritual search is yet another reflection of this game of illusion.

Meditation & Prayer

When we pray, we must observe the quality of our words; so often they amount to nothing more than a just a self-centered monologue of I need…, I want…, please, I ask you…, I beg you…, I command…, if you’re there…, if you hear me…, do it!

When we meditate, we must diligently put down all fires of desire. A meditation teacher recently asked her students for a list of topics of their interest for future meetings. The response was unanimous: how can meditation make me feel better, need to be more at peace/manage my stress, make me more compassionate, make me meditate more, help me understand/love myself, make me have better sex…

This is not communion with our Source, or the Mind of God; this is a monologue with our mind still lost in its own game of need-want.

Are We Using the Method to Go Deeper Into Self-centeredness?

We come into this human birth to a world where storytelling helps us connect with one another, so we write ourselves a story (rarely truly original) to share with others. But in our delusion we blur the line between writer and words, and we lose our true selves into a tale of my situation, my conditions, and my opinions; the fiction novel of my personal self.
Meditation, prayer, and any other type of contemplative practice must not be an activity where we seek to reinforce and go deeper into identifying with this personal self with all her illusions of want, with all his illusions of need—even when they relate to a spiritual path; neither should it be a war of repression against it, since this is the other side to the same coin.
Contemplation through prayer or meditation must be our gentle but relentless transcending the confusion between this instrument of the fiction novel and the hand that writes; seeing each one clearly for what it’s not.

Awakening from the illusion of being the fiction novel, no longer trapped in the inescapable prison of The Story of My Life: My Situation, My Conditions, and My opinions; the hand that writes is free to create new documents of love, compassion, peace, oneness, selflessness. The words cease to be about what I want and what I need, and extend into letters of reply to the constant questions of what is needed right now? How may I help you?
The hand that writes loses all interest in attempts at writing the answer, this is who I am. Instead, the intent that moves its muscles and holds the pen comes from the constant contemplation of the great doubt, who am I?

This is what we must strive for prayer and meditation to bring us to.