Contemplating “Peace to You”
I
recently ran across this quote by modern mystic Valentin Tomberg,
“Modern Science has
come to understand that matter is only condensed energy. Sooner or later science will also discover
that what it calls energy is only condensed psychic force, which discovery will
lead, in the end, to the establishment of the fact that all psychic force is
the condensation, purely and simply, of consciousness (i.e. Spirit).”
I
have this mental image of a microscope peering into a table or a feather or into
my own hand. The magnified image shows
that what I saw on the surface, what I thought was static and solid, is actually
composed of pure flowing energy. The
energy itself is then somehow magnified and I discover that there is something
even less dense than energy itself, it is prayers and attention and presence, a
lighter and more spacious essence than even energy. But then those prayers are in some mysterious
way examined to reveal that there is even a more basic, pure, spacious,
fundamental building block that gives form and life to those prayers and that
something or better someone is what we call Spirit or God or Life, Truth, Love,
Peace or whatever name we choose to use.
A
closer look at the hand image reveals that it is not actually made with lines
but with words. “Peace” and “Peace I
leave with you, my peace I give you” from the Gospel of John 14:27 are what
makes the image materialize. This, in my
mind, is what we are all made of at the deepest most sacred most ineffable
level. Our true, holy, pure essence (the
image of God) is here at (actually within) our literal fingertips. To realize that this deep peace is cursing
through our bodies as well as through the bodies of all those around us, and
then to ever so clumsily allow this indescribable “Isness” to form and animate
and guide us, this is what our life is truly about.
1. What
comes to mind as you look at this image?
2. If
at our core we are made of something good and wonderful why do we humans cause
so much destruction and pain in the world.
3. What
are some things that seem to hinder you from living a life out of peace and
love?