The Power in Meditation
Extracts from a talk 14 June 1981. A member of Barry’s meditation group in London had invited him to introduce his teaching to friends on a weekend retreat at Rosemerryn, a large house in Lamorna, Cornwall.
The purpose of meditation is first of all to reduce yourself sufficiently so that the mind stops and you can get into ‘the now’. Then you can start to sink down into your unconscious with your attention.
What we are doing in meditation is getting access to the reality in ourselves. That reality is unique in each one of us and, through each of us, it will reveal the reality that is necessary for this world. But we cannot know what our particular reality or role in the world is until we know ourselves. We all have expectations of what we should be, or what other people should be, so we assume what our and their reality is - and usually get it wrong. So meditation is the process of getting down to a reality that is never shaken again, so that we never have any doubts that we are being true; so that we are true to our reality, what we are, and not to our idea of ourselves.
So we sink down and down and get stiller and stiller, first through a disciplined process of sitting meditation; and secondly through meditation as a way of living. Unless your meditation is integrated with living meditatively each day, the mind will start to become active again. The meditation I teach is a total, integrated way. It doesn’t just consist of sitting there.
You must know why you are meditating; what it is about. So a right time to meditate is when you are disturbed. Get down there inside yourself and see what the disturbance is about. What is it in you? And who is it? And you might say 'Oh! I can’t love that person!’ Well, you don’t have to love anyone. But you do have to have the love in yourself enough to say, 'I am not going to have anyone locked up inside of me. I am going to love enough to let you go. I free you!’ And if you can do that you will start to relax.
Love brings freedom. Free the people inside of you, who disturb you. That is freedom. When they are gone you are free and in a state of love. If you pursue this meditation you will grow in freedom and love because you hold no one and nothing inside of you - but only if you hear the truth of it. For the truth is real power, the power over yourself.
The Earth Spirit and the World