Tag Archives: Peter Russell

You do not have to go anywhere

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It seems to me that the most insidious difficulty facing our practice is complexity. Ritual, elaboration of any kind, stages and visualisations, devotions and liturgies are at best distractions from what is at root a most perfectly simple thing: returning to what we essentially are.

Andrew Harvey:

The Direct Path is the Path to God without dogma or priests or gurus, the Path of direct self-empowerment and self-awakening in and under God in the heart of life. You do not have to go anywhere or take a new name or sign up for expensive intensives to begin it; whether you yet know it or not, you have been on this path since the day you were born.

When you discover for yourself how real the Direct Path is and how it can transform you faster, and more completely and integratedly than any other, your whole life will change and you will discover with wonder and delight why you are here and what you are here for. You will start to become free from all the political, social, and religious systems that constrain you, with the freedom that is yours by right of being a child of God, the freedom of your divine nature and your divine truth, and this freedom and this truth will make you increasingly an empowered agent of change in every arena in the world.

The Direct Path, p.12

Caryll Houselander saw this too:

Christ is everywhere; in Him every kind of life has a meaning and has an influence on every other kind of life. It is not the foolish sinner like myself, running about the world with reprobates and feeling magnanimous, who comes closest to them and brings them healing; it is the contemplative in her cell who has never set eyes on them, but in whom Christ fasts and prays for them—or it may be a charwoman in whom Christ makes Himself a servant again, or a king whose crown of gold hides a crown of thorns. Realization of our oneness in Christ is the only cure for human loneliness. For me, too, it is the only ultimate meaning of life, the only thing that gives meaning and purpose to every life.

Caryll Houselander (quoted in Richard Rohr’s The Universal Christ)

We do not need continually to be seeking things: all that we are, all that is, is right here in this present moment, as itself. Meister Eckhart’s Istigkeit, the open ground itself, is here, within each breath, within each phrase of birdsong from the open window. All we need is to be entirely present to what is here, now, always. “…[F]or only what is actually loved and known can be seen sub specie aeternitatis“ (David Jones)

Peter Russell:

In asking the question “Who am I?” we tacitly assume an individual self does indeed exist. As such, the question can mislead us, setting us up to look in the wrong direction — looking for ways to define ourselves. It can be more insightful to drop the “Who” from the question, and ask simply, “Am I?” The answer nearly always comes as a simple “Yes, I am.” Not “I am this or that.” Just pure “I am.” “I am” is the first-person form of the verb “to be.” It is our direct personal knowing of being. Not to be anything or anyone; simply to be, to exist — that sense of presence at the heart of every experience.

How to Meditate Without Even Trying, pp.95-96

Strange days

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Today, however, we’re in the midst of a spiritual renaissance that differs markedly from those of the past. No longer confined to the faiths of our own cultures, we have access to many traditions, from the dawn of recorded history to the present day. Moreover, the insights of contemporary teachers are readily available in books, recordings, videos, and online, none of which was possible before.

Whereas past spiritual revivals were often led by a single teacher, today many are contributing to this growing rediscovery of the timeless wisdom. Instead of the truth becoming increasingly diluted as it is passed on, our discoveries are reinforcing one another. As the cultural overlays are stripped away, the core message not only becomes increasingly clear but gets simpler and simpler. And the path becomes easier and easier…

None of this would have been possible were I not alive in this epochal time — a time of ever-increasing change and opportunity, a time of proliferating crises and potential catastrophes, and a time of unprecedented spiritual renaissance. Two hundred years ago, my only counsel in this area might have been from a local priest, who, most likely, would have known little of the topics I’ve been exploring here. Or perhaps, should I have been so fortunate, from a local sage. Today, I’ve been privileged to travel the world, sit at the feet of various masters, study teachings from across the ages, listen to and watch numerous recordings, and learn from many companions on their own journeys of awakening. To all these various teachers, I give thanks.

Peter Russell, How to Meditate Without Even Trying, pp.109,114

Caught between solastalgia and the BBC news, we can be forgiven for thinking, as so many have throughout recorded history, that we live in times of quite unprecedented strife and difficulty. But it’s more complicated than that.

In the almost 34 years since the world wide web went live, access to information, and, with AI, the ability to process it, has grown beyond anyone’s imagining – and, of course, since we are human, so has access to misinformation – a fact that underlies much of the grief that feeds the dystopian embroideries of the news media. But there is another side to all this, as Peter Russell points out.

It may perhaps be, if we manage to hang on as a viable species long enough, that these years at the beginning of the 21st century will not be remembered for their paranoia, misogyny and bone-headed despotism so much as for their glorious renaissance of the spiritual life. Blogs like this one are not merely lone voices squeaking in the midst of chaos; we are part of something much bigger and more hopeful than any of us. And yet, as Caryll Houselander once wrote, it is only the silence of each individual contemplative that shows us the open ground of being beneath us all.