Taste and See

Earth will not be saved by solving the big problems, or even paying attention to them. To redeem creation, we must refine our perception, take our attention from the big to the small, from the gross to the subtle. The rind is always hard and bitter, the sweetness lies inside, where the fruit is soft and sweet.

Meditation is precisely this flow of attention from the outer to the inner, from the hard to the soft, perceiving the tiny particular causes of large and general woes, dissolving the gross into the subtle, softy, more softly, until perception arrives at the softest, subtlest, smallest "thing" of all, which is also the cause of all.

Which is no thing, but infinite subjectivity, without an object. In this infinite subtlety, thing-ness is transcended. It is not even an "it," but Goodness, Tova, creating and upholding the universe. So scripture sings, "Taste and see that the Lord is good!" (Psalm 34) In thing-less-ness, see God. Taste God's delicious light. The beauty infusing every atom of soil, outshining every cell of the body, illumining every quark of matter and star. This is the fruit of Transcendental Meditation.

Jesus said that the "poor in Spirit" will experience the kingdom of heaven. (Mat 5:3) To be poor in Spirit is to become empty, infinitesimally humble. Then our perception dissolves the root of the big problem in the grace of the small, where there is no problem at all, only love. We can truly whisper, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." This is not a prayer for the future, but a praise song about what Is.