Saturday, January 13, 2007
note to self:
some words from aldous huxley's 'island'.
"The medicine takes you to the same place as you get to in meditation."
"So why bother to meditate?"
"You might as well ask, Why bother to eat your dinner?"
"But, according to you, the medicine *is* dinner."
"It's a banquet," she said emphatically. "And that's precisely why there has to be meditation. You can't have banquests every day. They're too rich and they last too long. Besides, banquets are provided by a caterer; *you* don't have any part in the preparation of them. For your everyday diet you have to do your own cooking. The medicine comes as an occasional treat."
"In theological terms," said the other man, "the medicine prepares one for the reception of gratuitous graces--premystical visions or the full-blown mystical experiences. Meditation is one of the ways in which one co-operates with those gratuitous graces."
"How?"
"By cultivating the state of mind that makes it possible for the dazzling ecstatic insights to become permanent and habitual illuminations."
