Attachment to our problems is one of the more challenging aspects of moving forward in our lives.
The New Church perspective is that many winds of thought course through our minds incessantly. The sources are spiritual – forces from heaven calling us towards what is good and true, forces from hell calling us towards what is evil and false. We of course get to choose which ones we direct our attentive towards. A phrase carrying a great deal of wisdom in it is to “pay attention.” Attentiveness “costs” – it is something we must pay for. To pay attention to the negative influences “costs” us the ability to be attentive towards the good and vice versa.
I have been thinking a lot about how to come from a centered place grounded in God somewhere beneath these winds that shift back and forth incessantly. Maybe that is where mediation comes in.
Interesting that “meditating on God’s Word” was one of Emanuel Swedenborg’s “Rules of Life.” That concept strongly aligns with the broader Christian concept of centering prayer. Prayer as meditation on the Word focuses us in.
Imagine a meditation on the Beatitudes – in weakness there is strength, in surrender there is power. A simple focus – 20 minutes, in a quite space – on those words, while holding the Christ-centered visual image of core light in our soul, the Divine Spark as it were, can pull us under the winds so to speak and allow us into a place where we can witness the ebb and flow of thought in a none-attached way.
Fascinating that New Church theology contains within it the concept that if we truly knew good thoughts were from heaven, evil thoughts from hell, we would be healed, we would be saved at that moment – a clear call to non-attachment as a worthy goal.
In that grounded-ness, in that touch point deep within, lies peace, a peace from which we hold the challenges of the day – challenges of faith, job, relationship – far differently. That is the place where we can best address the problems that need addressed, and leave alone the problems that need no addressing.