Out of the cave

From the candle-lit cavern, you laugh at those praying. “Look at all these fools,” you tell me. “What has prayer ever done for them?”

“Where is the Sun?” you shout while facing the cave wall.

From the candle-lit cavern, you laugh at those praying.

“Look at all these fools,” you tell me. “What has prayer ever done for them?”

Yet prayer is the incense at the mouth of the cave that calls you out.

My friend, what do you think prayer is? A wishing well at the subway station?

Do you not remember that prayer is the very thing that makes us human? Prayer awakens us to the dance. How have you woken up every day for sixty years and failed to see the eternal dance we are participating in?

Prayer is that which unites the dualities.

You will perform all the tricks from the New York Times bestsellers on habits and optimising your life, but prayer, you say, is for the weak-minded.

But look how feeble your mind is.

You swim in the lustful river, drink deeply from the fountain of greed, and care only about gaining power over your brother. Your desires are fraught with insecurities.

Who has a weak mind? The one who prays, or you who cannot break free from your attachments to this world?

You mistake knowledge for wisdom.

You are an earthworm.

Would you believe the earthworm that tells you the wind does not blow south because he does not sense it? Better for him to be eaten by the sparrow than to remain buried in the ground forever. At least he will taste flight by merging with the sparrow’s being.

So too through prayer you can soar out of the cave.

But you refuse to pray because there’s too much suffering? If prayer were effective, there would be no suffering. Prayer does not work, so the world is filled with suffering. This is your proclamation.

Is there a child conceived without the entangling of two opposites—father and mother?

Can you have flowers without seeds?

Is there rain without clouds?

This cosmos is eternal duality, twirling infinitely in the One. Here, there is no up without down. No happiness without suffering. No growth without struggle.

Prayer turns suffering into healing balm. There is no music without first craving the wood to make a flute.

But you know better than I that the bitter melon is medicine.

My friend, leave this cave through prayer. Turn away from the wall and towards the Sun.

Pray not with loud voices, in the chapels, or in the public square, so that others praise you for your holiness. For that will be your reward from this world of multiplicities.

Instead, hide in your rooms, shut the blinds, and pretend to be asleep so no one knows you are praying. And pray that heaven meets earth. For in this you will behold the cosmos twirling in the boundless Light, and will witness the eternal unfolding of the Sun’s meditation.

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