I would like to share with you the opening lines of Francis Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven.”
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
I first heard these words years ago. They touched me deeply and have since taken residence in my mind. I sense it’s because they touch a truth that I too have fled from—an unanswered but persistent call from soul and spirit. That call to truth is likely familiar to you as well.
Perhaps it is disguised as a persistent discontentment or a subtle sense that there must be more to life, a subtle yearning for a deeper and more meaningful life. That calling has never left me and has increasingly motivated my interest in contemplative practice, much as it has for many others across millennia and diverse cultures.
I now realize that Thompson’s hound is a poetic metaphor for the irrepressible urge that quickens soul and spirit toward a recognition and reunion with our true self, our divine essence. It has taken time, detours, misplaced pursuits, personal dramas, and subtle resistance for the ripening to occur, a ripening that allowed that inner heaven to subtly reveal itself only in brief glimpses, at first.
Do you know you know your hound, that irrepressible urge and the heaven it points towards? Can you sense it chasing you, urging you deeper, urging you to go beyond, urging you toward passion and aliveness? Does it show up as a nagging sense that there is yet something more? Does it show-up as a disturbance of mood? Does it appear as a recognition that outer ambitions and pursuits can never satisfy this inner urge? Or, is an increasing disillusionment and disinterest in the offerings of worldly life< Can you sense the inner heaven it’s pointing toward?
Perhaps, at times, you catch a brief glimpse catalyzed by a moment in nature, beauty, dance, music, or intimacy. Look carefully at what happens in these moments. Notice that your usual personal self and its ceaseless commentary drop away, leaving in its absence an incomprehensible experience—a natural flow, pervasive serenity, and simple well-being. Are we fortunate enough, at these seemingly serendipitous moments, to recognize the significance of that glimpse of Self, and know it as our essential and immutable Self, our inner heaven?
And how have we learned to hide from our essence, our heaven? What things obscure and betray the unchanging presence of our true home? Make your own list. Here are some of mine: procrastination, distraction, meaningless entertainment, trivial conversations, transient pleasures, materialism, busyness, judgments, overindulging in numbing comforts, mental gymnastics, and finally an unquestioned and tenacious belief that I am my petty personal self and nothing beyond.
The poet goes further to say, “All things that betray my essence betray me. All things that betray me betray life.” That phrase shakes me. I don’t usually think of my accustomed and usual activities and attitudes as betraying me, betraying life. I usually consider them as worthwhile pleasures, human comforts, amusing moments, social pleasantries, or learned ways to relax. Are these self-betrayals, life-betrayals? What do you think?
Why do we spend a lifetime, individually and as a culture, inventing ways to avoid our true self, to betray our fundamental nature? Why is it that we fear that, without the reference point of an individual self and personal identity, we will be lost in a vast abyss of nothingness or worse? Will the richness of meditative experience reveal an empty psychological void or a sweet expansive inner heaven?
Once again, consider what happens when our usual sense of “I” dissolves during meditation or when immersed in nature, astonished by beauty, moved by music or art, engaged in dance, or overcome by selfless love? Do we fall apart, or do we find our self in a space of flow, openness, ease, and delight? What are we hiding from, anyway?
We must know how and why we hide from our true self in order to stop hiding, be still, and drop into our true Self. We must trust the inner hound and its scent and follow its pointing to the center of our being. We must know and trust that this inner and larger self is our true self. And there, we will discover the great treasures of human life.
And that brings us to the noble contemplative tradition of meditation.
Meditation is an age-old contemplative practice that has two aims. The first is to improve the quality of day-to-day life through reduced stress, reactivity, distress, and suffering accompanied by a greater happiness, calm, and spaciousness. The second and most traditional aim is to support and enable us to go beyond the perspectives and conditioning of our ordinary mind and usual identity to a natural, unconditioned self that allows for the full actualization of the human possibility—that proverbial “more to life.”
The first aim is the lesser aim of meditation. The second is the noble and profound aim. It allows to reveal and re-acquaint ourself with the final truths of self, reality, and human existence. It is the peak of human possibility and the treasure house of the qualities of human flourishing.