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Meditation, Dialog and True Peace Require Suspension of ‘the Map’

Published on 14/08/10
by randy

We come into this form of body and experience our world.  We receive sensations, interpret them into perceptions, create thoughts that lead to emotions, and build a ‘map’ to what we imagine is ‘the territory’.  Our spiritual masters and great scientists claim the territory is all connected.  Yet, our thinking mind continually pushes us to a sense of being separated.  We dedicate so much of our living to separateness and defending ‘our map’.  Perhaps our greatest obstacle to love, peace and joy is the judgment that our map is the ‘right’ one.  Yet, when we embrace the Divine, the Law of Unity, God, the Territory, we clearly see we only carry a map.  The curious mind wants to touch the territory.  The alive, vital person wants to ‘touch the Territory’.  This takes a different kind of belief.  It’s the belief that comes from the felt experience of touching the Territory, in full knowledge that separation is an illusion.  It’s not belief in another’s map.  It’s not an emotional attachment to a thought.  It’s a surrendered moment of peace that allows us to harmonize with all that is.  It’s real intercourse of lasting joy.  It’s the ‘great fullness’ that comes from emptying our map to ‘feel’ the territory.  It’s movement from the intellect to the belly or heart brain.  It’s willingness to silence thought’s incessant noise.

Our judicial and political system reward those most effective at selling ‘their’ map.  Various religions sell ‘their’ map.  Parents steal the creative minds of their children by instilling ‘their’ map.  Spirits are stolen by authoritarians forcing ‘their’ map and we endure monologues from egocentrics pushing ‘their’ map.  We endure wars, sports events, advertisements, and mindless consumption caught in our thought (map).

So where do we find peace?  How do we ‘touch the territory’, beyond notions of like and dislike?  How do we enter the realm of ‘flow’ in full arrival to our Being?  It requires suspension of ‘our’ map.  This is something foreign to politicians, attorneys, most pastors, and most in authority.  Perhaps someday we can raise the courage to deeply listen to one another from a ‘suspended map’, touching the territory of Oneness in gratitude for the opportunity to participate.

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