Making a Resolution - RE-SOLUTION

 

This is a reflection based on the spirituality of the International Satsang Association, further details of the Satsang Association in the UK can be found on the clicking on the link to the  UK Local Website.)

 

New Year Re-Solution  :-

 

Theme - Seeing in Silence

Each year we are urged to make 'new year resolutions'  But what is a resolution?  Perhaps , as so often is the case, we could benefit from looking at this word and its root.  Resolution - really means RE- SOLUTION -   Each re-solution is an attempt to resolve our life either by changing direction and/or living life in a different way. This is often more clearly seen when we undergo the loss of a loved one, because when we suffer bereavement there is NO EASY SOLUTION, there is merely a re-solution.

Now Christians are well aware of that puzzling quotation by Jesus, taken from the Gospel of Mark 4 :-   "'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!" 

These words come near the beginning of Mark's Gospel and suggest that people need to really look and really listen if they are to truly understand.  

 Now, we can so easily see these words either at face value or, more often, as being addressed to people living in Palestine 2000 years ago. But we could all benefit from pausing, reflecting and taking these words into the depths of our inner being. These are words that could provide us with a gateway into our own inner self and encourage and challenge us to really look afresh at our life and re-solve it.

Those of us who believe that there is an underlying MYSTERY at the heart of Creation are Theists. We believe in a Spiritual Basis for the wonders of this evolutionary journey we, and all the Cosmos, are engaged in. In that sense we are Spiritual Pilgrims. +Dom Helder Camara reflected on this aspect of Pilgrimage in his writings. Being a Christian he refers to 'Christians'. However, these words can  readily be applied to all who undertake the Spiritual Journey 

Extract from Dom Helder Camara - Essential Writings 

' The Christian is the well adjusted follower of Christ: one with Christ and made responsive to him and by him to the whole of human life.

The Christian is the universal brother and sister of all, and loves to give prayer a communal dimension .........     I have tried to express all this in the simple and humble words of the following prayer.

Being Responsive to Life - Seeing in Silence

How poor you will remain until you discover

that you do not see best with open eyes.

How naive you will remain until you discover

that when your lips are closed,

there are silences richer than a torrent of words.

How clumsy you will remain

until you understand

that joined hands

can do far more

than restless hands

which may inflict the unintended wound.

Now these words of Camara's begin to make sense of how we can begin to see things as they really are. If we are to begin to see,hear and understand things then we need to look and listen with a great degree of inner mindfulness. If we can begin to do this, then we will gain greater 'Insight' and thus begin to 're-solve' our life and also relate with greater compassion towards ourselves and others.

 So perhaps a good New Year Resolution or Re-Solution would be to open the eyes of our heart and both look and listen with more mindful attention at all aspects of our relating - with self, each other and creation.