to become so rich inside ourselves
Monica Furlong
The most difficult and worthwhile feat of all is to become so rich inside ourselves that we become careless of other forms of wealth and status. This richness, and the stillness out of which it comes, really makes it possible to love others. Our children, our marriage partner, our colleague, our friends, are no longer any kind of threat, and can therefore be given the undivided attention, the absolute concentration, which is only possible in freedom.
Monica Furlong
Image: John Freeman, Untitled drawing
Iris Murdoch, English novelist and philosopher, says: ‘Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than one’s self is real’. Monica Furlong grounds this in the need to cultivate dispositions which help us ‘to become so rich inside ourselves’.
Images: John Freeman, Untitled drawings
What would it look like to look at your everyday life in terms of freedom and unfreedom?
Instead of putting yourself down for failing,
see each moment as an opportunity to practise more interior freedom –
to become ‘careless of other forms of wealth and status’.
John Freeman, What Lies within
Imagining what it’s like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of our compassion and the beginning of morality.
Ian McEwan
The images in this post are of drawings and paintings by John Freeman, a local Adelaide artist.
My “Inner Journey” series of abstract paintings are a metaphor for our life journey, for the ego’s journey. Time, the path we have travelled, is represented by the direction and quality of the line. As it turns back on itself the line forms unique shapes. Repetition and colour morph into unique patterns that overlap and merge into one another.
When we stand back and view the completed image it is no longer a series of unrelated lines, or shapes, or patters. The overall image has evolved into a rich and colourful tapestry.
At another level the paintings are analogous to my inner journey of self inquiry, the inner journey of the soul. Not a conceptual understanding or visual representation of the ego’s journey but an unfolding awareness of a deeper reality. An awakening to a divine Self that is not my thoughts, nor my personal “story”.
Source: John Freeman Art
For a printable PDF of the text of this meditation please click on the link below.
