I do like monasticism….although in some ways the religious context of meditation doesn’t matter, in some ways it does. Like….when I pray or meditate and at times have a deep sense of which I am totally surrounded by a loving energy that is invading every part of my being..and I wonder why anyone would want to spend time doing anything else! Also, I find a that, on a regular basis, and sometimes totally unexpectedly, I am opened up to light, clarity, peace, creativity and overwhelming love. This is just what happens. This is definitely a Real Experience. The extent to which I can say this is, or could be, universally the case for all humanity at anytime or even attributable to any higher (and deeper) being outside (and within) ourselves, but of which/whom we somehow participate is obviously debatable. The cool materialist in me often wonders whether this sense of things is conjured up by my brain, or is it actually that there is a loving energy ‘out there’ that somehow I am now resonating with? Or maybe both? Do my ultimate ideas about reality matter, inform or are they a part of the blockage to my generous engagement with the present? In truth I think our experience is simultaneously neurological, emotional, philosophical, biological, social and so on. We can try to reduce our living to one or the other of these, but I find it more helpful to say all these are relevant spheres of understanding that intersect what is at its heart mysterious, points towards the numinous and it is this that calls persistently to me in a still small voice somewhere in my actual body. This is both discernible, and deeply personal – and I do think available to everyone by virtue of being alive. My current conclusions are that somehow to honour this voice with all grace and generosity and compassion is the centre-point of religious or spiritual practice – and actually of being human. So, I end up thinking perhaps we are deeply permeable, and the spiritual challenge is to remain so and develop a deep sort of ethical seriousness in life. This is about adopting a humble posture in the face of all that which is sacred. And when I say sacred I mean each part of this reality that we inhabit – including somehow the immensity and beauty of the divine, and the extraordinary rich and difficult tapestry which is our self, our story, our circumstance. And the same in all those whom we connect with. Maybe the biggest, most generous ideas we have about all of this is the ‘soul food’ we need in contemporary culture. Maybe spiritual practice is about tuning ourselves, our strings loosened or tightened to resonate concert pitch. And maybe the sort of living that arises from this is a more reliable guide that one might at first think.