This guest post is a gift from a friend I received a year ago, when this website was still a little blog. I am posting this here again because gifts like these are evergreen invitations to start writing again. My friend, Christine writes at Mystic Meanderings and sent me this lovely guest post at my request.
Aarathi recently asked if I would write a guest post here at her wonderful Internet Home on “the contemplative nature of journaling”, as she and I both use journaling in our spiritual practice. I am honored and humbled to be writing this here and hope that it will be of benefit to those who may read it…
I have been “journaling” for over 40 years. Like everything else on the “spiritual path” it has evolved over time. Initially journaling was my way of writing *about* my daily life and the people in it, venting *about* my feelings and situations in my life. But it was also a way of “communicating” with what I knew to be “God” back then, pouring out my innocent longings of the Heart to God…
Today journaling remains an integral and natural part of my meditation practice. I start every morning with a simple form of journaling, simply writing my thoughts and awarenesses, getting a sense of what wants to be written, which then settles the mind, which allows me to refocus the mind and move into a deeper rhythm and intimacy with the Silence within – listening to and writing from the space of Silence…
I have also used journaling as a means of becoming more *aware*, or mindful, of feelings, thoughts and emotions, and to ask the questions that help me to dig deeper – like, what is really happening here? What is behind this situation? What is needed here? Or, what is behind this feeling? This question in particular has been very helpful. When I ask: what is behind this fear, and *wait* for an answer to arise from the Silence within, another feeling will arise, and then I ask again, what is behind *this* feeling, and something else reveals itself. I just keep asking and waiting until the truth is revealed, exploring what is *behind* those patterns of feeling and thought, and my attachments to them. It is good to find your own questions, the ones that are meaningful for you, and only you know intuitively what they are… Asking these kinds of questions brings one into a deeper awareness or mindfulness of what is really happening within, with relationships, and with life – bringing awareness or mindfulness to those areas of life that have been hidden, and discovering what lies behind them. This, of course, is the “goal” of the contemplative nature of journaling – to see behind the veil of the little self to our True Nature – the Greater Reality of Being.
Journaling from this “contemplative” place does not necessarily mean that one “ponders” everything in the mind. It is about going beyond the mind to the place of inner Silence… For me it is really more about being in a meditative space, moving into a deeper awareness of Sacred Silence, using journaling to quiet and refocus the mind, and turn my awareness towards the deeper space of Silence within – the Ultimate Reality. It is about listening, and waiting without agenda, or expectation for the Ultimate Reality to reveal Itself, becoming aware of that which transcends our individual sense of self – touching the Universal. When used in combination with meditation, journaling becomes a means of being mindful, not only of our patterns of thought and feeling, but of the quintessential Silence that embodies and animates all life.