Journal of a Journey
Peaks, Plateaus, and Potholes
by
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Some time of quietness is necessary to our soul. We live in a milieu of distractions, activities, obligations, etc., which fill up the hours of each day. It is a condition that is difficult to avoid. We acknowledge that our bodies need sleep, though we often don’t get enough of it. Many use distractions, such as TV, to give the mind respite. Well, our souls need a time of calmness also. It is just as much a requirement as the others. This ‘quiet’ time is time in which to think about God, or to escape thought in toto. The latter is letting God ‘talk’ to us. It is more a listening process, a clearing the mind of thought so that we can receive. The benefits of being able to get away from conscious thought has been well presented and documented by the man who coined the now common term "relaxation response", as well as Jon Kabat-Zinn at his well-known clinic in Massachusetts. While not denigrating its value in any way, I would add a spiritual aspect with some kind of meditation. There are many kinds of meditation, some closely related to the relaxation response, some not. The term is also used to refer to the practice of concentrating on a particular spiritual thought or sentence. Some use mantras to quiet the mind of other thought interference. For myself, meditation has always meant something more ... God-centered as are some of the others --- but different. It takes me to a different place than the relaxation response, or the concentration or mantra method, or even ‘normal’ prayer. It is not a state I reach every day or even with every time I try, but when I do, the occasions have been my life’s most treasured experiences. It has often occurred spontaneously when I’m in a prayerful environment, and time is irrelevant. I’ve found it easiest to reach, when used on a consistent basis, by ‘going out of myself with the beginning thought, "Be still, and know that I am God." It is a state of non-thought, non-being even, in which I completely lose sense of self, surroundings, space, time. I just am and yet "I" am not. My sense is that "I" am at one with the All. I know no other way to describe it in words. When I’m in that meditative, relaxed, quiet state, who is it that I am? I seem separate from a physical existence. Yet I am "I" in ways that feel more "I" than when I’m in normal consciousness. Who or what is this other "I"? It is very comfortable and natural. It has a quiet peace that is indescribable, for this is a time without words. It is, to me, a glimpse of Heaven on Earth. Have I escaped space/time? Am I attuned to that other part of me that is not limited to space/time? Is that the ‘who’ that I really am? What is that other part and is there a way for physical beings, which belong to space/time, to bring that feeling into the physical dimension more consistently? This state of just quiet has no sense of time, space, or anything else. Yet it is not a void. It’s just a state of peaceful atmosphere. There is no loneliness, no pain, no sense-perceived experience.
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About the Book
Do you wonder about the path your life has taken? Each of us has our own path and no else can fulfill what we are meant to do. Journal Of A Journey is a sharing of one person’s explorations in finding and following her path. Through physical challenges at times, through emotional changes due to experiences met, through evolvement of the soul in her attempt to be true to herself, she has learned important truths about life and living while on her personal journey. You may find in this book new questions to ask about the hardships you encounter and discover the possibilities inherent in them.
About the Author
Terri Gilbert was born in 1927, and in 1950, she married Bill, a gentle and practical man. When Bill died unexpectedly at age 44, she had 2 sons and 2 daughters to finish raising while having a longstanding health problem of her own. When the children were on their own, she found work that she enjoyed in the business world, including learning to use a computer. She did at this time have a period of 15 years in which she had truly good health to enjoy living. This allowed her to pursue other interests. She acquired a Certificate as A Peer Counselor for Older Adults, did volunteer taxes, helped at the local library, played the piano, enjoyed her children and their children, watched sunsets and palm trees, loved driving the freeways, did crossword puzzles, started learning to paint in oils, enjoyed taking care of her roses and wisteria and everything about the care of her home. And she began to write. She had had no intention to write a book. However because of one person’s insistence regarding those good years, she began a process that developed into much more than she ever imagined, eventually becoming Journal Of A Journey.