Care of Creation 7: Cloud Control
“Meditation helps loosen the grip of the sense of self that
experiences separation and disconnection and facilitates a shift to the place
of witness where the subjective self is observed. This observation lessens the
identification with that sense of self, enabling the person’s perspective to expand.
It is a practice that allows us to place ourselves in the hands of the
uncontrollable. In that place of
non-duality, in that place of unity in which we cease to know ourselves as
separate from all that is holy, we are transformed.” Judy Cannato, Field
of Compassion p 129
When I observe and witness my meditation
practices (without judgment) I see that my desire for control is unconscious. The word control comes from Middle English controllen and Anglo-Norman contreroller. The word originates from Latin contrarotulare which meant to check against the roll. Those of us with English ancestry have a high value for keeping things under control. The English refer to it as "keeping a stiff upper lip." We Anglo Americans call it being easy-going. I know it is futile for me to try to avoid controlling anything when I am meditating because then I start trying to control my tendency to control. I make lists of things not to control and check myself against lists to see how I'm doing. You can see how this would be counterproductive! The best I can do is to notice this tendency in myself and let it go. I say to myself, "Aha! A list is emerging...good-bye list, be gone!" and I let the clouds take it away.
After much practice, the lists have gotten used to being sent into the clouds and have given up coming to me when I'm meditating. BUT I'm not giving the list making over to God either because I don't want to think that God is about control. In my view there is no gigantic heavenly list by which God is keeping track of us all and checking up on us for some reckoning day. To me God is always and everywhere about loving and creating the good that will surpass all human understanding and amaze us to the roots of our being. That's something I can meditate on endlessly ... that is, when I'm not busy making lists.
