'Buddhist, Christian, Sufi, Yogi - A Meditation Journey', by Stephen Webster

Chapter 1

The Vision of Unity in being

"Wisdom is found by those who look for her.

Wisdom is bright and does not grow dim.

By those who love her she is readily seen,

and found by those who look for her.

Quick to anticipate those who desire her, she makes herself known to them.

Watch for her early and you will have no trouble;

you will find her sitting at your gates.

Even to think about her is understanding fully grown;

be on the alert for her and anxiety will quickly leave you.

She herself walks about looking for those who are worthy of her

and graciously shows herself to them as they go,

in every thought of theirs coming to meet them."

- The Book of Wisdom 6:12-16

"These brethren, are those other things, profound, difficult to realise, hard to understand, tranquillising, sweet, not to be grasped by mere logic, subtle, comprehensible only by the wise..."

- Dialogues of the Buddha

Seven Reasons to Share My Story

According to the great mystical and spiritual texts of the world, if you want to awaken spiritually, you need to find an enlightened teacher and then follow the teacher's instructions. I found a teacher, and I did what the teacher told me, for around 14 years, and amazingly it led to an awakening, just as the great texts suggest it should. This alone, is a story worth telling, and is anecdotal evidence that the spiritual vision of life is true, and that behind the interconnected matter which scientists have measured, is a unified spontaneous being, who can be known through the heart, rather than the head.

This is only one of the reasons for sharing my story. In fact, there are at least seven reasons. My journey was inspired by Buddha, led me through the Christ and yogic Shiva archetypes, then through a Sufi Islamic experience, and back to the Christ archetype. This taught me that all traditions are about the same thing. After much meditation and contemplation, I distilled this 'same thing' down to three simple words: ‘unity in being’. By extracting the essence of religion, we can reclaim its mystical heart, and let go of its fundamentalist trappings. Religion can become a cause for liberation, rather than limitation. Sharing this vision of unity in being is the second reason for writing this book.

The third reason is that my journey revealed an ancient archetypal process of initiations, through gurus, guides, and archetypes, and through connections and separations, from dependence to independence, to interdependence. All of this took place in the middle of an ordinary life, holding down day jobs. In a world where so many people live alone, my story holds out the hope that when the objects of your love dissolve, you can resolve to keep on loving. As St. Augustine once said, the root of our love is within, and life’s processes, including separation and loss, can be seen as initiations into increasingly subtle being, whose essence is love, peace, and wisdom.

Fourthly, my journey revealed three simple steps in the process of spiritual awakening, which I call the stages of balance, buoyancy, and blessings. These stages feel like the personal revelation of my life, and create a great paradigm, through which we can work on, and upgrade, our lives.

The fifth reason is that I want to share 8 universal spiritual steps and 13 meditation practices that can help you go through these three stages of balancing healing, buoyant transformation, and blessed awakening, and so I have structured my story around these 8 universal steps.

Sixthly, whilst most books on meditation these days focus on 'the science', and evidence-based mindfulness therapy, my journey explores the contemplative tradition and mystical vision that has been teaching the art of meditation for thousands of years. When we put the heart back into religion, we realise it is more of an art than a science, based on millennia of lived human experience, reaching back into the mists of time.

Finally, this book, and the stories in it, were written by the hand of synchronicity—serendipitous comings together of people, places, and processes. Some of the signs in my life have been so stunning, that I simply had to share and offer them back to you. In so doing, I hope I can help you affirm that your own being is a miraculous mystery, conceived in beauty, manifested through grace, and worthy of wonder and celebration.

An Immersion Experience

Imagine, for a moment, that you find yourself in the presence of a friendly and talkative mystic. The conversation spirals round in circles, covering the full range of human experience. One minute we are discussing politics, the next religion, the next history, science and mathematics, and the next personal anecdotes. You begin to realise there is a message in the mystery of the conversation. Everything is connected to everything else. The extra-ordinary is in the middle of the ordinary. The points of focus are creating a process, which is revealing a presence. As the conversation continues, the subject matter develops into deeper, wider, and higher dimensions—sometimes elevated and light-hearted, sometimes grave and challenging. The insights flow in from all directions, spontaneously, without following a rigid order. As the encounter continues, you notice you have long forgotten your day-to-day concerns. The presence rises as your circle of consciousness begins to spiral upwards. Pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of your understanding start to fall into place, triggering sparkling illuminations, that send a thrill up and down your spine. Sometimes you feel challenged, and sometimes moved and soothed, as your heart opens and begins to breathe and explore new dimensions of being.

In many ways this is how I experienced my transformation of consciousness in the presence of mystical teachers who shared their stories and presence with me. This book works in a similar way, blending my own journey, with the journeys of spiritual beings who have influenced me, with simple meditation techniques and reflections on science, religion, politics, history, and the spiritual journey. My story flows through a whole series of linked essays, like many flowers on a garland string, which you can read continuously as a single story, or dip into individually, at different times, using the chapter and paragraph headings listed in the contents. Each chapter, after this one, includes meditation techniques, for you to try, creating a deepening process, so that you can blend your own experience with what you are reading. The following chapter headings, based on eight universal spiritual steps, don't necessarily correlate chronologically with my own spiritual journey, but there is a thematic link. Flowing through each essay and chapter is a golden thread. We spiral onwards and upwards, around our theme, slowly elevating our consciousness and vibration. This is an immersion experience. It comes at you from different directions, but hopefully you will sense the flow, extract the essence, and be triggered to wonder and meditate, on the incredible beauty of your own being.

My Life

Seen from the outside, there is nothing particularly remarkable about my life. Until recently, I taught Holistic Therapies at my local college. I get up in the morning and work on the taxi. In the afternoon, I treat clients with massage therapies, Reflexology and Reiki. In the evening, I teach yoga or see more clients. Every now and again, I run a stress workshop, or relaxation day, or retreat. I've self-published a couple of books on meditation and Hatha Yoga, play the violin and love a bit of gardening. I live in a normal semi-detached house, in a normal town, in North West England. And that is why this book has value. Because like most people, I am not at the top of the hierarchy of fame and fortune. And yet I am extraordinarily happy. I don't mean I am happier than most people. I have no way of knowing how happy most people are. No-one but God knows what is in someone else’s heart. What I do mean is that I experience the pure bliss of being on a regular basis, for which I am very grateful. The reason this is possible, despite the usual heart breaks and failed projects in life, is that I meditate morning and evening, communing with a loving presence. A friend of mine, from my local church, once commented, looking at me driving round town in my taxi, that I seemed to be having a really good time with my passengers. I wasn't particularly aware of that, except that after meditating and getting into my taxi, I seem to have great spontaneous conversations with lots of my customers. I know that this outer flow derives from the inner flow, that I experience in contemplation every day. As a taxi driver I feel a connection to the ancient archetype of the ferryman, rowing people across the river of life, with a few wise words, although of course, my words are not always wise! I can't really explain the unfoldment of my outer life. I never thought I would end up where I am, and I don't know where I'll be, outwardly, 10 years from now. But I can share and explain, to some extent, the unfoldment of my inner life. Because that is where the real force and presence of my being is. And if I can give a gift to you, it is this. Your happiness does not depend on outer circumstances, which come and go. It depends on your inner experience of being, which grows and grows.

A Universal Vision

The purpose of this book is to share with you a vision and a story of life. The story is my story, and it's everyone's story. I’m not making an argument, I'm sharing a memory and a dream, wrapped in an old and new myth. A myth is a story through which we extract meaning from events. Rather than being untrue, it can actually be more true than isolated facts without context. The deepest story of humanity is the revelation that we are all one being. If you understand this, and then reject it, that is a good thing. You are pursuing the truth as you see it. But today this particular feeling about life, this particular idea, seems to have got a bit lost. Buried under the competing claims of a strident pseudo-scientific, materialist atheism and an equally strident pseudo religious fundamentalism, is the underlying realisation that we all share one being, one heart, and one hope, and this is the gentle truth that quietly motivates millions of people's lives.

There was a moment in the 1960s, when the world seemed to be coming together. The East and the West appeared to be blending. Gurus and priests, Sub-Atomic Physicists and Zen Buddhists, were sitting down together and having cool conversations. For a period in the 1980s, the cold hard reality of the market, and the world struggle between communism and capitalism, re-asserted itself, until, with the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall, another miraculous merging seemed to be happening. Europe re-united in a non-violent revolution, and seemed to become a symbol of the social democratic middle ground, between the extremes of capitalism and communism. Countries reinforced this consensus, merging economies into regional blocks in a globalisation process, all over the world. In 1986, Pope John Paul convened a World Day of Prayer at Assisi, with representatives of a vast range of religious beliefs coming together in prayer. Peace broke out in Ireland. It nearly broke out in Palestine. Basic realities of ordinary people's lives from a global perspective improved massively, as starvation and death in childbirth fell dramatically. Life expectancy continued to surge. Democracy, the rule of law and mixed market economies were on the march.

Then it all changed again. Putin disconnected Russia from this global movement towards social democracy. Then one of the world's older nation states, the United Kingdom, became the first democracy to pull back from continental economic merging, putting up trade barriers, and sinking immediately into internal paralysis and division. It was as if a match had been thrown on a bonfire. The most powerful nation elected a self-proclaimed nationalist, whose mantra was 'build the wall', and who appeared to be advocating selfishness as the answer to the world's problems. Putin tightened his control of his nationalist state, whilst launching military and even chemical weapons attacks. In the mayhem nobody noticed the Chinese leader quietly removing the limitations on his term in office, effectively declaring a dictatorship for life, giving up on the movement towards democracy in the world's most populous country, whilst engaging in the ruthless suppression of the Uyghur culture and population. Populist nationalist demagoguery was on the march, riding a wave of online conspiracy theories. In Brazil, a president was elected who seemed to favour guns and bravado, whilst turning a blind eye to deforestation. All the while the waters and the temperatures continued to rise, as scientists warned we are running out of time. While older generations appeared to be looking backwards towards nationalism, the forward-looking prophet of our time seemed to be a young, 15-year-old girl, Greta Thunberg. Feeling under attack, religions seemed to retreat into old certainties and divisions. Boosted by the oil wealth and western alliances of a particular Saudi family, the puritanical Salafi and Wahabi versions of Islam spread around the world. In India, the land of religious pluralism, politicians exploited and generated a nationalist Hinduism, entirely out of keeping with the universalist eternal religion of their forefathers. In Christianity, the ecumenical movement foundered, with a rise in fundamentalist interpretations of Christianity, asserting differences to the point where yoga classes in the UK are banned from many church halls. And even the Buddhists of Burma engaged in persecution of the Muslim Rohingya population. And then, all of a sudden, the virus came, and everything stopped. We all took a deep breath. Amidst a lot of desperate suffering and trauma, birds could be heard singing again, no longer drowned out by cars. People could be seen walking again, no longer driving into work. And nations could be seen pulling together again, as people dreamed of building back better.

There is always hope. In fact, progress does not happen in a straight line. We breathe in and breathe out. The sea ebbs and flows. We grow in spirals, circling forwards and backwards. There is a reason why people retreat, and a reason why they reach out. There is a reason, in the UK, why people tend to vote for cuts, and then later, for more spending. We expand and contract, but in the big picture, and in the long run, we continue to move forwards. It's just that sometimes people need to stop for a breath, and even go backwards a bit, before moving on. If we are to survive weapons of mass destruction, global warming, ever quicker communications systems which force us closer together, and the demand of everyone, not just one part of the world and some people, to be treated with dignity, we will have to grow closer together. This means that we will need to re-kindle our myth of unity in being, and that myth, the deep archetypal story, that we are really one being, is the subject of this book.

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