First I called our house Innermost House, then I called the life we live in it an Innermost Life.
I call them both Innermost for a simple reason: because I made my way to them through the world, and in relation to the world they are innermost. Outer and inner—this can get pretty confusing.
I have learned from guests that what I call an Innermost Life is for them a meeting place of simple living and of spiritual life. Our lives today are complicated in a way they have never been before. Simple living seeks a way “inside” of that complexity where the parts of the world grow fewer and fit together better. Innermost Life is what’s inside of simple living, where the parts of life actually converge into one.
So if modern life is many things, and simple living is few things, then Innermost Life is one thing.
On the other hand, many people pursue a spiritual life today through Eastern disciplines like meditation. The meditations I have heard of try to concentrate on some single thing like the breath or a special word or the point between your eyes, and so on. Other people practice their spiritual life through prayer, and they pray in a few silent words which you might say are “outside” of the single point of meditation. Well, if prayer is outside of meditation, then outside of that is the simplest conception of the whole of life itself, which is what I call Innermost Life.
If meditation is one word, and prayer is a few words, then Innermost Life is the whole word realized.
Innermost life is one and whole. And it is all about domestic life. I don’t mean the domestic life of diapers or starched aprons. I mean life at the heart of our real home in this life, the only home in this world we really truly have. If you approach it from what is outside of us it is innermost simple life. If you approach it from what is inside of us it is outermost spiritual life.
Innermost Life is where simple living and spiritual life meet. Between the two is home.
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Sept 3, 2010
I call them both Innermost for a simple reason: because I made my way to them through the world, and in relation to the world they are innermost.
I have learned from guests that what I call an Innermost Life is for them a meeting place of simple living and spiritual life. People's lives today are complicated in a way they have never been before. Simple living seeks a way "inside"of that complexity, where the parts of the world grow fewer and fit together better. Innermost Life is what’s inward even of simple living, where the parts of life actually converge into one.
So if modern life is many things, and simple living is few things, then Innermost Life is one thing.
On the other hand, many people pursue spiritual life today through disciplines like meditation. The meditations I have heard of try to concentrate on some single thing like the breath or a special word, and so on. The goal is to withdraw as far as possible from the world into a state of inner absorbtion. Eastern literature is full of examples of meditators whose attention becomes so inwardly absorbed that they are outwardly insensible to heat and cold and even to pain.
Other people practice their spiritual life through prayer, and they pray in a few silent words which you might say are "outside" of the single point of meditation. They are absorbed in their attention too, but because their prayers have what you might call “content”— because there has to be “room” for the words and their meanings—the “circle” of their attention is larger than that of the meditator. Well, if the circle of prayer is outside of the center point of meditation, then outside of prayer is the simplest conception of the whole of life itself, which is what I call the Innermost Life. If meditation is a single word, and prayer is a few words, then the Innermost Life is the whole of the Word realized in a circle of living.
Innermost life is one and whole. And it is all about domestic life. I don’t mean the domestic life of diapers or starched aprons. I mean life at the heart of our real home in this life, the only home in this world we ever really have. If you approach it from what is outside of us it is an innermost simple life. If you approach it from what is inside of us it is an outermost spiritual life.
Innermost Life is where simple living and spiritual life meet. For me, between the two is home.
