SEBASTIAN ȘUȘMAN
Past Worshipful Master, SARMIZEGETUSA Lodge No. 111, Deva;
Deputy Grand Inspector, NGLR
Brethren, the work of the Freemason is never ending… the voice of the WM can be heard at the closing of the works. And then, without wanting to do so, you return back in time, to the initiation. Then, filled up with emotion and rejoice, the words of the WM: if you will be admitted amongst us, you will have to make a firm decision to work without rest for your moral and your intellectual perfectioning, however, this is difficult work and it requires sacrifices – they seem to have passed as if flying. Their meaning and their significance gained contour and shape more and more as time passed. Initiation – a magic word, memories that are always alive, but you become a veritable initiate through work.
What is an initiate? A person that knows the secrets about which the others have not even heard, someone who individualizes certain aspects of the Real which others cannot see, who notices connections and relationships, inaccessible to the other human beings, and which indicate a different dimension of existence, a master of the interior path, who is capable of enlarging the horizons of the conscience, a master of the truth, or, better to say, of certain aspects of the Truth, which up until that moment were unknown and unrevealed. Troubling and fascinating! But not impossible.
The great initiates were personalities that often went against the current of their age, but who were militant for the purpose of the internal emulation of the human being, for his awakening, for his spiritual development and his evolution, human beings who followed their own internal vision, who knew how to pay attention to the mysterious voice they found deep inside of them, and who became the echoes thereof through their testimonies, which were left for posterity.
Unusual personages, sometimes even uncomfortable and controversial. The finality of their work was to offer an authentic spiritual opening, to bring out into the light the metaphysical meaning of existence, to make us intuit a different reality than the one connected merely to time and space, to make us understand the purpose of our own existence here and now and what is the purpose with which each of us came into this world. Guiding lighthouses – at least for a portion of the way – of the trajectory that the Spirit has followed on his way to return to God.
And without you wanting it, you cannot live without gratitude and admiration before them. Of their life, of their work. How was it possible? Only through work and more work. Only through spiritual and moral perfecting. Know yourself blew in the wind for them like a flag in their everyday battles. And they conquered!
Knowledge begins with observation. Observation is an eternal process. If human being observe only others, they do not take the trouble to observe themselves. All of them observe – and this is the most superficial observation – what the other person does, what clothes tey wear, how they look, how… Everyone observes. Few manage to not turn their observations toward others, but toward their own internal sentiments, toward their own thoughts, their own states of mind, toward themselves.
Knowledge is a difficult process and an eternal process, because knowledge is eternal. It requires time, difficult work, sacrifices. Making the theoretical knowledge about the human being, about the universe one’s own resembles the climbing of a mountain that always grows taller. From up there, everything appears differently. Another world. Another universe. But how many dare to climb the peaks of knowledge? Perhaps many, perhaps few. But it is worth it!
Knowledge requires analysis and meditation. Just like we take care to arrange a room with all sorts of things which make us feel comfortable, so also ought we to adorn our interior being with harmonious thoughts of love, goodness, peace, tolerance, purity. Having interior peace, we will have a good meditation and we will afterward reap the fruits of knowledge.
Meditation is an ancient practice, used for thousands of years for the relaxation of the physical body, the calming down of the emotions, the tranquilizing of the mind and our opening to the spiritual lights and the superior wisdom.
It is an adventure toward something which we do not know, the greatest adventure that the human mind can embark upon. Meditation refers to thinking, to reflecting deeply upon a thing or to examine something from all points of view.
Meditation is the path to self-knowledge, it is only the state of to be, without doing anything, without action, without emotion. You must merely be and that is pure pleasure. Where from this pleasure, when you are not doing anything? It comes from nowhere or it comes from everywhere. It is uncaused, because existence is made from this material called rejoice. To meditate means to train your mind to reach states of modified consciousness for obtaining certain special benefits.
Let us remember for a moment the beautiful words of Victor Hugo: “In the face of nature, do not believe yourself to be either big or small, meditate. The effort of thinkers is to meditate in a useful way”.
Meditation is not something that can be added to you as you are now. It cannot be added, it can come from you only through a profound transformation, a mutation. It is a blossoming, a growing. Growth happens everywhere, from a whole. Just like love, this cannot be added to you. It grows within you from the totality of your being. We must grow toward meditation.
Whatever the method is, meditation comprises several essential things within itself, but those few things are absolutely necessary for all methods. The first is the state of relaxation: no battle with the mind, no control of the mind, no concentration. In the second place, observe everything merely with a relaxed awareness, without intervening and without any judgment, without any evaluation.
While he was sitting deep in reflection, on the beach by the sea, a great master was interrupted by a man who appeared unexpectedly and thouched his feet with great respect: “If I am no bother, I would like you to tell me in what way I can reach the truth.”
The master closed his eyes and remained silent. The man shook his head not understanding, saying to himself: “ This man seems to be insane. I ask him something, and he closes his eyes. ”Then he placed a hand on the learned man’s shoulder, he moved him gently, and he addressed himself to him again: “Master, what about my question ? ”
The wise man said to him: “I just answered you. All you have to do is to remain quiet… do not do anything, and the grass will grow by itself. You do not have to let yourself be affected by anything that happens around you. Remain quiet, pure and simple, and enjoy the silence.”
The man said to him: “ Could you, nevertheless, give a name to this method, because people will ask me about what you have said to me? What exactly do you do? ”
The master wrote in the sand with his finger: meditation.
Unsatisfied, the man insisted: “It is much too short to be an answer. Be more explicit.”
The wise man then wrote in capitals: MEDITATION.
The man exclaimed: “ These are just capital letters. It is the same thing! ”
The master deigned to open his mouth: “If I tell you more than this, you will misunderstand it. If you can understand this, just do what I told you and you will reach knowledge”.
Without doing anything, to sit, and then all is silence, all is peace and all is rejoice. You have entered existence, you have entered into the truth. Silence? Yes. And your thoughts take you back in time to the initiation. As an apprentice, you learned the silence. Not as something negative, as the absence of noise, not as not using words. Your interior world has its own taste, perfume, light. And it is completely silent, eternally silent. There never existed any noise and there never will exist. The silence is so profound that no one exists, not even you. And this silence brings truth and love. And then it seems that the lines from “The Eleventh Commandments” by Ion Minulescu: Listen, look, and shut up! Listen to learn to talk, look to learn to build, and shut up – to understand what to do, listen, look, and shut up! – now sound differently, not only beautiful, but full of wisdom.
Meditation will bring you sensibility, a more profound sentiment of belonging to this world. It is our world – the stars are ours and we are not strangers here. And this sensibility will bring you new friends. Life will become richer in proportion as the friendship will be greater.
If you meditate, sooner or later you will attain to love, you will begin to feel growing within you a fantastic love, which you will have never known before, a new quality of your being, an opening of a new door. You will have become a new flame, and you will desire to share it. A flame burning inside your heart and your body will be like to an aura of light surrounding the flame.
Your heart is a gate without gate toward reality It goes down from your head to your heart and all your problems will disappear. Many problems are created by the head. Go down into the heart, let yourself be penetrated by a sea of love and the mysteries remain, but the problems disappear, the mysteries abound, but the problems evaporate. And the mysteries are beautiful. They have to be lived.
Life is a problem of love and faith. Love and believe. Life is a problem of work and knowledge. Work and learn. Life is a problem of goodness and forgiveness. Be good and forgive. Life is a problem? Meditate !
Follow The Light Within You !
