Preparing a study laboratory

Preparing a study laboratory – a personal sharing

A scientist works in a laboratory, the laboratory is clean, prepared, and equiped for the experiment.  Will we take the same care with our 'inner' study laboratory ?

A look at the etymological history and biography of the word "laboratory" reveals it means 'a place of work' from the latin laborare. We can extract also the word 'oratory'  from laboratory, which comes from 'orare' to speak, pray, plead.  From the early 14th century an oratory was a small chapel for prayer or worship.  Can we prepare our study laboratory, our inner place of prayerful work?  What is our prayer?  What is the spirit in which we approach the work? 

How can I avoid attacking the text with my intellect, rendering my study academic, knowing that this approach is not appropriate for the study of this book?  What can I do to make myself available, empty, yet alert and attentive, welcoming for what is to come? What part of myself will I come from when I study, in what spirit will I work?  Can I identify within my own experience a 'different' way of reading, listening and learning - what qualities can I observe?  Can I develop a state of mind which will help me to learn effectively, and to work with others?  Am I willing to prepare such a mental space, to  'meditate into' the study, and sometimes at least, to turn the study into a meditation? 

Working together on the Philosophy of Freedom requires a certain spirit and can be very challenging.  I have been working for some years on the following questions, experimenting on myself and with colleagues who accept to join me.

• How might I clear and clean a space of work and prayer, a ‘laboratory’ in my consciousness, where I can work and where we can work together?
• How do I pass, in a healthy way, from ordinary individualised consciousness to a higher and focussed consciousness of learning together with the other?
• How do I make a transition from my ordinary state to this ‘higher’ positive and open state? I recognize that in the face of the other, and of the words and way in which the text is expressed, I am likely to become aware of my own objections, disturbances, confusions, disagreements, of pride in my own hard-won knowledge and insights, and sometimes of an overwhelming sense of lack of understanding of the text and so on…how do I invite and nourish a quieter, expanded state of knowing and understanding where a genuine teamwork of learning can take place?
• How can I reach the right state, where I can receive the inspiring text in the right way, avoiding being under unhelpful influences, at the same time taking care of my earthly personality?

  

A particular concern of mine, which comes from a very painful life event, is to avoid ‘splitting’ myself from what I call my earthly self and its daily concerns and duties.  In this I am constantly guided by an understanding and determination that this earthly self has a job to do and merits respect and care. Yet at the same time, it must be set aside to able to concentrate on spiritual study with others.  In some way I need to welcome and include my earthly self, my everyday consciousness, everything that my personality education and experience forms in me, (see the non-free elements developed in Chapter 1) everything going on here and now in my life as I arrive to study - and yet set it aside.  I am developing and finding ways to let my current individual earthly self and all its concerns rest, as it were, in the arms of loving understanding, in the heart, in the still centre, and let quietness come, lift and will my thoughts to reach higher, to become more concentrated and dedicated to the task.  In this way, the earthly self can also be included, helped and transformed in the afterlight of the study, in a therapeutic and healing way.  (I am especially grateful to Claire Laronde for guiding me to experience for myself her practice of meditation within her ‘Danse du Sensible’, for bringing me this meditative experience of welcome and acceptance.). 

I develop for myself and constantly refine and re-invent steps of concepts to lead me to this open state of readiness for learning, which I can practice before I work, and return to as needed in the course of the study.  I also make a space consciously for my colleagues, each person which I find through the face, the name, the meeting, perhaps the screen image if working via internet, and looking gently 'behind' to who is really there, paying attention to the quality of this experience.  

After much reflecting and practice, in essence, I would say I ask myself the following of question:  

Do I want to learn?  Am I ready to learn? 

I ask myself this question, and listen closely to the quality of the inner reply...what truly and deeply motivates me to take this path?  

We must each be free to find the inner laboratory preparation which suits us and is right for us according to where we are, our beliefs, our level of understanding, our language - this said,  in our experienceof working together on the Philosophy of Freedom, we find this kind of inner laboratory preparation very helpful, even vital to a fruitful study together.  

I've decided to share a few words of the beginning of my process, my conceptual steps,  as an example - they are only words, and they may change, they will only mean something to the extent they can be experienced, but perhaps they will give an indication for you as you ask yourself:  how can I prepare my inner study laboratory? 

My first steps

1. Gather my individuality into the centre, the heart (include, avoid split…)

…no matter what I am currently experiencing, feeling, struggling with, whether joys or pains, I gather and invite my individual earthly self…

…to my centre, to my heart, to a place of welcome, acceptance, understanding…

…to a place where there is no need to explain, to justify anything…

…where I am understood…

…in this place of loving understanding, I find I can let go of my current concerns,

…here, where they are taken care of…

…where quietness and inner calm begins to surround me…

...and I turn my dedication to the study in hand with the colleagues who share my laboratory in this moment...