17 The Hermit is listening for the Small Breeze
The reference is to Elijah the prophet of course, recognised as the first hermit in the Judaic and Christian traditions. There’s a way in which the hermit life is inevitably prophetic because the life in itself bears witness to there being something beyond petty self-concern. That is why it comes as a challenge to certain people and they do not like it, it’s especially true if they’re involved in the search for material success. The hermit life is, hopefully, a different way of being in the world, in which people try to live with some degree of silence, and therefore some degree of sensitivity in their lives, instead of this endless conflict, the battle against oneself, the scramble of competition and so on.
If there is some peace and calm and space in your life, then maybe you will be able to find God also in the small breeze. To live your life with such a degree of sensitivity that you are able to find God even in the small breeze means that you have made your life into a prayer. We can say that there are two ways of praying, the first is where you are speaking, and it means pūjā, sandhyā, and so on. The second is where you are listening. This is really the greatest art of life, learning to listen very carefully for truth to manifest itself in different ways, and in all aspects of our lives. What happens in that space where you have brought reaction to an end, where there is self-silence, is that there is great internal clarity, great inward balance, and in that space there God may be born.
I’m always rewriting my own words, and I rewrite everybody else’s too. So there is this sentence of St Matthew and St Luke. Matthew puts it like this: ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (5:48). I think it sounds impossible and you think what can I do about such a demand? But we can interpret it to mean: be holy. ‘Be holy as your heavenly Father is holy.’ To be perfect means to be complete, to be whole, and therefore holy. And you become whole when all movement of denial has ended and you can see the totality of yourself. St Luke says: ‘Be compassionate, even as your Father is compassionate’ (Luke 6:56), and when you accept the totality that is the place where compassion can arise, so I feel it’s a good rewrite that bridges the two versions.
We return at the end to this point about vocation, it’s not just a vocation to the hermit life, but everyone receives this call to give birth to God in their lives. And holiness also means to be separate: be separate, be yourself, be whole, be an individual, undivided against yourself. The hermit is someone who is trying to respond to that call with his whole being, and has set aside his life for that. And in that commitment there is the wholeness of life, the holiness of life.