"Meditation is very like entering a cave. If you ever spent any summer holidays by the sea as a child you probably went in search of caves along the coast. One day perhaps you found a cave and were thrilled by the adventure of finding it and the prospect of discovering pirate treasure inside. You are standing outside in the bright sunlight and suddenly the cave looks terribly, fearfully dark. But the darker it becomes, the brighter in your imagination becomes the treasure inside. You begin to enter the cave and a terrible fear wells up within you, as you project into its dark unknown all the unconscious fears in your own psyche. If you are very imaginative you see the monsters coming towards you from the dark. Yet you are irresistibly drawn onwards.
"Meditation is very like that, a simultaneously irresistible and free entry into the unknown. We go a step further into the cave every time we meditate, not always with such dramatic fear, but always with an awareness that we are entering the unknown. We enter cave after cave, chamber after chamber, levels of reality, deeper and deeper, into the heart of reality where the treasure shines. It is always a going into the dark but 'the word of the Lord is a lamp for our steps.' The mantra is the light that we hold as we walk, and it dispels the darkness that evokes all fear.
"The wonderful thing about meditation, the spiritual journey into the cave of the heart, is that once we have taken each successive step of faith and the light has shone in that dark place, then the place is enlightened. Fear, and the primal fear of death, is transcended."