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Living from our inherent divinity contributes to creating a just and loving world

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Yesterday I explored the fundamental importance of discovering and living out of our True Self, our imago Dei, the image of God that we are. In the Center for Action and Contemplation’s most recent edition of Oneing, “Anger,” actor, filmmaker, writer, and personal friend Josh Radnor writes about how living from our inherent divinity contributes to creating a just and loving world.
In his book Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett has a character define sin thusly: “Sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.” [1] . . .
We’re seeing the consequences of this everywhere these days: People are being objectified. . . .
The translation of Namaste is one of infinite depth. It means: The divinity in me . . . salutes the divinity in you.
Here we have an antidote to objectification. Something infinite, immortal, mysterious, loving, and alive abides in me and it is from this light that I bow toward that which is infinite, immortal, mysterious, loving, and alive in you. What if this was our set-point, our baseline, the fundamental assumption we had about every single person we encountered? All our reputations precede us: We’re divine. . . .
Mystics from every tradition testify to the aliveness and sentience of all things, that the natural world is lit up with the flame of divinity. This does and must include us. We’re not taught this. In fact, most of what we’re taught opposes this.
There’s an urgency to this moment. We must choose between a world of subjects and a world of objects. To acknowledge the divinity of another, we must first accept our own, which is not nearly as easy as it sounds. . . . Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield [writes]:
Our belief in a limited and impoverished identity is such a strong habit that without it we are afraid we wouldn’t know how to be. If we fully acknowledged our dignity, it could lead us to radical life changes. It could ask something huge of us. [2]

. . . So many of us carry a kind of unspoken assumption that something is very, very wrong with us, that we’re damaged, guilty, and unlovable. Stepping into our divinity—acknowledging and accepting our fundamental nobility—is the ultimate paradigm shift. Kornfield is right. We cannot continue with business as usual after this. . . .
Namaste asks something huge of us: If the divinity in me recognizes the divinity in you, how could I abuse, debase, violate, or harass? I would, after all, only be punishing myself. . . .
St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-c. 394) offered another beautiful, succinct, and useful definition of sin. Sin, he [suggested], is a refusal to keep growing. [3]
This is a growing moment. Growth is painful.
I don’t believe hell or heaven to be post-life destinations. I believe they are states of consciousness largely visible here and now. A world of objects is a kind of hell. A world of subjects—divine beings honoring the divinity in the other—is surely heaven. May we point our feet toward this heaven and begin the hard and necessary work of walking there.

Gateway to Presence:
If you want to go deeper with today’s meditation, take note of what word or phrase stands out to you. Come back to that word or phrase throughout the day, being present to its impact and invitation.

[1] Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum (Harper Torch: 1998), 278.
[2] Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology (Bantam Dell: 2008), 12.
[3] See Jean Daniélou, From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa’s Mystical Writings, trans. Herbert Musurillo (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press: 1979, ©1961), 60. In his works The Life of Moses and Commentary on the Song of Songs, Gregory of Nyssa used the Greek word epektasis (expansion) to describe the soul’s inherent and ever-increasing desire to grow toward God’s goodness.
Josh Radnor, “Saluting the Divinity in You,” “Anger,” Oneing, vol. 6, no. 1 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2018), 47, 48-50.

Walking toward Heaven
Thursday, July 21, 2018
Summer Solstice

Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation
From the Center for Action and Contemplation

The Heart of Centering Prayer

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The Heart of Centering Prayer (audio teaching by Cynthia Bourgeault)

The following audio teaching was recorded at an event presented by the Cathedral of St. Philip and Contemplative Outreach Atlanta, on March 17, 2018

Cynthia presented on her book The Heart of Centering Prayer. This day-long conference included lectures, discussion and question & answer, and time for centering prayer itself.

Please go to this website

The Law of Three

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Cynthia Bourgeault explains the foundational principles of the Law of Three:
In every new arising there are three forces involved: affirming, denying, and reconciling.
The interweaving of the three produces a fourth in a new dimension.
Affirming, denying, and reconciling are not fixed points or permanent essence attributes, but can and do shift and must be discerned situationally.
Solutions to impasses or sticking points generally come by learning how to spot and mediate third force, which is present in every situation but generally hidden.
Let’s consider a simple example. A seed, as Jesus said, “unless it falls into the ground and dies, remains a single seed” (see John 12:24). If this seed does fall into the ground, it enters a sacred transformative process. Seed, the first or “affirming” force, meets ground, the second or “denying” force (and at that, it has to be moist ground, water being its most critical first component). But even in this encounter, nothing will happen until sunlight, the third or “reconciling” force, enters the equation. Then among the three they generate a sprout, which is the actualization of the possibility latent in the seed—and a whole new “field” of possibility.
The Paschal Mystery is another example, with affirming as Jesus the human teacher of the path of love; denying as the crucifixion and the forces of hatred driving it; and reconciling as the principle of self-emptying, or kenotic love willingly engaged. The fourth, new arising revealed through this weaving is the Kingdom of Heaven, visibly manifest in the very midst of human cruelty and brokenness.
Imagine how the energies of our planet would shift if we as Christians took seriously our obligation to work with the Law of Three as our fundamental spiritual praxis. Face to face with the vast challenges of our times—environmental, economic, political—we would avoid making judgments (because according to the Law of Three, denying force is a legitimate player in every equation), set our sights higher than “winners and losers” (or even negotiated compromise), and instead strive in all situations to align our minds and hearts with third force.
Third force is not easy to attune to because our usual consciousness is skewed toward the binary, toward “either/or.” The dualistic mind lacks both the sensitivity and the actual physical capacity to stay present to third force, which requires an established ability to live beyond the opposites. The capacity to recognize and consciously mediate third force belongs to what we would now call unitive or nondual consciousness, “the mind of Christ.” Consistent contemplative practice is a non-negotiable in developing the alert and flexible presence that can midwife third force.

Richard Rohr Meditation: The Law of Three
The Law of Three
Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Adapted from
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three (Shambhala Publications, Inc.: 2013), 16, 24-25, 32, 74, 206-207; and

Cynthia Bourgeault, “A New Arising” (March 16, 2017) and “Law of Three as Contemplative Practice” (March 24, 2017) in Daily Meditations, Center for Action and Contemplation.

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The Human Condition- A Review

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What I do, I do not understand.
For I do not do what I want,
but I do what I hate.
— Romans 7: 15

In Invitation to Love, Fr. Thomas says the primary goal of this teaching on the human condition is “practical: to provide a solid conceptual background for the practice of contemplative prayer and the spiritual journey for our time. We are called to this journey not just for our own personal growth, but also for the sake of the whole human community.”

The Evolutionary Model

The human condition can be presented as an evolutionary process unfolding from one level of consciousness to the next. Developmental psychology points to a similar process in the growth of each human being from infancy to the age of reason. Each level of consciousness is incorporated into the next level and, ideally, all that is good on one level is integrated into the next. However, it is also possible to become arrested at one level. The purpose of the spiritual journey is to heal the wounds of a lifetime that occurred on all levels.

The circumstances of our lives — the unexpected, the trials, the crises, our relationships — begin to uncover where we are in relation to God, ourselves, and others. We begin to look at our false self, our hidden motivations, and the influences that limit our freedom and potential. We remember that this is a healing journey, a journey of transformation.

The Existential Model

Fr. Thomas uses anthropology, biology, neuroscience, and developmental psychology to explain how each person recapitulates the evolution of the human species in their individual development from infancy to adulthood. As we move from one stage of development to the next, depending on whether or not our needs were met (or we perceive our needs were met), we either integrate these lower levels of consciousness into our ongoing development or we use our higher brain powers (rational consciousness) to get our unconscious needs met.

The Energy Centers — our needs for security and survival, esteem and affection, and power and control — are completely normal when we are in the early childhood stages of development. In fact, they are also normal for us as adults. The problem is when our preferences for meeting these needs turn into demands and expectations for the people, events, and circumstances in our lives. The constant frustration of unmet needs and expectations forms our false-self system.

The Philosophical Model

The Philosophical Model develops our understanding of the human faculties — the senses, the intellect, and the will, and how each one functions according to its nature. Like the Evolutionary Model, this model is the ideal of how our powers and faculties work, while the Existential Model is the way human life is actually experienced.

In addition to the active intellect which gives us the ability to reason, we have a passive or intuitive intellect which perceives truth directly without the mediation of reason. This is the seat of our will to God, or our desire to seek that which can only be filled by God. The consistent practice of Centering Prayer helps us to “close the door” (Matthew. 6:6) on all our faculties except our intuitive level, which has the potential to lead us to divine union, the awareness of the oneness of the human family and the oneness with all reality.

The Christian contemplative journey can restore the faculties to their proper place; resting in God allows the intuitive faculties to function at the deepest level, where we relate to God beyond thoughts, feelings, and particular acts. With the emotions at rest we no longer resist the movement of the Spirit. We begin to experience God in everything and everyone, in all of creation, which is another way of saying we are now living the contemplative dimension of the Gospel.

From:The Spiritual Journey
Formation on the Contemplative Life
Spiituality and Practice with Contemplative Outreach.
Session 41

Fr.Thomas Keating: A Rebel with a Cause

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Father Thomas Keating is a Rebel with a Cause
One of the country’s few Trappist monasteries is tucked into the hills outside of Snowmass. There, a boundary-pushing monk named Father Thomas Keating helped St. Benedict’s find its spiritual center and establish one of the world’s longest-running interfaith conversations.

Read article:

http://www.5280.com/2018/02/father-thomas-keating-rebel-cause/

The Beatitudes

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Fr. Thomas introduces us to the antidote to our programs for happiness — the Beatitudes. He says, “The beatitudes are the quintessence of the teaching of Jesus. They represent his comprehensive approach to happiness.”

The Beatitudes

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the clean of heart,
for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.
— Matthew 5:3-12

The Beatitudes simply mean: “Oh, how happy you would be, if ….” That’s what “beatitude” really means. In other words, Jesus is saying, so to speak, “You folks don’t know what true happiness is. What you think is happiness is misery. If you’d like to know what it is, let me tell you!” “Oh, how happy you would be, if you are poor in spirit, then you would have the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, true happiness is to forget about security, to be free of it, to put your trust in God. And, “Oh how happy are the poor who don’t have all these symbols, like millstones around their necks, that prevent them from experiencing the joy and the freedom of trusting in God to protect them, to provide for them, to nurture them. They have perfect happiness.”

The next one: “Blessed are those who mourn. They shall be comforted.” Now whenever we let go of something we love—good, bad, or indifferent—there’s a period of mourning. There’s a hole in our heart for a while. But if we accept that pain of loss, then it heals in such a way that we either enter into a new relationship with what we lost that is better than the one we had; or we learn how to live without something that was actually harmful, that was really a straitjacket, that was really phony happiness.

The third Beatitude, “Blessed are the meek;” that is, those who don’t want to have power over other people, who couldn’t care less if they are insulted or mistreated because they know that that’s not their problem. That’s the problem the other guy has who is treating them that way. The meek are those who can put up with insults and find happiness in the freedom from wanting to control or to have power over people.

The other Beatitudes correspond to the higher stages of consciousness, all the way up to divine union and the Beatitude of the peacemakers. The Beatitude of the merciful and the Beatitude of hungering and thirsting for justice is addressed to the Mental Egoic level of consciousness, to full personhood and its corresponding acceptance of our own personal response to Christ, to life, and to the needs of others.

The Gospel, then, is a message that challenges our programs for happiness head on and invites us to change them. If we hear that message and follow it, this is represented as wisdom. If we don’t, then we have to rely on the tragedies of life to turn us around and finally convince us, as we wind up on the bar room floor or some other place, that our program for happiness was not so hot after all. Why wait until you have to be clobbered by life before getting this message? It’s as obvious as the nose on your face that this can’t possibly work. Not only that—it is destroying our relationships with other people. It’s making us miserable and hindering the good that we could be doing other people, because as long as we’re wrapped up in obtaining the happiness that these emotional energy centers are seeking, you can’t even hear what other people are saying, because their melodrama has to be filtered by yours. And so, they tell you something …your emotions start reacting and pretty soon you’re more involved in their melodrama than they are, maybe; I don’t know how it goes. But anyway, we don’t hear the clear call for help that somebody has when we don’t have the freedom from our own emotional selfish programs. To live out of these centers is to opt out of God’s process of human development into higher states of faith, love and consciousness.

Material from Spirituality and Practice
Session 21: Oh, How Happy you will Be…
The Spiritual Journey Formation in the Contemplative Christian Life with Contemplative Outreach.

The Spiritual Journey Formation in the Contemplative Christian Life “The Human Condition: The Pre-Rational Energy Centers, Part 1” Excerpted from The Spiritual Journey Part 2, The Human Condition Fr. Thomas Keating

Energy Centers

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“A whole program of self-centered concerns has been built up around our instinctual needs and have become energy centers — sources of motivation around which our emotions, thoughts, behavior patterns circulate like planets around the sun. Whether consciously or unconsciously, these programs for happiness influence our view of the world and our relationship with God, nature, other people, and ourselves. This is the situation that Jesus went into the desert to heal.”
— Thomas Keating, Journey to the Center

Metanoia

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“Christ began his teaching not with any literal commandments but with a psychological idea — the idea of metanoia which means change of mind. … This word, metanoia, awkwardly translated as repentance, means a new way of thinking about the meaning of one’s own life. … That is its starting point: to feel the mystery of one’s own existence, of how one thinks and feels and moves, and to feel the mystery of consciousness, and to feel the mystery of the minute organization of matter. All this can begin to effect metanoia in a [person]. The contrary is to feel that everything is attributable to oneself. The one feeling opens the mind to its higher range of possibilities. The other feeling closes the mind and turns us downwards through the senses.”
— Maurice Nicoll, The Mark

“The heart of the Christian ascesis — and the work of Lent — is to face the unconscious values that underlie the emotional programs for happiness and to change them. Hence the need of a discipline of contemplative prayer and action.”
— Thomas Keating, The Mystery of Christ

Holding His hand, I am not in charge anymore.

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Today’s gospel (Mark 1:29-39) was about how Jesus grasped the hand of Simon’s mother-in-law who was sick with a fever. He helped her up and the fever left her and she waited on them. My mind just focuses in this piece of the gospel because this is the way how I started my spiritual journey jumping to the unknowing with my total trust that He will take my hand and guide me. I remember that I bought a bible and used the parish bulletin to guide me with the daily readings. This strategy forces me to know my parish and get involved and to be faithful to the daily readings. Little by little, I began to be attracted to silent. I was exposed to a Centering Prayer group few years later and realized that I was praying in similar way intuitively. My participation in this group began and I learn about this prayer more formally. The path has been slow because changes are slow. Every time I reach a dead end in my way, I usually got a little anxious until I remember that I am not in charge that He is guiding me. With time, the image of holding His hand has been with deeper trust and confidence. The daily practice of Centering Prayer has giving me the way to develop a deeper relationship with God and a total confidence that He is taking my hand always guiding me wherever He wants I need to go.

Elements of True Love

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1. Friendship or kinship.

2. The capacity to heal or healing. To heal is to become or to make something healthy or well again. Thus, healing can be seen as a process of transforming and removing suffering, so that wellbeing can be present in ourselves, in our relationship with ourselves, and with others.

3. The joy that we cultivate in ourselves or the joy that we offer to other person. When we’re gratified by the joy that another person is experiencing, this is known as “altruistic joy”, to feel happy for another person’s advantageous conditions or achievements.

4. Interbeing. Some people associate the terms “equanimity” and nondiscrimination” with equal rights, gender and racial issues so the term interbeing is used. In fact, interbeing encompasses equanimity, nondiscrimination, inclusiveness an letting go.

5.Trust and confidence and the consequences that those elements bring: breathing freely, freedom from fear, confidence, reliance, comfort, encouragement and inspiration.

6.Reverence or respect. Reverence is a capacity to recognize and to be in awe of what is.
(to put down upon the earth, turn or direct direct toward, deposit with, entrust or commit to, to place at the head, receive with reverence, call to mind, reflect, and ponder.)

Dang Neghiem, Sister.(2015) Mindfulness as Medicine: A Story of Healing Body and Spirit.p.15-16