MEISTER ECKHART - meditation

PATH I CREATION (via positiva) (Emphasis mine GCS)

Apprehend God in all things,

for God is in all things.

Every single creature is full of God

and is a book about God.

Every creature is a word of God

If I spent enough time with the tiniest creature--

even a caterpillar--

I would never have to prepare a sermon.

So full of God [Being] is every creature.

All hiding-places reveal God.

If you want to escape God,

S/he runs into your lap.

For, God is at home.

It is we who have gone out for a walk. (!!)

God's Being is my being

and God's primordial Being is my primordial being.

Wherever I am, there is God.

The eye with which I see God is the same eye

with which God sees me.

God created all things in such a way

that they are not outside himself,

as ignorant people falsely imagine.

Rather, all creatures flow outward,

but nonetheless remain within God. [in whose Being they have being. GCS]

God created all things this way:

not that they might stand outside of God,

nor alongside God,

nor beyond God,

but that they might come into God

and receive God

and dwell in God.

For this reason everything that is bathed in God

is enveloped by God, who is round-about us all, enveloping us.

‘Being’ is God's circle

and in this circle all creatures exist.

Everything that is in God is God.

We ought to understand God equally in all things,

for God is equally in all things.

All beings love one another.

All creatures are interdependent.

God loves the soul so deeply

that were anyone to take away from God

the divine love of the soul,

that person would kill God.

If you were to let a horse run about

in a green meadow, the horse would want

to pour forth its whole strength

in leaping about the meadow.

So too it is a joy to God

to have poured out the divine nature

and being completely into us

who are divine images.

'Why are you alive?'

'I live so that I may live'

The seed of God is in us.

Now the seed of a pear tree

grows into a pear tree;

and a hazel seed grows into a hazel tree;

a seed of God grows into God.

Why does this happen?

Because life rises from its own foundation

and rises out of itself.

Therefore, life lives without a reason--

life lives for itself.

    [not for an 'here-after', but for the 'here-and-now'. GCS]

My soul is as young as the day it was created.

Yes, and much younger!

In fact, I am younger today than I was yesterday

and if I am not younger tomorrow than I am today,

I would be ashamed of myself.

People who dwell in God dwell in the eternal now.

There, people can never grow old.

There, everything is present and everything is new.

God is voluptuous and delicious.

PATH II: LETTING GO and LETTING BE (via negativa)

Only God has ‘isness’. [= 'Being' GCS]

All creatures have been drawn from nothingness

And this is why their origin is nothingness.

The whole universe as compared to God is as nothing.

The color of a wall

depends on the wall.

In the same manner the isness ['being'] of creatures

depends on the love ['Being', ‘isness’] of God.

God is nothing.

No thing.

God is nothingness:

and yet God is something.

God is neither this thing nor that thing that we can express.

God is a being beyond all being;

God is a beingless being. ['Being' without have received 'being']

The most beautiful thing

which a person can say about God

would be for that person to remain silent

from the wisdom of an inner wealth.

So, be silent

and quit flapping your gums about God.

God is not found in the soul by adding anything,

but by a process of subtraction.

One should love God mindlessly,

by this I mean that your soul ought to be

without mind or mental activities

or images or representations.

Bare your soul of all (ego)-mind

And stay there without mind.

Moreover, I advise you

to let your own 'being you'

sink away and melt into God's 'being God.'

In this way your 'you' and God's 'his,'

will become a complete-one 'my.'

And you will come to know his changeless existence

and his nameless nothingness.

I pray God to rid me of God. (the traditional ‘God-concept)

The highest and loftiest thing that one can do

is let go of God for the sake of God.

God's exit is her entrance.

The more you seek God, the less you will find God.

If you do not seek God, you will find God.

God does not ask anything else of you

except that you let yourself go and let God be God in you.

Above all else, then;

Be prepared at all times for the gifts of God

and be ready always for new ones.

For God is a thousand times more ready to give

than we are to receive.

As God is omnipotent in his deeds,

so too the soul is equally profound

in its capacity to receive.

Everything that is to receive

must and ought to be empty.

It is a delusion to think

that we can obtain more of God

by contemplation

or by pious devotions

or by religious retreats

than by being at the fireplace

or by working in the stable.

For the person who has learned letting go

and letting be, no creature can any longer hinder.

Rather, each creature points you toward God

and toward new birth

and toward seeing the world as God sees it:

Transparently!

Thus all things become nothing but God.

And we learn to know with God's knowledge

and to live with God's love.

Transformed knowledge.

If you wish to discipline the flesh

and make it a thousand times more subject,

then place on it the bridle of love.

It is when people are not aware

of God's presence everywhere

That they must seek God by special methods

and special practices.

Such people have not attained God.

To all outward appearances, persons

who continue properly in their pious practices

are holy.

Inwardly, however, they are asses. [ouch!!]

For they know about God but do not know God.

God is like a person who clears his throat

while hiding, and so gives himself away.

God lies in wait for us with nothing so much as love.

Now love is like a fishhook.

A fisher cannot catch a fish unless the fish

first picks up the hook.

If the fish swallows the hook,

no matter how it may squirm and turn,

the fisher is certain of the fish.

Love is the same way.

Whoever is captured by love takes up this hook

in such a fashion that foot and hand,

mouth and eyes, heart and all that is in that person

must always belong to God.

Therefore, look only for this fishhook,

and you will be happily caught.

The more you are caught, the more you will be liberated.

As long as we perform our works

in order to go to heaven,

we are simply on the wrong track.

And until we learn to work

without a ‘why’ or ‘wherefore’,

we have not learned to work

or to live

or why.

Some people, I swear, want to love God

in the same way as they love a cow.

They love it for its milk and cheese

and the profit they will derive from it.

Those who love God for the sake of outward riches

or for the sake of inward consolation

operate on the same principle.

They are not loving God correctly;

they are merely loving their own advantage.

What is best is to take God and enjoy God

in any manner, in any thing,

and not to have to exercise and hunt around

for your own special way.

All my life this has been my joy!

"If my life is God's being,

then God's existence ("sein" - Being) must be my existence,

and God's 'is-ness' ("isticheit") is my 'is-ness', neither less nor more".

                        [existence = 'sein' = Being = is-ness]

PATH III: BREAKTHROUGH AND BIRTH OF SELF, OF GOD,

                 OF SELF AS SON OR DAUGHTER OF GOD (via creativa)

Our Breakthrough is nobler than our flowing out. (creation)

For when I flowed out from God

and all creatures shouted "God!"

they were saying that I was a creature.

And this cannot make me happy.

In my Breakthrough, on the other hand,

I am neither God nor creature.

Rather, I am what I was and what I shall remain

now and forever.

In my flowing-out I entered creation.

In my Breakthrough I re-enter God.

Only those who have dared to let go

can dare to re-enter.

Consider the divine spirit in the human soul.

This spirit is not easily satisfied.

It storms the firmament and scales the heavens

trying to reach the Spirit

that drives the heavens.

But the spirit is never satisfied.

It presses on deeper and deeper into the vortex

further and further into the whirlpool,

the primary source in which the spirit has its origin.

This spirit seeks to be broken through by God.

God leads this spirit into a desert

into the wilderness and solitude of the divinity

where God is pure unity

and where God gushes up within himself.

Because this Word is a hidden Word

it comes in the darkness of the night.

To enter this darkness put away all voices and sounds,

all images and likenesses.

In stillness and peace,

in this unknowing knowledge

God speaks in the soul

and becomes fully expressed there.

For no image has ever reached into the soul's foundation

where God herself

with his/her own being is effective.

ln this birth you will discover all blessing.

But neglect this birth and you neglect all blessing.

Tend only to this birth in you

and you will find there all goodness

and all consolation,

all delight, all being and all truth.

Pay attention now to exactly where this birth takes place:

This eternal birth takes place in the soul

totally in the manner in which it takes place in eternity,

neither more nor less.

There is only one birth -

and this birth takes place in the being

and in the ground and core of the soul.

This birth takes place in darkness.

And not only is the Son of the heavenly Creator born

in this darkness-- but you too are born there

as a child of the same heavenly Creator and none other.

And the Creator extends this same power to you

out of the divine maternity bed located in the Godhead

to eternally give birth.

Let me express myself in even a clearer way.

The fruitful person gives birth

out of the very same foundation

from which the Creator begets the eternal word

or Creative Energy

and it is from this core

that one becomes fruitfully pregnant.

And in this power of birthing

God is as fully verdant

and as wholly flourishing in full joy

and in all honor

as he/she is in him/herself.

The divine rapture is unimaginably great.

It is ineffable.

What good is it to me

if this eternal birth of the divine Son

takes place unceasingly

but does not take place within myself?

And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace

and if I am not also full of grace?

What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth

to his/her Son

if I do not also give birth to him

in my time and my culture?

This, then, is the fullness of time:

When the Son of God is begotten in us.

Why is it that some people do not bear fruit?

It is because they are so busy

clinging to their egotistical attachments

and so afraid of letting go

and letting be that they have no trust

either in God or in themselves.

Love cannot distrust.

It can only await the good trustfully.

No person could ever trust God too much.

Nothing people ever do is as appropriate

as great trust in God.

With such trust,

God never fails to accomplish great things.

What is the test that you have indeed undergone

this holy birth?

Listen carefully.

If this birth has truly taken place within you,

then no creature can any longer hinder you.

Rather, every single creature points you toward God

and toward this birth.

You receive a rich potential for sensitivity,

a magnificent vulnerability in whatever you see or hear,

no matter what it is, you can absorb.

In whatever you see or hear, no matter what it is,

you can absorb therein nothing

but this birth.

In fact, everything becomes for you nothing but God.

For in the midst of all things,

you keep your eye only on God.

To grasp God in all things,

that is the sign of your new birth.

Human beings ought to communicate

and share all the gifts they have received from God.

If a person has something

that she does not share with others,

that person is not good.

A person who does not bestow on others

spiritual things and the joy

that is in them, has in fact never been spiritual.

People are not to receive and keep gifts

for themselves alone,

but should share themselves

and pour forth everything they possess

whether in their bodies

or their souls as much as possible.

The essence of God is birthing. [sharing Being with being]

PATH IV: - THE NEW CREATION:

COMPASSION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE (via transformativa)

Spirituality is not to be learned

by flight from the world,

by running away from things,

or by turning solitary and

going apart from the world.

Rather, we must learn an inner solitude

wherever or with whomsoever

we may be.

We must learn to penetrate things

and find God there.

God's ground is my ground

and my ground is God's ground.

Here I live on my own

as God lives on his own.

All our works should work out of this innermost ground

without a 'why' or a 'wherefore'.

Then, God and the soul do one work together

eternally and very fruitfully.

Then, all that this person works

God works.

And just as I can do almost nothing without God,

so too God can accomplish nothing apart from me.

People who have let go of themselves

are so pure that the world cannot harm them.

Whoever resides in justice resides in God and is God.

God will be born in the just person

just as the just person is born into God.

For the just person,

to act justly is to live;

justice is her life;

her being alive,

her being to the very extent that she is just.

In God, action and being are one.

People ought to think less

about what they should do

and more about what they are.

Works do not sanctify us--

but we are to sanctify our works.

Holiness is based on being,

not on a single action.

How ever great one's suffering is,

if it comes through God,

God suffers from it first.

And remember this:

All suffering comes to an end.

Compassion clothes the soul

with the robe of God

and divinely adorns it.

And those who follow compassion

find life for themselves.

justice for their neighbor.

and glory for God.

Compassion means justice

And compassion is just

to the extent that it gives

to each person what is his or hers.

God has been the common savior

to the entire world.

And this fact delights me much more

than if God had saved only me.

This is salvation:

When we marvel at the beauty of created things

and praise the beautiful providence of their Creator

or when we purchase heavenly goods

by our Compassion

for the works of creation.

The fullest work that God ever Worked

in any creature is compassion.

You may call God love, you may call God goodness.

But the best name for God is compassion.

God's peace prompts service

among brothers and sisters.

In that way one creature sustains another.

one enriches the other,

and that is why all creatures are interdependent.

We are fellow-helpers with God.

co-creators in everything we do.

All bread is ours and is given to me,

to others through me and to me through others.

For not only bread but all things necessary

for sustenance in this life

are given on loan to us

with others and because of others,

and for others and to others through us.

Treat all things as if they were loaned to you

without any ownership--

For if I want to possess the property I have

instead of receive it on loan,

then I want to be a master.

I have told you this time and time again.

If a person were in a rapture

as great as St. Paul once experienced

and learned that her neighbor were in need

of a cup of soup,

it would be best to withdraw from the rapture

and give the person the soup she needs.

The poor are all too often left to God.

Therefore, if you want to be comforted

comfort those worse off than yourself

and there are many.

Love will never be anywhere except

where equality and unity are.

Who is more noble than someone who is born,

from the intimate depths of the divine nature

and the divine wilderness?

Do you want to know what goes on

in the core of the Trinity?

I will tell you.

In the core of the Trinity the Father

laughs and gives birth to the Son.

The Son laughs back at the Father

and gives birth to the Spirit.

The whole Trinity laughs

and gives birth to us.

All things love God.

At every deed, however puny.

that results in justice.

God is made glad,

glad through and through.

At such a time there is nothing

in the core of the Godhead

that is not tickled through and through

and that does not dance for joy.

The path of which I have spoken

is beautiful and pleasant

and joyful and familiar.

Let whoever has found this way

seek no other and you shall find

that God who is whole and entire

will possess you whole and entire.

- - - -

Who/what is God? - Handout

Mary Daly; “As for God, there's simply no way to rid the language of allusion, she wrote, so, "if you must be anthropomorphic," she preferred “Goddess.” Daly most often contemplated the divine essence as a verb, Being itself, so that worship is "not kneeling in front of a ‘so-and-so’, but ‘swirling in energy’." Her language echoed quantum physics, and she was flattered if you said so: "I do think about space-time a great deal," she admitted. "It's a kind of mysticism which is also political." NCR

And Wilber warns: ‘Be aware, all forms are one with Emptiness, no exceptions. Why avoid those particular forms, or look down on them? Are they not equally manifestations of Spirit's ultimate delight, splashing in the effervescent waters of its own exuberance? Are they not equally ripples in the waterfall of One Taste, flavors of the very Divine, playing here and there? Must I worship the God of special interests only? OneTaste 253

And elsewhere he says about the ‘divine’, the One Taste: ‘Intrinsic and extrinsic are relative values; Ground value is absolute. Ground value is the value that each and every holon has by virtue of being a radiant manifestation of Spirit, of Godhead, of Emptiness. All holons, high or low, have the same' Ground value’, namely: One Taste. Holons can have greater or lesser intrinsic value (the greater the depth, the greater the value), but all holons have absolutely equal Ground value: they all share equal ‘Suchness’, ‘Thusness’, ‘Isness’, which is the face of Spirit as it shines in manifestation, One Taste in all its wonder. OT 324

And: ‘It's not quite right to describe One Taste as a ‘consciousness’, or an ‘awareness’, because that's a little too heady, too cognitive. It's more like the simple ‘Feeling_, of Being’. You already feel this simple Feeling of Being: it is the simple, present feeling of existence [I am]. But it's quite different from all other feelings or experiences, because this simple Feeling of Being does not come or go. It is not in time at all, though time flows through it, as one of the many textures of its own sensation. The simple Feeling of Being is not an experience - it is a vast Openness in which all experiences come and go, an infinite Spaciousness in which all perceptions move, a great Spirit in which the forms of its own play arise, remain a bit, and pass. It is your own I-I, as your little-I uncoils in the vast expanse of All Space. The simple Feeling of Being, which is the simple feeling of existence, is the simple Feeling of One Taste. Is this not obvious? Aren't you already aware of existing? Don't you already feel the simple Feeing of Being? Don't you already possess this immediate gateway to ultimate Spirit, which is nothing other than the simple Feeling of Being? You have this simple Feeling now, don't you? And you have it ‘now’, don't you? And ‘now’, yes? And don't you already realize that this Feeling is Spirit itself? Godhead itself? Emptiness itself? Spirit does not pop into existence, it is the only thing that is constant in your experience - and that is the simple Feeling of Being itself, a subtle, constant; background awareness that, if you look very closely, very carefully, you will realize you have had it, ever since the Big Bang and before - not because you existed way back when, but because you truly exist prior to time in this timeless moment, whose feeling is the simple Feeling of Being: now, and now, and always and forever now. You feel the simple Feeling of Being? Who is not already enlightened? OT 280

                                  What is your reaction?

- - - -

LIST of the following Handouts

1. Meister Eckhart on “Breakthrough”

2. God in universe theology

3. Pentecost, ‘Hello I love you’

4. The God who beckons

5. Quotes about the “Divine”

6. Ken Wilber on “Ego”

7. Don Cupitt on “Religion”

8. Praying to a God who is larger than relgion

9. Cupitt: Heart versus Conscience

10. Slowing down the aging process

11. Karen Armstrong “The future of God”

12. Martin Buber “I and Thou”

13. Quotes and Remarks

14. Consciousness - becoming aware of presence and being

- - - -

1.

Meister Eckhart on “Breakthrough”

Our Breakthrough is nobler than our ‘flowing out’.

For when I ‘flowed out’ from God (in creation), they were saying that I was a 'creature'.

In my Breakthrough, on the other hand, I am neither God nor creature.

Rather, I am what I was and what I shall remain now and forever, (being).

In my flowing-out I entered creation. In my Breakthrough I re-enter God (being with Being).

Only those who have dared to let go can dare to re-enter. !!!

In stillness and peace, - in this ‘unknowing knowledge’ - God speaks in the soul and becomes fully expressed there. !!!

This eternal birth takes place in the soul Tolle points to the inner body, the inner space totally in the manner in which it takes place in eternity, neither more nor less.

There is only one birth - and this birth takes place in the 'being' and in the ground and core of the soul.

Why is it that some people do not bear fruit?

It is because they are so busy clinging to their egotistical attachments and so afraid of letting go and 'letting be', - that they have no trust either in God or in themselves (in their ‘self’).

Love cannot distrust. It can only await 'the good' trustfully. No person could ever trust God too much. Nothing people ever do is as appropriate as great trust in God. With such trust, God never fails to accomplish great things. !!!

What is the test that you have indeed undergone this holy birth? Listen carefully.

If this birth has truly taken place within you, then ... no creature can any longer hinder you.

Rather, every single creature points you toward God and toward this birth.

You receive a rich potential for sensitivity, a magnificent vulnerability in whatever you see or hear, no matter what it is, you can absorb.

In whatever you see or hear, no matter what it is, you can absorb therein nothing but this birth. In fact, everything becomes for you nothing but God. For in the midst of all things, you keep your eye only on God (What am I living for?). To grasp God in all things, that is the sign of your new birth.

Human beings ought to communicate and share all the gifts they have received from God.

If a person has something that she does not share with others, that person is not good.

A person who does not bestow on others spiritual things and the joy that is in them, has in fact never been spiritual.

People are not to receive and keep gifts for themselves alone, but should share themselves and pour forth everything they possess whether in their bodies or their souls as much as possible. The essence of God is birthing. [sharing Being with being, 'ME']

- - - -

2.

God in universe theology

- - - -

3.

Pentecost ‘Hello I love you’

The night you came to me
Out of endless timelessness
To say, Hello, I love you --

Wasn’t that a great night?
To think of all those stars
and you out there, and now

In here? How wonderful,
how sweet it was and is --
your love for me --

And that was only our first date.
Since then it’s been hours, days,
years of holding hands

Discovering your secrets
disclosing my own, for healing
only your love can provide.

-- Judith Robbins
Whitefield, Maine

- - - -

4.

The God who beckons - By Joan Chittister

Katie was a second-grader in one of our schools. One Friday at art class as the teacher roamed the aisles checking progress, she stopped at Katie’s desk and asked, “Well, Katie, what are you drawing?”

“I am drawing a picture of God,” Katie said proudly.

“Katie,” the teacher answered, “you can’t draw a picture of God. Nobody knows what God looks like.”

Katie said, “They will when I’m finished.”

We are all invited now to draw a new picture of God.

Picasso said: “God is just another artist. He made a giraffe, an elephant and a cat. He has no style. He just keeps trying new things.” And Simone Weil wrote, “It is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures.”

What happens when classical spirituality meets modern science? Which of them is “right”? Are the two reconcilable? Or are they doomed to be eternal opposites?

There was a time when asking a question about the purpose of life was simpler than it is now because the answer never changed. Whatever existed and happened, we knew, was the eternal will and calculated design of the God who had made things. Our one purpose in life was to keep a set of basically intractable but ultimately fundamental rules until we had managed to negotiate this world well enough to escape it to a better one.

The process was clear. The rules were unequivocal. Life was a game played to achieve spiritual perfection, despite the fact that we came to realize as life went on that perfection essentially and continually eluded us. Worse, “God’s will for us” was never totally apparent but we knew that it had something to do with ferreting out and being faithful to an eternal plan fully known only by God but incumbent upon us.

We learned that God had a particular function or role for each of us: male and female, clergy and lay, slave and free, ruler and ruled. In that schema the purpose of life was certain, however obscure the project itself. It was, in other words, a game of cosmic dice. Some people won; some people didn’t. And God was in charge of it all.

Until Charles came along.

The unfolding of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and the launch, ironically, of the priest Georges Lemaître’s big bang theory -- you can imagine how popular that made him in the church -- changed everything. Evolution and the big bang theory may have clarified the questions of science about the origin and end of life but they continue to this day to unsettle what until now had become relatively standard, unarguable theological conclusions concerning the ways of God with the world.

Two issues in particular challenge the commonplaces of religion and spiritual identity.

The first concerns the traditional definition of creation. Instead of the until now uncontested notion that every creature on earth is the unique and purposeful creation of God, it has begun to dawn, in the light of Darwin’s theory of evolution, that life may well be simply an accident of organic chemistry.

After billions of years, of multiple mistakes, a cycle of chemical configurations and a series of hit-and-miss successes, life as we know it, science tells us, simply emerged. With no sense of uniqueness, no evidence of completeness, and no supernatural intervention.

As a result, life, some argue, is a self-generating fortuity, spawned by nothing, for the sake of nothing, with nowhere to go.

With an explanation like that, the whole notion of life’s meaningfulness simply evaporates into the bizarrely unique chemistry that sustains it.

Thrown into orbit by a primordial blast -- who knows why -- billions of years ago, we are trapped here simply waiting for the fire in the blast to die out and the ice that follows it all to go to dust.

A subtler God

End of story, some say. In this model God is passé; life is purposeless. But is the tale of evolution necessarily all that bleak, all that spiritually arid, all that purposeless?

The answer, I think, does not lie in damning, rejecting or quibbling with the data of science. The answer depends on humanity’s rethinking its definition of God. It depends on our ability to imagine a greater sense of self. It depends on our understanding of the ecology of life. It depends on what the metaphor of evolution itself might have to say about both the nature of God and our own possible place in an evolving universe.

Of all the statements Einstein ever made, beyond relativity, beyond the bend in space and time, it is what he said about God that may, in the end, be seen as his most profound insight of them all.

“God,” said Einstein, “is subtle but not malicious.”

Well, perhaps ... but such subtlety and goodwill were hardly visible to the human eye, hardly arguable to those who were suffering the evil they were told was meant simply to test their fidelity or to try their character.

Such subtlety, in fact, is barely sustainable without the eye of blind faith in the light of the injustices and struggles of the real world around us.

For centuries, for instance, the struggle to define the origin of evil and the nature of God has plagued the religious community, has challenged spirituality to the limits. Few questions have done more than this one to strain the fabric of churches or the bonds between thinkers and believers, between philosophers and theologians.

In our time, with the addition of the relatively newfound scientific problem of the nature of creation itself, the very existence of religion could well seem to be in danger and a sense of spiritual purpose a thing of the past.

If life, as science says, is self-creating, what can possibly be the cosmic or overarching purpose of life? What, in fact, can be the purpose of God?

It all depends, of course, on who we say God is. A wag said: First God created humans; then humans created God. And we did. To the point that nothing we know about science now equates with what we have told ourselves about God.

As a result, science confronts the definition of God as we have framed it in the past but, in the process, ironically gives us the opportunity now to see the multiple dimensions of God that we missed.

And this great crossover point, this new Galileo moment in history, gives us a sense of purpose in life that is beyond the sanctification of the self. Indeed, this is the moment after which everything religion has said about the nature of God must somehow shift.

The God of creation, the religious world determined, was all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present and all-holy. The problem lay in the fact that a God of these proportions failed, it seemed, to exercise such power when it came to the creation this very God had created.

This God did not save the world from evil, did not exercise blatant power in behalf of the good, did not save the righteous from the unrighteous, did not act in behalf of the oppressed. This was a God whose merit theology, whose rule-driven scorekeeping, trumped care, compassion and love.

The faithful, we were taught, got the God they earned, or, conversely, lost the God they didn’t, if they were unable to figure out what that God really wanted in every situation and how to pass every spiritual double-bind test.

Instead, they could, at best, only hope for eternal life and everlasting peace somewhere else. This life was out of their hands. This world was a mysterious jumble of good and evil meant to tempt and try them. This was not a subtle God; this was a God whose “will” too often looked more like malice than it did like mercy. The ways of this God with creation were straightforward and manifest. The creator God was patriarch, lawgiver and avenging judge.

Not only was this God not a “subtle” God but how could we say with certainty that this God was not a malevolent one, except that our hearts tell us that God, to be God, must be more than that.

As a consequence of theology like that, we enthroned maleness. We exalted a “rationality” that was far too often deeply irrational. We created the distant and unemotional God of the Greek philosophers who affects our life at every stage and every moment since. This creator God exercised power over everything, we said. But then we got confused trying to explain that God’s failure to use that power in order to save us from what endangers us.

We talked about “free will” but got tangled up again in the implications of what it means to be the weanlings of an all-knowing God. If God really knew everything before it happened, how could we possibly have free will?

We chafed under the burden of the “perfectionism” that the will of an all-perfect God must, of necessity, require of us, but of which, it was clear, we were patently incapable. The inferences of this kind of God for our own well-being were heavy indeed.

But then came Darwin and evolution and an entirely new way of seeing both creation and the world. In this world, every act of creation is not the unique act of an eternal God.

Instead, the God of creation becomes the God of ongoing creation, of life intent on its own development, and of life involved in contributing to its own emerging form.

From this perspective, creation, life itself, is a work in process. It grows from one stage to another. It is immersed in both possibility and mistakes. It is a creature of imagination on the way to the unimaginable. The God of grand but hidden designs becomes the God of evolution, of the working out of creation as we go. Suddenly free will, the choices we make as we labor at the project of life, becomes important. Decision-making becomes universally significant, and selection of our actions determines the shape of an ongoing evolving world.

The humble God

A self-creating universe becomes co-creator with the humble God who shares power and waits for the best from us and provides for what we need to make it happen. We become participants in the process of life and the development of the world that is not so much planned as it is enabled. As nature grows, experiments, unfolds, selects and adapts, so then must we. Growth, not perfection, becomes the purpose of life. Ongoing creation, not predestined fate, becomes the purpose of life.

The very process of human growth, not human puppetry in the hands of a disinterested and demanding God, becomes the purpose of life. And God becomes the God of a universe on its way to growing into glory, of becoming one with its creator. Life ceases to be a program of expectations tied up in a black box, the purpose of which is to tease us into unlocking and unraveling the mystery of our lives before it gets to be too late to achieve it.

In an evolving world, then, God becomes “becoming.” God is the one who stands by as we grow from one self to another, from one level of insight to another, from one age and awareness to another. God, we come to understand, is not the God of fixed determinations now. The past is no longer a template of forever. God becomes instead the God of the future. God, we come to see in the model that is evolutionary, is promise and possibility and forever emerging life.

The spiritual implications of a creation that goes on creating are major.

We are meant to create with the creator. We are here to discover the rest of ourselves in an equally evolving cosmos. We are not about perfection. We are about always selecting the better, about entering into the transformation of the world as it experiments with life, chooses for life, sees mistakes not as failure but as one more learning on the ladder of spiritual success.

In this world, the God of evolution becomes God the mother as well as God the father. God the mother understands pain. She bears us and then lets us grow from error to solution, from failure to success. She loves us for trying. She not only sets the standard, she helps us over the bar.

She is the rest of the image of the biblical God that Abrahamic religions have largely ignored to the peril of true spiritual development but that the spirit knows and seeks forever. She, the biblical God, “Cries out as a woman in labor” (Isaiah 42:14). She is the one whom the psalmist sees as “a nursing woman” (Psalm 131: 1-2), who in Hosea (11:3-4) is a cuddling mother who takes Israel in her arms, and who, in Proverbs as wisdom, “is there with God in the beginning” (8:22-31).

In a world in evolution is there purpose in the universe? The answer must certainly be: Never more so than now. Evolution is, in fact, a great spiritual teacher. We learn from the fossils of the ages that development is most often a slow and uncertain process, a precarious and breakneck experience that demands both time and trust in the future that is God, and in the God of the future. Evolution teaches us that movement from one stage of life to another is often both cumbersome and painful but that the pain is prelude to a better self.

We learn that failure is a necessary part of life, not its misdoing. It is simply a holy invitation to become more than we are at present. Time is grace and trying is virtue. Struggle is a sign of new life, not a condemnation of this one.

Evolution shows us that the God of becoming is a beckoning God who goes before us to invite us on, to sustain us on the way, rather than a judging God who measures us by a past we did not shape.

Now human beings can begin to revel in what is meant by growing to full stature as a responsible and participative spiritual adult whose work on the planet really, really matters. Life, suddenly, is more a blessing both to the universe and to the self than it is simply a test of a person’s moral limits. To be alive, to be a person in the process of becoming, it becomes clear, is a blessing, not a bane. We are, alone and together, significant actors in the nature of life and the strengthening of the fibers of humankind.

Evolution gives us a God big enough to believe in.

Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister is a best-selling author and international lecturer on topics of justice, peace, human rights, women’s issues, and contemporary spirituality in the church and in society.

Copyright © The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company

Source URL: http://ncronline.org/news/spirituality/god-who-beckons

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5.

“Quotes about the ‘divine’”

“‘As for God, there's simply no way to rid the language of allusion, Mary Daly wrote, so, "if you must be anthropomorphic," she preferred “Goddess.” Daly most often contemplated the ‘divine essence’ as a verb, Be-ing itself, so that worship is "not kneeling in front of a ‘so-and-so’, but ‘swirling in energy’." Her language echoed quantum physics, and she was flattered if you said so: "I do think about space-time a great deal," she admitted. "It's a kind of mysticism which is also political." NCR

Be aware Wilber warns:

“All forms are one with Emptiness, no exceptions. Why avoid those particular forms, or look down on them? Are they not equally manifestations of Spirit's ultimate delight, splashing in the effervescent waters of its own exuberance? Are they not equally ripples in the waterfall of One Taste, flavors of the very Divine, playing here and there? Must I worship the God of special interests only?” OT 253

And elsewhere he says about the divine, the One Taste:

“Intrinsic and extrinsic are relative values; Ground value is absolute. Ground value is the value that each and very holon has by virtue of being a radiant manifestation of Spirit, of Godhead, of Emptiness. All holons, high or low, have the same' Ground value-namely, One Taste. Holons can have greater or lesser intrinsic value (the greater the depth, the greater the value), but all holons have absolutely equal Ground value: they all share equal Suchness, Thusness, Isness, which is the face of Spirit as it shines in manifestation, One Taste in all its wonder.” OT 324 [“Isness” - ‘being’]

And:

“It's not quite right to describe One Taste as a "consciousness" or an "awareness," because that's a little too heady, too cognitive. It's more like the simple ‘Feeling, of Being’. You already feel this simple Feeling of Being: it is the simple, present feeling of existence [I am]. But it's quite different from all other feelings or experiences, because this simple Feeling of Being does not come or go. It is not in time at all, though time flows through it, as one of the many textures of its own sensation. The simple Feeling of Being is not an experience - it is a vast Openness in which all experiences come and go, an infinite Spaciousness in which all perceptions move, a great Spirit in which the forms of its own play arise, remain a bit, and pass. It is your own I-I, as your little-I uncoils in the vast expanse of All Space. The simple Feeling of Being, which is the simple feeling of existence, is the simple Feeling of One Taste. Is this not obvious? Aren't you already aware of existing? Don't you already feel the simple Feeling of Being? Don't you already possess this immediate gateway to ultimate Spirit, which is nothing other than the simple Feeling of Being? You have this simple Feeling now, don't you? And you have it ‘now’, don't you? And ‘now’, yes? And don't you already realize that this Feeling is Spirit itself? Godhead itself? Emptiness itself? Spirit does not pop into existence, it is the only thing that is constant in your experience-and that is the simple Feeling of Being itself, a subtle, constant; background awareness that, if you look very closely, very carefully, you will realize you have had ever since the Big Bang and before-not because you existed way back when, but because you truly exist prior to time in this timeless moment, whose feeling is the simple Feeling of Being: now, and now, and always and forever now. You feel the simple Feeling of Being? Who is not already enlightened?” OT 280

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6.

Ken Wilber on ‘Ego’ etc. OT 255ff [small print in ( ) are my emphases. GCS]

People make two common, mistakes on the way to One Taste (the experience of the Being). The first occurs in contacting the Witness, the second occurs in moving, from the Witness to One Taste itself.

The first mistake: In trying to contact the Witness (or I-I) (Self, as being of Being), people imagine that they will see something. But you don't see anything, you simply rest as the Witness of all that arises-you are the pure and empty Seer, not anything that can be seen. Attempting to see the Seer (Being) as a special light, a great bliss, a sudden vision - those are all objects, they are not the Witness that you are. Eventually, of course, with One Taste, you will be everything that you see, but you cannot start trying to do that - trying to see the Truth - because that is what blocks it. You have to start with "neti, neti": I am not this, I am not that.

So the first mistake is that people sabotage the Witness (the Self) by trying to make it an object that can be grasped, whereas it is simply the Seer of all objects that arise, and it is "felt" only as a great background sense of Freedom and Release from all objects.

Resting in that Freedom and Emptiness - and impartially witnessing all that arises - you will notice that the separate-self (or ego) simply arises in consciousness like everything else. You can actually feel the self-contraction (ego), just like you can feel your legs, or feel a table, or feel a rock, or feel your feet. The self-contraction (ego) is a feeling of interior tension, often localized behind the eyes, and anchored in a slight muscle tension throughout the bodymind. It is an effort and a sensation of contracting in the face of the world. It is a subtle whole-body tension. Simply notice this tension.

Once people have become comfortable resting as the empty Witness, and once they notice the tension that is the self-contraction, they imagine that to finally move from the Witness (the awareness of the ego) to One Taste (the awareness of ‘being of Being’), they have to get rid of the self-contraction (or get rid of the ego). Just that is the second mistake, because it actually locks the self-contraction firmly into place.

We assume that the self-contraction hides or obstructs Spirit, whereas in fact it is simply a radiant manifestation of Spirit itself, like absolutely every other Form in the universe. All Forms are not other than Emptiness, including the form of the ego. Moreover, the only thing that wants to get rid of the ego is the ego (my emphasis). Spirit loves everything that arises, just as it is. The Witness loves everything that arises, just as it is. The Witness loves the ego, because the Witness is the impartial mirror-mind that equally reflects and perfectly embraces everything that arises.

But the ego, convinced that it can become even more entrenched, decides to play the game of getting rid of itself-simply because, as long as it is playing that game, it obviously continues to exist (who else is playing the game?). As Chuang Tzu pointed out long ago, "Is not the desire to get rid of the ego itself a manifestation of ego?"

The ego is not a thing but a subtle effort, and you cannot use effort to get rid of effort - you end up with two efforts instead of one. The ego itself is a perfect manifestation of the Divine, and it is best handled by resting in Freedom, not by trying to get rid of ego, which simply increases the effort of ego itself.

And so, the practice? When you rest in the Witness, or rest in I-I, or rest in Emptiness, simply notice the self-contraction (ego). Rest in the Witness, and feel the self-contraction. When you feel the self-contraction, you are already free of it (!!) - you are already looking at it, instead of identifying with it. You are looking at it from the position of the Witness, which is always already free of all objects in any case.

So rest as the Witness, and feel the self-contraction (be aware of the ego) - just as you can feel the chair under you, and feel the earth, and feel the clouds floating by in the sky. Thoughts float by in the mind, sensations float by in the body, the self-contraction hovers in awareness - and you effortlessly and spontaneously witness them all, equally and impartially.

In that simple, easy, effortless state - while you are not trying to get rid of the self-contraction (ego) but simply feeling it (being conscious, aware of it) - and while you are therefore resting as the great Witness or Emptiness that you are - One Taste might more easily flash forth. There is nothing that you can do to bring about (or cause) One Taste - it is always already fully present, it is not the result of temporal actions, and you have never lost it anyway. (!!)

The most you can do, by way of temporal effort, is to avoid these two major mistakes (don't try to see the Witness as an object, just rest in the Witness as Seer; don't try to get rid of the ego, just feel it), and that will bring you to the edge, to the very precipice, of your own Original Face. At that point it is, in every way, out of your hands.

Rest as the Witness, feel the self-contraction (ego): that is exactly the space in which One Taste can most easily flash forth. Don't do this as a strategic effort, but randomly and spontaneously throughout the day and into the night, standing thus always on the edge of your own shocking recognition.

So here are the steps:

Rest as the Witness, feel the self-contraction (ego). As you do so, notice that the Witness is not the self-contraction - it is aware of it. The Witness is free of the self-contraction - and you are the Witness.

As the Witness, you are free of the self-contraction. Rest in that Freedom, Openness, Emptiness, Release. Feel the self-contraction (be aware of the ego), and let it be, just as you let all other sensations be. You don't try to get rid of the clouds, the trees, or the ego - just let them all be, and relax in the space of Freedom that you are.

From that space of Freedom - and at some unbidden point - you may notice that the feeling of Freedom has no inside and no outside, no center and no surround. Thoughts are floating in this Freedom, the sky is floating in this Freedom, the world is arising in this Freedom, and you are That (!). The sky is your head, the air is your breath, the earth is your body - it is all that close, and closer. You are the world, as long as you rest in this Freedom, which is infinite Fullness.

This is the world of One Taste, with no inside and no outside, no subject and no object, no in here versus out there - without beginning and without end, without ways and without means, without path and without goal. And this, as Ramana said, is the final truth.

That is what might be called a "capping exercise." Do it, not instead of, but in addition to, whatever other practice you are doing - centering prayer, vipassana, prayer of the heart, zikr, zazen, yoga, etc. All of these other practices train you to enter a specific state of consciousness, but One Taste is not a specific state - it is compatible with any and all states, just as wetness is fully present in each and every wave of the ocean. One wave may be bigger than another wave, but it is not wetter. One Taste is the wetness of the water, not any particular wave, and therefore specific practices, such as prayer or vipassana or yoga, are powerless to introduce you to One Taste. All specific practices are designed to get you to a particular wave - usually a Really Big Wave - and that is fine. But 'One Taste is the wetness of even the smallest wave, so any wave of awareness you have right now is fine. Rest with that wave, feel the self-contraction, and stand Free.

But continue your other practices, first, because they will introduce you to specific and important waves of your own awareness (psychic, subtle, and causal), which are all important vehicles of your full manifestation as Spirit. Second, precisely because One Taste is too simple to believe and too easy to reach by effort, most people will never notice that the wave they are now on is wet. They will never notice the Suchness of their own present state. They will instead dedicate their lives to ‘wave hopping’, always looking for a Bigger and Better wave to ride (using more and more spiritual books and practices) - and frankly, that is fine.

Those typical spiritual practices, precisely by introducing you to subtler and subtler experiences, will inadvertently help you tire of experience altogether. When you tire of wave jumping, you will stand open to the wetness or Suchness of whatever wave you are on. The pure Witness itself is not an experience, but the opening or clearing in which all experiences come and go, and as long as you are chasing experiences, including spiritual experiences, you will never rest as the Witness, let alone fall into the ever-present ocean of One Taste. (!) But tiring of experiences, you will rest as the Witness, and it is as the Witness that you can notice Wetness (One Taste) (Being).

And then the wind will be your breath, the stars the neurons in your brain, the sun the taste of the morning, the earth the way your body feels. The Heart will open to the All, the Kosmos will rush into your soul, you will arise as countless galaxies and swirl for all eternity. There is only self-existing Fullness left in all the world, there is only self-seen Radiance here in Emptiness - etched on the wall of infinity, preserved for all eternity, the one and only truth: there is just this, snap your fingers, nothing more.

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7.

H Cupitt - Religion

Cupitt E&B 1 ‘I have been trying to reduce its iron grip on our religious imagination - in order to allow free religious thinking to be rediscovered.

The early Latin theologians were in many cases qualified lawyers, whose approach to religion was heavily influenced by legal metaphors and ways of thinking. Later, in the early medieval period, canon lawyers became dominant at Rome. They helped to institutionalise a longstanding tendency to turn faith into The Faith - controlled by lawyers and imposed upon all believers as law. Religion came to be seen as creed: that is, it was a matter of holding the correct doctrinal beliefs by faith and on the authority of the church. Orthodox belief was a duty, and deviation from it was a punishable offence.

One consequence of this conception of religious faith was that there seemed to be little or no space within `orthodoxy' for personal intellectual exploration and development: you were expected to adhere to just the same creed from the day of your admission to membership in the Church until the day of your death.

In such a setting the Church became not just a spiritual state but almost a totalitarian ideological state and an absolute monarchy, which preserved a good deal of the vocabulary'- and outlook of the old Christian Roman Empire.

Religious life and the religious imagination [hat means also ‘spiritualty. GCS] were allowed to run only along theologically approved channels.

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8.

Praying to a God who is larger than religion - Reviewed by Regina Schulte

WE SIDE WITH THE MORNING: DAILY PRAYERS TO THE GOD OF HOPE

By William Cleary

Anyone who has perused current book catalogs from religious publishing houses is aware of the questions surrounding the practice of prayer. Many persons of faith have apparently reassessed their traditional spiritual practices and found them wanting.

In light of a more contemporary worldview and its effects on religious thought, our long-held image of God as a patriarchal tribal deity (or a God “we can pinch”) is no longer credible. Feeling awkward in addressing a God behind “the cloud of unknowing,” many find themselves unsure of how they should pray. “How can we speak to a God who is not a ‘person’ -- a God who may or not be affected by our prayers?”

Put simply: “Does it make sense to pray?” If so, “how do we pray in a way that is true to our changed religious perspectives?”

As a result of this shift in religious imagination, many seem to be simply abandoning word prayers altogether and replacing them with nonverbal contemplation and/or spiritual disciplines found in other cultures.

Yet, there remains in the human heart a desire to talk to God in heart-to-heart communion -- at least some of the time. W.H. Auden rightly asked: “How do I know what I think until I hear what I say?” This is reason enough to retain verbal praying among one’s spiritual exercises.

In We Side With the Morning, William Cleary shows that the choice needn’t be reduced to either/or. There is middle ground: brief word prayers wrapped in the aura of contemplation. In this book of daily prayers, he offers thoughtful moments of communion with a God larger than any religion -- a God that is neither captured by nor confined to one, a God we now view as beyond all human imagining.

Cleary has told that he shares the prayers with spiritual but nonreligious persons in mind. Consequently, all traces of religious doctrines and traditional pious embellishments have been filtered out. There is no “Father, Son and Holy Ghost” in them; no Jesus nor Virgin Mother.

Rather, the praying person addresses the Creator, the heart’s desire, the divine energy in evolution, the God we cannot definitively name. Here, God is not a warm fuzzy to be cuddled and fawned over, but this does not deprive the prayers of affective warmth. It is their spare, no frills, presentation -- one might call it “nakedness” -- that creates a sense of intimacy between the person and God.

From his own spiritual musings, Cleary has put into words what may lie just below the awareness of others unable to express it. He poses troubling questions, bares doubts, admits of bewilderment, lauds the Creator, sings of the beauty and bounty in nature. There is gladness on some days, a haunting wistfulness on others. Best of all, Cleary humbly lets God be God.

Notable among the sentiments permeating the prayers are sustained hope that in the end all will be well, serene acceptance of what is, and munificent gratitude for all that has been given. At the end of each entry, one can almost picture Cleary gently snuffing out a prayer candle and closing the journal with his trademark ending, “May it be so.”

A short introduction offers his personal, very simple and workable approach to prayer. There is also a handy index listing the dates on which one may find suitable entries for particular moods, themes and special occasions, all arranged by category.

As gifts from Cleary’s own musings with God, these prayers should help people discover what is in their own hearts -- what they think and may need to say. Because of their brevity and purity, the prayers should not constitute an intrusion on anyone’s contemplative practices. Rather, they may offer a daily inspirational “push” for less verbal praying, and/or provide a tidy thought to carry in one’s heart throughout the day.

[Regina Schulte has a master’s degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame and a doctorate in theology from Marquette University. Her book reviews appear regularly in Corpus Reports.]

National Catholic Reporter Jan, 22, 2010

Another review: Thousands of prayer books flow from publishers, but it's hard to find a fresh voice that just might startle us into a moment of awe. True awe--a rare and rejuvenating spiritual experience. Seeking this kind of surprising daily prayer book for 2010, I was pleased to find that "We Side with the Morning" was written by a poet now in his 80s. William Cleary is a former Jesuit who left the priesthood years ago to marry and raise a family. Both of his grown sons are musicians. His wife is a Unitarian minister. In a family like this, beautiful prayers seem to blossom on a daily basis. As I am growing older myself, like most Baby Boomers, I'm humbled by life's daily crises and my own human limitations--but a boundless faith pushes me out of bed each morning to rejoin the global community. That's why I love prayers like one that Cleary calls "May It Be So: Giving thanks despite imperfection." The prayer includes these words: "You have made us as you made us: imperfect, crudely shaped, dull of mind--but full of promise, every single one of us. Give us insight and gratitude for things as they are." To that, we all can say: Amen! David Crumm

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9.

Don Cupitt on 'Heart versus Conscience' (emphasis mine GCS)

J&Ph 12 Evidently we have to do here with a 'perennial controversy', revived in new forms generation after generation.

On one side we have the claim that wild, rebellious human nature needs to be constrained by an objective and authoritative code of Law. Religious and moral conservatives are followers of Hobbes, believers in the necessity of strong government. Here all the interest is in the vertical relation, through the conscience of the individual to the moral standard, t.i., the individual's iron self-control and driving will.

On the other side; there is the claim that 'love is the fulfilling of the law'. The horizontal relation to the neighbor is sufficient. Human beings are social, and find their chief happiness through their 'social affections' - sympathy, benevolence, kindness or fellow-feeling, and love. Did not our religious tradition promise all along that 'the hoped for Better World would come when the divine Law and the divine Spirit have been 'fully internalized' within the human heart'?

We will have finally become human beings when we have entirely given up objective, heteronomous external ethics, and have learnt instead simply to live by the heart. ....

The residually theological ethics of people, - usually found on the political Right, or observant followers of a religion, - sees the moral life in terms of obedience to a revealed code of religious Law.

The alternative view puts all the emphasis upon the 'horizontal' relationship to the fellow human. Its organ of moral knowledge is not the conscience, but rather the heart. It sums up the two chief commandments of the Law, love God and love your neighbor in the second, because this moral outlook is non-metaphysical. Everything has come down into the 'horizontal' temporally flowing world of human life, which is now seen as the field of morality and of human feeling.

Self-transcendence is now not a matter of conscientiously living under a Law that is imposed upon one from Above, but rather of a heightened self-awareness that enables us to recognize and to shake off all those things in ourselves that make it difficult for us to love and be loved freely. ....

It would appear that Jesus simply radicalized a familiar theme he found in the Hebrew prophets, namely God's promise to relocate himself within the human heart.

'I will put my spirit within you', 'I will write my law upon your hearts', 'I will take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh', 'I myself will be with you and in you'.

When everything is internalized within the self, God dies; the world comes to an end, and I am confronted with the need to make an absolute choice, which is a repetition of God's original choice to create the world out of nothing.

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10.

SLOWING DOWN THE AGING PROCESS [Tolle PoN 122-3]

In the meantime, awareness of the inner body has other benefits in the physical realm. One of them is a significant slowing down of the aging of the physical body.

Whereas the outer body normally appears to grow old and wither fairly quickly, the inner body does not change with time, except that you may feel it more deeply and become it more fully.

If you are twenty years old now, the 'energy field of your inner body' will feel just the same when you are eighty. It will be just as vibrantly alive.

As soon as your habitual state changes from being 'out of the body and trapped in your mind', to being 'in the body and present in the Now', your physical body will feel lighter, clearer, more alive. As there is more consciousness in the body, its molecular structure actually becomes less dense. More consciousness means a lessening of the illusion of materiality.

When you become identified more with the 'timeless inner body' than with the 'outer body', when 'presence' becomes your normal mode of consciousness, and past and future no longer dominate your attention, you do not accumulate time anymore in your psyche and in the cells of the body. The accumulation of time as the psychological burden of past and future greatly impairs the cells' capacity for self-renewal.

So if you inhabit the inner body, the outer body will grow old at a much slower rate, and even when it does, your timeless essence will shine through the outer form, and you will not give the appearance of an old person.

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11.

KAREN ARMSTRONG - Tape: The Future of God (Notes on the Tape - numbers in text are indicative of the timing of the tape)

Does God have a future? - in the 60s God was Dead - Right now in 1995, 33% of people in England don’t believe in God i.e. the God of classic theism: the God who is seen as ‘all present’, ‘omnipotent’, ‘compassionate’.

Where was he in Auschwich? - If present - he didn’t prevent it. If he couldn’t prevent it - he is not ‘omnipotent’. If God didn’t want to prevent it: he is a monster!

Not believing in a ‘theistic God’, doesn’t mean one is not interested in spirituality. However, it’s difficult and for some impossible to get rid of religion - religion was created at the same time that art was produced - But is there a “supernatural” God? - Buddhism says NO.

At 17yr of age KA entered an religious order - hoping to find fulfillment in the “Being”, God. I was trained,, she says, in the Victorian mode, which made me self-conscious, and depressed. And thus God receded. It’s a dogma of the Catholic Church, that God is a Supreme Being, infinite. I eventually found this "pompous, arrogant", drained from emotion. I became bored with that God. Judaism, Islam, and the Eastern Church look at the God ‘concept’ differently. In the West, she feels, we are rather arrogant. In other religions the God-idea is an ‘experience of God’ - we should not feel ‘shackled’ by the notion of our Christian God. 10

The West has its own idea of God. But ideas of God have changed over time. My notion of God became unsatisfactory, incomplete if compared with the rich monotheistic traditions (of Judaism & Islam). With others, I find the idea of God incredible - totally inadequate.

Proof of God’s existence was started by Islam in 7th c. Their rational development was: seeking proof for existence of God - in Aristotle and in Plato. Jews for a while took part in this rationalization. The Greeks did not: They instinctively realized “rationalizing” would not “fit God”. They believed God cannot be proven, or explained. Just like a poem, or music cannot be explained. The Greeks depended on Icons and contemplation for experiencing and so understanding God - they didn’t need ‘proof’. Jews later realized that the “God of reason” could not help them, they found the God of the philosophers too remote, and it led the to return of interest in the Kabbalah, mystical experience of God. So did later the Muslims turn to philosophical mystics, the Suffis. But Christians still want to “prove” God’s existence as Islam and Jews had tried to do in their past. 15

Since the Reformation, there is a scientific revolution going on, that is starting a new society, stimulating the effort to make religion scientific and rational. But by trying to “prove” God, the concept became vulnerable. Scientist tried to find room for God in the universe. Darwin’s evolution theory - so frowned upon (in the US), because one sees Gn 1 as a literal fact, - sees Gn’s as a myth, pointing to spiritual values and truths.

Darwin is much better accepted in Muslim world. The Druse too, used science as ‘stepping stone’ to understanding God.

The West has a more rationalistic and antropo-morphic notion of God. In the West, God is/has a personality as our own, with likes and dislikes, which is eccentric.

In early Hebrew Scriptures God is presented in a human way: angry, jealous etc. The Prophets made him absolute transcendent. Second Is f.ex. says :

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways. As high as the heavens are above the earth are my thoughts, my ways above yours”.

Christians adhere to a personal God. They even see God becoming a personality on earth in the Christ. 20 Muslims also see God as if he(!!) were a human being: seeing, hearing, judging, sitting on a throne. The personal God has been a help in the beginning when one was searching to understand God, it shows the sacredness of humanity (using humanness to picture God). But the great monotheists expressed this not to be enough, though it is a good starting point. God is more than simply ‘personal’.

Greek Orthodox came up with the Trinity, seeing God expressed in three persons, or better three manifestations. God is not just simply a single personality. Muslims say God is more than a person, some going so far as NOT to call God a “being”, but rather a “nothing”, because he is none of the things that exist.

Modern concepts of God are human formulas . It is easy to create a God in our own image and likeness. 25 Crusaders did it when they killed Jews and Muslims with the words “God wills it”. They brought their feelings of hatred over to the God they had created, believing that God hated and wanted the death of the Jews and Muslims.

Preachers do that too - very often: Gods want this, God hates that - expressing what the preacher likes or dislikes.

We can make God into an extreme Republican or a radical Democrat or even a fanatical racist. 28

Atheism is a healthy form of iconoclasm - doing away with the man-made stuff of icons/idols.

People in our days feel that they have to get rid of the old concepts of God, that lingers as a “bad taste”. This process of cleansing leads to new faith, to a new notion of God.

Change of idea about God found resistence in the ‘tradition’. A certain reform-movement tries to go back to early days of the church. But it is impossible to return, to believe in a God as early Christians did - or the first generations of Muslims.

Circumstances have changed - view of the world has changed - view on God will be different accordingly. We fly now through the air, we dress with cloths that would be worn by kings in early days, we even go into outer space.

The way we understand God has to change too! 30

There were changes in the past: monotheism was not always the same - Abraham, Moses believed in monotheism but knew there were other gods, though they choose to worship only the God of Israel, but he was also a God of war and sometimes cruel and not universal. The 6th c. Prophets changed the God-idea, transformed the ancient notion, saw God as absolute transcendent, and universal. For them the primordial beauty of compassion is more important than the Temple and sacrifices.

In the 6th c. BCE the notion of God changed because the Israelites were living in a different world - in cities - a different civilization - they were not nomads anymore.

In the 1st c. CE, it was possible that some Jews could even consider a crucified man in some sense to be ‘divine’. It was a blasphemy for Judaism, and even for educated pagans (Paul: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 1C 2:23).

Christianity was a major revolution of religion in that time. Thoughts, ideas, that were sacred in the past and immutable, had to go, so there could be a new concept of the divine.

If people changed idea of God in the past, why not now? 33 (over)

We cannot predict the change. It has been radical in the past. And this might be happening now too! But we can at least say: perhaps what it is, should NOT be!

But be aware of a-too-rationalistic-concept, or a too antropo-morphístic one (cf HG 186).

Beware also of making God ‘religiously righteous’ instead of ‘compassionate’ (‘fundamentalism’ can do this, as well as the New Right, Moral Majority, etc. see HG 390) All major religions see compassion as a litmus test for real spirituality. They didn’t always live up to it, because of giving attention to other matters. But religion in general has helped to keep compassion as the ideal before our eyes (it was clearly the teaching of Jesus! See Exploration Course).

We, human beings find it very difficult to live up to our human nature. Dogs seem to have no trouble at all to live up to their canine nature. It is difficult for us to be humane to one another.

All major religions have realized that God/Nirvana/Brahman.... is NOT “out there”, but in the heart of the human, in the ground of every single individual. (HG 383 also ref to Paul Tillich and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and many others...cf 390 and we can add: Meister Eckhart, Spong, James Robinson, William Kingsland, e.o)

Rituals can be important for acknowledging the divinity in the other person (Hindu - hands - bowing), expresses the notion that God has to included in the acceptance of the sacredness of human life. This is also central in NT, Talmud and Koran. One cannot have a healthy notion of God if one turns away from others, just because they have different ideas, belong to a different race etc.

Learning from other religions can help to find a ‘new faith’ or a new understanding of "one’s faith". In the past that was not so easy because geographical distance made it difficult to learn from others. This is completely different in our century. We can learn from others’ mistakes, because we can observe them from close by. 38

For many folks other religions are threatening. Fundamentalists easily retreat into their own nominational, sectarian getthos.

Contact with other religions can make us see our own religion in a complete new light..

Religious experiences have been deep down so similar, though the expression of faith might be done in different ways, with different terminology, but the underlying experience is uncommonly similar.

Will there be in the future one gigantic religion to which all will belong?

Some have tried some kind of ‘take-over’ bit, or a merger - bringing others into their own flock.

We should hang on to our own individual tradition. Each of the major religions has accumulated a store of wisdom. By delving into this rich past, we can save ourselves the exhausting task of starting from scratch.

The faith in which have been brought up has made us what we are.

Suffis (of Islam) have great deal to teach us (see HG). They are an outstanding example of appreciating of other faiths, while holding on to their own. 40

A Suffi can cry in ecstacy that he is no longer a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim. He feels at home in a synagogue, a temple, church and mosque. Because once he found God, he does not need all those man-made distinctions. (that’s what the Unitarian must feel!!)

God is the ultimate reality to which all religions point.

Some people had unhappy experiences in the faith in which they have been born. Says Karen Armstrong: I myself have difficulty to accept Roman Catholicism completely. But even so, my Catholic past will influence me until the day I die.

What helps in comparative religious studies is that it makes you see your own religion differently. It’s very rare that study of another religion would convert to that other religion.- it makes you see your own religion in quite a different light.

My own study, she says, of Judaism, Islam, Greek Orthodoxy made me see better what Roman Catholicism was trying to do at its best - or were it has gone astray.

Studying religions should not be aimed at one main world religion. Rather the goal should be to find what ideas and practices have really been helpful to humanity or unhelpful, inadequate.

So Buddhists find our notions of God inadequate and even blasphemous - because they are antropo-mórphic. Expressing God in human terms is exactly what Buddhists say we must try to transcend. They make an excellent point!

Buddhists on Nirvana use same terms as monotheists do of God - also some Buddhists claim Nirvana doesn’t exist just like some in monotheism say God doesn’t exist.

Buddha when asked to describe Nirvana, answered: That is an inappropriate question. - It is the same for us about God.

Spiritual life talks about a cloud of unknowing when talking about approach to God - there will be obscurity and darkness (the ‘dark night of the soul’ for John of the Cross, it was for him a prelude to enlightenment).

Moses climbing up the mountain into the cloud - didn’t see anything, but knew God was there.

If we feel uncomfortable with the traditional notions about God - climb into the darkness!

But ... we want instant gratification!

We live in a world fast food, of constant noise.

Religion (or rather spirituality) is like ‘art’. - A poet needs quiet to create a poem from the unconscious. Patient receptiveness is necessary to reach the divine. Mysticism teaches us a lot about that.

Most people were not mystics, because they were not capable of the austere discipline mysticism requires. (!! austere discipline)

The mystical tradition provided most people with their perception of God. Common people accepted to see God as totally mysterious, only to be found in the death of the self.

The West could never put mysticism in the center of religious experience. [!!]

After the fall of the Roman Empire the West in Europe was plunged into a dark age of barbarism. - In the 14th c. the West was ready to develop its own mysticism. There were great masters as Meister Eckhart, and the 4 English mystics, and many others.

When mysticism got on the way, Reformation came along. The Reformist didn’t approve of mysticism, - because it was too much connected with monasticism. 45 They wanted to do away with the monasteries. - Even the Roman Catholic church looked rather disapprovingly on mysticism - Inquisition was often involved with mysticism-cases.

Mysticism in the West was rather for ‘oddballs’ - our religion is much more rationalistic. 48

Instead of quietly entering the darkness and the unknown, we rather spend lot of time talking to God - we like to define our thoughts and feelings in great detail. One author wrote a booklet “Poor little talkative Christians”. Somehow we have to learn to keep silent and develop a patient receptive attitude.

There is no easy and quick answer. We are used to getting thing “on order”. - in religious experience we expect to get instant enlightenment (speaking of tongues...) - We would like to become a mystic by taking evening classes or one semester and be mystics afterward.

A Poet and a religious person must be capable of remaining in half-truth - waiting for the religious experience to arrive in its own good time.

Earliest art had a deeply cultic dimension - Art is used all through history to express religious experiences of God - or give some hint of it - in dancing, fictional stories, icons, poetry (Koran is appealing because of its beauty of sound and poetry). 50 - Art is invasive, get’s under our skin and reaches the last crevices of our existence through all our prejudices, our distances, to a depth that we might not have realized that we got.

When listening to music, looking at a painting, or hearing a poem, we feel lifted above ourselves, or like something buried deep beneath us has been touched.

Religion [spirituality] should be that way. Suffi hold: the way to God is not through reason and logic, but through creative imagination, that world of imagery. The mystic has to learn to enter into that interior world of personal imagery. In encountering there the own self he will encounter his own God. This God not the same for everyone. (cf HG 233 and passim in \‘God of mystics’).

Sufi: God has spoken a personal word in each of us. Each human being is therefore an epiphany, manifestation of the divine on earth, - an incarnation if you will. (HG 237)

The ‘word’ or ‘name’ spoken in the heart of each individual is unique. We would only discover that particular name of God, which God had spoken within us.

Follows: God never completely can be defined, since he expressed him/her-self in the millions of people.

The Rabbis said the same:

Israelites at the foot of Mt.Sinai experienced God in his/her own personal way. No objective idea of God as if that would be the same for everyone.

[Bishop Lucker: “What I came to see during the 2nd Vat Council is that revelation involves God’s self-communication to us. And we can never understand the mystery of God. We can never adequately explain or express the revelation of God. That leads humans on a constant search for a better way to express the mysteries of God.” “He saw Vat.II as a more adequate way to understand and to apply the teachings of Jesus to new situation, new conditions of the world.” NCR 5-25-01]

In West we have made our idea of God an affair of the establishment. The churches lay down the law what we should believe about God. Not so in the Jewish and Islam tradition. Ideas about God are there a personal matter. Instead of finding a definition of God to impose it on other people, the same for all in society, or for all humanity - we should start a journey within ourselves to find the divine within us.

This God-idea will be personal to us - and unique. Perhaps in this way we will be able to recognize that every other person we meet also has a hidden divinity within them - we should try to find the particular mystery in others - its uniqueness and beauty. That’s what Dante saw in Beatrice - and the Sufi Ibn al-Arabi in Sophia (HG 236/7). - We should be able to discover an epiphany, manifestation of God in other people. Effort of imagination, yes, but geared toward reality, not a fantasy. Instead of wordy definitions, we should learn to wait in silence and obscurity, and to enter into the mystery within us - as well as recognize the God in others.

This brings us to the subject of prayer. Prayer is described as ‘silent waiting upon God’. Just as there is no one objective deity out there, the same for everybody - so no one cast-iron method of prayer to be imposed on all. We all have to find our particular method of prayer, just as we have to discover our own personal God.

I wrestled (in convent) with the Ignatian method - and I got nowhere. I found it frankly boring, difficult to keep my mind on my prayer - it led to an increasing sense of defeat and inadequacy. That method was not right for me - though it has helped many others. Some persons are silent by nature - easily can get into receptive stillness and can quietly enter within themselves and wait passively. For me, kneeling down and praying makes me feel exhausted and frightened. My method of prayer that’s working for me, will not necessarily work for everybody.

I found, that while studying and doing research for my books... emerging myself often in Sacred texts, I frequently get a brief glimmer of transcendence, of awe and wonder, that illuminates the whole page. May last only a second - and I’m taking notes again, snapped back to the cerebral mode. But for a second I’m lifted up above myself or touched deeply within. I’v not been able to predict or engineer these moments, they just arrive.

My Jewish friends tell me that I’m very Jewish in my spirituality. This is what Jews do when they immerse themselves in study of Torah or Talmud, when they recite the sacred Hebrew words and argue about their meaning.

St.Benedict - founder of the Benedictine Order - prescribes for his monks everyday a period of lectio divina, of divine study. During this time the monks might occasionally experience flashes of oratio, prayer, lasting only a second.

I stumbled on this by accident, seeking information about prayer in the British Library.. This is what works for me.

Liturgy can be helpful, as well as church services. The liturgy of Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches was designed as theatrical performance, and they can - just as theater - give us moments of wonder and transcendence.

We must be aware not to be too verbal in our prayers, - not being so conscious and fearful about prayer.

For many people art is the only access to transcendence. Religion and art are very closely aligned. Music, painting, poetry can help us to pray. We should not mind what others are doing, but find out what fits us, and what we enjoy.

Western Christianity has seen God often as an angry God, knowing all our faults and failings and inducing so a feeling of guilt. This embeds us in the ego that we must try to transcend.

Many of us who are brought up in the Christian tradition feel ashamed of ourselves, dissatisfied because of our sinfulness. In prayer too, we can feel hopelessly inadequate and lacking. All our faults and failings and what we are, is not very important. What really matters is what we are trying to achieve when we realize the divinity in ourselves, or - as Buddhism would say - to fulfill the deepest human potential.

Author of the Cloud of the Unknowing (cf HG 252, MZM 131): “It is not what you are that God regards with his most merciful eyes, but what Thou wouldest be”. 60

Reflection on “understanding”. Does spirituality exclude “understanding”. - Yes and No.

Yes: “And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept.” Merton

No: because the mind observes ‘the communion’; is conscious of it; witnesses it, but cannot conceptualize it.

There is (intellectual) knowing and (experiential) ‘knowing’. Merton calls the first “the arrogant gaze of our investigating mind”. Of the second he says “we have to perform a sort of somersault to ‘became aware of ourselves as known by him’ - and by following this path we discover who we are.”

Reflection GCS: I do not need to worship "God", the "Divine", I do not need to 'adore', rather I seek "union with" the Divine. The "divine" is the Being of my 'being', or rather I am 'being' of the "divine Being", just as the cosmos - in all it details/elements - is "being of the Being". That's what unites, connects 'all'. Thus, the "Divine" is not an "IT", but part of, or rather basis of the "WE", the "US". That does not mean that "we all" are the "divine" (pantheism), but that all are connected with, share with "the Divine": 'Being', Existence, Life. (seen as the "spark" by the gnostics, the "outpression" of Fowler, "Ground of our being" of P.Tillich, J.Robinson. W.Kingsland).

Karen Armstrong TSS : ... God is also the ground of all being and can be experienced almost as a presence in the depths of the psyche. - Faith was really the cultivation of a conviction that life had some ultimate meaning and value. - Credo ut intelligam, I commit myself in order that I may understand. 292

.... the religious quest is not about discovering "the truth" or. "the meaning of life" but about living as intensely as possible here and now. The idea is not to latch on to some superhuman personality or to "get to heaven" but to discover how to be fully human-hence the images of the perfect or enlightened man, or the deified human being. 271

.... I would experience mini-seconds of transcendence, awe, and wonder that gave me some sense of what had been going on in the mind of the theologian or mystic I was studying. At such a time I would feel stirred deeply within, and taken beyond myself, in much the same way as I was in a concert hall or a theater. 287

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12.

Martin Buber I and Thou.

One of the finest conceptual expressions of how the sacred is experienced in the everyday is Martin Buber’s description of 'I-It' and 'I-You' ways of being in his famous book I and Thou.

Buber argues that we as humans have two fundamentally different ways of being in relationship to the world, the totality of things, including nature, culture, and persons: the way of I-It, and the way of I-You.

The way of I-It is by far the most common; in fact, it represents normal adult consciousness. Within this mode of being, the world is experienced within the framework of the subject-object distinction: 'I' experience myself as a subject separate from a world of objects, as an ego aware of itself and its differentiation from the world. Even our grammar embodies this difference: I (subject) see you (object).

The 'I-It' way of being is the world of our ordinary experience: the world of cause and effect, of ordered space and time; the world as domesticated by the culturally created grid of language, categories, and knowledge.

'I-You' moments are very different, much harder to describe, and comparatively rare. I-You moments 'appear as queer lyric-dramatic episodes' and are often dismissed by people for whom the I-It world seems to be the real world.

'How powerful is the continuum of the It-world,' Buber writes, 'and how tender the manifestations of the You!'

The I-You way of being is the opposite of I-It. It is the world of relation and connectedness as opposed to separation and differentiation. The world within an I-You mode of being is uncategorized and thus appears fresh, new, and undomesticated.

The 'I' of the 'I-You' moments is different from the 'I’ of the 'I-It' experience.

The 'I' of the 'I-You' is wholly present and wholly involved so that no part of the ego-self (the 'I' of the 'I-It') is left over. (See further: Tolle A New Earth)

The self-conscious I ( the 'ego-I') disappears; ego boundaries and ego awareness momentarily melt away. Thus the world of I-You is the world of no-time and of the eternal now, for there is no part of the self that is thinking about past or future. In I-You moments, the world is known as a 'You'—that is, as the phrase itself implies, as a 'presence' rather than as an 'object'.

Indeed, such moments are glimpses of 'the eternal You', experiences of 'the sacred', 'the divine', in which 'the beyond' is experienced in the 'finite/existing', and in the 'here and now'.

At a celebration of his eightieth birthday, Buber denied being a prophet, philosopher, or theologian but instead said about himself, 'I am only someone who has seen something and who goes to a window and points.' What he points to is 'the eternal You,' known in the midst of the everyday life.

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13.

Quotes and Remarks about the God Concept/Question

1. God is the ultimate source of life. One worships this God by living fully, by sharing deeply.

2. God is the ultimate source of love. One worships this God by loving wastefully, by spreading love frivolously, by giving love away without stopping to count the cost.

3. God is Being - the reality underlying everything that is. To worship this God you must be willing to risk all, abandoning your defenses and your self-imposed or culturally constructed security systems. Spong about 'his God'.

Last semester we were offered insights like the following:

Life is sustained by a creative energy, fundamentally benign in nature, with a tendency to manifest and express itself in movement, rhythm, and pattern. Creation is sustained by a superhuman, pulsating restlessness, a type of resonance vibrating throughout time and eternity. Diarmuid O’Murch Quantum Theology App 1, Princ 1 [“relational matrix’ from CwJ refers to Jesus and his KoG message 36, 58!]

- God and the divine are described as a creative energy, which is perceived to include, but also supersede, everything traditional theology attributes to God,

- The divine energy is not stable or unchanging, but works through movement, rhythm, pattern, arid restlessness - within the evolving nature of life itself,

- The divine co-creativity operates within the evolutionary process rather than as an external agent based on a cause and effect relationship.

- Notions such as ‘God’ and ‘divinity’ are to be used sparingly, because these are human concepts (descriptions) that may limit rather than enhance our understanding of life?s ultimate source and meaning.

‘‘As soon as I say the divine is separate, I abdicate any responsibility to birth God, to grow God within me.’’ - Cheryl Lawler

‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Mt 5:6 - In a contemporary paraphrase: You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. God is food and drink in the best meal you will ever eat. That mysterious appetite began like an itch, but it was a spiritual itch, a feeling of restlessness, like a tiny pebble in my shoe that I couldn't get rid of. Linda Douty A Hunger for God

"You know, I've kept very busy all of my life: I've always had something to do, somewhere to go, somebody to be with. But now I don't want to do any of that; I don't SAVOR anything! Lately I've begun to withdraw from so many activities, and my friends and family are becoming worried about me... To be honest, my daughter is the one who sent me to you. I don't really think I'm depressed.. it's just that underneath it all I have a feeling that there's more to life than what I have experienced. I just can't seem to get in touch with what this ‘something more’ is." Linda Douty Listening for God

"God has placed time bombs within us set to go off and blow a gaping hole in us to keep us searching." Alan Jones Soulmaking

“One deep ‘letting go’ that Jesus' crucifixion demands of us is letting go of our projections onto an all-powerful God. The real scandal of the cross, as theologian Jon Sobrino sees it, is in the fact that God did not intervene to save the divine son from the awful death of the cross. Jesus died a disastrous death, and his divine father/mother let it happen. (36.186-192) Jesus redefines the power of love - it is not so great as we had presumed because it is a power of love and not a power of thunderbolts and interferences in nature's processes. We hear echoes of Eckhart here, who prays an ultimate Via Negativa prayer when he says, “To let God be, God requires considerable letting go through our lifetimes”, as it did for Jesus whose prayer in Gethsemane began with an earnest desire that the cup pass from him but ended with a resolve that his will be so emptied as to become the divine will. The despair of the cross, the darkness of the event, the suffering God who allowed the suffering of the divine son to be suffering - all these are powerful images of ‘letting go’ . Matthew Fox Original Blessing 171

“I once had a dream in which I, even though a man, was pregnant like a woman with child. I was pregnant with nothingness, and out of this nothingness God was born.”

"I pray God to rid me of God.” Meister Eckhart MME

“God created all things in such a way that they are not outside himself, as ignorant people falsely imagine. Rather, all creatures flow outward, but nonetheless remain within God.”

“We must learn to penetrate things and find God there”. Meister Eckhart MME

There is a shadow side to all reality - even to our concepts of God!"

“Notions such as “God” and “divinity” are used sparingly, because these are human constructs (descriptions) that may limit rather than enhance our understanding of life’s ultimate source and meaning.” QT The God Question

“We are part and parcel of this immense intelligence, this Spirit-in-action, this God-in-the-making”. Ken Wilber Brief History 42

"The God of the metaphysical age is dead. There is not a personal god out there external to human beings and the material world. We must reckon with a deep crisis in ‘god talk’ and replace it with talk about whether the universe has meaning and whether human life has purpose." Robert Funk no.1 of 21 theses

“There is no conflict between God and man, no hostility between spirit and body, no wedge between the holy and the secular. Man does not exist apart from God. The human is the borderline of the divine.

Life passes on in proximity to the sacred, and it is the proximity that endows existence with ultimate significance. In our relation to the immediate we touch upon the most distant. Even the satisfaction of physical needs can be a sacred act. Perhaps the essential message of Judaism is that in doing the finite we may perceive the infinite. It is incumbent on us to obtain the perception of the impossible in the possible, the perception of life eternal in everyday deeds. God is not hiding in a temple. The Torah came to tell inattentive man: "You are not alone, you live constantly in holy neighborhood; remember: `Love thy neighbor - God - as thyself." We are not asked to abandon life and to say farewell to this world, but to keep the spark within aflame, and to suffer His light to reflect in our face. Let our greed not rise like a barrier to this neighborhood. God is waiting on every road that leads from intention to action, from desire to satisfaction.” Abrahan Heschel Man is not Alone 265

Religion is not merely an assent to a set of beliefs, but a rich, multifaceted fabric of teachings and experiences that connect us with the divine. Elaine Pagels Beyond Belief

Bishop Lucker: “What I came to see during the 2nd Vat Council is that revelation involves God’s self-communication to us. And we can never understand the mystery of God. We can never adequately explain or express the revelation of God. That leads humans on a constant search for a better way to express the mysteries of God.”

“He saw Vat.II as a more adequate way to understand and to apply the teachings of Jesus to new situations, new conditions of the world.” NCR 5-25-01

“I would rather believe in God and die to find out the there is none .... Than not to believe in God and die to find out that there is a God.” [Why? Afraid to meet a judging God?]

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14.

Consciousness - becoming aware of the Presence, of 'being'

The Buddha is said to have given a "silent sermon" once during which he held up a flower and gazed at it. After a while, one of those present, a monk, began to smile. He, it has been said, was the only one who had understood the sermon. According to legend, that smile (that is to say, that 'realization') was handed down by twenty-eight successive masters and much later became the origin of Zen.

Seeing beauty in a flower could awaken humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of their own 'innermost being', their 'true nature'. Jesus tells us to contemplate the flowers and learn from them how to live.

The first recognition of beauty was one of the most significant events in the evolution of human consciousness. The feelings of joy and love are intrinsically connected to that recognition. Without us fully realizing it, flowers have become for us an expression 'in form' of that which is most high, most sacred, and ultimately 'formless within ourselves'.

Since time immemorial, flowers, crystals, precious stones, and birds have held special significance for the human spirit.

Like all life-forms, they are, of course, temporary manifestations of the underlying 'one Life', one 'Consciousness'. Their special significance and the reason why humans feel such fascination for and affinity with them can be attributed to their ethereal quality.

Once there is a certain degree of 'Presence', of still and alert attention, in human beings' perceptions, they can sense the divine life essence, the one indwelling consciousness or spirit in every creature, every life-form, recognize it as one with their 'own essence' or 'being', and so love it as themselves.

Until this happens, however, most humans see only the outer forms, unaware of the inner essence, just as they are unaware of their 'own essence', and identify only with their own physical and psychological form.

In the case of a flower, a crystal, precious stone, or bird, however, even someone with little or no Presence can occasionally sense that there is more there than the mere physical existence of that form, without knowing that this is the reason why he or she is drawn toward it, feels an affinity with it. Because of its ethereal nature, its form obscures the indwelling spirit to a lesser degree than is the case with other life-forms. The exception to this are all newborn life-forms-babies, puppies, kittens, lambs, and so on. They are fragile, delicate, not yet firmly established in materiality. An innocence, a sweetness and beauty that are not

of this world still shine through them. They delight even relatively insensitive humans.

So when you are alert and contemplate a flower, crystal, or bird without naming it mentally, it becomes a window for you into the 'formless'. There is an inner opening, however slight, into the realm of spirit.

Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an inner flowering so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering of plants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection?

Can human beings lose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become like crystals or precious stones, so to speak, transparent to the light of consciousness?

Can a human defy the gravitational pull of materialism and materiality and rise above 'identification with form', keeping so the 'ego' in place, and condemning it to imprisonment within its own personality?

It will take a shift in consciousness, that means, to be awaken. But it can 'waken' only those who are ready. An essential part of the 'awakening' is the recognition of the 'un-awakened you', t.i. the 'ego' as it thinks, speaks and acts, like an imposter pretending to be 'you'.

When you recognize the unconscious in you, you are awakening.

A lady lost a ring, dear to her. She was very upset! Didn't realize that she would have to let go of the ring at some point. How much more time do you need before you will be ready to let go of it? Will you become 'less' when you let go of the ring? Has 'who you are' become diminished by the loss?" There were a few minutes of silence after the last question.

When she started speaking again, there was a smile on her face, and she seemed at peace. "The last question made me realize something important. First I went to my mind for an answer and my mind said, `Yes, of course you have been diminished'. Then I asked myself the question again, `Has 'who I am' become diminished?' This time I tried 'to feel rather than think' the answer. And suddenly I could feel it all. I can still feel it now, something peaceful, but very alive."

That is the joy of 'Being'. You can only 'feel' the peace and joy, once you get out of your head. 'Being' must be felt; It can't be 'thought'. The 'ego' doesn't know about it because thought is what 'ego' consists of. The ring was really in your head as a thought that you confused with the sense of 'I Am'. You thought the 'I Am' or a part of it was in the ring.

Whatever the 'ego' seeks and gets attached to, are substitutes for the 'Being' that it cannot feel. You can value and care for things, but whenever you get 'attached; to them, you will know it's the 'ego'. And you are never really attached to a thing but to a thought that has 'I', 'me', or 'mine' in it. Whenever you completely accept a loss, you go beyond ego, and then 'who you are', the 'I Am', your consciousness emerges.

Although body-identification is one of the most basic forms of 'ego', the good news is that it is also the one that you can most easily go beyond. This is done not by trying to convince yourself that you are not your body, but by shifting your attention from the 'external form' of your body and from 'thoughts about your body' -beautiful, ugly, strong, weak, too fat, too thin - to the feeling of 'aliveness inside it'. No matter what your body's appearance is on the outer level, within the 'outer form' there is an 'intensely alive energy field'.

If you are not familiar with 'inner body awareness', close your eyes for a moment and find out if there is life inside your hands. Don't ask your mind. It will say, "I can't feel anything." Probably it will also say, "Give me something more interesting to think about." So instead of asking your mind, go to the hands directly. By this I mean become aware of the subtle feeling of aliveness inside them. It is there. You just have to go there with your attention to notice it. You may get a slight tingling sensation at first, then a feeling of energy or aliveness. If you hold your attention in your hands for a while, the sense of aliveness will intensify. Some people won't even have to close their eyes. They will be able to feel their 'inner hands' at the same time as they read this. Then go to your feet, keep your attention there for a minute or so, and begin to feel your hands and feet at the same time. Then incorporate other parts of the body, legs, arms, abdomen, chest, and so on - into that feeling until you are aware of the inner body as a 'global sense of aliveness'.

What I call the 'inner body' isn't really the body anymore but 'life energy', the bridge between form and formlessness.

Make it a habit to feel the inner body as often as you can. After a while, you won't need to close your eyes anymore to feel it. For example, see if you can feel the inner body whenever you listen to someone. It almost seems like a paradox: When you are in touch with the inner body, you are not identified with your body anymore, nor are you identified with your mind. This is to say, you are no longer identified with 'form' but moving away from form-identification toward form-lessness, which we may also call 'Being'. It is your 'essence identity'.

Body awareness not only anchors you in the present moment, it is a doorway out of the prison that is the 'ego'. It also strengthens the immune system and the body's ability to heal itself.

There are people who experienced that 'emerging new dimension of consciousness' as a result of tragic loss at some point in their lives. Some lost all of their possessions, others their children or spouse, their social position, reputation, or physical abilities.

In some cases, through disaster or war, they lost all of these simultaneously and found themselves with 'nothing'. Whatever they had identified with, whatever gave them their sense of self, had been taken away. Still there are some for whom the anguish or intense fear they initially felt has given way to a sacred sense of Presence, a deep peace and serenity and complete freedom from fear. It is a peace that doesn't seem to make sense, and the people who experienced it may ask themselves: In the face of this, how can it be that I feel such peace?

The answer is simple, once you realize what the 'ego' is and how it works. When forms that you had identified with, that gave you your sense of self, collapse or are taken away, it can lead to a collapse of the 'ego', since 'ego' is identification with form. When there is nothing to identify with anymore, - your sense of Beingness, of 'I Am', is freed from its entanglement with form: Spirit is released from its imprisonment in matter. You realize your essential identity as formless, as an all-pervasive Presence, of Being prior to all forms, all identifications. You realize your true identity as consciousness itself, rather than what consciousness had identified with. That awareness of Being, connects you with the Being, the Divine, that makes 'all' possible. That's the peace of God. The ultimate truth of who you are is not 'I am this' or 'I am that', but 'I Am'.

Whenever tragic loss occurs, you either resist or you yield. Some people become bitter or deeply resentful; others become compassionate, wise, and loving. Yielding means inner acceptance of 'what is' (the 'here and now'). You are open to life.