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Today's Scripture
27He did this so they would look for him [God]. He wanted them to reach out and find him. But he is not far from each one of us.
28In him we live, and move, and are alive. Some of your own writers have said, "We have come from him".
29`Therefore we have all come from God. So we should not think that God is something made of gold, or silver, or stone. He is not made by men's hands.
*Acts 17.27-29, WE
Wisdom Quote
The definition of emptiness as "infinite possibility" is a basic description of a very complicated term. A subtler meaning ... implies that whatever arises out of this infinite potential-whether it's a thought, a word, a planet, or a table-doesn't truly exist as a "thing" in itself, but is rather the result of numerous causes and conditions. If any of those causes and conditions are changed or removed, a different phenomenon will arise.
*Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. The Joy of Living.
"Who could understand how all things, though different contingently, are the image of that single, infinite Form... The infinite form is received only in a finite way; consequently, every creature is, as it were, a finite infinity or a created god, so that it exists in the way in which this could best be. It is as if the Creator had spoken: "Let it be made," and because God, who is eternity itself, could not be made, that was made which could be made, which would be as much like God as possible. The inference, therefore, is that every created thing as such is perfect, even if by comparison to others it seems less perfect. For the most merciful God communicates being to all in the manner in which it can be received... Therefore, every created being finds its rest in its own perfection, which it freely holds from the divine being. It desires to be no other created being, as if something else were more perfect, but rather it prefers that which it itself holds, as if a divine gift, from the maximum, and it wishes its own possession to be perfected and preserved incorruptibly."
*Nicolas of Cusa. See http://members.tripod.com/kctrilogy/final.html .
Comments
What the Christian contemplative Nicholas of Cusa, St. Paul, and the Buddhist Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche refer to is the same Truth. The Truth is God; the Ground of All and Each Creature, generally animate and inanimate, seen and unseen, is this Pure Emptiness.
This means in a contemplative sense, in Christian terms, All-Potential-or God, the pleroma- Is as One, or Absolute and Infinite Simplicity, one with the Emptiness, God. This is to say God must be this, in our terms, for God is God and could be nothing other than as God is.
Fullness and Emptiness are one within God-God is Pure, for our contraries are Simplicity in God and as God. This means all creation relies on Emptiness; this implies that nothing exists within itself but only within the whole matrix of creativity as expressive of Potency, or God. And Christ, the Word, is the Means of Potency as "proceeds" from the Simplicity, the Father.
Contemplation leads us to the root of this creativity. In the Silence we participate in the Simplicity, and we share in the Essence prior to the manifestation of all a-prior form.
This is why mystical contemplation is the purest form of Prayer for us-though, of course, other modes are entailed in our Path of spiritual emergence. In Silence we are led to union with God by proximate, or like, or near, means to union, as taught by St. John of the Cross in Ascent of Mt. Carmel.
Other forms of prayer utilize means that are not proximate to the union itself. Prayerful Silence is itself proximate to union with God for it is akin to the simplicity and purity prior to form that is the Essence of God as Simplicity.
This communion in Simplicity empowers us with the creativity of God through two means. One, we are inwardly and silently, in a passive receptivity arising from Spirit, imbued with the Divine Quality before manifestation. Return to the Simplicity, also, purifies us of reliance (lit., faith in) form-even "religious" or "spiritual" form; thereby, opened up within us is the freer flow of formless potency arising from the Potency. This leads, in turn, to such potency manifesting in the particular ways of formation in our lives. This is based on the fact that Potency births potency, and potency as the Potency communicated to the soul inwardly is source of the manifestations of Emptiness-Fullness according to the causes and conditions within Nature.
Spiritual Exercise
(1) What feelings arose in you while reading this writing? Why do you think you had those feelings?
(2) What is meant by Simplicity in a spiritual sense?
(3) What is the relation between the Acts scripture and the writing for today?
(4) Consider the immensity of causes and conditions over aeons, seen and unseen, that led to your soul coming into this earthly existence? How does Divine Providence fit in that immensity of causes and conditions?
(5) Why is contemplative prayer a more mature form of prayer than other forms of prayer?
(6) What does it mean to say that Prayerful Silence is a proximate means to loving union with God?
(7) In what sense is Christ the go-between between God as Pure Potency and the creatures within creation-including you and me as embodied spirits?
(8) Breath Prayer.
Breathing in: My Lord
Breathing out: My All
Breathing in: My Love
Breathing out: Thank You (Smile)
Brian will respond to requests pertaining to seeking a Spiritual Mentor. He offers retreats, workshops, and classes in such subjects as Contemplative Prayer (he trains in Visualized Praying, Centering Prayer, Christian Meditation, The Jesus Prayer, ...); Contemplative Living; A Spiritual Understanding of the Lord's Prayer; Philippians and Spiritual Community; Spiritual Growth From Matter to Spirit; Spiritual Use of the Scripture.
See any major on-line bookseller for his book An Ache for Union.
For replies and biographical information, and submission to "The Light Shines" daily devotionals ~ a ministry of Christ Community United Methodist Church, Punta Gorda, FL, see next page:
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