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Wisdom Quote
The awakening to the divine Presence emerges from ... that level of being which in Christ is divine by nature and which in us is divine by participation.
*Thomas Keating. The Mystery of Christ.
What is this new mystery which concerns me? I am small and great, lowly and exalted, mortal and immortal, earthly and heavenly. I share one condition with the lower world, the other with God; one with the flesh, the other with the spirit. I must be buried with Christ, arise with Christ, be joint heir with Christ, become the son of God, yea, God Himself.
*St. Gregory the Theologian (326-389). Oration.
Wisdom Story
A monk went to his spiritual Teacher. He said, "I'm a very angry person. I want you to help me." The Teacher replied, "Show me your anger." The monk said, "Presently, I'm not angry. So, I can't show it to you." "Obviously," spoke the Teacher, "anger is not you, since sometimes it's not even there."
Comments
Definitely, we experience varied emotions. Some of these are helpful and some not helpful. The early Church fathers called the harmful emotions passions. John Cassian (c. 360-c. 435), a desert monk and ascetical writer, wrote: "It is a bigger miracle to eject passion from your own body than it is to eject an evil spirit from another's body. It is a bigger miracle to be patient and refrain from anger than it is to control the demons which fly through the air."
We can inquire: Who refers to his or her body? Who is the subject speaking of having a body, a mind, or anything? Who says "I" or "me" or "mine"?
Charlotte Joko Beck, in Everyday Zen, refers to the "observing self" and the "describable self." The describable self can be referred to in terms of thinking, emotion, and function. For example, "I think that you are wrong," "That makes me very upset," and "I am going for a walk."
The observing self is the True Self of Christian contemplative teaching. Note words from the following Christian contemplatives.
Eckhart: "To gauge the soul we must gauge it with God, for the Ground of God and the Ground of the soul are one and the same."
Ruysbroeck: "The spirit possesses God essentially in naked nature, and God the spirit."
St. Catherine of Genoa: "My Me is God, nor do I recognize any other Me except my God Himself."
St. Bernard: "In those aspects in which the soul is unlike God, it is also unlike itself."
Part of receiving forgiveness, or release from sin, is realizing that we essentially, in innermost Nature, possess no sin. There is that of God within that can neither give rise to nor be affected by sin. All sin, all brokenness, all other than God is other than the Me participating by Grace in God and whom St. Catherine of Genoa ~ as well as all true Christian contemplatives ~ speaks of. And the apparent paradox of participation in both the heavenly and earthly is well enunciated in the opening by St. Gregory the Theologian. And, of course, all I am saying of this apparent paradox pertains to our dualistic language and references, and would take a different shape in purely nondual linguistics.
One reason that Christian thought is typically so ineffective in transforming persons is that it almost always only addresses the self that is other than the Self that is already one with God, in God, and by whom God moves outward as Grace into the world and relationships with other creatures, human and otherwise.
Then, what is that Christ Self that observes, that is always expressing by being expressed by the Word, yet, never that self constructed of actions of thinking, feeling, or function? That self, as Thomas Keating reminds us, is divine, but by participation. This means that in Christ, by the nature of Christ, the Christ Nature eternally arises in and from Christ.
The Word words the Self. Therefore, the Self is Christ by participation. This is why contemplative Christian theologians have taught that we are to become God-by-participation.
What I am writing means: "We can grow to fully participate in God's godness, or divineness, as a conscious experience. Yet, we do not become God, for God is God in Godself. We humans are offered to participate in God, and that is godliness."
Practically, then, in meditation we learn to differentiate between the Christ Nature and the personality, or constructed self processes. We learn that inner healing arises from recognizing and honoring Christ Within. The holy Spirit teaches us the potential to become more loving beings, more Christlike in the processes of personality, by returning more wholly into that Christ Nature already one with God in the Word, that Word wording all creatures eternally, without begining or end, always. Thereby, we are called to enter the full Mystery of Christ, not simply adore or obey Christ. This is all the gift of Christ, and not of nature.
Of course, this is heresy to many persons. ... That is, heresy to the personality, for they live by it and interpret even the mystery of the Gospel in terms of the "flesh," as St. Paul speaks, or the self that realizes itself cut off from the Divine and foreign to such Love.
How can anyone enjoy the sweet consolations of union, while chewing only on the morsels of separateness? How can anyone relish the bliss of Eden, if he or she takes the dualities of the angels with flaming sword as the final Word on Truth? Yet, sadly, most religious teaching is from outside the Garden, and persons living outside the Eden; though Christ calls us to see all things from Grace meeting us inside It, which is Christ Himself.
Moses and David, and whoever else became vessels of divine energy by laying aside the properties of their fallen nature, were inspired by the power of God... They became living ions of Christ, being the same as He is, by grace rather than by assimilation....
*St. Gregory Palamas. "Topics of Natural and Theological Science: no. 76." The Philokalia. Vol. 4. Ed. by Palmer, Sherrard and Ware.
Spiritual Exercise
(1) Breath Prayer
Breathing in: Christ, You Are
Breathing out: Christ, I Am
Breathing in: Christ, Me You
Breathing out: Christ, You Me
Breathing in: Thank you (smile)
Breathing out: (relax and keep smiling)
(2) Read Luke 15.1-32. How might the story speak of our return to the Christ Nature, our essential Self? That is, how might you understand the story often called the Story of the Prodigal Son through contemplative consciousness?
Remember, we read and interpret the Gospel through a level of consciousness and, thus, a scripture can take on added meaning when read beyond a previous, less whole awareness. So, reading a passage from the compounded self will be "seen" differently than when from the Christ Nature, or Christ Self.
See any major on-line bookseller for his book An Ache for Union.
*Quotes from St. Gregory the Theologian, Eckhart, Ruysbroeck, St. Catherine of Genoa, and St. Bernard, from mycopticchurch.com .
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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