Chastity & Loving

A Virginal Heart

Feb 29, 2012

Another in the series by poet Arem Nahariim-Samadhi, sharing lyrics and images on Oneness with Divine Love - here, Communion with the Spirit through Aloneness.

So, I stress strongly, that contemplative practice, as well as all devotional spirituality, is not an end in itself, alone, but is a means of grace to open your heart to give in pure self-emptying for others. In this self-emptying, you and I learn the paradox: to self-empty is to be filled to overflowing. I urge you, that you not be willful in your efforts to serve others. Do not strain at self-emptying, for that only validates the self trying to empty. Simply, freely, daily offer yourself in self-oblation to God. Announce your availability to Spirit.

Arem draws upon the practice of chastity, as different from celibacy, by using story and inspirational, practical guidance to show that chastity is an essential aspect of a Life devoted to living together in love toward all. Arem clarifies that this practice of chastity will be shaped by the focus of ultimate Devotion that arises in varied forms in diverse religious and spiritual traditions.

Our loving consent is response to the Divine lovingly consenting to our limitation. Our consent is not merely passive abandonment or emptying of mind. Rather, our consent is active consent. At times Contemplative Prayer is understood wrongly, as emptying of mind. The nature of mind is to think. Yet, before movement of mind is Stillness from which movement arises. Before a voice of mind is Silence from which all sound, inner and outer, is born.

*Arem Nahariim-Samadhi, "Unconscious Energies and Prayerful Receptivity," 10.16.2007.