SPIRITUALITY, Varieties of Religious Experience

Are you discouraged with your spiritual journey? Do you find yourself still searching for answers? Or are you unsure of where to begin?

2012-02-15T09:42:00.000Z

Are you discouraged with your spiritual journey? Do you find yourself still searching for answers? Or are you unsure of where to begin? If these are your questions, The Spiritual Journey of a Psychotherapist is a book that might help answer them!

Broken down into simple definitions and terms for the layperson to understand, The Spiritual Journey of a Psychotherapist takes readers through emotional evolution, starting with the severe pathologies, moving through the more normal neurotic level of development and onto maturation in spiritual evolution. Author Catherine Morrison uses real-life stories to take readers from beginning to end. Readers are not only learning about psychological growth, but the prose detailing these real-life stories, is like reading a novel.

Written with an expert's eye, The Spiritual Journey of a Psychotherapist, Catherine Morrison's career as a psychotherapist gives her the professional experience to write about such a topic. The trials and tribulations of failed spiritual journeys give her the real-life experience readers will be able to relate to, so if you're searching and wanting to start your own journey, The Spiritual Journey of a Psychotherapist is a great place to begin.

Catherine Morrison is a former psychotherapist, who practiced in many and varied settings, as well as in private practice, before retiring to the south shore of Massachusetts. Catherine's interest in spirituality continues. She has for many years attended courses in Advaita Vedanta at an ashram in Saylorsburg, PA, and enjoys exploring the perspectives of other teachers and spiritual traditions, as well, finding that this keeps her knowledge fresh and alive.DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.

Psychology, means the study of and knowledge of the journey of the soul on Earth, and across all perceivable worlds.

2012-02-15T09:36:00.002Z

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés Institute of Archetypal and Cross-cultural Psychology

Dear Brave Souls:

What is the meaning of psychology... in the truest sense of the word? The word itself illumines the answer—“psyche” means the soul... and “logos” means knowledge. I reflect personally that the word Psychology, means the study of and knowledge of the journey of the soul on Earth, and across all perceivable worlds.

To practice a true psychology, then, we'd seek meaning in our lives through all our episodic sagas: defining them not so much as ‘the good, the bad, and the downright ugly’ so to speak; but rather as descents, ascents, ever seeking creative expression, mending and meaning in more than one world—from the down to earth aspects, but also from what I call "the aerial view" that sees in the ways of spirit and soul, not only ego alone. Thus from those overviews, many episodes in life want to be art and artful, rather than only dead and deadly.

And this is what a healer can bring. In seeking meaning and understanding and creative life... we develop a healing apothecary, and we commit to a never-ending story: that is, the exploration of such mysterious aspects of life. We part them out, dissolve some, transform others, for these are the Soul's greatest interests. Together these combine into what we call *consciousness*: which means, by my lights, to become a true visionary, a true creative force for the good of culture, family, self and others, a true ser humano, a true human being.

Another way of saying this: Each of us carries the equivalent of lush gardens and wild fields. Though we cannot control all the weathers that nurture or batter, we can become meteorologists of these worlds lived in and perceived by psyche. We can then sense more clearly what is immanent and what has passed energetically. And too, in a down to earth manner, we can map not just the weathers of the psyche, but too, descent to the traps and treasures that lie in the infinite complexity of the roots. Our soul's root system twines through a vast and wise communications network underground that we call the personal and the collective unconscious.

If you are a teacher, therapist, healer, a helping professional, I warmly invite you to join me for this one-of-a-kind, unique professional training, “The Mysterium: Psychology... In the Truest Sense of the Word.” For five days, we'll live together in learning and practice of what I call "the many layered world," defining ‘the bones,’ exploring the visible and invisible aspects of the human—and not only human—Soul—its challenges and difficulties on Earth, its comforts and longings, its stories and dreams, its shadowy aspects, its radiant gifts and often startling wisdom.

In this intensive training, I'll teach and share with you the fruits of 40+ years of experience as a psychoanalyst, poet, and cantadora (keeper of the old stories), post-trauma recovery specialist—offering the most powerful and effective techniques I know and some of which I've discovered for liberating the fierce heart that lives within us all... the bounties of which are to be aimed at self and at others—not one or the other, but both.

In “The Mysterium,” I'll offer you my signature ways of teaching via story, mythopoetics, and commentary, solid theory and application, demonstrations, practicum, and times for Q&A to explore:

Dream analysis—The mirror of the psyche, the ometeotl, *who* reflects and guides, calls out both warnings and creative inspirations that are expected to be put into action, defining blocks and pathways through
Interpretation of fairy tales—How archetypes in fairy tales influence us psychologically and reflect universal challenges and solutions to us, answering both personal and cultural questions
Shadow work—Working with the hidden aspects of the psyche that contain great truths, perils, evil, ego-ambitions severed from soul, beautiful perceptions, and talents
The forces that influence us daily—Our relationships, families, the overculture, and the often unheard music of our own souls
Healing techniques from my traditions: ethnic, Jungian, and traditional medicine—expanding your knowledge as helping professionals

I've been fond of saying for the last many years—for many people inquire about where the heck I've been all these years—that I'm a bit like the wolves: they are not visible in daylight most often, but there will be sightings. They laugh and I laugh, and all is well. But/and...

It is true I have taught my work very rarely ‘live’ and ‘face-to-face’ over these past 40-some years. Yet, I can feel in my bones now as an elder, summoned... "for there comes a time now" to teach the old ways and the new ways, that is, what I've learned and lived, often hard won—and that which I've carried wrapped as safely as possible upriver, and against all contravening weathers. There comes a time, and I know that time is here now to pour out what I've gathered.

Thus, last year, from our first group of helping professionals from across the world in our first “Mysterium” training, the feedback was that the training was "powerful," startling in its depth for many, filled with warmth and humor in many directions, meaningful, useful, and enriching—fully enabling of learners to return home with new personal insights as well as new and sturdy knowledge added to their work as professionals. "Rewarding" is a word often used by learners.

As a result of the first-year training, it confirmed that my instincts to note deeply this time of my life... for me to register without question that there are fewer years ahead than there are behind... was en puente, right on the head—that is, as a little mallet hits a large gong right in its most resonant center. The call of this bell is to me (an introvert who is dedicated to ‘life in the cave’ doing my works in solitude), the signal to launch out into the world at rare times now, and to teach in depth, for as long as ‘long’ lasts. I can see in my heart the need and I know the time is now.

But/and also, I can see from the excellent hearts of people who came to the first training we held last year, those who came to be trained in the unique forms and ways I can offer, and those souls who are yet to come... that others' hearts can hear this summoning bell ringing also.

May it be so then. And...

Thus, we are committed to bring the full work of training in archetypal and cross-cultural psychology, mythopoetics, post-trauma recovery, traditional healing, which are my specialties, to other professionals, that they might expand, and in depth with solid boundaries, their helps and healings to others as they envision.

“The Mysterium: Psychology... In the Truest Sense of the Word, A 5-Day Intensive for Helping Professionals,” will take place at beautiful and pastoral Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado, from June 5-10, 2012. I hope you will join me to learn—and to add your own spirit of inquiry and learning to our gathering of wild and wise and holy healers.

With kindest regards, and with love,
Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

India a Spiritual Disneyland

2012-02-15T09:34:00.000Z

India as a spiritual destination has been well known for eons. For centuries, the world has been at India’s doorstep for her science and wealth and got influenced by her spirituality. Given the smorgasbord of spiritual traditions in India, India has been called a spiritual Disneyland for a decade or so by people who got instructed into the transcendent . So, does that make India a Spiritual Disneyland and is this term justified?

In 2004 Alfred Ford, a great grandson of Henry Ford was planning a magnificent religious complex in Paschim Banga (West Bengal) at the headquarters of the global Hare Krishna sect which he liked to call as a ‘spiritual Disneyland’ . This complex he said was planned as a retreat to rejuvenate spirit and body.

Some more examples…

Another such place that many said was close to a spiritual Disneyland experience (minus the guy in the Goofy outfit) was the Sathya Sai Baba Ashram in Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh. However this term was not restricted to guru based ashrams and movements.

The pilgrim township of the Himalayan Rishikesh was also called ‘spiritual Disneyland’ by visitors who experienced package of meditation, tantric yoga and spiritual inspiration. In the same league of being a spiritual Disneyland is the Akshardham temple – a 100-acre cultural complex with 20,000 superbly sculpted figures, over 2 km long double-storeyed pilgrim pathway, 22-acres of lush lawns and trees with 900,000 saplings and shrubs of 250 varieties. Auroville ashram in Puducherry was also termed that way by ardent devotees. Off late, even the BJP a national political party included this term ‘spiritual Disneyland’ in their latest election manifesto only to boost religious tourism in Uttar Pradesh.

Is this ‘spiritual Disneyland’ a right term for India?

This term ‘spiritual Disneyland’ is probably poorly conceived as Indian spiritual destinations are no fantasy-lands and like Disneyland there is no entertainment value in Indian spirituality. Rather India could be called as a Global spiritual university where one can undertake a journey in learning to be fuller, holy and happier day after day.

Says Osho, India’s brilliant mystic,

“India is a symbol for nothing else except for learning meditation. It is a university of meditation and it is not just today – for centuries it has been the University of Meditation.”

Why India has been a mystical land…

For centuries, India has been a mystical land of meditation, contemplation and enlightenment where spiritual traditions flourished and still continue to inspire. Given that India was the birthplace of non-dogmatic dharma-based traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, of which the first three are ancient, it is no surprise that India also has had many enlightened masters and Gurus. This happened despite who the ruler was and despite notorious invasions into the country since c. 300 BCE.

The invasions were from the North, West and the East for various reasons but had no detrimental effect on spiritual India. Of those who invaded India, majority of them were looters, rank despots and iconoclasts. They came simply because India had immense wealth.

"According to modern economic historians between the 1st and 11th century CE, ancient India produced roughly 30% of the world’s GDP, followed by China. By comparison, in 1,000 CE entire Europe’s GDP was just 11%."

Wealth being the main attraction of the invaders, the science and spirituality only caught the attention of the intellectuals, scholars and pilgrims. Hardly any invader could understand the hidden or real India because they came from mono-cultures and never had any exposure to the diversity that Indian society had, especially in the realm of spirituality.

How to know the real spiritual India?

To get a fair understanding of real spiritual India, one can go through tons of Indian literary sources, royal court records, dynasty charitras, archeological evidence, inscriptions, coins, monuments, temple structures and accounts of those intellectuals who visited India like the Greek ethnographer Megasthenes (350 – 290 BCE), the Chinese pilgrims Fa-Hien (337 – 422 CE) and Huang Tsang (602 – 664 CE), the Iranian Alberuni (978-1048CE) etc. Another simpler way is to visit any ashram and learn from a Guru who suits your rationality or take an Indology course.

But finding the spiritual India in today’s modern India is not easy especially when India has become a land of contrasts and is highly stereotyped mainly on the negatives . The stereotypes about India are due to a pedestrian view which is short sighted, one-eyed and which lacks the ability to recognize the hidden treasure. This pedestrian view really struggles to make out the sublime or the spiritual out of the materially inadequate India. However with the information age, things are changing and spiritual India is getting the recognition it deserves.

Where to find the real stuff…

As with the typical diversity of Indian food, climates, languages, sub-cultures, sects, customs, traditions etc, India has various pilgrimage and spiritual places all over the country. India is well known for being a spiritual land for pilgrimages.

Modern India still has all those holy places that ancient India had plus much more that shows us the real stuff. India has the holy cities, the sacred rivers, the abodes of divinities, the 4 Char-dhaam destinations, the 12 Jyotirling temples, the eight Ashta-Vinayak temples, the 6 Aaru-padai Murugan temples, the 56 Shaktipeeths, the temple cities like Tirupati, Madurai, Mathura etc, the various ashrams of the Gurus, birthplaces of the god incarnations, ancient temples and caves, places of enlightenment of the Gurus, the spiritual monuments of the various global movements and sects, etc…the list can go on.

Add to this the ancient monuments which keep inspiring the seekers. In fact, each state in India has a good share of many of the above holy places. One can also even follow the Buddhist trail to explore the true essence of Buddhism – traveling to those places that were sanctified by the great Lord Buddha. This trail has beautiful caves, awe-inspiring monasteries, ancient Stupas, impressive shrines etc. of Lord Buddha. Same is with Jain and Sikh places of worship.

What’s an alternative term…

So a tag like spiritual Disneyland to Indian holy places is at best a gimmicky way of highlighting the wonderment of India’s cultural and the spiritual assets that are beyond normal comprehension. Moreover Disneyland as we all know is an American amusement park and a fantasyland mainly with fictional characters for children. To call Indian holy spots as a spiritual Disneyland is not apt as India is a treasure trove of spirituality for all humanity and cannot be analogous to a fantasyland, even for marketing sake.

Spirituality is an inner quest and a staid one to which any commerical labeling is distasteful. Perhaps a better term for India would be ‘Spiritual University” or even a “Spiritual multiversity”. Or how about calling “India – the Fifth avenue of spirituality” or even ”India – Rodeo drive for spirituality”.DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.

In 2009, 48 percent of Americans claimed they had a mystical encounter with the divine, an increase of more than 25 percent since the early sixties. Interestingly, these experiences of God are reported by people of all faiths, and many are not Christian.

2012-02-15T09:26:00.002Z

In 2009, 48 percent of Americans claimed they had a mystical encounter with the divine, an increase of more than 25 percent since the early sixties. Interestingly, these experiences of God are reported by people of all faiths, and many are not Christian. Now, in her new book, Christianity After Religion: The End of the Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening (HarperOne; February 2011; Hardcover; $25.99), Diana Butler Bass examines how in the past few decades American faith has undergone a profound and extensive reorientation away from externalized religion and toward internalized spiritual experience.

Drawing on rigorous research, including visits with hundreds of strong Christian communities, polling information, and conversations with pastors, Bass points out that what started in the seventies as the stirrings of a new spiritual awakening has evolved into a vast interreligious movement of individual social and cultural transformation significantly altering the religious landscape in America.

In fact, these days more and more Americans are discontent with religion, and instead turn to spirituality to reconnect with God, themselves, and others. This is because traditional Christianity focuses on the prescriptions What to believe, How to behave, and Who you are. With spirituality, on the other hand, people experience a connection to the divine directly and through community, and are moved to change and serve others, and ultimately discover what they believe.

Bass urges readers to ask spiritual questions like “How do I believe,” which places the focus on meaning and purpose, and “Whom do I believe,” which leads to authority through connection, personal investment and communal accountability. The result is religion unhinged from the notions of believing versus not believing, truth versus untruth, and us versus them.

By fusing together spirituality and religion, we arrive at new visions for believing, behaving, and belonging based on our experiences, and learn how to awaken to and participate in the new spiritual renewal that is reshaping the world.DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.

Alexander Lowen describes the development of a narcissistic personality disorder in a way that is reminiscent of Bill Wilson's childhood: ~ Alcoholics-on-line

2012-02-14T09:54:00.000Z

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.Alexander Lowen describes the development of a narcissistic personality disorder in a way that is reminiscent of Bill Wilson's childhood: ~ Alcoholics-on-line

Alexander Lowen describes the development of a narcissistic personality disorder in a way that is reminiscent of Bill Wilson's childhood: Alexander Lowen describes the development of a narcissistic personality disorder in a way that is reminiscent of Bill Wilson's childhood: All of us are vulnerable to being hurt, rejected, or humiliated. Yet not all of us deny our feelings, try to project an image of invulnerability and superiority or to strive for power. The difference lies in our childhood experiences. As children, narcissists suffer what analysts describe as a severe narcissistic injury, a blow to self-esteem that scars and shapes their personalities. This injury entials humiliation, specifically the experience of being powerlessness while another person enjoys the exercise of power and control over one. I don't believe that a single experience shapes character, but when a child is constantly exposed to humiliation in one form or another, the fear of humiliation becomes structured in the body and the mind. Such a person could easily vow: "When I grow up, I'll get power, and neither you nor anyone else will be able to do this to me again." Unfortunately, as we will see, such narcissistic injuries happen to many children in our society because parents often use power to control their children for their own personal ends. Narcissism, Denial of the True Self, Alexander Lowen, M.D., pages 76-77. And Bill's completely unrealistic picture of the alcoholic's family life is explained by denial: The narcissist faces the risk of being overwhelmed by feelings and going wild, crazy, or mad, should his defense of denial break down. This is especially true of anger. Every narcissist is afraid of going crazy, because the potential for insanity is in his personality. This fear reinforces the denial of feeling, creating a vicious circle. Narcissism, Denial of the True Self, Alexander Lowen, M.D., page 155. That also explains Bill's strange attitude about anger. Bill insisted that you couldn't be angry at all — no matter what the reason — that it was very "unspiritual" to be angry about anything: It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? What about "justifiable" anger? If somebody cheats us, aren't we entitled to be mad? Can't we be properly angry with self-righteous folk? For us in A.A. these are dangerous exceptions. We have found that justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William Wilson, page 90. And Dr. Lowen explained the suppressed anger this way: The need to project and maintain an image forces the person to prevent any feeling from reaching consciousness that would conflict with the image. Narcissism, Denial of the True Self, Alexander Lowen, M.D., page 48. That also gives us one cause for Bill Wilson's chronic, crippling, and long-lasting fits of depression: Suppressed anger is a leading cause of depression. Anger, Controlling the Fireworks, www.baptisteast.com/ANG001.htm And another cause for the depression is that narcissists tend become depressed whenever someone contradicts their grandiose delusions. Bill certainly had enough to be depressed over. He could see with his own eyes that his so-called "spiritual program for recovery" had almost a 100% failure rate. Narcissistic need is tremendous. Just as sharks must continually swim to keep from drowning, Narcissists must constantly demonstrate that they are special, or they will sink like stones to the depths of depression. Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry, Albert J. Bernstein, Ph.D., page 130. Unless the subject of the conversation is how great they are, Narcissistic vampires will become visibly bored. One of the main reasons Narcissists wear expensive watches is so they can look at them when someone else is talking. Besides boredom, Narcissistic vampires have only two other emotional states. They're either on top of the world or on the bottom of the garbage heap. The slightest frustration can burst their balloon and send them crashing to the depths. Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry, Albert J. Bernstein, Ph.D., page 136.

There's no elevator, you have to take the steps.

2012-01-03T08:57:00.000Z

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.

There's no elevator, you have to take the steps.

no elevator, you have to take the steps.

Paul and Silas were beaten and placed into stocks in their jail.

2012-01-02T23:23:00.000Z

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder

.In Philippi, Paul and Silas were beaten and placed into stocks in their jail. At midnight, they were singing praises to God; and, they were loud enough that all the other prisoners heard them. Certainly God heard them too, because an earthquake shook the prison setting all of the prisoners free. As a result of this incident, the Philippian jailer and his family came to Christ.

Paul and Silas could have spent their time complaining. They were falsely accused and unjustly punished, but instead of whining and complaining about it, they were singing praises to God. These men were disciples of Jesus Christ. They offered God the sacrifice of praise, and God changed their circumstances.

we can, in a rather complete way, reconstruct the precise method of prayer that the father taught his disciple

2011-12-28T19:35:00.000Z

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.We tend to think of our own times as being unique in the history of the human family, and in some ways that is certainly true. And yet there is undeniable truth in the words of the Wise Man: ". . . there is nothing new under the sun" (Qo. 1:9).

In recent years, we have seen a significant number of young and not so young Westerners turning to the East. Though the tide seems now to have ebbed, there was for a time a steady flow of pilgrims seeking from gurus, swamis, and roshis some sampling of ancient wisdom. Some actually made the long journey to Benares, Sri Lanka, or Thailand. Others were able to import masters or find them already imported, or in some cases even satisfied themselves with what returning disciples were able to share.

This phenomenon of dropping out of one's own life current, whether it be school or business or religious-community life, and heading toward the East in search of wisdom is not unprecedented. It was very much present in the renewal of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, finding fear-some and dramatic expression in the Crusades but significant peaceful expression in the realms of art, science, and sapiential literature. This was the period when Peter the Venerable translated the Koran, and the writings of many of the Greek Fathers were first made available in Latin, thus directly influencing the evolution of spiritual thinking in Western Europe.

The fourth and fifth centuries also witnessed such a movement. My own patron, Basil - later called "the Great" - and his schoolmate Gregory, the Theologian, threw aside their books, left the prestigious schools of Athens, and went off to find true wisdom among the gerontas (old men) in Syria and Egypt; "old man" is a term of respect used even today among the Greeks to address or speak about a significant spiritual father. St. Jerome might truly be included among these seekers, as well as his friends Paula and Melania, the Elder and the Younger. Among the pilgrims to the East must also be included a brilliant young man from Dalmatia whom the Eastern Christians today call St. John Cassian, the Roman.

John, too, at an early age, laid aside his books and left the lecture halls to go in search of true wisdom. He went first to the Holy Land and lived there for some years in a monastery in Bethlehem (not that of St. Jerome, though he probably met the saint while there). After a time, his insatiable desire pushed him on. With his abbot's permission and the companionship of one of his brother monks, Herman, he set out to learn still more of the spiritual art and the mystical life from the wise old men bidden in the solitudes and caves of Egypt. It was over seven years before he returned to his monastery, only to seek permission to continue his pursuit. He was never again to return to the Holy Land. In time, he was led from the desert to the capital, ordained a priest, and then sent back to the West, where he established two monasteries near Marseilles -one for women and one for men.

Monasticism was beginning to flourish in fifth-century Gaul, and in response to an expressed need, St. John produced two sets or collections of writings. The first, the institutes, recounted the practices of the monks of Egypt and adapted them for use in the colder, Western regions. Because of the extensive use of the institutes by St. Benedict of Nursia and the tradition he drew upon, Cassian's Institutes have had an immense and all-pervading influence on monastic life in the West. In his second collection, St. John included what he considered the most significant teachings he had received in the course of his long pilgrimage. These he presented in the form of Conferences given by various great Fathers of the Desert.

As Cassian himself tells us, one day he and Herman visited the famous Abba Isaac and sought from him a teaching on prayer. The saintly old man obliged, and this teaching has come down to us as the very beautiful and deep "First Conference of Abba Isaac on Prayer." That night, John and his companion fairly floated back to their cell, so uplifted were they by the transcendent teaching of this great Father. But when they awoke in the morning, their feet again solidly planted on Mother Earth, Herman turned to his companion with the important question:

"Yes, but how do you do it?" And the two young monks ran back across the sands to the cell of the elder to pose this question to him. Abba Isaac's "Second Conference" is his response to this question. In it we find the first written expression in the West of that tradition of prayer of which Centering Prayer is a contemporary presentation.

The whole of Abba Isaac's magnificent Conference should certainly be read. But let us here listen to just a few of the words of this wise old man, the ones that most directly relate to our present concern:

I think it will be easy to bring you to the heart of true prayer. . . . The man who knows what questions to ask is on the verge of understanding; the man who is beginning to understand what he does not know is not far from knowledge.

I must give you a formula for contemplation. If you care-fully keep this formula before you, and learn to recollect it at all times, it will help you to mount to contemplation of high truth. Everyone who seeks for continual recollection of God uses this formula for meditation, intent upon driving every other sort of thought from his heart. You cannot keep the formula before you unless you are free from all bodily cares.

The formula was given us by a few of the oldest fathers who remained. They communicated it only to a very few who were athirst for the true way. To maintain an unceasing recollection of God, this formula must be ever before you. The formula is this: "0 God, come to my assistance; 0 Lord, make haste to help me."

Rightly has this verse been selected from the whole Bible to serve this purpose. It suits every mood and temper of human nature, every temptation, every circumstance. It contains an Invocation of God, an humble confession of faith, a reverent watchfulness, a meditation on human frailty1 an act of confidence in God's response, an assurance of his ever-present support~ The man who continually Invokes God as his protector is aware that God is ever at hand.

I repeat: each one of us, whatever his condition in the spiritual life, needs to use this verse.

Perhaps wandering thoughts surge about my soul like boiling water, and I cannot control them, nor can I offer prayer without its being interrupted by silly images. I feel so dry that I am Incapable of spiritual feelings, and many sighs and groans cannot save me from dreariness. I must needs say: "0 God, come to my assistance; 0 Lord, make haste to help me."

The mind should go on grasping this formula until it can cast away the wealth and multiplicity of other thoughts, and restrict itself to the poverty of this single word. And so it will attain with ease that Gospel beatitude which holds first place among the other beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Thus by God's light the mind mounts to the manifold knowledge of God, and thereafter feeds on mysteries loftier and more sacred . . . . And thus it attains that purest of pure prayers to which our earlier conference led, so far as the Lord deigns to grant this favour; the prayer which looks for no visual image, uses neither thoughts nor words; the prayer wherein, like a spark leaping up from a fire, the mind is rapt upward, and, destitute of the aid of the senses or of anything visible or material, pours out its prayer to God...

For the better part of ten centuries, the monastic approach to prayer prevailed, beginning with the first attempts at written transmission, by such men as Evagrius Ponticus and John Cassian in the fourth century, until the prevalence of scholastic thinking in the Western Christian community, which in the fourteenth century brought about a divorce between theology and spirituality. For the monk, life was integral. It was all one, and in practice he did not distinguish between reading or study of the Scriptures and prayer, or between meditation and contemplation. There was just one simple movement of response to a God who had spoken, a God who speaks not just in the books of the divinely inspired Scriptures but in the whole of creation and in the depths of one's own being.

At this point let me inject an important aside. It concerns a semantic difficulty. In our recent Western tradition, when we have spoken of "meditation," we have been understood to refer to a discursive type of prayer in which we consciously reflected on some facet of life, particularly some point of the Scriptures, and sought by this means to arouse in ourselves affective responses and resolutions to guide our conduct. At the same time, "contemplation" has signified for us that moment when our response to the revealed truth or reality was simply being present to it - having passed beyond thinking to simple presence.

For our brothers and sisters in the Hindu tradition, the terms have almost the exact inverse meaning: contemplation is a discursive exercise, and meditation usually means a non-conceptual approach. Perhaps one of the most significant indications of the failure of the Western Christian churches to bring their life-giving tradition even to their own is the fact that the terminology that prevails today in the West is not that of the Western tradition (except perhaps among religious and priests, and those mostly of earlier training) but, rather, the terminology brought to us in recent years by the wise men coming from the Asiatic countries. So there is a difficulty today when we speak of these matters. That is one of the reasons why I prefer to use the term "Centering Prayer" rather than "meditation" or "contemplation." "Prayer" emphasizes what is the essential and oftentimes distinctive element: that of an inter-personal response, a relationship flowing out of love, with another Person or Persons. However, I think it might at times be advantageous, when presenting this form of prayer in a popular context, such as a college campus, to speak of it as "Christian meditation"-meditation being understood in the prevailing, Eastern sense.

But let us return to our monastic tradition. In this tradition, when the monks wished to speak in a reflective way of their experience, they employed four words: lectio, rneditatio, oratio, and contemplatio. Lectio, or more commonly the fuller expression Lectio Divina, cannot be adequately expressed in the simple translation of the word as "reading.3' We are in fact speaking of a time when perhaps most of the monks and most of the Christian community could not read. Others, of course, could and did read to their illiterate brothers. The choice source for this lectio always was and always will be the Sacred Texts. Oftentimes, a simple Christian who could not read would manage to memorize extensive portions of Scriptures, especially the Gospels and the Psalter, so that he could constantly hear it, now recited, as it were, by his own memory.

But lectio, in the fuller sense implied here, means the reception of the revelation, by whatever vehicle it may come - the reception of the Word who is the Truth, the Way, and the Life. It may indeed come by way of one's own reading. St. Basil was strongly insistent that all monks learn to read. For us today, our personal time with the Word of Life, with the Sacred Scriptures, is of primary importance. But we also receive this word through the ministry of others, through their reading, and above all, through the Liturgy of the Word. And others will open it out for us in homilies, in instructions, in simple faith - sharing and everyday lived witness. It can also be presented to us, and in fact it has been presented, in art: pictures, frescoes, sculpture, stained glass. The whole Bible can be found in the windows of the cathedral of Chartres. And there were the wonderful mystery plays.

There is also the larger book of revelation: the whole of the work of the Creator, his wonderful creation. All of it speaks of him and of his love for us. Bernard of Clairvaux was fond of saying (to express it in a rather trite translation) that he found God more in the trees and brooks than in the books. Lectio, therefore, is receiving the revelation, by whatever means, to be followed quite naturally by meditatio.

Again, with meditatio - even apart from the semantic difficulty we spoke of above-we have to be careful that our translation be not a betrayal of the truth. In the early monastic tradition, meditation involved primarily a repetition of the word of revelation, or the word of life one received from his spiritual father or from some other source. The word - and here "word" is not to be taken literally as one single word but may be a whole phrase or sentence - was quietly repeated over and over again, even with the lips. Thus the Psalms speak of one meditating with his lips. In time, the repetition would tend to interiorise and simplify the word, as its meaning was assimilated. For during this repetition the mind was not a vacuum. It received the word more and more, entered into it more and more, assimilated it and appropriated it, until it was formed by the word and its whole being was a response to the word.

The Fathers liked to use the image of the cow or other "clean animals who chew the cud." A cow goes out and fills its stomach with grass or other food. Then it settles down quietly and through the process of regurgitation reworks what it has received, moving its lips in the process. Thus it is able to fully assimilate what it has previously consumed and to transform it into rich, creamy milk - a symbol of love filled with the unction of the Holy Spirit. When the received word passes from the lips into the mind and then down into the heart through constant repetition, it produces in the one praying a loving, faith-filled response.

I like very much a distinction made by John Henry Cardinal Newman that I think is very applicable here: What this meditatio does is to change a notional assentinto a real assent. As we receive the words of revelation into our mind, they are just so many notions or ideas, which we accept m faith. We do believe. '3ut as we assimilate them through meditation, our whole being comes to respond to them. We move to a real assent. Our whole being, above all our heart, says: '~Yes, this is so. This is the reality."

Next-again quite naturally - we turn to oratio, to prayer, to response. When God, the loving Creator and Redeemer, so reveals Himself, and we really hear that revelation, that Word of Life, we respond with confident assent, with expressed need, with gratitude, with love. This response is prayer. And it bursts out more and more constantly as the reality of our assent deepens and we more fully perceive the revelation of Creator and creative Love in all that we encounter.

Our response grows. It is constantly nourished by illuminating grace. There are moments and seasons of special light. And it is at these times, which eventually become all times, that the Reality becomes so real to us that a word or a movement of the heart can no longer adequately respond to it. Our whole being must say "yes." This is contemplatio. It is a gift, a gift of the Light who is God. We can only open to it, in our God-given freedom, and express our desire to receive it by fidelity to lectio, meditatio, and oratio - oratio of the most delicate, open, and receptive type. That is what Centering Prayer is. And that is the method that Abba Isaac taught to the two eager young monks, St. John Cassian and his companion, Herman.

The desert tradition out of which this teaching on prayer of John Cassian, The Cloud of Unknowing, and Centering Prayer evolved is the same as that from which the Jesus Prayer issued. However, while Abba Isaac gave St. John a word from the Psalms: "0 God, come to my assistance; 0 Lord, make haste to help me," the Eastern current derived its source from two passages of the New Testament - that of the blind Bartimeus and that of the publican - to form the well-known prayer: 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner." In time, especially under the long domination of the Moslems, the Eastern Christian tradition was enriched or modified by other influences from the East. Thus today the expression "The Jesus Prayer" is a blanket covering a variety of methods. The most highly developed, psychosomatic expression of the Jesus Prayer, presented by Nesophorus of Jerusalem and St. Gregory of Sinai (who actually learned it in Crete and brought it to the Holy Mountain) in the fourteenth century, and by St. Gregory Palamas in the century following, reproduce even to details the dhikr method of the Sufis of the thirteenth century. The Name used by the Sufis, of course, was Allah, while that used by the Orthodox Christians was the Name of Jesus. This dhiikr method in its turn reproduces down to details the nembutsu method of meditation used by Buddhists in the twelfth century. We do not necessarily have to postulate a dependency. It may be that spiritual masters coming out of related cultures evolved similar methods.

Alongside this increasingly complicated method there always continued to be present a very simple and pure practice, especially among the Russians and in the sketes on Mount Athos. We find this most recently with Father Silouan, the humble staretz of the Russian monastery on Mount Athos, who died in 1938, and whose life and works have been made known to the West by his disciple Archimandrite Sophrony. At the end of his long and busy day as dockmaster, the staretz would retire into his office near the abandoned pier, pull his skouphos (monk's hat) down over his eyes and ears, and simply enter into the awesome Presence of God, using the saving Name of Jesus. His practice at this point was the same as that of the Centering Prayer, with the Name of Jesus as his prayer word.

Other spiritual fathers developed other variations in passing on the tradition, coupling the use of the Name with the breathing or the heartbeat, adopting certain postures, and otherwise seeking to bring the mind down into the heart.

In the West, the tradition remained quite pure until it was virtually lost at the time of the Reformation with the suppression of the monasteries and the defensive repressions of the Inquisition. Flowing from the word St. John Cassian received from Abba Isaac, it did not centre on the Name of Jesus but retained a certain suppleness, so that, as the author of The Cloud of Unknowing expressed it, each one practicing the prayer would choose his own prayer word – one that is meaningful to him.

Like the Conferences of Abba Isaac, The Cloud of Unknowing is the word of a spiritual father addressed to a particular disciple. In the case of The Cloud, both the father and the disciple remain unnamed and unknown. We know only that the disciple was still quite young (twenty-four years old) but had nonetheless enjoyed an ongoing relationship with the father. The The Cloud of Unknowing presupposes the oral instruction the father has given. It is undoubtedly for this reason that we do not find precise instructions by the father in the way of prayer, as with Abba Isaac. But repeatedly in the text there is allusion to such precise instruction and repetition of fragments of it. By drawing these scattered texts together we can, in a rather complete way, reconstruct the precise method of prayer that the father taught his disciple:

Centering Prayer Catholic Meditation or Occult Meditation?

2011-12-28T18:02:00.002Z

from The Cross and the Veil

A Critique of M. Basil Pennington's article, Centering Prayer, taken from The Contemplative Prayer Online Magazine.

The following quotes are taken from the above on-line magazine and illustrate the typical errors that have entered the Catholic contemplative tradition through various techniques derived, however innocently, from a mixture of Buddhist meditative practice (which ensures dissociation of the spirit from the body in order to achieved enlightenment) and kundalini yogic practice (which unleashes the occult magic of Kali, the destroyer goddess). This technique, known as Centering Prayer (CP),has been in vogue since the 1970's. Thomas Keating, a Cistercian priest, monk, and abbot in Colorado, is the founder of the Centering Prayer Movement. Father Pennington, another teacher of this technique, is called a "master of centering prayer" on the web site.

CP devotees claim it to be a revival of ancient meditative practice, referring to it as a new version of the practice of ejaculatory mental prayer wherein contemplatives practiced the presence of God by repeating simple sacred words or sentences such as "Jesus, I love you".

Far from simple or sacred, CP is a codified technique which constructs a psychological and spiritual state of awareness designed to unleash unconscious forces and which typically encourages a narcissistic turning-inward and pre-occupation with self awareness, consciousness-raising and the achieving of preternatural experiences.

Following are Father Pennington's statements. Parenthetical comments are mine or attributed:

"Centering Prayer is a simple method of prayer that sets up the ideal conditions to rest in quiet awareness of God's presence. This way of prayer is alluded to in many passages in the Old and New Testaments and probably dates from then."

(vague references citing legitimacy of technique from ancient origins is typical).

"The Greek Fathers referred to it as monologion, "one-word" prayer. The desert father, Abba Isaac taught a similar form of prayer to John Cassian who later wrote of it in France, transmitting it to Benedict of Nursia. Unfortunately, by the time of the 16th century, the prayer form largely went out of use in favor of more discursive modes of prayer."

("he (Cassian) is in fact regarded as the originator of what, since the Middle Ages, has been known as Semipelagianism...Preoccupied as he was with moral questions he exaggerated the role of free will by claiming that the initial steps to salvation were in the power of each individual, unaided by grace... Semipelagianism was finally condemned by the Council of Orange in 529." - taken from The Catholic Encyclopedia)

In the following quote taken from a new article posted to the web site, the bolded phrases are mine, and are typical buzz words revealing the New Age origins of "Centering Prayer":

"Love is God's Being" - by M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. 03/09/00

"When we go to the center of our being and pass through that center into the very center of God we get in immediate touch with this divine creating energy. This is not a new idea. It is the common teaching of the Christian Fathers of the Greek tradition. When we dare with the full assent of love to unleash these energies within us not surprisingly he initial experience is of a flood of chaotic thoughts, memories, emotions and feelings. This is why wise spiritual Fathers and mothers counsel a gentle entering into this experience. Not too much too fast. But it is this release that allows all of this chaos within us with all its imprisoning stress to be brought into harmony so that not only their might be peace and harmony within but that the divine energy may have the freedom to forward the evolution of consciousness in us and through us, as a part of the whole, in the whole of the creation."

Typical of New Age meditative practice, the soul becomes the "center", energy replaces grace, God actually becomes a pantheistic energy, and the unleashing of this "energy" leads to chaos and then, mysteriously, an evolution of consciousness (refer to article on this web site on the dangers of unleashing occult power through kundalini yoga). Legitimacy of this occult technique is sought in pop-psychology, comparing it to seeking insight through bio-feedback or self-hypnosis.

The following excerpt from the web site details the technique-driven method of withdrawal and dissociation derived from Buddhic meditative practice, which posits ultimate withdrawal from all attachments and this "world of illusion" as the means of achieving oneness with and absorption into the primal void, as one's evolution of consciousness leads to the awakening of the "Self" as God:

As you sit comfortably with eyes closed: 1. Let yourself settle down. Let go of all the thoughts, tensions, and sensations you may feel and begin to rest in love of God who dwells within.

(In Catholic contemplative practice, we bring all of ourselves to God and enter into conversation or communion, bringing everything with us to lay at His Feet. All manner of worries, concerns and thoughts are stepping stones to sanctity as we enter into conversation about them with Him. "Letting go" in this particular technique does not simply involve a discipline of the will, which is a typical counsel in meditative practice, but a profound distortion of the use of the will to achieve a practiced dissociation from ourselves and a mentalization of prayer that can foster habitual disassociation, fantasies and ego flight.)

2. Effortlessly, take up a word, the symbol of your intention to surrender to God's presence, and let the word be gently present.

(Using any word to "conjure up" the divine opens one to self-hypnosis and the possibility of perseverating on the object of meditation, not on the contemplation of Our Lord or the meditation of the virtues or events of His Life.) An extreme example of the occult power of visualization and mentalization occurred several years ago. At one New Age workshop given by Robert Munroe where participants were trained to go out of their bodies while they slept, eager students were encouraged to first visualize placing all their distractions and cares into a trunk and then lock the trunk. This way they would be freed from earthly bonds. Unfortunately, a very beautiful woman also attending the workshop, (then located in a closed sleeping room nearby), reported that during repeated nightmarish attempts to go "out-of-body", she found herself being locked in a trunk and unable to get out.)

CONCLUSION

St. Theresa of Avila found herself at a time of increased spiritualism and all kinds of exaggerations of mysticism. Well aware of the tendency to get far off course, she insisted that meditation always be directed to and with Christ.

Lectio Divina, or DIVINE READING, is a tried and true way to union with Christ. As we read holy scripture, the Holy Spirit inspires us to pause and meditate on certain words or passages.

Unfortunately, the web site here critiqued blends the New Age Centering Prayer with Lectio Divina, further confusing the issue and lending credence to occult techniques by combining them with the holy.

A Closer Look at Centering Prayer

The Centering Prayer Movement has become very popular in Catholic circles today.

People sign up for it in retreat centers, in workshops, and sometimes in their

own parish. These people believe it to be authentic Christian contemplative

prayer practiced by the saints. Is it really Christian contemplation?

In my research on the New Age which I did for the past ten years, I found that

it is not Christian contemplation and that this type of prayer is not

recommended by Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger, The Catechism of the

Catholic Church, or St. Teresa of Avila. There have also been warnings from

Johnnette Benkovic on EWTN (Mother Angelica's Network). Johnnette has a program

called "Living His Life Abundantly", and has had a series on the New Age. She

has also written a book called, The New Age Counterfeit, and devotes one

chapter to the problems of Centering Prayer (CP). She identifies it as being

the same as Transcendental Meditation (TM) which is tied to Hinduism.

What is Centering Prayer?

Centering prayer, as taught by Fr. Basil Pennington and Fr. Thomas Keating, is a

method of prayer that is supposed to lead a person into contemplation. It is

supposed to be done for twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes in the

evening. The person chooses a sacred word. He tries to ignore all thoughts and

feelings, letting them go by as boats going down a stream. When the thoughts

keep coming back, the person returns to the sacred word. The goal is to keep

practicing until ALL THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS DISAPPEAR. Fr. Keating says in Open

Mind, Open Heart, "All thoughts pass if you wait long enough."1 A person then

reaches a state of pure consciousness or a mental void. The thinking process is

suspended. This technique is supposed to put them into direct contact with God.

The idea is to go to the center of your being to find the True Self. This

process is supposed to dismantle the False Self, which is supposedly the result

of the emotional baggage we carry.

Fr. Thomas Keating is a monk, priest, and abbot of St. Benedict's Monastery in

Snowmass, Col. and is the founder of the Centering Prayer movement. He has

written four books. Fr. Basil Pennington is a Trappist monk at St. Joseph's

Abbey in Spencer, Mass. He has written over thirty books, some of which are on

Centering Prayer. Some of the concepts in their books are similar to New Age

beliefs and practices.

What are New Age Beliefs?

New Agers borrow many of their beliefs from Hinduism. They believe that we are

all connected to an impersonal energy force, which is god, and we are part of

this god. This god-energy flows into each one of us; so we too are god. (This

is the heresy of pantheism, condemned by the Church at the First Vatican

Council). They think because we are god, we can create our own reality,

experience our own god-power. This awareness of our godselves is called

god-consciousness, super-consciousness, Christ-consciousness,

pure-consciousness, unity consciousness, or self-realization. To reach this

awareness, New Agers use mantras or yoga to go into altered levels of

consciousness to discover their own divinity. They look inside to find their

True Self or Higher Self ã to find wisdom and knowledge since the True Self or

Higher Self is god.

They address god as the Source, the Divine Energy, the Divine Love Energy, or

the Great Universal Intelligence. The goal of New Agers is to usher in a new

age of peace, harmony and unity. They hope that all mankind will come to "god

consciousness," which is the awareness that they are god. The complete

definition on the New Age by Fr. Mitch Pacwa is as follows: "The New Age

Movement is highly eclectic, borrowing ideas and practices from many sources.

Meditation techniques from Hinduism, Zen, Sufism, and Native American religions

are mixed with humanistic psychology, occultism, and modern physics."2 There is

a scripture in Col. 2:4-8, that warns us against this pitfall. It states, "I

tell you this so that no one may delude you with specious arguments . . . See

to it that no one deceives you through any empty philosophy that follows mere

human traditions, a philosophy based on cosmic powers rather than on Christ."

How do New Age Beliefs Compare to Centering Prayer?

In CP, people are taught to use a prayer word or sacred word to empty the mind.

(Fr. Keating says it is not a mantra; but if it is used to rid the mind of all

thoughts and feelings, then it does the same thing as a mantra). The goal is to

reach a mental void or pure consciousness in order to find God at the center.

Pure consciousness is an altered level of consciousness. This is exactly what

the Hindus and Buddhists do to reach god-consciousness or pure consciousness.

This is also similar to what actress Shirley MacLaine does to go into an

altered level of consciousness and discover her Divine Center or Higher Self,

which is her divinity.

What are the Similarities Between CP and TM?

Johnnette Benkovic has interviewed people on her show and in her book who have

done both CP and TM. They claim it is basically the same. The only difference

would be that in TM the mantras are names of Hindu gods, and in CP the sacred

word is usually Jesus, God, peace, or love. Fr. Finbarr Flanagan, who was

involved in both CP and TM says CP is TM in a Christian dress. He says Fr.

Pennington has endorsed TM ". . .without hesitation."3 Let's look at the

similarities:

1) Both CP and TM use a 20-minute meditation.

2) Both CP and TM use a mantra to erase all thoughts and feelings.

3) Both CP and TM teach that in this meditation you pick up vibrations.

4) Both CP and TM claim that this meditation will give you more peace and less

tension.

5) Both CP and TM teach you how to reach a mental void or altered level of

consciousness.

6) Both CP and TM have the common goal of finding your god-center.

In regard to vibrations, Fr. Keating says, "As you go to a deeper level of

reality, you begin to pick up vibrations that were there all the time but not

perceived."4 Fr. Pennington also speaks of ". . . physical vibrations that are

helpful"5 (Vibrations are common TM, New Age language.) Using mantras and

reaching a mental void are also New Age, not Catholic. In fact, reaching a

mental void is described in the Catechism as an erroneous notion of prayer

(#2726).

When Does the One Who Prays Cross the Line into Hindu/Buddhist/New Age Prayer?

In the beginning stages of CP, the one who prays is still ignoring thoughts as

they float by. If they are still thinking of Jesus or heavenly things, they are

still in Christian prayer. They cross the line when they get to the point where

they bypass all thoughts and feelings. In other words, there are no thoughts at

all. Fr. Thomas Keating says in his book, Open Mind, Open Heart, "As you go down

deeper, you may reach a place where the sacred word disappears altogether and

there are no thoughts. This is often experienced as a suspension of

consciousness, a space."6 When a person is able to do this, they have crossed

the line into Hindu/Buddhist/New Age prayer. HE IS NO LONGER PRACTICING

CHRISTIAN PRAYER. Fr. Keating wants his followers to let go of even devout

thoughts. He says, "The method consists of letting go of every thought during

the time of prayer, even the most devout thoughts."7 (In Christian prayer,

devout thoughts are important and desirable.) He also tells his followers to

let all feelings go. To do this, one would have to let go of any sentiments of

love toward Jesus, the Heavenly Father, or the Holy Spirit.

What Does Pope John Paul II Say About This Type of Prayer?

In Cardinal Ratzinger's booklet, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on

Some Aspects of Christian Meditation, he quotes the Pope. On p. 34, footnote 12,

he writes "Pope John Paul II has pointed out to the whole Church the example and

doctrine of St. Teresa of Avila who in her life had to reject the temptation of

certain methods which proposed a leaving aside of the humanity of Christ in

favor of a vague self-immersion in the abyss of divinity. In a homily given on

November 1, 1982, he said that the call of St. Teresa of Jesus advocating a

prayer completely centered on Christ "is valid even in our day, against some

methods of prayer which are not inspired by the gospel and which in practice

tend to set Christ aside in preference for a mental void which makes no sense

in Christianity. Any method of prayer is valid insofar as it is inspired by

Christ and leads to Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life" [(cf. John

14:6). See Homilia Abulae habita in honorem Sanctae Teresiae: AAS 75 (1983)

256-257].

What Does St. Teresa of Avila Say About Contemplation?

Throughout their books, Fr. Keating and Fr. Pennington mention St. Teresa of

Avila, implying that she is an advocate of their prayer techniques. However,

after reading her books, I have found that her teachings on prayer are the

opposite of what Keating and Pennington are teaching. First of all, she says

that contemplation is a gift from God, and no technique can make it happen. She

says it is usually given to people who have a deep prayer life and are

practicing many virtues, although God can give it to anyone he chooses. She

repeatedly insists that contemplation is divinely produced. She said that

entering into the prayer of quiet or that of union whenever she wanted it "was

out of the question"8 She also said in her book, Interior Mansion, "For it to

be prayer at all, the mind must take a part in it."9 Cardinal Ratzinger, in his

booklet, also quotes St. Teresa as saying "the very care not to think about

anything will arouse the mind to think a great deal", and that the separation

of the mystery of Christ from Christian meditation is always a form of

"betrayal"10 St. Teresa advised her nuns to meditate or think about the Passion

of Christ as a preparation for contemplation. The Catechism describes

contemplation as "a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus" (#2715). The focus is Jesus

and the heart is involved.

What are the Warnings on Mind-Emptying Prayer from Cardinal Ratzinger?

Christians dabbling in Eastern religions in the 70s and 80s had become such a

problem that the Vatican had to respond. In 1989, Cardinal Ratzinger of the

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, put out a document called "Letter

to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation."

The document states, "With the present diffusion of Eastern methods of

meditation in the Christian world and in ecclesial communities, we find

ourselves faced with a pointed renewal of attempt, which is not free from

dangers and errors, to fuse Christian meditation with that which is

non-Christian." He goes on to say, "Still others do not hesitate to place that

absolute without image or concepts, which is proper to Buddhist theory on the

same level as the majesty of God revealed in Christ."11 He says they abandon

the Triune God, "in favor of an immersion in the indeterminate abyss of the

divinity." Then he says mixing Christian meditation with Eastern techniques can

lead to syncretism (the mixing of religions).

Is the Vatican II Statement Regarding Non-Christian Religions Misunderstood?

Yes. The documents of Vatican II state "the Catholic Church rejects nothing of

what is true and holy in non-Christian religions."12 The Council Fathers

however, were not recommending the practice of eastern prayer techniques. The

Hindu view of God is contrary to Christian belief. They do not worship a God

who is superior to them. They believe that they become god, like a raindrop

into an ocean.

What Does Fr. Keating Teach About Reaching "Pure Consciousness"?

In his book, Open Mind, Open Heart, Fr. Keating says, "As the Spirit gradually

takes more and more charge of your prayer, you may move into pure

consciousness, which is an intuition into your True Self."13 Then, again,

speaking of pure consciousness, he says "In that state, there is no

consciousness of self. When your ordinary faculties come back again, there may

be a sense of peaceful delight."14

What are Altered Levels of Consciousness and What are the Dangers?

Let us ask Maharashi Yogi, the guru who introduced TM to America. Fr. Finbarr

Flanagan writes in his article "TM's founder, the Maharashi Yogi, claims that

the regular practice of TM leads beyond the ordinary experience of waking,

sleeping, and dreaming to a fourth state of consciousness called "simple

awareness." Constant practice leads to cosmic consciousness, then

god-consciousness, and finally "unity consciousness."15 The fourth state in

other books is also referred to as pure-consciousness. People who have reached

these altered levels of consciousness (ALC's) describe them as a pleasant

trance-like state. Cardinal Ratzinger says, in regard to ALC's, that these can

be pleasant experiences only. He states, "Some physical exercises automatically

produce a feeling of quiet and relaxation, pleasing sensations, perhaps even

phenomena of light and warmth, which resemble spiritual well-being. To take

such feelings for the authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit would be a

totally erroneous way of conceiving the spiritual life. Giving them a symbolic

significance typical of the mystical experience, when the moral condition of

the person does not correspond to such experience, would represent a kind of

mental schizophrenia which could also lead to psychic disturbance and, at

times, to moral deviations."16

Clare Merkle, a former New Age healer and yoga practitioner, has been appearing

on EWTN network (Mother Angelica's network) on the program, "Living His Life

Abundantly" Now converted, it took her five years to be freed from the effects

on her involvement in New Age. She gives this warning: "When we open ourselves

up to foreign religious practices that have ties to the occult, we open

ourselves up to the demonic." (Hinduism and Buddhism have ties to the occult

because they tap into spiritual power that is not from the Holy Spirit.) On her

website, The Cross and the Veil, she exposes CP as New Age. (See crossveil.org.)

She said that going into ALC's can be dangerous because they can lead to

out-of-the body experiences or hallucinations. She said some people cannot come

out of them. In Fr. Keating's book, Open Mind, Open Heart, p. 120, one of his

followers commented that he had a hard time coming out of an ALC during Mass

and could not concentrate. Fr. Keating told him, "That is a nice problem to

have." Fr. Amorth, who is the Vatican exorcist, says "Yoga, Zen, and TM are

unacceptable to Christians. Often these apparently innocent practices can bring

about hallucinations and schizophrenic conditions."17

Can Centering Prayer Lead to a Hindu View of God?

Yes, it can. For example, Fr. Keating studied the eastern religions, and wanted

to "devise an approach to Christian spirituality that would be comparable to

the methods of the East."18 However, somewhere in his studies, he appears to

have succumbed to the Hindu view of God. Throughout his book, Open Mind, Open

Heart, he refers to God as the Ultimate Mystery, the Ultimate Presence, and the

Source. (This is the way God is addressed by New Agers) Shirley MacLaine calls

God the Source and the Divine Energy in her book, Going Within. In Keating's

new book, Invitation to Love, he says "the divine energy in itself is infinite

potentiality and actuality."19 Fr. Pennington makes similar statements in his

book, True Self, False Self speaking of God as the Divine Love Energy in many

places. As Catholics, we believe in a personal God whom we call our Heavenly

Father. Keating also says, "When you sit down for prayer, your whole psyche

gathers itself and melts into God."20 (Melting into god is Hindu /Buddhist/New

Age belief.) Catholic dogma refutes this pantheistic concept. "In the Mass, it

is said that we are partakers of His divinity. Yet this must not be conceived

in the pantheistic sense of the transition of the soul into the Divinity. The

infinite distance between Creator and the created remains." (Fundamentals of

Catholic Dogma, Ludwig Ott, p. 256)

What Other Statements do Keating and Pennington Make that Reflect New Age

Beliefs?

In his book, Open Mind, Open Heart, p. 37, Fr. Keating recommends yoga and

jogging for relaxation. The truth is that yoga (the type that includes

meditations) is a form of Hinduism, and is the most common way that New Agers

enter into ALC's. In fact, Webster's Dictionary Library gives this definition:

"Yoga is a system of Hindu philosophy, strict spiritual discipline, practiced

to gain control over the forces of one's own being to gain OCCULT POWERS, but

chiefly to attain union with the Deity or the Universal Spirit."

In Keating's book, Invitation to Love, p 125 he speaks of "Energy Centers,"

common New Age language. New Agers believe that the body has seven energy

centers called Chakras. Fr. Pennington refers to energies flowing up and down

the spinal system in his book, Awake in the Spirit, p.97. Actress Shirley

MacLaine makes a similar statement in her book, Going Within, p.64. She also

describes the energy in the spinal column when she sits with her back straight.

Benkovic says, "Hinduism teaches at the base of the spine is a triangle which

lies in the "Kundalini Shakti" (Serpent Power). It is usually dormant, but when

it is awakened, it travels up the spine to the top of the head, passing through

six psychic centers called "charkas. "As it passes through a chakra, one

receives psychic experiences and powers. When it reaches the top chakra,

supposedly, the power to perform miracles and liberation is realized."21

Ralph Rath says in his book, Mantras, "In a forward to the book, Kundalini

Energy and Christian Spirituality by Philip St. Romain, Keating calls kundalini

"an enormous energy for good" and does not point out that uncontrolled kundalini

can kill or drive a person mad or that some cults use kundalini in a extremely

debased way."22 He does not show discernment here, since all spiritual power

comes from the Holy Spirit or the Evil One.

Keating and Pennington have also enthusiastically endorsed the book, Meditations

on the Tarot, a Journey into Christian Hermeticism, on the jacket cover. (The

tarot is a form of divination, which is forbidden in Deut. 18.) Ac-cording to

Fr. Finbarr Flanagan, "Meditations on the Tarot is a mix of occult,

theosophical, alchemical, esoteric, astrological and reincarnational ideas

stirred together with Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Sufism in a manner

reminiscent of the works of C.G. Jung."23

Is the Goal of CP to Find the True Self?

Yes. All through their books, Keating and Pennington talk about finding the True

Self, finding out who we really are. What exactly is the True Self? Fr. Keating

states, "God and our true Self are not separate. Though we are not God, God and

our true Self are the same thing."24 Since the True Self is described by them as

the human soul, how can it be the same as God Almighty? The soul is created by

God. Fr. Pennington presents the same idea in his book, Awake in the Spirit,

where he speaks of our "process of deification" on p. 81. The concept of the

True Self originates in Hinduism. According to Benkovic, the Hindus believe the

following: "The self is none other than Braham or god . . . The true self is

God. The "I" which I consider myself to be is in reality the not-self. This

"not-self" is caught in a world of illusion, ignorance and bondage. You must

lose your personal ego-consciousness into god. You must say I am Braham.'25

MacLaine presents the same idea in her book Going Within, p.83, calling it the

Higher Self. She also claims that the soul is God. Therefore, the Hindus,

MacLaine and Keating all claim that the True Self (human soul) is god. As

Catholics and Christians, we know that there is no truth in this statement. We

know that the soul is created by God, is inferior to God and is tainted with

sin. We know it will come before God on Judgment Day.

Did the Vatican Release a Document on the New Age?

Yes. The Vatican recently released the document called "Jesus Christ, the Bearer

of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the New Age." It specifically

identifies the following as New Age: Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Yoga, Enneagram,

Wicca, the Higher Self, the True Self, ALC's, the "god within," and TM

(Transcendental Meditation). Many of these beliefs or practices have made their

way into retreat centers, workshops, or parish programs. Good Catholics attend

these events trusting them to be good Catholic programs. However, the Vatican

document states that these new age beliefs and practices cannot be accepted by

those who are faithful to Christ and his Church. The document also named some

of the writers who had the most influence on New Agers. They were Carl Jung,

Teilhard de Chardin, and Thomas Merton.

Does Fr. Keating Misquote some Important Scriptures?

Yes. Keating quotes Jesus as saying in Mark 8:34, "Unless you deny your inmost

self and take up the cross, you cannot be my disciple." He adds a word (inmost)

that is not there. Then he says, on p.15 of Open Mind, Open Heart, "Denial of

our inmost self includes detachment from the habitual functioning of our

intellect and will, which are our inmost faculties." The meaning of this

scripture is to carry our crosses and deny ourselves. It has nothing to do with

mind-emptying.

Keating also adds two new sentences to Luke 10:20 in Invitation to Love, p. 129.

He quotes Jesus as saying, "Do not get excited about that kind of success.

Anybody can work miracles with a little psychic energy and the divine

assistance. What you should rejoice over is that your names are written in

heaven." These first two sentences do not exist; and Jesus would never suggest

the use of psychic energy.

Does Fr. Keating Give a Strange Definition of the Eucharist?

Yes. In Open Mind, Open Heart, he says, on p.128, "The Eucharist is the

celebration of life: the coming together of all the material elements of the

cosmos, their emergence to consciousness in human persons and the

transformation of human consciousness into Divine consciousness. It is the

manifestation of the Divine in and through the Christian community. We receive

the Eucharist in order to become the Eucharist." As we know, the Eucharist in

not composed of all of the elements of the universe. The New Agers believe that

all is one and all is god. In our Catholic faith, the Eucharist is the body,

blood, soul and divinity of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and the greatest of the

sacraments. We need to reflect on Hebrews 13:9, "Do not be carried away by all

kinds of strange teaching."

Summary

1) Christian prayer always involves the mind and the heart. Even in preparation

for contemplation, St. Teresa of Avila advises people to meditate or "think

about" the Sorrowful mysteries.

2) Mind-emptying techniques are not Christian prayer, but rather practices of

Hindus, Zen Buddhists, and New Agers. The Pope says this type of prayer "makes

no sense in Christianity."

3) There are dangers involved in going into altered levels of consciousness.

4) The True Self is not God. The human soul is inferior to God. It is separate

from God because it is stained with sin, and it is created by God himself.

5) Involvement in the occult practices listed in Deuteronomy 18 is grave sin.

6) Hinduism, Zen Buddhism and New Age do not mix with Catholicism. These ancient

religions contain grave error, and their beliefs are contrary to the Catholic

faith.

In closing, I would like to say that I would not recommend books written by Fr.

Thomas Keating or Fr. Basil Pennington. They have demonstrated a lack of

discernment, and therefore are not reliable sources of information for

spiritual growth. Also, some readers are unaware that they are being exposed to

Hinduism through these books. I agree with the Pope when he said this type of

prayer "makes no sense in Christianity." As Christians, we are not to practice

non-Christian religions or mix them in with ours (syncretism). When we practice

syncretism, the line between truth and error becomes blurred. The pleasant

experiences that result from these techniques can gradually start to replace

the sacraments, and a person can lose sight of God as Creator and Savior.

The Lord loves the Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, and all people. However, he

wants us, as Christians, to look for opportunities to bring them to the True

Faith. If we want to "center," we can center our lives on Jesus Christ. If we

want to pray, we can think about him during our prayer time. We can meditate on

the Passion, practice virtues, and ask him to take us up into authentic

contemplation one day if he so desires. We can remind others that Jesus is the

Way, the Truth, and the Life.

End Notes

1 Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, (Amity, N.Y.: Amity House, 1986), p.97.

2 Mitch Pacwa, Catholics and the New Age, (Ann Arbor, MI: Servants Publication,

1992) p. 14.

3 Finbarr Flanagan, "Centering Prayer: Transcendental Meditation for the

Christian Market: (Faith and Renewal, May/June, 1991) p. 2., quoting from Basil

Pennington, Daily We Touch Him, (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1977, p.68.

4 Ibid., p. 2, quoting from Thomas Keating, Finding Grace at the Center, (Mass:

St. Bede's Publications, 1978, p.20.

5 Ibid.,p. 2 quoting from Basil Pennington, Centering Prayer, (Garden City,

N.Y.:Doubleday Image Books) p.234.

6 Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, p.114.

7 Ibid., p. 35.

8 Johnnette Benkovic, The New Age Counterfeit, p. 23-24, quoting from The Life

from the Collected Works of St. Teresa, Vol. 1, Washington Province of

Discalced Carmelites, p.1976.

9 Peter Thomas Rohrbach, Conversation with Christ, by St. Teresa of Avila

(Rockford, IL: Tan Publishing Co.) p.78, quoting St. Teresa of Avila, Interior

Mansion, P. I. i.

10 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on

Some Aspects of Christian Meditation, Oct. 15, 1989 (Text from English version

published by St. Paul Books and Media, 50 St. Paul's Ave., Boston, MA 02130)

p.34.

11 Ibid., p. 16.

12 Austin P. Flannery, Editor, Documents of Vatican II, "Declaration on the

Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions" (Grand Rapids, Michigan:

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1980) p.737.

13 Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, p. 51.

14 Ibid., p. 73-74.

15 Finbarr Flanagan, "Centering Prayer: Transcendental Meditation for the

Christian Market", p. 2.

16 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on

Some Aspects of Meditation, p. 28-29.

17 Gabriele Amorth, An Exorcist Tells His Story, (San Francisco, CA.: Ignatius

Press), 1999.

18 Chris Noble, "Christian Contemplation and Centering Prayer", Homiletic and

Pastoral Review, March 1994, p. 25, quoting, "Contemplative Prayer", U. S.

Catholic, March, 1989, p.10.

19 Thomas Keating, Invitation to Love, (NewYork, NY: The Continuum Publishing

Co., 2002) p.102.

20 Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, p.49.

21 Johnnette Benkovic, The New Age Counterfeit, p.11.

22 Ralph Rath, Mantras, (South Bend, IN: Peter Publications, 1993) p. 25.

23 Finbarr Flanagan, "Centering Prayer: Transcendental Meditation for the

Christian Market", p. 5.

24 Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, p. 127.

25 Johnnette Benkovic, The New Age Counterfeit, p. 10-11.

Mrs. Margaret A. Feaster is a housewife and mother of three children. She and

her husband live in Lilburn, Ga. She is on the leadership committee for the

Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Atlanta, and is in formation for the Discalced

Carmelite Secular Order. She belongs to a Rosary Cenacle, and heads up the

parish telephone prayer line. She is also a writer for her parish newsletter.

This is her first article for HPR.

The Danger of Centering Prayer Published by Catholic Answers.

In the mid-seventies, Trappist Abbot Thomas Keating asked the monks, "'Could we

put the Christian tradition into a form that would be accessible to people ...

who have been instructed in an Eastern technique and might be inspired to

return to their Christian roots if they knew there was something similar in the

Christian tradition?"' (Intimacy with God, 15). Frs. William Menniger and M.

Basil Pennington took up the challenge, and centering prayer is the result. In

a few short years it has spread all over the world.

Centering prayer originated in St. Joseph's Abbey, a Trappist monastery in

Spencer, Massachusetts. During the twenty years (1961-1981) when Keating was

abbot, St. Joseph's held dialogues with Buddhist and Hindu representatives, and

a Zen master gave a week-long retreat to the monks. A former Trappist monk who

had become a Transcendental Meditation teacher also gave a session to the

monks.

Many people assume centering prayer is compatible with Catholic tradition, but

in fact the techniques of centering prayer are neither Christian nor prayer.

They are at the level of human faculties and as such are an operation of man,

not of God. The deception and dangers can be grave.

Centering prayer differs from Christian prayer in that the intent of the

technique is to bring the practitioner to the center of his own being. There he

is, supposedly, to experience the presence of the God who indwells him.

Christian prayer, on the contrary, centers upon God in a relational way, as

someone apart from oneself. The Christian knows a God who is personal, yet who,

as Creator, infinitely transcends his creature. God is wholly other than man. It

is also crucial to Christian prayer that God engages man's whole being in

response, not just his interior life. In the view of centering prayer, the

immanence of God somehow makes the transcendence of God available to human

techniques and experience.

Centering prayer is essentially a form of self-hypnosis. It makes use of a

"mantra," a word repeated over and over to focus the mind while striving by

one's will to go deep within oneself. The effects are a hypnotic-like state:

concentration upon one thing, disengagement from other stimuli, a high degree

of openness to suggestion, a psychological and physiological condition that

externally resembles sleep but in which consciousness is interiorized and the

mind subject to suggestion. After reading a published description of centering

prayer, a psychology professor said, "Your question is, is this hypnosis? Sure

it is." He said the state can be verified physiologically by the drop in blood

pressure, respiratory rate, lactic acid level in the blood, and the galvanic

conductivity of the skin. Abbot Keating relates that, when they began doing the

centering prayer workshops in the guest house, some of the monks and guests

"complained that it was spooky seeing people walking around the guest house

like 'zombies."' They recognized the symptoms but could not diagnose the

illness.

In order to see clearly that centering prayer departs from Catholic tradition,

let us review the differences between Christian spirituality and that of

Eastern religions. These differences flow, above all, from their concepts of

God, of man, and of their relationship. In light of this contrast, we should be

able to see more clearly from which of these centering prayer draws its approach

and techniques.

In Catholic teaching, all men are creatures, called out of nothingness to know

God. All men are also sinners, cut off from God and destined to death. A

Christian is one whose life has been reconstituted in Christ. He is no longer

in the place and stance of a sinner, that is, apart from God, acting as if he

were the ultimate source, measure, and goal of his own behavior. He is in

Christ. Henceforth, his life is supposed to originate in Christ and to be

directed to God the Father. I say "supposed to" for it is a possibility that

must be acted upon. It is not automatic. The grace of baptism must be

incarnated in obedience, and, even after baptism, the Christian can choose to

conform to Christ or to his fallen nature, that is, to sin.

Eastern religions, in contrast, lack revelation of God as a personal Creator who

radically transcends his creatures. Though possessing many praiseworthy

elements, they nonetheless seek God as if he were part of the universe, rather

than its Creator. This is because they are monistic, seeing all reality as one.

Thus, God is a dimension, though hidden, of the same reality of which man is a

part. The goal therefore is to peel away the exterior world to get to the

spiritual reality beneath it. God is conceived of as an impersonal state of

being. In contrast, for Christians, God is the Real, and the whole of the

universe exists by God's free choice; creation is a second, contingent

reality-and, in Christian thought, did not need to exist. Moreover, this

contingent universe is the result of a God who is vastly more than mere being;

he is a loving Father.

These differing conceptions of God issue in different approaches to God. In the

East, human means are necessarily relied upon to come to God. The goal is not

to seek God as an Other, but to achieve an altered state of consciousness.

Where a Christian seeks dialogue and interaction with God and, with his help,

the "restoration of all things in Christ," by a certain "participation in the

divine nature" (2 Peter 4:4), the East seeks God in the self and seeks escape

from the distractions of the outer world. The "experience of God" is

essentially achieved by psychological and physiological technique rather than

by encounter.

The confusion of technique over encounter arises from a misunderstanding of the

indwelling of God. The fact that God indwells us does not mean that we can

capture him by techniques. Nor does it mean that we are identical with him in

our deepest self. Rather, God indwells us by grace which does not blend human

and divine natures. On the contrary, it perfects and empowers our limited human

faculties, so that we can relate to him. We can no more manipulate this

indwelling of grace by psychological techniques than we can manipulate our

existence.

Analogously, children do not come to know the parents who gave them existence by

going dead inside themselves or back to the moment of their conception, They

come to know their parents by interaction with them. As children use the

faculties given them at conception to grow and become like their parents, so we

use the faculties given us by the indwelling Spirit to interact with God and to

put on Jesus Christ. As children speak to their parents, so we speak to God by

the power of the Holy Spirit who indwells us.

This is what the Catholic tradition means by the term "sanctifying grace."

Sanctifying grace is the grace of union with God. By it, we are given a share

in the very holiness of God. Sanctifying grace is God's communication of

himself to man. As such, it cannot be experienced by human faculties. However,

Sanctifying grace gives us the "faculties" to relate to God. By it, we are

given a new and additional "divine nature" and are made "sons and daughters" of

God. With childlike simplicity, we can say "our Father." By incarnating this

grace through acts of obedience to God (what the Church calls "actual graces")

we are progressively converted from our sinful nature and "put on Jesus

Christ," participating in the life of Jesus Christ as members of his Body. In

the religion of Christ, the Incarnate Lord, there is no disengagement from the

external, but rather a dedication of one's life and the world to God. The goal

is not merely a deep inner peace but a sanctification of body, mind, and

heart-indeed, of the whole world.

Centering prayer claims for itself the experience of God, while setting aside

external realities and overcoming the "otherness" of God. It takes these

characteristics not from Christian tradition but from Hinduism, through the

medium of Transcendental Meditation. TM is Hinduism adapted by Maharishi Mahesh

Yogi, a Hindu guru, for use in a Western cultural setting. Fr. Pennington, one

of the authors of centering prayer and an ardent supporter of TM, says, "Mahesh

Yogi, employing the terminology of the ancient Vedic tradition, speaks of this

[practice of TM] 'to plunge into deep, deep rest for fifteen or twenty minutes

twice a day' as experiencing the Absolute. The Christian knows by faith that

this Absolute is our God of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who dwells in

us. When he goes to his deepest self, he finds in himself an image and

participation of God, and he finds God himself."

Fr. Pennington approves a Christian's participation in TM, despite the fact that

the introductory ceremony to TM, the Puja, involves worship of a dead Hindu guru

and that the mantras given those being initiated are in fact the names of Hindu

gods. For a Christian knowingly to participate in TM is a violation of the

Second Commandment against false worship.

What is to be said of this claim? Archimandrite Sophrony of Mount Athos and an

authority in Orthodox spirituality, speaks from his own personal story. He was

for years involved in Eastern religions, before he returned to the Orthodox

faith of his youth. I quote him at length, for he speaks with clarity and

power:

"In advising against being carried away by artificial practices such as

Transcendental Meditation I am but repeating the age-old message of the

Church.... The way of the Fathers requires firm faith and long patience,

whereas our contemporaries want to seize every spiritual gift, including even

direct contemplation of the Absolute God, by force and speedily, and will often

draw a parallel between prayer in the Name of Jesus and yoga or Transcendental

Meditation and the like. I must stress the danger of such errors.... He is

deluded who endeavors to divest himself mentally of all that is transitory and

relative in order to cross some invisible threshold, to realize his eternal

origin, his identity with the Source of all that exists, in order to return and

merge with him, the nameless transpersonal Absolute. Such exercises have enabled

many to rise to suprarational contemplation of being, to experience a certain

mystical trepidation, to know the state of silence of mind, when mind goes

beyond the boundaries of time and space. In such like states man may feel the

peacefulness of being withdrawn from the continually changing phenomena of the

visible world, may even have a certain experience of eternity. But the God of

Truth, the Living God, is not in all this.

"It is man's own beauty, created in the image of God, that is contemplated and

seen as divinity, whereas he himself still continues within the confines of his

creatureliness. This is a vastly important concern. The tragedy of the matter

lies in the fact that man sees a mirage which, in his longing for eternal life,

he mistakes for a genuine oasis. This impersonal form of ascetics leads finally

to an assertion of the divine principle in the very nature of man. Man is then

drawn to the idea of self-deification-the cause of the original Fall. The man

who is blinded by the imaginary majesty of what he contemplates has in fact set

his foot on the path to self-destruction. He has discarded the revelation of a

personal God.... The movement into the depths of his own being is nothing else

but attraction towards the non-being from which we were called by the will of

the Creator" (His Life is Mine, 115-116).

In short, true prayer goes to God from the center of one's being, not in the

center of one's being. In authentic contemplation, our faculties are brought to

God, not disengaged as they are in TM. Christianity seeks to redeem and restore

man and the world in Christ. To seek escape from rather than to redeem the

world is to set oneself against the mission of Christ. That is why even the

Jesus Prayer and the rosary (often cited as Christian "mantras") are deeply

charged with basic Christian theological content; they are used to relate in an

interactive and personal way to the Lord and to the Virgin Mary. For a similar

reason, Catholic spiritual writers consistently insist a person must have a

moral life and spiritual maturity before entering upon a life dedicated to

contemplation. A person who seeks contemplation must first steep his mind in

the word of God, conform his behavior to the moral law, submit his body to the

spirit by asceticism, subjugate his will in humility to the will of God, and

take on a heart given over to the love of God and neighbor. These means are

incarnational and redemptive.

The book often claimed as a precedent for centering prayer is The Cloud of

Unknowing, by an unknown fourteenth-century English author. But the claim is in

vain, for The Cloud of Unknowing clearly repudiates the emphasis given in

centering prayer to techniques: "I am trying to make clear with words what

experience teaches more convincingly, that techniques and methods are

ultimately useless for awakening contemplative love." The Cloud must be seen in

its historic context. Though its emphasis is on the "negative way," we must

remember that it presupposes its reader is well grounded in the "positive way"

to God by means of the word of God, creation, and sacramental means. When this

prerequisite is met, a book like this can help prayer to go beyond creatures to

the Uncreated God. But to see The Cloud as pointing us to technique (as

centering prayer does) is profoundly to misread the text.

Some of those who promote centering prayer employ questionable practices. For

example, I first experienced centering prayer during a retreat whose announced

topic and method had nothing to do with it. Without explanation, the director

conducted us into centering prayer. At first I followed the instructions, but,

not liking the feel of it, I made the decision to ignore the instructions. The

retreat master, even by secular standards, acted unethically in not giving us

an understanding and choice in the matter.

Nor is this uncommon. I know of an incident where several thousand people

attending a charismatic conference were brought into centering prayer, again

without explanation or choice. This incident was particularly objectionable,

because the priest who was leading the session did not even bother with a

Christian "mantra" but used an explicit hypnotic technique (e.g., "Imagine you

are on an elevator. You begin going down, down inside yourself. The

twenty-first floor, the twentieth floor," etc.). In many Catholic schools,

teachers and officials have made centering prayer part of religious exercises

without parental notice, understanding, or choice. Equally questionable is the

setting aside of traditional safeguards. Centering prayer is often offered to

large groups, where there is no way of knowing the psychological and spiritual

problems some people may have. And this can be very dangerous indeed, leading

to any of the following: (1) The delusion that one has found and pleased God,

when in fact he has not. God is not part of the universe. The attempt to reach

God by human technique is not only futile, but objectively sinful. (2) A

self-absorption which forgets that life in the Triune God is relationships and

that we have been inserted into these relationships through Christ. People who

come out of this type of prayer often express it as coming into a freedom they

did not know that they had lost. (3) The danger of opening oneself to evil

spirits. Such techniques can bring people in touch with the spiritual realm.

But the spiritual realm includes not only God but human and angelic spirits. A

person with a problem in a moral or psychological area can open himself to some

degree of demonic influence.

A mother wrote to ask me for advice: "In the Catholic school in [name of town],

Sister has been using this [centering prayer and use of the Jesus Prayer] in

the religion classes. My ten-year-old daughter took to it right away. This was

about two-and-a-half years ago. The things she shared with me that Jesus had

told her didn't appear to me to be imagination. They made her feel very close

to Jesus. About six weeks ago, Kristy started having difficulty going to sleep.

She didn't want to stay in her own room and would lie there afraid to close her

eyes, until I would let her go into her sister's room and sleep with her.

Finally she confided in me that she would see something scary if she closed her

eyes. A few days ago, she confided that it laughed. Kristy had used the

centering prayer on her own at bedtime for some time before this fear started."

What happened to Kristy? The laughter is very characteristic of evil spirits. It

would have taken personal contact and prayerful discernment to know for sure.

From the description, I would suspect an evil spirit is harassing her. I would

doubt that it has any serious hold on her, unless there was immoral behavior or

a special vulnerability in her psychological state. I suspect that her use of

centering prayer opened her to evil spirits and such harassments.

The past several decades have seen an explosion of groups and movements involved

in spiritual and psychic pursuits. Some of these no doubt are of God; some

clearly are not. The New Age Movement, which is actually as ancient as the

Eastern religions from which it draws its resources, has shown a phenomenal

growth. A materialistic civilization is trying to find what it threw away. I

believe that the interest is more than a sociological phenomenon and that it is

part of a conflict of the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.

I see the springing up of so many spiritual and psychic movements as part of the

rebellion of man and evil spirits against God. The totalitarian movements of the

twentieth century managed to capture the major sectors of society, and what

destruction they brought on the world! But they fell short of total possession

of man. In his interior life, man remained free. Nazism and Communism had some

success in penetrating the interior life of man by persuasion, by socioeconomic

pressures, and even by the violence of brainwashing.

But the vulnerability of man today to manipulation is today much greater than it

was even a half-century ago. The moral order and faith in God have drastically

declined. Man's technology and managerial abilities have increased. Tyranny has

better tools to dominate others and, more and more, a ripe situation in which to

do so. The restraining influences on the work of evil spirits are being stripped

away: loss of moral standards, break-up of family life, uprootedness, merely

functional relationships, emptiness of meaning. In this context, what centering

prayer does, at a minimum, is make respectable the false spiritualities that are

rushing in to fill the spiritual void.

My hypothesis is that it is Satan's strategy, in all these things, to strip away

the physiological and psychological forces that, in our fallen state, are a

fail-safe protection for the human spirit. (This is a possible interpretation

of Paul's words in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-10 about the lawless one and the force

that restrains him.) Thus, he can hope to capture the spirit of man worldwide

and establish a kingdom of darkness.

The Catholic Church is the major obstacle to the Devil's plan-and the Lord of it

the only hope of mankind. Hence the Church has been the special target of today,

as indeed it has been since Pentecost. The rapid spread of centering prayer in

the past decade into so many areas which are at the very heart of Catholic

faith is, I believe, part of the Devil's strategy against the Church.

Yet none of this has escaped God's hand. As I see it, he has given us the modern

world's problems right in the very heart of the Church, so that, when we get our

own house in order, we will be in very good shape to bring the gospel to every

nation. No Christian can read the Great Commission and fail to have hope for

the future. "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore

go and make disciples of all nations. And behold I am with you always" (Matt.

28:18-20).DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.

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Lux Mundi Fuengirola Meeting

Friday 20.00 - 21.00 Dream Warrior is sharing his experience strength and hope

The expression of gratitude is the most powerful act we can perform to God, ourselves and others. ... It changes the negative back to the positive and takes away the hurts

2011-12-10T23:53:00.000Z

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder. "So often in our lives, we limit the capacity of our Father in Heaven."

Sister Stephanie Mongeon made this statement last week during a talk designed to help people remove those limits.

Mongeon is director of community relations and mission services at Ogden Regional Medical Center and one of the Catholic sisters at Mount Benedict Monastery. Her talk, "Finding Balance and Spirituality in Our Lives," is one she gives quarterly to the members of the Twelve Step Program at Ogden Regional Medical Center.

Mongeon recommended living by eight spiritual values: positive attitude, friendship, simplicity and ordinariness, humor, forgiveness, gratitude, mindfulness and spiritual freedom.

"People say to me, 'Why do you smile so much?' I say I need it," she said in her talk about positive attitudes. "We must esteem ourselves before we can esteem others."

She also discussed the need to develop a loving eye with which to view the world.

While discussing friendship, she said "Learning to be a powerful presence in another's life is just so, so beautiful."

And she said people make themselves rich by making their wants fewer.

"May I live simply that others simply can live," Mongeon said, quoting Gandhi.

To achieve the value of humor, Mongeon suggested learning from children.

"Children laugh 60 times a day, but we laugh six at best," she said. "They say six good laughs a day are as good as a five-mile run."

Mongeon defined forgiveness as the capacity to go beyond our hurts and put them in the hands of God.

"I cannot forgive unless I employ God," she said.

And seeing the good God has placed in one's life can be done through a gratitude journal, she said, noting her belief that gratitude is the greatest antidote to depression.

"A grateful heart is never sad," she said. "The expression of gratitude is the most powerful act we can perform to God, ourselves and others. ... It changes the negative back to the positive and takes away the hurts."

Mongeon said savoring the moment creates mindfulness.

"We're so busy that we don't allow ourselves to be in the present," she said, noting that being present for others is a great gift to them.

"Being there for the other person without a better story is being a good listener," stated a slide she showed during her talk.

And she said silence and meditation also are important for developing a relationship with God or a higher power.

"We have to ask ourselves, 'Are we human beings or are we human doings?"

She noted that the creation was not completed until God declared a day of rest.

"The Lord said, 'Learn from me and you will find rest,'" she said.

Mongeon said living by spiritual principles will provide new energy and new hope.

She said what the world needs more than ever is people of hope.

"You and I are the ones who can provide hope."

voices today that deny totally the reality of the spiritual

2011-12-10T01:46:00.004Z

.Every human person is both "embodied spirit" and "spiritualised body". In many ways this may seem obvious, but there are voices today that deny totally the reality of the spiritual, insisting that experiences of beauty and love, sooner or later, will be fully explained by physical actions and reactions within the human body. Other voices minimise the relationship between body and spirit to such an extent that the bodily reality, and the satisfaction of its needs, is all that really matters. And the converse is true, too: there are some who so minimise the requirements of our bodily nature that the spiritual – or relational – reality alone gives meaning and validity to their actions. But we are inseparably body and soul, and the quest for truth must always keep this relationship in balance if our ecology is to be preserved.

Then there is a third truth: we exist both in the present and are historical beings. Yes, we live in the present and we must search for our meaning and purpose in the present circumstances. But we are also carriers and inheritors of a tradition, of a past, and that, too, is a crucial part of our being and of our flourishing. It does not serve the health of our environment if we cut ourselves off from our heritage.

To succeed, we must accept our history, spirituality and a need to care for others

2011-12-10T01:45:00.002Z

To succeed, we must accept our history, spirituality and a need to care for others

Like the environment, we humans have an ecology that we must respect to surviveDISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.

2010-04-15T15:14:00.000+01:00

"“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”
~ Sir Winston Churchill"

2010-04-15T15:12:00.001+01:00

"Sony Corporation played this video at their executive conference this year..
Caution: It may leave you a little breathless ----.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY"

2010-04-15T15:12:00.000+01:00

"Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody
would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment,
and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is
not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It's whether
you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn
from it; whether you choose to persevere.

-- Barack Obama"

2010-04-15T15:11:00.000+01:00

"'It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere that it begins to have meaning.' -- P.D. Ouspensky"

Desiderata

2010-04-02T16:19:00.002+01:00

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

spirituality is not always associated with psychological maturity

2010-03-18T00:17:00.002Z

new study discovers established spirituality is not always associated with psychological maturity. In fact, a person can reach a high level of spiritual development without being emotionally and psychologically mature.
According to Prof. Ofra Mayseless, dean of the faculty of education at the University of Haifa, psychological maturity is defined as the capacity to control impulses and acceptance of responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions.
This study, a first in its field, examined the interplay between the two developmental domains. It addressed a central conceptual question: If these developmental domains are related, how do they converge and mutually interact?
For example, is a certain level of emotional maturity required before an individual develops to be highly spiritual?
What might be the ramifications of having transcendental experiences when an individual is not emotionally mature?
A sample group of 215 college students aged 19-30 revealed that the two developmental domains (psychological maturity and spiritual development) were moderately correlated, yet that each seemed to have different antecedents (e.g., social support and having firm ethnic identity was especially significant for achieving spiritual development).
Prof. Mayseless added that the findings also confirmed a link between psychological and spiritual maturity and an individual’s set of values. This raised the question of whether both developmental domains contribute to the development of a particular attribute or whether only one domain alone contributes to that attribute.
“For example,” Prof. Mayseless explained, “psychological maturity can contribute to a person’s level of generosity, while spiritual development may not add unique contribution after taking into account the person’s psychological maturity.
“However, this was not the case. This study has shown that both psychological maturity and being spiritually developed each contributes to an individual’s generosity and pro-social actions, independently.”
“The truth is, that I wanted to find that an individual reaching both types of maturity has an added value; that someone who is both psychologically and spiritually developed would demonstrate a higher set of values, such as generosity, endurance, pluralism. But this was not what we found,” Prof. Mayseless said.
“While this study has shown that each developmental domain contributes independently of the other, the contribution that each makes to a particular attribute are similar. There is probably some connection between them, but this might only be identified by a longitudinal study where we would follow individuals for some time to learn about changes in each domain,” concluded Prof. Mayseless.

Lawrence Reynolds was an introvert who was sorry for what he did and wanted to die alone, his spiritual adviser said Tuesday following his execution.

2010-03-18T00:12:00.002Z

Lawrence Reynolds was an introvert who was sorry for what he did and wanted to die alone, his spiritual adviser said Tuesday following his execution.
"He was sorry for his crime, it was something that he had done under the influence, as he said, of ignorant oil," said Ernie Sanders, addressing reporters after Tuesday's execution. "He wished that he had never done it."
But the 43-year-old Summit County man, sentenced to death for the 1994 murder of an elderly Cuyahoga Falls neighbor, couldn't find the words to express his remorse to the family of the woman he killed, using his final moments instead to urge the state to stop capital punishment.
"I came in like a lion and go out like a lamb," he said shortly before the lethal injection that took his life.
"... To my brothers, I hope they will never have to walk these 15 steps I walked today. I have tried to bring attention to the futility and flagrantly flawed system we have today. Stop the madness."
His statement brought an immediate reaction of, "It's going to stop right now," from Denise Turchiano, niece of Loretta Mae Foster, sitting behind glass feet away from Reynolds during Tuesday’s execution.
"The law has been upheld and justice has been served," Patty Solomon, granddaughter of Reynolds' murder victim, later told reporters. "... It it time to put this behind us and move on with our lives."
She added, "Our hearts are as broken today as they were 16 years ago. Nothing can change the fact that our beloved grandmother, mother, sister, aunt, great aunt, neighbor and friend was senselessly taken from us."
Reynolds was pronounced dead at 10:27 a.m., about 10 minutes after being strapped to the table in the execution chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.
He was the 36th inmate put to death since the state resumed capital punishment in 1999 and the fourth executed under the state's new single-drug protocol.
In January 1994, Reynolds conned his way into the home of Foster, a 67-year-old neighbor. He beat her with a tent pole, tied her up with a telephone cord and strangled her to death.
Reynolds took about $40 in cash and a blank check belonging to the victim; Foster's nude body was later found on the floor of her house, after Reynolds bragged to friends about the killing. He was convicted for murder, kidnapping, burglary and attempted rape and sentenced to death.
Reynolds was supposed to be executed a week ago but was found unconscious in his cell at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown just hours before he was to be transported to Lucasville.
He later admitted to prison staff that he was attempting suicide using prescription medicine. Prison officials have not yet released information from their investigation on how Reynolds obtained enough pills for the overdose — whether he hoarded his own prescription over time or
received pills from other inmates.
Reynolds was returned to the Youngstown prison two days after the overdose and placed under a suicide watch, meaning around-the-clock observation and limited privileges.
He was transferred to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility early Monday morning and spent much of the day in a holding cell 17 steps away from the execution chamber.
Reynolds remained under a suicide watch during the morning and was allowed only prison-issue clothing in his cell and no other personal belongings.
The suicide watch was lifted just after noon, and he was allowed to read letters received over the past week. The letters were the only personal belongings Reynolds requested, Walburn said.
Reynolds had cell-front visits with his attorneys and spiritual advisers Tuesday morning prior to preparation for his execution.
His mood was described as cooperative Monday, but Reynolds did receive three three separate doses of an anti-anxiety medication. Walburn said received 50 mg doses of Vistaril twice on Monday and again this morning.
“They have said that he is becoming a little more anxious,” she said of Reynolds’ mood Tuesday morning.
Reynolds appeared shaky after prison staff inserted shunts into his arms to carry the lethal injection and had to be helped to his feet, and it appeared that his knees were wobbly as he walked into the execution chamber.
Turchiano, Solomon and Kelly Redfern, a great niece, witnessed the execution on behalf of Foster's family. Sanders joined Reynolds' two attorneys and a friend to witnessed on the inmate's behalf.
Solomon addressed the media afterward on the family's request, thanking state officials, the Summit County Prosecutor's Office and the Cuyahoga Falls Police Department "for their many years of support. It is now our time to heal."
Sanders, who visited with Reynolds Monday evening and prior to Tuesday's execution, said the inmate wanted to apologize.
"He was an introvert," he said. "He had a hard time doing it. He told me he wanted to but he just had a hard time doing it. He wanted to say some things to his father, but he couldn't seem to find a way to do it. I know that may be a hard thing to understand, but that was Larry."
Reynolds requested that his body be cremated, and his remains be turned over to a girlfriend

~Alcoholics Anonymous, 1st. Edition, We Agnostics, pg. 54~

2010-03-18T00:06:00.002Z

"Imagine life without faith! Were nothing left but pure reason, it
wouldn't be life."

~Alcoholics Anonymous, 1st. Edition, We Agnostics, pg. 54~

“If only I was rich.”

2010-03-12T11:38:00.003Z

“If only I was rich.”Multatuli a Dutch renowned writer tells the story of a Japanese sculptor in his book Max Havelaar:

Day after day the poor sculptor chips stones out of the rock and sighs: “If only I was rich.” A mountain spirit heard him and granted his wish. The sculptor enjoys his newly state of being rich for a little while, but when the emperor passes by he becomes jealous and wishes to be the emperor. Again this happens and he is satisfied. But when he realizes the sun is far more powerful then the emperor, because it burns merciless on everyone, he wants to be the sun!

Immediately he transforms into the sun only to realize that the cloud is more powerful, because it can darken out the sun. He becomes a cloud and pours rain with enthusiasm, until he notices this rock. This rock stands firmly no matter how hard and wildly he sweeps the rain against its side. When he wants to be the rock he becomes the rock. Again his satisfaction holds only for a little while. Suddenly he feels how someone is hammering against its side, trying to chip stones out of the rock. That man is more powerful than him...he wants to be that sculptor!

This way he returns to the simplicity of the beginning, with only one, but very important difference: Now he IS happy with his fate. He has lived the great web of creation from within and realizes there is nothing wrong with his part in it. He has experiences how every place in universe has its own power as well as its impotence. That he can be happy and content everywhere, anytime, it doesn’t really matter where he is. With spiritual wealth he returns to a life of simplicity.

age of miracles is still with us. Our own recovery proves that!

2010-02-09T19:40:00.001Z

age of miracles is still with us. Our own recovery proves that!

it is a miracle.

2010-02-09T19:40:00.000Z

The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and
difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle.

Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do want society.

2010-02-09T19:38:00.000Z

However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard
names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble your-
self much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not
change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see
that you do want society.

Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn't work. You can easily see why.

2010-02-09T19:37:00.000Z

We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be
shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given
whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for
freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves
only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are
careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a
lot of time doing that and it doesn't work. You can easily see why.

READ THIS IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE

2010-01-31T19:01:00.000Z

Today is a new day. Make the best of it. Don´t fill it with complaints or regrets. Break the cycle and use today to accomplish something.

There will always be a good excuse not to, but excuses don´t bring any fulfilment to your life. Each moment is an opportunity to live and to give. Make it count. Dream big dreams, and follow your dreams with action and commitment. Appreciate, be thankful for, and make the best use of all that you have. You are a unique expression of life and love and creation. Let your life shine brightly. Delight in the obstacles that give you the gift of challenge. Let the beauty that is around you inspire you. Have faith in the ultimate triumph of truth. Break free from your past limitations and become the person you are to be. Look for ways to provide meaning and value to others, and you will soar ever higher. See every moment for the opportunity that it is. Put your life into action. The world is full of promise, and hope, and beauty when you have the courage to look for it, and to find it. Step confidently forward to greet each new day, secure in the knowledge that it is the best day of your life.

rocketed into a

2010-01-30T15:05:00.000Z

We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a

fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.

Angels don’t worry about you.

2010-01-26T15:01:00.000Z

Angels don’t worry about you.
They believe in you!

People sometimes ask me if I believe in angels. And yes, I certainly do!

Sometimes they show themselves, sometimes a little white feather comes to you as an angel’s kiss, always leaving you with a warm feeling. Sometimes angel’s answers come through a song other times it is your best friend who starts to talk about something which is worrying you and at other times it is just the lady in front of you in the queue of the supermarket, who makes a comment.

Where to look for angels? How to recognize them?

The following poem says it all:

What do Angels look like?

Like the little old lady who returned

Your wallet yesterday.

Like the taxi driver who told you that your eyes

Light up the world when you smile.

Like the small child who showed you

The wonder in simple things.

Like the poor man who offered to

Share his lunch with you.

Like the rich man who showed you that it

Really is all possible, if only you believe.

Like the stranger who just happened to come along

When you had lost your way.

Like the friend who touched your heart

When you didn’t think you had one to touch.

Angels come in all sizes and shapes,

All ages and skin types and colours.

Some with freckles, some with dimples,

Some with wrinkles, some without.

They come disguised as friends, enemies,

Nurses, teachers, students, lovers and fools.

They don’t take life too seriously.

They travel light.

They leave no forwarding address.

They ask nothing in return.

They wear sneakers with gossamer wings.

They get a deal on dry cleaning.

They are hard to find when your eyes are closed,

But they are everywhere you look,

When you choose to open your eyes and see.

Earth Angels come in all colour sizes and ages. They do not always arrive with a blast of trumpets, feathered wings or a blinding light, but they are angels just the same.

Some mysteriously disappear, others whisper through the door ways of our minds. When this happens we suddenly feel the need to call someone, or do something. We might not always be aware that angels are guiding us, but anyone who raises your spirits and helps you to grow or love is an angel.

Fraser sends you love and light to open your eyes to the angels around you, guiding you through your life, those heavenly messengers are a direct link to our heart and a shortcut to living our true purpose. Dare to listen to their whispers!

Vision is, I think, the ability to make good estimates

2010-01-21T18:07:00.000Z

Vision is, I think, the ability to make good estimates. Some might feel
this sort of striving to be heresy against "One Day At A Time". But
that valuable principle really refers to our mental and emotional lives,
and means chiefly that we are not foolishly to repine over the past nor
wishfully daydream about the future.

Let Us, Therefore, Live But One Day At A Time

2010-01-21T10:08:00.000Z

There are two days in every week about which we should not worry, two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.

One of these days is YESTERDAY with its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains. YESTERDAY has passed forever beyond our control.

All the money in the world cannot bring back YESTERDAY, We cannot undo a single act we performed; we cannot erase a single word we said. YESTERDAY is gone.

The other day we should not worry about is TOMORROW with its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise and poor performance. TOMORROW is also beyond our immediate control.

TOMORROW'S sun will rise, either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds - but it will rise. Until it does, we have no stake in TOMORROW, for it is as yet unborn.

This leaves only one day - TODAY. Any man can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burdens of those two awful eternities - YESTERDAY and TOMORROW that we break down

It is not the experience of TODAY that drives men mad - it is remorse or bitterness for something which happened YESTERDAY and the dread of what TOMORROW may bring.

Let Us, Therefore, Live But One Day At A Time

In loving actual individual beings

2010-01-21T10:05:00.000Z

In loving actual individual beings one can slip into a fanciful idea about how one thinks or could wish this being should be

Trust in Miracles

2010-01-21T09:10:00.000Z

1. An increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.

2. Frequent attacks of smiling.

3. Feelings of being connected with others and nature.

4. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

5. A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience.

6. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

7. A loss of ability to worry.

8. A loss of interest in conflict.

9. A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.

10. A loss of interest in judging others.

11. A loss of interest in judging self.

12. Gaining the ability to love without expecting anything in return.

Remember I am here for you,

2010-01-21T09:07:00.000Z

Together We Are Strong

When life becomes a challenge, and each day becomes a chore

Remember I am here for you, Like eagles we shall soar.

An uphill battle every day, sometimes is how it seems

Our hopes are often shattered, out of reach our simple dreams

Just watch an eagle as he flies, straight and strong into the wind

So take my hand, hold on to me, We'll do the same my friend.

The current shall not beat us, for together we are strong,

Like eagles coasting on the wind, this battle won't take long.

Gentle Wishes for You

2010-01-21T09:06:00.000Z

May the warm winds of Heaven

Blow softly upon your house

May the Great Spirit

Bless all those who enter there

May your moccasins

Make happy tracks

In many snows

And may the rainbow

Always touch your shoulder

Native American Serenity Prayer

2010-01-21T09:03:00.000Z

Oh Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds

and whose breath gives life to all the world

Hear me

I come before you, one of your children

I am small and weak,

I need your strength and wisdom

Let me walk in beauty and

make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.

Make my hands respect the things you have made

my ears sharp to hear your voice

Make me wise, so that I may know

the things you have taught my People

the lesson you have hidden in every leaf and rock

I seek strength, not to be superior to my brothers

but to be able to fight my greatest enemy, myself

Make me ever ready to come to you

with clean hands and straight eyes,

so when life fades as a fading sunset

My Spirit may come to you without shame.

2010-01-20T19:52:00.000Z

These workmen are installing bollards to stop nurses from parking on the pavement outside the Royal Hospital in Belfast.

They are cleaning up at the end of the day.

How long do you think it will be before they realise that they can't go home?

This is a real photograph..!

"If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no indifferent place."

2010-01-20T19:49:00.000Z

"If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no indifferent place."

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy

2010-01-19T01:32:00.000Z

‘ The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty’

This is a course in miracles.

2010-01-16T18:13:00.002Z

Introduction

This is a course in miracles. You must learn the lessons in it but you choose when you want to learn them. Free will does not mean that you choose what it is you need to learn but that you choose what you want to learn at any given time. This course does not teach the meaning of God’s Love because that is beyond what can be taught. But it does teach you how to remove your obstacles to God’s Love, Which is your natural State of Being. Fear appears to be the opposite of God’s Love but God’s Love is all that there is and It has no opposite.

This course can be summed up in this way:

God cannot be changed.

Only God exists.

To know this is to have the Peace of God.

Chapter 1: The Meaning of Miracles

1: Principles of Miracles[1]

1. Miracles are extensions of God’s Love in your awareness. They are always whole and complete, no matter their seeming form or size. Your every extension of God’s Love is a miracle. Miracles do not always produce results that are visible to the body’s eyes and they may affect situations of which you are not aware.

2. Miracles are not spectacles to make others believe in God or in your own power. They are the result of your true prayer, or communion, with God. Through prayer you receive God’s Love; through the miracle you extend your experience of God’s Love. The real miracle is God’s Love; Its expression in the world that you perceive is not important. Your True Mind and Holy Spirit, Which are God’s Love, are miracles.

3. Experiencing miracles is necessary for you as the means for you to remember that you are One with God. By extending God’s Love you become aware that God’s Love is within you. You receive the Love that you give because you strengthen the awareness of God in your mind as you extend Love. All the miracles you experience join in the plan of the Atonement, which is the complete correction of your perception of separation from God.

4. All of your fear and your sense of lack and limitation come from your belief that you are separate from God. Your experience of the miracle atones for, or corrects, your misperception by reminding you that you are One with God. By overcoming your fear, your experience of the miracle prepares you for direct revelation of God, in Which you experience no fear.

5. Your experience of miracles comes from the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God in your mind. The Holy Spirit inspires and is in charge of miracles. It is the Holy Spirit in your mind that is really important, not the expression of the miracle. You cannot experience miracles in the personal mind, which is separate from God. Attempts by you to manifest “miracles” with the personal mind will lead you to a further sense of separation from God. Inspired by your Spiritual Mind, your experience of the miracle reminds you that you are One with God and releases you from your belief that you are a personal self.

6. God’s Love is natural to you because you are One with God. When you do not experience miracles it is because you are not open to God. You can always, without exception, experience miracles but you must overcome your obstacles to God first.

7. When you believe that what the body’s eyes show you is reality you fear God’s Love, Which is Reality. You can have only one identity: the Holy Spirit or the personal self. Your experience of the miracle unifies your mind because it overlooks the appearance of separate personal selves and looks only on God’s Love.

8. Because it comes from the Holy Spirit within you, your experience of the miracle reminds you that you are Spirit, not a body, healing your mind of its misidentification with a body. All forms of illness are the result of your identifying with a personal self in a body.

9. As an expression of your Oneness with God the miracle heals your guilt for perceiving that you separated yourself from God in the past and it frees you from fear of future punishment for this. Your experience of a miracle comes to you from the Oneness of Eternity and it overlooks separation and time. Your experiencing miracles is the only real purpose time has for you.

10. Gratitude is due to the miracle as an expression of your Real Identity. You can deny that you are One with God but you cannot alter this Fact. You need to experience miracles as a means to remind you that you are One with God. When you return to full awareness of God you will no longer need the miracle.

2: Revelation, Time and Miracles

1. A revelation is an experience of Oneness with God in Which you experience no doubt and no fear. In the world that you perceive you often seek for this Oneness in physical relationships but they cannot achieve It. A revelation unites you directly with God; a miracle extends your awareness of God in your perception. You experience both the revelation and the miracle in the individual mind but they do not originate there. The individual mind induces action but it does not inspire it. You are free to believe what you choose, and your actions attest to what you believe.

2. The experience of the revelation cannot be described. It is pure experience that is beyond words. Your experience of the miracle inspires you to action in the world that you perceive and is more important in the early phase of your learning because you must first learn to overcome your sense of separation from God in your mind’s perception. God’s Love as you experience it directly in revelation transcends all perception.

3. Because God is the Perfect Whole of Which you are a Perfect Part it is appropriate for you to view God as greater than you and therefore to look on the revelation with wonder. Wonder is not an appropriate response to your experience of the miracle, which extends God’s Love outward in your perception from the Holy Spirit in your mind. Wonderment is inappropriate toward Jesus, Who is not greater than you, but Who modeled the Christ Mind, Which is also in your mind. Jesus is due your love, respect, obedience and devotion because He is a model for your complete awareness of God, which is still only a potential in you.

4. Time is the only thing that seems to separates you from your Christ Mind, Which was modeled by Jesus. As you rise in your awareness of your Oneness with God you will shift in your identification from the personal mind to the Christ Mind. It is necessary for you to attain the Christ Mind to prepare you for God. Christ is the Whole Truth in your mind. It is the part of you that is One with God.

5. A direct revelation of God comes to you through your Christ Mind when you are open to it. A revelation reminds you that you are One with God, Which God has not forgotten but you have.

6. In time it seems as though it will take forever for you to recognize the Oneness of your Mind. Your experience of the miracle saves you time by bringing Oneness to your mind now. It does not bring you to a full awareness of God but each miracle you experience is a step toward your full awareness of God.

3. Atonement and Miracles

1. Your Christ Mind is in charge of the plan of the Atonement, which is the full correction of your perception of separation from God. When you extend God’s Love you increase your own awareness of God’s Love within you. By following only your Christ Mind you will correct all of your perceptions of separation from God. This is your only purpose in the world that you perceive. When you have accepted complete correction you will be Christ, Which is the correction.

2. Your split mind will become united again. The personal mind will give way to your Christ Mind because your Christ Mind is Eternal. As a Part of God you are Love and you must remember to think of yourself this way.

3. By accepting your Christ Mind as your Identity you let go of, or forgive, your perceptions of personal selves in a world separate from God. This is the plan of the Atonement. Your experience of miracles, which are inspired by your Christ Mind, unite your mind and its perceptions in Oneness and release you from your perception of separation from God.

4. Your Christ Mind is the awareness that you are One with God and therefore your Christ Mind is the Atonement. Only the Christ in you can inspire your experience of miracles, which are extensions of God’s Love. Your purpose is the Atonement and you must put aside the personal mind and be open to the guidance of your Christ Mind to fulfill It. Experiencing miracles will lead you to be open to direct revelation of God.

5. Your error in perceiving yourself as separate from God does not threaten God but God does threaten your error. You are free to see yourself as a personal self separate from God or to see the Truth that you are Spirit, Eternally loved by God in Oneness with God. The Atonement recognizes the latter and undoes all fear. So when you are frightened by God it is because you are defending a personal self as yourself. When you project the source of your fear onto the world of separation that you perceive you reinforce fear in your mind. But if you choose instead to extend God’s Love in place of the world of separation that you perceive you undo fear in your mind.

6. Your behavior follows from your interpretations of the world that you perceive. To behave appropriately you must learn to look out from the Holy Spirit in you to the Holy Spirit in all that your mind perceives.

7. Your Christ Mind extends God’s Love even when you are not aware of It. You will experience the miracle when you are open to it, overlooking the personal mind and its perceptions, and uniting with Christ in your perception. Your experience of the miracle reminds you that you are One with God and extends Oneness to be all that you perceive.

8. Your experience of miracles always bless you, even if you cannot see a manifestation of them in the world. God’s Love is always present and your Christ Mind, not the personal mind, is in charge of any action that should be taken. Only your Christ Mind is aware of what is needed to correct your perception of separation from God.

9. You will experience miracles when you are ready for them. You accept as much of God’s Love as you can at any given time but your experience of the miracle does not really have a “size” since God’s Love is always Whole. When you accept God’s Love for yourself it is inevitable that you will extend It in your awareness.

4. The Escape from Darkness

1. Denying that you are One with God does not change the fact that you are One with God. Recognizing that you are in denial will threaten your identification with a personal self and make you fearful but accepting that you are One with God will dispel all fear since denying the Truth is the actual source of your fear. When you are no longer in denial and you are willing to remember that you are One with God you will naturally experience Peace and Joy.

2. Denying the Truth frightens you because on some level you are aware that you are deceiving yourself. This deception takes a lot of effort and it results in a personal self that you work hard to make real to you. As an extension of God’s Love, your experience of the miracle reminds you that only God is Reality and it corrects your perception of yourself as a personal self. Accepting this correction is your only real purpose and it abolishes your fear by abolishing your denial of Truth that is the source of your fear.

3. Denying that you are One with God leads to your sense of lack and to your making of a personal self to seek for the Wholeness that you gave away. In God you have Everything and the purpose of the Atonement is to correct your perception of separation from God to remind you of this.

4. You overcome your fear and sense of lack, which are inspired by your denial of your Oneness with God, by forgiving, or overlooking, your error of perceiving yourself as a personal self. By extending God’s Love the miracle reminds you that Christ is your Reality and it undoes all of your fear and lack. Jesus taught forgiveness by demonstrating the unreality of the personal self and the Reality of Christ by overcoming death. The idea that you should be punished for separating from God fails to acknowledge that your perception of separation from God is only an error. By allowing God’s Love to be extended through you, you correct this error.

5. Wholeness and Spirit

1. Both the miracle and the body are temporary learning aids that you will put aside when you return to full awareness of your Oneness with God. The body is neutral and it can be used by your mind to extend God’s Love or to perpetuate your sense of separation from God. You can put off your awareness of your Oneness with God but you can never make your separation from God real. You can destroy the body but you cannot destroy What you really are. You are One with God.

2. For you to be miracle-minded is for you to be open to the awareness that you are One with God now. Every miracle that you extend reduces the time that you need to fully remember that you are One with God. When you have remembered this you will no longer need an individual self.

3. When you have extended correction of your perception of separation from God to all that your mind perceives you will be aware only of Oneness. If you perceive yourself as a personal self separate from God you deny God’s Oneness. You must accept that you are One with God to know yourself.

4. Your mind will be healed of your sense of separation from God. Your experience of the miracle calls you to remember that you are One with God even if you choose to deny this. God is One and Whole and this is What Holiness is. God cannot be made un-whole. Your experiences of miracles affirm the Oneness of God.

5. God is the Eternal Truth and cannot change or be changed. God’s Holy Spirit within you is Perfect and cannot be changed. But you are free to choose if your mind will serve the Holy Spirit or the personal self. In your perception of separation from God these are the only choices available to you. If you choose to have your mind serve the Holy Spirit you will become aware of your Oneness with God again and you will be Limitless in your awareness. If you choose to have your mind serve the personal self you will still be One with God but denying This will limit you and introduce you to the perception of lack. To truly change your mind you must open it to Truth.

6. Your experience of the miracle is a sign that you are following your Christ Mind. This heals your sense of lack and limitation. Your identification with a personal self will not satisfy you and the means that you have employed to make yourself feel whole again have not worked. As you let go of your identification with a personal self you will be disoriented for a while but the means that you have employed to feel whole have only increased your sense of lack and limitation.

6. The Illusion of Needs

1. You can only be at Peace by completely forgiving, or releasing, your perception of separation from God. You will only learn how to do this when you accept that you need to do this and when you want to do this. In God there is no lack and therefore no needs. But by perceiving yourself as separate from God you deprive yourself of your sense of Wholeness and you make lack and needs. You act according to the needs that you perceive and this depends on how you perceive yourself.

2. The only lack that you need to correct is your sense of separation from God. By making a personal self you seem to split your mind in two and this leads to your sense of lack. Your sense of lack manifests as the personal self’s many needs. Believing these needs are real the personal mind orders them according to perceived importance, distracting you from recognizing that you really have only one need. Only by recognizing that you have only one need can you act in a way to truly correct it.

3. Your mind seems to be split into two levels: God and the personal self. Before you can recognize that your mind is not really split and that only God is your Real Mind you have to acknowledge that it is a mistake to believe in a split mind. Until you do no real correction can occur. An error must be corrected on the level where it seems to occur.

4. Your perception of a world is the level of your mind where the error seems to occur. The personal mind is like God’s Mind in that it believes in what is in it. You cannot find your own way out of a fearful world because you made it and your belief in it makes it your “reality”. But from the Holy Spirit’s point of view the purpose of the world that you perceive is to correct your perception of separation from God.

5. All forms of fear are not real because they do not come from God. Your perception of separation from God is corrected by questioning whether what you believe in is One with God. This is how your experience of the miracle helps you sort out the false from the true:

God’s Love undoes fear.

If you experience fear

Then you are not experiencing God’s Love.

And:

Only God’s Love is Real.

If you experience fear

Then you are experiencing an illusion.

You only need to accept this to be free of fear, lack, and limitation. Only God’s Love can undo fear.

7. Distortions of Miracle Impulses

1. Your perception of yourself as a body makes it hard for you to be aware of God’s Love within you. Your desire to physically “love” another is a distortion of your desire to experience God’s Oneness. Real pleasure can come only from extending God’s Love. When you don’t extend God’s Love you deny that you are One with God and you validate your illusion of a personal self that is separate from God. But extending God’s Love corrects this misperception. You will never be at Peace using a body to try to be whole.

2. Do not forget that you are One with God and that only God can satisfy you. For a while you must extend God’s Love through a body because you are not yet aware enough of your Oneness with God to see beyond it. The only real use the body has is as a learning device through which you learn to remember that you are One with God.

3. Your perception of yourself as separate from God - a personal self in a body within a world - is a distortion of your mind; a fantasy. Your reactions and actions in the world that you perceive stem from your unawareness that it is a fantasy. This fantasy, which includes the fantasies that you have in the world and recognize as such, are attempts to satisfy the false needs that have arisen from your sense of separation from God. They are destructive in nature because they are an attempt to undo Reality but they are real only to you who make them and believe in them. If you extend God’s Love instead of the fantasy of separation the experience of the miracle will be real to you because you will believe in it. Your belief in it will strengthen God’s Love in your total awareness. Your fantasies will fall away as the satisfying nature of God’s Love will make fantasies unnecessary. God is lost to you as you try to make another reality and defend it. As long as you believe in personal selves and bodies you will think that you are lost to God. Your only real goal is to extend God everywhere.

(Here, at the end of this first chapter, the Text diverges from its above topic to discuss the importance of these early concepts)[2].

4. This is a course in mind training and it requires attention and study. It is important to carefully study the concepts in these earlier parts because later parts will rest on them. These early concepts will imply things to you that will be expanded on later but first you need an awareness of God’s Love to undo your fear of what is to come.

5. You have a tendency to fear God as something separate from you rather than to know God as the Whole of Which you are Part. So it is important to lay down a solid foundation of trust so that you do not fear God. Your experience of God’s Love undoes fear because the miracle reminds you that you are One with God. Some later steps of this course will involve your direct approach to God and you need the experience of miracles to prepare you for this. It is your awareness of your Oneness with God that heals your mind. This is what this course explains. You might occasionally experience this Oneness through direct revelation with God but to bring your Oneness with God into your full awareness you need to experience the miracle.

You use spirituality as your drug,

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You can experience this pain as a longing for God, putting that God
outside of yourself and giving him/her responsibility for your life.
You use spirituality as your drug, as an avoidance, to deny your
feelings, your reality. You can space out on it.

You use spirituality as your drug, as an avoidance, to deny your
feelings, your reality. You can space out on it.