Urban Mystik

Ruper Sheldrake on the failure of materialism

2011-11-20T08:48:00.001Z

This is taken from the Centre for Process Studies

Tolle

2011-06-15T23:29:00.002+01:00

It seems that ET comes from what could more widely be labelled The Advaitist tradition (Advaita = not-two) or non dualist tradition. There is a NEO-advaitist tradition* which has developed recently which parallels remarkably the conflict that Christians know as law verses grace. The old Advaitist tradition seemed to advocate various disciplines and meditations etc which would eventually lead the seeker into a deeper experience of 'being, consciousness, bliss' (or sat-chit-ananda). However, contrary to this the NEO-advaitist claimed that none of these works were necessary ... ALL IS FREELY GIVEN NOW IN THIS MOMENT. We need to be nowhere else other than where we are now to be in possession of / possessed by all that God is and has for us. This caused quite a stir to those who had practised disciplines year in year out and claimed to be adepts / gurus and suchlike!

And so today Christians are going through the same conflict which the early church went through - that of works versus grace. Furthermore the church struggles also with a highly intellectualised or sentimentalised form of Christian works. We qualify ourselves by our mental assent to certain well chosen biblical passages and judge others to be Christian proportional to their agreement with those biblical principals we deem to be most important from the Bible. Others make the most of their experience to the extent that they measure the authenticity of others accordingly. This is to me just another form of WORKS which we are imposing upon others to give us personal self righteous leverage.
Let me quote from Roy Hession's book 'We would see Jesus':

"The whole essence of grace is that it is undeserved. The moment we have to do something to make ourselves more acceptable to God, or the moment we have to have a certain feeling or attribute of character in order to be blessed of God, then grace is no more grace. Grace permits us to come (nay, demands that we come) as empty sinners to be blessed, empty of right feelings, good character, and satisfactory record, with nothing to commend ourselves but our deep need, fully and frankly acknowledged."

The question is this: Is it at all possible that a person can have a pure experience of Jesus Christ and pure devotion to Jesus Christ without having any doctrinal stance whatsoever neither any emphasis on 'experience' (even to the extent as with St John of the Cross the denying of experience for the sake of pure faith - which would be another 'work';o)?? His/her only spiritual position would be an ego-less service of devoted love to others and all things in surrender to that which is now. In Christian terms it would be surrender to the Father manifesting the self sacrificing love of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

If the answer to my question is yes - then I would heartily recommend Tolle’s books which seek to steer the reader in the way of neo-advaitist Christian grace.

For a defence of the Neo Advaitist trad: http://urbangurucafe.com/
For some arguements against: http://batgap.com/ (The interviewer Mr Archer often probes to see whether the interviewee ridicules unnecessary effort towards 'enlightenment')

Further thoughts on the Non-dualistic position

2010-05-19T20:57:00.002+01:00

Non-dualism valuable but not ultimate
To the Buddhist and to many Christians influenced by esoteric ways of thinking 'non-dualism' (or 'and/also' as opposed to 'either/or' thinking) is an ultimate goal. To me from a Christian perspective non-dualism is not an end in itself but a means to a higher calling. I refer not to our ultimate end after death or in the Apostle Paul’s words “The mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”. I refer to our calling here on earth. A passage which comes to mind in this context is that of the experience of the 3 disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration - the great mystical experience of seeing the transformed Jesus was immediately contrasted by what followed - a (dualistic) confrontation with the demonised child. This seems to be also how Jesus operated. He came as a light shining in the darkness and the darkness was not able to contain it. Spending time with his Father was the source of His power to do his His will and advance His kingdom. (the Lords prayer). Jesus was acting out an aware dualism due to his time with God his Father and this too is the Christian calling.
Onenesswith God not equivalent to non-dualism
I’m not sure if oneness with God is identical with the non-dual way of thinking. It does not seem to me to be how Jesus viewed it - his praying and fellowship with God seemed to not be reducible to an internal impersonal enlightenment but more an objective personal relationship with a God who was ‘out there’. Perhaps that is why we have recorded in scripture an external voice saying 'This is my Son in whom I am well pleased' also at the Mount of transfiguration and at our Lord’s baptism. I’m sure non-dualism was an important aspect of Jesus thinking which we should recapture but to extrapolate it to being equivalent to our ultimate end or goal seems to be overdoing it a bit. Non dualism was made for man not man for non-dualism. Whatever unity with God means it will transcend and eclipse any concept we can come up with that relates to our internal experience. From a biblical viewpoint it will be personal – we will see Him and be like Him which is our Christian hope (1 John 3).
Grace the foundation of relationship with God
This leads to my other point in that the Trinitarian relationship towards which we are called through Jesus and his Cross allows for objectivity and reciprocal relationship available to the poor and the outcast, the afflicted and the powerless through grace. This is a far cry from the elitism of higher consciousness implied by Ken Wilber’s Integral Model. I am sure I would be placed well down the scale.
Christianity more suitable for proactive Love
I believe that Buddhists are seeking to move away from a more passive state. However as much as I know about western Buddhism and modern esoteric teachers we are to love unitively loving you as me because I am one with evrything - there are no (dualistic) distinctions - just perfect oneness. As with her relationship with God the Christian’s love has to do with loving the other who is different from me. The one is subjective and unitive embracing isness, the other embracing 'otherness' and difference. Some have said that love can only exist if there is another to love – hence the Trinity. Perhaps it is for this reason that Buddhism tends towards introspection, quietism, divine egoism and social indifference But by insisting on the transcendence of God (the qualitative distinction between divine and human) we get wonder, astonishment, fear and trembling, curiosity, moral and political adventure, righteous indignation and social justice – Christianity.

Richard Rhor (2) - "The Naked Now" - Dualism. Ken Wilber insufficient

2010-05-13T23:47:00.002+01:00

I have further thoughts also about the dualist/non-dualist dualism! I think Richard R is being very fair and wise in the way he chooses his words. He recognises duality thinking to be something that has been very beneficial to our culture: P32 - "Binary thinking is not wrong or bad in itself. In fact it is necessary in many if not most situations..". Also he is willing to own his own tendencies towards such ways of thinking (p40).
JESUS AND NON-DUALISTIC THINKING
The values of non-dualistic thinking are evident in his experience. It is also evident in some of the teaching of Jesus in the gospels that He is non-dualistic. The one that stands out for me is the fact that when he was challenged with questions (perhaps at the attempt to control) Jesus simply answered with another question perhaps switching the balance of power or simply refusing to be forced in the 'either/or' way of thinking. I love it!

JESUS AND DUALISTIC THINKING
However on page 32 RR goes on to say that dualistic thinking is "completely inadequate for the major questions and dilemmas of life" but in my mind this is precisely where Jesus comes down strongest on the dualistic side. To deny this would be to do the gospels a great injustice. The idea of conflict is central to the life of Jesus. Again this is not to devalue non-binary thought but if we reduce the life and teaching of Jesus to it exclusively it would be too simplistic and convenient. Reading the gospels is an untidy business and in them non dualism and dualism rest side by side.

INTEGRAL LIFE
Integral Life and the likes seem to say anything that purports to be anything less than unitive (non-dualistic) is of a lower order
I quote from a post on Integral Life:
The Wilber Integral Vision is generally good at seeing different traditions in their own terms and integrating them through a pluralistic/aperspectival vision or seeing how they fit via "orienting generalization", to the larger model. However this model is biased towards non-dual traditions which are radically apophatic, causing blind spots in looking at traditions which are not. The outcome is, that Wilber's Vision seeks out the spiritual representatives in each tradition which confirm his model, and writes off the ones that don't as simply being "lower" on the color scale (e.g. they may be authentic representatives of a tradition, but at a lower level, then this enlightened fellow whose model we are endorsing). This means that the Wilber model sets up a perspective which is not questioned, but used to evaluate all other traditions. This can lead to a type of Integral Facism! (we the elite understand you, you must grow according to our model).

ABSOLUTE DUALISM
I put forward the idea that non-dual consciousness is not an end but a means to something higher to which Jesus, His teaching and life call us. He calls us to a new type of dualism - an absolute dualism. A relative dualism is one that consists of equal and opposites but an absolute dualism is one where one side of the dual is superior. Through Jesus light conquers darkness, Life conquers death, Love conquers hatred. How? Through the Cross where Love non-dualistically absorbs the hatred and in so doing overcomes it dualistically! In the Cross the dichotomy between the two ways of thinking is transcended through this Absolute dualism.

Just a thought but in my mind Centering prayer is not to lead us ultimately to a passive state of acceptance most perfectly symbolised by the inward looking of the Buddha important as this is. The symbol of Christianity is the Cross – The symbol of the agonising Saviour-God reaching out to embrace a suffering world in love. Whilst we accept the injustices of the world as the ‘way of it’ we are to be those who do not leave it there but in the spirit of love go out and make a difference pro-actively which I am sure many of you are doing so much more than I. The negative side of dualistic thinking, for the purposes of his argument, has been adequately documented by RR. However, so much has been and is being accomplished by the Church and that not necessarily by those who hold exclusively to the non-dualistic mindset.

skyyyy

2010-04-29T16:09:00.002+01:00

Intimacy v Scientific separation

2010-04-25T20:58:00.005+01:00

The western scientific world view does not lend itself to participation/intimacy with God. It needs to separate in order to observe. Behind this we can detect the need to control. Theologically I understand the Desert Fathers went to the desert to continue in their relational/participational interpretation of the Trinity rather than formulating doctrines. The Trinity was not to be understood through analysis and categorisation but through participation and relationship. Their theology was not conceptual but relationally intuitive and thus was best defined by how they lived their lives as a result.(Karen Armstrong’s book 'The case for God' I found very informative on this)
At the other end of the timeline (I'm no scientist) I understand that advances have been made in quantum physics - the study of subatomic particles. All sorts of weird things happen on that level that indicate intelligence and relationship between observer and the observed.
If we are not careful we can be so non-dualistic that we reject dualism to the extent that we have created another dualism! ... After all any 'non'-anything is potentially creating duality. OAnother way of puuting it may be "We can be right in that which we affirm and wrong in that which we deny". We are right in affirming the non-dual dynamic participation in God but wrong as a consequence in denying the value of scientific observation even if it merely serves to show its limitations and its existential emptiness in order that we may explore the ways that invite the dimensions of intimacy.
Truly we all long for intimacy and Centering Prayer is that consenting to the activity of God's presence within. In so doing the false self must surrender to the Cross. Awakened by His risen power we are empowered to love and to serve.
And it is not our doing but we are being 'done unto' and He gets the glory!

Richard Rhor - "The Naked Now" - Movement and Stillness

2010-04-24T19:46:00.005+01:00

On page 23 of Richard Rohr's book "The Naked Now" “God becomes more of a verb than a noun, more a process than a conclusion, more a personal relationship” (ref a message by RR on the Trinity)
This has been reminding me of some thoughts I have had recently about prayer being a dynamic participation with a Living God. We all instinctively relate contemplative prayer with stillness and there has been at least within me the intention of looking for that ‘still point’. However in prayer we are entering into ‘perichoresis’ (“ dance around") of the Trinity and therefore also entering into movement - a self emptying movement (kenosis). This became very clear when I heard a message by Cynthia Bourgeault on Kenosis as well as reading her books. My intention now in prayer is not static or containable but to, in the stillness, recognise ‘not the noun but the verb’ and 'not the conclusion but the process’ referred to by RR. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 46 ‘Be still and know that I am God’ indicating stillness ... yet earlier on there is the verse that says ‘There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God’ indicating movement. Furthermore on reading TS Eliot’s ‘Burnt Norton’ from the 4 quartets he says so brilliantly ...

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.

And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.

The inner freedom from the practical desire,

The release from action and suffering, release from the inner

And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded

By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving ....

In the mind of God stillness and movement are not opposites but are held together in a way only He can do!
Praise Him!

Psalm 131 - Resting like a child in the arms of God

2010-04-09T22:00:00.002+01:00

My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.

We have just had the addition of Lola to our family … the image of a baby with mother is clear in my mind. In the first month I saw her about 4 times. She did not open her eyes and she looked so peaceful in the arms of mother. To her nothing else existed and nothing else mattered … and so this verse causes me to think that in some way that is to be an important aspect of my relationship with God. The Greek word for that early need of affection is ‘Storge’. Here is a description from C.S.Lewis book “Four Loves”
Storge ... ‘affection, especially of parents to offspring’; but also of offspring to parents. And that, I have no doubt, is the original form of the thing as well as the central meaning of the word. The image we must start with is that of a mother nursing a baby, a bitch or a cat with a basketful of puppies or kittens; all in a squeaking, nuzzling heap together; purrings, lickings, baby-talk, milk, warmth, the smell of young life.
Herbert Ratner, M.D. tells us:
Research shows that the newborn is responsive to the face from birth. The response is initially elicited by the eyes and forehead, and subsequently, by the full face. This coincides with the focal length of the newborn's vision which is about nine inches, a measure that approximates the distance from the baby at the breast to the mother's eyes and face. In contrast to the perceptual ability of primates whose young are mobile and clinging, the eyes of the immobilized infant, during the early months of nursing, are steadily fixed on the mother's face. When the Psalmist pleads to God to turn His "shining face" upon him, he echoes the acceptance the nursling seeks from its mother, its source of security.
The infant's need to be held, carried and comforted bespeaks the woman's cradling arms, arms that contrast significantly with the throwing arms of the male. The difference is not only evident in sports, but is even seen in the way children carry their books: boys at their sides; girls in front of them with flexed arms. The girls' inclinations to encircle and encompass foretells the future cradling of the nursling close to the heart and breast of an initiation of a bosom friendship.
Now, I am aware that the idea of ‘weaned’ implies a weaning away from the mothers breast but I feel a liberty to see in this the image of a child at its mother’s breast.
PHYSICAL BUSY-NESS
‘I have stilled and quieted myself my soul’ … Whereas the baby has no choice in the matter we have a responsibility to still and quieten our soul … but we find it so hard to rest in God in such a way.
‘Be still and know that I am God’ says the psalmist. First of all there is a physical element in this. We can be so busy – we need to simply sit down and be still – have some time out. We can be so busy as though our lives depended on it. If we are not busy our lives have can have no meaning. Our identity can be wrapped up in our work which is fine until we retire or are made redundant … but then we soon find things to fill the time … keep our selves busy. We don’t find the idea of ‘stillness in God’s presence’ very appealing. Praying is hard enough but at least it has some purpose! Working for God is sometimes so much easier than resting in Him. Perhaps that is why he has to allow us to get to such a point. We do well to take heed to the saying: “Some desert the saviour and enter his service instead”.
“We have forgotten how to exist – to be – we can only think about being.”
MENTAL BUSY-NESS
But maybe yes we have lost our energies we do get weary ... the truth is we do spend a lot more time being still physically resting. … but OUR MINDS are so busy … there is so much mental noise. Far from being still in Gods ‘present – ness’ our minds are either reliving the past which is unreal because it is now only an interpretation of the past … or racing ahead into the future … it can be very subtle but I know a person who was so irritated by the person they worked with in the office that even before the workday had begun his predictions based upon past experience almost made it a self fulfilling prophecy. He was living in the past experience which so coloured his present he could see things in no other way until the light dawned and he realised that each day was new in the presence of God and he discovered that things were not bad at all with that person – he had created accumulatively … so our past can so often control our lives that we are no longer living in the present and the love that is contained therein.
SPIRITUAL BUSY-NESS
But perhaps I am being unfair there are those who spend a lot of time in study and in thought about God and Scripture … Still I would say there is room to simply put all that to one side so we can say: But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
Remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees “…you diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”(J 5:38) John Wimber after giving a sermon was shaking hands at the door. A lady shook his hand and waved a piece of paper up in the air saying, “I’ve got the notes!”. “Poor lady” thought Wimber,” She ate the menu but missed the meal”. So our academic readings and knowledge of the Bible are no substitute for an intimate resting in God. Reading the Bible is good but it can be so conceptual and fail to take us to the place of intimacy with God. We need to learn to be like a little child again.

Cataphatic Apophatic a healthy mix

2010-04-08T09:54:00.001+01:00

Perhaps the distinction between the two is unnecessary but for academic purposes some like myself like the distinction as it relates to prayer. Basically apophatic approaches to prayer are more contemplative including alot of silence and appreciation of God who transcends the limitations of rational thought. Cataphatic is more related to what is called discursive prayer which is verbal and involves rational thought. Because of the over heavy leaning of our western culture towards cleverness and headiness it is natural for a spiritual seeker to gravitate at least at some part of her spiritual life towards the apophatic prayer. however when the dust is settled we realise it is unnecessary to put one against the other but rather to value both as important aspects of prayer. One informs the other. we need to think about the fact that God is bigger than we can imagine. We need to think about who it is we believe in. we need to recognise that worship does include our mind. Conversely we need also to take one step back and in awe and wonder recognise Go's transcendence. After a little excursion away from the Cataphatic I am now seeing its value and have decided to incorporate it (if I had ever really not) into my daily prayer life and not regard it as something inferior. Most 'sensible' people probably do both without realising it. It is only the anal types such as myself who feel the need to make these distinctions!

Maximus the Confessor Apophasis and the Incarnation

2010-04-07T14:51:00.001+01:00

I am reading at the moment a book by Andrew Louth on Maximus the Confessor a 6th century Eastern Orthodox Monk. I was interested in a reference to him by Karen Armstrong in her recent book 'The case for God'. As with these things one discovers so much more in the process. However the particular piece of content I have found in the introduction and look forward to more detail in Max's writings themselves. It is basically his use of the term 'apophatic' as it relates to the incarnation.
Apophatic Theology is also known as Negative Theology - basically it is discovering God through negation. So if for instance I said "God is great" I would then say "yes but not great in the way we limited humans could understand it. think of the greatest thing you can ... He is not that ... so Yes He is great but not in the way we can conceptualise it". by negating the concepts we hold in our minds about God we draw closer to His reality through our intuition.
But ... who would have used the incarnation as illustrative of Apophasis? Isn't the fact that Jesus became flesh distinctly cataphatic (Which is the opposite of the apophatic - ie a conceptual tangible approach to the understanding of God)?? Well no according to Maximus.
So God becoming man is a further demonstration of his transesnsational uncontainable unknowableness! How interesting! How breathtaking! The closer God comes to us the more uncontainable He becomes to our rational minds! Another great paradox.
So how does Max come to this?
Well first of all the reason he is looking into this is because he is wrestling with a poem by a Desert Dude called Gregory of Nazianzus who uses the term 'play' for the nature of Jesus Christ ... Is He God or Man? Well says Greg its a kind of paradoxical movement between both Deity and Manhood. Whereas language of apophatic and cataphatic theology is a way of classifying our knowledge of God, for Maximus it is used in relation to the Incarnation. "To ascribe ‘play’ to God is already to embark on apophatic theology, for it is only by denial, Maximus asserts, that play can be ascribed to God."
Max gives the example of the term used by the Apostle Paul 'foolishness of God' (1 Corinthians 1) Here is an example of apophatic theology in that any privation of something which is considered as favourable to man must be apophatic in that it is clearly refering to excess. Foolishness of God is a contradistinction to the wisdom of man which is as good as saying it transcends the human conceptualisation of wisdom.
So back to the incarnation. In the same way Max refers to the word 'play' used by Greg. The act of God becoming man using the term 'play' is apophatic.
Andrew Louth goes on to say that the Incarnation seen from the Divine side (John 1:1) vears towards the apophatic spiritual theological view of the Trinity and from the human side (John 1:14) towards the fleshly cataphatic side ... this reflects a patristic distinction between the theology (Doctrine of the Trinity) and economy (Doctrine of Gods dealings with the world) of God.
So 'play' = dynamic incarnation reality = apophatic
but broken down to the term of God becoming flesh = cataphatic.
but ... in His origin as Word wrt the Trinity = apophatic.
Anyone reading this may be slightly confused but at least it may get you thinking as it has me!

Rob Bell - Resurrection

2010-04-04T13:07:00.002+01:00

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

Ken Wilber - The Great Search

2010-04-03T13:28:00.003+01:00

I read an article on the Integral Life Website which is a portion from a book by Ken Wilber. In it he makes the statement that “The Great Search is the great enemy of what is”. To be searching implies that “you have not got” so to be in a searching mode you never actually arrive. It is only when you stop the search you begin to realise all you need is all you have and all you are. There is no longer any separation – no dualism – just being and connecting with all that there is. “This realization undoes the Great Search that is the heart of the separate-self sense.” This realisation affects our relationship with all that ‘is’ around us: ”… you simply are the mountain, you are the sky, you are the clouds, you are everything that is arising moment to moment, very simply, very clearly, just so.”
This is great stuff and a much needed call to awareness and to the present moment in which we become conscious of our aliveness and the goodness of all that is. It also helps us to come to terms with the pain we suffer as we in the words of Byron Katie ‘Love what is’.
As an addition and further development of these thoughts I would like to consider some words that Jesus is recorded to have said “Seek and you shall find”. In this case it is quite clear that seeking is a favourable thing and certainly not seen to be an enemy. Admittedly Ken uses the word ‘search’ and not ‘seek’ but I do not think this matters. The Greek meaning for this word ‘seek’ is actually in the present-continuous-imperative … literally ‘Seek and keep on seeking’. Sadly our own language does not have such verb distinctions so we often miss it in translation. I believe that a good interpretation of the passage above would be ‘As you keep on seeking you will keep on finding’ or conversely ‘The moment we stop seeking is the moment we stop finding’ … almost like saying the moment the water stops flowing out the water stops flowing in. It seems in this context the enemy is quite the opposite of seeking. It is FINDING! … because once you have found you have stopped seeking and therefore you no longer are finding … Yo! Well actually to be more precise it is not the finding but the grasping that is the problem ... finding is perfectly acceptable provided we do not seek to possess what we find for then we have returned to the egoic as our centre. There is a dynamic in Jesus view of God not dissimilar to the concept the Desert Fathers had in their perception of the Trinity in the word perichoresis which means to dance around … one part of the Trinity flows into the other in continuity … a constant movement. Another popular word used is self emptying the Greek word being “Kenosis” used once by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippian Church where he says Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but (Kenosis) emptied himself. So as long as the seeking/ finding dynamic keeps moving all is well but as soon as egoic grasping and spiritual possessiveness kicks in there we have our “enemy”.
So it seems that another dualism is broken by Jesus – that is the dualism of seeking and having by making them dynamically mutually co-existent. Ken Wilber has created a dualism where there does not need to be.
“Should we simply cease the search?” Asks Ken. I would agree and answer” No”, but for a different reason. In Jesus teaching we do not have to. The activity of searching is accommodated for and anticipated by Spirit which pre-empts our searching. The moment of searching is the moment of finding.
Instead of saying the Great Search presumes the loss of God I would say the Finding of God Assumes or even CONsumes the great search.
Ken is left with the meaninglessness of all the effort made through prayer and other disciplines. If God is immediately present any act of seeking is perpetuating the lie that He is not. Eckhart Tolle perpetually makes reference to wasted effort in attempting to attain to that which is already here present in this moment. Ken’s argument is that the only use of such discipline is that it ‘speeds up the folly’ but surely better still not to enter the folly – let’s throw all the millennia of spiritual seeking away as one big collective enemy. However if we take the kenotic view above we find that we don’t have to because the seeking is the finding ... there is no dualism here.

Welcoming Prayer

2010-03-31T00:20:00.000+01:00

It has been my first day without pain killers for my recently poorly back. I entered into centering prayer tonight and knowing that it is important not to allow physical sensations to distract, when the backpains started I almost gave up. Shifting from one position to the next was just not working! However the idea of "Welcoming Prayer" came to me. Basically it involves first entering into a feeling or emotion you wish to release from and then welcoming it. After moving from one to stage to the other the last stage is to let go of the desire for security, approval and control and finally the desire to change the situation as it is. (Cynthia Bourgeault excellently devotes a whole chapter to this in her book 'Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening' she sums up the process thus: 1:Focus & Sink In 2:welcome 3: Let go)
I decided to apply this to my backache. I focussed on the pain and welcomed it ocscillating between these two stages. At times feeling the pain without qualifying it as good or bad took the sting out of it. In the letting go I focussed specifically on the letting go of the desire to change the situation. In short a total acceptance of the discomfort which I felt prompted to use as my 'Sacred Word' (please note this is not a mantra but a word which simply is used to return to Centering Prayer when the mind has strayed - nothing more than that)*. Using this as my sacred word to return to His Presence was quite enlightening.
This welcoming prayer gesture being at the same moment the essence of my participation with presence seemd to mirror if not participate in the same spirit with which Jesus approached the Cross. The Central core of this specific time was an acceptance of pain which when let go of became the entry point of a deep participation of Jesus acceptance of the Cross at Gethsemene - 'Not my will but thine be done'.
Did the back ache ease or go? At times. In fact the 20 mins seemed to rush by but that was not the issue - one cannot at one and the same time welcome something and want it to go away. However it does raise the issue taht much of our suffering is caused by not accepting things as they are - being at odds with that which 'is'.

*The sacred word expresses our intention to be in God’s presence and to yield to the divine action (T K)

Centering Prayer - Letting go of thoughts

2010-03-29T21:45:00.002+01:00

When I release my feeble sense of what I feel or what I think I should feel and the limited thoughts I have and every other scattered thought - not that I can 'get rid' of thoughts - but when I allow them to be as something other - detached from these things then His presence becomes all that there is. All I have left is my consent to His activity within - but what does that mean? whatever i think it means I let go of and allow Him to interpret what He means by it. Jesus in me surrendering to the will of God ... 'Not my will but Thy will be done' ... I am taken up into the Kenotic movement of the Triune God ...there is nothing that we surrender that He does not more than compensate for either im-mediately or in greater measure further down the line.

2010-03-22T14:58:00.003Z

Springtide

DRUPAL converting an existing Dreamweaver CS3 website into a Drupal website.

2009-10-29T15:04:00.009Z

Well - for my own benefit I am creating a Drupal blog. I know this has very little to do with spirituality but it serves as a reminder of the progressive steps to achieve a Content Management System(CMS) run website.

This particular venture is actually converting an already existent website (www.ctiscarborough.org.uk) into a website which can be managed independently of the designer. I have decided not to use a given theme but to start from scratch.

So here goes ......

STEP 1: Download Wampserver so I have a local server. Follow instructions and it all sets up easily.

STEP 2: Download a version of Drupal. I have decided to download from Acquia (http://acquia.com/downloads) as this is run by the founder of Drupal and also I understand it has 'waytogo' provisions and grouped modules which I have not fully grasped but will serve me in the months ahead!

STEP 3: Unzip the Drupal Core into the www folder of the Wampserver folder (C Drive)

STEP 4: Click the wampserver icon PHPmyAdmin and create a 'drupal' database.

STEP 5: Click the localhost DRupal site appears and follow through instructions..

STEP 6: Clean URL's ... if this does not show as an option. Check the Apache httpd.conf file and un-comment: "LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so"

STEP 7: In the folder: www/sites/all/ create a folder called 'themes'.

STEP 8: In the folder 'themes' create a folder called (in this case) ctis. Your folder would be the name of your site so if I use ctis in future replace it with the name of your site.

STEP 9: Create an .info file ... copy the contents of the 'garland' info and exchange the word 'Garland' for 'ctis' save in the ctis folder.

STEP 10: Take the index.html and copy it into ctis file and change it to 'page.tpl.php'

STEP 11: copy also into the ctis the css file but change that to 'style.css'

STEP 12: Open up localhost on browser by clicking the white semi circle in the bottom right of screne ... check in 'themes' and locate 'ctis' and make it the default theme ... save. Now the index page of your original site appears as localhost in Drupal via the local server you have set up through wamp.

++++++++++This is where the fun begins +++++++++++++++

STEP 13: Create more pages... the about , events etc: Admin>Create Content>Page . Note Menu Link Title = same as you want the nav tab to look like. Title = What will appear on the top of the page. Primary link has been chosen as this will fit with Drupals default placing of a top horizontal navigation menu. What a joyful surprise it was to me that the default Drupal html for this navigation structure is an unordered list(ul). Therefore since I placed the primary navigation Drupal variable within the divs for my original navigation the css picked up the same code ... lo and behold the tabs appeared as the original straight away! Before putting content into the page make sure Input Options = Full html. Then copy and paste the full html from the original page into the body section.

Step 14 From then onwards it is a case of puuting your html into each relevant page and checking to see what it looks like. If any CSS needed is from other style sheets slip it into the styles (Drupal default). I use Firefox addon Firebug which can help you locate any styling problems by locating which style refers to which item in the original and making sure it is being applied to the new Drupal version of the website.

Step 15 Images .... of course jpegs and gifs etc were probably in an 'images' file in the original website. Unless these are placed in the correct file they will not show on the new Drupal site. You can upload these by enabling the optional core module 'Upload' which will then show up in the 'file attachments' section underneath the body section where code and content is placed. I have found that this is unnecesary because you can do this manually by simply finding the file it uploads to which is the sites/default/files folder in my case. However there is the option to allow the users browser to download the file if the module upload is enabled above which the path of the pic is indicated to help you locate for manual linking. So it is simply a matter wherever you have a link of say img src="images/ pic.jpg" to change it to img src="/sites/default/files/pic.jpg" (not forgetting the first forward slash) provided you have placed or the image uploader has placed the image in /sites/default/files.

Step 16 SPRY ... well SPRY is another form of AJAX. I used it to create this page. Drupal uses jQuery which is similar. I struggled and went round the houses thinking that I had some imagined problem of Drupal not being compatable with Spry and no-one as yet having created a module for it. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. It is again a simple case of copy and pasting all the javascript and html into the Drupal page content and making sure all links have been corrected and files uploaded. XML files go in (my case) the upload target of sites/default. In my case links to images within the XML file had to be changed. All .js files refering to the Spry framework (eg xpath.js / SpryEffects.js / SpryAccordian.js etc) used in the original html have to be placed in the /sites/default/files. In my case all my Spry was created through Dreamweaver CS3 so .js files are bundled together in the 'SpryAssets' folder. By dragging the whole folder into the default file the link would be /sites/default/files/SpryAssets. IF YOU HAVE PATIENTLY ADJUSTED RELEVANT LINKS AND MOVED THE RELEVANT FILE ALL SHOULD BE WELL BUT 2 MORE THINGS:
1) Using Dreamweaver Spry uses different css files for its design ... these have to be copy and pasted into styles.css for the correct formatting to take place.
2) ... It is important to enable the PHP module and enable the input format under site configuration to allow for PHP. Tags used in AJAX/ SPRY are such that the enabling of the PHP module will allow their usage.

Lost Generation

2009-10-13T10:37:00.002+01:00

Excellent stuff ... pass it on!

eckhart tolle and jesus

2009-10-07T12:43:00.003+01:00

It seems that Eckhart Tolle compared to many of today's esoteric teachers is most influenced by Jesus Christ. Even his name was changed from Ulrich Leonard to Eckhart Tolle after Meister Eckhart a 13th century Christian German Mystic. In his recent book "A new Earth" there are 29 references to Jesus and one to the Apostle Paul. This in itself is quite a decisive measuring stick as to where a Christian may place ET on the Liberal / Conservative spectrum. ET clearly makes no reference to the Pauline theological view of salvation but lays much more emphasis on the teaching of Jesus. It is not his death and resurrection but his teaching in the gospels that Tolle uses in this book. The term 'Salvation' is not used in relation to a moral infringement of God's law but rather the liberation from the 'egoic self' and it is not through the death and resurrection of Jesus that this salvation is procured but rather through a shift in perception from unconsciousness to consciousness. Like I said the Christian vewpoint you hold will determine how much you can adopt the teaching of ET. Two extremes can be seen when we look at Father Richard Rohr and The Moody Church. Father Richard Rohr has just brought a book out called 'The Naked Now' which I am still reading (see my google books in the sidebar) I hope to do a write up on it. Richard mentions Tolle quite alot and it is good to find a book that is up to date enough to include him. Furthermore he has also published a defence of ET here. On the other end of the spectrum we have the Moody church check this out.
The thing about ET is that he manages to describe an approach to personal spiritual growth which hitherto Christians had claimed for themselves and only through the help of Jesus. Tolle seems to bypass the need for salvation in its most conservative form to produce the same results at least in terms of how one relates to self others and the world. The Present Moment takes the place of the Cross. For the Christian it is the Cross that eliminates the self. 'I am crucified with Christ' says the Apostle Paul 'Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ lives in me'. For ET it is the Present Moment. He claims that the egoic self (which is to the Christian the "old life", the "flesh", or the "self life") draws its strength from thought forms which are related to past achievements or future dreams. The NOW which transcends thought form and is not perceptible through the egoic mind thus frees us from the self in that it disconnects us from past and future wherein the egoic mind draws its strength. (I guess one question is: 'Does the egoic self have to be solely related to past or future? ... or cannot the egoic mind still operate in the immediate present?') If the Christian would wish to join hands with ET he could argue that the NOW (or The Present Moment) is identical to the Cross in how it relates to the self or the egoic mind. In a Cross like way it pierces vertically through the horizontal layer of time thus bringing consciousness / salvation. Of course this negates any real purpose of the sufferings of Jesus Christ. Why bother to die for our sins (our egoic mindset) if a simple repose in the NOW would suffice? The only reference I have found by ET regarding the Cross is in a transcript from an interview with Oprah winfrey in her book club:

I'd like to share with you something, I had an insight some years ago, I was walking in England into a village church. It was all very quiet. I was the only person in that 600-year-old church, and I saw the cross and the altar and Jesus on the cross. And this is an image that we are so used to, we don't question it, but at that moment, I saw it as if I had just arrived on this planet and had never seen it before. And I was struck by the strangeness of that symbol. And I looked, there's a suffering human being in agony on this cross. And at the same time, there was another cross without Jesus on it, and I saw this golden cross was the same cross. That cross that is the torture instrument is at the same time a symbol for the divine. And suddenly I saw a very deep significance in that that can be appreciated and recognized, I believe, by anybody, even in they are not Christians. Jesus on the cross stands for humanity. Jesus represents every human being that has ever lived or will ever live. Jesus represents something that is part of the human condition, and this—what he experienced at that moment, I saw when I was looking at the cross in the church, I saw that what this represents is a human being who experiences an extreme form of limitation. He's totally unfree, totally limited, in deep suffering, and, at the same time, the words are suddenly remembered from what is said on the cross, "Not my will, but thy will be done." And that was the act of complete acceptance of suffering. He went to the depths of suffering and then totally accepted suffering. And through this total acceptance of suffering, sudden transmutation happened, and the very torture instrument, the cross that had produced the suffering, was transformed and became a symbol for the divine. And that explained the paradox that I had seen when I went into that church as if I had never been to a church before and I saw, how can the torture instrument at the same time be a symbol of the divine? And so in every human being's life, every human being will experience some form of suffering, sometimes very intense.

I will stop here and continue later .....

intentionally a piece of cake ...

2009-09-29T13:50:00.002+01:00

What is the difference between Centering Prayer and other forms of prayer? I continue the struggle of maintaining a clear view of Christian distinctiveness when it comes to the mystical experience and the approach to prayer but I'm getting there. Thomas Keating in his book "Intimacy with God" distinguishes the usage of a sacred word or a sacred symbol from other Eastern Methods. "Rather than paying attention to these symbols we use them to express our intention."... again ... "It is intentionality that distinguishes Centering Prayer from other forms of prayer" Here we have no attempt to focus attention on an object (like a flame) or to concentrate on a particular word. The usage of a sacred word is not its meaning but a simple stimulus to re-align our wills to the love of God. Here we have not a mental exercise or even an emotional experience but an exercise of the will to consent to the love of God. I find it easy to recognise an emotion and a thought but an act of or 'consent of the will' as something separate from thought, emotion or activity is a hard thing to recognise.
It all makes sense that love is essentially an act of the will. You can feel love, think love, say you love something or someone but wisdom is justified by her actions. We all know how cheap thoughts, feelings and words can be without any action to prove it. However here we are in total stillness so the only expression of the will in love is simply being in God's presence without any action. How can one discern any willfulness without action? Perhaps what is meant is this: I consent to God's love by simply allowing it to be here in this moment and simply availing myself to it as I am in this moment. No other action is suitable but non-action. This submission or consent is the essence of all true forms of Love that will follow.

fabrik8ed reality ...

2009-09-24T22:23:00.011+01:00

I read somewhere that we think on average 12,000 thoughts a day. If we are writing intensely it can be up to 25,000! Apparently over 90% are repetative and unecessary.
I have discovered that alot of thought is involved in problem solving but also distressingly it is involved in creating its own little fantasy world - imaginings, scenarios, and downright improper thoughts. The reason for this is that we are not satisfied with things as they are so we live in our own little heads to create a different reality which will stimulate us emotionally or even physically. We must make friends with the present moment if we wish to engage with reality and not only so but the present moment as it is and not the one in our own little heads! Why? What's wrong with the imagination running wild? As an escape from what is present it is merely strengthening our own ego. In which way? It is strengthening 'Control' ... to live in the Now is to become vulnerable. When we open ourselves up to what 'is' then our imaginations can be inspired and effective in the purpose of true loving being. Jesus became vulnerable so that He was responsive to the call of love from his Father. He did not strengthen his own egoic identity through controlling His own fabricated reality.

heavy mental noise ...

2009-09-11T21:02:00.013+01:00

Much of my thought life is engaged with anything but the Present Moment. There are too many extra thoughts! I have been trying to categorise them in order to recognise when I am not engaging with and simply 'being' in the Present Moment. All these thoughts clearly and not so clearly work with the false self to perpetuate an unconscious existence, an unreal world in which 'I' take centre stage caught in the autonomous (non) existence of thought forms thus robbing me of realising Essence! (What is the fall of man but the separation of Form from Essence - the loss of spirit, living in the flesh - the preoccupation with external at the expense of internal reality). So lets look at what constitutes this 'Mental Noise':

PAST RELATED:
Re-living past achievements and successes - this builds up the ego.
Re-living past failures and embarrassments - this too builds up the ego. If I cannot be important with a sense of achievement I can certainly get centre of attention with my sense of failure!

FUTURE PLANS:
Things I ought to do / Things I intend to do / Things i must not forget to do.
Projected fantasies of success
Fears of a future real or imagined event
Future Spiritual attainment ... Practicing the Present Moment as a means to an end.
INTERNAL THOUGHTS:
Fabricated Reality - little alterations to past scenarios, fantasies ...
Analytical - Introspective circular thinking. Not to be confused with observational as one recognises the false egoic self.
Problematical - the false self thrives on problems - they give it meaning.
Distracting - I'll go and eat something. I will check Facebook for the nth time!
Internal conversations - things I would say if I could.

A GENERAL SENSE OF 'I'M NOT WHERE I SHOULD BE'. Space
A GENERAL SENSE OF 'NOT HAVING WHAT I THINK I NEED TO BE MORE FULFILLED'. Possessions

All these things can be seen as a frantic attempt to keep ourselves 'alive’. We are performing a kind of juggling act wasting energy and making so much 'noise'. All the time we are robbing ourselves of true life which comes from 'quietness', 'stillness' and an 'awareness' of all that we have and are NOW. ... and in that awareness we lose ourselves in Another ... there is no room for little 'Me' in the Present Moment which is not perceived through the conceptual work of the mind but intuitively through the 'spirit'.
I thought this. imagine that you are in a noisy factory in the middle of nowhere. The noise is deafening. You decide to walk out into the open air. What a relief! The noise is there but distant and the more you engage with the quietness of 'outside' the more distant the noise becomes until eventually you are so taken up with the view and the sounds of outside the noise in the factory seems no longer to exist. However, a quick blip and you begin to hear the noise again ... the distraction becomes so irritating you decide to go back in to try to shut it off but begin to be consumed by it again. 'Whatever we resist persists' - by trying to fight against and subdue noise we increase our awareness. By allowing it to be it ceases to persist.
Father Thomas Keating said our thoughts are like noisy children in the background. When we engage in Centering Prayer we are like adults focusing outside- perhaps looking out of the window - the noise of the 'children' recedes into the background. Until eventually the children, aware of your 'awarenes' become quiet and come to join in with what you are engaged in! Focussing on the Present Moment marshalls eventually all our faculties into its own alignment. This is nothing spiritual but natural - what we do with what we have NOW in relation to God is another thing!

Lose yourself ... find Yourself!

2009-09-08T13:06:00.009+01:00

I have been snailing around listening to an interesting commentary on Tolle's 'New Earth' book on the Oprah website (forgive me -slight cringe there!) . My conclusions have been that Eckhart Tolle and many self help methods coincide most in the whole area of acceptance ... In acceptance lieth Peace. Listening to Eckhart Tolle I find myself doing what I did with the Sedona Method... taking one step back from the 'false me' (The egoic, unconscious self) thus creating 'space', recognising the 'true conscious self' from the standpoint of one observing. With this detachment which the 'space' allows I am able, from an objective standpoint, to hold lightly (accept) all the feelings/thoughts without having any attachment to them. That acceptance = release. (It took me a long time to realise that RELEASE in the SM meant to ACCEPT.) This has been a great help to me. I am also aware of how I gravitate to allowing such negatives as worry, punishing myself, and even torment at the expense of PEACE in the MOMENT. 'Why?' I ask myself. Simply because in doing so the egoic self is strengthened. The Egoic Self (or Ego or self life) uses problems to attach to and constantly wants to find some hook on which to draw energy - anything but the present moment which brings an end to my 'little story' and the ME identity I build upon it! (Thanks ET for the terminology!) I am struggling with the 'pain body' concept but I guess I'm close to some idea of it with my explanation above.

I find great similarities here with my religious experience in that for the Christian there is a 'death to the old self' through the Cross and a 'rising to new life ' through the resurrection.

My one concern is the whole matter of introspection. With alot of these ideas and methods there can be an increasing amount of 'navel gazing' perhaps symbolised by the Buddhist eyes closed looking within. I find this disconcerting as the whole process of seeking release from the egoic self can in itself 'bite you in da bum' and simply be strengthening it! The only answer I can give to this without sounding incredibly pious is having found our way to escape personal egoic caused suffering to look away from ourselves, pick up the suffering around us and with proactive compassion make a change for those powerless to help themselves - even through small acts of kindness. The ultimate goal I think of all approaches to spiritual health should be therefore to lose ourselves for the sake of others and in so doing we shall find ourselves.

(This is an adjustment to a post elsewhere)

Essence and Form

2009-09-03T09:11:00.006+01:00

Listening to more of Eckhart Tolle (ET which might be appropo!) I took on board the idea that to appreciate the essence of things we must relinquish 'labels'. I sent a post on a group I belong to thus:

I think sometimes our idea of God is deficient in terms of His greatness, and His Grace. We can never limit him within the finite restrictions of our own minds. And why do we wish to do this? For our own security and Control. If we label something we in some way possess it but we also lose the potential life we would have got from it of we had simply let it be. A walk in the park or in the countryside loses its impact because we look at a flower and say 'That is a flower' ... we have labeled it, boxed it, contained it within our conceptual framework and in so doing we have in a sense 'killed' it (we may even literally do so in order to make it our possession by plucking it and taking it home!). If we could simply like a child look at nature without labeling it - just allowing it to be we connect with it and are stimulated by it - as we do so these things never lose their vitality - we continue in praise and thanks to our creator God. And so with people - when we label them we have contained them within our conceptual framework but also the vitality we would have received otherwise is lost ... and also with our relationship with God - whatever revelations we have of Him (esp. in Centering Prayer) must be held with open hands ... not be used to analyze and contain but to let Him be. Whatever we release to Him in this way will be more than compensated for as He multiplies back to us - even if it is in the form of 'rays of darkness' ...

I shared my ideas with my good friend Ross Kendall and he disagreed and we discussed a bit. When I got home there was a response to the post. Excitedly (asudo) I opened up the mail hoping someone would affirm my erudite contribution but (asithappenz) I got this:

I'm going to pipe up here and offer a counter argument to the one presented here: From earliest times - even in the book of Genesis, God has Adam naming the animals as they are brought before him - we have had labels of all sorts for our environment. I would like to offer that it is not so much to delimit, or box, or even certainly 'kill', as to recognize that those things are particular to us in some way. When I go out into nature, first I see the beauty before me, the myriad of colors, shapes, textures, patterns, but I also find myself saying "that's a red oak, that's a swamp white oak, that's a bobolink, that's a monarch butterfly, there's a tall goldenrod" and so on. Because I have a special, even intimate, relationship with these things, I have taken the trouble to know their names, perhaps even their preferences, what they say about their habitat and all their other interconnections to other beings in nature. While his point is well taken that we also tend to 'analyze and contain' but that we must also let God (and Nature) be, I would like to assert that the process of becoming intimate with something - whether a plant, animal, person, God, idea or other thing - involves full participation in all our senses and our intellect. Our curiosity drives our interest in finding similarities, distinctions, patterns, and relationships, and this richness contains within it the seeds of letting go of all of that and seeing beyond.

What's a bobolink thought I? I realise either I'm wrong, misunderstood or ET is wrong and misunderstood .... I looked deeper into this and have given it more thought ...

If by "labeling" we mean an embracing of form without essence (The outward shell rather than the life of the thing) we can see some references in the Bible.

Jesus made the distinction between form and essence in the way we approach the scriptures:
John 5:39 You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me.

Through focussing only upon the outward form of words we rob ourselves of the essence. I guess this is what Lectio Divina is all about. Looking beyond the literal towards the deeper essential meaning which brings the words to life?

Again Paul refers to the outward form of religion:
2 Timothy 3:4ff ... lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power.
Here he is comparing religious outward form with the Life of the spirit which does not dismiss the form but gives it life.

Again to the early legalistic Jews whose legalism strengthened their (blind unconscious) sense of self Paul says in Romans 2:2 ... that "they have... in the law the form of knowledge and truth — you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself?"

Ideed the idea or existence of form is not a bad thing: Col 2:9 ...For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form ...
Jesus said in the gospel of John "No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.. and He who has seen me has seen the Father"

but (here is the nub) we mustn't hold onto form without embracing the essence.
Paul says: 2 Corinthians 5:16
Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.

The form of Jesus humanity can only be fully appreciated by looking beyond the form to his deity and as it says in Romans 8 ... The same spirit (essence) that raised Jesus from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies (form).

and again .. 2 Corinthians 4:16 ... For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man (form) perish, yet the inward man (essence) is renewed day by day

This is not to say I hope it makes clear that essence is opposed to form (or names) but that essence gives form its life and power. This I know is going far beyond the original issue of looking at flowers ;o) but I guess we may be permitted to ponder the essence of all created things which will enhance our appreciation and hence our thankfulness without denegrating the tremendous variety and distinctiveness of all things.
What do you think?

Duality or Non Duality ... which is best? ;o)

2009-08-30T21:07:00.007+01:00

Well how have the past few days of discovery panned out. In between gardening and more gardening (which I thoroughly enjoy) I have been doing some research. Having been so enamoured with my latest discoveries along the esoteric road - not least Eckhart Tolle I decided to backtrack. I am never too comfortable in throwing myself 'hook line and sinker' into things without stepping back and looking more objectively. However I reckon I have immersed myself into Tolle's philosophy enough to understand experientially where he is coming from. Definitely I conclude that Tolle and other modern day mystics have alot to offer in terms of finding the present moment and the fulfilment contained therein. However I am not sure that I would agree with the religious interpretations and applications. The present moment is given to all ... we miss out in using it as a means to the future or living in the past ... but we do not have to spiritualise it anymore than we should spiritualise anything else we have in common ... an arm or a leg. The present moment is a given fact which Eckhart and others have kindly enabled us to see. How we interpret that fact and what we choose to do with it is another matter ...

Now my little web discoveries. Thanks to Fr Thomas Keating for whom I have alot of respect (3 books I recommend: Open Heart open Mind and Invitation to Love and Intimacy with God) I ended up giving my email address to Integral Life, Ken Wilber's big project. An email with a list of the latest posts lead me to (at long last!) a thinking Christian's contribution to non duality holding both the value of Buddhist concepts of non duality as a meeting point and also holding forth the Christian distinctiveness in a sensitive manner. Check out his post and the responses he was given: The role of Jesus in inter-spiritual dialogue by Cameron Freeman. Check out another of his posts entitled Good Friday: The impossibility of Nirvana. Excellent stuff! I must quote two of his references:

G. K. Chesterton “That a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already; but that God could have his back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents for ever... In this indeed I approach a matter more dark and awful than it is easy to discuss... a matter which the greatest saints and thinkers have justly feared to approach. But in that terrific tale of the Passion there is a distinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things (in some unthinkable way) went not only through agony, but through doubt... When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. [Mt 27:46 quoting Ps 22:1] And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt... Nay (the matter grows too difficult for human speech), but let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.” [cf The Everlasting Man CW2:344]

“A Cross is a blunt and graceless form. It has not the completeness and satisfying quality of a circle. It does not have to grace of a parabola or the promise of a long curve... A cross speaks not of unity but of brokenness, not of harmony but ambiguity, it is a form of tension and not rest... The cross is the symbol because the whacks of life take that shape... And unless you have a crucified God, you don’t have a big enough God.” Joseph Sittler quoted in Westhelle, V. “The Scandalous God: The Use and Abuse of the Cross” Fortress Press, Minneapolis 2006.

Check out also Cameron's blog with an interesting article entitled 'Zen and the paradoxical language of Jesus' Thanks to this guy I have decided to carry on reading Jurgen Moltmann's The crucified God. It is not easy reading but I realise in order to dig deeply into the richness of conscious awareness and not simply indulge myself therein I must also keep in focus the raw reality of the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross. This is where the Christian mysticism (seems to me at this point) takes leave of other paths. This contrast is graphically notable in that between the smiling Buddha inwardly blissful with eyes closed to the world and the suffering Saviour arms outstretched embracing the world. Perhaps we have another paradox to consider. The promise of peace as we become present to all that is and the promise of suffering through being part of this groaning creation ...

I also checked out Eckhart Tolle’s critics. One argued that all his stuff is borrowed not least from Schopenhauer’s ‘The emptiness of existence’. I read that and conclude that it is not true … there are vast differences. However another Christian I have somehow linked up with (can’t remember how) is Fr Richard Rohr … check out an excellent article entitled ‘Living a life less ordinary’. Relevant to this blog I quote:

The act of contemplation helps us to observe the “unobserved” or false self, and by so doing, to gradually detach ourselves from it. But it is not something that comes naturally in our culture. “We are a capitalist society, into accumulation, not detachment,” Fr Rohr says. “That’s why people are attracted to Buddhism. Buddhists have kept their vocabulary and their honesty about the need for detachment up to date, whereas we’re just people who have invested heavily in our own opinions and rightness, with disastrous results.” The secret to detachment, he suggests, is to learn how to live more fully in “the now, not the past or the future”.

He has a book coming out in September The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See … Think I just might get it … anyway time for my 20mins listening prayer!

Centering Prayer

2009-08-26T23:30:00.000+01:00

I have spent 20 minutes this morning and 20 minutes this evening being simply still in God's presence. Many distracting thoughts and feelings overtook me but the wonderful advice given by Thomas Keating is that we should not be phased by this. I find that thoughts and feelings are as imposing as we allow them to be. If we allow ourselves to be frustrated by them the more imposing they become. So the secret is to 'Let them be' ... accept them. When I do I find a detachment takes place. There is a space between the me that is thinking/feeling and the 'true self' that seeks to focus on God .. a releasing takes place and I am able to as TK suggests consent my will to the love of God. We are never to evaluate our time with God as good or bad, successful or unsuccessful. Just being with Him is sufficient. I use my mobile phone as a timer so I dont keep having a quick peek to see how time is going.

Intro

2009-08-23T20:12:00.008+01:00

Hi!

This is the beginning of my first real blog although I did make my own using dreamweaver but it got so inundated with SPAM that I have had to resort to this with all the bells and whistles that keep the spammers away! It is a kind of personal experiment with the whole idea of blogging. I understand that a general theme would be fitting and I will choose the word 'spirituality' ... I will be sharing my explorations and developments along the way and welcome feedback.

Why Urban Mystik and why the wrong spellink? Well ... Urban Mystic had been taken so I plumbed for the closest I could find. My belief is that spirituality should not be reserved for those who may be considered to be the elite ... the cloistered ... surrounded with nature's resonating language of God's handiwork. (I say 'considered to be' because i am sure that they themselves do not regard them selves as'elite' - furthermore God is a rather loaded word I know but rather than unpacking it I hope it will 'unpack' itself along the way.) ... hence the idea of a mysticism which is on street level available to the most ordinary and the most unassuming in the least expected places.

I will stop there and in my next post tell you a bit about myself and where I come from and where I have travelled. (spiritually speaking)

(24/8)I am 56 years old (yesterday!). More than 30 years ago I remember my spiritual search beginning having left the repressive confines of a boarding school and launching into a drug fuelled few years at University - they were good times and bad times. I took LSD which disorientated me but also awakened me to an altered state of consciousness. Recognising the damage such drugs could do I determined to seek the same experience without the use of drugs. I took up Buddhist Practice and meditative techniques using the I Ching for guidance. While my usage of such things was as much to do with being trendy than anything else there was a genuine search taking place. Total acceptance was key and I remember being perturbed by the fact that Jesus Christ while being someone I admired was at the same time someone I could not accept. Furthermore (how I dont know) I recognised that to accept Jesus was more than just to value his teachings or even his historical activities but to accept him as the centre of my life. After much trepidation and persuasion I finally accepted him in this way.

My experience of God at this point was so great my life was turned around. I gave up the drugs immediately and started to attend church. It seemed to me reasonable at the time that all relations to my past life were to be rejected which included my whole mode of seeking prior to this experience. 'Be here now' was one of the catchphrases I embraced prior to becoming a Christian. I labelled that concept with the passivity / existentialist tag and left it behind. Being still and being 'present' were ideas which I had left behind with the old life.

It is only over the past few years that I have begun to re embrace some of these ideas and considered them consistent with my Christian experience. It is thanks to books such as 'Practicing the Presence of God' by Brother Lawrence and 'Cloud of Unknowing' as well as techniques such as 'centering prayer' introduced by Father Thomas Keating that have enabled me to discover new Christian areas of prayer not too inconsistent with my previous approaches.

Further down the road I have looked into teachers such as Eckhart Tolle and the 'Sedona Method' with Hale Dwoskin. Under which label I would put these I dont know (If a label is necessary)- Esoteric, New Age, Buddhist - I dont know but I have found them extremely helpful in my spiritual growth. I am now asking such questions as: How distinctive is the Christian revelation from modern spiritual approaches to God? Where is the overlap? Is there room for dialogue? Can we afford to use new concepts to define God, sin, salvation etc without compromising the central tenets of the faith thus becoming more relevant to the present modern spirituality? I hope that this blog will contribute to research into this .... who knowzzzzz