Thomas Keating – Evening Sharing in Meditation Room
St. Benedictine 10 day Intensive retreat
Tuesday evening Feb. 10th, 2015
( Transcript made by Bob Mischke and Jennie Curtis )
MaryAnn:
We are happy to have Thomas here. How long he stays depends on how much energy he has. So when he says he needs to leave, allow him to because he knows best when he needs to go.
Thomas:
I’m not so sure. My energy has its own agenda. I’m so happy to share an evening with you here. And I thought you might have some issues from having endured watching the tapes. There is a lot of stuff on those things. Someday I’ll have to go back and learn something from them myself.
Question:
In doing centering prayer if we get to that point of, let’s say, union – if we reach that God that is within each of us – if we reach that – if I get there – am I in union with everyone over distance, space or time?
Thomas:
Sure. You are already in union with God. You just think you aren’t. So forget that thought. (laughter) So you are there whether you feel it or not. Of course it’s nice to feel it, but in the contemplative world of experience, consolation and desolation don’t mean anything… because they both come from the same source… which is the loving God and that is an object of faith, not feeling.
And so, as your conviction grows, you get free of the idea of making those distinctions of whether you are feeling in union with God or not. The fact that you are in union with God is already present in you. You are being a human being and the divine spark of light that is in each of us that Genesis calls the image of God in us.
So becoming aware of that light is delightful. Except that the light is also very honest. So if you have some faults it shows it to you, gradually, not so as to be overwhelmed.
But centering prayer – I think one of its greatest contributions is to encourage us to recognize our faults, our weaknesses – without being disturbed. Just being humbled. There is nothing wrong with being weak. Everything except God is weak. So why be fussy about that? (laughter)
But God is trying to give us Himself and He already has. And so, waking up is a better term than discovering.
Question:
Does it mean I’m in union with everyone here too?
Thomas:
Why not?
Question:
I’d like to think that, I’m just asking.
Thomas:
Perhaps you’ve noticed from your own experience that being in a circle during the prayer together is a different experience than doing it alone. Not drastically, but it seems that God likes us to be together and to be helping one another. And so, when you are in a circle like this where everyone is seeking that shining light and attaining it in varying degrees – (by attaining it, I don’t mean you don’t have it now, it just means you are attaining the awareness that this light is always shining in you and sustaining your activities.)
In Christian circles, we call this the Holy Spirit. You can think of it as the Indwelling Trinity. The main thing is that you believe that the Trinity, the Ultimate Reality is present in you, sustaining you, and guiding you. And if you are on the contemplative path, then you are in a relationship with this Divine Teacher that is both therapeutic and affectionate. It’s reliable. It is within us and within everyone else. So it’s not a private journey. But realizing the journey fully enriches the whole human family in virtue of our organic relationship to everybody else.
So everything is interconnected. And, in fact, we are really connected to the animals and plants, and everything else that is living… and I suppose to the material world too. And so science is reinforcing those great insights of the mystics of one human family. So the whole of humanity family – past, present, and future – is in the now of the present moment, and is interrelated, interconnected. And so by entering fully into the journey, or the presence of God within us, you really are contributing to the gathering of the whole human race into something a little more friendly than the present global society seems to have attained.
And also it’s good to talk about God. Because of all the things we know, He is the least that we know. And so He has a kind of – I won’t say personality – but a kind of style that it is useful to get to know and to get comfortable with. And that is, He is everything at once. So there is no controversy in God. There are no opposites. Opposites belong to the rational level of consciousness that humans are trying to attain in recent centuries and they don’t seem to have quite made it yet.
Most people are a little irrational. We have plenty of that in ourselves and we have to be patient with that. So whatever you do to move beyond the limitations of rationalism, that introduces you to a whole world of spiritual evolution and unitive possibilities. That seems to be the next stage of human nature.
As you know there has been a basic change in the level of consciousness of living beings on earth. And the movement was from animal consciousness to attain the rational level of consciousness, which is the capacity for abstract thinking, relationship, and compassion, forgiveness… those abstract ideas that are so important for the development of human life.
And so that was the period of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, and the astrologists who were probably the magi who came from that tradition. Of course you had the rich traditions from India: The Veda, Hindu, the Upanishads, etc. It’s remarkable the insight these folks had, without any help from modern technology or traveling, or the internet, or all the other things we have.
What the internet has done in the recent century is to accelerate the interpenetration of cultures. For instance, how much did you know when you were a little boy or girl about the Buddhists or Hindus? They were just strange people. There weren’t any of them around. Now since WWII, there are a lot of them around, and they are moving into your neighborhood, and next door, and your children will probably marry some of them.
So it is a world in which you have to be somewhat open and respectful of other religious traditions. And hopefully if you know people who are on the spiritual journey in other traditions, even beyond the Protestant and Catholic traditions, they have a different language, and a different culture – but often they are talking about the same things.
And the very words that are used or understood are slightly different, according to cultural conditions. But as we move into a global culture, that too is going to change… perhaps a common language. Right now we have no common language for the spiritual journey in its higher levels. So it’s easy to get confused and misunderstand and distrust other traditions, because they are taking the words in a different sense.
So inter-spiritual dialogue is coming into the fore which is a step beyond inter-religious dialogue which is sharing one’s own traditions. And which presupposes that the Holy Spirit is working in other traditions too.
And that our tradition doesn’t limit the truth of the Holy Spirit – that there are some things that are emphasized more, but that are very valuable for the spiritual journey – but are on the back burner in our tradition.
So for a few centuries, the contemplative dimension of the gospel has been kind of cooling off, you might say, in the back burner of our consciousness, and of our religious practices. But it’s being challenged by this interpenetration of cultures, and knowing people who we never had a chance to meet before and that the Buddhists are very reasonable people, and the Hindus are not so bad, and that all of us have the human condition. There is nothing more common than human weakness. If you can’t agree on anything else, most people will agree that that is their experience too.
As Paul says, “I do what I don’t want to do and what I hate doing, I find myself doing anyway”. So this is the human weakness and ignorance. This is the common thing that all the religions are trying to address and to guide us into a path that leads to a personal union with God, or with Ultimate Reality, or however your tradition has taught you to regard the higher power in the fullest sense of that term.
Question:
Coming from the South, the deep South, where there was a real prejudice between Protestants and Catholics, and a lot of Christians in the South point to the truth: “I am the way the truth and the light and no one comes to the Father but through me.” … Jesus’s words. And they use that to discount Buddhism and Hinduism and the Muslim faith. Can you respond to that? Can you give me some insight?
Thomas:
Well, I think that one answer that can be offered to that saying which might be approached from different perspectives: “Christ” depends a lot on how you look upon Christ. If you see Christ as Christianity presents it, as the divine human being, the person of the eternal word, taking on a human nature, (that seems to be the main thrust of the great Councils of the 4th and 5th century of Christian History), then you have to remember that Christ is speaking then, (he seems to a lot in St. John, because St. John’s presentation of Jesus is quite different from the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Luke and Mark) and so he is speaking out of the community that has reflected on the teachings, and that has lived them, and has apparently some experienced contemplative people who have tried to express who Christ is from their contemplative perspective. So John is especially strong in presenting what I would like to call the contemplative dimension of the Gospel, without which I don’t think the gospel is being adequately preached or presented, because it is really the most important part and the purpose for all the other rituals and sayings and practices.
So in this sense, if Christ is speaking to his divine nature with his human voice, He is not referring to his historical being, but to the eternal word of God that He is at the deepest level of his being… which predates all humanity, and which has been influencing everyone from the beginning of time. And so he says this in the prologue, if you remember, that the word of God influences everyone, or enlightens everyone coming into the world. So that means every human being has been addressed by the eternal word of God. And in the Trinitarian mystery, the very root of the mystery of Christian religion, the presence of the Word of God as embodying all that the Father is, is very important.
Because as in Philippians, as Paul teaches, that the word of God did not consider being God, something to cling to, but surrendered then, at the Father’s urging, to enter the human family, and least of all intellectual preachers in the universe, as far as we know up till now and took upon himself, not some primary role of glory, but became a slave, and humbled himself, and suffered, and took upon himself, the weak state, or consequences of human weakness. (or, as we say, if you are an evolutionist, the un-evolved human species) – which is obviously still evolving from it’s basic animal ancestries. In fact, in the classical definition of humans as rational animals, (notice ‘rational” is an adjective), the thing in front of you is the animal!
So here we are as animals that have started to think. And since we don’t know how far back that goes, certain 50,000 years, language came into being. And before that were there hominids? Were there a few advance people? As you see evolution is a very gradual thing – it took life 5 million years to get to this point on earth alone.
{transcriber’s note: he seems to be referring here to evolution since the earliest known hominids like “Lucy” who lived 3 to 8 million years ago}
You get a different a different idea from contemporary science of cosmology than the one the scriptures were written. That’s all they had in the way of information.
So to talk about creation in 6 days seems absolutely ridiculous – you know, as an educated person today – unless they were brainwashed by some religious group that takes the scriptures literally. It’s not a historical book. It’s about God revealing aspects of the spiritual journey, using history as symbols, as the story line.
And so like many books that are based on history, they are still fiction because of what the authors have done with the historical story.
So the Bible gives us a context, and to read it as literally is inadequate. You have to read it as a spiritual conversation with the divine person who wrote it. And then you begin to see the meaning of some of the text and the action of Christ.
And sometimes He is speaking in His human nature, and sometimes in His divine nature. A classical place for that is the agony in the garden when He said, “Not my will, but thine be done.” He accepted the Father’s will, and for love of us entered into the mystery of the cross, which certainly teaches that in some way, our sufferings are God’s sufferings.
Or He chose to make them His own, or He chose that if we had to suffer He goes through it Himself in some way, or He wanted to make us equal to Himself.
And since He couldn’t do that by making us God, exactly, He made us God as far as that was possible by grace which is our participation in the divine nature; and the fruits and gifts of the spirit manifest God’s presence within us. And that activity tends to help us to see that God is working in us and that if we can do his will, we will become aware of just how intimate this relationship really is.
And really, that conviction of God’s presence in us is so radical for the Christian journey – it’s hard to exaggerate it. And it’s also hard to believe it – when you are surrounded by people who think you are no good, and you kind of agree with them, or are afraid they are right.
What do you do with that? Ignore it. Take each step, no matter what you feel; God is present in you and loving you. And He sees His divine son within you, and that this capacity is what this life is all about and to share this divine life as far as that is humanly possible, in your particular slice of the human condition.
So the Christian religion is very personal – very personal, very intimate. And God is ready to enter any relationship that you like – mother, father, brother, sister, partner, soul mate , spouse, unity, and all the way up to become God-like yourself.
Question:
When I got here, and probably many of us when we got here, our lives are pretty busy – mine was like in a frenzy – to the place I just felt totally ineffective in what I was doing. So in coming here – our spiritual journey is guarded – given to me, to us, on this platter – and it’s scheduled and we’ve just been consuming and it’s just been awesomely great. This is my first experience with Centering Prayer. And just since I’ve been here for a few days, I’ve gotten places that I’ve tried to get to for decades – just in these few days. So we leave in a few days and we are going back to that world with all the technology, and all the “gimme, gimme, gimme” and “do, do, do” and all the stuff. So I’ve had thoughts about what do I do to keep the centering prayer regularly, the progress, the connection, the insights? You don’t want to lose that right? So it takes the exercise to keep it going, right? What do we do?
Thomas:
It’s up to each of you with the grace you’ve received to talk this over with God. That’s why you have to believe that He is present. And although He doesn’t speak to us in words, He does speak to us without the sound of words by these little nudges, or encouragements. And these become clearer or more present as your habit of remaining in the presence of God grows.
So we tried to show on the tape the problems that we bring with us – the ego or the false self from early life, has to be undermined and we have to put our trust in the new creation, the new self, or the true self, or whatever self you want to call it that is positive.
And that it is going to take time. It took us years to build up our false self and it is going to take time to tear it down. And how fast it goes depends on God’s will and your circumstances.
So it would be good as you prepare to take flight to your homes, to realize that it is not going to be easy at home – that you are going to be bombarded with the same old issues before you came – without the support of the group of people doing the same thing and the schedule.
If you want to you can enter the monastery. Obviously the ladies can’t enter this one but there are very good female ones. But you may have a family and may feel that that is not quite the way you want to go about it.
But the main thing is to commit yourself – to give yourself over to God. And tell him, “I don’t know how to do this and I’m overwhelmed by the distractions of the media and so on.
You have to decide on a few things that you can do to stabilize your life. The most important thing is the two periods a day and if you can’t get two to take a longer one in the morning and to take a day off once in a while if that is possible in your circumstances like a half a day Saturday; and to have a group that is fairly committed and creative. There are lots of centering prayer groups around the world and in this country that meet once a month for half a day and meditate for longer or read something or watch a tape.
So you have to propagandize yourselves – maybe that is the wrong word – but you have to be doing this for God, not for yourself; and it’s not a money making project. But you have to keep telling yourself what you have decided to do. Otherwise you forget because the distractions are numerous. In fact the world seems to be moving faster all the time, at least in the West. And it also is noisier, and the media now, if you have the right little device, you can get all the information that’s ever been given in the history of the world – all on your wrist –(laughter), what Solomon said and what Buddha said.
And the news is so distressing and so agonizing that we feel so helpless to do anything about it, that you have to decide how much you can really look at it in one day.
Find a way to sort of discipline your attention. And at the end of the day write a few notes if you have time – how you did, and what you didn’t do. And just be honest with yourself, as though you were writing a brief account to God, that he could check out when he has a little leisure time.
Never be bashful with God. He is totally for us. If you really believe that He laid down his life for you, and that He shares whatever sufferings you have, then you can bear them, not only because you’ve got them and it’s happening and God is allowing it as part of your purification, but you need to feel also that you are helping God to reduce his sufferings by having less of your own.
And my experience is that the smallest attention you give to God, He is very grateful for, and will show it sometimes. But He shows it in very interesting ways. God is playful – let’s face it; and although life is a serious matter, it has a humorous touch, because that is the way the intellect works. The intellect sees incongruous situations that animals usually don’t see.
So since God is all intelligence and much higher, he must be laughing all the time because these humans are the most ridiculous kind of creatures that were ever invented.
He is so friendly, so personal; you can’t exaggerate trusting Him. But there is this set of mindsets that thinks that God is too great, or that I’m not worthy to talk to Him. And all this is baloney. It is true as far as it goes, but the big truth is that it doesn’t matter to God. Of course things may be terrible, but I don’t think that matters to Him either – because He is so big, so infinite – what could bother Him?
And yet He freely allows Himself to be bothered out of love for us, because love wants to share the burdens of the Beloved, and wants to heal them of their wounds.
One of the games that God seems to play is hide and seek. So after you leave here, you probably are going to get a little taste of that game. God in fact hides behind the senses. But there is a reason for that.
If God didn’t hide someplace, we’d be absolutely burned to a crisp by the intensity of Divine heat and light. So even the body has to enter into this journey and it has to be gradually prepared. And its nervous system has to be prepared for the energies of the divine love that are becoming more intense before you can receive them healthily.
Some people have what is called Kundalini energy which is the unloading or the movement of natural energies from the bottom of the spine to the brain – one step at time; so there is a heart chakra that has figured this out.
So we in our culture are heavily engaged in the managing mind, the intellect, which tries to get control of everything. And we have to little by little, free ourselves from that; and that is going to take time because the brain is plastic, scientists are telling us now. Research of how the brain works is becoming available day after day through and number of studies and research groups.
The brain was thought to be permanent when I was a boy. Now they realize it is just a kind of plastic and it can change. So the stimuli from the senses – the electrical charges that enter into our consciousness through the senses and pass through the brain for translation into feelings, some positive, some negative – that follows whatever happened to you in childhood.
And what happened to all of us is that we were born without self-consciousness. And we gradually developed a conscious self, and then a childish self, and then adolescence, and then adult. And it is still evolving. But that self is still dependent on the framework, or the channels for this electrical energy, that are set in the brain – not in stone – but set. So to change your thoughts, your ideas and your activity, requires flattening the playing field.
So the first thing to do, and life is about this, is even the playing field by flattening out your attachments – that is, by letting go of at least of some of the ways you think or the societies that you are too attached to. Or the emotional programs for happiness, which is the subject of many of the tapes, I think.
So to be aware that you are in this situation is not something to be ashamed of. It is just the way things are. It is something to be content with. And ask God, “What the heck am I going to do and please help me.”
If you know anything about AA, the realization that you can’t do it yourself as the result of alcohol addiction, and you realize your life is unmanageable. Once you know that, you can start the spiritual journey in earnest. If you don’t know that, you’d better find our before you get sick or clobbered!
Question:
Are you saying that when the Kundalini energy rises that our bodies are essentially being rewired? When the Kundalini energy gets stirred up during centering prayer, what is it that is happening?
Thomas:
It’s not too well known. You won’t find it described much in the West until recently. It’s part of the genius of the Buddhist culture and the Hindu religious culture before it. So it’s just energy. It’s very primitive energy. And as far as we know it has an agenda of its own. So resisting it causes pain.
Normally it rises slowly according to your growth in the spiritual journey and your trust in God. It’s not normally distinct from the Holy Spirit’s activity, which comes from above. The Kundalini energy is the release that comes from below, and it can be triggered by an accident or by something else that is a natural thing. But here it’s important to realize that natural energy is graced, the same as everything else. At least that’s the opinion of most contemporary theologians.
The energy then when we start out is fixed in the lower parts of the body. As we continue our spiritual journey, it is released slowly, and so most people don’t notice it. It manifests itself by a certain detachment from the particular bodily powers and the energy sustains.
It really gets interesting when you get to the heart chakra, because this enables one to think with the heart and not just the mind. This is hard for us in the period of society following the enlightenment in which the individual intellect was looked upon as supreme. The whole ideals of democracy are really rooted in that highly rational period. Well then that had some difficulties after they had a few revolutions. And now the individual emphasis has shifted more to community.
And the necessity of recognizing that we are both individuals but also a very tightly woven part of the whole human faculty.
I can’t go into the whole doctrine. You can find it in a book. Some people have experienced it quite violently and nobody knows why. They get very hot hands, and can’t sleep, and things like that, and it is very distressing. But it subsides. It’s one of the many graces that comes directly from nature. Just as all energy, we’ve got energy in ourselves that comes from the sun. That star that we happen to be circling all the time is energizing us, but then the energy also comes out of all the places where it is stored.
Question:
Word has it that when people ask you how you are doing, you respond, “Well, I’m dying, you know.” My question to you at this stage of your life: What have you learned? What new insight have you gained?
Thomas:
I don’t feel like judging myself because I’ve already done that many times and it turned out to be wrong. (laughter)
It is very important to come to terms with dying, and of course, as you get older, this becomes more urgent. If you want to know where God is most at work, it’s precisely in the process of dying in the moment of death. So if we were deprived of those things we would not have the opportunity of knowing God in His great love as intimately, as that will take place.
So it’s just the completion of the spiritual journey. And as many mystics say, nothing really dies except the ego and the false self and all of its allies, you might say, in the brain, and in all those reactions that habits of functioning have built up. It just goes. So at the moment of death you have the remarkable capacity to choose God without any hindrance from the false self or the emotions or the memory. It’s all new.
So it’s the crown of all your efforts, but it’s also joining the redemptive activity of Christ if you are a Christian. So you’re on the cross with Christ. And that is redeeming the world. Not in a way that you can see, but you are identifying with Christ. So you may be invited to descend into hell like Christ did. This is not a disaster either. All you need to do is to hang on to him. And you realize what the consequences of deliberate rejection of God is – it’s a sense of alienation, desolation, hellishness, and misery.
In other words, we are invited by Christ on the cross to share as we grow in our prayer and union with Him, His passion, which is not just physical suffering, which can be terrible enough as it is in our time; but it is also besides that the emotional suffering that is the consequence of alienation or separation from God.
So it’s the thought that we are separate from God that is the source of all evil. Although there may be these other factors like the devil, etc., that are mentioned in scripture.
But also we’ve got enough negativity in ourselves with or without the devil to keep us busy for a while.
Death is the peak of our spiritual lives. So it’s the ultimate liberation, or crowning of all our efforts, not something to be afraid of. What you’re usually afraid of is the pain. You may not have any pain. You might have a nice stroke (laughter) or you might die in your sleep as my mother did.
Question:
Can you speak to discerning God’s will or a call to a vocation in life? How do I ask God what to do with my life?
Thomas:
Well how nice! What freedom you have! Well, there’s plenty of room here. (laughter)
You have to ask God and that is the purpose of praying and sometimes He keeps you waiting to help you to increase your desire to know. So if we are kind of wishy-washy about what we want to do, God can be wishy-washy about replying.
Sometimes he interferes without making it clear what He wants you to do. I said that God is playful. He also likes surprises. He is also very adventurous. And He takes risks by giving human beings freedom. You don’t know where they are going to go, and they are still going. God only knows whether they’ll be able to settle down and really be rational.
So we find ourselves really, and I hope this is something you might have picked up if you watched the tapes, is that God is calling us ever so gently to be honest and to recognize our situation. So what we call fallen human nature and which is present in every tradition, is that we really lack the discipline to take care of ourselves. So we really are quite helpless and powerless, despite our various intellectual pretensions.
So to be detached from human means without despising them or rejecting them seems to be a good balance. Really living the Christian life at least is pretty much like walking on a sharp-edged razor. A little too much this way, or a little too much that way, and you get into trouble.
So we are always falling into a pit on one side or another. God is always pulling us out. It is good to remember how He presents Himself in the gospel. He said He’s come to save that which is lost. And lost means “blotto” – that means annihilated, hopeless, dreadful. Nothing you can do about it. In other words, our weakness calls out to the abyss of His mercy. And enables Him to show that He loves us gratuitously no matter what happens. And He responds to the slightest desire to serve Him or to be forgiven of our sins, and so on.
So one of the things you might do for daily life is to have what I call the active prayer sentence. It is a few words that sort of express your desire to surrender to God and to do his will – that you can fall back on when you are totally distracted or bombarded with anxieties and worries. And you just say it without expecting to feel anything.
We also have a practice that we suggest called the welcoming prayer which is whenever you have a difficulty with a person or event – to welcome it, instead of what we usually do is to try to get away from it or escape or fill our mind with distractions.
So the best way to deal with most suffering apart from getting necessary medical help, especially with emotional suffering is to sit with it and to sit through it. And that shows you that you are not it… that you have it, but you are not it. So it can’t injure you and actually gradually frees you from the sources of the pain – when it’s an emotional thing – envy or jealously or improper attitudes towards someone – all these things. Don’t be surprised by anything that humans can think up in the way of inappropriate responses to reality.
It doesn’t matter – God expects that – he made us and it’s His problem. Eckhart – the great Christian mystic of the middle ages thinks that God kind of “boiled over.” In other words, He’s all alone and had this immense goodness that He had to share with someone and there was no one to share it with. So in Eckhart’s explanation the anguish became greater and greater until He exploded, so to speak. And He created “thou’s” — that is you and I – “thou” – who could enter into a relationship with Him – and who He could love and be appreciated by.
We don’t know to what extent that is true – because anything you say about God is just a projection and God just IS – there is nothing much more you could say – and even that is misleading – because God is both Being and Non-being and everything else besides. But that is the illogical realization that is becoming more popular as we learn how they see things from the East. That is their great contribution, at least as I see it. Some of the Eastern teachers are teaching is that there is another way to look upon reality than the way that we are used to which is personal.
And that suggests that God is perhaps just consciousness. And that everything else that He’s created participates according its nature to various levels and degrees of that divine consciousness. So there is not distinct consciousness, in actual fact, but just one. And all the others are waking up slowly, very slowly – from our perspective – to that reality – which is absolutely delicious – exquisite! – a point of Joy when you taste it. But you can’t live in that space for too long in its light. It is an agony – you want to go to where it’s unobstructed – so you lose interest in a lot of the human perspectives – not because they are wrong – but because they are not like this.
So once you can taste the beauty, goodness of God that is not particular – it just is – like silence tends to morph into a kind of presence. If you are a Christian, you interpret that as God. I’m not a Buddhist, so I don’t quite know how they interpret that feeling – but they have it too.
So God has made it clear – He want to share – what He calls “save” everyone – he means to bring them to the full potentialities of all their human possibilities. So there is nothing picciune about God, or rigid, or narrow-minded or fussy. And the Christian is a very moral religion but that is not its primary purpose. Its primary purpose is to move into the unified relationship with God. It is not a question of reason deciding what is right or wrong, but experiencing what is right all the time spontaneously and being able to do it.
So another thing to keep in mind about God when you think of Him as everything at once – you can’t say anything about God that is definitive without saying its opposite, because He is both at once. So this gives you a little bit of elbow room in understanding statements of the religious kind. Yes they are true, but not quite absolute truth. Because we can’t in this life – our brains can’t hold two major opposite views of reality at the same time.
But you can see that as you progress in detachment from the managing mind, which likes to deal with opposites and come to conclusions and logic – which is a great improvement over what animals can do, but has limitations from what is humanly possible and much more fulfilling – which is the relationship – and intuitive faculties and consciousness with God’s immediate presence.
So I think more and more that God wants to enter into an intimate relationship with every human being. And religion is supposed to bring us into that presence – and not be a hindrance to it – or not insist that everything has to be done with whatever permission of the Bishop, as the case may be.
Question:
Thomas, sometimes in closeness or in connection with people – sometimes the hurt and the pain can be picked up. Sometimes I can pick it up and it’s just sometimes really unbearable – and I pray for release in that instant – but I don’t know what that is.
Thomas:
Well that’s God in you – suffering what is that you are suffering. So you don’t have to be afraid or run away from it – if it is His pain – he’ll make sure that you get through it safely, just sit and wait it out. But I know sometimes it builds up and it is so serious that you can’t think straight. But that’s why you need to have a check on yourself almost everyday to see how much an emotion is influencing you, so you’re not surprised when it comes back.
Like I’ve found myself in recent years – I’ve been confined here to the monastery –and some days it’s wonderful and some days it’s horrible. I think that this is part of one of the rough games that God likes to play. We interpret them as rough. He want to see how far you’ll go and by letting you suffer the agony of sinners who are separate from God, by making them His own, He can heal them.
So He invites us into His own redemptive work, and this is not just physical suffering, but the emotional suffering. And perhaps the worst of it is in seeking God and finding Him in some degree, or awakening to His beauty, and then having it all go away, and feeling like Christ did on the cross when he was abandoned by God. This is just a thought. Thoughts are not God – so anything that isn’t God – let it go, or don’t hang onto it, or don’t believe it.
Everything we experience stretches our capacity and our idea of God. We worry so much about the young people today who seem to like to commit suicide. They evidently have had or are having a hard time. And this is not the answer to their problem, but they are in a place where they can’t do anything else. And so they are sharing in the passion of Christ too. So that we must not judge anybody’s response to that, because we don’t know what they’ve been through. We only know what we’ve been through, and we know our weaknesses. So we offer our sympathy and our empathy to God, and that is more powerful than almost any medical remedy that we might bring.
You think of the account where Jesus raised this young man who was on his way to the grave. So he just took him by the hand and returned him to his mother – if you remember that story. So sometimes we don’t know what to do with ourselves, and we are so perplexed and confused that we feel discouraged. These are only our thoughts and feelings. They are not us. Centering prayer is teaching us little by little that the real you is at a deeper level than our sense experiences, our emotions, our feelings, and our thinking apparatus.
So you just sort of say, “Ho hum, I’ll get through this.” Have a lozenge or something. Turn your mind to something that you think will free you from the obsession. If you have an obsessive-compulsive personality, then you are in some trouble. It just loves to think of what bothers it – that’s its food… “Yummy!”
So everything that happens is God, for all practical purposes. So if you relate to what happens, you are relating to Him, and don’t be afraid to tell Him, “This can’t go on much longer, as far as I can see. What am I going to do?” And all you have to do is turn yourself over: “If You don’t help me, I’m finished. That’s the bottom line.” And He always does.
Bill W. himself, who was one of the founders of AA, had a terrible time with alcohol. He would spend days just spending the afternoon drinking one bottle of scotch or vodka or something after another. And his poor wife couldn’t do anything for him. And he wanted to change, but he just couldn’t. Finally I guess he knelt down by his bed and said, “Oh God, you must help me or I’m finished.” And he was cured.
God is sometimes waiting for us to really want what we want. Or to really do what we want to do with commitment. So it’s not arbitrary. It’s not that He wants us to suffer, but there is no way to get us to a certain point without having us get through some of these trials. It is not just us doing this, but whatever we are enduring for the love of God is delivering the human race – preparing it for the Pleroma – the global transformation in Christ that Paul speaks about.
What’s the time? 8:10? Well it’s getting past my energy level, but I’ll conclude with one little story.
This story was in a book actually about different experiences and essays that had a Hindu editor. But it seemed to me to be very striking – so here it is:
You might have heard this somewhere before about a very talented scientist who was some kind of an expert in butterflies. These are monarch butterflies that are very special butterflies. So he was trying to win the Nobel prize for producing the most beautiful colors and wings on the greatest butterflies. He had a staff and research funds, etc.
So he finally found a strain that he thought would produce the greatest butterflies there ever were. So as you know butterflies come from worms and their transformation is a symbol of our own transformation from our wormy presence through the goodness of the glory of God’s transformative love.
Well anyway, he figured he had just the formula to produce or reproduce these marvelous butterflies that had the most gorgeous colors that were ever known, etc. And establish his scientific reputation.
So came the day when the caterpillar was about to come out of the cocoon. So all of his assistants were gathered around and watched as it gradually tried to eat its way out of the restrictive strait jacket of the cocoon.
And they saw, and maybe it got one wing out. And they roared with pleasure and passed the cigars and champaign. Then somebody noticed that the other wing was kind of stuck in the cocoon, and couldn’t quite get out. So the poor creature was bouncing around on the table and struggling and waving its wing. And nothing could happen. So our hero the professor was bent over watching closely in agony, trying to persuade the butterfly to try a little harder to get out. And of course the butterfly couldn’t understand his language.
So finally he couldn’t stand it anymore. So with a little scalpel, he cut just a tiny piece out of the cocoon so the wing could escape. And sure enough the butterfly flopped onto the table – free of the cocoon – that is of all previous forms of its earlier earthly life – and now the thing it had to do was to fly.
So again they were passing more cigars and champaign, when one of the assistants said, it’s not flying. It’s worn out. So the professor came over and looked and saw that it was just lying there on the table.
So he was broken hearted and he realized despite his great scientific wisdom that the butterfly needed to struggle to push the blood into the farthest recesses of the wings so that it could fly when it eventually came out of the cocoon.
So he had the most beautiful butterfly of all time. But it couldn’t fly. The bottom line is – God isn’t going to make that mistake. He is trying to get us out of our wormy cocoons.
If he doesn’t allow the natural processes of purification and healing – bodily, emotional, mental, and spiritual to take place – you won’t be able to enjoy them. So it comes from a great love and a great detachment. And it’s that detachment that is so remarkable about God. It seems that He doesn’t really care about being God. He has everything, why should he? He just wants to share.
So to receive His love, which is the best thing you can do – so any thoughts contrary to that are false and similar to the mistake that this dear professor made. He didn’t get the Nobel prize.
So if you realize that suffering – the love of God – and your concern for the present situation of the human race and its stuck-ness and violence – as the solution to its problems – which is ridiculous.
It is trusting God boundlessly that matters.
So that reminds me of one more story. (laughter)
St. Therese says that she looked at God herself that He was the loving Father at the top of the stairs and she was an infant at the bottom. And she wanted to get up into His arms and to share his life there. And she couldn’t move one foot. She was too little to get over the step. So she was stuck there. And cried out, “Oh come help me, help me!”
And God didn’t do anything. Busy up there I guess.
But then she kept raising her little foot, even though she knew by this time that she couldn’t possibly succeed in getting even to the very first step.
So the Father noticed this and couldn’t stand it anymore and He came down and picked her up and took her in His arms to the top. So this is a great parable of the Christian journey. We don’t get there of ourselves. If you want to get there enough then the Beloved will come down and rescue you. Maybe not right away. But as you become more and more longing in your whole being.
So she also said, that God has two ways of saving us. And one is that way that I just described, where he takes away the obstacles in our path that might hinder us from being transformed. Many people don’t often think of that.
And the other one is the obvious one of forgiving us our sins that we actually do. So that if you don’t do anything, you still have to be saved, because the transforming union and higher states of consciousness are all gratuitous gifts, and we can’t get there under our own power; but we can wait it out and God will either forgive us for everything, or take any hazards that might lead us into temptation and sin beyond our control – He takes them away.
So you’ve got it made. You can’t really lose. But we can forget those principles so easily with the drag of everyday life. But don’t let that bother you because Christ had to deal with that too. So it seems that God has put us in the worst possible situation you could be in – namely having this capacity for eternal life and glory and heaven, and then at the same time, no way of getting there.
So the cross, (behind you there) without a body on it is a sort of symbol of the human condition – crucified between heaven and earth. You can’t go up, and you can’t go back to the irresponsibility of animal life. So if you think that doesn’t move God to compassion – in fact, maybe He feels just a little bit guilty.
So we are in this transitional period and it couldn’t be worse, because you are struggling with two opposites. But that’s exactly what transformation consists of – of having great capacity for happiness; and then a problem arises that shows us, which is experience, that we can’t do it ourselves, without or unaided by grace. So you are split apart, torn apart – so you are neither man or beast, you are nothing.
That realization is a great liberation from a lot of our aspirations in the wrong directions to deal with the consequences of that struggle or to hide from ourselves the intensity of the disappointment.
Or despair in being able to get ourselves out of the animal way. So if you think you are not an animal just take a few notes everyday as to what your motives are for some of your actions – the same ones you had as an infant – the instinctual need for security, being approved by everyone – no criticism, and power and control.
And these are the three temptations that Jesus in His humanity experienced in the desert. That is the meaning of it. So this is the time to learn about what programs for happiness are most prominent in us and to try to let them go. Vastly more important than fasting or alms giving or what’s the other one? (no response) Not too many Christians here! (laughter)
To know that one’s life is unmanageable is the beginning of the spiritual journey. But you get depressed or discouraged if you stay in that state of mind. At the same time, you have to have a proportionate amount of trust in God that he will rescue you.
So it’s like being on those old scales – if you have experiences that are a little too showing your weakness, you have to balance them with some long acts of trusting God – and then if you get a little too frisky about how liberated you are – how advanced you are – well then you need a few humiliations – so it’s to keep the thing balanced.
It’s exactly this balance that is going on at once. But when they are going on at once, there’s the creative source moving to a higher state of consciousness – so there is the positive meant to become God too and the negative about being infinitely powerless.
It’s not a problem – it’s just a fact. And by accepting it, the creative energy, like God’s agony that caused Him to create the world, because He had no one to share his great goodness with. That is the three laws that Gurdjieff discovered, and the protestant theologian Gormaz intuited and that Cynthia Bourgeault describes in her book on the Holy Trinity, which is a very good book. And so we relate to the Trinity from where we are spiritually.
So you get to know more and more intimately this reality as you allow this rhythm of positive and negative – not like Hagel– who resolved it with a synthesis – but move to a whole new creative level of consciousness that resolves the opposites and gives us new powers. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
So I hope your last day of retreat will be very fruitful.