Contemplative Prayer

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Contemplative Prayer Class

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so let me explain those handouts first term of i'm the one on top complete or continuous does that monsters is coach from martin at you have noticed that there this is a new page where it was a page thirteen
so the your old page twelve can be replaced or used for personal
okay that's the first the second we're going to be using today that's that handle on restricts dh six contemplative experience and the new testament so we'll get to that today so keep that on hand and then the third one is a bonus that stuff
the wonderful not preface that was written by martin for the japanese translation of thought solitary so thought scientology's much older that came out when early fifties and time but he was very interested in getting his work introduced to japan particularly with the eastern cultures
and so it's very careful about writing his preface so what he tries to do is take his earlier book on contemplation and for dessert from an asian perspective and especially something like a zen perspective
the first line is worth the price of the book know writing on the solitary meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said cluttered by the wind and the fine trees
has martin that is best
it goes along with what we've been saying a non dual experience it's more or less poetic but not only poetic treatment of that experience
okay
i'm going to be a very next week so our next class or became two weeks either tuesday or wednesday of that we kept her june twice twenty first or twenty second i was thinking we go ahead to section four so it be find to read martin's section four of the anterior experience house
however as i look at this new testament material i think we probably will want to spend that hour actually of class time further on christian contemplation or chapter of as the heart of our subject is very important for us to get a grip on like to have a sense of how these two things come together the gospel and the
the contemplative experience or contemplative tradition so we'll probably spend the our continuing on christian contemplation and especially the relationship of contemplation to baptism
there's a lot in that section three of merton on christian contemplation and but we'll have some other things to add to it
okay to reveal our last session have been we talked about the context of contemplation and tried to fill out the picture because contemplation is it has a focus which a kind of a a point it so
a narrowing down in order to talk about something but we find that life is bigger than contemplation and yet if we conceive it world contemplation
wells up and fills our life and other which contemplation somehow returned to fill life but to dog about the concept of contemplation is to narrow down to focus the typical typically a western and nowhere masculine perspective
and now we talked about christian contemplation and we started reading martin section three
let's remember the first section the second really fitted together quite beautifully this this section the first park is on the original unity that humanity and notice how he hammers and returned to that notion of a human person being a one and he's not talking specifically here
about all of humanity being a one although he could do that and you will do that at times and if you're talking about adam and implicitly you're saying and all of humanity is this one enough but he's talking about the individual human person really because it goes on to me at the often to the individual experience
and man as he puts it being originally identity and then in the fall somehow being ejected into multiplicity and then this is a classical patristic a picture and of course we predicted that the criticized it because it's not quite adequate to us
and yet it's beautiful and we can't renounce it but we have to fill it out we have to complete a balance and instantly and then in the next section he talks about because of ethnic theology and contemplation the titles i don't think these titles are put another martin that a phone in my brother patrick clark
so they don't necessarily coincide and exactly the point that martin is getting it in each direction but there we see he beautifully builds upon the notion of a loss of the original unity and remember for him unity is practically equivalent
contemplation and there was a contemplative experiences and experience of the unity of your being and it's the true self those those even put equation march between those three expressions contemplation unity of the person of the being and true self or in our show
now in this next section merton makes another equal sign there as it were and
he would say that these are all equivalent for us to the new person in the new man or the christ self and then he explains how this works and that
section labeled theology and contemplation of worse by the incarnation and deification which are like two perspectives of the same reality as the father said that god became man so that men might become god and still limping on are sexist language but the the downward movement if we projected geometrically and the up
awkward moment which are really some the same thing and yet first comes the downward movement and then our response is an attempt to realize the upward movement afterwards but only because the downward movement has come deification is only possible because of incarnation and your deification is already incurred any inclinations or
ready deification and jesus and virtually in some way in us but that's realized them through through baptism
then and martin doesn't talk much about that doesn't he'll return to us but for him baptism has not opened up as a fullness but only a first step he speaks about the siege of this contemplative you to experience being flattered and baptism they don't talk about the baptismal experience itself and that was a very big as
you in early christianity so we'll need to return to them
yes
but that was just a physical from
okay then he gets to that other section which is labeled
gospels and contemplation or something like that contemplation of us now that title isn't isn't perfect attack
the relationship between the second part we've causes the second part which is a contemplation of theology and contemplation and the gospels is nearly the relationship between word and spirit other words there's nearly a trinitarian progression of use fresh sections and the first one martin is talking about the way were made and then the way
we felt from it and that's as it were analogous to the father that created and to being and father as being god as being okay and god as the great one of the energy and the second section theology and it's a question of the son of the second person or the second person comes to restore the original unity where it goes
when we stay we store we never mean really just that do it because the deification goes far beyond the original unity
the human person a man who has made for this deification which is a further step but the fall in some way if you if you look at it worked for scottish perspective complicated and necessitates the cross but in any case it's first that the first person and first movement as it were first reality that the unity of reality and the restoration and
the second version but in that third section which is called contemplation and the gospels is really moving onto the work of the holy spirit and father joseph kissed at the end of the class as that question of holy spirit and contemplation which i didn't respond to a well i've thought a lot about sanction it opens up so many things and i hadn't really read merton sex
one are carefully enough before replying in it i didn't do justice to it cause he very nicely shows how the holy spirit is somehow the agent of contemplation almost been some way the reality the substance of contemplation so on one side you gotta kind of the equation between we have to be
careful with our equations we can get that when you could over fossil room but there's almost an equation between contemplation on the holy spirit notice as you move from the second section theology
them
the gotten what he calls the gospels other title you're really moving from the theological reality with the objective reality to the actualization of that reality in ourselves and that's the conservative experience so that's equivalent to the movement from might say the second order second-order of truth to the third odor of the voice
spirit which is very difficult to talk about
because other words tend to melt on him and because simply goes beyond language goes beyond theology it's the difference between theology as we know theology in the modern western church and the theology of as i agree is say area which was actually the condemned of experience it was experiencing the holy spirit so it's a movement from theology to tr
eg from the as it were flat objective conceptual theology which has tended to prevail in modern times in the church and the original meaning of theology for the father's which was the fire of of the experience of fullness and the holy spirit
so as we move into this new section of monday quotes a number of things from the gospels which tend to be largely on this reality as third orders of a of the holy spirit which has actualization
so the logical progression here from theology as a vision of incarnation and deification to this other order which is actualization in the individual and the individual letters and you and name
in us that's the work and experience with the holy spirit
so there are two sides to what martin saying on one side of the experience of the holy spirit is practically identical that comes with
i'm a couple of quotes from martin deserve pages are page numbers are thirty
thirty four about the middle of thirty four way to start talking about the gift of her divine spirit
which is the defying spirit is how difficult it is to to separate is thanks to talk about that's the the gift to the holy spirit is exactly what deified before pentagon before the gift of the holy spirit there can be no deification
there can be no property of multiplication of the incarnation and other people and us
and that gift of the divine spirit his baptismal to as a says up learned that i'm thirty three
okay he goes from there goes to thirty eight to the end of that section this treatment of the holy spirit and contemplation
a couple of quotes this testimony of the spirit this is at the bottom of thirty four to our inmost self he's just quoted romans are on spirit isn't a very broad sense what we call contemplation and a christian context so they're the experience of the holy spirit of testimony of the holy spirit is
paul has omens and contemplation of practically identical
and that later on thirty seven after the top he says the life of contemplation as then not simply a life of human technique and discipline it is the life of the holy spirit and are in ourselves
there's a continuity between the two and a continuity is what i think it's that non dual are you an interior unit of experience that for martin is both contemplation and
the experience of the holy spirit a deeper than that is the reality of the no self that the new unit himself
which is a the basis of the core of the substance of contemplation which has given in the holy spirit so that very deep bond between contemplation and holy spirit from her on the other hand is obviously a difference between contemplation of holy spirit market and era to question party of vocabulary where these expressions come from contemplation is a great
notion that those are kind of can kind of patches or latin word with a greek background as theory of college which has its whole cultural context and merton has already come come at it on a little slightly ironic sarcastic remember the end of the previous section
well kind of an elitist kangana
i got a few points on a difference that may just shoot them out first of all the experience of the holy spirit can be considered for a man's perspective a christian translation of the word contemplation as long as we're talking about contemplation you've got to translate into christian trenchcoat
you don't find the word contemplation new testament to talk about the experience of the holy spirit for when you do that it's more than a translation because you're moving to a larger reality
gonna pollution is something like an abstract slice of the experience of the holy spirit or diminished version
it's kind of place and actually it's a little bit parallel to the idea of experience at contemplation is a little parallel to the prophecies and types that you have any old testament okay but coming this time not from the jewish but from the greek or universal side of human wisdom those things in some way foreshadow the fullness of the of
the gift of the holy spirit
but they're not equal to the holy spirit moves from the second-order cognitive and dualistic language in which the language of contemplation as at home and that's a greek language and of to a third order which is first of all non dualistic not objective holistic and a much fuller way then contemplation is
secondly it's effective it's inseparable from love
thirdly it's personal and transpersonal at the same time
the holy spirit is a personal gift it's a gift a personal gift of the personal job through the person of jesus christ at the heart of our own person which brings our own person alive and sort of almost to say not inflated but but now brings it to its full dimensions and some
way and yet at the same time as transpersonal if you could almost say at some point in person on the contemplative experiences merton often talks about his inexperience in emptiness it's a kind of a a metaphysical experience and experience of being
so it moves between the personal and a metre personal a transpersonal in some way the cosmic is one aspect of that the present of the holy spirit in all things
but yet i the notes
no no audio yeah i think nine and put it in game
a it's related immediately to a communal reality and this is emphatically not true at the antique notion of the of contemplation okay both and greek tradition and also in the for instance the desert fathers are the the early contemplative writers in christianity are we talking about a an interior experience of the india
visual person quite abstracting from a commando reality and this is true also on st john at a crossroad there's hardly a breath about community and out the crows and the church does not interest community and interested in different way and jump the group fifty it's related immediately to the historical context and movement or two
historical context in movement the holy spirit is is a breast not only in the individual person and the core of the heart of the individual but is abreast in the whole world a wind blowing in the whole world it it gives the whole of history of push it gets inside history and somehow
have you just say fills history and moves it
and six thing and this has been in a couple of the ones above it's essentially a dynamic the identity of contemplation often that notion has to be considered a static and and purely trans temporal okay kind of moving out of of the immutability of things in the neoplatonic tradition christianity especially that would retain a guy
austin for instance
whereas the holy spirit is is essentially some dynamism it's essentially a flame and moves things
and it is at the heart somehow of history of sacred history but even of the world history
so those two expressions of
that's the end of that list but does two expressions of
contemplation first and then holy spirit of just at home and two completely different worlds cultural world
a greek or universal set the actual world if you like if you included a said the asian traditions for instance a zen tradition
which would accept i think the the deepest christian or the deepest western ocean of contemplation as as being very closely related if not identical with a chunk experience take conferences at cart and zannino suzuki writing about our current engine and a biblical world of the new
intrusion of god's word and spirit into this world so there's simply a whole dynamic a whole context of act of movement of recreation or whatever you want to call it transformation to intentionally dynamic the holy spirit is dynamism and sunlight
the new testament is conveying to as an event which embraces all of reality of of creation and somehow
takes it into the divine action being but in so moves it pushes it directional a some somewhere
cosmos and history
the perspectives on this relation and police confronted experience just a few angles so so you can chief how hard it is to talk about it in one way or following on track to put it into one picture on vision first of all holy spirit as the agent or the energy of contemplation
and none of these words do justice to and the holy spirit is the very subtle medium of contemplation so that he somehow the gift of the holy spirit or the awakening of the holy spirit or the emergence of the holy spirit within you is identical with this non dual experience which were talking about his contemplation but the the plane
ace the role of the holy spirit and this is so subtle and so pervasive because the holy spirit is not a part now that we do we're so used to talking about parts it's not a park it's it's somehow influences the whole and there we go the on our language we don't have a language we're talking about that holds about totality
secondly you can look at it the holy spirit as the unity of core of the gospels and in that way as the substance of contemplation so when you get through the letter of the word the outside of the word you get to the heart of it that's the holy spirit you've got to that you've got to this unit of reality of god which is communicable which
is what the word is trying to say the word that has spoken to us contains within it something which in a way it goes beyond word think of the word as something which is spoken which is heard which has seen which is red which has a surface which has a kernel which has proceed
saved and contained within it something which is not perceived in the same way not perceived with senses but which moves to your interior speaks to your interior which implants itself in your interior and and lives there
think of the holy spirit in that way that's just one image of these are images which are which are inadequate and if you think of it that way then you can also think of it as the divine feminine and if you think of the the external part the word as we know word and words as being masculine think of the interior the core as being a the feminine
purely unity of divine reality which has no outside which has only pure pure union periodic pure a non dual reality
and therefore which has to have a container which has some way to be hidden which has to be mystery and somewhere in this world
now one more way of thinking of the holy spirit is not as the center of the core of where the filling as it were of the word but as the aura or the field of the word around a word
never that
particle wave alternative we talked about before you can think of say body as particle and soul or spirit as as wave or better as field so if you think of the words the letter of the scriptures the the physicality the part
peculiarity of the word as particle now think of the holy spirit as field
the spirit of the word something like that but the with the expression field is very useful it because also the the notion of freedom in a field even in a field like they talk about a what a quantum field as being a field of possibility you know as a marvelous analogy to to the whole
a spirit a field of creative possibility a field of as yet on particular eyes creativity
there's just one more because there are a lot of different ways you can think about the holy spirit obviously and relationship too
two contemplation and to the word it conduct of it for instance in relationship to the moment as a point that penetrating point
of the divine reality for of our own and are most reality yet during the crust is that thing about of them
when of i should live it comes with flame in it's experience we use language of by this is that is the student's cs this is no trifling no such as that's quite an equation can bring out any you can spousal young businesses pets a unit of love for him at that mom
amen to that is that that it goes beyond language and the sense of being the very flame of oneness whereas if the to flange be readily to become one of flame of our own spirit in the of the divine spirit that's the point where a strange language the most i guess in that vivekananda family member also he's got a trinitarian
series of images that that the father is are gonna raise the touch and this kind of very deep and subtle interior direct experiences with a sweet person to the chosen the father is that touch the sun i believe is the whisper and the spirit is the flame
i don't remember which of his works doesn't it

thanks to child process of past
the spiritual to we yes exactly the wake him up into words nanny breeze exact next him yeah exactly
i wrote a bunch of notify the joseph on the subject of your interests genuine and but i'll try to distill the whole thing in this way that you can three three perspective and his relationship of contemplation always very first of all the holy spirit about to say as identical with contemplation that is kind of bush
as being simply the experience of the holy spirit as a starting point
but then the holy spirit being a breath being a respiration as it were as to movements one movement is the inhalation and one movement is the drawing and work the moment of interiority interior isation okay and that's typical of the monastic tradition and at moose towards the center and other which it's drawn towards the
a father or towards the center of our own being and it's as if you've got two axes that come from that center and one as the axis or to say of of the word or of understanding of knowledge of light and the other as the axis of the spirit or of effectivity of love of feeling
the of the the image there might be flame instead of life but as you move towards the center the to become once on how the to tend to coalesce or what you get as a kind of a of wisdom which is loving knowledge or knowing love a number that code or hips a as not
teach him where love itself as knowledge and knowledge itself his luck because the the love the knowledge which is wisdom is
is a unit of knowledge which is not only love and our sense of between you know and love a simple delight love as simple resting in some kind of united relationship with their beloved and then we were slipping all the time like into subject object knowledge it's not that tissue beyond that
now that's the inward movement and actually typically monastic on the inhalation how to say
and that's the experience of identities and murkiness talking about the experience of the core which i would call a baptismal experience but there's another direction and the holy spirit to during the this respiration of the holy spirit and then it just maybe be really actually apostles were they get you get something completely different man you get to an explosion of enter
okay moving outward and look as very geographical about moving out for word from a center from jerusalem this explosion of the holy spirit moving out from jerusalem to the edge of the earth which drives not inward but outward and looks interest in act is to document as it were that outward mm
movement that explosion expansion of the holy spirit so it's moving towards something else and once it moving towards it's moving towards a global fullness somehow a global transformation of
watch again pardon if i call this eucharistic but i think that's where it's going the outward movement which is the inward movement is like a light it's like the light of the centric it's like the morning light in some way the a pure light of non dual experience to center which is typical in a sense of the asian tradition
ones as well okay of the east it's the eastern experience but this other room at this movement average which is like flame is
flame fire transforming energy which is gradually changing the world turning the world into something okay and it does it through human beings of courage but it also works human and otherwise i mean even even science and technology or in some way products they can be wild
a strange a defective product distorted products sometimes but that's products to ambition of this transforming energy which moves outward and the worm until this change the whole thing and that would go up baptism of the eucharistic as typical not of the monastic tradition at all
but of other parts of the church i'm reminded of especially today the charismatic movement
not because the charismatic movement is always a very good analogy here but neither some monastic tradition but network but it does impose itself quite a diametrically on sense to the monastic thing because there you have two different experiences that holy spirit one towards interiority and the other tending to him about which also even and they
the bunch of people in a room and i started singing and problems and and of that whilst of all that an external expressions by which it tends to move in that outward direction of the actually possible to even the phenomenon or the phenomenon the outward phenomena of the new testament okay but as i say i don't want to stretch that conversion too far
because we want to talk about the transforming dimension or this outward movement and there is releasing figure that to school spirit he goes into solitary wish not was busting out and wants to go way to in the tribe or such right are are the traditional seems to have something also chongqing true
this year's have a good over mediums to evangelize and and remaining punk snap the video decision has it all this dinner now don't think the opposition yeah you're right at the monastic tradition itself on it's really on fire and it's really alive tends to move in both of those directions but i think whatever christianity is expire
against or re-emerges and it's full intensity and are whether it be with monasticism it'll push the boundaries of monasticism how it until it includes the other movements them as a dozen romeo and effect of martyred on this very important because i think that's very much a part of this outward movement okay the outward movement drives towards a kind of cunt
zooming of the individual into the hello
so when they were eager to go to polling her or pressure wherever it was to be martin they're just like ignatius who wanted to be ground by the teasers a beast remember to become the bread of christ but i'd read of christ was for the others that blood of christ it is for humanity for the world that's why i call a eucharistic
but that's the other dimension and when the the spirit doesn't allow us to stay in one in one pocket we've got a conception of of contemplation and the spirit really comes alive and this it's going to break down at conception and it's really gonna cross also institutional boundaries you know that is oh among shouldn't do that with the monkeys
a do that at a certain point of the spirit is alive and
so the origins of these things are often very much bigger than the institutionalized versions afterwards know down to the centuries the institution tend to specialize
and it based on the roman catholic tradition and specializes in such things and concrete for when the spirit really comes alive it moves across those boundaries and breaks down the country of work

yeah so on a thing like that i shaded the monastic tradition identifies with one dimension and then at certain times flames out in the other dimension and this is true also on the apostolic that you read the lives of forever not like st pauli and across st paul is like an embodiment of this outward movement i guess i would flame of of dynamism of the
holy spirit and yet read him talking about his interior experience when he says in first corinthians and the light of god we've seen what a lighter says a the gotta have that light shine out of darkness is shown in our arch the glory of god an efficient christ is the central experiences baptismal experience she
when he when he relates that it goes all the way to that to that end and he says it like nobody else ever says it just because of the intensity of the spirit judge in both directions but his vocation drives an outward his mission management
so there's a mutuality between those two directions
okay
any questions you know the one yes dick and i kept you sane
the connotation is on one abstracts last of the experience in the holster that was an employee that was a yeah it's an imperfect statement okay that's a kind of that's an abstract statement to account for what i mean as the word contemplation is an abstraction it comes out of an abstract vocabulary
okay and it refers to a certain experience which in itself may be incomplete in comparison with the expansion of the spirit that we're talking about
for anyone but the word itself is even more incomplete because it suggests a kind of subject object thing she contemplation suggests the word suggest looking at something is they're also the outset of thing in contemplation wistfulness are they get this is that in his dreams and then
when when when you said god is busts out yet yeah better off flows from a negative experience and movie in one direction of the fullness of the experience but more moving and the direction which martin is particularly concerned with here it's the fullness of the experience with the spirit because it's been a
allowed to develop anteriorly to it's fully unit to reality okay it's expansion it's it's deepest edited reality so which you know doesn't seem to happen isn't nearly as much as it should from another point of view it's
the word contemplation is only expressing a part of what is happening
now at that moment it may express nearly the whole thing how of shape it at another moment and my expression part of what is happening first of all because of reality spreads everywhere beneath the surface of life is unitary oh and this is experiencing all kinds of different ways but secondly because it tends to give preference to this internet thing
and short changed the outward dynamism okay
the more eucharistic dimension in which the holy spirit is
equally experienced
so it's a chance it into human word
it's a cultural term which necessarily is limited
but that is a rights perspective that if you were to have experienced follows
year to the experience of contemplation and all last piece of advice given would draw that have their own i just because the nature of the experience yes it seems to be largely though he might be skeptical about a statement like that in his later years
i mean that later i mean cosmetic industry and contemplation as yes and that it isn't the if i turn around that if you hadn't really experienced as a consultation it might just lead you into an active life again yeah i think so i try
the beauty of negative contemplation is that it's so clear and focused okay and way and a sense leave quite right towards will want wanna talk about as very useful for that for for renewing the focus and monasticism okay that word kind of in which is so much embattled in our time is an ascent
oh word almost we don't have another one like it for getting monasticism back on its original track shack on the right track and and towards its central his court
and yet at the same time yet itself just because of the limitation of a word leaves out a lot and can lead a person into a kind of reduced form of christian life
and another was an obsession with contemplation of the contemplative experience can make a person jeff to the holy spirit

okay so we had a time
like to talk about contemplation and and testament a little more we had a paradox that that contemplation is not use explicitly that had term and the new testament but yet martin says the new testament full of contemplation and i believe it is right so he had this further thesis that the core of the biblical word particular the new testament is the
anna to divine reality to one i repeated are just a few minutes ago so that
this yatim is communicable and word and spirit and it's the very substance or contemplative experience
so that the new testament is like a vehicle or a container for
the additive experience that container for the unity of reality is just an image but
and so when a delivers it it's message and delivers it it's packages that were what is delivering is this unit to reality
now it's not just a contemplative experience it's a unit of transformation whereby you'll become a new i know being but there's no being contrast with the old being by its unity of character the fact that it rings is about that this one is one in the one which is good and it's one somehow with everything else as well it's like a new
intensity of oneness in the world which is able to somehow to gather other things into unity around it

so
this communicable united reality of god
which we call the holy spirit and it's in it's communicable form of communication
and as martin says that's a question an issue for us of identity
the this is the source this gift is the source and the event of our new being a new identity it's important to put it in the context of old and new i think sometimes written will be talking in that context has to true self and for self but we found we use
that that it didn't quite do it that we need to translate or and to the language of old and new
the book called the new man in which he gives a lot of attention to them
we have to get it sooner or later back into a biblical perspective and then that communication of the divine unity of being as in a direct line was that remember that all those i am expressions in john's gospel and that fundamental revelation of the divine name to moses back at the burning bush and exodus three or god's name is with the others i am
now the difficult of commentators will translate that an all different ways but you can get away from it to at the heart of it is this kind of from would you call it this i
direction right to earn the heart and core of our own being core of our own identity
oh and barca has got a marvellous presage and that where to action about
the participation human participation in nature and everything being all systematically eliminated in the old testament until the only participation there is is through the recitation of the divine name through the speaking of the divine name i can which you cannot say without a participate
at got to say the divine name somehow i managed to identify yourself with the divine being
that's a very good ship which i think it may be overstated that tomorrow's marvelous time
and i think about it in connection with an image of them of the burning bush from which the name is spoke
now this is the contemplation identity relation which merton proposed to us at the beginning of of his book the inner experience
and why is kind of budget not discussed in the new testament but sometimes it is well my under another term like the knowledge of god or to see in john's gospel to see jesus and often you're moving between face and contemplation there and often their you can't distinguish on a certain point faces like dark
manipulation and gonna patient or knowledge is like light faith are there one continue on one thing he opening of the eyes of the heart and ephesians you know i think martin coach seventy
knowledge of the mystery and poor or he says technology that has been given to us notice that often the this is not simply the non door knowledge we're talking about a non will extract with there's usually a kind of objective content you acknowledge its history and shot and yet that's all soaked with this unit of knowledge and they're almost
indistinguishable at a certain point because the mystery that paul is talking about this mystery of christ when you read ephesians and conversions is precisely the mystery of unity and so it comes just soaked just permeated with this unit of experience itself which were calling contemplation non dual experience g
jesus on the cross is the very core of that the very event very realization of that non do a reality as it comes into the world and note and put yourself into the world and historical and transforming way
so on
the content and the when should we say the content of the experiences the mystery and other producer me and the gentiles are both safe together that's identical somehow with the stuff with that fabric with that whatever it is a substance of the unity of reality and unitary experience which were speaking of as contemplate
yeah
the basic way of religious knowing and the new testament is a participative knowing if not a unity of knowing if not a contemplative nine
so the new testament
the the very knowledge that very understanding the very meeting with jesus french and the new testament as a contemplative encounter
it has
holy scholars not
where we so good yeah damascus was called there and he was only subnet somehow in that light of the this is the price should be crucified and still separate and are premature to the risen christ and so i can see how christ on the cross and then some up together that risk
experiences to several this unity of experience in its it's christ form and that's all going through three to john it's all a i were in that light in the recent crime that's right peniche all the to avoid an implicit and all it is this knowledge that everything has pulled together in christ and they say that his law
george you know there's also implicitly the knowledge that this particular law this particular rulers the one who reaches to the bottom and reaches out to the site and somehow brings it all together in himself and for one one photos are in christ you know to encouraged in christ encouraged in him that language that repetition say it's the same sense it's insane
linkedin with closer there's every word of this brass practically can tell they permit work we'll emergency he says that he experienced a contemplation is moving into price experiences christ praise eternally is used to father so you can do all concentrated to the so that experience of complications experiencing a whisper
room like can sometimes i find this very helpful just to move into the contemplative christ i tried right
yeah
merton comes very close to and that ejection that we read that what was it the theology and contemplation section where our contemplation is simply illogical call an emanation of are being christ you know which then can be considered also inferior to the father or you may simply withdraw into the interior beating itself
which is essentially unity to and therefore essentially condemned to that is your identity itself even if you're not praying no matter what you're doing even if you're doing nothing or identity itself is full of like has it has been as it were permeated with that baptized weather
think there are some years and you will see them confrontation mrs mitchell were work and asset yes the you can buy package worse i tried and contemplation these the people as touch her at the answers
is that what is out because the ass is less of an effective you need to average dudes and jamie into job words can also tap water i flashed not try and an address the as actually become something that was his act and the words have panic as yes that's quite so
shuttle what he does the
he says that use it as
it was seats giving them yes yeah
so faces the basis and a beginner you gonna patient and whatever knowledge they use the terms gnosis or at thicknesses and the new testament develops from phase is a contemplative knowledge the knowledge that comes from fate as a contemplative knowledge
we have a tendency to think of it as things that were told things that we learn but when those things count they really have become your own experience that is there they're somehow now that coming india they're coming out at you in some sense they're coming out it's like everybody who teaches in christianity is a mister god was simply initiate the person to what he's already received and and
initiation was already inside a number where john the first better unconscious you received this anointing from the holding one and you all know it on mean to check all the teacher can do is tell you what you have god and that's what follows doing all time his name
shane remember what you have received and i wake up know you forgot what you what you got forgot which been done to you what happened to you who you are
james the same thing when he says you on the words like a marriage of liberty and you walk away from and you forget your heart is pure
so the notion of kind of employment as a greek philosophical biased it's somewhat abstract or and the circumscribed it's intellectual list and maybe duelist anti material that so intrinsic to the great tradition to polarize spirit you are
intellect nose against matter i say that when the holy spirit company has to shoot each like alleges fire you know who just sweeps all the matter whole the whole body right up into into it ensure there's no more dualism
so gonna version can be a dualistic conception of a unity of experience
and i remember merton by the sarcasm and it's like for them for the slipper to upper class
whereas the biblical tradition as much more holistic undergo comprehensive synthetic non analytical and it's incarnational at as embodying it's sacramento and wide sense
and so i tried kind of patient continually within something larger and less dematerialized materialized than itself the notion of contemplation even a experience of gonna vision outside christiania i think he's picked up
a contemplative experience inside themselves into a larger being a larger thing
the word kind of patients already on the way to non participative consciousness to non-participation because it has this suggestion of subject i picked experiencing where's the essence of new testament contemplative experiences participation she led an expression of pool and christo in christ
which is almost obsession with him
and the notion of the one body else
so this leads us into the middle of the great big epistemological question on how do we know
this is the problem with contemporary a biblical exegesis that it's got it's got an unconscious presupposition that we know in a certain way and that's the only way to know and that knowing is basically a scientific way of knowing basic rave and analytical way of knowing and so very often it it just doesn't get onto the frequency of the
it prepares the ground it does a lot of the preliminary work the homework and very often it's upstairs strangely
but
the question of contemplation of new testament writers to what we might go on intellectual conversion that is required it turns over our consciousness just as it does for the people who come to jesus like nigga damaged israel
so you've gotta be born again it requires a kind of
rebirth of consciousness
which is a contemplative conversion
a re centering of our consciousness if we start from today's mentality especially now faith is already doing advantage but it doesn't largely in the darkness
but if we want to talk about contemplation and the new testament sort of forces during the daylight that brings up the issue out into the open where we have to talk about it was thinking these giants like origin gregory of caroline this is a profoundly people and very open
aussie to agree so they're wrestling that's right the opposition's and differences that term of participation and for timeless uses it in a it can be used in an neoplatonic and then in a very different way the new test and attractive but we have these giants the earlier a greek christian period
knows you are yeah the name the russians the perennial problem comes up especially in our time and a hole in conservation thing and with a meeting with the asian traditions especially
the word participation is extremely useful here and the best writer i found out of his partial one martin dodge about are passing through a kind of needles i have non-participation not participate of knowledge and and the scientific age and then a new participation emerging from that time which would be a no wisdom you know
also within christianity
so our understanding of terms like contemplation have to as to change really in the process of this conversion from something distinct an experienced in a distinct moment
to something more very multi level pervasive participation i guess so martin is wrestling with it up
and you want to keep the focus because i'd say it's extremely one for an ostracism to have a focus of the pure contemplation them as a kind of
direction gives a whole perspective and yet to realize it as a participated permeating kind of reality and in the christian context part of something much bigger
we can get all down a contemplation of something that's for sure martin would agree with it
i noticed that if contemplation sort of loses itself into the wholeness of our unit of on one side to side towards us if you look at an adjustment it loses itself into the whole of the new testament experience okay that happens with both hands
kind of patients are in the middle this abstract were contemplation if we bring it into our own life and disappears and then it's everywhere underneath and manifesting a more or less clearly a purely a different moment if you'd try to find it an adjustment disappears on your to and then
you'll find it everywhere but as something larger than itself the abstract term contemplation still doesn't fill ago
it is if whatever jesus touches continues to burn with a contemplative fire that was the editor for it no matter where he and the gospel i of what he touches nevada where he appears or what he says it's gathered by ironic that the narrative
presence and foreigners
contemplation itself as a goal is like the pearly and on and us from is the most desirable objective of world but at the same time obviously to kind of a siren shine and kind of ego trip contemplation as martin pointed out frequently especially as and getting a new are of question
sometimes it's useful to move around to the opposite side of well when you're talking about contemplation the underside of the question remember dot on nicole or and he was in another paper is not to want to be that he gave us the question it's tolstoy's question but what is it by which a person lives
but what is it by what is it from what is it that somebody lives and remember the exact exact words and he's talking of course about about the poor what why
what is it it makes life possible that he underside good
i'll just leave it with you and then and then how does every to contemplation and interested in the matter of faith is going to get in there somewhere with the relationship between the two sides of played that that is a the dark side of faith as it were in a light shade of fate what is it what is it did you live by
now if it's gonna be patient
the weekend a little bit of our key autograph it's got to be something that the bridge itself in the ground
we've already just about consumed at times so maybe i can ask you for next time which the next time finishing the same subject to revision and guy follow it
show
take those notes which a handout number sixty

yeah
that's right was four pages of notes
and see what you can do it and okay
first you gotta kind of introduction
in which you'll find some repetition of such things we've been sharing today
that's contemplative reality of experience in a new testament does posted
first of kind of a general introduction then a suggestion are some places to look for this unity or contemplative reality and the new testament some angles to look for those who were in our marred class will recognize some of the angles we have becoming a difference
and then the third hard say story on page three is
just a list of exemplary places where you find a different forms different manifestations of unity or contemplative experience
some of them a distinctly in the knowledge of guy some of them and their baptismal experience some of them in something like the anointing that john talks about some of them need a new indwelling of the last supper and jump
and sometimes
more distinct experiences like vision
and then we can work with where the stuff next time
looking for mark and they could work not not even forgot about it
nothing from the synoptics with a matter of fact you're not opportunity to kind of snobbery
except keep your head and passages the bathroom and yeah that's right matthew eleven twenty five to thirty and hours without a father i thank you for your dog should be here the kids is exalted in the holy spirit and said father i thank you because you've hidden these things from the great and and revealed to the little ones my
marvelous matthew eleven twenty five the three and then the equivalent and look which is a little different because very very exults in knowledge period and be taken in that
and a couple of others at least but don't see it on it's implicit largely in the synoptics it's harder to grasp desert dispatch a muslim or more explicit more obvious in some way it's more subtle strength is more subtle in his mouth
ha but take the transfiguration you know with the residents interpretation of them
cause they didn't see with their eyes they show through their eyes but they show through their eyes from center to center is evolution from nader the core of themselves to the core of that unit of being and jesus had uncreated light gin
okay