second session at this second phase on contemplative prayer in the christian tradition which i think shares so many things with the also the tibetan tradition bro
my father bruno can be here we mentioned last time to profound complementarity between his approach in on the developer
they imagined it
much that it's a go most a miraculous dovetailing the a and that black rider ending with no
so we had started to explore as the cloud of unknowing invites us to the different resources faculties the sensors within of the imagination the memory to get to know ourselves better so that we can know what is the key
kind of royal path to communion with the divine and down
coach and it's certainly in the cloud if we can't know ourselves how can we know of that moment of communion with god but it's also i think a very appropriate for our own time father joseph have asked when he saw my outline which begins with human and christian love and then gets up
to god as love he said shouldn't you start there with this great objective context this ground of at all and this fulfillment of the all which is god being love and not just start in this of what can be a constricted focus within us of what faculty in one moment
et cetera and i think objectively and theologically he certainly has a point are commodity spirituality tries to be also very emphatically objective and not just caught up with the young kind of inner what's happening to me and of get involved with a self preoccupation
on the other hand items i say it's so congenial to us to begin with of this objective the interior the psychological and this also parallel to get with the clouded very much parallels with bernard when he starts to build that ladder of love that show
will get us to the full union with god he starts at this most humble level of within me my loving me for me so we want to take this more humble subjective phenomenological approach but not forgetting for a moment the other this
works the approached the cloud is trying to suggest precisely because god is love we just quoted your father joseph to you
when you said in my outline why not start with a great objective reality of god as love
and then and to that would be most appropriate theologically et cetera you have to have your mental book that's right that's true
after ten years it it'll come as fresh
and in this context of the objective reality the ultimate context menu and horizon of it all of it's hard not to share something of our own experience yesterday of the native american sweat touch because i think it
it's an incredibly intense experience it's it's the whole person certainly it also the physical etc
but you're in there and this little kind of room and the earth and then the box come in than they're heated and then the waters ported and city jerseys huge
inescapable waves of heat that teach you and at a certain point when when he's quite to revved up as little bear which history did it just becomes quite intolerable
the of the parallels struck with me in a certain sense that's what new testament a copy is
ts eliot says we cannot stand too much reality so as some of the mystic see at the purpose of creation the purpose of of all these things that god put out there is to vail is immense energy our god is a consuming fire to kind of keep it at a safe distance because we wouldn't be a
the bear it and extremely intense experience also like ecstatic experience are also like to sweat lodge is seventy opening it up to this a parable in the sweat lodge and just a steam heat
then i think it works it was a horrendous experience but at the and having gone through something like death
ron euro says it almost goes beyond the symbolic to the real and who persecute you really are dying in there a but there is some kind of mysterious ineffable
new life ground to at all
and there's just no words for it but are very stuttering faltering language of love at least for me works for some other kind of language might work better but the whole purpose of that is not paid in itself it's not a masochistic trip or something but it's too
get through this intense suffering shared with the young suffering of all of humanity to this ground so that kind of around and beyond and as the base going to wipe the blackboard for every particular thing we write on it etc that's the ultimate about
twitch what we're doing and our attempts at articulating at all of our simply very young faltering of pointing the finger in that direction
another kind of fun
moving part of it
so i found the young this kind of ultimate ground thing there in the sweat first in the waves of heat but then in going all beyond that and the anger in the fear and the pain to some kind of ultimate intuition
of the unity of at all and the absolute of fullness about all et cetera in a benevolent way somehow well one way to articulate that would be certainly wisdom one way would be of
then each
little bear as a whole theology that there are four basic races there is the white race that comes at the and i should start there's the red race the native americans there's the black race are african american brothers and of course back in africa etc then there is the yellow race all our brothers and sisters from asia then there's the
white race so we had four sessions and we would come out of the sweat lodge can a staggering jumpy this in this a hog trough i guess you as a good provocateurs
but in each session one of these traditions was to present a prayer a chant etc
so what what should we present for the christian will i suggested of the our father which is our lord's prayer and to superintendent all we don't want them from
so it came out with ubi caritas among others but that was at the first to ubi caritas extremely moving and of course we know it comes from up holy thursday and we translated it as we were singing but up were charity love our their guardians and that seem to
for our troupe at least for the christian group to be extremely helpful just in moving through the suffering and death and resurrection and it is a holy thursday chen will either true or it's not either just sentimental you know if it's true that's basically what the author the cloud is trying to say
and that whole tradition even people like gun sir thomas etc where charity and love are there is god
and is suffers creek of first jump would sit up those who abide it love abide in god because god is love so it's taking that objective and ground etc
and i'm taking it seriously
having said all that or anything else who want to share about sweat lodge or questions or perplexities guess you might i mention the next to saw
yeah we have them he said areas of know we had experience year and a big mercy know which was very stupid just need
i know
and then lasting about series
oh one than the other thing a bit with your comments reminded me of another thing that i think we all shared helped us to get through it was intercepted three prayer praying for the suffering and dying and so that that put it in a context and little blue bear explain
ain't out of his tradition that this incredible self mortification that the native americans would put themselves through with putting pins through the breasts and pulling themselves up in the air and things again this isn't a wild masochistic this is to try to share in this credible suffering and dying of all of creation to come
into some new space of union with at all and little bit tied to right into on jesus's being nailed their so he couldn't to get out from it and this as love poured out so out of quite a different tradition the little bear likes to note all the parallels of why
what we're trying to do here and looking at these mistakes out of the fourteenth century i think is extremely appropriate it's it's a way that up
can help can lumen
both at that extremely prime want your level of the blood and sweat and the blisters and the pain etc or at the most of refined mystical poetry of a john with the cross or of the canticle of canticles for something there's a spread and a richness to the up now
love thing at its best the tub might help us in that regard
so let's go back to our faculties and seriously so in this tradition at least which parallels thomas aquinas we do have our senses we have our feelings imagination
but this tradition talks of to spiritual faculties to higher faculties of spiritual or higher in the sense of day with them we can embrace all of creation and with them we can even penetrate into the mystery of god the transcended beyond time beyond space
now at least again according to this tradition the cloud wants to make very explicit
that of these two faculties the way to go is not understanding is not to the way to go is through love which is the highest act of the will this other spiritual faculty so let's just look at that we may not agree we may be offered similar weird position but i think
we switched to premises
so this has a front page we're going to look now but one of his other books in anonymous offers cloud
in this wonderful collection was our cruises
scholars know the t of we have from his pen about five treatises how would we know that if he's anonymous
i mean if we have karl rahner and we have works by karl rahner we know he wrote them all but if we have works that are intentionally anonymous how can we say are we running out
how can we say that they're all by the same name for women
as i was tired but as i a technology by yeah
content he that sat on precisely this is it and this is where scholarship this is where getting into they had helped so much so are able to gather these works were able to see how one of these works marvelously i think compliments the other etc
but this is a short treatise absolutely marvelous in this collection of other treatises in the polished series the pursuit of wisdom you had that on the title page this is called the assessment of in inward stirrings and here are anonymous writer is still counseling this young
hermit
but on a very specific problem of discernment of kind of urges spiritual urges
does shown guy is author and solitude he says hey i had these urgings to do much more in the area of fasting i'm not doing as much as some very serious solitary is are on the other hand sometimes i'll flip on that and i think i should be eating more at getting too thin to my relatives complained so which is how do i discern what
it is and sometimes i feel i should between more vigilance i'm not here just asleep all the time and this is an ancient tradition vigils for union with god or the other hand sometimes i think i need more sleep which is it how do i discern this sometimes i think come zero concept with these
wonderful now or solitude i should be much less than contact with people other times i think a christian communities what i need how do i discern this and the first principle of the author is a void being a bish that is avoid discerning what
you should do on the basis of well that guy over there is doing that and i'm not quite keeping up with him or something like that that's the way not to go says the author i think this is extremely wise personal that guy might be on the right track for him but that doesn't mean at all it's the right track for you and in fact that guy might be under
wrong track even for him but once you've got to know is what is right for you
and whenever people say well he's doing it when can i do anything and i think bill should go off that shouldn't be the deepest kind of motivation for justifying a why we're doing what we're doing
then he makes the theological point and he is a very serious trained theologian so he's not just anti intellectual he's not just let's not study anymore that's despise the intellect but get out of a head forever etc he uses they had to what kind of descend from the head into the heart as so the eastern orthodox tradition say
you think we will look at these you've got fasting you've got eating you got vigils you've got sleep you got solid to you got community they're all means they're not the end we don't go into the religious life to vast we go in for something else so he says my knees up as oppositional
pears and then put something mysterious in the middle so if you go to the top of page one forty which should be on the back there let's read silver this
so let's go to that first paragraph towards the top for limestone and now you ask what is this third thing that he saying but right between solitude and community fasting and finish to quit is this third thing i shall tell you what i understand it to be it is god for him you must be silent if you are to be so
silent for him we must speak if you are to speak for him you must fast if you are too fast for him you must eat if you were to eat for whom you must be solitary if you were to be solitary for him you must be a company of you were to beat company and so for all the rest whatever they been so he's got he doesn't just base august on intuition so
kind of his own briggs my personality type person he tries to argue theology here
for silence is not god nor speaking is god fasting is not god nor eating being alone is not god where company god nor yet any one of such pair of contrary is he is hid between them now we want a very carefully this and it cannot be found by any work of your soul
whole only by the love of your heart that's how we're going to find him the love of the heart
he cannot be known by reason
this is where he's pretty rigorous and you've got these two spiritual faculties intellect and we'll forget intellect he cannot be thought grasp or searched out by the understanding but he can be loved and chosen by the true and loving desire of your heart
choose him then and you are silent and speaking and speaking in silence fasting and eating and eating and fasting so with all the rest i received that so eloquent and sublime kick off if you go to that center and cleaved that center how by the will cleaving to god and love
than the rest will sort itself out one way or another
so we've got is this deepest theology coming forth in the context of this particular astra problem should i be fasting or should i be more to solitude or something and the solution is don't worry about it so much worry about the central focus of your life
this loving choice of god which is attentively to gather him up and seek him out with the true will have a clean heart center etc so he ties will end with a heart part of our agenda is to see how christian contemplation relates to scripture would you take a central category the huh
heart that's what he means also by the will that deepest not the sentimental or the emotional but that deepest level where we make our fundamental options and choices etc
then if you skip down a can you skip down another for and this is true even if the person who makes this contemplative a decision
this search sees nothing that can be conceived with a spiritual i have reason for his god is your love and your intent the choice ground of your heart we were talking now about choice and ground children this is enough for you in this life even though you never see more of him with the i have
of recent all your lifelong such a blind shot with a sharp arrow of love that longs can never miss the bullseye which is god then he quotes from the canticle of canticles and does one of these lovely kind of the allegorical readings if you'll jump over the latin which is always very said you have wounded my
heart my sister my beloved my bride you have wounded my heart in one of your eyes was probably not there at all in the hebrew but still that's there in the lab so what is one of these eyes now he has to go and explains there are two eyes of the sole reason and love and this is fascinating here
his theological tradition would say recent and will and in other places we've seen above he slips in the will but he's got them so merged for him the will is only there but to love
so he says reason in love so love becomes synonymous there with will buy reason we may search out how mighty are wise how good god is in his creatures but not in himself but whenever recent fall short than it is loves pleasure to look alive and to learn to occupy
by itself for by love we can find him experience him and reach him as he is in himself is a high and wonderful love when our lord says the loving soul etc you had wounded my heart with one of your eyes and so and so he goes on but see in this treatise
we have the same underlying geology so his father joseph said that's how the scholars know the author of that was the author of the cloud because as will see now the cloud has the very same theology but stressed up in different terms i like that image of the to eyes of the of the spirit the
up but he gonna have to close the runaway and just focus through the i have not
so never going to pass out hundred did you have so many hand i'm take a shit you should really like
part of the person were kind of reason for finding gay marriage because i don't think it's and again
so that will see what jack
at the end of the experiments in the highest contemplative lock generate of wisdom experience that i think of is quite clear live
there is the second page of this
i think he would stress that the way into the pile of the surest way
is the
so he's now going back and pilot and will be served to keep
how has he just stared

and we'll try to see is this just one of those very esoteric refined arguments and intellectuals like to get into or can it kind of change the whole shape and approach and logic of fun for contemplative life
so where are we know for and
the and this is always our rubble william johnson translation which
is convenient as an image paperback with also since he's coming here et cetera
so we've got if you'll look at em
what did i can't have to your fifty three fifty four and fifty four twenty five really labour hey honey okay it were
if you go to forty nine that chapter four
how did i give you fifty fifty one years get up
yes
are you sure father and just being a sniff
we have more fitness i didn't know i'll hear similar fifty fifty
and here's another and on the average joe you got and your just now i have infantry so let's look at forty eight and forty nine
now let's look specifically at forty nine chapter four of the simplicity of contemplation that it might not that it may not be acquired through knowledge or imagination remember when know
patrick collins was here and up how important the imagination was for him we got into a little dialogue that point or so it wasn't clear what he met by imagination but there are certain currents of very contemporary theology that really wants to give value to imagination same or more
yeah that's the royal way in to godhead
and
it's you got to explore where they mean by this etc but at least in it's more traditional meaning the author the club would absolutely reject that you don't go away the term itself suggests as these images it's an extremely powerful faculty we have it's the ignition method of sitting down and closing my eyes nine there again at the
cross and i could hear our lord moaning and there is mary and then i start to talk to christ and extremely powerful
but that's not the way into the most immediate are non dual communion with god because precisely it's mediated by images
being there and the cross of jesus as groaning et cetera
so
let's skip down just about five lines from the bottom of page forty hearing
well let's just let's started the first ever since i have described a little of what is involved in the contemplative work but i've now i want to discuss it further he says it's lickety split as a work and this is fascinating because if you take as the royal faculty of contemplation the way
ill that's something we do so contemplation becomes not just be sitting here awaiting the kind of of infusion of celestial nasty cut was word rome but it's my pudding mile will into motion to loving god
odd
and that will be sustained by grace and that will be illumined by grace so there will certainly be a passive surrendering receptivity there but i don't have to sit around and wait i can the first thing i do up when i get up in the morning is take up this work of contemplation it has to do
is this the in another passage is very hard work and so demanding work but keep at it then there will be glorious moments where we're kind of carried forward have some mistakes you see an example of being in a rowboat and just keep rowan and then suddenly to are great astonishment were aware that it's got sale and
just zipping along in its own then it might get into a school is at the router just suddenly we have to roll which is kind of the but is that kind of thing but if you're focusing on the will it it's definitely a work that we have to be involved also so this approach could never go the way of choir
autism
where i just sit and him d all my faculties and and guarded better coming to do something here and it's some mysterious way that he'll spill out i've gotta do what i've got to do so now if you go down about five lines from the bottom this is entirely just
oh yeah if you go before that you will be held responsible for all the time given you we've got this whole life of contemplation we can't just say well god didn't give me these had fused delights or something no i've got to well i've gotta do it and this is entirely just because your principal spiritual faculty the will need only this
three fraction of a moment to move towards the object of its desire
then if you turn the page to fifty due to the patriots had
are you on page fifty you go down about four light it is gone and he alone who can fully satisfy the hunger and longing of our spirit which transformed by his redeeming grace that's important this isn't and polygynous of this isn't it all depends on what i do but this is transformed
by redeeming grace is enabled to embrace him by love he who neither men nor angels can grasp by knowledge can be embraced by love for the intellect both men and angels is too small to comprehend god as he is in himself try to understand this point rational creatures such
as human beings and angels possess to principal faculties annoying power in a loving one so right a direct echo of what we just read no one can fully comprehend the uncreated god with this knowledge but each one in a different way can grasp him fully through love so it's extremely
hi presumptuous claim for love as the way the contemplative ngos truly this is the unending miracle of love that one loving person through kiss love can embrace god who's being filmed and transcends the entire creation and this marvelous work of love goes on for
ever it begins now and then that's what all eternity is about for he who we love is eternal that's a good that objective ground that ultimate rice into it all whoever has the grace to appreciate the truth of what i'm saying let him take my word too hard for to experienced this love is the joy of eternal life
while to do serious eternal torment let's go just a little more he with the help of god's grace becomes aware of the wheels constant movements and learns years of learning set to direct them towards god so that's our mean were don't spend too much time with the memory
certainly or with the imagination even the most sublime
theological considerations just go into the unknowing and just claim to god through love
directed to god will never fail this is pretty high stuff to taste something of heavens joy even in this life and certainly the next he will savor it fully now do you see why i rouse you to the spiritual work you'd been taken to a naturally had people not send for people were created to love and everything else is
treated to make love possible that's a great one liner so all of creation is there to facilitate this one great contemplative work which is the work of adam the work of eve etc
and then he says but it's don't think it's going to be easy don't think that this would just be a i was because of the fall this is precisely what the fall was all about we saw that in burton it was a falling away from contemplation it wasn't enough piece of fruit that you should really use of the get better some dreadful of sexual sin
or something it was somehow mysteriously this primordial no i don't think so too my call to intimate union with god so redemption here we've got a whole implicit christology and soteriology is getting back on this contemplative way which is this way of
well to them nevertheless by the work of contemplative love we will be healed
so
will look one more quote group discusses so i think the point is perhaps if you go to fifty fifty one
by forgot to note that beautiful phrase before god is our love so can that's moving beyond the subjective my act of love which get me to god that there's some ultimate sense with it's god who in me is loving god
that's what of the culminating moment sir john of the cross where in the most sublime experiences of of funk to reproduce trinitarian and it's the holy spirit who is this living flame of love who's loving the father in and through us so page fifty if you'll look about for lines
and five lines down
it is god and he alone can fully satisfy the hunger and longing of our spirit which transformed by history redeem did we read that okay
okay so we're go so that's a very briefly he is some his approach to it
up and as bonuses what does he mean then by understanding does he mean what merton is talking about what to and baptiste highest wisdom but what would you think do we have a direct contradiction there but between the cloud and burton
what would you think probably many
come on rationale group of times
not really intellect such yard
but thinking step by step discuss time passes which she knows this and that that doesn't know around with a kind of intimate
the
try to talk about such as the original thread and he also ah
that is the result a with intimate and to up
yeah awesome unit
june are direct one
experience chemical college
yeah end up in the sweat lodge yesterday are up yellow people offered to pay off offer supreme
yeah and it goes on no into like know will know so in essential gotta get beyond all this language that's precisely the point what's between until it was between not lines per test and now much between them is also as such
the
yeah
a visionary in some survivors a canada
this should be able to laughing and implicit
accusation that is it
the rising costs for this asked about the fall into sin so reason in itself because being an ancestors caused us gave us the choice do it out loud
getting a good amount of here is difficult around and it's difficult to announce that use a fresh and original entire one thing when day you know like have upset and wanted my choir can pick up so immigrant himself a new kind of you say regressive fines
the that's that's something is not really talk about to when i find fascinating
and i admit that our greatest get in there is also our mean that also being cursed in true because i have been ship the driven into a realistic world was beginning verser ne consciousness and which whether it's or work or reserve reason i think knowledge
as far as either an attorney against your way that was transparently on either side some or when his traps because of are confronted
absolutely this loud way can get us into every kind of difficulty and misery and so you said are get greatest gift the intellect is that's where the cloud would come in here and see what i'll wait a minute our greatest gift would be the highest act and the will which is love in through i mean in the sense of like in tenth that
evolution
like that human being that are developed consciousness a getting from it is is fragments from actually a rabbi i read that that eating from the tree of not been evening we asked for this understanding the difference between good and we got of by getting that we made
choose between good and evil in a new way but there is a whole different way of going just to go the difference just to like it
we're not like it
i will now be looking at the psychologists essa and when he says about the will he says this is a dimension of we've virtually forgotten you know were very attentive to feeling too deep effect to imagination also the intellect but i think some of what britain wrote about our passivity and only pump
down in front of the the tv and the most we can do is decide what show but this what as a jolly and others will be arguing is if you go back to the deepest point of the true self to use mertens language there are you get to our capacity to be free and this is what god really risked about
to putting these two people there to use the mythical language and giving them freedom and in this great mystery of their freedom whatever it was lou so it's not precisely intellect and did i'm in it was using their deepest freedom which should have found its highest active love him saying no to love and
i think you're right it would go down into i want to possess knowledge so tempted but you can all i want to say as you can do a psychology according to which the highest level of evolution of isn't consciousness in the sense of recently intellect it's consciousness in the sense of i haven't
the capacity to be aware of why i'm into shape that in my freedom and responsibility but it's all woman in with network servers and by will we chose to go to precisely
also a third a twenty cars and actor look is also an i can perhaps cause it's not like to a with are very selectively directive
the discrimination and go the ultimate yeah
i added
because we're passionate advocate for
so often almost over it a deeper level the sharp a position of discrimination becomes elizabeth young
the only thing i'd have a problem there kind of picky picky when you say it's not blind love as precisely the phrase he uses with glee because it's not a is kind of china the cross his dark knight etc it it is it precisely can't see advanced say face
but but you're right they start loving anything and everything can now
you
yeah i agree with previous from the author of the crowd really is if we want to make a comparison that cost year
the loving desire is somehow superior to a a speculative knowledge without is he was falling out lotta loving inside
but i think up yet that to in several absolute it becomes a acknowledges the allow my loving out job to far as even the to faculties
she already could be a classic and distinguish is if and falcons are the highest shapes your package will at interactions will
well as out insists the real the deepest faculty or our encounter with god for bp car is beyond each and we'll be joined a sense of ah whether to ask to nineties in the ground on the so
so a bot the differentiation of the two families my desk to while you're at the ipas level is so he quotes he's basing his
reflection i'm janice korea must i cost and providing violent mistakes i say cost of john i'm so happy that the so-called ground of the soul or the cheek of the soul assailants instead by the senate would and i think they also referred to back out and doing
the the cheek of the soul on the ground so and author would say they have a sense with the highest point of deepest level of the soul in a spiritual a field in the same thing and it's own and their the to ask your lap and intact and will still work and ask you for granted
i followed this with medio a tradition is the rio faculty a mystical therapy real human faculty to encounter god in a contemplative mystical way is the ground on the so and i think as into a very meaningful because it's such a gram of the
the ground about the is got and said he was there a grandmother so we meet the brow of our get caught himself do so but and i agree is distinction is helpful does to would put us into into right back not to stand next staggered if knowledge is the
highest thing we can achieve that's my the influence of the odor and tonic tradition an emulation the sense of pure knowledge or spectrum or speculative knowledge the flask sudden divide my test at the highest in the highest is that these alarms i'd rip but the of his eyes big
this combined with cottage absolutely and the to the to allow the or otherwise it's irrational with similar wildly impulsive
yes
on that young ago
not all only thing that often impossible for me to know the difference between good and evil in the context of what is
so it started an illusory dualism will not fly
you
and and to rationalize my way anniversary of our people at are guys it was bring out of people but i think you know probably was already there and part of god's plan
now and then there is the tourist a by boy sir thomas would agree with the cloudy as you continue to work on this level in terms of the end he says the will is higher than the intellect because the will somehow goes right into the beloved this is
is a marvelous phrase in the scholastic that if i'm still at the level of at least
apprehending think you said they're intelligent aspect i see people here i pianos here as he blackboards et etc
i'm
i'm bringing them into my head not the physical that piano isn't suddenly my head but what that object is over there pianists is in my head and i know what that is that's a piece of furniture that makes music etc
and so that's what intellect us about and then i understand piano according to my own capacities in my mind so it's someone like a sequel would understand what a piano is all about quite more than i would do we both have piano in our head so the marvelous scholastic phrase that whatever is known
is known to the mode of the nowhere but there's something about love through the will that goes out to the other and the other even if it's totally not understood that's why the author the cloud is so confident it seems with love we can claim to god possess guard etc we don't have to
encompass god in our understanding it's not bringing god into our head and then fully it's going out to god and so the scholastic say love in that quality is ecstatic it takes me out of myself and in that sense it is unity of it gets beyond mediations of up
abstract him for some things so there's that i just follow this a big how i think it could be helpful for us to understand and deal with arc day to day hard by as contemplative i a jolly is a good psychoanalyst the tough
someone has got to meet who is disciple of freud and jung et cetera and if the heart of his work about who is the human person how do we heal the human person bring the human bristol bonus he says it's through the will in love how many of you know us so jolly that personally but his books
and bruno check it out about seventeen times both books so i saw jolie you an italian and we have both and older for monopolies was shattered when pressed by a very spiritual
as
yes sir joseph
roberto and that we have to of his books is kind of classic misses out by a penguin series up this cycle synthesis
this place places very close to the and he says i've got into water or fact that he's got to put them in some kind of order we have to quiet the lower faculties for him at the deepest level of human person can is the will weave so focused on other sides of what cm
saying if we really want to heal ourselves also psychologically but also spiritually get in touch with i do ever will i'm not just of able to know things ponder things imagine things feel things
the wheel can truly be called the unknown and neglected factor in modern psychology psychotherapy and education he says this is particularly paradoxical because it's precisely at the center of the human person closer to the young
the self your uses union language than of the intellect to the emotion so he's got this model of the human person so he puts will right there at the center
the very fact of we will draw attention to the paradox that the very fact of the central position of the will has been the cause of it's being ignored we'd rather deal with things that are more accessible more lively it more and less threatening williams i got my responsibility
means i can do the most amazing things with my life for the good or for the destructive to get back to work i think what patrick l was saying their of yeah i can
note the heart is there then sin isn't there are even if i'm doing something objective lee simple
and it goes back to that wonderful phrase and accustomed love and do what you want
if if you're on and he means love properly had his love of god but if you're doing that you do anything you want it won't sort its way out which is another way of putting what the cloud was trying to get at regarding to our more solitude too i want more a community to if i'm clinging to god and love
of the rest will take care of itself
that is so the very fact that the central position of the will has been the cause of it's being ignored that is the will is the function which is most directly related to the self
it's like when he was rank has gone so far as to say that the human being experiences his individuality in terms of his will this means that his personal existence is identical with his capacity to express his will in the world and so it goes on and on then we have another book by in the act
will and it goes on more and more in these terms were usually to get focused on other stuff but this is where if we want to just heal psychologically

this discovery the wheel is hard to describe as is true of any experience it cannot be fully communicated by words of so he says some history fundamental upon on these inner powers and the one to which priority should be given his the tremendous and realized potency a man soon will it's training and use constitute the phone
foundation of all endeavors are two reasons for this the first that will central position in one's personality and it's intimate connection with core is being is very self the second lies in the world's function in deciding what is to be done in apply malvinas freebies for its realization and persisting of the task the face of all up
seagulls difficulties
we would have to as christian christians and as contemplative add very decisive third steps again the highest act of the will is love which is fulfilling our lord's commandments switches placing us in the heart of god and all the rest of it but it's an interesting of approach also the monastic life
when we had done a meeting with the abbot's i guess it wasn't this last week but a meeting before one of the adverts from asia and asian set of the westerners are always anguish to how are my young monks feeling is that we don't care how they're feeling you know are they from their deepest will live
they're monastic practice for life
and don't we have this most amazing a presentation by psychologists the monks of the asian peoples don't even have much language about i'm feeling depressed or i'm feeling happier there are so communal and so into the ultimate ground of our food speak that me focusing on my
being angry because they seek your frowned at me this or something like of it just isn't something you talk about you know you don't spend much time with kind of thing so that's i think that opens up
some stuff
what brought all of us here we soon had to inform ourselves about what his monastic life from specifically or the canal dbz how does it work in terms information but we could have all that information at a certain point
we that's again very difficult for moderns especially in terms of engaging the wheel for a lifetime commitment i can do it for a while as robert miller says would i can for an immediate future that it'll be opportune to my advantage but when i go into that mystery
a farther down the line how can i commit my will to a lifelong yes whether to a spouse or to monastic life or whatever but that's why we're here it's not so much how much we know some people can know a great deal more than others it's not how vivid our imagination or out deeper feelings outta
etra it's at some point we risk with decision with the option and then doing all the things that have to be done in terms of phone calls and letters etc
also yesterday i was aware of that we were out you had these for breaks with sweat lodge and right after the first would no one really wanted to go back in there then you wait a reason yes to know etc
but some go back and some don't and very likely that people don't go backer were intelligent people who to but that's the will there
and so it's extremely decisive and so with every day and sometimes i might be an extremely mellow space in terms of good my effective life and intuitions to the function of god nor the rest and then all that might actually collapse and i might have the sense that my contempt
his life is collapsing my vocation is collapsing of i might sit there enough rotunda after vespers and nothing's happening god jesus there well as well pack up and leave them up because it's all about god being there but in this perspective it's about in him
immediate way me cleaving to god and love time will just
and this is kind of a neat she will to power and think this is if anything that kind of a will not surrender
will have i can't grasp this i can't control this i just have to be there in love with with a mystery kind of thing
questions comments objections yes with first competition from and because of the will was principally
or with them renunciation of
if it was number
this principal fantastic artist freedom you can imagine yeah i was criteria criterion through he doesn't have videos
a lot more willingly
yeah twitch was one on one
yummy
what is that phrase ethic of dante in his will is perfect freedoms yeah
what is it is our free will panic logos together some good yeah absolutely
other comments about this
so let's try to get a little into what do we mean
you can't give a definition of the will you can given because it comes from that deepest ground and ultimately everything is one there but i think we have some sense of the will as that faculty by which i
i do things i decide i go out of myself i young talk the what what if i walk the talk about the twelve steps i just don't talk about it i actually do it that kind of thing
but the will again in its highest moment of love according to this theology which is also st thomas' goes out and cleaves to that other
now this one of the most ambiguous words in american from language as we mentioned is this term of love it can go from the absolute most trivial of fight love chocolate chip cookies to the salacious how's your love life to the sentimental puppy love to
two on
romantic love spousal love than the whole phase of feel your love and friendship love and dot
ah parental love the whole thing so it's one ambiguous term the first thing you ought to know is what on earth are we talking about and up the whole business about a copy and arrows and how they were dated all this i'm going to toss out a kind of a limping non eloquent
of definition aware that this is something you don't define this is something that's much better treated in poetry and done every now and release theologians just burst into poetry and it's much more illuminating then but we gotta see what on earth were about and what on earth were not about
so one way of defining love is the person willing union with the beloved
so each word there is important to person it's important to remember it's not the will but loves it's the person who loves through his or her faculty of the wheel it's extremely important to come back to this ground of at all and some as bruno joseph for saying so this this primordial for
three subject
willing but it is the will hear such as thinking about of and here we get the letter james if you just say to them will go out and have a nice day and feed yourself etc you don't do how is that the person willing quite union with the beloved and this is pretty young highfalutin language
it can be a very kind of modest form of union which can just be benevolent love where i just will the good of that other but that still union with that other at the deepest level because that person is willing their ultimate good their ultimate be attitude at the temps
are there will so when i get into of benevolence which etymologically is too will the good at the other that is love st thomas acquaintances and work what is love but benevolence willing the good of the other but if you go all the way with that that's profoundly unity of in the ultimate person
active again
cause i want this for me and i want that for me and that other but my deepest journey for me as fall union with god even if i can't articulate that
so if someone else is willing ultimately that for me even though they don't agree with me on this that that that of that's a union and a very deep level then it could go too much fuller forms of spousal unit friendship love and jump christian love etc but in any case it
entails the willing that is the going out ecstatically to the other but this mystically ecstatically with going up to the other in a way that unites it gets beyond the duo that makes a these two one
at least in their deepest will and that definition seems to me works whether it's love of our enemy of or love of our spouse or love of our child or it doesn't work for things like loving cookies or something like that but it loves it works whenever there's he's deep into personal and it
works i think for love of god primarily there especially were willing union with the beloved and that's why that's that sharp arrow it takes us right into the heart of god is the cloud since
can we live we had
hello
we'll think about a chew on it
and up
see what happens then we'll just start to play with this i found this extremely helpful this isn't precisely in the cloud but this is in another great english on his stick and spiritual i i received a it in his which we call mural charity
he says there's three finishes and well he puts them in a rather odd order
for bus coming out of the and of and i think it's going to quickly to go through that are we tend to see it and then how he puts it but he says vs three phase is it coming one way or another but i think in our model of kind of romantic love the thing you hear it live
music or leicester in the love love story and so doing that there is this first attraction is is huge knocks you off your feet that get over there just a sweeps really
and there's not much i do about it i don't just fall head over heels in love
now if the volition touches into all often it doesn't you don't you think about that i just swept off my feet for her
and then if she responses in response hitler ceo reciprocity and the magnificent fruition i love her she loves me and we live happily ever after etc
interaction good food and there is a verse but when the magic goes out of that were licensed to operate energy ditches it's no longer there so it's not love and love her anymore there's a lot in the attraction is longer to fruition
so this is a longbow i think it's very current of romantic love it's disastrous for the marriage it's disastrous for any kind of this doesn't work just with romantic also friendship i might respect that person use of are advocating calling and or something and then we go along
it just so marvelously fruitful cs lewis with his group of the greens etc friendship love
but then if we get into some basic disagreements and it just doesn't work that we just drop each other and i find another friend that kind of thing
and so this could work with plot you know there's points just swept off repeat by god and where because the and god seems to love me etc when that's they're not
now receive it puts an entirely different order and priority into these three phases of love
he says these two babies are current sector of are not necessary it's wonderful if there but they're not necessary to the heart of love that's why jesus can command us to the heart and it's based on attraction information just absurd and then if it's fake
based on volition
the netherlands bob
that comes out of my antivirus
love and i'm headed there are three more days beginning of every day i'm gonna try to love everyone remember what you might be republicans and democrats are your a different enneagram or whatever is it doesn't matter there's ac
real then has been to me through whatever the attraction there might not be any attraction there might like just on repulsion and then you have been also in our lycian on there might not be any for which the securities
that that was a recent premises that are faith and or isn't in the kingdom we start with forced foolish and then you certainly have forty six in this life but in this model of the faces of love again this comes out this mysterious faculty within us and
this carries us through whatever with all kinds of grace
for the sphere your life
this is in a real sense not conditional love
and it might have to be tough love i might have to tell like hindus and have gotten into a drinking problem and to throw you out of my house if you don't get into a twelve step that can be expression of love where covering that over oh he's my brother useful said that will be not influence the
criterion years i'm doing what's really for the good of the other
and he may absolutely charming and try to get me away from that tough love well no i just stick through so what can work that way or world
but this is entirely different war of the three steps and with peace there for four months of but not a substance of man
the our fathers distinguish between the essay that the being the would really have to be there if it's going to either
and on the plane or say the colby
if you've got up
a human being even if game without arms way extreme might tell their story human being but it's more to the famous be if there are the arms legs also there but you don't stop treating the person is a human being the only large way executives the so this will open business
this and in someone actually here and we see that it can be arrogant i can be an ongoing way something like friendship love with our confreres friendship love of god etc but not necessarily not always and don't build that the danger of this is really knows on the sand
the shifting sand of attraction in
questions comments with all that
and for me if you work on as it were to all kinds of things why should we permit friendship
our like you're not going to rigorous lucrative for him he says of familiar friendship this christian of because it's it's a special well and of the catholic responses everyone special and in friendship run there is an approach and information that's not to be excluded we see that in christ
it's of deeply love john lazarus and don't learn that area etc john lose his beloved etc
so that's legitimate you don't frustrate that in the monastic tradition was a time when we wanted to exclude friendships because i would be i i have favorites but maybe african human condition inevitably there are restaurants there are things that work between two people that don't work between others
et separate but that doesn't count cancel out that i love everyone in the christian scheme
comments questions
got for parties by the spirit because for an egg with sip of at vap yeah this is three be this there's we are absolutely assure that there will be the for wish but maybe not in this life that's all yeah
never miss database says will all be the boss indifferent intimate friend who swung with another in this life we may not have you'll have more than five six seven friends but up there will be the full attraction foolish foolish thing it's completion
whereas this has little perspective of the afterlife that's just juices i gotta have it now you gotta keep moving reminded himself anything okay up for our homework assignment we were going to talk about mountains and sacred cow disease etc since that was our basic but we'll try to come back to that next time and then we're going to
try to come back again we wrestled with that question how do we tie this weird is that a kind of us something over your platonic through something this business of contemplation what relation does that have with some action
jesus doesn't talk about a meditational practices or i'm getting to up a failure or up duality or something so how do we tie contemplation into scripture isn't as some and the protestant tradition held up til recently is it
a kind of invasion and corruption of the apostolic christian faith
we're suddenly we're not going on preaching the gospel loving our neighbor but we're trying to get into the southern mansion are trying to a god knows what kind of thing and i would just suggest if we go this route of our royal equation of contemplation as a guppy then suddenly the
there's not too many problems maybe we want to look at that next time but if contemplation is a copy if we can make a reasonable love case for this what happens in rediscovering texts of scripture being able to claim the very heart of scripture and seeing how it's right at the very heart of our daily monastic life
amen