{"id":19260,"date":"2020-08-31T09:14:30","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T13:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19260"},"modified":"2020-08-31T09:14:30","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T13:14:30","slug":"the-glory-of-god-in-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19260","title":{"rendered":"The Glory of God in US"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>True Self\/Separate Self<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The\nGlory of God in Us<\/strong><br>\nMonday, \u202fAugust 31, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/j25JqWgjDF4\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>Today we begin with Thomas Merton\u2019s classic description\nof the True Self as written following his \u201cconversion\u201d at Fourth and Walnut in\nLouisville. [1] It is so inspired; I want to quote it at length:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the center of\nour being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion,\na point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is\nnever at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible\nto the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This\nlittle point of nothingness and of <em>absolute\npoverty<\/em>&nbsp;is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to\nspeak [God\u2019s] name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our\ndependence, as our [birthright]. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the\ninvisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would\nsee these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of\na sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. .\n. . I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven\nis everywhere. [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most\npeople spend their entire lives living up to the mental self-images of who they\nthink they are, instead of living in the primal \u201cI\u201d that is already good in\nGod\u2019s eyes. But all I can \u201cpay back\u201d to God or others or myself is <em>who I really am<\/em>. This is what Merton is describing above. It\u2019s a place\nof utter simplicity. Perhaps we don\u2019t want to go back there because it is too\nsimple and almost too natural. It feels utterly unadorned. There\u2019s nothing to\ncongratulate myself for. I can\u2019t prove any worth, much less superiority. There\nI am naked and poor. After years of posturing and projecting, it will at first\nfeel like nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But\nwhen we are nothing, we are in a fine position to receive everything from God.\nAs Merton says above, our point of nothingness is \u201cthe pure glory of God in\nus.\u201d If we look at the great religious traditions, we see they all use similar\nwords to point in the same direction. The Franciscan word is \u201cpoverty.\u201d The\nCarmelite word is <em>nada<\/em>&nbsp;or \u201cnothingness.\u201d The Buddhists speak of\n\u201cemptiness.\u201d Jesus speaks of being \u201cpoor in spirit\u201d in his very first beatitude\n(Matthew 5:3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Zen master\nwould call the True Self \u201cthe face we had before we were born.\u201d Paul would call\nit who we are \u201cin Christ, hidden in God\u201d (Colossians 3:3). It is who we are\nbefore we\u2019ve done anything right or anything wrong, before we even have a\nconscious <em>thought<\/em>&nbsp;about who we are. Thinking creates the\nseparate self, the ego self, the insecure self. The God-given contemplative\nmind, on the other hand, recognizes the God Self, the Christ Self, the True\nSelf of abundance and deep inner security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>True Self\/Separate Self<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>True\nSelf\/Separate Self<\/strong><br>\nSunday, \u202fAugust 30, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The\nthing that we have to face is that life is as simple as this. We are living in\na world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the\ntime. This is not just a fable or a nice story, it is true.<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014Thomas Merton<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\nlearned the terms \u201cTrue Self\u201d and \u201cfalse self\u201d from Thomas Merton (1915\u20121968). These are words he\nused to clarify Jesus\u2019&nbsp;teaching of dying to self or \u201closing ourselves to find\nourselves\u201d&nbsp;(see Mark 8:35).\nMerton rightly recognized that it was not the body that had to \u201cdie\u201d but the\n\u201cfalse self\u201d that we do not need anyway. The false self\u2014or what I am calling\nlately the \u201cseparate self,\u201d disconnected from Divine Love\u2014is simply a\nsubstitute for our deepest truth. It is a useful and even needed part of\nourselves, but it is not all of us; the danger is when we think we are <em>only<\/em>&nbsp;our small or\nseparate self. Our attachment to the false self must die to allow the True\nSelf\u2014our basic and unchangeable identity in God\u2014to live fully and freely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thomas\nMerton said that the True Self should not be thought of as anything different\nthan <em>life itself<\/em>\u2014but not my little life\u2014the\nBig Life. [1] Franciscan philosopher John Duns Scotus (c. 1266\u20121308) said that the human\nperson is not different or separate from <em>Being<\/em>&nbsp;itself. This is\nnot the little being that you and I get attached to and take too seriously, but\nUniversal Being, \u201cthe One in whom we live, and move, and have our being,\u201d as\nPaul put it to the Athenians (Acts 17:28). We Franciscans call this \u201c<em>the univocity of all being<\/em>\u201d (speaking of all beings\nwith one consistent voice), \u201cthat all may be one\u201d (John 17:21).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When\nyou\u2019ve gotten too comfortable with your separate self and you call it Life, you\nwill get trapped at that level. You will hold onto it for dear life\u2014because\nthat\u2019s the only life you think you have! Unless someone tells you about the\nBigger Life, or you\u2019ve had a conscious connection with the deepest ground of\nyour being, there\u2019s no way you\u2019re going to let go of your separate\nself.&nbsp;But your attachment to that separate self must \u201cdie\u201d or \u201cthe single\ngrain of wheat remains just a single grain\u201d (John 12:24).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Your True Self\nis Life and Being and Love. <em>Love is what you\nwere made for and love is who you are.<\/em>&nbsp;When you live\noutside of Love, you are not living from your true Being or with full\nconsciousness. The Song of Songs says that \u201cLove is strong as Death. . . . The\nflash of it is a flash of fire, a flame of YHWH\u201d (8:6, Jerusalem Bible). Your\nTrue Self is a little tiny flame of this Universal Reality that is Life itself,\nConsciousness itself, Being itself, Love itself, Light and Fire itself, God\u2019s\nvery self.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>True Self\/Separate Self The Glory of God in Us Monday, \u202fAugust 31, 2020 Today we begin with Thomas Merton\u2019s classic description of the True Self as written following his \u201cconversion\u201d at Fourth and Walnut in Louisville. [1] It is so inspired; I want to quote it at length: At the center of our being is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19260"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19261,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19260\/revisions\/19261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}