Thomas Keating: The Secret\nEmbrace\nPart Two<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A\nSilent Love<\/strong>\nMonday, \u202fOctober 26, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>Nowhere is my destination.<\/em><em><br>\nAnd no one is my identity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>My daily bread is powerlessness.<\/em><em><br>\nTemptations can be\noverwhelming.<br>\nGone is every hope of help.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>An abyss opens up within me.<\/em><em><br>\nI am falling, falling,<br>\nPlunging into non-existence.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Is this annihilation?<\/em><em><br>\nOr, is it the path to the\nSilent Love<br>\nThat we are?. . .<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> \n \n \n \u2014Thomas Keating, \u201cThe Last\nLaugh\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Cynthia\nBourgeault continues to lead us through <\/em>The Secret Embrace<em>, a book of poems composed by Father Thomas Keating at\nthe end of his life. Today she engages with what I (Richard) believe is one of\nthe most challenging poems in the collection. Cynthia writes:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\nboth its poetic and spiritual subtlety, this poem, excerpted above, marks a\nlater stage in Thomas Keating\u2019s journey. Though he clearly attained to \u201cunity\nconsciousness\u201d by the final decade of his life, I believe this poem is a living\nconfirmation that, in the words of Christian contemplative mystic Bernadette Roberts\n(1931\u20132017), the unitive stage of the journey is itself a passage. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Contrary\nto what most of the saints and mystics seem to imply, the stage of \u201cunion with\nGod\u201d is not a permanent state or a spiritual rank acquired. It has a beginning\nand an end. In \u201cThe Last Laugh\u201d we are witnessing the end of a journey, as the\nfinal veil of separate selfhood\u2014\u201cself\u201d consciousness itself\u2014is drawn back to\nreveal at last the riddle of the true self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As\nthe poem opens, Thomas is clearly in liminal space, midway between tedium and\ntransfiguration. Dark night and unitive dawn are no longer all that different;\nreality simply is as it is. All emotional drama has dropped out, since there is\nno longer a fixed point of selfhood to be \u201chappy\u201d or \u201cunhappy\u201d about a\nsituation. \u201cNowhere is my destination and no one is my identity,\u201d he remarks\nsimply, and while this may sound awful to our egoic minds, still fixed on\ndefining ourselves by \u201cwho we are\u201d or what lies ahead, there is also a solemn\nfreedom here: no longer any buttons to be pushed, no dog in the fight. Time no\nlonger rushes on into the future, but rests comfortably in a more spacious now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Final\nunion or ultimate annihilation, he wonders. What if they turn out to be the\nsame? The line is pretty startling. \u201cAnnihilation\u201d is a very strong word in the\nChristian spiritual vocabulary. You don\u2019t find it used often, even in classic\ndescriptions of the Dark Night of the Spirit. It is more frequently mentioned\nwithin the Sufi tradition, where <em>fana<\/em>\u2014total annihilation\u2014means\nsomething way beyond simply the death of the ego self. It is more like the\nextinguishing of our most primordial sense of selfhood or \u201cI-ness.\u201d Toward that\nabyss Thomas finds himself now rapidly plunging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And\nthen, out of nowhere, the turn . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\nall begins with that tiny word \u201cor.\u201d Linger over it. It is as sacred and subtle\nas that moment when outbreath turns back into inbreath and the cycle\nmiraculously begins again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Or, is it the path to the Silent Love\n\/ That we are?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And you realize that the final veil of selfhood is actually a bridal veil, but now you are standing in the nuptial chamber. With a joyful laugh, you let it go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thomas Keating: The Secret\nEmbrace<br>\nPart Two<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Spiritual\nDevelopment<\/strong><br>\nSunday, \u202fOctober 25, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before we continue exploring Thomas Keating\u2019s poems from <em>The Secret Embrace<\/em> under the helpful\nguidance of Cynthia Bourgeault, I want to offer a basic overview of the stages\nof spiritual development that I have used for years with spiritual directees\nand in teaching settings. I believe Thomas modeled all these stages, which are\nnot as easy to see in most of our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. My body and\nself-image are who I am.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At\nthe most basic level, this is what Thomas Keating called our \u201cprograms for\nhappiness.\u201d These are the needs for security and survival, esteem and\naffection, and power and control. Though we may \u201ctranscend\u201d to other levels,\nour egoic selves will always \u201cinclude\u201d these impulses, particularly under\nstress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. My external\nbehavior is who I am.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\nneed to look good from the outside and to hide any \u201ccontrary evidence\u201d from\nothers, and eventually from ourselves. The ego\u2019s \u201cshadow\u201d begins to emerge at\nthis time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. My thoughts\nand feelings are who I am. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\nbegin to take pride in our \u201cbetter\u201d thoughts and feelings and learn to control\nthem, so much so that we do not even see their self-serving nature. <em>For nearly all of us, a major defeat, shock, or\nhumiliation must be suffered and passed through to go beyond this stage.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4. My deeper\nintuitions and felt knowledge in my body are who I am.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This\nis such a breakthrough and so helpful that many of us are content to stay here,\nbut to remain at this level may lead to inner work or body work as a substitute\nfor any real encounter with, or sacrifice for, the \u201cother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>5. My shadow\nself is who I am.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This\nis the first \u201cdark night of the senses\u201d\u2014when our weakness overwhelms us, and we\nfinally face ourselves in our unvarnished and uncivilized state. The false self\nhas failed to bring us all the way to God or the Oneness we seek. Without\nguidance, grace, and prayer, most of us go running back to previous identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>6. I am empty\nand powerless.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some\ncall this sitting in \u201cGod\u2019s Waiting Room,\u201d but is more often known as \u201cthe dark\nnight of the soul.\u201d Almost any attempt at this point to save ourselves by any\nsuperior behavior, morality, or prayer technique will fail us. All we can do is\nto ask, wait, and trust. God is about to become real. The ego, or separate\nself, is dying in a major way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>7. I am much\nmore than who I thought I was. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\nexperience the permanent waning of the false self and the ascent of the True\nSelf as the center of our being. It feels like an absence or void, even if a wonderful\nvoid. John of the Cross calls this \u201cLuminous Darkness.\u201d We grow not by knowing\nor understanding, but only by loving and trusting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>8. \u201cThe Father\nand I are one\u201d (John 10:30). <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here,\nthere is only God. There is nothing we need to protect, promote, or prove to\nanyone, <em>especially\nourselves.<\/em> Our false self no longer guides the ship. We\nhave learned to let Grace and Mystery guide us\u2014still without full (if any)\ncomprehension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>9. I am who I\nam. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m \u201cjust me,\u201d\nwarts and all. It is enough to be human without any window dressing. We are now\nfully detached from our own self-image and living in God\u2019s image of us\u2014which\nincludes and loves both the good and the bad. We experience true serenity and\nfreedom, but it is quite ordinary and also quite sufficient. This is the peace\nthe world cannot give (see John 14:27) and full resting in God. \u201cTo know\noneself in God and to know God in oneself,\u201d as both Julian of Norwich and\nTeresa of \u00c1vila put it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thomas Keating: The Secret Embrace Part Two A Silent Love Monday, \u202fOctober 26, 2020 Nowhere is my destination. And no one is my identity. My daily bread is powerlessness. Temptations can be overwhelming. Gone is every hope of help. An abyss opens up within me. I am falling, falling, Plunging into non-existence. Is this annihilation? […]<\/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\/19432"}],"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=19432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19433,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19432\/revisions\/19433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>Nowhere is my destination.<\/em><em><br>\nAnd no one is my identity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>My daily bread is powerlessness.<\/em><em><br>\nTemptations can be\noverwhelming.<br>\nGone is every hope of help.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>An abyss opens up within me.<\/em><em><br>\nI am falling, falling,<br>\nPlunging into non-existence.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Is this annihilation?<\/em><em><br>\nOr, is it the path to the\nSilent Love<br>\nThat we are?. . .<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> \n \n \n \u2014Thomas Keating, \u201cThe Last\nLaugh\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Cynthia\nBourgeault continues to lead us through <\/em>The Secret Embrace<em>, a book of poems composed by Father Thomas Keating at\nthe end of his life. Today she engages with what I (Richard) believe is one of\nthe most challenging poems in the collection. Cynthia writes:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\nboth its poetic and spiritual subtlety, this poem, excerpted above, marks a\nlater stage in Thomas Keating\u2019s journey. Though he clearly attained to \u201cunity\nconsciousness\u201d by the final decade of his life, I believe this poem is a living\nconfirmation that, in the words of Christian contemplative mystic Bernadette Roberts\n(1931\u20132017), the unitive stage of the journey is itself a passage. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Contrary\nto what most of the saints and mystics seem to imply, the stage of \u201cunion with\nGod\u201d is not a permanent state or a spiritual rank acquired. It has a beginning\nand an end. In \u201cThe Last Laugh\u201d we are witnessing the end of a journey, as the\nfinal veil of separate selfhood\u2014\u201cself\u201d consciousness itself\u2014is drawn back to\nreveal at last the riddle of the true self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As\nthe poem opens, Thomas is clearly in liminal space, midway between tedium and\ntransfiguration. Dark night and unitive dawn are no longer all that different;\nreality simply is as it is. All emotional drama has dropped out, since there is\nno longer a fixed point of selfhood to be \u201chappy\u201d or \u201cunhappy\u201d about a\nsituation. \u201cNowhere is my destination and no one is my identity,\u201d he remarks\nsimply, and while this may sound awful to our egoic minds, still fixed on\ndefining ourselves by \u201cwho we are\u201d or what lies ahead, there is also a solemn\nfreedom here: no longer any buttons to be pushed, no dog in the fight. Time no\nlonger rushes on into the future, but rests comfortably in a more spacious now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Final\nunion or ultimate annihilation, he wonders. What if they turn out to be the\nsame? The line is pretty startling. \u201cAnnihilation\u201d is a very strong word in the\nChristian spiritual vocabulary. You don\u2019t find it used often, even in classic\ndescriptions of the Dark Night of the Spirit. It is more frequently mentioned\nwithin the Sufi tradition, where <em>fana<\/em>\u2014total annihilation\u2014means\nsomething way beyond simply the death of the ego self. It is more like the\nextinguishing of our most primordial sense of selfhood or \u201cI-ness.\u201d Toward that\nabyss Thomas finds himself now rapidly plunging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And\nthen, out of nowhere, the turn . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\nall begins with that tiny word \u201cor.\u201d Linger over it. It is as sacred and subtle\nas that moment when outbreath turns back into inbreath and the cycle\nmiraculously begins again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Or, is it the path to the Silent Love\n\/ That we are?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And you realize that the final veil of selfhood is actually a bridal veil, but now you are standing in the nuptial chamber. With a joyful laugh, you let it go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thomas Keating: The Secret\nEmbrace<br>\nPart Two<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Spiritual\nDevelopment<\/strong><br>\nSunday, \u202fOctober 25, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before we continue exploring Thomas Keating\u2019s poems from <em>The Secret Embrace<\/em> under the helpful\nguidance of Cynthia Bourgeault, I want to offer a basic overview of the stages\nof spiritual development that I have used for years with spiritual directees\nand in teaching settings. I believe Thomas modeled all these stages, which are\nnot as easy to see in most of our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. My body and\nself-image are who I am.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At\nthe most basic level, this is what Thomas Keating called our \u201cprograms for\nhappiness.\u201d These are the needs for security and survival, esteem and\naffection, and power and control. Though we may \u201ctranscend\u201d to other levels,\nour egoic selves will always \u201cinclude\u201d these impulses, particularly under\nstress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. My external\nbehavior is who I am.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\nneed to look good from the outside and to hide any \u201ccontrary evidence\u201d from\nothers, and eventually from ourselves. The ego\u2019s \u201cshadow\u201d begins to emerge at\nthis time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. My thoughts\nand feelings are who I am. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\nbegin to take pride in our \u201cbetter\u201d thoughts and feelings and learn to control\nthem, so much so that we do not even see their self-serving nature. <em>For nearly all of us, a major defeat, shock, or\nhumiliation must be suffered and passed through to go beyond this stage.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4. My deeper\nintuitions and felt knowledge in my body are who I am.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This\nis such a breakthrough and so helpful that many of us are content to stay here,\nbut to remain at this level may lead to inner work or body work as a substitute\nfor any real encounter with, or sacrifice for, the \u201cother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>5. My shadow\nself is who I am.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This\nis the first \u201cdark night of the senses\u201d\u2014when our weakness overwhelms us, and we\nfinally face ourselves in our unvarnished and uncivilized state. The false self\nhas failed to bring us all the way to God or the Oneness we seek. Without\nguidance, grace, and prayer, most of us go running back to previous identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>6. I am empty\nand powerless.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some\ncall this sitting in \u201cGod\u2019s Waiting Room,\u201d but is more often known as \u201cthe dark\nnight of the soul.\u201d Almost any attempt at this point to save ourselves by any\nsuperior behavior, morality, or prayer technique will fail us. All we can do is\nto ask, wait, and trust. God is about to become real. The ego, or separate\nself, is dying in a major way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>7. I am much\nmore than who I thought I was. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\nexperience the permanent waning of the false self and the ascent of the True\nSelf as the center of our being. It feels like an absence or void, even if a wonderful\nvoid. John of the Cross calls this \u201cLuminous Darkness.\u201d We grow not by knowing\nor understanding, but only by loving and trusting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>8. \u201cThe Father\nand I are one\u201d (John 10:30). <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here,\nthere is only God. There is nothing we need to protect, promote, or prove to\nanyone, <em>especially\nourselves.<\/em> Our false self no longer guides the ship. We\nhave learned to let Grace and Mystery guide us\u2014still without full (if any)\ncomprehension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>9. I am who I\nam. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m \u201cjust me,\u201d\nwarts and all. It is enough to be human without any window dressing. We are now\nfully detached from our own self-image and living in God\u2019s image of us\u2014which\nincludes and loves both the good and the bad. We experience true serenity and\nfreedom, but it is quite ordinary and also quite sufficient. This is the peace\nthe world cannot give (see John 14:27) and full resting in God. \u201cTo know\noneself in God and to know God in oneself,\u201d as both Julian of Norwich and\nTeresa of \u00c1vila put it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thomas Keating: The Secret Embrace Part Two A Silent Love Monday, \u202fOctober 26, 2020 Nowhere is my destination. And no one is my identity. My daily bread is powerlessness. Temptations can be overwhelming. Gone is every hope of help. An abyss opens up within me. I am falling, falling, Plunging into non-existence. Is this annihilation? […]<\/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\/19432"}],"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=19432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19433,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19432\/revisions\/19433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}