{"id":19435,"date":"2020-10-27T10:26:55","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T14:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19435"},"modified":"2020-10-27T10:30:04","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T14:30:04","slug":"thomas-keating-the-secret-embrace-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19435","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Keating: The Secret Embrace Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><br><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1TgXJ6rInwM\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Falling Away from I AM<\/strong><br>Tuesday, \u202fOctober 27, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>To be nothing<br>Is to consent to being a simple creature.<br>This is the place of encounter with<br>\u201cI AM that I Am.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>When there is no more \u201cme, myself, or mine,\u201d<br>Only \u201cI AM\u201d remains.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Then the \u201cI\u201d may fall away,<br>Leaving just the AM. . . .&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; \u2014Thomas Keating, \u201cOut of Nothing\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In her latest book, Cynthia Bourgeault talks about the significant position Thomas Keating held in her life as a teacher and spiritual father [1]. Their relationship makes her reflections on his poetry a poignant example of how to be a compassionate witness to the suffering and transformation of someone we love. Here Cynthia describes Thomas\u2019 journey through all the dark nights a human can experience:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this poem, one of the last in the collection, there can be no doubt that Thomas Keating is indeed talking about an elusive third dark night, what Bernadette Roberts called \u201cthe experience of no-self.\u201d [2] Its radical stripping is far deeper than the dismantling of our \u201cemotional programs for happiness\u201d that occurs in the Dark Night of Sense. It is even deeper than the fruit of the Dark Night of Spirit, which is the dissolution of the separate self into unitive consciousness. Thomas is here alluding to a third and yet more fundamental dissolution: the collapse of the self-reflective mechanism itself, that unique property of human consciousness which makes me realize \u201cIt is I who am experiencing this.\u201d Oneness is attained not through an even more intense experience of union, but through a simple suspension of the subject\/object polarity that created the perception of twoness in the first place. There is a whole new operating system at work now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Thomas writes, \u201cWhen there is no more \u2018me, myself, or mine,\u2019 \/ Only I AM remains.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When there is no fixed point of reference to \u201ctake it home to,\u201d to make it about \u201cmy experience of I AM,\u201d then there is only the bare \u201cI AM.\u201d Then even that may shed its skin. \u201cThen the \u2018I\u2019 may fall away, \/ Leaving just the AM.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those who have reflected on the biblical account will quickly catch the double meaning of the repeated use of \u201cI AM\u201d in this poem. It describes not only our own self-reflexive awareness; it is also the name by which God reveals Godself to Moses in the wilderness. \u201cWho shall I tell them has sent me?\u201d asks Moses. To which God replies, \u201cI Am that I Am\u201d [Exodus 3:14]. (In Hebrew, YHWH is the sacred, unutterable name of God.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thomas Merton said something quite like this shortly before his own death. He stated,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>You have to experience duality for a long time until you see it\u2019s not there. . . . Don\u2019t consider dualistic prayer on a lower level. The lower is higher. There are no levels. Any moment you can break through to the underlying unity which is God\u2019s gift in Christ. In the end, Praise praises. Thanksgiving gives thanks. Jesus prays. Openness is all. [3]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>That, I believe, is the real teaching awaiting us in this poem and manifest in Thomas Keating\u2019s own life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"319\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-27-at-10.29.24-AM-500x319.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19437\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-27-at-10.29.24-AM-500x319.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-27-at-10.29.24-AM-300x192.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-27-at-10.29.24-AM-768x490.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-27-at-10.29.24-AM.png 2008w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Falling Away from I AMTuesday, \u202fOctober 27, 2020 To be nothingIs to consent to being a simple creature.This is the place of encounter with\u201cI AM that I Am.\u201d When there is no more \u201cme, myself, or mine,\u201dOnly \u201cI AM\u201d remains. Then the \u201cI\u201d may fall away,Leaving just the AM. . . .&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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\/19435"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19435"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19438,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19435\/revisions\/19438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}