{"id":19283,"date":"2020-09-04T09:02:22","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T13:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19283"},"modified":"2020-09-04T09:46:04","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T13:46:04","slug":"trusting-a-deeper-aliveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19283","title":{"rendered":"Trusting a Deeper Aliveness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>True Self\/Separate Self<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Trusting\na Deeper Aliveness<\/strong><br>\nFriday, \u202fSeptember 4,\n2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pxce-adAEkk\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>I\nbelieve a regular practice of Centering Prayer is one of the most effective\ntools we have for discovering our True Selves. Sitting in silence, we become\nadept at compassionately observing our separate self at work, as it tries to\nmaintain control of the inner narrative. Ultimately, however, with our genuine\nintention and attention, our True Self is revealed, present to the Presence of\nGod. CAC faculty member Cynthia Bourgeault describes how this happens: <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When\nwe enter [into] meditation [or contemplative prayer], it is like a\n\u201cmini-death,\u201d at least from the perspective of the ego. . . . We let go of our\nself-talk, our interior dialogue, our fears, wants, needs, preferences,\ndaydreams, and fantasies. . . . We simply entrust ourselves to a deeper\naliveness, gently pulling the plug on that tendency of the mind to want to\ncheck in with itself all the time. In this sense, meditation is a\nmini-rehearsal for the hour of our own death, in which the same thing will\nhappen. There comes a moment when the ego is no longer able to hold us\ntogether, and our identity is cast to the mercy of Being itself. This is the\nexistential experience of \u201closing one\u2019s life.\u201d. . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just\nas in meditation [and contemplative prayer] we participate in the death of\nChrist, we also participate in his resurrection. . . . For twenty minutes we\n<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[i.e., our ego or separate self]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> have not been holding ourselves in life, and\nyet life remains. Something has held us and carried us. And this same\nsomething, we gradually come to trust, will hold and carry us at the hour of\nour death. To know this\u2014really <em>know<\/em>&nbsp;this\u2014is the beginning of resurrection life. .\n. .\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Virtually\nall the great spiritual traditions of the world share the conviction that\nhumanity is the victim of a tragic case of mistaken identity. There is a \u201cself\u201d\nand a Self, and our fatal mistake lies in confusing the two. The egoic self . .\n. is in virtually every spiritual tradition immediately dispatched to the realm\nof the illusory, or at best, transitory. It is the imposter who claims to be\nthe whole. This imposter can become a good servant, but it is a dangerous\nmaster. Awakening\u2014which in Jesus\u2019 teaching really boils down to the capacity to\nperceive and act in accordance with the higher laws of the Kingdom of Heaven\u2014is\na matter of piercing through the charade of the smaller self to develop a\nstable connection with the greater Self . . . becoming intimate with our\nspiritual identity, the sense of selfhood carried in our spiritual awareness. .\n. .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through meditation [like Centering Prayer] it gradually becomes ingrained in us that \u201closing one\u2019s life,\u201d regardless of the action that may ultimately be required of us in the outer world, entails first and foremost a passage from our ordinary awareness to our spiritual one, because only at this deeper level of non-fearbased, wholistic perception will we be able to understand what is actually required of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"321\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Screen-Shot-2020-09-04-at-9.44.40-AM-500x321.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19287\" srcset=\"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Screen-Shot-2020-09-04-at-9.44.40-AM-500x321.png 500w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Screen-Shot-2020-09-04-at-9.44.40-AM-300x193.png 300w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Screen-Shot-2020-09-04-at-9.44.40-AM-768x493.png 768w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Screen-Shot-2020-09-04-at-9.44.40-AM.png 1846w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>True Self\/Separate Self Trusting a Deeper Aliveness Friday, \u202fSeptember 4, 2020 I believe a regular practice of Centering Prayer is one of the most effective tools we have for discovering our True Selves. Sitting in silence, we become adept at compassionately observing our separate self at work, as it tries to maintain control of the [&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":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19283"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19288,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19283\/revisions\/19288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}