Friends,
I heard a few years ago what is reportedly a true story. A young couple brought home their new born second child. On the first night at home, they awoke to hear their oldest daughter, now three, approach the crib of the infant in the nursery. She peered into the face of her young brother and said, "Tell me about God, I've almost forgot."
Now this is an endearing story but it speaks a profound and simple truth. The experiential knowledge of God, what the Greeks called "gnosis," and the Hebrews called "da'ath," is what we already possess. In Christianity and in the Semitic mystical origins of Christianity "remembrance" is the essence of all prayer and worship. The word used in the Middle East mystical traditions, whether they be Jewish, Christian, or Islamic, is "Remembrance" or "Anamnesis" (the Greek word). If we possess the knowledge of God in the Heart then there is an understanding that our origin and end is God, God is our Home, always was and always will be in eternity. By inference then the real adversary in our spiritual work is forgetfulness. Forgetfulness of our true nature and our origin and belonging is the source of every spiritual ill in the human condition. To Wake Up!! is then our task in remembering. We are admonished again and again by the Yeshua of scripture to be awake, because the "bridegroom comes." This is falsely understood by some as an apocalyptic reference. Rather it is the practice of 'every moment' unceasing prayer of remembrance, of cultivating spiritual attention and listening to the Heart of Christ beating in our own Heart or Spirit.
To wake up from the unconsciousness of our soul captivated in the ego-mind it is necessary therefore to cultivate a spacious interior silence the ancients called Hesychia. This spacious silence happens as we learn to observe and release from the traffic of the ego-mind and sink into and abide in the interior silence and Presence of the Heart. Prayer of the Heart as a process then, is "observing the mind, abiding in the Heart." In this abiding we began to recognize we are Home, and our inner ear of the Heart is listening more and more to the Heartbeat of the Universe, the Heart of Christ within us. As we listen, we attune our soul, our consciousness, our will to this deep, deep, and Life-giving Heartbeat. Our soul, every aspect of our humanity then becomes an expression of this Inner Heartbeat of Christ. This is Christosis, becoming Christ and we are all the Beloved Disciple with our cheek resting on the breast of Christ. We are Home, and we are remembering who we are, and the Life pouring forth from that Great and Universal Heart that upholds and sustains us.
Many blessings to all,
Bill Ryan
cmpnwtr@earthlink.net
