Yeshua- Our True Conscience

Yeshua- Our True Conscience
By Bill Ryan

"The Kingdom of God is very near; change the direction in which you seek for happiness." Yeshua of Nazareth

Nightly Examination of Conscience-
The foundation of a truly moral life is a life given to growth in love, love of God and all Creation, as stated in the great commandment of Jesus. The purpose of conforming our life to God's Life within us, is not to create a perfected "self" that is worthy of a reward at the end of life. Rather it is to become a clear vessel of God's healing love in the world.

Before we retire at the end of the day, it is good to examine the residue of where we have been in our consciousness, choices, and behavior. Our conscience is the word we have for listening deeply in the Heart for the heartbeat of the Beloved and harmonizing our life and consciousness with the One Life, the I AM Life that is the Heart of Christ. Our failures and missteps, the acts and intentions that are disharmonious with the Heart of Christ leave an unquiet residue. By examining this residue each day, we learn from our suffering and lack of peace. An important measure of living the surrendered consecrated life was given to us by Yeshua in the teaching of the beatitudes. Those who are blessed and happy in the spirit are those who walk the path of giving their life over to seeking and finding refuge in what gives true blessing and happiness and the relinquishment what doesn't. The surrendered life is the life that is love-offering. Let us then focus on Yeshua's teachings as the means of finding our true refuge.

Our decisions regarding our thoughts, words, and deeds, in what we do, in what we fail to do, or avoid doing, are the pivot-point of our spiritual life. If prayer is the turning of the will towards God, then all of life is prayer. Most especially the process by which we decide what we shall do is prayer and points toward the fruits of our inner life of God, or lack of it. The fullness of spiritual practice happens when deep Contemplation meets the conditions of life in the present moment.

The Great Commandment
In the Christian tradition the great commandment of love cited by Jesus from the Jewish Torah is the basis of all moral discernment.
“ Hear O Israel, the Lord, our God is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. This is the greatest commandment.” (Mark 12:29)

Here Jesus tells us the basis of the spiritual life is also the basis of our moral life. Relational life, of which the essence is self-offering love, is the ground on which we base all decision making and discernment in our daily life and prayer practice. He tells us that the way into this kind of life is one of continual conversion, a letting go of those misdirections and attachments of the mind that have taken the place of right relationship in love. This includes and begins with the activity of the mind where misdirection or sin happens. Jesus also tells us here in the Shema' that the vertical and the horizontal relationship are not separate. God is the one Self that we love, and that loves in us, both alone in solitude and in all the relationships of our human life. What gives injury or neglect to either affects the entire matrix of our relational life in God. Christ is the living spring in our Heart; Christ is the living presence in those beings we encounter in our lives. The symbol of the cross in a circle so often found in the Celtic tradition symbolizes the totality of the vertical and horizontal relationship of the communion paradigm of Christ.


Every-Moment Practice of Conscience
We have a daily practice of silent communion with Christ at intervals in the day. As we orient the soul toward this communion as ongoing choice we become increasingly aware of what opposes or injures this state of communion. Those thoughts, those words and deeds that are unloving, injurious, exploitive or cruel either in intention or effect become increasingly disturbing to our interior life in God. The more we practice the more attuned we become to those disturbances. At the end of the day the residue of that disturbance is likely to be accessible and noticed by us, a disturbance to interior peace. That is why our evening practice is a good time to review the day in a daily examination of conscience. We can note where we have caused injury and where we have neglected to love and serve as our heart's desire calls us.

Becoming Accessible and Open to Receive the Gift
There is no room for the guilt of judgment of our worthiness as a person. All life is sheer gift of God and our task is to become accessible to God, not to prove our worthiness. (Does the branch prove its worthiness to the vine? No, it only opens to receive the Life of the Vine.) That error only feeds the fiction of a perfected ego and creates a block in our complete acceptance and responsibility for what we have done or what we have failed to do, and to fully direct our energies toward contrition and conversion. Acceptance means accepting the natural sadness when injury is done to love. Those injuries can come in many ways, lies, betrayals, harshness, pridefulness and self deception, taking what isn't freely given, hurtful anger, abuse, a lack of reverence for personhood, and the lack of compassion for the needs of other beings.

True Contrition Arises Each Moment
True contrition comes from the understanding that life arises fresh each moment, and contrition allows us to drop the burden of the distant past, or even the previous moment and return to our heart's desire to be given to love. This is the freedom of conversion, and the wisdom that real repentance is re-directing our life towards true happiness, what we most want and desire. This is true metanoia, coming home, again and again and again, ceaselessly. We are all prodigal children, having dissipated and wasted the gift of our life essence, again and again. Yet the door is always open and the arms always welcoming us, a million times in the course of a day or a lifetime. The important thing is to return home to the Heart, and learn compassion from the pain inflicted on ourselves and others. The true wound is separateness, which heals as we harmonize the soul with unitive life of God within. We are not asked to create a separate and perfected worthy self. We are invited to come home and receive the gift of our belonging as true child of God. We will never create this perfected self, even if we try. We can always return to faithfulness, and return Home to God who is our Home, in this moment, in this breath.


Evening Reflection and Review
By examining the circumstance of the thoughts, words, deeds, and omissions we have made, we can learn from them and bring the fullness of our practice into that situation when it arises again, as it will in various forms. Our practice is always to observe the mind and to abide in the heart. When we are able to "see," to witness the arising of misdirected hidden thoughts and motivations, we can truly offer them up, and relinquish them to make space for our most essential desire, which is loving kindness or agape. The desert elders saw that true conversion must involve a praxis of freedom from addictive or destructive thinking patterns. Over time we cultivate Heart Presence as a ceaseless expression of Prayer of the Heart in daily life and activity, making each moment of life prayer.

Reflection on the Beatitudes- Yeshua's Guide to Self-Offering Love

1. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
I shall not seek solace in creating, promoting, and defending images of self. My personality, my social persona, and most importantly the ego-self are not who I am, but creations of the mind. I will seek not to defend or promote what is not true. I shall hold lightly any mask I wear in this life, necessary as it might be at times. I shall be ready to lay it down. In my true spirit is essence of being, the freedom of nakedness. In my true spirit I can be utterly at peace to be who I am in Christ, and shall always be, simply child of God, child of the Universe. It is enough that I am loved into being. I need not justify, deserve, or aggrandize my existence. I especially shall not seek to be something more than another or that I truly am, especially to compete or belittle, to dominate or divide. "In this nakedness of spirit the soul finds its rest." (John of the Cross- Prologue- Ascent of Mt. Carmel) Help me to rest always in Your Heart alone in my heart.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
All of this passing life is impermanent. I shall not seek to hold on and hold fast to what is temporary and passing. Shall I insist that conditions, persons, and things remain fixed in my clenched fist so that I can have the deception of security? What I hold in my grasp, as dear and cherished as it may be, those people, relationships, roles, and conditions I love and desire, I shall offer and release when it is time. I shall accept the pain of grief and accept that it shall pass. In the continual release I shall seek and find the freedom to find my true Home and refuge, ceaselessly. And I shall deepen my trust that being Home in God is always enough, always sufficient. Help me to let go always into You.

Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
I must remind myself that real strength and empowerment belongs in the commitment to act and live from the life of inner communion. The Communion Life is gentle and does not seek power over others. I shall not seek domination but healing and well-being for all. In this gentleness I shall seek real empowerment over my own self, my own humanity, my own gifts, and my own energies, my own behavior, the only power there is. I shall lay down any inclination toward retaliation or retribution for perceived injuries, and take pause, rest what in what is deepest, truest, and kindest for all, before I act. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matt. 11:28) Help me to find my true security in your gentle Heart.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for uprightness.
Julian of Norwich has told us that we suffer spiritually because we rest where there is no rest. Indeed I hunger, I thirst to be one with you, to harmonize my soul with Your Heart in all that I do, in all that I wish for, in all that my soul becomes in this life. Let me seek only You and the action of your love and mercy in this life, and in the community of other beings. Let me always be disturbed by the disharmony and the disconnection and return to the life of Communion with You. I am happy when the One desire of my life is my only desire. It is Your desire, it is the same. As Marguerite Porete has said, "What you desire, Beloved, we desire. Tell me your desire nakedly.." This is uprightness. Help me to stand naked and unafraid, always before you, upright in the truth of my life, resting in the One Desire that is ours.


Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Too often my sense of justice and judgement towards others is a justification for exercising control and power. Too often I wish to retaliate for perceived hurts. I must learn to commit to the Mercy of Christ my outrage at the violence and injustice in the world. I must be willing to stand for mercy for all, especially those I don't like or don't agree with. I must be willing to stand in mercy for those who are powerless, beginning with my own powerlessness. Can I trust in Your mercy, that it is real and it is offered? Can I call on Yeshua's mercy each moment, and commit my need for healing and the healing of the world to Him as my every moment prayer offering. There is too much of "me" when what is needed is Yeshua's mercy. It is Home, and it is enough. Help me to find courage and heal my fear in Your mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
I am too often a house divided. Beloved, give me an undivided soul, a committed soul, a consecrated presence, a wholly surrendered will. Let my fist open to become only offering hands. Let there be no half measures, no avoidance of laying bare and laying down this life. Let my avoidance and my fear be opened to your touch, seen by your gaze, and receive the light and Fire of your given Life. Let my discipline be aflame with love alone, and not shaken. When I lapse, let me see it, and return home to my true desire. Let me not offer my soul to shallow substitutes or excuses, and to see them for what they are. Let there only be one Refuge in this life for me, in your Heart alone. Help me to know my lapses and find my way Home in You.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.
What is the state of your Shalom? It is to always be in harmony with You, to be oned with Your Life in my life. This is the well of health. May I always be vigilant and watchful with my anger, and my righteous thoughts, with my frustration with obstacles, with my fear of powerlessness. I possess nothing and my seeking any other thing than to be what I am destroys peace. It is enough to be in You alone, your own offspring, a ray of Your Light, a lit flame of Yeshua's Fire. There is nothing to be at war with, no conflict to provoke, no enemy to vanquish, only my own humanity to tame and bring to be at peace in You. Here is my only peace. Help me invite your healing to those wounds of conflict this day I have inflicted or received and find Peace.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.
I know it is human to desire approval, to be hurt by rejection, to fear retaliation and judgement from others, to stand alone when it is right and good and loving. Yet where is my freedom to be found? Too often I have denied the freedom of spirit, my true Home in You, my true belonging. Too often I have doubted in the truth of Your unceasing Love out of fear. You alone know me, You alone are my heart's desire. You alone are my true rest and belonging. Help me to accept and live the truth of Your freedom, and bring my fears and the wounds of my human existence to You, "Yeshua, the Christ, my love, my encircler, each day, each night, each light, each dark. Be near me, uphold me, my treasure, my Truth."

Christ as a light, illumine and guide me
Christ as a shield overshadow me
Christ under me
Christ over me
Christ beside me
On my left and my right
This day be within and without me
Lowly and meek, yet all powerful
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak
And the mouth of each who speaks unto me
This day be within and without me
Lowly and meek, yet all powerful
Christ as a light
Christ as a shield
Christ beside me
On my left and on my right.

***********************************************************************

Unified Life- Disciplined Life

Unified Life- Disciplined Life

By Bill Ryan

Change and Motivations
This past year motivated by health concerns and a desire for more energy and zest in my life, I resolved to embark on a program of increased fitness and substantial weight loss. Late stage diabetes runs in my family and I knew I was at risk if I continued to maintain or increase the weight I had. I have been healthy in the past and slimmer. I had been a distance runner on a daily basis, running in the occasional road race, including marathons (26.2 miles) until 1998 when I developed an injury. With a low thyroid condition and continuing to eat as if I were a runner, I gained weight to the point where I weighed 230 lbs. as recently as last March. With it problems of higher cholesterol, borderline high blood pressure, and occasional back problems began to plague me.

A past formula for conditioning involved running an hour every day. I resolved to make a serious attempt to make that a discipline in my life, combining it with a serious dietary change, I made a goal of returning to my high school weight of 180 lbs. After strengthening my legs with weight training I began with five minutes a day of very slow jogging on a treadmill. The treadmill is much easier on the knees and allows me to monitor my running style and speed and not have to contend with weather conditions. Each week I increased the time and distance by five minutes. I ran this each day of the week except for one shorter day. It was difficult and trying in maintaining the will and stamina to do this each day. In addition I found that a vigilant awareness and detachment of thoughts of eating or returning to previous patterns, or thoughts of giving up the daily discipline were essential.

Discipline is Commitment
Such a change involves an unraveling of previous habits, their associated thought patterns and the habit energy that sustains them. It was a great exercise in the necessity of discipline and faithfulness in any transformative process. In roughly five months time I lost 55 lbs. and settled into a daily pattern, initially of 65 min. or 7.5 miles a day running. I reduced that because of joint pain to 55 min. or 6.2 miles day (10 kilometers). I have come to a plateau of 175 lbs. Borderline issues of high cholesterol and blood pressure are resolved. I am taking a reduced dosage of thyroid medicine. My daily diet has changed significantly around a much healthier intake of protein, vegetables, and grains.Looking back I see how essential the moment to moment discipline is. At the same time I see how the motivations in life are powerful if we organize our will around them. When we learn to love our children, our spouses, our friends, we learn to orient, to commit ourselves to those purposes above the impulse or habit energy of the moment. At the same time I recognize how lacking I am in applying the same level of discipline to unify my life around the central motivation in life, the desire for oneness with God. By some measures the time I spend in formal practice is certainly high, yet the discipline is certainly not commensurate with the profundity of the Desire. Since we know that this singular desire is not of our creation, but it is the Beloved's desire for us, and it is limitless and enduring. Discipline is commitment. Why not be given to this discipline more profoundly in a discipline beyond the discipline I have given for the sake of health alone!

Lenten Spirituality
The discipline of giveness to the love of God, of ceaseless abiding and refuge in the Heart of Christ, this is the consecrated life. It is our heart's desire. Rather than the drama of self punitive measures of sackcloth and ashes, the spirituality of the season of Lent is a call to discipline, a call to the commitment of Love, a call to confront and transform the habit energies that hold our lives in constraint and bondage. In this way our life can be freely given, freely offered, an every moment love-offering to the One who offers Divine Life each moment, whose very nature is Self-Gift. The kenosis of Christ is not only our model, but it is Christ within us that makes this self-emptying, self-giving to the Source, the Father, the central dynamic of our human life. This circular self-offering manifested and present in the activity of the Spirit is the mystery of human existence and its participation in Trinitarian Life.

The Discipline of the Daily Rule of Life
" Tighten to nothing the circle that is the world's things. Then the naked Circle can grow wide, enlarging, embracing all." Hadewich of Antwerp

Students who come to me to learn Prayer of the Heart often begin with the question, "How an I fit the formal silent sitting time into my present life?" As they progress the question changes, "How can I make all of my life into ceaseless prayer?" This quote above from Hadewich addresses this dynamic in our life. The consecrated given life excludes nothing, it is all within the "naked circle" that is God. The goal of the spiritual life is not to accomplish anything, to attain to anything or any state, but to offer everything that we are and that we encounter to the infinite love and mercy of God. This is the consecrated life. The essential requirement of this transformation is commitment in the form of discipline and faithfulness. Just like the gradual incremental quality of my running program, our willingness to open and stretch and grow in Christ, each moment and each day. Like the hands outstretched, we may begin with a clenched fist. But gradually the clinging fingers unfurl and we find a loosening in trust, an emptying and freedom from the bondage of our habit energy of thinking, feeling, and acting, a relinquishment of our compulsions, our addictions and all that support them. Then we become the chalice of our Lord's Life received, consecrated, and poured out in love.

Our daily discipline must be incarnate. It must have form to be real. It is our covenant with the Beloved. Here are some elements of the Daily Rule of Life, reprinted from The Beloved is My Refuge:

Cultivation in the Garden of the Beloved-
As spiritual beings, humans may be compared to plants. The secret garden of our life in the Beloved needs to be watered and nurtured; it must be directed with supports, like a climbing tomato or bean plant needs a trellis or pole. Air and light and fertile ground are needed. A rule of life is a way of bringing together all those elements that will consecrate, nourish, protect, and sustain our life in God.

Elements of a Rule of Life:
The elements of a Rule of Life are the means of cultivating and expressing the garden of this relationship of communion with God.

Consecrated Silent Communion- To cultivate this communion we need established, consecrated times of the day which we set aside for the central relationship in our life, from which all relationships spring. The nature of that time of silent communion in formal sitting practice should be restful and restoring, but also giving. The essential need of those consecrated times is faithfulness. This is the watering of the garden.

Consecrated Reading and Reflection- We need to also give time to reading and reflecting about the God who is our heart’s desire. We should make of this a Holy Leisure, which is restoring and enriching. This is the fertilizing of the garden.

Consecrated Contrition and Conversion- Contrition and Conversion are ceaseless practice. Therefore it is essential to set times of gazing in the mirror of self-reflection each day. We do this not to judge or condemn or deem any part of our humanity unworthy. Rather we do this so that we be willing to look honestly and nakedly at all those elements in our life, in our actions, in our ethics, in our inner and outer life, which are not in harmony with interior communion with God. We look closely for those aspects of our daily life which lead us from our deepest intention of love, or worse, bring injury to this intimacy with God. This daily practice brings the freedom of contrition and release from all that impedes the love of God in our life. The grace of conversion is always being offered. We can only make ourselves accessible to it. This is the weeding and the tilling of the soil of our garden.

Consecrated Service/Work- The praxis of self-giving Love extends to all of our community, to all beings, to all Creation, -to love and serve God in the world around us. Each of us will do this uniquely with our own gifts. Without making vows of service of some kind, our Covenant of Communion with God is incomplete and defies the purpose of Prayer of the Heart, which is to bring forth the God-life of Agape into the world. This is true whether our service is peeling potatoes, weeding the garden, ministering to the sick or cleaning up the polluted waterways in our community. This service is the praxis of Ceaseless Prayer and the growing of the fruit of the garden.

Community Prayer and Liturgical Practice- This may be more readily attainable for some than others. We may need to be creative and flexible in finding our community of practice, whether local or long distance. We include the community of those who walk with us on the Prayer of the Heart path and the wisdom of those who have walked before. We are in the stream of God's Love with other followers of the Way of the Heart in the eternal Present. This is the flowering of the plants of the garden, outward expression of the life of Inner Communion.

Accountability- Vows of Practice- It is good to share our Rule of Life with at least one trusted soul friend or spiritual mentor. It is good to ask that person to pray for you, to help you to be faithful to your covenant and with whom you can discuss your covenant from time to time. This is the sharing of our garden with our soul friend, or Anam Cara.

Our "Rule of Life" or " Personal Covenant with God" are vows of practice. Our Vows of Practice are akin to marriage vows. They are serious commitments. At the same time we must cultivate the humility to accept that we will fail in our faithfulness at times. Yet we must not give into discouragement, but as in a marriage, return to our practice, our singular desire to give ourselves to Love. This singular desire is our life and the core of our vows of practice.

The Simplicity of this Great Interior Work-
Despite the value of having a formalized commitment to the "whole cloth" of daily practice and the disciplines that sustain it, we should never lose sight of the utter simplicity of this practice. Everything we do in our life, in our Prayer of the Heart practice is at the service of this one central desire, this singular intention which Jesus proclaimed in the Great Commandment. All disciplines and practices are at the service of this great work to which all humanity is called. The author of The Cloud of Unknowing states it beautifully in this way:
"For I tell you this, one loving blind desire for God alone is more valuable in itself, more pleasing to God and to the saints, more beneficial to your own growth, and more helpful to your friends, both living and dead, than anything else you can do." (Johnston, p. 60)

May your Lenten journey be one of new life transformed by Love,
Bill Ryan

The Prince of Peace is Born Within Us

Yeshua- Our Prince of Peace
by Bill Ryan

Inner Peace
When I was growing up I loved to read Pogo, the cartoon creation of Walter Kelley, in paperback book form. One of those quotes I remember most readily from one of the Pogo characters who are on a crusade to make the world better: " We will force peace and love down their dirty rotten throats." It illustrates well how we think of peace as an external ideal that we try to impose from the outside. We can contrast this with the invitation of Jesus,
" Peace be with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives." (John 14:27) I suspect

Pogo's character might have been trying to do the world's peace instead. When I was growing up I was also taught a simple prayer that said, "let there be peace and let it begin with me." That prayer taught a simple wisdom, that I understood intuitively, but the adults in my life didn't teach me how to live and abide in that peace within. The biblical tradition teaches us the word, Shalom; - the state of peace as the well being that arises from the soul being in inner harmony with God. When I was twenty one, in a moment of crisis, I cried out for help, and the help came in the form of a memory of myself as a child of age three. In the memory I would go to my favorite hiding place and close my eyes and leave behind my thoughts, and sink into a deep and secret place inside, and there be surrounded by a peaceful Presence. That was the beginning of my adult spiritual journey.

The Center
One of my teachers along the way, the Benedictine monk, John Main, spoke of this secret place inside, "Returning to the Center within us, is the gateway to the Center of All."

So this inner peace is a state, it is a state of communion with our Divine Beloved, an original state, a state of being Home, in the locus of our belonging. This is the state that Jesus invites us to, the peace that wordly human culture cannot give us.

In the Middle Eastern Abrahamic Faiths this practice of going to the secret Center is called the Remembrance of God. An un-Forgetting, an uncovering and abiding in what is Real and Ultimate. The meaning of the word- Re-membering, is a making One, making whole.

Healing the Soul of Humankind
The healing of the soul of humankind begins and ends within us. It is a life-long process which the mystic Julian of Norwich called our "oneing" with God, "the sweet and secret work of the Holy Spirit." Julian says that all human ills spring from the fact that we seek rest where there is no rest, and that only God within us can give us rest. Jesus invites us to this rest and healing at the sanctuary of His Presence within us, "Come to me you who are heavy burdened, and I will give you a place to rest your soul." Matt. 11:28
"Abide in my love." Thomas Kelly, the Quaker mystic calls this Center, "the Inner Sanctuary," citing Meister Eckhart he says: ." Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continually return."

Communion vs. Domination Paradigm
When we turn toward the Divine Center within we enter the Kingdom, or the Realm of Communion, where all are connected all are in relationship. Jesus says it this poetically beautiful way. "On that day you will know, that I am in my Father, my Father is in me, and I in you, and you in me." (John 14:20) There can be no greater connection, no greater communion than this. The Communion relationship, abiding in one another, sharing One Life, One Being. In the Center we come home to the Communion Paradigm, we come home to the life of Unitive Whole, where we all belong to the Essential Unity from whom all things arise and all things return. In the root names of the Divine in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions this Source and Essential Unity is called "Ela', Allaha, Allah."

The realm of societal culture is instead the realm of separation, where all are disconnected. The result is living the life of the Domination paradigm. All are separate, all are over and against one another, with the result of human life ruled by greed, wars, hatred fueled by differences of ethnicity, religion, and geography. The good news of the deep Wisdom traditions throughout the world is that we can learn to live life from the unitive state, life from the center that takes us into the Center of all. Instead of defending our little egoic, tribal, religious, and ethnic circles we can live and love from the One Circle that is within and encompasses us all.

Unitive Life
The Voice from the burning bush was the "I AM" Life. The voice that spoke in Jesus "Before Abraham, I AM", is the "I AM" Life. At the Center there is no Subject and Object, all is Subject. All is held within the " I AM" life. This is the true body of Christ for whom Paul said there is no distinction. There is no gender, religion, or ethnos. There is just the "I AM" the pure being of the Divine Beloved who holds all in the realm of Communion. This is where we find our True Life, and the True Life of all beings.

One of my teachers, Thomas Hand, who taught both Zen and Christian Contemplation said, "The God experience is Oneness, and fully accepting and living the Consequences." Our inner peace is the ceaseless abiding in the Communion Realm, within and without. and our release from captivity in the Domination Paradigm.

At the center of us is true peace. The peace that Jesus gives us, is the peace of inner communion with his Being within us. Nothing can destroy it, nothing can take it away, no fear or cruelty, or violence can stand against it. It is our home, our belonging, our security, our sanctuary, our true Life, and we can learn to live our life there. In that way we become peace, and share it with all we meet in this life.

Listening and Abiding
Not everyone will be drawn to meditation or Prayer of the Heart. But all of us can learn to listen deeply. When we do, we listen to the Heartbeat of the Universe in our own Center. The psalmist says, "Be still and know that I am God." "Deep calls on Deep." We cannot stop our minds from thinking but we can sink deeper than our minds into the spaciousness of the Center, and there listen. And cultivate that orientation like a homing pigeon, to bring us back home, again and again. When we enter into that inner quiet and listen we are accessible to the God experience, we are accessible to the Communion Realm.

When we are with another, and we release from compulsion to insist that another understand and agree with what we say, and instead listen from the heart-center, then we enter the common ground of unitive love, the communion realm, and listen to understand. From that perspective peace between persons and reconciliation can happen, with or without agreement of ideas. In deep listening we are in the God experience, listening to the " I AM" who encompasses all, the common ground of the Being of all beings.

Jesus invites us to "Abide in My Love". When we make a lifetime of learning to abide in the Ultimate we are following the "little way" of Lawrence of the Resurrection, the "little way" of our Buddhist Brother, Thich Nhat Hanh, the "little way" of the Quaker Mystic Thomas Kelly.
I have a favorite prayer chant that I practice alone or in groups it goes like this:
Listen, listen, wait in silence listening, for the One from whom all Mercy Comes.

One of my favorite mentors on the journey has been the monk and writer Thomas Merton who incorporated the passion for peace and justice with the interior silence of contemplation: He reports having an extraordinary experience of "Oneness" on the
corner of 4th and Walnut in Louisville, Kentucky. (Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander)

"Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire, nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way, all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other…..At the center of our being… is the pure glory of God in us. .. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely."

The Best Place to Pray
In the year 2000 while on retreat at a monastery in the mountains of Colorado I met a monk, named Theophane. He has since died. But he wrote a wonderful book called Tales of a Magic Monastery. He has said the stories are all true, not literally but metaphorically. The Best Place to Pray- (from Theophane the Monk)"I asked an old monk, "How do I get over the habit of judging people?" He answered, "When I was your age, I was wondering where is the best place to go to pray. Well, I asked Jesus that question. His answer was, "Why don't you go into the heart of my Father" So I did. I went into the heart of the Father, and all these years that's where I have prayed. Now I see everyone as my own child. How can I judge anyone?" (Tales From the Magic Monastery)

Sept. Reflections on Healing and Forgiveness

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Sept. is a time when my soul begins to turn more inward and I am drawn to reflection after a time of outdoor activity and physical work. Significant events have happened in my life and in the life of the world I know in Sept. The shadows lengthen and past associations emerge from memory and consciousness. The recent commemoration of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, five years ago have also turned me towards reflection. I am troubled by the exploitation in the commemorations and rhetoric of grief and injury, and superficial sentimental patriotism to justify further injury and violence in the world, and to gain political advantage. These are the outward public manifestations of the "Domination Paradigm" articulated so well in our current readings by Beatrice Butreau. Rather than being entirely reactive I want to take my own revulsion at the culture of this society, of which I have been too often an adherent, towards a renewed commitment to live in the Communion Paradigm that is the Ultimate Reality that all of us are called to, to breathe Yeshua and be rooted in his Love, and to find my home ever in his belonging as the sole Reality to be lived, the gateway for followers of Yeshua to return to their true Home, in this life and the next.

Sept. is the month I was married 33 years ago. Sept. is the month my son was born. Sept 13, today, is the day my son died, 26 years ago. And I recall so vividly as I held his lifeless body in my arms, the face, the body I had come to cherish, the feeling of utter desolation, that my beloved son was gone and there was nothing I could do, no one or no thing to blame or hold responsible. I recall the sense of failure as a father that I had, that I had not protected him from disease and harm and death. In such desolation, surrender and Grace, and even healing, can happen. Since then I have come to appreciate how the world we know can disappear, the loved ones we hold dear can be taken, our very life can be gone, in an instant. To face and live this truth with courage, and trust, and to love the best we can is how healing happens.

Sadly the culture of this country has sought vengeance as a false means of healing, as a way of avoiding accepting our vulnerability. A country and a people that had nothing to do with the injuries of Sept. 11 have been targeted, (even a belated Senate Intelligence report verifies this). And for the 3 thousand Americans that died, more than a hundred thousand Iraqis have died, mostly non-combatant women and children(by report of U. of Johns Hopkins) and continue daily in the death squads and bombings of ethnic violence, in addition to another 3000 young Americans who were told they were fighting for the freedom and safety of their country, and another 27 thousand who are maimed and disabled in body, and the many tens of thousands who are maimed and disabled in soul. Americans continue to think that our losses and our injuries are the only ones that hurt, and our will, our power, our dominance, and our safety is the only imperative in the world. We forget that the whole of humankind suffers and grieves, and has a need to be safe and secure, especially those in the Middle East. And still the anger and the desire for vengeance goes on, the blaming and leveraging for political domination goes on. And so little of healing that the people need and long for is being sought.

From the mouths of children-
I saw a television program this week interviewing children whose parents died in 9/11. It was touching and revealing and instructive. What was clear to me is that these children, who had the most devastating loss of all, (what is worse than for a child to lose his or her parent?) were in their own way, quietly seeking healing. A daughter who still cries when speaking of her dad, said that she learned after a while, that the only way she could feel any thing but sadness and despair, was to do a good deed for someone else, and that could bring her happiness. A son, who missed his father terribly, decided to pursue a career similar to his father and to emulate the fine and honorable qualities his father had shown him. The children found they could share their vulnerabilities with other children who had lost a parent in the attack. Such basic wisdom shows us the path to healing (the true meaning of the word, salvation) is open to all of us, if we find a way to let go of the mind's compulsion for control. (At a later time I also found purpose for my pain in working with other parents who lost children, and finding communion of love and purpose in our common vulnerability.) Some of wives and loved ones who suffered loss on 9/11 have involved themselves in projects to promote healing and peace, including a group of widows who have travelled to Afghanistan to make common cause with widows who have lost husbands there.

The Way of Peace and Healing-
On Sept. 11 this week I walked in a silent contemplative group peace walk, in commemoration of another anniversary. On September 11, 1906, one hundred years ago, Mohandas Gandhi began what would become the non-violent, passive resistance movement for which he is so famous. It began, not in India, but in South Africa, at the time part of the British Empire, where he learned many of the skills he would later put to good use. Gandhi called this practice Satyagraha, the Indian Movement which is born out of truth and love or nonviolence. It became the motivating ethos and strategy for the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s led by the Rev. Martin Luther King. A strange juxtaposition....that events that have led to healing, and to injury and brutality should happen on the same day. Is humankind not being presented with a choice, to choose the path of healing and peace, or to choose the path of repeating the endless cycle of injury and retribution, and counter-retribution?

Forgiveness and Restorative Justice-
Much was made on 9/11 about the strength of religious faith in helping people survive adversity, trauma, and loss. I recall at the time, the mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, who has been so lionized for his leadership in crisis, speaking of how religious faith was for him and New Yorkers the great salvific force. Yet I also heard him say that his greatest wish was to personally kill Osama Bin Laden in retribution for his role in the massacre. We all wished to be safe, but violent retribution is not safety. No one in those days spoke of the words of Yeshua inviting us to a better way, or his words saying that "whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do to me." And who, if not Osama Bin Laden, qualifies as "the least of these." No one said the words of Jesus as he faced his own humiliation and death, "Forgive them, Abba, for they know not what they do." No one invoked the beatitudes, "Blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the humble, blessed are you when you are persecuted." In our vulnerability and our no-thingness we find the Communion Paradigm, we enter the Kingdom and the Kingdom enters us.

I say these things not because I practice them so well, but because I need to hear them myself. I know what it is to be captive of unforgiveness and to desire retaliation. When I was a young adolescent, someone in authority brought a terrible injury to me, willfully and maliciously. I nearly lost my life in despair. It is a human, healthy, and perhaps a necessary defense to have rage in response to injury. It is not helpful, healing, or holy to hold on to the injury, and to nurture the resentment and the desire to cause injury in return. As an adult at a certain juncture in my own healing of soul it became clear that this space in my soul needed the touch of the Healing Master, and I was the one who would give permission for this touch, to open it to the Light.

To aid in this process I sought a guide and advocate and Grace brought such a person to me. She is an Episcopal priest, a woman who has made it her vocation to practice what she calls, "Restorative Justice." Restorative Justice is the companion to forgiveness. In forgiveness we eventually learn, out of compassion for ourselves and the desire to be more accessible to the love of the Beloved, we must find a way to let go of our identification with the pain and the injury, and our obsession with the perpetrator. With Restorative Justice we engage with the perpetrator in finding mutual healing and in a process of change so injuries are corrected and not repeated. Such is not always possible, but it is the inner work of the Communion Paradigm we are called to do. Prayer of the Heart opens us to the possibility.

This process led to a face to face meeting, nearly two years ago with the perpetrator of the injury that was inflicted on me. There had been preliminary meetings and actions on both parties leading to this meeting. At the meeting I was surprised to find, in a place of empowerment I found no need for retribution, but saw how the injury had done much greater harm to the one who inflicted it as it was written on his face. And I saw the suffering of a lifetime it had imposed and was moved. And I was grateful for the way Grace had brought my injury to healing and, more than that, had made it a primary instrument of my growth as beloved child of the Holy One. I was able to speak my truth directly and hear the contrition and sorrow in return. Healing had happened for both. My guide was a witness to this great Mercy of Yeshua the Christ.

In the debriefing with my guide afterward it seemed that old words "sin and salvation" had new and different meaning. I asked her how she came to do this work. She said at some time in her life, she just knew this was her calling. I hope it shall be one day recognized as a true spiritual profession of advocate and guide, a profession of healing.

The Cross and the Lotus-
In the Christian Mystical tradition the Cross is a symbol of how Divine Love and healing make the wounds of existence into the sacred wounds of Christ that become for us the means by which we learn to be a vessel of Agape, the redemptive Self-Gift of God. In Buddhism, the Lotus is the symbol of the flower of enlightenment and awakening that brings forth compassion for all beings. It is rooted and born in the mud of the pain and suffering of existence, that becomes transformed through spiritual practice into unitive experience. Our brother, Thich Nhat Hanh, has so beautifully expressed this in his own life. He admits to periods of despair, depression, and post-traumatic stress in his life from the violence and loss of the Vietnam war. Out of this suffering he has grown through his spiritual practice the lotus of profound compassion and teachings to help people heal and find peace.

What I and countless others have experienced on an individual level has relevance for the community and global level. When nations, peoples, and religions become so tired and spent with the suffering of endless cycles of violence and retribution, then perhaps the way of forgiveness and healing shall be the way of all. When humankind, out of profound suffering, can open to the grace of contrition and conversion, then shall healing be possible. The mystic tradition across the globe can lead the way. I have practiced in both the mystic traditions of Christianity and Buddhism. Mystics have the goal and the experience of learning to abide and live from the Communion Paradigm. A great teacher I encountered on the way, Thomas Hand S.J., proclaimed a simple truth among a group of retreatants I was with, "The God experience is an experience of Oneness, and fully accepting and living the consequences." This is true whether one names the Ultimate as God, Brahmin, Dharmakaya, Allah, Ela, or Allaha, Grandfather, Grandmother, or XYZen. In this Oneness there is no self, and no other, there is just the One Life, the One Self, in whom we all find our belonging. The Divine belongs to no person, no religion, no nationality, but we all belong to the Unity from which all things arise. In this Unity, this One Life, we can learn, in the words of Paul, "to live, and move, and have our being." As Jesus said in his promise to us, "On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me, and I in you. (John 14:20)

May that day be today, and every day, to the end of our days. May the Grace and healing of Yeshua's love be ours always, and may we continue in the work of healing our soul and the soul of humankind.
Sept.Blessings to all,
Bill Ryan

The Praxis of the Ethos of Love

The Praxis of the Ethos of Love

Our decisions regarding our thoughts, words, and deeds, in what we do, in what we fail to do, or avoid doing, are the pivot point of our spiritual life. If prayer is the turning of the will towards God, then all of life is prayer. Most especially the process by which we decide what we shall do is prayer, and the fruits of our inner life of God, or lack of it. I recall a Zen teacher saying that the fullness of spiritual practice happens when deep meditation meets the conditions of life where we find ourselves.

In most Buddhist traditions there are moral precepts that are taken that become the daily basis for an examination of conscience, and a measure for which one is acting from the deepest inner reservoir of compassion and loving kindness or not. In the Christian tradition the great commandment of love cited by Jesus from the Jewish Torah is the basis of all moral discernment. “ Hear O Israel, the Lord, our God is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. This is the greatest commandment.” (Mark 12:29)

Here Jesus tells us the basis of the spiritual life is also the basis of our moral life. Relational life, of which the essence is self-offering love, is the ground on which we base all decision making and discernment in our daily life and prayer practice. He tells us that the way in to this kind of life is one of continual conversion, a letting go of those misdirections and attachments of the mind that have taken the place of right relationship in love. That includes and begins with the activity of the mind where misdirection or sin happens. Jesus also tells us that the vertical and the horizontal relationship are not separate. God is the one Self that we love, both alone in solitude and in all the relationships of our human life. What gives injury or neglect to either affects the entire matrix of our relational life in God. Christ is the living spring in our Heart, Christ is the living presence in those beings we encounter in our lives. The symbol of the cross in a circle so often found in the Celtic tradition symbolizes the totality of the vertical and horizontal relationship of the communion paradigm of Christ.

We have a daily practice of silent communion with Christ at intervals in the day. As we orient the soul toward this communion state as the ongoing state of choice we become increasingly aware of what opposes or injures this state of communion. So in a sense those thoughts, those words and deeds that are unloving, injurious, exploitive or cruel either in intention or effect become increasingly disturbing to our interior life in God. The more we practice the more attuned we become to those disturbances. At the end of the day the residue of that disturbance is likely to be accessible and noticed by us, a disturbance to interior peace. That is why our evening practice is a good time to review the day in a daily examination of conscience. We can note where we have caused injury and where we have neglected to love and serve as our heart's desire calls us. There is no room for the guilt of judgment of our goodness or badness as a person. That only feeds the fiction of a perfected ego and creates a block in our complete acceptance and responsibility for what we have done, what we have failed to do, and to direct our energies toward contrition and conversion. Acceptance means accepting the natural sadness when injury is done to love. Those injuries can come in many ways, lies, betrayals, harshness, pridefulness and self deception, taking what isn't freely given, hurtful anger, and so on.

True contrition comes from the understanding that life arises fresh each moment, and contrition allows us to drop the burden of the distant past, or even the previous moment and return to our heart's desire to be given to love. This is the freedom of conversion, and the wisdom that real repentance is re-directing our life towards true happiness, what we most want and desire. This is true metanoia, coming home, again and again and again.. ceaselessly. We are all the prodigal child, having dissipated and wasted the gift of our life essence, again and again. Yet the door is always open and the arms always welcoming us, a million times in the course of a day or a lifetime. The important thing is to return home to the Heart,and learn compassion from the pain inflicted on ourselves and others. The true wound is separateness, which heals as we harmonize the soul with unitive life in God.

By examining the circumstance of the thoughts, words, deeds, and omissions we have made, we can learn from them and bring the fullness of our practice into that situation when it arises again, as it will in various forms. Our practice is always to observe the mind and to abide in the heart. When we are able to "see", to witness the arising of misdirected hidden thoughts and motivations we can truly offer them up, and relinquish them to make space for our most essential desire, which is loving kindness or agape. The desert elders saw that true conversion must involve a praxis of freedom from addictive or destructive thinking patterns. (There is much more to be said about Prayer of the Heart praxis with thoughts, which can be added in another post.) Over time we cultivate Heart Presence as a ceaseless expression of Prayer of the Heart in daily life and activity, making each moment of life prayer.

The following is an example of the incorporation of reflection on the day and the praxis of contrition and conversion, integrated into the evening prayer practice:

Evening Prayer of the Heart-
- Opening Chant- "Yeshua, Yeshua" and Prayer of Consecration

-Formal Silent Prayer of the Heart Practice- One or more sessions.

-Review of the Day/ Evening Recollection-" O Beloved- Help me to know all the ways I have injured your Love this day. Help me to know the ways I have not loved you in all my being and all my doing. Help me to know all the ways I have not loved my neighbor as myself." ( silent pause and reflection on the day)

- Contrition and Conversion-" O Beloved, I resolve to claim the sorrow of every injury to love and to seek the grace of Your conversion this moment and always."

-Evening Devotional Prayer, Prayer of Jesus, and Intercessions-

-Closing Night Chant- "Into Your hands Abba, I commend my spirit, Into Your hands, Abba/Amma, I commend my spirit. In Christ we are given to You, day and night. Into Your hands, Abba, I commend my spirit."


I hope your find this response helpful in considering your own practice of ethical/moral discernment of the day.

The Main Thing- A Paradigm for the Christian Mystical Tradition

The Main Thing-
A Paradigm for the Christian Mystical Tradition

The only reasonable measure for Christianity or any religious movement is the degree to which it has brought healing and transformation to the soul of humankind. By this measure all major religions of the world have failed. The Jesus of the Gospels says clearly that "By their fruits you shall know them." (Matt. 7:16) He proclaims to all that the measure of a lifetime is the extent that we come to see his life and presence in all beings, especially those who are the most forgotten, the least powerful, and the most abysmally rejected. "What you have done to the least of these you have done to me." (Matt. 25:40)

When asked what is the most important thing in human existence Jesus called upon the foundational statement of the Jewish Torah: “ Hear O Israel, the Lord, our God is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. This is the greatest commandment.” (Mark 12:29) Unitive love here is the main thing, the only thing. He is unequivocal that all of law and the wisdom of the prophets is in this. Life is one in God. Life in God is relational self-offering love given in the fullest measure. Many who might find inspiration in this turn their backs on Christianity as a religious movement. Historic institutional and cultural Christianity has become obsessed with power, influence, and lines of authority. It uses fear of a condemning deity who is self-obsessed with what human creatures are compliant and who are not. To be a life-giving way, the Way of Yeshua must exist as a mystic spiritual paradigm. The way of the Christos must be a way of love that is unitive with the Divine in all Creation.

Mystic Path- Learning Path of Trust
Unlike the path of religion the mystic path is not belief based but learning based. We can only begin with a simple faith that there is a Life greater than our own ego from whom our own human life, our own human soul/consciousness arises. We have an intuition of this, and an awakening desire to return Home to this Life. This is the basis of authentic faith. As we grow we discover, we uncover this One Life from whom we arise, and to whom we return. In our growth the mythic religion of our indoctrination is often shattered. The mythic sky-God of our human made doctrines dies and the mystic Life of our life lives. Our journey of uncovering will reveal there is no original sin in us, there is no great gulf between our being and the Life of the universe. What we do know is that Heart of the Beloved is within our heart.

The End of Ritual Killing
Therefore there is no great expiation sacrifice to be made for our sins, no salvific gesture that redeems us from our innate and corrupted image of God within. Many see Augustine's theory as a projection of his own unhealed addictions and judgments of the soul, and not the common ground of our humanity. The original sin/damnation theory of human existence is and has been a tragic inhibiting misdirection in the growth of the human soul's passage on this planet. The harmful consequences and damage by Augustine's theology to the spiritual consciousness of the Christian world is well described in the work of Mathew Fox and other writers of our time.

Christianity and Judaism arose from a primitive desert culture that believed in animal sacrifice to appease an unseen warrior/protector deity. In this culture it was convenient to let Jesus of Nazareth be the lamb of God to be ritually slain in public, a fulfillment of the messianic mythology of the Judaic tradition of Passover. Such a death might be assimilated through Paul's interpretation as the once and for all ritual sacrifice that ended the need for such, especially once the Jewish temple and Jerusalem was destroyed, where all such sacrifices were to happen. In the light of mystic awakening slaughtering animals or humans has no meaning or need, but is seen for what it is, the acting out of unconscious magical beliefs. The Lamb of God instead may be a powerful symbol of the vulnerability and tenderness of a Divine Life within the heart of each of us. In this way Yeshua becomes the revelation of who we are in our true nature in God, and who God is incarnate in the world.

Mystic Yeshua- Cosmic Christos
This brings us to the important question: If Yeshua is not the historic blood sacrifice to appease an angry deity from punishing a corrupt humanity, then who is the historic Yeshua, and in what way is he the Christ, the anointed One? In what way is the Christos the Way, the Truth, and the Life, salvific Life within us?

When considering salvation for humanity, we must examine more closely what is the need of the human species, what is the nature of the human condition, and what is true salvation?

The Genesis story describes in myth and metaphor, and poetry, the central wound in the human condition and the damaging consequences of it through time. In the beginning we, all of us, enjoy the knowledge of our essential oneness with the Source of all being, all life, all existence. It is the garden of our Beloved. We walk in communion with the Divine and our companion creation. It is a condition of nakedness, of no-self consciousness. When the duality of a separate self is created, and with it the polarities of good and evil, the garden experience is lost. As a result of this separate-self consciousness greed, envy, fear, and violence become the lot of human-kind, as illustrated in the fratricide story of Cain and Abel.

The story can only be understood as an esoteric myth about what happens to all of us, in the course of each life. We come into the world with an innate understanding, or memory of our ontological communion with the Divine. Yet what we have a growing experience of separateness in our own soul influenced by the collective soul or consciousness of those human communities where we find ourselves. From this wound issues forth all of the spiritual and moral ills of the world, and all of the terrible and tragic consequences that afflict humankind.

If the Christian revelation has any validity, it must be that in the historic Yeshua, is the opening, the revelation, a doorway and offering of the Love of the Divine Relationship we call Trinity. There is an invitation in to be in personal communion with the Divine in the mystical Yeshua. We can experience the healing of the wounds of the soul in his limitless love and to abide there always (John 15:9). The same emanation of Divine Light and Love manifest in the historic Jesus, is present and offered to us in the personal mystic Yeshua, is present and joined to us in the immanent Divine Christos in the entirety of the Cosmos. Through his love we can open to communion with the Cosmic Christ, the immanent Life of the Divine present in all Creation. And in this way our separateness with the world is healed, and we are then able to participate in the unitive relational Life of the Trinity present and accessible to all Creation as the Mystical Body of Christ.

This is a mystical theology of the Cosmic Christos that is beyond most "traditional" teachings. Yet it is the grand insight and vision of mystics in the Christian tradition from the earliest centuries to the inspiring vision of Teilhard de Chardin and present day pilgrims of the Way. Gregory of Nazianzius said, "Christ exists in all things that are." Morgan of Wales a Celtic teacher and monk of the fourth century said, " The presence of God's spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful." And Teilhard de Chardin says, " Through your incarnation, my God, all matter is henceforth incarnate." (Mass of the World)


Communion Paradigm
Beatrice Butreau, a contemplative writer of our time(The Holy Thursday Revelution), says that the profound healing of the human condition comes to us in Yeshua's revelation of the "Communion Paradigm" as the true nature of things. The communion paradigm is the realm of unitive love in God. It is the true resurrection experience, where through the personal healing of the mystical Yeshua we come to full participation and belonging in the Universal Christos. In this way the domination paradigm, born of the damaged consciousness of separateness is healed and the possibilities of spiritual growth and development of the human species become realized. We make ourselves accessible to this offering of healing through the praxis and grace of awakening and self-offering love. In the communion paradigm those who follow the Way of Yeshua find it treads the same common ground, and touches and opens to the same Ultimate Reality of the Way of the Buddha, the Prophet, and the other mystic paths of the peoples of the earth.

The Divine Christos-The Incarnation Creation Story

Chandogya Upanishad- "In the beginning was only Being. One without a second. Out of himself he brought forth the cosmos. And entered into everything in it. There is nothing that does not come forth from him. Of everything he is the inmost Self. He is the truth; he is the Self supreme." chapt. 6 vs. 2.2

The Astrophysics story- The researchers collected observations of this polarization signal to create a map of the early universe, allowing them to test a sub-theory within the Big Bang theory, called "inflation."

Inflation theory states that the universe underwent a rapid expansion immediately following the Big Bang…"During this growth spurt, a tiny region, likely no larger than a marble, grew in a trillionth of a second to become larger than the visible universe," said WMAP researcher David Spergel, also from Princeton University.

The new observations reveal that the early expansion wasn't smooth, with some regions expanding faster than others….These fluctuations are thought to have led to clumping of matter that allowed the formation of galaxies.Brian Greene, a physicist from Columbia University who wasn't involved in the research, called the new findings"spectacular"and"stunning." http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060316_wmap_results.html

Revelations of Divine Love-Julian of Norwich- "Also in this He shewed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon with eye of my understanding, and thought: What may this be? And it was answered generally thus: It is all that is made. I marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for little[ness]. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasteth, and ever shall [last] for that God loveth it. And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God."

Gospel of John -" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was Life, and the Life was the Light of the people." (John 1:2-4)

All the systems of matter, biology, and consciousness that have arisen are manifestation of the One Life that animates and holds us into being. The amazing thing, the Main Thing, is that intimacy with the mystic Yeshua brings us into intimacy with the Cosmic Christ in all Creation, making us full members and participants in the universal mystical body of Christ, the One Incarnate Life.

Wisdom Schools

(Dear Friends,
This post will be controversial. Yet I hope it will stimulate reflection.
I hope you will read it with openness.
Blessings,
Bill Ryan)

Wisdom Schools- A New Vision of the Transmission of the Christ Mystery

The Legacy of Religion
Many theologians and scholars will say that Yeshua of Nazareth did not come to found a religion. Rather he wished to transmit in himself and his teachings a revelation of the Source of Life whom he knew as Abba. Yet what is the legacy of religion, both Christian and that of other traditions? What are the fruits of the great institutional structures, cathedrals, and temples? What are the contributions of the caste system of clergy and denominations that have multiplied throughout the world? What are the great contributions to the healing of humankind after all the money and resources dedicated to religion have been tallied? What we have are centuries of wars fueled by religious hatred, wars of conquest and colonial expansion under the symbols of both cross and crescent. We have endured wars of genocide fueled by ethnic and religious distrust and fear. Millions have been persecuted, killed, exploited, or sent into exile. This is the legacy of religion.

In the U.S. public attitudinal sampling reports consistently that Christian church goers are most likely to have attitudes in favor of the death penalty, supporting violent solutions to international conflict, opposed to compassionate social policies for the most vulnerable populations, and least tolerant or accepting of persons who are different in ethnicity or sexual orientation. If we look around the world, many of the most violent actions and conflicts between peoples have religion at their source. "By their fruits you shall know them."

If religion has any benefit for human kind it must be the capacity to bring healing and transformation to the soul of humankind, bringing forth the fruit of compassionate concern and service to the world. Instead those who are most religious seem to be most callous and hardened towards others, and the least mindful and responsible in their relationship with the natural systems of life around them. Those who are most religious seem to be most inclined toward violence and hatred. The least progressive societies, in measures of meeting basic needs and enacting compassion and peace-making in their social, economic, and foreign relations, are those who are the most religious. The most progressive societies in those same measures are those who are the most secular in their political and cultural make-up.

For this reason a genuine critique, a prophetic examination of the structure of religion, it institutions, and practices must be undertaken. Perhaps what we need in the world is a lot less religion and a lot more committed and serious spiritual practice.

The Structure of Religion-
Where we have been-
Whether it be Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, or Judaism or other religious structures and "isms" in the world, it can be said that without exception through the centuries all have betrayed the teachings of their founders. The structures, values, traditions, and activities of religion have been largely possessed and contaminated by the cultures and history of the peoples and geography they occupy. Religions have come to serve themselves and not the healing of the world. Today, more than ever, religion is at the center of the divisions and violence that scar humankind. And religions again seek to aggrandize themselves with political power and dominance in the societies where they dwell. Religions market the emotional massage and psychological consolations that keep us from truly living into transformative life. They convince the adherents to find refuge in the small circles of familiar ethnic and cultural prejudice rather than the expansive and transformative universal Heart and unitive ethos of the Divine. Religions are without exception primarily at the service of their own power and prestige and not at the service of spiritual healing to humankind. Religions reinforce rather than heal the central wound of separateness that afflicts humankind. This is unacceptable.

A New Direction-
We do not need more institutions and more clergy demanding ever more financial support in this world. We do not need a religious caste system of ministers, priests, and monks who enjoy a privileged position of deference and authority in human communities. We do not need intermediaries with the sacred. Rather we need to start with a new premise, the revolutionary premise of Yeshua the Christ that the temple of the Divine is not on the hill, not in structures, nor in brick or stone, nor in creeds or dogmas. Rather the temple of the Divine is the Heart, the spiritual center within us all. What humans need are teachers and companions of the Way, who will walk with us, teach and support us in the disciplines of awareness and will that open our soul/consciousness to the Ultimate and true dwelling place of the Spirit of the Beloved within us. What we need is the praxis to transform the soul that it becomes the lamp of the Light of Christ in the world, rather than the distorted and opaque vessel of confusion, despair, fear resulting in human compulsions of greed and power and resultant violence.

Wisdom Schools-
When the historical Jesus was living, his followers did not call him, "priest, minister, reverend, cardinal, or pope." Indeed his followers called him "teacher," and Jesus said in the end he wished to be called "friend." A soul friend, or anam cara, is someone who shares the fruits of inner life of the Beloved with another, who walks with another on the Way. (In the earliest years of the Jesus movement, those who were his followers were called the people of the "Way.") Spiritual transmission comes through teachers and soul friends, not through authoritative intermediaries. The Light of Christ is transmitted truly in this way to the people of the Way. For this reason we should be considering models of spiritual community other than denominational churches and parishes with their agendas for power and societal status. Is not the spiritual journey, is not the life of Faith (not belief), one of discovery and opening to what is beyond the egoic mind and consciousness? We need spiritual teachers and soul friends, who support us on the Way, who continually point to the true Teacher and true Friend, Christ, within us. He is already at the center of our Heart, why do we need grand buildings, institutions, and political power to possess what is already offered to us in each moment, the unconditional love and healing of the Divine Beloved in the universal mystical Christ? We can live a life of communion with Christ our true and universal friend and healer of the soul- our Way to experience the Divine Beloved who is the Heart of Creation. And from this healing of our wound of separateness the compassionate life is born.

Blessings to all,
Bill Ryan

Lenten Praxis

Dear Friends,
I wrote this little piece about Lenten spiritual practice. I hope you find it has some merit in considering your own approach to the season of Lent.
Many blessings,
Bill Ryan

Lenten Practice in Prayer of the Heart
By Bill Ryan

The time of Lent has had a penitential theme in years and centuries past, implying a certain self-punitive expiation for sins. As a child growing up in the pre-Vatican II era of the Roman Catholic Church I never found that expiation theology satisfying but the liturgies and symbols did touch me and move me.

Lent- the Interior Movement of Purification
Through my practice of Prayer of the Heart these many years I have come to an appreciation of the theology and practice of kenosis as central to the spiritual life. I have also come to appreciate the time of preparation in the 40 days Yeshua spent in the desert and that any important transformation in life involves a period of preparation and sustained inner work of purification. In the transformations of grace and deepening communion with God our preparation involves an emptying and opening to allow the love and grace of God to come alive in us, and to heal those wounds and addictive patterns in our soul that keep us bound. So Lent is a time of breaking out of the bondage of entrenched patterns so that we can be an empty and receptive vessel for the Light of Christ to burn brightly. Simplicity is the true meaning of purification, being freed to be wholly given to our heart's desire.

The Liturgical Year- Our Growth in the Christ Mystery
In the liturgical year, starting in Advent we liturgically enact the Christ Mystery in our human lives. The Calmaldolese monk Bruno Barnhardt restates the central truth of the Christ Mystery from the original statement by Athanasius (3rd c.) that in Yeshua the Divine became human so that humans might become divine. This understanding of Christianity of Theosis (Divinization) has remained central in the Christian East since the time of the earliest centuries of the desert tradition and the early articulations of the Greek Fathers. In Advent and Christmas therefore we celebrate the Incarnation of the Light of Christ not only historically but also in our own inner being, the Heart.

The Fire and Light of Christ, however, remains a dormant potential deep within us unless we do the inner work of the actualization of "theosis." We offer our soul/consciousness to become accessible, infused, and alive with the Light of Christ already present and living within the tabernacle of the Heart or true spirit. This is the praxis we do in Prayer of the Heart. We unite the soul with the Christ Light of the True Spirit or Heart within us. This is our inner work in Prayer of the Heart.

In the action of kenosis we give our will and awareness to self-emptying, a liberation from all that is non-essential, to receive and live our true essence in Christ. In this way the words of St. Paul, "I live no longer I (the ego-mind), but Christ (the Life of Christ) lives in me.)." (Gal. 2:20) In our praxis we release from the patterns of a lifetime, and the residue and wounds of existence so that the space and freedom is present for Christ to live fully in us, to bring us to healing and wholeness.

Living the Paschal Mystery
This is the inner work of transformation and self emptying we do in our daily silent sitting practice and in the endless praxis of consecrated bowing in adoration and self offering in love we do inwardly in the middle of activity. During Lent we can bring a special energy to this work of freedom, the freedom to release from all that we aren't, to become all that we truly are in Christ. This work of freedom brings us to the Holy Week Triduum and the enactment of the Paschal Mystery of death and resurrection. This is the liturgical enactment of our own death to the self-created, separate self, and the rising to the Limitless Life that is the Heart of Christ, our True Life. We become the lit flame of the Light of Christ. We can truly chant with all Creation as the candles are lit from the Paschal Christ candle on Easter sunrise, "Lumen Christi- Light of Christ, Deo Gratias- Thanks be to God." This is our true destiny, to become a lit flame of Christ's Love, and to live His Light and share it with the world living the compassionate life in the season of Pentecost through the end of the liturgical year and the remainder of our days in the human state.

Lenten Praxis
As a child I was drawn to the liturgies of the Stations of the Cross and the practices of fasting that adults did. The fasting was a canonically enforced practice and the adults rarely understood why they were doing it. The notion of "giving up" something for Lent was done, but again without much understanding of the value as a praxis. We have just begun to explore a notion in the lexicon of ecological spirituality known as "voluntary simplicity." It means stripping away the unnecessary and burdensome patterns of consumption and attachment in our life in order to get down to what is essential. (No small task in this consumer driven culture.) This comes closer to the wisdom meaning of Lent in the liturgical calendar.

It is not the material order of Creation that is the impediment in our spiritual journey of liberation. What constitutes the blocking of our grown in communion with Christ is the attachment of human consciousness to "things" or addictive patterns as God substitutes, to attempt to fill the soul's hunger, craving, and emptiness. In the wisdom of the beatitudes it is the seeming paradox that in our emptying, as Yeshua does in the desert, that we confront the adversary of the ego-mind and the temptations to find God substitutes.

In our practice of kenosis we can come to find the vast spaciousness where the Divine dwells in our own Hearts, and come Home to our true belonging in the Sanctuary of the Heart. In the emptying of this kenosis we are prepared to become the vessels of the Life of the Risen Christ in our own life.

If we wish to make Yeshua our life, Yeshua our home, and Yeshua our singular Love, we must give ourselves wholeheartedly to the daily consecration of the undivided presence and will to become ceaseless adoration and ceaseless self-offering. We find liberation and healing from a divided life when we can become so fully given and freed from the divided life our attachments to God substitutes inflict on us. Regardless of our station in life we can all be "monos", monastics in the true sense of being fully consecrated to the Living God. What divides us from our deepest desire manifests differently in individual lives, but is something we face regardless of our station in life. The "consecrated life" is possible for all.

Given to our Deepest Longing
Our ongoing inner work of love is the commitment. In this way we become accessible to Love's gift of Self to us. Our deepest longing is this, and this alone. In this way the liturgies and the traditional practices of fasting and detachment can become truly enlivened. The Way of the Cross, as a devotional form of prayer, can become a profound enactment of our own path of liberation and transcendence.

Therefore we can approach Lent as an essential movement of our growth in communion with Christ. In Prayer of the Heart praxis we exercise vigilant awareness and release from our the mind's enmeshment with those patterns of living, of mental and behavioral compulsion, that divide us from being fully consecrated to the Love of Christ in all things.

We may decide to choose at least one habitual pattern to release from and offer up. At the same time we may also consider in what ways we can intensify our daily practice, possibly by increasing the time of silent sitting in prayer. For most people the primary impediment is getting to bed early at night so they can rise early in the morning and have more uninterrupted prayer time before they start the day. Intensifying or re-examining our vow of practice or daily rule of life can be an important commitment to make.

Choosing the Better Part
Yeshua tells us we must choose between our misdirected desire for psychological security and comfort and our true desire for God. Commitment or avoidance is an inescapable choice. We cannot do both, we cannot lead a divided life and still enter the Kingdom of unitive love. We cannot have God and god substitutes. We cannot worship God and idols of our construction. In the story of the rich young man Yeshua challenges him to give over everything to his heart's desire. (Matt. 27:57) His fear erodes his desire. In the story of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38) Yeshua admonishes Martha, not because she is serving by doing manual work, but because she is creating a duality in herself and is divided in what she is doing, and therefore envious and resentful. The "better part" that Mary has chosen is her undivided devotion, a devotional love that can be undivided in both activity and stillness.

Therefore let us discover anew the season of Lent and Easter as a season of consecration, a season of healing of the divided life, a season of renewed commitment. Let it become a sacred and spacious time of freedom and unbinding of those vital energies within us that want to be given and united in the utter simplicity of our heart's desire. We can choose the better part wholeheartedly: Yeshua, our companion, our path, our destination and our home.

The Deep Peace of the Son of Peace

Dear Friends,

A familiar Celtic blessing ends with this wish: "The Deep Peace of the Son of Peace be with You."
For me it is an intuitively satisfying blessing. We experience peace as a condition of the soul when we find home, sanctuary, and belonging. Peace is not an emotional state. It is state that emerges from deep within. And at the same time we know that we have a desire to have peace in the world around us, a longing that seems to go unrealized every day. There is a spoken prayer that is a favorite of mine, "Let there be peace in the world, and let it begin with me." We do not decide whether there will be peace in the world. We do decide whether we can bring forth the gift of peace to the world. Such a peace that surpasses understanding begins in the heart and our praxis of communion with the Son of Peace.

As I journey through this year of transition from the world of my past profession and from our previous residence to the new one in Salem, Oregon. Even as I am immersed more deeply into the retreat experience of greater intensity of practice, I am aware also that human beings are in a time of dangerous global passage, where the violent conflicts may break out in a more horrible way. News reports warn of an impending attack on Iran by the United States and Israel, an attack that will inevitably lead to wider, and possibly nuclear war.

Like Merton who wrote his "Confessions of a Guilty Bystander" I wonder what can I do. I can share my concern and be a witness to a better way than massive violence under the pretense of a safer world. More importantly I can find my sole refuge in the only peace that is truly inseparable from every human being who sincerely seeks it. The Heart of Christ is my refuge, my home, and my peace. There is no other even though the world should explode and end.

Yeshua whispers to us, "Peace is my gift to you, my own peace I give to you, that the world cannot give." John 14:27 This peace of Christ we can all bring forth in the shining lamp of our own souls. We can shine the Light within us in the world and be a witness to it. This we can all do, and I am at peace when I consecrate myself to what can be done rather than go into the despair of I can't do.
The peace of Christ be with us all, Friends.
Bill Ryan

Mythical Christmas and Mystical Christmas

Friends,

The fundamentalist right seems to be much inclined to worry whether people greet each other with "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holiday." This argument has nothing to do with authentic Christmas values and much to do with tribal symbols, affiliation, and cultural dominance. Whose flag is the dominant one, whose group is the greater and in charge? These are their anxieties. At such a time the cultural and political forces waging this war are very much concerned with giving more of the nation's resources to the already affluent while the minimum safety net of food, health care, and shelter is cut even more. A sad, sad, path to take, and one which will bear bitter fruit for years to come.

I long ago signed off the cultural Christmas we now have in this land, of consumption, buying, selling, and the overall escalation of expectations and stress in people's lives. No presents, no cards, no tree, no decorations. I do have a small Christmas altar as part of a larger altar. That suits me fine.

As I puzzle over this I wonder how what is essentially a pre-Christian Northern European pagan festival came to be a celebration of the birth of Christ, particularly when we consider that the birth of Yeshua, the Christ is thought to have happened in April. I'm all for celebrations of lights in the middle of dark winter, but let's not make it more than it is. Let's search deeper.

The story is a good one, the Revelation of Divine Light, the King come to heal the land. That's one that many, if not all cultures, can understand. A child born in poverty, who will challenge empires, principalities, powers, and the priorities of societies like the present American one. But what does this story have to do with here and now, this moment and the next? The story is the mythical dimension of religion, but without something more, it's just a story, a beautiful one perhaps, but it's not my story, or the story of the Universe.

The icon of Christ Pantocrator is the compelling one for us. Christ who is at the Center of the Cosmos and the Center of our own Hearts. The Mystical dimension is the doorway in, what gives life and purpose to the myth. (Myth here does not mean "untrue") The Mystical dimension is the unitive spiritual dimension. Mystical Christmas is a celebration of a spiritual truth that happens to all of us as either actualized or unrealized potential. The Light of Christ can be born, can be revealed in each of us, can come forth if we allow, if we surrender to the longing for this birthing to happen in each of us, whether we be Christian or not. The One Life, that Christians know as the Trinity, the "I AM" Source of all existence, known by countless other names in other traditions, wants to be manifest and lived, consciously and intentionally in our own life.

Hence the goal of the spiritual life, the goal of religious practice, is not to simply venerate the historical events of Yeshua of Nazareth, or proclaim our tribal and group affiliation with this historic personage. The purpose of our life is bring forth, to actualize the same Light that Christians know as Christ in the life and humanity that is the human vessel of our own brief life on this earth. In this way the liturgical celebration of Advent and Christmas carries therefore deep significance. The historical event and the mystical process are joined in us and in the moment to moment choice we make to be present and open in presence and adoration to Divine Light and to offer the gift of our human self, our human will and faculties to this same Light and Love who wishes to be born and live fully in us. The goal of the Christian journey is not primarily to venerate the historical Jesus but to birth and live the mystical Christ-Christosis.

Christmas Peace and Blessings to All,
Bill Ryan

Who am I? What am I doing?

My Dear Friends,

It has been two and a half months since my last post. This time has been a revelation to me again of the depth of my vulnerability and has brought me home to a semblance of humility about who I am and my nature in this world. To be human is to develop attachments, to desire and to cling to what is seen as safe and pleasant and to avoid what is seen as fearful or unsafe. I am no different. To change households after 17 years reveals the depth of these attachments, and confronts me with the inevitability of seeing each one. Some are old, and take the form of fears and manifestations of psychological anxiety forms. Some are new and show me my aging and my mortality, and my physical diminishment.

To place oneself in the process of moving, of selling one's home and buying another is to place the control and outcomes in the hands of others. As if I ever really had control over outcomes. Again I am reminded that I can only be with the River of human life, the best I can, and to make my self-offering such that I can be present and swim in the River of Divine Life as it flows through our own. There are moments when you can do nothing, nothing except, Breathe Yeshua. More than ever I know that to live my life is to Breathe Yeshua in this moment and the next, ceaselessly to offer the best of myself in loving kindness and to abide in His Presence ceaselessly, returning home again and again. Yeshua is My home.
With deep bows and ceaseless offering,
Bill Ryan

Yeshua is Coming

"Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know when the Master of the House will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockrow, or at dawn, or else He may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: 'Keep awake!" Mark 13:35-37

"Yeshua says, I am the Light shining upon all things. I am the sum of everything, for everything has come forth from me, and towards me everything unfolds. Split a piece of wood and there I am. Pick up a stone and you fill find me there." logon 7- Gospel of Thomas

These two scripture readings address the question of our posture toward Christ. Sadly in the religious education of many, the question of this posture is one of loyalty and external affiliation to the correct religious ideology and institution as proof of one's alignment on the "right" side of history when Jesus comes in the second coming or the parousia. For many this is a fear based proposition, a kind of "hedging" of bets or religious life insurance. It presents Jesus as a pathetic authority figure whose sole concern seems to be your unquestioning loyalty rather than the state of your commitment and transformation in the life of love and service. This is the state of conventional religious consciousness.

Here we see two important things. In the first reading Yeshua is the "Master of the house." The house is the self. The Master is the Life that animates the self. To see this from an esoteric and mystical understanding then is to see that we are invited to a state of spiritual attentiveness and receptivity at all times so we will be receptive and open and awakened to Christ's presence within us bursting forth. He is the bridegroom of the soul, the Fire of the Heart or true spirit.

The second reading is much more deliberately focused on the interior life. Here Yeshua's message is clear that the revelation of his true nature depends entirely on the state of our receptivity. Hence real spiritual practice is the cultivation of this receptivity, not by adding anything but an awakened attention to the Light that manifests in all things. When we open to the true essence or Light in each moment of every day life, in animate and inanimate things, we open to the Light of Yeshua's essence. They are the same. Hence the mystics have always said, our true nature is Christ. And the journey of a lifetime is one of Christosis, becoming Christ in all things.

If the praxis of this interior life of communion with Christ were the focus of religious denominations they would cease to be interested in the power and the standing that comes from being an "intermediary" and instead be a companion. They would understand that the "second coming" of Christ is this moment and the next. The true measure of life would then be our capacity for loving kindness in the world rather than the purity of our loyalty to religious institutions and our deference to their ideologies and pretensions of authority.

Many blessings,
Bill Ryan
cmpnwtr@earthlink.net