For the Week of October 15 - 21: The Way of Self-Emptying
Leon Berkowitz, Cup #7, 1975
Whoever would save his life will lose it and whoever loses her life will find it.
- Matthew 16:25
"One of the reasons why contemplatives have always been in the minority in this world is because contemplation involves a surrender of one's whole self, not just a period of time set aside each day for some form of prayer or meditation. It is a commitment of immense proportions and requires an eminent trust that God will bring us where we hope to go, if we submit to this inner conviction or urging that we have to start. It does not matter how many difficulties there are, we have to go. … [W]e surrender to God's transforming process."
- Thomas Keating, Intimacy with God
In the second session in Part 4 of our curriculum, The Way, we will reflect upon the deepening movements of kenosis, or self-emptying – the cycles of purification which awaken us to new levels of understanding, reality and Presence. In our last session on the Fourth Way, J.G. Bennett noted "There is in our nature as three-brained beings the capacity to be both affirmative and receptive. We can make efforts and we can receive help. When the two are in balance, something is set free in us that is a genuine creation, a new reality. This belongs to the Work and in a very special sense, is the Work"(The Sevenfold Work). The energies of affirmation and receptivity are movements of an awakened consciousness and will, awakened from the lower, attracted and directed to the higher. The movement of kenosis includes both affirmation – wish, aim, will, devotion, service – and receptivity – stillness, consent, acceptance, non-identifying and surrendering. Without the "moving-toward" energies of affirmation and receptivity, much of the spiritual journey can feel like an unending denial of self, becoming heavy, depressing and joyless. The via negative needs to be balanced by the via positiva.
In this session we will explore the path of receptive, affirming self-emptying. What follows are various excerpts for pondering. After each one, pause a moment and listen for what word, idea, feeling, insight or image that comes to you. Jot it down. Remain in silence for a few moments. Then continue with the next selection.
Meditations
"When Christ said he was the 'Way,' he not only meant he was the 'means,' but that we were to recapitulate his own human life with God, recapitulate, as it were, his same spiritual journey. … Thus we are to know, love and be as one with God as he was, to have his same mind, same body, and ultimately, his same glory. In short, 'the way' meant becoming one with the divine Logos as he was, and through [Christ], on with the Father and Spirit.
"As the Prototype of universal man and perfected humanity, it follows that anything possible for Christ is possible for us, and that anything not possible for Christ is not possible for us. Thus whatever Christ experienced or underwent in his human nature, we too can experience or undergo. …
"However it went for Christ is how it will go for us. This means that whatever can happen to Christ's humanity can happen to our own."
- Bernadette Roberts, "Mystical Theology and No-Self," The Christian Contemplative Journey, Essays on The Path, pp. 139, 142
- pause and reflect -
"[T]he most important discovery I could make was to know the suffering of my own self. And this was the hardest type of knowledge to gain because the mind, the emotions and the ego often collaborate in a secret scheme to prevent access to the true knowledge of oneself. Only when I began to realize all the plots set-up to prevent true self-knowledge did I realize, O God, that you are constantly inviting me into the inner chambers of love through the doors of suffering and death.
"I have pondered Bonaventure's words for many years, 'No other path than through the burning love of the crucified,' and I have come to realize that love is the highest form of death and death is the highest expression of love. There are all kinds of deaths and all kinds of loves, and thus only the death of God can show us the type of love that leads to freedom. … Teilhard spoke of an irresistible center of absolute wholeness at the heart of everything, and Bonaventure said that the truth of this irresistible center is the burning love of the crucified Christ. God did not become something less than God on the cross; rather, the cross is the revelation of divinity. God is not the power of a monarch or a king; God is love unto death for the sake of new life. The cross reveals what divinity is, the power of divine love to give itself completely to the other and be a helpless love. On the cross God show us the cost of freedom in love and the power of love to set free."
- Ilia Delio, Birth of a Dancing Star, pp. 203-204
- pause and reflect -
"[O]ne has to disappear. One's personal self, with which one lives nearly the whole time, is too small … The more it disappears, the more can be understood. This may be very painful – for a time. Later, it is quite the reverse; and it is the return, the interference of the personal self which becomes painful, and its absence happiness.
"There are two sides of our work and they must go together. The first is the gradual weakening and the end destruction of this false side, this personal self, which at present arranges our lives. The other is the gradual acquirement of something new, a new permanent guiding principle of consciousness, which we have not got at present. We have to lose something we have and create something we have not. Giving up self-will shows the way towards the first, Self-remembering the way towards the second. …
"[T]he sense of the complete unimportance of all one's personal life and personal psychology is the key to entry into relation with some invisible esoteric stream. To me this has no taste of humility or self-abasement; it is simply that one's life as an 'independent' person ceases to have any meaning, and therefore there is no more point in being humble about it than proud of it. Pride and humility seem two sides of the same state – of taking oneself as an individual seriously."
- Rodney Collin, The Theory of Conscious Harmony
- pause and reflect -
"Centering Prayer … most fully reflects Jesus' own self-understanding and way of going about things. … Self-emptying is what first brings him into human form, and self-emptying is what leads him out, returning him to the realm of dominion and glory. Whether he is moving 'down' or 'up' in the great chain of being, the gesture remains the same …
"Self-emptying is also, in the deepest sense, self-disclosure, which is fundamentally a creative act; it tends to bring new worlds into existence by revealing what had formerly been present only in potential. From a metaphysical perspective, explosion rather than implosion is the principle of actualization. …
"[Jesus'] idea of 'dying to self' was not through inner renunciation and guarding the purity of his being, but through radically squandering everything he had and was … love utterly poured out … When surrounded by fear, contradiction, betrayal; when the 'fight or flight' alarm bells are going off in your head [and body] and everything inside you wants to brace and defend itself, the infallible way to extricate yourself and reclaim your home in that sheltering kingdom is simply to freely release whatever you are holding onto [non-identification and Self-remembering] … The method of full, voluntary self-donation reconnects you instantly to the wellspring; in fact, it is the wellspring. The most daring gamble of Jesus' trajectory of pure love may just be to show us that self-emptying is not the means to something else; the act is itself the full expression of its meaning and instantly brings into being 'a new creation': the integral wholeness of Love manifested in the particularity of a human heart. …
"Of all the methods of mediation, [Centering Prayer] most purely approximates meditational kenosis. It is pure self-emptying. … [It] aims to attain nothing: not clear mind, steady-state consciousness, or unitive seeing. It is a prayer that simple exercises the kenotic path: love made full in the act of giving itself away. It is practice, over and over, with that one bare gesture."
- Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, pp. 83-88
- pause and reflect -
Every day that we self-observe, non-identify and Self-remember, and every day that we remove ourselves from the attractions, concerns and responsibilities of life to sit in silence, consenting to God's presence and action within, we die a little more to ourselves and awaken a little more to Christ in us, as us. We participate in an ascending octave of Christification, both for ourselves and that of all creation, a process of reciprocal maintenance where in the economy of sacrifice, everybody and everything benefits.
Therefore I urge you, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
- Romans 12:1-2
Homework
- After reflecting upon these passages, what is personally meaningful for you at this time? What did you note or jot down? What does the composite say about your life now?
- Notice how the energies of affirmation and receptivity show up for you in your practices, relationships, the Fourth Way curriculum of your life.
- Every day, practice emptying of self. Self-observe, non-identify and Self-remember. Consent to God's presence and action in you during Centering Prayer and within all aspects of your life.
Attend tonight's class: 7pm Central Time via Zoom only.
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Open Zoom, click on Join Meeting and enter this meeting ID: 996-101-9778. When prompted for a Passcode, enter: CCH.
The Journey School Archive: The class content archive is organized by class and class date and includes free mp3 recordings of each class. The complete email archive may be found here. The glossary of terms may be found here.
