Crippling guilt is just as egoic and "unspiritual" as our original offense.

When we cause suffering to someone - whether intentionally or unintentionally - we do it because we are acting from an enclosed, constricted, and narrow worldview. In other words, we've failed to extend our identity beyond our own ego to include the perspective of the other person, culture, landscape or species whom we've wronged. However, once we become aware of the suffering we've caused, our tendency then is to obsessively beat ourselves up internally for the offense, thinking this will then make things right again.

However, castigating ourselves is actually simply another form of the constricted mindset that caused us to inflict the suffering in the first place! All acts of self-castigation - together with the associated feelings of guilt that afflict us so intensely - are, in truth, just as constricted and narrow as the mindset that caused the original offense! For ALL forms of constriction are, it turns out, innately egoic and imprisoning. As such, they are actually the antithesis of true spirituality, which is inherently open, free and spacious. Psychologically-speaking, the crippling guilt we inflict upon ourselves is even more egoic than the original mindset that caused the wrong in the first place because it has such a tight, heavy, claustraphobic, leaden, oppressive feel to it. It is, in fact, this oppressive tightness that is the very definition of "ego."

My spiritual mentor, Thomas Keating, used to remind me that when we do something wrong, only the original "prick" of conscience can be considered spiritual. Any obsessive feelings of guilt and self-castigation that follow should be regarded as they really are - as "temptations" to be released. For me, the liberating thing is to realize that both the original wrong AND the crippling guilt we feel afterwards arise from the SAME tight, constricted, egoic state of consciousness. The solution is to do what we can to right the wrong, move beyond the constricted worldview that caused it in the first place, AND release the leaden sense of guilt as well, allowing both the offense and the resulting guilt to become a transparent window through to the Light and Spaciousness of the Divine Self in which BOTH constrictions can open and then dissolve! And THAT, I know for a fact, is TRUE liberation :)

Photo: Sunlight shining through a twin-topped Subalpine Fir at treeline, with Niwot Ridge in the background, Indian Peaks Wilderness, CO, January 26, 2015 #NaturePhotoQuotes  #StephenHatch

Contemplation is a resting in God . . .

"Contemplation is a resting in God. In this resting or stillness the mind and heart are not actively seeking Him, but are beginning to experience - "taste" - what they have been seeking. This places them in a state of repose, tranquility, and profound interior peace."

Thomas Keating 

Photos: Various scenes near Bellvue, CO, December 26, 2014

The Wonder of Structure and Discipline in the Spiritual Life

Engaging in discipline and spiritual practice is one of the most important parts of life, for it neutralizes the depressingly passive corporate-consumer mindset promoted by our culture and puts us in touch with the nobility of our own life-force and sense of agency. For me, hiking is one such practice, providing opportunities for physical exercise, mindfulness, and a melting of oneself into the larger Whole.

Several days ago, during coffee with my youngest daughter - Holly Hatch - she shared with me how important structure and routine are in her life. In her case, engaging in a routine - organizing the receipts and bills of the business that she and her partner run, ordering supplies, cleaning, etc. - has a very healing affect on her psyche. It occurred to me during our conversation that it is not so much the CONTENT of the routine that matters, at least in her case, but the ACT ITSELF of bringing organization and structure to daily life. I'm reminded here of the advice of my spiritual mentor, Thomas Keating, who compared regular spiritual practice and discipline to the banks of a river, which enable the water to flow with increased vigor and stamina.

For me - being naturally a philosophical, "meaning" oriented person - the content of the structure is indeed quite important. I don't have the discipline to stick with a practice unless it yields a deeper and more cosmic sense of purpose. But I have been quite impressed since our conversation with the realization that the structure itself is part of the meaning. After all, the sky-like expanse of the Divine Presence is most impressive when we see it in the context of the particular phenomena of life that - like stars, meteors, rocky promontories and the horizon - help give it definition. DIscipline, organization, routine and practice, however nondescript (like a rocky silhouette on the horizon) they might seem, are a large part of the reason WHY we are able to perceive the expansiveness that lies beyond them. They serve as a sort of "diving board" - flexible yet boundaried - that allows us to leap off into the wide-open ocean of Divine awareness!

Photos: (Top) Animal tracks in the snow beneath Nokhu Crags, Never Summer Range, CO, December 12, 2014; (Middle) Ice patterns on Lake Agnes, Never Summer Range, CO, December 12, 2014; (Bottom) Canada Geese on Watson Lake, with Greyrock in the background, Bellvue, CO, December 9, 2014

God's first language is silence

 

The monastery hermitage where I stayed this past weekend was located in an arid environment, surrounded by pinyon pine trees, scrub oak, and sagebrush.  The desert environment is well suited to entering the interior desert, where the Beloved dwells. Several times I noticed that when the monastery bells rang, the coyotes started calling as well!  Afterwards, the silence was so thick, it rang in my ears!

Photo: A sprig of pinyon pine rests on the hermitage porch; St. Benedict's Monastery, Snowmass, CO; 

Christmas is the celebration of God's silence becoming aware of itself in Christ, and in us.

"Christ's birth as man is nothing less than the visible expression of his eternal birth as the Word of God in the eternal silence of the Father.  Of course, in the Father, silence is the fullness of everything.  This silence - fullness becoming aware of itself - is the Word, God's Son.  Christmas is the celebration of the grace of this eternal birth IN US."

Thomas Keating
St. Benedict's Monastery
Snowmass, Colorado

Photo: Cub Lake, Fern Lake Burn, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 21, 2012

Christmas is the Birth of God's Silent Fullness Becoming Aware of Itself

 

"Christ's birth as man is nothing less than the visible expression of his eternal birth as the Word of God in the eternal silence of the Father. Of course, in the Father, silence is the fullness of everything.  This silence - fullness becoming aware of itself - is the Word, God's Son.  Christmas is the celebration of the grace of this eternal birth in us."

Thomas Keating

Photo: Alpenglow on the La Sal Mountains, Canyonlands National Park, UT, November 25, 2011

We Know Union with God in the Abyss of the Soul

 

"Only the divine abyss, God in all His immensity, can bring union about.  Sharing in the divine immensity, it defies all measurements.  In this state the soul, purified and enlightened, sinks into the divine darkness, into a tranquil silence and inconceivable and ineffable union.  It is absorbed in God.  In this abyss it loses itself, and knows nothing of God or of itself . . ."

Johannes Tauler, 14th century Germany

"In centering prayer, you intend to go to your inmost being, where you believe God dwells.  As you persevere, you will gradually develop new habits and new capacities, one of which is the ability to be conscious of two levels of awareness at the same time.  You can be aware of the noise in or around you, and yet you recognize that your attention is grasped by something at a deeper level that is impossible to define but is nonetheless real . . . God is much more intimate and accessible than we think.  If the Lord reaches up and pulls you down, great! You may sink into interior silence . . ."

Thomas Keating

Photo: The Joint Trail, Canyonlands National Park, UT, November 27, 2011

The Spiritual Journey is a Spiral Descending into the Depths of Our Union with God

"The spiritual journey might be compared to descending a spiral staircase, moving from the superficial layers of the false self up above, toward the reality of union with God in the depths.  As we progress toward the center where God actually is waiting for us, we are naturally going to feel that we are getting worse.  This warns us that the spiritual journey is not a success story or a career move.  It is rather a series of humiliations of the false self.  It is experienced as diminutions of the false self with the value system and worldview that we built up so painstakingly as defenses to cope with the emotional pain of early life . . . The spiral staircase is a combination of the horizontal and vertical . . . As we descend toward our center, we encounter difficulties again because there is a circular structure to the spiral staircase and hence horizontally we seem to meet the same old problem.  But vertically we are now dealing with it on a deeper, more mature level . . . By leading us gradually (the way human things work), through growth in trust and humility, we are able to make an ever deeper surrender of ourselves to God.  In this way we reach a new level of interior freedom, a deeper purity of heart, and an ever increasing union with the Spirit . . . What happens when we come to the bottom of the spiral staircase and fully access the divine presence?  It will be a great surprise and not like anything we expected."

Thomas Keating, Trappist Monk

Photo: Spiral Mountain-mahogany seeds glowing in the sunlight, Hewlett Gulch, Roosevelt National Forest, CO, October 17, 2009