Since Vatican II the Roman Catholic Church has been encouraging Catholics to
live the fullness of the Christian life without expecting priests, religious or
anyone else to do it for them. That implies creativity as well as responsibility
on the part of lay people to come up with structures that will enable them to
live the contemplative dimensions of the Gospel without a cloister A cloister
does not resolve all the problems of life. There are pitfalls and traps for
monks and nuns as well as for other people.
The monastic journey is a special kind of life with its own set of difficulties. For one thing, it puts human relationships under a microscope.
Although the trials are not as big as those outside the monastery, they may be
more humiliating. Monastics get upset by trifles and can't even claim a good
reason for feeling that way
Divine union is the goal for all Christians. We have been
baptised; we
receive the Eucharist; we have all the necessary means of growing as human
beings and as children of God. It is a mistake to think that a special state of
life is the only way of doing it. The persons I know who are most advanced in
prayer are married or engaged in active ministries, running around all day to
fulfill their duties.
A couple of years ago, I gave a conference to an assembly of lay
organizations.
These included marriage-encounter and social action groups, secular , and new
communities. My talk was based on monastic spirituality, but instead of saying "monastic", I said "Christian". I was amazed
to see how most people identified with this traditional teaching. It
corresponded to their own experience. This reinforced my conviction that the
spiritual journey is for every Christian who takes the Gospel seriously
Spiritual disciplines, both East and West, are based on the hypothesis that
there is something that we can do to enter upon the journey to divine union once
we have been touched by the realization that such a state exists. Centering
prayer is a discipline designed to reduce the obstacles to contemplative prayer.
Its modest packaging appeals to the contemporary attraction for how-to methods.
It is a way of bringing the procedures to be found in the contemplative
teachings of the spiritual masters of the Christian tradition out of the dusty
pages of the past into the broad daylight of the present. The popularity of
meditative disciplines from the East is proof enough that some such method is
essential today. But centering prayer is not just a method. It is true prayer at
the same time. If you are willing to expand the meaning of contemplative prayer
to include methods that prepare for it or lead into it, centering prayer can be
identified as the first rung on the ladder of contemplative prayer, which rises
step by step to union with God.
Centering prayer is a method of refining one's intuitive faculties so that
one can enter more easily into contemplative prayer It is not the only path to
contemplation, but it is a good one. As a method, it is a kind of extract of
monastic spirituality It concentrates the essence of monastic practice into two
periods of prayer each day When taking an antibiotic, you have to maintain the
right dosage in order to benefit from the medication. You have to keep up the
required number of antibodies in the blood stream to overcome the disease. So,
too, you have to keep up a certain level of interior silence in the psyche and
nervous system if you want to obtain the benefits of contemplative prayer.
Centering prayer as a discipline is designed to withdraw our attention
from
the ordinary flow of our thoughts. We tend to identify ourselves with that flow
But there is a deeper part of ourselves. This prayer opens out awareness to the
spiritual level of our being. This level might be compared to a great river on
which our memories, images, feelings, inner experiences, and the awareness of
outward things are resting. Many people are so identified with the ordinary flow
of their thoughts and feelings that they are not aware of the source from which
these mental objects are emerging. Like boats or debris floating along the
surface of a river, our thoughts and feelings must be resting on something. They are resting on the inner
stream of
consciousness, which is our participation in God's being. That level is not
immediately evident to ordinary consciousness. Since we are not in immediate
contact with that level, we have to do something to develop our awareness of it.
It is the level of our being that makes us most human. The values that we find
there are more delightful than the values that float along the surface of the
psyche. We need to refresh ourselves at this deep level every day Just as we
need exercise, food, rest, and sleep, so also we need moments of interior
silence because they bring the deepest kind of refreshment.
Faith is opening and surrendering to God. The spiritual
journey does not
require going anywhere because God is already with us and in us. It is a
question of allowing our ordinary thoughts to recede into the back ground and to
float along the river of consciousness without our noticing them, while we
direct our attention toward the river on which they are floating. We are like
someone sitting on the bank of a river and watching the boats go by If we stay
on the bank, with our attention on the river rather than on the boats, the
capacity to disregard thoughts as they go by will develop, and a deeper kind of
attention will emerge.
A thought in the context of this method is any perception that appears on the
inner screen of consciousness. This could be an emotion, an image, a memory, a
plan, a noise from outside, a feeling of peace, or even a spiritual
communication. In other words, anything whatsoever that registers on the inner
screen of consciousness is a "thought". The method consists of letting go
of every thought during the time of prayer, even the most devout thoughts.
To facilitate letting go, take a relatively comfortable position so that you
won't be thinking about your body. Avoid positions that might cut off the
circulation because then you will think of your discomfort. Choose a place that
is relatively quiet in corner not to be disturbed by excessive or unexpected
noise. If there is no such place in your household, try to find a quiet time
when you are least likely to be disturbed. It is a good idea to close your eyes
because you tend to think of what you see. By withdrawing the senses from their
ordinary activity, you may reach deep rest. A sudden sound or interruption, like the
phone ringing, will shake you up. An alarm clock or timer, which is one way to
notify yourself when the time is up, should be a quiet one. If the clock is noisy,
stuff it under a pillow Try to
avoid outside noises as much as you can. If noises happen anyway, do
not be upset. Getting upset is an emotionally charged thought that is likely to
shatter whatever interior silence you may have reached. Choose a time for prayer
when you are most awake and alert. Early in the morning before the ordinary
business of the day begins is a good time.
Once you have picked a suitable time and place and a chair or a posture that
is relatively comfortable, and closed your eyes, choose a sacred word that
expresses your intention of opening and surrendering to God and introduce it on
the level of your imagination. Do not form it with your lips or vocal chords.
Let it be a single word of one or two syllables with which you feel at ease.
Gently place it in your awareness each time you recognize you are thinking about
some other thought.
The sacred word is not a means of going where you want to go. It only directs
your intention toward God and thus fosters a favorable atmosphere for the
development of the deeper awareness to which your spiritual nature is attracted.
Your purpose is not to suppress all thoughts because that is impossible. You
will normally have a thought after half a minute of inner silence unless the
action of grace is so powerful that you are absorbed in God. Centering prayer is
not a way of turning on the presence of God. Rather, it is a way of saying,
"Here I am" The next step is up to God. It is a way of putting
yourself at God's disposal; it is He who determines the consequences.
You may be familiar with the gesture of folding your hands together with the
fingers pointing upward. This is a symbol of gathering all the faculties
together and directing them toward God. The sacred word has exactly the same
purpose. It is a pointer, but a mental rather than a material one. The word
should be introduced without any force: think it the way you would any thought
that might arise spontaneously
The sacred word, once it is well established, is a way of reducing the
ordinary number of casual thoughts and of warding off the more interesting ones
that come down the stream of consciousness. It does this not by attacking the
thoughts directly but by relaxing your intention to consent to God's presence
and action within. This renewal of the will's consent, as it becomes habitual,
creates an atmosphere in which you can more easily disregard the inevitable flow
of thoughts.
If you are nervous about doing what may seem like "nothing"
for a
set period of time, let me remind you that nobody hesitates to go to sleep for
six or seven hours every night. But practicing this prayer is not doing nothing.
It is a very gentle kind of activity. The will keeps consenting to God by
returning to the sacred word, and this is normally enough activity to stay
awake and alert.
Twenty to thirty minutes is the minimum amount of time necessary for most
people to establish interior silence and to get beyond their superficial
thoughts. You may be inclined to remain longer. Experience will teach you what
the right time is. At the end of your chosen time span, begin to think your
ordinary thoughts again. This may be a good time to converse with God. You may
also wish to say some vocal prayer quietly to yourself or to begin planning your
day Give yourself at least two minutes before opening your eyes. Withdrawal from
the ordinary use of the exterior and interior senses brings you to a deep
spiritual attentiveness, and opening your eyes right away can be jarring.
As your sensitivity to the spiritual dimension of your being develops through
the daily practice of this prayer, you may begin to find the awareness of God's
presence arising at times in ordinary activity. You may feel called to turn
interiorly to God without knowing why. The quality of your spiritual life is
developing and enabling you to pick up vibrations from a world you did not
previously perceive. Without deliberately thinking of God, you may find that He
is often present in the midst of your daily occupations. It is like color
added to a black-and-white television screen. The picture remains the same, but
it is greatly enhanced by the new dimension of the picture that was not
previously perceived. It was present but not transmitted because the proper
receptive apparatus was missing.
Continued next week.
More information can be obtained by reading the book Open
Mind Open Heart by Fr. Thomas Keating. It is offered in our Book
Store.
