Mistaken identity.

In a world full of demands and noise of all kinds, practicing silence may be considered counter-cultural even though every spiritual tradition posits it as an essential practice. Cynthia reminds us that centering prayer is not the silence that involves a cessation of outer noise and busyness alone but the cessation of inner noise or at the very least a healthy detachment from it. This kind of silence is a crucial practice for spiritual transformation and awakening. We gradually experience an awakening from our ordinary awareness in which “we human beings are victims of a tragic case of mistaken identity” (p.10).

Being human has always involved loss, change, crisis and uncomfortable life conditions. Every period of history has come with its own unique challenges, and although our time is not completely unprecedented it would be remiss to negate the current crises we are facing. Whenever we find ourselves in the midst of ongoing trauma it is easy to fall back into ordinary awareness alone and react from this level exclusively. Our selves in time have many preferences, desires, and ways of remaining comfortable and self-soothed. This level of ordinary awareness is not inherently bad or wrong and in fact is a necessary aspect of being in this world. At the same time all spiritual paths reveal that we can awaken to a greater, more abundant reality if we can begin to find a Self beyond who we typically take ourselves to be. As Cynthia says,

“The person I normally take myself to be—that busy, anxious little ‘I’ so preoccupied with its goals, fears, desires, and issues—is never even remotely the whole of who I am, and to seek the fulfillment of my life at this level means to miss out on the bigger life. This is why, according to his teaching, the one who tries to keep his ‘life’ (i.e., the small one) will lose it, and the one who is willing to lose it will find the real thing. Beneath the surface there is a deeper and vastly more authentic Self, but its presence is usually veiled by the clamor of the smaller ‘I’ with its insatiable needs and demands.

This confusion between small self and larger Self (variously known in the traditions as ‘True Self,’ ‘Essential Self,’ or ‘Real I’) is the core illusion of the human condition, and penetrating this illusion is what awakening is all about.” (p.10)

Centering prayer allows us to see the human condition for what it is by developing a different type of awareness that is not so preoccupied with dividing the field. It is a spiritual awareness cultivated through the intention of an internal posture of letting go, of noticing where we are caught in various types of thinking coming from little ‘I’s and letting go again. Spiritual awareness allows us to perceive from the Whole, brings with it a capacity to see the nuances and factors that need to be taken into consideration in each particular situation in order to move in the world from wisdom and coherence.

Centering prayer is a way of building the muscle of letting go, of growing the capacity to unclench the fixated thought, emotional, and physical patterns that keep us stuck in the notion that “I am right and other people are wrong.” The fruits of this practice are not so much experienced in the twenty minute period we sit on our mat and do the deal (“if you catch yourself thinking, you let the thought go” p.23) but rather in our lives. We begin to notice that we grow in our ability to make space for polarity rather than polarization and thus to discern rather than judge. As we practice with the aim of being “totally open to God” (p.22) something is strengthened in us. This something becomes more and more a place we can return to in the course of our day as we go about the particular and complex circumstances of our lives.

The practice of surrendering and emptying over time also develops a spiritual non-possessiveness. We cling much less, and operate from a more spacious interior. We relax concerns focused primarily on survival, division and separateness. We gain a deeper sense of real presence and love and succumb less to the imagination with its tendencies towards unhelpful negativity or ideal fantasies. We stop contributing to the emergent properties of terror, rage, and detached disengagement that gain a life of their own and wreak havoc on the collective atmosphere.

We are invited through this practice to be “Totally available, all the way down to that innermost point of your being; deeper than your thinking, deeper than your feelings, deeper than your memories and desires, deeper than your usual psychological sense of yourself—even deeper than your presence!”(p.22).

And so I invite you to join me in the following inner task. Inner tasks come from the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff and have become an important part of our wisdom lineage. Inner tasks are essentially about supporting our work with waking up to our automatic patterns and becoming present in the conditions of our lives as they are. They begin with the foundational work of self-observation. Self-observation is something that only we can do for ourselves and brings with it self-knowledge that is useful for living out our wisdom path.

We return to our aim in centering prayer “to be totally open to God. Totally available, all the way down to that innermost point of your being. . .” As we sit down for our twenty minute period we practice the continual letting go of thoughts, emotions, and sensations. We let them go not because these are bad but because they pull us back to the surface, to our usual notions of our narrative selves based at the ordinary awareness level. We slowly discover through this act of surrender that we are not our thoughts, we are not our emotions, we are not our sensations, and that something in us is deeper than the many small i’s we have living within us that we regularly identify with as we go about our daily lives.

Our inner task will be to work with self-observation, recognizing that not everything arising within us – every thought, mood, feeling, impulse, desire, emotion, and so on – is “Real I.” Begin to notice throughout the day these are my thoughts this is not I. These are my emotions this is not I. These are my physical impulses this is not I. Then notice from where you are drawing your awareness deeper in and come to the still point of “I.” Rest in that stillness for a moment amidst whatever noise may be going on and say “thank you” as a recognition that you have remembered yourself.

We work from the Whole on behalf of the collective. May it be so.

With Love,

Heather

*This reflection was first shared in 2021 on Wisdom Waypoints

---

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses

*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*

Monday, August 11th

Reading: “It's difficult to let God act under all circumstances. Letting go and not reflecting on what you are doing is the correct way to conduct yourself in this prayer. The method doesn't consist in how you sit or in the length of time you give, but in how you handle the thoughts that arise. I think it can be said that the essential point of all the great spiritual disciplines that the world religions have evolved is the letting go of thoughts. Everything else is subsidiary to that. The goal is to integrate and unify the various levels of one's being and to surrender that integrated and unified being to God.” — Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, p.87

Chant: I surrender – Heather Ruce

Tuesday, August 12th

Reading: "Self-knowledge in the Christian ascetical tradition is insight into our hidden motivation, into emotional needs and demands that are percolating inside of us and influencing our thinking, feeling, and activity without our being fully aware of them. To give an example: When I was an abbot, which is a father image in a monastery, I was struck by the fact that some of the younger members of the community were unconsciously treating me as their real father. I could see that they were working out emotional hassles with authority figures from their early childhood. They were not relating to me as me. When you withdraw from your ordinary flow of superficial thoughts on a regular daily basis, you get a sharper perspective on your motivation, and you begin to see that the value systems by which you have always lived have their roots in prerational attitudes that have never been honestly and fully confronted. We all have neurotic tendencies. When you practice contemplative prayer on a regular basis, your natural resources for psychic health begin to revive and you see the false value systems that are damaging your life. The emotional programs of early childhood that are buried in your unconscious begin to emerge into clear and stark awareness." — Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart

Chant: And love says, I will, I will take care of you – The Oriental Orthodox Order in the West

Wednesday, August 13th

Reading: “The universe is saturated and suffused with a natural holiness that is rising up to meet us. The spiritual realms are not way beyond us, but rather their deep, natural, intelligent energetic support is always available….Your whole body is built to be a sensing antenna for divine realities, to receive the beauty and intricacy and the help that is there all the time….We need to open to sensation, grounded in the earth, allowing the heart to open as the electromagnetic receiver it is meant to be.” — Cynthia Bourgeault

Chant: Open my heart, open my heart — Ana Hernandez

Thursday, August 14th

Reading: "Beneath the surface there is a deeper and vastly more authentic Self, but its presence is usually veiled by the clamor of the smaller ‘I’ with its insatiable needs and demands." — Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p.10

Hummed along to this Song: The Essentuki Prayer

Friday, August 15th with LeMel

Reading: Seventy-Two

A Song of Release

Call us again to gather our children,

Hurrying, hurrying to get in line;

Call us to pack in bundles and baskets,

Only essentials, what we can carry.

Challenge us each day, Eternal One,

To cast off piled high hordes

Of self-absorption;

Let us pack our lives lightly.

Call us as you called in Egypt,

To set out from grief to unknown;

Call us today to abandon unwillingness,

To open hands clenched around fear.

Let us go, let us walk forward,

Away from lost dreams

To a world spun of youthful hope,

A world we can rebuild for Your sake.

Let us find, walking forward, a freedom

Created by our efforts,

A freedom of heart no longer burdened

With meanness and narrowness.

Call us to walk forward toward You,

Freed from the weight of inconsequentials.

Lightened, released, cloaked with Your affection,

We walk on.

From Debbie Perlman in Flames to Heaven: New Psalms for Healing & Praise, former Psalmist-in-Residence at Beth Emet The Free Synagogue

Chant: Lightened, released, cloaked with Your affection, You call us toward You. We walk on. – LeMel Firestone-Palerm

Saturday, August 16th

Reading: "The person I normally take myself to be—that busy, anxious little ‘I’ so preoccupied with its goals, fears, desires, and issues—is never even remotely the whole of who I am, and to seek the fulfillment of my life at this level means to miss out on the bigger life. This is why, according to his teaching, the one who tries to keep his ‘life’ (i.e., the small one) will lose it, and the one who is willing to lose it will find the real thing. Beneath the surface there is a deeper and vastly more authentic Self, but its presence is usually veiled by the clamor of the smaller ‘I’ with its insatiable needs and demands.

This confusion between small self and larger Self (variously known in the traditions as ‘True Self,’ ‘Essential Self,’ or ‘Real I’) is the core illusion of the human condition, and penetrating this illusion is what awakening is all about.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p.10

Chant: Come to me, you heavy burdened ones, and I will give you rest – Henry Schoenfield

Sunday, August 17th

Reading: "We human beings come into existence with a certain operating system already installed in us. We can make the choice to upgrade. 

"The system already installed in us is a binary operating system. It runs on the power of “either/or.” People frequently call it the ego, but I prefer to stick with my metaphor and call it the “egoic operating system.” This dualistic “binary operator” is built right into the structure of the human brain…

"Like the great wisdom teachers of all spiritual traditions, Jesus calls us beyond the illusion: “Hey, you can upgrade your operating system, and life is going to look a whole lot different when you do it.”

"I think [this binary operating system] does have some real importance in the cosmic role we are asked to play; it’s not a mistake. But… most people get stuck in it. That’s who we think we are. We walk through our lives perceiving, reacting to, and attempting to negotiate the world “out there” on the basis of this operating system. It’s like being lost in a mirage. A system based in duality can’t possibly perceive oneness; it can’t create anything beyond itself—only more duality and more trouble. So the drama goes on and on.

"But we do have the capacity, if we so choose, to shift to a whole different basis of perception. We come into this life with another operating system already lying in latency, and if we wish to move in this direction, we can learn to steer by it, understand through it, and ultimately discover our deepest sense of identity within it.” – Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus, p.33-35

Chant: Come to me, you heavy burdened ones, and I will give you rest – Henry Schoenfield

← Previous Post

Next Post →