Two thieves

More from Ramana Maharshi:

Question: The yogis say that one must renounce this world and go off into secluded jungles if one wishes to find the truth.
Ramana Maharshi : The life of action need not be renounced. If you meditate for an hour or two every day you can then carry on with your duties. If you meditate in the right manner then the current of mind induced will continue to flow even in the midst of your work. It is as though there were two ways of expressing the same idea; the same line which you take in meditation will be expressed in your activities.

Question: What will be the result of doing that?
Ramana Maharshi: As you go on you will find that your attitude towards people, events and objects gradually changes. Your actions will tend to follow your meditations of their own accord.

Question: Then you do not agree with the yogis?
Ramana Maharshi : A man should surrender the personal selfishness which binds him to this world. Giving up the false self is the true renunciation.

Question: How is it possible to become selfless while leading a life of worldly activity?
Ramana Maharshi: There is no conflict between work and wisdom.

M. Scott Peck on techniques of suffering, will, and love

I've recently been struck by the way that M. Scott Peck's psychological discussion of suffering, will, and love in The Road Less Traveled applies in the spiritual sense as well. He writes:

What are these tools, these techniques of suffering, these means of experiencing the pain of problems constructively that I call discipline? There are four: delaying of gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing. As will be evident, these are not complex tools whose application demands extensive training. To the contrary, they are simple tools, and almost all children are adept in their use by the age of ten. Yet presidents and kings will often forget to use them, to their own downfall. The problem lies not in the complexity of these tools but in the will to use them. For they are tools with which pain is confronted rather than avoided, and if one seeks to avoid legitimate suffering, then one will avoid the use of these tools. Therefore, after analyzing each of these tools, we shall in the next section examine the will to use them, which is love.

And this one. The emphasized passage below haunted me in my 20s ... turns out the lifelong duration was true for me:

In summary, for children to develop the capacity to delay gratification, it is necessary for them to have self-disciplined role models, a sense of self-worth, and a degree of trust in the safety of their existence. These “possessions” are ideally acquired through the self-discipline and consistent, genuine caring of their parents; they are the most precious gifts of themselves that mothers and fathers can bequeath. When these gifts have not been proffered by one’s parents, it is possible to acquire them from other sources, but in that case the process of their acquisition is invariably an uphill struggle, often of lifelong duration and often unsuccessful.

I'm not sure the effort needed to be lifelong. I think that looking for it via therapy was perhaps not the most efficient way to get there.

Make room for it

Neale Donald Walsch (emphasis mine):

Yearning for a new way will not produce it. Only ending the old way can do that. You cannot hold onto the old all the while declaring that you want something new. The old will defy the new; the old will deny the new; the old will decry the new. There is only one way to bring in the new. You must make room for it.

I've been "doing" Advent this year, which for me, has included praying the daily office, abstaining from meat and sugar, and fasting until sunset twice a week. I've been doing this not to "earn" grace (which is a gift) but to remove what are probably impediments to receiving it.

One metaphor I've heard used is tuning in a radio station, but last night I was thinking more along the lines of being receptive to the gift as well. Watching crap TV or eating fast food, to me, is the equivalent to turning your back on a gift rather than holding one's hands out to receive.

Interesting to see it reflected in this Walsch quote from today's daily meditation from Richard Rohr.

St Isaac on silence

St Isaac of Ninevah on silence from his Homily 64:

Love silence above all things, because it brings you near to fruit that the tongue cannot express. First let us force ourselves to be silent, and then from out of this silence something is born that leads us into silence itself. May God grant you to perceive some part of that which is born in silence (p. 452).

St. John Climacus on stillness

From Fr Martin Laird's book A Sunlit Absence:

Let the name of Jesus cling to your breath, and you will know the meaning of stillness.

More from Fr Laird:

 

Christ is our Memory

John Philip Newell on John Scotus Eriugena, nature, and grace (emphasis mine):

One of the greatest teachers in the Celtic world, John Scotus Eriugena in ninth-century Ireland, taught that Christ is our memory. We suffer from the “soul’s forgetfulness,” he says. Christ comes to reawaken us to our true nature. ... This leads the Celtic tradition to celebrate the relationship between nature and grace. Instead of grace being viewed as opposed to our essential nature or as somehow saving us from ourselves, nature and grace are viewed as flowing together from God. They are both sacred gifts. The gift of nature, says Eriugena, is the gift of “being”; the gift of grace, on the other hand, is the gift of “well-being.” Grace is given to reconnect us to our true nature. At the heart of our being is the image of God, and thus the wisdom of God, the creativity of God, the passions of God, the longings of God.

It's not about you

It's a paradox, but the challenge with spiritual searching is to ensure it's not an ego-trip. Fr Laurence Freeman writes:

The great pitfall of ‘finding oneself’ is the pitfall of narcissism and self-centredness – the danger of seeing it all revolving around yourself and for yourself.

Lots more in his e-book Finding Oneself.