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The
Mystic Plague
by Richard Bennett
Meditation:
Finding the God Within
by Let Us Reason
What
is Contemplative Spirituality and Why is it So Dangerous
by John Caddock
A
Refugee Once More
by Roger Beach
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"For
the centering prayer practitioner, regular practice of "contemplative"
prayer sets in motion a dynamism of "divine psychotherapy, organically
designed for each of us, to empty out our unconscious ... As this
false self is dismantled, we come to see our true Self, the center
of which, so say proponents, is God"
"[I]f
you are aware of no thoughts, you will be aware of something and
that is a thought. If at that point you can lose the awareness
that you are aware of no thoughts, you will move into pure consciousness."
Ray
Yungen speaks on Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington
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"In the
book Finding Grace at the Center, written by these two
Catholic monks, the following advice is given: 'We should not
hesitate to take the fruit of the age-old wisdom of the East and
"capture" it for Christ. Indeed, those of us who are
in ministry should make the necessary effort to acquaint ourselves
with as many of these Eastern techniques as possible … Many
Christians who take their prayer life seriously have been greatly
helped by Yoga, Zen, TM and similar practices … "Thomas
Keating and Basil Pennington have taken their Christianity and
blended it with Eastern mysticism through a contemplative method
they call centering prayer. I met a woman who once enthusiastically
told me that in her church 'we use a mantra to get in touch with
God.' She was referring to centering prayer … Keating and
Pennington have both authored a number of influential books on
contemplative prayer thus advancing this movement greatly. Pennington
essentially wrote a treatise on the subject called Centering Prayer
while Keating has written the popular and influential classic,
Open Mind, Open Heart, and both are major evangelists for contemplative
prayer.
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In
Search of the Spiritual
"Move over, politics. Americans are looking for personal,
ecstatic experiences of God, and, according to our poll, they
don't much care what the neighbors are doing"
. By Jerry Adler
Newsweek Aug. 29, 2005 Issue
"The 1960s did not penetrate very deeply into the small towns
of the Quaboag Valley of central Massachusetts. Even so, Father
Thomas Keating, the abbot of St. Joseph's Abbey, couldn't help
noticing the attraction that the exotic religious practices of
the East held for many young Roman Catholics. To him, as a Trappist
monk, meditation was second nature. He invited the great Zen master
Roshi Sasaki to lead retreats at the abbey. And surely, he thought,
there must be a precedent within the church for making such simple
but powerful spiritual techniques available to lay people. His
Trappist brother Father William Meninger found it in one day in
1974, in a dusty copy of a 14th-century guide to contemplative
meditation, "The Cloud of Unknowing."
Drawing on that work, as well as the writings of the contemplatives
Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila, the two monks
began teaching a form of Christian meditation that grew into the
worldwide phenomenon known as centering prayer.
Twice a day for 20 minutes, practitioners find a quiet place to
sit with their eyes closed and surrender their minds to God. In
more than a dozen books and in speeches and retreats that have
attracted tens of thousands, Keating has spread the word to a
world of "hungry people, looking for a deeper relationship with
God." Read all of "In
Search of the Spiritual"
"Fr.
Thomas Keating teaches on centering prayer who tells us contemplative
prayer is a way of tuning into a fuller level of reality that
is always present …"(Open mind, Open heart p.37).
He explains "My acquaintance with eastern methods of meditation
has convinced me that … there are ways of calming the mind
in the spiritual disciplines of both the east and the west …
Many serious seekers of truth study the eastern religions, …"What
he is promoting is the concept of God permeating the air as
prana."
Let
Us Reason Ministries
"Through
the late 1960s and early 1970s, Father Keating and two other monks
met with Buddhist and Hindu teachers
in an effort to understand the mass defection of young Catholics at the time, people drawn in part to the East's meditation practices.
Their research led Keating, then an abbot at a Massachusetts monastery,
to begin unearthing a
similar meditative method based on the Christian tradition."
A
Quiet Revolution
"There
are already a number of Christians who are practicing the various
types of contemplative prayer promoted by Richard Foster, Thomas
Merton, Thomas Keating, and others. A good portion is being promoted
through the Catholic contemplative prayer movement. Many of these
same people are open to or already doing labyrinth walks as a
meditative practice."
Let Us Reason
Ministries
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Featured Resources
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Contemplative Spirituality: A belief system that
uses ancient mystical practices to induce altered states of consciousness
(the silence) and is rooted in mysticism and the occult but often wrapped
in Christian terminology. The premise of contemplative spirituality
is pantheistic (God is all) and panentheistic (God is in all). Common
terms used for this movement are "spiritual formation," "the
silence," "the stillness," "ancient-wisdom,"
"spiritual disciplines," and many others.
Spiritual Formation: A movement that has provided a platform and a channel through which contemplative prayer is entering the church. Find spiritual formation being used, and in nearly every case you will find contemplative spirituality. In fact, contemplative spirituality is the heartbeat of the spiritual formation movement. |
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