Carl Jugun said that many problems are unsolvable; they are simply outgrown. As we mature, we see those problems as they are, not how we FEEL them. We grow if we surrender to God. Complete surrender is against our human nature. It is flight or fight. It’s survival, not resignation.
A modern contemplative states that people form their identity by distinguishing themselves from others in the first half of life. It’s a negative foundation. You don’t need to know who you are; it’s an attempt to say who you’re not. We create an image like a container, grow in it, defend it, and argue why it’s the best, and many of us get stuck there. It’s a private salvation container called the cross that has to fall apart.
You may never learn if you’re not taught to endure suffering, failures, and losses when young. Those who don’t learn it check out of life, addictions etc, etc,
Suffering is part of life. Yet our culture does not embrace that; we rail against it. We develop a worldview that is primarily for our comfort.
Philippians 3:10 King James Version (KJV) That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
The contemplative mind is an absolute assault on the worldview culture imposes upon us. Because it really is a different mind.
The failure of liberalism is trying to critique the mind, which will make more sense later. But this is what is called the calculative mind. The Bible calls it the mind of the flesh. The apostle Paul calls it the old man. The egocentric mind interprets everything in the sense of personal advantage, usually with short-term effects. It says what’s in it for me, how this situation would be to my advantage, and what I can get out of it.
As long as you read everything from that small worldview and read everything methodically, I don’t think you will see things in any new way. You may move along the political spectrum from left to right to right and to left. But Jesus teaches us a different way of seeing, a different perspective, a different advantage point,
And a different starting point. Einstein said the problem cannot be solved by the same mind/ or consciousness that caused it. It reads everything in terms of personal advantage and cause and effect.
The word contemplation became popular through the works of Thomas Merton, which is reasonably recent, in the 50s and 60s. Many people use the word meditation, which is the same thing. The word that most Christians are familiar with is the word prayer.
But prayer has a different connotation to us here in the West than in the East, where it originated. For us in the West, prayer became something functional, producing an effect. It became a what’s in it for me! And this is due to the idea that the ego is the centre of their personal universe. It’s all about me. If I get offended, I’ll sue somebody. If someone hurts me, I’ll take revenge. If I don’t get what I want, I only react in some way. If someone has something I want, I get myself in debt to better it.
All about me, the egocentric me. And this has overlapped, unfortunately, with Christianity in a colossal way. Individualism rules and reigns in Christianity in the West. But this is not what Jesus intended and is certainly not what he taught. As soon as you make prayer and exercise to get something, it puts you in charge. Jesus does say, ask, and it will be given. However, this is from a humble and obedient submissive attitude towards Jesus Christ in the first place. This is nothing new; it’s the same old mind or consciousness overall.
How can I get God to do what I want him to do?
That’s how most people approach prayer. It is about egocentric consciousness. I will try to get what I want to get from God. It is the way of the world.
Worldly values sit in our culture and have always been there but just manifest themselves according to popular culture at the time. In this way, instead of being a transformed mind or consciousness, we remain egocentric and try to manipulate God and everyone else, and we think we did okay. That’s why Christianity is in dire straits today because it’s not really transforming people as the Bible clearly states that it should and does.
It’s just giving people a form of religiosity to be in charge and control; it is still the ego/natural/fleshly/false self.
And Jesus always talked about the transformed self (John 3). The apostle Paul uses that wonderful phrase it’s no longer their lives; Christ lives in me. It’s a different I; it’s a different sense of self. So, it’s not my ego or my false self that lives but Christ who lives in my true self.
It is not my egocentric self that lives Christ within my true redeemed self. As long as you’re operating from the egocentric will, you will never be totally free, and meditation/ contemplation would be almost impossible to maintain. The ego-self can be pious, religious, theologically sound, and may even be a church leader in some way, but never totally free because it operates in the small self.
The result? Religion has always performed two very important but two very different functions. Firstly, it is used to create meaning of the separate self. It offers mixed tales, stories, narratives, truths, Rituals, and revivals used together, helps the separate self to have meaning and to endure slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.’ And that’s okay. That’s how you get started, and as a psychologist says, you must have an ego to get rid of one. You’ve got to have the self to move beyond the self.
But most religions stop at that first function, giving you a positive self-image. And Christians rarely move beyond this first stage, and maybe it’s perhaps because they don’t think there’s anything else beyond it. This is satisfied with the fact there is a religious, personal, moral person or dedicated person with values upright to good standing in a community. And most people do not go beyond that. But this religion does not raise or transform a person’s consciousness. It does not deliver true freedom to let go and let God. This type of religion does not transform or fully satisfy the true self; it fortifies the self, comforts the self and even deceives this true self into thinking you are okay; I’m okay.
Underneath is this innate satisfaction, unrest, a yearning for something more, and not knowing what it is. Christianity is the best thing in the world and the worst in the world. Why? Religious people often think they are correct, and they start from that vantage point. And when one thinks one is right, they are narrowminded, intolerant of others, and egocentric.
And the sorts of people can’t really get to know because the ego is so sure they are right. I will protect that at any cost, even the cost of hurting others, and that’s where spiritual abuse occurs, and that’s why I wrote a Masters of Art thesis on that subject as it’s so common in the churches- but that’s another subject.
As long as the egocentric self is warm and fed and thinks they are right, they are convinced they are saved. But what does saved really mean. Most people think that being saved is a ticket to heaven. Something that is not here now but will come one day. It’s always in the future. It’s by the sweet by and by. If I am religious enough, good enough, and I do the right thing, then I’ll get to heaven, meaning I’ll be saved. Does it?
This point of view comes from a punishment and reward system. If I play the game right, I will be rewarded. It is about the works that I can do, and God will be pleased, and I’ll get into heaven. And that point of view has absolutely nothing to do with transformation or the teachings of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, this is most Christians’ point of view, but Jesus had something completely different in his mind when he spoke to Nicodemus, as we read in John chapter 3.
Because it is through contemplation that we are in fellowship with God and not in fellowship with their ego. We learn to wait upon the Lord to renew our strength, and then we will mount up with wings of Eagles, and then and only then will we run and not be weary, and only then will we walk and not faint. So waiting upon the Lord, confessing our sins and repenting (turning away from sin) is the basis of our contemplation. God is in the business of transforming you because He loves you. It starts with the renewing of your mind in Christ Jesus. Contemplation is a lifestyle that will help with this, which is why this website exists.
Romans 12:2 New International Version
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by renewing your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve God’s will- his good, pleasing and perfect will.
IHS
Love & Grace
Paula Rose Parish
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