Lenten study on contemplation

Lenten Study 4 Contemplation
March 17, 2010 Psalm 62:1
Contemplation is conscious uncritical awareness of what is.
Elements:
1. Silence
2. Observation
3. Non attachment
4. Non judgment
5. Intent
6. Awareness
7. Grace
Aspects:
1. The souls seeks God through intent
2. God seeks the soul through grace
Premise
· God wants to be found.
· People want to hide.
· The Holy Spirit inspires us to seek
· Jesus tells us that even the smallest faith intent to seek will result in being found.
· The details of the process are less important that the intent to enter into the process
Obstacles
· Fear: loss of control
· Self will: rebellion against what is
· Pride: the will to power/ the demand for judgment and outcome
· “me first” creates distortions in thought, emotion and will.
· Those distortions lead to an endless feedback loop of demand/despair that compresses our perception of reality.
· The feedback loop creates and maintains a false ego- a false self- that defends itself with cynicism, arrogance, separation.
Goals
· Proximate: to enter a journey of awareness/ to wake up the mind, heart and will to what is rather than what the separated ego demands.
· Ultimate: the experience of life as it is rather than how, what and why we want it to be.
Comments
Contemplation is not
· Irrational, unemotional, passive
· Esoteric, occult, superstitious
· Submission, aggression or withdrawal
· Resignation, disinterested, aloof
· A method, a philosophy or a science
· Static, fixed, stagnate
· Bound by religion, reason or rule
· Paradox, anomaly, or contaction
· Dualism, monism, pantheism

Contemplation is an invitation
· of the Divine
· of unconditional love into unconditional love
· to wake up not to zone out
· to experience more fully life as it is here and now
· into silence
· into truth
· into expansion, creativity, spontaneity
· into the true self
· into authentic undefended relationships
· into effortless effort
· into the activation of unlimited potential
· into self responsible real choice
· into a new way of living
· into the place where the eternal touches the temporal
· to experience and savor the unity of essence and the multiplicity of existence.
· The Logos

Suggested preliminary exercises
There is no one correct way to pray, meditate or contemplate. There is only the real choice to set an authentic intent.
That authentic intent is the mustard seed of faith that inspires awareness and action.
As you practice your intent it becomes more clear, concise, focused and unbounded
1. Single point concentration on an object.
2. Single point focus on a mental image
3. Pondering, savoring, feeling a scripture
4. Devotional exercises: the rosary, Benediction, Holy Communion
5. Lovingkindess: “I wait for thy lovingkindness, O Lord, in the midst of thy Temple.” Psalm 48:8
6. Worship: “The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him.”Psalm 11:4
7. Silence; “For God alone my soul in silence waits.” Psalm 62:1