This past week I received news from Andrew Harvey, a good friend and co-worker of mine in the field of a renewed spirituality, one that brings service, “sacred activism,” and healthy mysticism together. He and I have taught together on many occasions, including a series on “The Christ Path” at several locations in the country,
You do not have to go anywhere
It seems to me that the most insidious difficulty facing our practice is complexity. Ritual, elaboration of any kind, stages and visualisations, devotions and liturgies are at best distractions from what is at root a most perfectly simple thing: returning to what we essentially are.
Andrew Harvey:
The Direct Path is the Path to God without dogma or priests or gurus, the Path of direct self-empowerment and self-awakening in and under God in the heart of life. You do not have to go anywhere or take a new name or sign up for expensive intensives to begin it; whether you yet know it or not, you have been on this path since the day you were born.
When you discover for yourself how real the Direct Path is and how it can transform you faster, and more completely and integratedly than any other, your whole life will change and you will discover with wonder and delight why you are here and what you are here for. You will start to become free from all the political, social, and religious systems that constrain you, with the freedom that is yours by right of being a child of God, the freedom of your divine nature and your divine truth, and this freedom and this truth will make you increasingly an empowered agent of change in every arena in the world.
The Direct Path, p. 12
Caryll Houselander saw this too:
Christ is everywhere; in Him every kind of life has a meaning and has an influence on every other kind of life. It is not the foolish sinner like myself, running about the world with reprobates and feeling magnanimous, who comes closest to them and brings them healing; it is the contemplative in her cell who has never set eyes on them, but in whom Christ fasts and prays for them—or it may be a charwoman in whom Christ makes Himself a servant again, or a king whose crown of gold hides a crown of thorns. Realization of our oneness in Christ is the only cure for human loneliness. For me, too, it is the only ultimate meaning of life, the only thing that gives meaning and purpose to every life.
Caryll Houselander (quoted in Richard Rohr’s The Universal Christ)
We do not need continually to be seeking things: all that we are, all that is, is right here in this present moment, as itself. Meister Eckhart’s Istigkeit, the open ground itself, is here, within each breath, within each phrase of birdsong from the open window. All we need is to be entirely present to what is here, now, always. “…[F]or only what is actually loved and known can be seen sub specie aeternitatis“ (David Jones)
Peter Russell:
In asking the question “Who am I?” we tacitly assume an individual self does indeed exist. As such, the question can mislead us, setting us up to look in the wrong direction — looking for ways to define ourselves. It can be more insightful to drop the “Who” from the question, and ask simply, “Am I?” The answer nearly always comes as a simple “Yes, I am.” Not “I am this or that.” Just pure “I am.” “I am” is the first-person form of the verb “to be.” It is our direct personal knowing of being. Not to be anything or anyone; simply to be, to exist — that sense of presence at the heart of every experience.
“Your own Self-Realization is the greatest service you can render the world.” (Ramana Maharshi)
How to Meditate Without Even Trying, pp.95-96
#AndrewHarvey #awakening #CaryllHouselander #DavidJones #grace #PeterRussell #simplicity
I remember when I first heard about Project Semicolon—the brave passion project of a woman who knew the call of the abyss. From the moment I learned her story, I resonated—both as a grammarian and a fellow fighter. The semicolon, used when a sentence could have ended but didn’t, resonated fiercely with my experience of
The archetype of the Antichrist has been mostly invoked by fundamentalist Christians. This book turns the tables by holding it up to help name the current battle of democracy vs. theocracy and of lovers of the Earth vs. deniers of climate change in our time. This powerful archety
RevDrMatthewFox
An Open Ground
Antonia Marrero