Thoughts in Centering Prayer

Duration: 8 minutes and 23 seconds

Country: United States

Language: English

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Posted by: castella on Mar 13, 2009

Father Thomas Keating addresses the issue of thoughts during the practice of Centering Prayer

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Thoughts in Centering Prayer
Let's look at the third one, the most crucial one
When engaged with your thoughts return ever so gently to the sacred word.
We said that thoughts are inevitable
We said they are integral
in other words, they are part of the prayer
and as far as we can tell from our present level of experience
they are integral because your thoughts may be coming from the unconscious
and may be part of the process of healing
The Spirit works as a kind of Divine Therapist
and one of the ways that He heals the unconscious is
by allowing its feelings and its thoughts to surface
especially during prayer and then later
sometimes outside the time of prayer
but it is precisely the programs in the unconscious
what psychology calls the dynamics of the unconscious
that hinder the free flow of grace
and that needs to be addressed by the Spirit, brought to our attention,
and we have to let go of them, both in our prayer and their consequences in daily life
So you see right away that Centering Prayer involves the whole of life.
And the activities by which we bring its fruits to daily life
is almost as important a factor in the project
as the time that we faithfully spend each day in the prayer itself.
Suppose you were in deep conversation with someone you loved
high up in an apartment house
the windows are open, the traffic is going by
and there's noise you can't stop
all of a sudden there's a crash on the street and the decibels go up
and you naturally feel a curiosity to go see what happened
It's what happens when interesting thoughts or boats come down the stream of consciousness
one wants to look at them
and then as your mind begins to look at this thing,
that is, the young man goes to the window to see what the accident was
he suddenly remembers, "oh, what am I doing? I'm in this
deep, cheek to jowl conversation
a heart to heart conversation and I'm not interested, it's not the time to see what happened outside
or to judge what you're really going to have for dinner,
and so, you want to reinforce or reaffirm the
original tete-a-tete that you were having, and so what do you do?
you would turn your eyes back toward the beloved
or your friend, as a gesture of renewing the conversation
before it got somewhat disturbed, or you might
and you might say "Excuse me" or you might say "As I was saying"
Well, that's what the sacred word does to you..
It's when you are lifted out of your basic intention and
start watching thoughts that you are attracted to or have an aversion to
that you need to do something to return to the sacred word.
But if the thoughts are just going by like noise in the supermarket
you don't pay any attention to them, you are dimly aware that it's happening
then there isn't a necessity to go back to the sacred word
because you are already at the place where the sacred word is meant to facilitate your reaching
which is the abiding turning and resting in the presence of God within you
at the deepest level
so let me sum up very briefly in this modest diagram here
what I am trying to say
Suppose that this is our ordinary awareness,
the stream of consciousness that we are experiencing during the time of prayer
and here are a few boats that are going by
boats representing thoughts, feelings, images, and so on
and there's usually a fleet of them,
Sometimes the whole United States Navy seems to be going down
with all the guns banging
Whatever your experience you're having thoughts going by
at this level, and a deeper level
let's call this the ordinary level of our awareness
and let's call this the spiritual level of our awareness
which you're not aware of most of the time, except in a peak experience
or when life or tragedy brings you to that place, so we're mostly
unaware of what we might call the river itself
on which all our thoughts and faculties are resting
so we're absorbed or dominated in our ordinary psychological life
by the objects of events and people and our emotional reaction to them
The purpose then of Centering Prayer
is to move from this level to this level,
and indeed not to stop there, because human beings have greater depth than that
but to move even deeper to the level of the true self
which is our participation in the divine life
and the Divine Presence itself
as the source of our being at every level.
and in accessing or awakening
our awareness to this presence is the ultimate goal of contemplative prayer or centering prayer
but to reach it we have to pass through the spiritual level and to awaken the true self
and whatever God or the Divine Presence may want to share with us
which is a whole new life, a transformed life,
and which it seems to me is what the Gospel invites us to
especially in St. John, where Jesus speaks of inviting us into the same union and unity
that he experiences with the Father in the Holy Spirit
hence, this is so important from the perspective of prayer as relationship
Now, there are lots of prayers at this level
our vocal prayers, our reflections, our Divine Office,
and the sacraments. But each of these things, especially the sacraments
have this mystical depth, or this mystagogic teaching
which helps us to understand the symbols of the Church
from this level, in which they are transformed and their meaning becomes more powerful
more attractive and more personal
as well as bonding us with everyone else who is having a similar experience
in grace. And we might say that Centering Prayer
is primarily involved in awakening this particular level
as a preparation for going deeper still,
which is the work of the various stages of contemplative prayer and mystical life

Thoughts in Centering Prayer

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