"Spiritual Spectators"
"Spiritual Spectators"
Western civilization has had such victory in terms of science, technology – the outer world – because we are able to objectify everything. But the price we’ve paid is our state of alienation. We’re over here apart from it. We analyze the world as an object over there.
Once consciousness surrenders to that subject/object split, quite frankly, prayer becomes very difficult, if not next to impossible. Prayer is unitive experience. Yet for us prayer has sometimes become confused with mere inner awarenesses, me analyzing my own inner states and feelings about God. Those of us who were raised in religious contexts, for example, are often inclined to give a value judgment to everything and to ourselves. That’s the guilt middle-class folks have. We have it because we are alienated from our own souls. We’re standing over here, apart from ourselves, analyzing: Is it good, better, best? It is venial sin, is it mortal sin?
When you’re in that stance of analyzing the self, you’re a spectator and you’re necessarily divided from your own soul. Maybe that’s why Jesus said, “Do not judge and you will not be judged” (Matthew 7:1). Our judgments separate us, alienate us and, therefore, condemn us.
from Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction
Western civilization has had such victory in terms of science, technology – the outer world – because we are able to objectify everything. But the price we’ve paid is our state of alienation. We’re over here apart from it. We analyze the world as an object over there.
Once consciousness surrenders to that subject/object split, quite frankly, prayer becomes very difficult, if not next to impossible. Prayer is unitive experience. Yet for us prayer has sometimes become confused with mere inner awarenesses, me analyzing my own inner states and feelings about God. Those of us who were raised in religious contexts, for example, are often inclined to give a value judgment to everything and to ourselves. That’s the guilt middle-class folks have. We have it because we are alienated from our own souls. We’re standing over here, apart from ourselves, analyzing: Is it good, better, best? It is venial sin, is it mortal sin?
When you’re in that stance of analyzing the self, you’re a spectator and you’re necessarily divided from your own soul. Maybe that’s why Jesus said, “Do not judge and you will not be judged” (Matthew 7:1). Our judgments separate us, alienate us and, therefore, condemn us.
from Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction
posted by LuisVelasco @ 8:49 PM
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