Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States - Center for Action and Contemplation - Father Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation "Initiation" for Sunday, 20 April 2014

Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States - Center for Action and Contemplation - Father Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation "Initiation" for Sunday, 20 April 2014
Death and life are in an eternal embrace. We cannot have one without the other. 
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
"The Common Wonderful"
"Initiation"
Sunday, 20 April 2014
Only the non-dual, contemplative mind can hold both sides of everything, including both death and resurrection. In my work with initiation, this was key. Such “wisdom seeing” allows you to hold the full promise of the Real Life, which is big enough to even include death. Death and life are in an eternal embrace. We cannot have one without the other. This is the one common theme at the bottom of every initiation rite I have studied.
Briefly put, initiation rites have long been necessary to initiate men in particular into their True Self, into the flow of reality, into the great patterns that are always true, into the life of God. Classic initiation rites brilliantly succeeded in preparing men for both stages of their life: training young men for the necessary discipline and effort required in the ascent of the first half of life, and preparing them ahead of time for the necessary descent and letting go of the second half of life.
The entire process that we call initiation somehow made it possible for a man to experience these five difficult truths:
1.Life is hard.
2.You are not that important.
3.Your life is not about you.
4.You are not in control.
5.You are going to die.
Basically, they were taught to die before they died. By the end of the initiation process (and optimally for every life somewhere between the first and second halves of life), the necessary deaths led to an inevitable and shared resurrection, which I call “the common wonderful.” This week we will contrast these five difficult messages with their positive and wonderful counterparts which make it possible to hear them in the first place. 
Adapted from Adam’s Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation, pages xii, 2, 9, 32-33, 152-153 and Exploring and Experiencing the Naked Now: A Compilation (CD, DVD, MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence: All shall be well.
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