Center for Action and Contemplation - Richard Rohr's Meditation “Why Are We Here?” – Tuesday, 3 December 2013

Center for Action and Contemplation - Richard Rohr's Meditation “Why Are We Here?” – Tuesday, 3 December 2013

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

Seven Themes of an Alternative Orthodoxy

Seventh Theme: Reality is paradoxical and complementary. Non-dual thinking is the highest level of consciousness. Divine union, not private perfection, is the goal of all religion (Goal).

“Why Are We Here?”

Meditation 25 of 52

The Perennial Tradition, which most world religions have stated in different ways, somehow says that a person’s final end is union with God and all things. This is the simple goal of our existence. If your religion is not helping you to do that, then you’d better get a new religion.

Most people, particularly young people, have no knowledge that the purpose of their life is union with Divine Reality. They have been told that the purpose of life is to get a degree and make money and have kids and die. That’s the narrowed-down secular understanding of reality, which is de facto followed by many Christians. Most are no longer connected to the perennial philosophy, and just waste time fighting their own religion. This is not wisdom at all—it is low-level survival. We’re now living in a largely survival mode in most Western cultures. No wonder so many of our kids turn to drugs, drink, and promiscuous sex, because there’s nothing else that’s very exciting or very true.

Question number three of The New Baltimore Catechism was “Why did God Make Us?” And the answer was exciting, true, and simple enough for a whole lifetime of meaning: “God made us to show forth his goodness and to share with us his everlasting happiness in heaven.”(Adapted from an unpublished talk at a conference in Assisi, Italy, May 2012 The Daily Meditations for 2013 are now available in Fr. Richard’s new book Yes, And . . . .

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