Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States - Center for Action and Contemplation's Father Richard Rohr's Meditation "Letting Go of Ego" for Wednesday, 23 July 2014

Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States - Center for Action and Contemplation's Father Richard Rohr's Meditation "Letting Go of Ego" for Wednesday, 23 July 2014
Unless we learn to let go of our feelings, we don’t have the feelings, the feelings have us.

Dandelion by pippalou
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation 
"Letting Go"
"Letting Go of Ego"
Wednesday, 23 July 2014
We need forms of prayer that free us from fixating on our own egos and from identifying with our own thoughts and feelings. We have to learn to become spiritually empty. If we are filled with ourselves, there is no room for another, and certainly not God. We need contemplative prayer, in which we simply let go of our passing ego needs, which change from moment to moment, so Something Eternal can take over.
This may sound simple, but it is not easy! Because we’ve lost the art of detachment, we’ve become identified with our stream of consciousness and our feelings. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not saying you should repress or deny your feelings. I’m challenging you to name them and observe them, but don’t directly fight them and don’t identify with them or attach to them (which almost all people do before enlightenment). Unless we learn to let go of our feelings, we don’t have our feelings, our feelings have us. (Is that the deepest meaning of “being possessed”?) 
Now you might ask: “What does this have to do with God? I thought prayer was supposed to be talking to God or searching for God. You seem to be saying that prayer is first of all about getting myself out of the way.” 
That is exactly what I am saying. God is already present. God’s Spirit is dwelling within you. You cannot search for what you already have. You cannot talk God into “coming” into you by longer and more urgent prayers. All you can do is become quieter, smaller, and less filled with your own self and your constant flurry of ideas and feelings. Then God will be obvious in the very now of things, and in the simplicity of things. 
Adapted from Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go , pages 42-43, and The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis, disc 6 (CD)
Gateway to Silence: Let go and let God.
“To pray and actually mean ‘thy Kingdom come,’ we must also be able to say ‘my kingdoms go.’ Francis and Clare’s first citizenship was always and in every case elsewhere, which ironically allowed them to live in the world with joy, detachment, and freedom.”(Richard Rohr)
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cac.org
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